by Pamela Morsi
"Once the fish are raised to fingerlings," Westbrook continued, "they can be let out into the river or transported to areas where trout have not been or are now unavailable."
"It must be hard to move those little fish across country," Adelaide said. "Looks like there would be an easier way."
"Some have tried easier ways," Theo told her. Then, with a teasing glance, he turned to Cleav. "What do you think of the Reverend Dr. Bachman's experiments?"
Cleav's grin was infectious. "I think they worked best in his own imagination."
"What were Reverend Bachman's experiments?" Agrippa asked.
Theo leaned forward slightly to get the pretty young woman more fully in his line of vision.
"The gentleman from South Carolina insisted that he managed to fertilize eggs that were kept dry for ten days and actually produced offspring."
At the twins' puzzled expression, Cleav explained. "A trout egg can't live more than a few hours without water. Still, Dr. Bachman assures us that he managed to fertilize dead eggs."
"Don't you have to have fish to make fish?" Adelaide asked Mr. Westbrook, her eyes wide open with sweet innocence.
"Of course you need fish to make fish," Esme answered the foolish young woman easily. "Cleav uses a natural method of propagation, but many trout breeders simply strip the ripe females of their eggs, throw them in a pan, and then cover them with milt."
"Milt?" Agrippa asked curiously. "What in heaven's name is milt?"
"Milt is the stuff that comes from the male fish," Esme explained easily. "It's like the man's—"
Stopping abruptly in midsentence, Esme glanced in horror around the table. Pa was staring at her curiously. The twins looked puzzled. Eula Rhy's expression was sympathetic. Theodatus Simmons sat stone still, his mouth hanging open in shock, and Ben Westbrook seemed ready to choke on the spoon that was frozen in his mouth.
Finally, her eyes met Cleav's. As her final humiliation, her husband looked ready to burst out laughing.
"I . . . I . . ." Esme struggled valiantly for a way to save her disgrace but failed miserably. Giving in to tears, wordlessly she fled the room.
Down the hall, out the back door, Esme had to get away.
She was running to the hills. She had never run from humiliation, but she was running now. She was running and she was never coming back. She had embarrassed herself. That she could stand. But she had shamed her husband. He deserved better. She was going to keep right on running forever more.
A strong brown arm encircled her waist, capturing her before she made it past the azalea bushes.
"Esme, Esme," he whispered, pulling her against his chest. "Don't cry, Hillbaby, it wasn't that bad."
"I'm so ashamed," Esme managed to choke out before she buried her face in the warm, familiar shirtfront of the man she loved.
"You shouldn't be ashamed," Cleav told her, rocking her slightly back and forth. "Embarrassed, maybe a little, but never ashamed. When we're talking about fish breeding, it's hard to remember to be delicate."
"I'm so sorry, Cleav," she moaned. "I'm so sorry."
"What in the world are you sorry for? A few silly words aren't anything to make a fuss about."
"I'm not just sorry for that," Esme admitted. "I'm sorry for all of it. I'm sorry that you had to marry me. I'm sorry that I'm not the wife that you needed. I'm sorry that I'm not the woman that you wanted."
"The woman that I wanted?" Cleav held his wife at arm's length and looked down at her.
"Esme, my sweet Hillbaby," he said softly, "you are the woman that I wanted. The only woman that I've really ever wanted."
Esme shook her head.
"I don't mean that way," she insisted. "I know you want me that way. I mean the woman that you wanted for a wife."
"You are the woman I want for my wife," he said firmly. "I want you that way and every way."
Clasping his hand under her chin, he raised her face to look at him. "I love you, Esme Rhy."
"Don't joke about such a thing," she admonished him as another tear sneaked out of the corner of her eye. "It may be just funning to you, but a gal can take such a declaration plumb serious."
"I mean it 'plumb serious," Cleav replied. "I've never said it before because I didn't think that you loved me back."
"Loved you back?" Esme looked confused. "You know I love you. I've never made a secret of it."
"You did make a secret of it. A secret that got out of the bag tonight."
Esme looked puzzled.
"You said you married me to get this house," he reminded her.
"This house?" she asked, not quite recalling the conversation.
"Yes," he insisted. "You said you wanted to marry me to get this house for your family."
