by Shirl Henke
Olivia was on fire, liquid fire and his hands and mouth were stoking the inferno until she feared she would incinerate. “Oh, Samuel, please, my love, please...” She did not know if she was pleading for him to continue the maddeningly slow seduction or to stop before she died—or to do what he did then, moving his mouth lower, skimming across her navel with a quick flick of his tongue until he reached that melting, throbbing center that wept for his touch.
As he made love to her, she buried her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer, urging him to continue the sweet spiraling madness that was lifting her higher and higher until at last she reached a shattering climax, crying out his name as the earth seemed to move beneath her.
As her body slowly subsided, she felt the ground with one hand. “I wanted to see if it was shaking again or if it was only me,” she confessed sheepishly as he chuckled, moving up to embrace her.
“No more bad shakes, only good ones,” he said, kissing her lips softly.
“You taste strange,” she said dreamily against his mouth as he continued to kiss her.
“No. I taste of you,” he replied, covering her body with his own, deepening the kiss.
She could feel the renewed hardness of his erection pressing into her belly and wriggled against it until he growled low in his throat when she grasped it, guiding it to her.
He paused before plunging in to murmur,’’ Are you ready to start the quaking all over again?”
“Yes, Samuel, please make the earth shake again,” she said breathlessly, already wrapping her legs around his hips, urging him deeper.
* * * *
The next morning brought pale winter sunlight to the devastation along the river. Samuel made a reconnaissance while Olivia efficiently saw to their camp. After a few hours he returned, shaking his head.
“It’s as if the Mississippi is alive and has gone berserk. There are huge whirlpools dragging whole trees down into them and falls, my God, some as much as ten to twenty feet high all the way across the river!”
“But that’s impossible. Micajah said the only falls on the whole river are way north near its headwaters.”
Samuel shrugged. “The shakes must’ve reconfigured the land so completely it created new ones.”
“Then it’s impassable?”
“As it is now, we’d be taking a terrible chance. I felt a few more low rumbles while I was gone.”
“So did I,” she said worriedly.
“If we have some more shifting underground, the water may run more normally. Problem is, how long will it take?”
“We have enough beans and cornmeal to last us for a month or more—lots of shot and powder for your rifle and the one I found in the cabin box. We can hunt for meat. I vote we wait and see what the river does.”
“Walking hundreds of miles through Indian country has definitely lost its appeal for me, too,” he replied dryly, then grinned at her. “You wouldn’t exactly have any ulterior motives for wanting to camp here, would you?”
His voice was a sexy purr and she responded by gliding into his arms. “I can think of lots of ways to pass the time of day while we watch the river...”
For nearly a week they camped beside the cabin box while Samuel used the tools and lumber from the wreckage of the keelboat’s outer hull to fashion a small maneuverable raft. Olivia helped him lash it securely together. Unspoken between them lay the dread of once more getting back on the tortuous, debris-filled Mississippi, but in one of his longer scouting trips, Samuel had discovered that the falls seemed to stop about five miles downstream.
The giant sucks that had made the already turbulent waters into impassable whirlpools had all disappeared, but shrubs and trees as well as flotsam and jetsam from washed away settlements upriver still remained deadly impediments. It was nearly three hundred miles back to St. Louis and even farther down to New Orleans, both overland routes filled with hostile Indians and murderous outlaws. The river was their only choice.
Finally on a morning that dawned bright and clear with a slight wind blowing from the southwest, they set out on the raft with their supplies and weapons in oilskin wrappings. Portaging over the area around the falls was laborious but Olivia worked alongside Samuel, uncomplaining and amazingly resilient.
As he watched her pulling on the ropes, he knew her hands were blistered inside her gloves the same as his and marveled anew at her grit. The elegant belle surrounded by swains in that Washington ballroom should never have become this adaptable. There were depths to Olivia St. Etienne that he had yet to fathom. She was as complex, as deep as the rivers. If only they had a lifetime in which he could discover those depths.
