Her aunt, annoyed at being drawn away from the gossiping ring of matrons, nodded distractedly. Then her ears almost perked up like those of a horse that had just scented danger. “What? What? However are you getting home?”
Jeanette’s lips curved in a mischievous smile. “I’m not going directly home, Aunt Hermione. A gentleman of our acquaintance awaits me.”
Aunt Hermione’s eyes rounded like horse blinders. “My smelling salts,” she wheezed.
Jeanette took the fan from her aunt’s trembling fingers and waved it before the old woman’s face, whispering, “I shall be very discreet, I promise you.”
When she had installed her pallid aunt in a comfortable chair in the Yturria sala, a drawing room of opulent furnishings, she made her way to the large, hand-carved double doors at the front entrance where Trinidad waited on the brougham’s box. She was grateful for the dark as she awkwardly levered herself up and settled her massive hoop skirts over the sides.
“Loca!” Trinidad said, shaking his head and flipping his whip over the bays’ backs. “You are crazy in the head, sobrina. Too much sun as a child!”
“Not enough sun as a woman, Trini.” She lifted her face to the stars. “It’s a glorious night.”
“Eet’s a dangerous night. I heard the owl, tecolote, he hooted twice just at sundown.”
“Bah! You and Tia Juana are too superstitious. Did you leave the message with Rubia?”
"Si. But she made no promise that the Frenchman would come.”
“I’m taking a room tonight at the Fonda del Olvido—” Jeanette held up a forestalling hand. “I’ll be perfectly all right with your niece Rubia. Just be waiting for me tomorrow morning on the first stage back to Matamoros.”
Grumbling all the way, Trinidad drove her back to the plaza where the stagecoach stopped on its ten daily runs over the twenty-odd miles between Matamoros and Bagdad. Jeanette wrapped her shawl about the lower portion of her face to conceal her identity, but fortunately she was the only passenger on the stage’s last run of the day.
CHAPTER SIX
As Jeanette climbed the rickety stairs of the Bagdad cantina, excitement bubbled in her like champagne. For too long life had held little challenge. Rubia, beautifully gowned in rose jaconet with a white chemisette filling in the V neck, answered Jeanette’s knock.
Ruefully Jeanette thought that of the two of them she herself looked more a lady of the night, dressed as she was in the sapphire satin and only a touch of ivory lace to camouflage her low neckline.
Rubia’s face was expressionless, but Jeanette could see the curiosity and—was it resentment?—that lurked in the pale hazel eyes. “Kitt, the Frenchman, has agreed to see you,” Rubia said. “Why I do not know.” She nodded her head toward the other end of the murky hall that was lit by a single candle sputtering in its socket. “He waits for you in the last room on the left.”
When Jeanette knocked, a rich baritone voice said, “Entrez."
The room was as black as Hades, and she wondered if maybe that wasn’t where she might be. Facing Satan. Her eyes peered among the shadowy forms of the room’s furniture, and a voice said in muffled Spanish, “Come here¬to the corner, por favor." She recognized it as belonging to the young Mexican on board the blockade runner’s ship.
Now, as her eyes focused, she could see two figures sitting at what appeared Jo be a small, round table, their backs half to her. She groped her way past the foot of the bed and located a chair across from the two.
“Sientese, señorita,” said the one to her left, the Mexican, instructing her to sit.
The leather chair, wedged into a corner, squeaked as she seated herself and settled her skirts. She wished she could make out the faces of the two opposite her more clearly, but each wore a sombrero pulled low. Even their clothing was dark—leather vests of black or brown, she couldn’t tell for sure, and dark shirts. She could make out a pistol lodged in the Mexican’s wide belt. She shivered. Below the table the Frenchman no doubt sported a brace of pistols strapped to his hips. She must not let herself forget that this was not like the games she had played as a child with Armand and Cristobal. These men had no consideration for a lady. But then wasn’t that what she wanted? To be accepted on the merits of what she could accomplish for the Confederacy—and not on the merits of sex?