"Well, sure I wanted this house for my family," Esme tried to explain. "But I wanted you just for myself. I was downright selfish about it. I didn't think about Pa or the twins, or even poor Sophrona, your sweetheart. I didn't even care about your feelings. I just loved you so much, I said I was going to have you by hook or by crook."
"By hook or by crook?" Cleav repeated, a smile stretching across his face. "Or by garters."
"Cleavis!" Esme protested. "How could you believe that I married you for your house?"
"I don't anymore," he said. "When I saw you this evening, my proud, imposing Esme, who knows she's just as good as everybody else, trying to hide her light under a bushel of meaningless manners, I knew you loved me."
Reaching for her, he pressed her tightly against his shirt as if he wanted to fuse herself with his own. "Nothing but real, true love could have made you humble yourself."
"I am humble! I failed you," Esme whispered against his chest. "I've embarrassed you in front of your friends. I know how much their opinion matters to you."
Cleav shook his head. "No, you don't, Esme," he said. "Because it doesn't matter. You love me for myself. That's a hundred times more fulfilling than having the whole world love me for something I can pretend to be."
"Oh, Cleav," Esme wailed. "You deserve to have a lady, a real lady."
Cleav smoothed her brow with one long finger.
"I have a lady, Mrs. Rhy," he whispered. "I have you."
"I'm no lady! You saw that tonight."
"You are a lady, and you always have been. I saw that one morning in church."
"In church?"
"The day they gave your family that charity basket," he said. "We humiliated you. But you never cowered or cried or hid your face. You raised your chin and just looked right past us. You knew you were as good as anybody. And you've taught me that I am, too."
His lips found hers, and he tasted her gently.
"All this to-do about being civilized and proper," he said. "It's kept me in a stew for too many years. Finery and genteel conversation don't make us ladies or gentlemen. City folks have their ways and we have ours. When we try to be what we're not, we only shame ourselves."
"You mean you want me to be just Esme Crabb?"
Cleav smiled. "I want you to be Esme Rhy," he said. "I want you to be the lady that I love."
He kissed her then, and the sweetness was such that Esme couldn't let it go. She answered his lips with urgent exploration of her own.
Their bodies strained against each other in passion both remembered and renewed. Esme felt the now familiar warmth melting her loins, and she eagerly squirmed to meld that fire against the evidence of his response.
"I love you," Cleav whispered. "I've wanted to tell you that every day, every time I've touched you. I've wanted to say it and now I can't stop."
"I love you, Cleav," Esme answered. "I don't know if it was that first day in the store or later when I got to know you. But I couldn't live without you, and I would have done anything to keep you, to help you, to make you happy."
"Even pretend to be something you are not," Cleav said accurately.
"I'd swim like a fish if it was what you wanted," she declared.
Cleav's smile was naughty. "Swimming was not
quite what I had in mind," he said. "But if I take you upstairs, will you promise to wiggle like a trout out of water?"
Esme giggled and then shook her head reprovingly. "Only if you promise to give me another of those no-hands fish looks."
"Can't promise that, ma'am," he answered. "Tonight I'm planning to put these hands all over you."
"Well," Esme suggested. "How about prissy talk? Can I expect some of that at least?"
"My dear Mrs. Rhy, I vow to eloquate with such magnificence that you will find yourself incapable of resisting supine repose for the remainder of the evening."
"Mmmm," she replied appreciatively.
Cleav grasped her hand, and they hurried to the house like eager children.
"Wait." Esme hesitated at the doorway. "Can we go upstairs?" she asked him. "We have guests in the house."
"Mrs. Rhy," he said smoothly. "In this house you make up the rules of etiquette. What do you deem proper?"
Esme was thoughtful for only a moment.
"Our guests might be scandalized," she told him. "And I always try to keep a watchful eye on Pa and the twins."
Cleav acquiesced easily. "Whatever you think, Mrs. Rhy."
Esme's thoughtful expression slowly became a confident grin. "But I think I've been taking too much care of my family," she said. "It's time that Pa and the girls start facing the world all on their own."
"Now, that's a very good idea," Cleav said.
"And your gentlemen friends from up north should really get some opportunity to find out about real Tennessee people."
Cleav nodded. "So we go straight upstairs?"