But would they have that chance? The unresolved issue of Tish hovered over them. Neither spoke of her since their last stalemated exchange about the divorce. He worried about what sort of vicious havoc Tish might be stirring up in St. Louis in his absence. But perhaps she had already grown bored enough to pack up and have Richard take her home. What if they were caught someplace on the river when the previous week’s chaos erupted? He smiled grimly at the thought, dismissing her actual drowning as too great a piece of luck.
Another matter niggled at the back of his conscience—the issue of Olivia’s inheritance. What if Durand really was as rich as Wescott hoped and that fortune was waiting for her? Samuel had already wed one woman who tried to buy him with her wealth. Olivia was not that sort of woman, but still, she might be an heiress, a member of New Orleans Creole elite and he was still a simple soldier. Even with a lucrative share of his brother-in-law’s business, his share could not provide her the luxuries of that life.
What would happen when they reached New Orleans? Olivia would disavow the Durand estate for him in a heartbeat, he knew. But he also knew he could not allow her to do it. What if—his heart squeezed with dread as the sudden thought surfaced.
Olivia looked up at Samuel as they tied the raft to its moorings for the night. His expression was grim, his eyes slate colored and haunted. Instinctively she knew he was thinking of their future.
“What is it, Samuel? You look as if God just told you the quake was coming back.” When he did not reply but continued securing the raft, she waited him out patiently. Micajah would be proud of the way I’ve learned to control my temper, she thought wryly. Well, around Samuel, perhaps not always.
She stepped away from the raft and knelt with her flint, gathering up bits of dried leaves and other materials for punk to start a campfire. While they worked together over simple camp chores, she noted his agitation. Something was bothering him. But he would have to spit it out in his own good time. After they ate supper, she laid out their blankets and prepared for bed by taking a quick wash beside a small cold stream flowing into the big river. When she climbed beneath the blankets, he remained seated at the fire, clutching a coffee cup in his hands.
“Come to bed, Samuel,” she said huskily. No matter what else was wrong between them, they would always have this. And this was beautiful.
He tossed the silty grounds away and stood up, then walked reluctantly over to her and reached for one of the blankets. “Maybe it’s better if we sleep apart from here on until we reach New Orleans...that is...oh hell, Livy,” he cursed some more at the stricken look on her face. “It sure isn’t because I don’t want you...”
“Then what is it?” Her voice sounded brittle.
He sighed, then asked, “When was the last time you had your courses?” He knew it had not been since he rescued her from Wescott.
She looked baffled for a moment. “About two weeks ago. Why ever—”
“You could be carrying my child, Livy,” he said gently.
“And you don’t want that?”
“Not until I can give you my name. I can’t marry you for another year, maybe longer.”
He sounded defensive, her proud, lonely soldier, yet he looked so vulnerable that it hurt her heart. How much she loved him! “And you believe we can sleep apart from now until we reach New Orleans?”
&nbs
p; He grinned wryly. “Difficult but not impossible.”
“For you, maybe,” she said, moving out from beneath her blanket and taking hold of the one he held, tugging it toward her. “I suddenly find I’m cold. Too cold for just one blanket. I need them both.”
“Livy.” His voice grew low and dangerous.
“What if I’m already pregnant? If you were going to cook up some crack brained idea like this, you should’ve thought of it two weeks ago. I vote we take our chances until you have to leave me—if you still want to leave me,” she added roguishly. She stripped off his large shirt, which she was using as a night rail, revealing the pale perfection of her body. When she drew his hands over her breasts and pressed them against the hardened nipples, he cursed and tried to pull away, but she threw her arms around his neck. “Hit’s too late ta change horses in th’ middle o’ a buff’lo stampede,” she said in a broad Carolina twang.
“Another of Micajah’s bits of wisdom?” he asked, not really caring about the answer as her hands began unfastening his britches with great dexterity.