She fixed her gaze on the Frenchman, for it was he who decided her fate; yet she could no more make out his features than she could see the back of her head. “I have reconsidered,” she began in Spanish. “I feel that we still might come to terms.”
She waited while the usual translation was made. ‘‘His terms, my captain asks?”
This was going to be touchy. “A compromise.”
She heard the humor in the Mexican’s voice as he gave the Frenchman her reply. Annoyed, she did not wait to hear his captain’s comments, but interjected, “Tell him that for the arms and ammunition I will play him a game of chess. If I win, he receives his share of the sale of the cotton—in gold. Nothing more. If he wins—then, his terms. I spend a night in his bed for every delivery of arms his ship makes.”
She expelled her last breath. It had been difficult to say what she had, but the worst was over now, for she had no doubt but that she could win at chess. She had played the game too often with Armand and Cristobal to lose.
The tallow candle on the far wall fluttered to life. In the flickering dim light Jeanette could make out now why the two men’s voices were muffled. Bandannas shielded the lower half of their faces, so that only the shadowed portion between the sombrero’s brim and the bandanna was visible—mere slits that watched her. She thought they looked more like desperadoes than privateers.
Waiting for one of them to say something, she was half afraid the Frenchman would turn down her proposition— and half afraid he wouldn’t. She wished there were more light. Her bravery was wavering like the candle flame. At last the Frenchman murmured something, and the other’s chair scraped the floor as he rose to leave. Beneath the Frenchman’s unwavering surveillance, she shifted uneasily. It wasn’t fair that he could study her, while she could barely see him. He had even had the foresight to position her so that the candlelight was behind him.
It wasn’t too late to change her mind. There were easier ways to help the Confederacy, to avenge her beloved. Plaiting palmetto hats and making canvas knapsacks. Did not Southern homes hum with the spinning wheel and clack with the loom? She could still sell her cotton in return for the necessities required to keep Columbia operating.
Abruptly, she rose to go, and a swarthy hand shot out to capture her forearm. With gentle pressure the Frenchman levered her back down into the chair. “Asseyez-vous.
Sit down. He had made that plain enough.
“You really are despicable,” she said with a charming smile, careful to keep to English.
No response.
“You two-headed jackass,” she said sweetly, enjoying the moment. “Men like you are no better than worms.”
The door opened and the Mexican entered, this time without the bandanna about his face. The candlelight behind him accented his wiry, reed-thin figure. He carried an onyx chess set, and when he set it on the small round table between her and his captain, even with his sombrero shadowing his face, she could identify the Mexican as a mestizo by the obvious Indian features.
“Buena suerte, ” he murmured before he left the room. Jeanette wondered if the wish of good luck was meant for her or the Frenchman. The closing of the door seemed to be the sealing of her fate. Her glance, adjust to the lack of light, quickly swept the darkened room—not as well furnished as Rubia’s. Small, musty. A white iron bed with, incongruously, a tin retablo of the Virgin Mary over it. A bureau of dark wood that sloped to one side. The chipped pitcher and washbasin sat precariously on it. No window. No escape.
Back to the Frenchman. His eyes, dark and luminous, watched her intensely. His large, brown fingers began to set the black and white pieces in their positions. She took a deep breath and remov
ed the shawl from her head. There was no backing out now. She started pulling the eyelet lace gloves from her fingers.
“Vous avez le blanc, ” he told her.
He was giving her white, the advantage of the first move. “How chivalrous of you,” she cooed, still in English. Immediately she moved out her bishop’s pawn. With luck she could get the match over quickly—with the fool’s checkmate that utilized only three moves.
Apparently the Frenchman was no tyro at the more intricate plays, for he responded by moving his black knight, which demolished her original plan of early attack, easy conquest. She sighed inwardly. It was going to be a long and difficult game. At one point the Mexican entered and set two glasses—hers was cracked—of harmless-looking amber liquid before them. “Mescal,” he said before closing the door behind him. She left the glass untouched. She was not so foolish that she would let the Frenchman inebriate her.
