Money was not a factor in this move. Rafe’s arrangements for her to draw on his bank were still in effect, and because she knew she was carrying his child, Catherine felt no compunction in taking an amount large enough to assure the comfort and well-being of them both for some time. She had no idea that her husband would ever deny her access to funds, but she could not afford to take chances at this juncture.
The sun set, dropping below a mass of white braided ripples. Slowly the interlacing of clouds was tinted pink, darkening to gray-streaked rose that washed the dark roofs of the houses with dusky carmine. By imperceptible degrees, the color dissolved into a broad band of salmon smudged into the gray night sky. Against it, the houses formed sharp, black angles. Catherine, watching from her bedchamber window, did not move until it grew dark. Behind her stood her trunks, strapped and waiting. Her traveling gown of pale green muslin with its matching high-waisted pelisse of emerald-green velvet banded in fur was laid out. Fur bonnet, corded reticule, slippers, money, papers, were all in readiness. She had bathed and donned her lawn nightgown in expectation of making an early night. Now she wished she had not. Company might have been an antidote to the doubts that plagued her mind.
Had she the right to keep the knowledge of his child from Rafe? Was she being fair to him?
It was not that she expected Rafe to repudiate her, to refuse to accept the child she carried or give it the Navarro name. He was not so petty. But though she went over and over the circumstances in her mind, she could find no way to convince her husband the child had a right to bear his name. He believed she had played the whore’s part in Natchez. How could he help doubting? She could explain, of course. Still, if he only pretended to believe her, or if he extended once again the chill comfort of his tolerance, how could she endure it?
Added to this was a niggling feeling that there was some justice in his suspicions. If she had married a lesser man, one who could not inspire love, she might, in desperation, have accepted the position planned for her by Betsy Harrelson. For a woman, selling herself was a last resort, but the possibility was always there, buried with varying degrees of success, at the back of her mind.
Her decision to go was made; there was little chance of her reversing it. She could not calm herself to sleep, however, until long after the moon invaded the room. She shut her eyes then against the bright torment of old memories, and was vanquished at last by the tired aftermath of tears.
She awoke with a mind-jarring suddenness. With every nerve and muscle, she knew there was someone in the room, someone standing beside her bed, staring down at her. She wanted to open her eyes, but with the paralyzing certainty of a nightmare, knew if she did they would strike.
A whisper of sound released her. Her eyelids flew open in time to see the flaring folds of an eiderdown as it descended over her. She screamed, but the sound was smothered in the soft, padded coverlet. Strong arms rolled her over, encasing her in a cocoon of bedclothes, then she was lifted, struggling, into the air. Her arms were confined, she could not see, yet she knew when she was carried from the room and down the stairs. The fresh night air penetrated to her, there was an instant when she was held close against a hard body and maneuvered through a small opening, then she heard the sound of carriage wheels.
She lay in a man’s arms, a single man; she had heard, felt, no other. How had it been possible for him to enter her mother’s house and take her away? Were the servants deaf? Or had they, perhaps, been bribed? Neither explanation could account for her mother’s lack of intervention.
There was another explanation. No one, least of all Madame Mayfield, would question the right of Rafael Navarro to remove her. Resignation drained her strength, and she lay still.
The carriage halted. By sound she could trace their progress across the banquette, along the echoing passage of the porte-cochere, over the stones of the court and step by ringing step up the spiral staircase. They crossed a carpeted floor. The man paused. Catherine braced herself for a fall. Then she was laid gently upon the soft mattress of a bed and the eiderdown stripped away.
She drew a deep breath, trying to find within herself some anger, some indignation to use as protection. There was nothing except the mute fear of self-betrayal. Slowly she lifted her eyes to brave the jet-black mockery of her husband’s.
He seated himself on the edge of the bed and leaned over her. “Tiresome,” he said, taking up the lock of honey-gold hair that lay across her breasts. “When will you learn to stay where you belong, in my bed?”
Her voice was a thread of sound. “Is that where I belong?”
“There, and at my left hand, near my heart, always.”
“You don’t understand—” she said, turning her face away.
“Nor do you, sweet Catherine. Je t’aime, I love you. You are my life, my soul. Nothing, not even death itself, can take you from me, for I will hold you enshrined in my heart for all time.”
Her eyes were melting amber pools of desolation. The ache in her throat was a sharp and cutting thing. She could not have spoken, even if she could discover the words that would effect her release.
“Nor,” he continued, his voice hardening, “will I permit you to leave me. If you wanted freedom you should never have come to Alhambra, never given yourself beneath a magnolia tree. I thought then you felt something for me. If I was wrong you may tell me so, but I warn you, it will make no difference.”