Hell, a saint couldn’t last for three weeks out in the wilderness alone with Olivia St. Etienne. And he was sure as hell no saint, he mused, giving in, kissing her voraciously.
You want this to bind her to you, a nagging voice in the back of his mind scolded. Samuel did not listen.
Chapter Twenty Four
New Orleans at the opening of 1812 had a population of around twenty thousand people of highly diverse backgrounds. It was a city more cosmopolitan than any other in the fledging republic, a good part of its European flair derived from the fact that it had been part of the United States for only nine years. Essentially, it was French, but forty years of Spanish governance had left an indelible mark with the blending of French and Spanish cultures into the unique amalgam of Creole.
Yet in recent decades, as the restless Americans crossed the Appalachians and settled the Mississippi wilderness, they, too, had gravitated to the only seaport from which to sell their crops and purchase the necessities and luxuries of life. Rough Kaintucks in greasy buckskins rubbed elbows with narrow-eyed Bostons who spoke in flat Yankee accents and drove hard bargains with the tempestuous Creole businessmen.
The bustling port city drew merchants and seamen, drifters and opportunists from around the globe. In the sprawling public market on the massive embankment of the delta levee, French and Spanish blended with the various accents of English as well as with German, Italian, Greek and Creek Indian dialects. Everywhere the lilting patois of African Free People of Color sounded as they called out their wares while the more silent black slaves went about the drudgery of their appointed chores.
Samuel had often visited the city and had lived there briefly with his sister prior to her marriage. He took the sights, sounds and smells of “Queen” New Orleans in stride. Olivia’s memories of the city were different. This was where her uncle had cruelly snubbed his only sister, leaving her family in desperate straits. Julian St. Etienne had won at the gambling tables for a few months, but it had done little to soften the blow of her brother’s heartlessness for Solange.
As Samuel and Olivia moored their small raft, Olivia’s mind was filled with bittersweet reminiscences. She watched an oysterman farther up the banks cracking open his wares and selling them to elegantly dressed Creole gentlemen and their families, who devoured the raw delicacies with epicurean relish. The pungent tang of fresh oranges and lemons blended with the oily richness of bananas.
Vendors clogged the levee as they made their way up the narrow streets of the city. Greeks hawked hot meat pastries and slave girls described the delights of their freshly baked ginger cakes. A bronzed Indian with the shaven head and roached topknot of a Muskogee moved silently through the motley throng as if born to it, passing two beautiful octoroon girls out strolling under the watchful eye of their maman. A gaggle of nuns hurried by, dressed in black robes and veils, impervious to the carnival atmosphere surrounding them.
“It’s just as I remembered, only perhaps a bit more frenetic,” she said as they cleared the market at last.
Samuel looked down at her. “The first thing we have to do is get you cleaned up and respectably chaperoned before we look up this uncle of yours.”
His voice was detached and neutral. Already he is distancing himself from me, she thought with a pang. He would see that she was safe and provided for, but then he would leave her. What if his fears about Senator Soames proved valid and he could not secure the divorce? Stiff necked and honorable man that he was, Samuel Sheridan Shelby would nobly insist she find someone who could offer her what he could not...unless she were carrying his child. Olivia knew no force on earth could prevent him from claiming her then. She held fast to that fragile hope as they wended their way down a narrow street and entered a small shop.
While she stood shadowed in the musty interior, Samuel carried on a swift conversation in flawless French with the small wizened proprietor. His facility with language was as great as her own, and she had spent a lifetime traveling across the capitals of Europe to acquire hers. A useful tool for a man in Samuel’s profession, she was certain.
Soon all was arranged and within the hour Olivia was settled in a small inn at the edge of the city, soaking off weeks of Mississippi River mud in a tub while her new maid laid out the clothing Samuel had purchased for her. She would hardly greet Uncle Charles in high style, but at least some semblance of respectability would accompany her. Perhaps it would have been best if she had refused to allow the charade and stalked up to the Durand mansion bedraggled from her ordeal on the river and confessed to the arrogant old Creole that she had traveled down the Mississippi as the colonel’s paramour.