The game continued. Black and white pieces began to vanish from the board. She drummed her fingers. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. She sacrificed two pawns for his knight; he yielded three pawns for her bishop. She wished the bandanna didn’t conceal his face so well. If she could only see his expression; perhaps the droop of his mouth to give her some clue as to his intentions. As it was, the relentless gaze of his brown eyes told her nothing.
Piece after piece was vanquished in the fierce mental combat. Her nerves were as taut as one of Trinidad’s violin strings; her palms were damp with perspiration. Her opponent was as good as or better than Armand and Cristobal!
Nervously her fingers played with her remaining fortress-like rook. With it, and her queen, she might just possibly corner his king in checkmate. But if she did not succeed with the next move, it was the beginning of the end.
Then, before she realized the position he had maneuvered her into, he swiftly moved his bishop diagonally across the board. His gaze sought hers across the table.
“Echec, ’ ’ he said evenly.
She closed her eyes and opened them again, hoping the board would look different. It didn’t. Her king was forced to move and sacrifice her queen to his bishop. She watched with a shuddering breath as his strong fingers plucked her queen, her strongest piece, from the field of battle. Bitterly her lips curled at the crippling blow. Her lungs expelled air heavily, and her hand lifted the glass. In one breath she swallowed nearly a quarter of its contents. Her esophagus went into paralysis. Every taste bud screamed in agony. Her pupils dilated like kaleidoscopes.
Immediately he was at her side, his huge hand pounding her back. His husky chuckle was muted by the bandanna. “Avez-vous abandonné?”
“No!” she gritted, when air had returned to her seared throat. She understood the question only too well. “I don’t wish to concede!”
He reseated himself, sprawling in the chair, and refilled her glass. Wildly her gaze swept over the board, searching for an escape for her king—and for herself. The damned Frenchman had to be a chessmaster! She knew now how the paltry number of defenders must have felt at the Alamo with Santa Ana’s legions moving in for the slaughter—except with her queen captured she held no musket for her defense. And the Frenchman’s ravishment of her would be, in a way, much worse than the final death before the firing squad. It would be a betrayal of her memory of Armand and their love. For her it would be tantamount to adultery.
She positioned her rook, her fortress, between her king and his dangerous queen, only to realize immediately his knight now had her cornered. The rook slipped from her grasp to clatter on the board. She shrugged her shoulders dispassionately. “I yield,” she said in Spanish and reached for the glass. Avoiding the triumphant glint in the dark eyes across from her, she swallowed the entire contents this time.
The effect was devastating. The sausage curls before her ears seemed to spring out and roll back like sprung window shades. Her deflated lungs gasped like bellows. She struggled to her feet. Her chair overturned behind her, shattering her eardrums with the noise.
She was only half aware that the candlelight was pinched out. A hand took her elbow as she toppled onto the bed like a statue. Behind her lids the room whirled dangerously. Surely it would stop soon. In a moment it did, and she opened her eyes. She still felt strange, and her hands discovered why. Her clothes! They were gone! “Oh, sweet Mary in Heaven!” she groaned.
That damned low laughter! Mocking her, challenging her!
She tried to sit up, and two hands pressed her shoulders back down into the comfort of the mattress. “Ma chérie, j'attends pour toujours pour ceci.”
Whatever was he saying?
She gave herself over to the large capable hands that stroked her shoulders, her neck. Warm lips moved over hers, lightly—as the wings of Death? Surely she could not be held accountable for what she found no pleasure in.
Armand . . . oh, Armand, her soul cried out.
A hand took the fingers of her left hand, holding them gently. Lulling her . . . deceiving her. For in the next moment she felt her marriage ring slipped from her finger. The thief! Yet to raise her head in protest did not seem worth the effort of enduring the torpedo that rocketed through her brain.
Then her outrage at the theft was diverted by the lips that nuzzled at one breast. She lay rigid. Paralyzed by what he was doing. It had been so long. His teeth gently nipped one flaccid nipple, and her body arched at the unexpected sensation. And then he was kissing her again— softly, sweetly, it would almost seem, so that when she felt his tongue teasing her lips and teeth, it was no intrusion, no violation. It was as if he were not demanding but asking for her participation.