Moistening her lips, she began, “I — don’t love—”
“Take care. Will you perjure yourself for the sake of an old grudge?”
The warning with its hint of censure undermined her resolution. Her chin came up. “I bear you no grudge,” she replied carefully.
“Nor love?” he said.
All she had to do was confirm it. The moments ticked by. Caught by the compelling darkness of his eyes, she could not force the words past her lips.
Abruptly his face cleared. “I should be flogged for a dolt,” he said quietly. “It is the child.”
“Rif? No—”
“No indeed, my precious idiot. Your child — and mine!”
“How — how can you know?” she whispered, the color draining from her face then returning in burning spots to her cheekbones.
“Did you really expect me not to see, and feel, the change? Your body, chérie, is as known to me as my own, perhaps more so. I have an intimate interest in the slightest alteration.”
Which meant he had guessed almost before she was aware of it herself. “I might have gained weight,” she said in unreasoning obstinance.
“Not, I think, under the circumstances. Besides,” he said gently, “your mother confirmed it.”
Her lashes veiled her eyes. “She had no right to interfere.”
“She only answered my questions. You will understand I was at something of a loss when I returned to find you gone.”
“And did one of the questions you asked deal with whether you were in fact responsible for my condition?”
He covered her hands where she was pleating the bedsheet. “No, it did not, but she informed me that you were afraid to tell me I was to be a father. Why, Catherine?”
“You must know why. I tried once to tell you there had never been another man but you. You wouldn’t listen. You — you forgave me!”
Angry tears sparkled in her eyes as she accused him. Seeing them, he smiled. “Does that still rankle? I’m sorry. Allow me, please, the weakness of jealous pride and anxiety. You had dared to leave me. I had searched for you so long with fading hope that when I found you I wanted to punish you — or make violent love to you — I couldn’t decide which. I forgot that in hurting you I also hurt myself.”
“You knew what I wanted to say, you were convinced it was the truth?”
He inclined his head in a slow assent “I knew in my heart, if not in my mind. I knew your idealism, the integrity and sensibility that would ultimately reject such a life. And if I needed convincing, there was evidence in your favor. Dan, who had seen you in t
he Harrelson house, led the ladies there to talk to you. Were you aware they called you ‘the nun’? Some were malicious, most gave you an envious respect, a few held you in affection. All were agreed you were pining for a man believed to be your husband.”
“How romantic of them,” she said in a voice like breaking glass.
“Doubtless,” he answered, “but was it true?”
She looked away, the candlelight moving with an ivory sheen across her face. He should be forced to pay recompense for the wound he had inflicted. Yet, wasn’t the fullness of his confession enough? Wasn’t it all she had ever wanted? “It was,” she replied.
“And now?”
His voice was implacable, the question impossible to ignore or evade. Her voice reduced to a whisper, she said, “It still is.”
He dragged her into his arms and set his mouth to hers.
When she was permitted to draw breath at last, her smile was tremulous and there was a drowsy languor in her gold-flecked gaze. “I do love you, Rafael Navarro.”
The embers of the fire burned on the hearth in the darkened room. Their light glowed orange-red in the black of her husband’s eyes as he came to her. She did not hesitate. Throwing back the coverlet, she reached out to him, unafraid.
About the Author
Since publishing her first book at age twenty-seven, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Jennifer Blake has gone on to write over sixty-five historical and contemporary novels in multiple genres. She brings the story-telling power and seductive passion of the South to her stories, reflecting her eighth-generation Louisiana heritage. Jennifer lives with her husband in northern Louisiana.
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To find out more about Jennifer’s books, see the Steel Magnolia Press website at www.steelmagnoliapress.com.
Purchase Steel Magnolia Press ebooks direct from Amazon.com at: http://smarturl.it/smp.
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Much of Jennifer’s backlist — historical and contemporary — is still available in print and/or digital format.
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HISTORICAL ROMANCE
THE LOVE AND ADVENTURE COLLECTION
The LOUISIANA PLANTATION COLLECTION
The LOUISIANA HISTORY COLLECTION
THE ROYAL PRINCES OF RUTHENIA
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CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
THE ITALIAN BILLIONAIRES COLLECTION
Jennifer’s brand-new contemporary romance is an Amazon Top 100 bestseller, with over 50,000 copies downloaded in its first 2 weeks.
SWEETLY CONTEMPORARY COLLECTION
And look for 5 of Jennifer’s most popular backlist Contemporary Romances to be released for the Kindle in early January 2013.
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Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets) Page 86