Uncle Charles would have disowned her on the spot, certain that the taint of Julian St. Etienne’s blood had ruined her beyond redemption. How desperate the old man must be to seek her out after all these years. She supposed she should feel sorry for him, but she could not. Emory Wescott had explained that the entire Durand family had been wiped out in a yellow fever epidemic, leaving her uncle with only his estranged sister’s child as the last heir to his fortune.
Olivia guessed that fortune was considerable and knew that it would prove an additional impediment to her relationship with Samuel. Tish, too, had been an heiress. She knew how much his wife’s wealth had galled the proud man who insisted on providing for his wife without any outside help. The extravagant gifts from Senator Soames to Tish had been an affront. Silently she closed her eyes and sank back into the hot water, cursing Emory Wescott for the thousandth time for abducting her and bringing them to this wretched impasse in their lives.
When she heard Samuel’s voice in the outer room, she rang for Tonette and dressed quickly, eager to hear his news. The moment she walked through the door, she knew it was not good.
“Your uncle has been dead for months,” he said without preamble, knowing she would little mourn the loss of the snobbish old aristocrat.
“Then we were right about Wescott’s motives,” she said, chilled to realize how easy it would have been to arrange her death once Durand’s fortune had been securely placed in the hands of her legal guardian.
“I’ve met with Durand’s attorney, a Monsieur Jean-Claude Brionde, who explained to me about his client’s demise. He’s most eager to meet Charles Durand’s long-lost niece.”
“Long lost. Long discarded would be more accurate,” she scoffed bitterly, then walked over and put her arms around his neck, ignoring the prim little maid, who hovered silently in the doorway. “Oh, Samuel, let’s just leave, forget about my uncle’s inheritance. Let’s return to St. Louis. The river traffic is—”
“No, Livy,” he said softly, removing her arms and setting her gently aside. “That’s no good and you know it as well as I do. If I’m ever to secure a divorce, I have to go to Washington—and we have to stay apart until it’s accomplished.”
There was something guarded in his expression as she looked into those dark blue eyes. “
There’s more, isn’t there?”
He smiled sadly. “You’re getting as good at reading me as Liza.” Then all trace of the smile vanished as he turned away from her. God, how could he tell her when he stood so close, breathing in the scent of her perfume? All he wanted to do was bury his hands in that fiery hair and pull her into his arms, never letting her go again!
“After I saw the Durand attorney, I reported to Governor Claiborne’s office. It’s a clearing house for any special messages that would be sent upriver to me.” He glanced at Tonette, then said, “We need to discuss some sensitive matters.”
Olivia’s heart was pounding with dread as she politely dismissed the maid and closed the door, allowing them privacy in the small parlor. “A message from President Madison?” she asked.
He nodded, forcing himself not to be affected by her stiff demeanor. “I’ve been summoned back to Washington, Livy. It would seem Secretary Monroe needs an experienced go-between to make some rather ticklish arrangements with a French émigré who purports to have some incriminating documents.”
“Incriminating. How?” Her voice sounded hollow. All she could think about was that he was leaving.
“This mysterious Frenchman supposedly acquired reports from an Anglo-Irishman who spied for the governor general of Canada. He spent the past couple of years in New England.”
“Where the Federalists are keenly pro British,” Olivia ventured, biting her lip. She could see where this was leading. New England shipping merchants were so incensed over the Republican administration’s trade embargo that there had been murmuring about secession from the union.
Samuel could see that she understood the gravity of the situation. “Yes. If these papers contain any scraps of hard evidence at all, they must not fall into the wrong hands. Madison can use them to expose British perfidy and at the same time throw his Federalist enemies into disgrace.”