She opened her mouth, surprised at the pleasure she had forgotten. Had she and Armand settled into such a dull routine of lovemaking? She couldn’t remember, but then she couldn’t seem to even think straight. Not with all that mescal running through her blood like liquid fire, searing her; not with the Frenchman kissing her, as if he would lay bare her soul.
Then, a slow stirring of excitement. After a moment her natural reticence was diluted by the pleasurable feelings given by the Frenchman’s bold tongue, and her tongue dared to touch the tip of his.
The hand that tenderly cupped her breast encouraged her even more, and her tongue engaged in an erotic dance with his. At times she had thought that Armand was a little shocked by her active response in their lovemaking. Maybe ladies were not supposed to enjoy the act, but it had always been difficult for her to remain passive.
When the Frenchman’s fingers massaged her nipple to a tumescent peak, she moaned low in her throat.
“Oui,” he whispered against the hollow at the base of her neck. “C’est ça. C’est meilleur.”
Oh, what was he saying? What was she doing! What was he doing?!
She tried desperately to close her legs against the hand at her knee. “Non, non,” he said in a low voice that tickled her ear. His tongue traced the delicate convolutions of her ear, and goose bumps prickled her flesh. Forgetful of her intentions to resist, she parted her thighs for the hand warming her skin in deliciously stroking motions that moved ever upward. The goose bumps were chased away now by the heat radiating from that area his hand softly rubbed. “Ohhhh,” she cried low, half in pleasure, half in shame at the soft, squishing noise emanating from between her legs.
He laid a gentle finger against her lips. “Que cela ne vous embarrasse pas. ’'
He had perceived her embarrassment and sought to reassure her. But it did not help. Never had she experienced such a lack of control over herself. He repeated his words, softly still but with an unmistakable relentlessness, as if what and how she felt mattered. It dawned on her then that perhaps it did matter to him—that to see her lose herself to his lovemaking was the ultimate domination for the man. She twisted her head from one side of the pillow to the other to escape his questing kiss, but he anchored a hand in her hair, holding her head immobile in a gentle grasp. “S’il vous plait, mon amour.”
Please, my love?
Even as she acquies
ced, the muscles in her legs relaxing, he moved upon her. His body entered hers in slow, gently increments. Her body buckled with the unexpected bulk that filled her—until there was nothing but him. A year. Had it really been more than a year since she had known the warmth of Armand’s body covering hers? Again, she had forgotten. That warm, pleasurable feeling brought on by Armand’s lovemaking.
The Frenchman weighed a ton! Then his weight was forgotten as the magnificent body began moving in and out with breathtaking strokes. She tried to recall Armand’s handsome face . . . with the austere features of an ascetic. That sensitive mouth . . . those warm, intelligent eyes. Strange that the only two men ever to possess her were Frenchmen. And there it was—the Frenchman again. There was no escaping the thought of him. Or escaping him.
Involuntarily her arms slipped about his narrow waist. Her hands slid up the broad back, her fingers feeling with surprise the muscles that ridged it. She clutched him to her, unconsciously urging him with little moans. Suddenly she tensed. As if from someplace far away, something beckoned—strongly. There was an inexplicable urge to move toward it. Her body took command, carrying her toward that calling force. She lifted her hips, arching to meet the Frenchman’s thrust, slamming forward against him with her need.
At last he answered her body’s demand. For one electrifying moment she was suspended. Then little orgasmic shudders quaked her body. With a cry she went slack in his arms. From afar it seemed she heard him whisper. "La petite morte.”
The little death. Never had it happened to her.
She slept the sleep of death. But sometime during the night she was awakened by the clink of a glass or bottle. She gasped. Cool liquid trickled down her stomach, pooling in her navel. A strong scent of sweetness cloyed her nostrils. She tried to focus her eyes on the shadowy figure who straddled her hips, but what with the dark and her splitting headache—with a groan her head fell back on the pillow. She abandoned the idea of identifying the Frenchman—her lover. She gave over to the tongue that dipped into her navel’s recess and penciled a trail over her belly.
LAVENDER BLUE (historical romance) Page 5