As if suddenly remembering what happened, Esme sighed in dismay. "No, after making such a fool of myself, I'd better go back in there and face them tonight."
Cleav placed a strong arm around her waist and grinned at her.
"Just stick close to me, Mrs. Rhy," he said. "It's a husband's right to rescue his wife from social blunders."
"Who made that rule?"
"I did," he replied easily.
Esme walked nervously beside her husband as they entered the house. The company had left the dining room for the informality of the back parlor, and she could hear Pa fiddling a happy tune.
Reaching the doorway, she saw the twins gleefully instructing the gentlemen from up north on the proper steps of mountain clogging. There was much laughter and clapping, and the two somewhat bookish gentlemen were clearly having the time of their lives.
"Excuse us," Cleav interrupted their revelry.
Every eye focused on them, and Esme felt her courage drifting away. Only the strength of Cleav's arm kept her beside him.
"My wife and I would like to apologize for our abrupt departure from dinner," Cleav began civilly.
"Quite all right," Theo said eagerly.
"We're perfectly fine," Ben insisted.
"Wonderful," Cleav replied with a pleasant smile. "Do go on and enjoy yourselves," he said. "Mrs. Rhy and I must retire early, it seems."
Esme glanced up at her husband in surprise.
Cleav smiled at her before he said calmly, "You may find this difficult to believe, but my wife and I have both suddenly developed an unprecedented infestation of fleas."
The Love Charm
Prologue
Southwest Louisiana
Spring 1820
The wedding pirogue that eased down the gentle current of the Vermilion River was festooned in blooming vines of honeysuckle, bright purple water hyacinths, and delicate swamp lilies. Like everyone else on the bank, Armand Sonnier shouted and waved at the young couple on board until they disappeared from sight around a bend in the river. His older brother, Jean Baptiste, was a married man now and poled the little boat home with his new bride.
"It's so romantic!"
The words were accompanied with a soft girlish sigh and Armand turned toward the pretty girl by his side. She was sweet and dainty in a pink pinafore, her dreamy gaze still focused upon the river. At fifteen he was no longer much interested in playtime, but for Aida he made an exception. She was an only child and Armand thought she was probably lonely. He often talked with her and found her delightful imagination and scatterbrained silliness to be funny and entertaining.
As the rest of the crowd turned back to the churchyard, where the food and dancing and frolic would go on until dawn, Armand was drawn to his young friend sitting in the grass.
She had gathered up a few of the scattered flower petals that had been strewn at the feet of the newly-weds. She was stowing them in her handkerchief along with a dollop of river sand, a tiny crawfish claw, a heron feather, and a piece of linen string.
Armand took a seat beside her, watching curiously.
"What are you doing?" he asked. "Making mud pies?"
"Mud pies!" She frowned at him disdainfully. "That's for little girls."
With her rosebud mouth, her round cheeks, and her shiny black curls peeking out from beneath her sunbonnet, Aida Gaudet looked to be exactly that. Armand couldn't resist the urge to reach out and give her hair a playful tug.
She didn't allow him to draw her into the game.
"Someday I'm going to be a bride," she declared.
Armand shrugged in agreement. All the girls in Prairie l'Acadie married eventually. "I wouldn't be surprised," he said.
"I'm going to be the most beautiful woman on the Vermilion River and I'll choose the most handsome man in the parish as my husband."
"You seem very certain," he pointed out.
"Oh, I am absolutely sure," she declared, her voice lowered with mysterious intent. "Because I am the greatest hoodoo woman in all of Louisiana."
"Oh really?" he asked, familiar with her girlish games of pretend.
She nodded soberly. "I make cows come fresh, keep rats from your corncrib, and can make the moon pour silver coins into the river if I so choose."
Armand grinned. "I tremble in fear just to know you."
"As well you should," she told him.
"And great hoodoo women get to marry handsome men?" he asked. "It seems Madame Landry had no husband at all."
Aida shrugged in tacit agreement. "But I will," she said. "I will have the man I most desire, because I have made this love charm and no man can resist it."
She tied a knot in the handkerchief and held it up for his inspection.
"Very nice," he assured her, laughing.
"When I decide who is most handsome and deserving of me, I will bestow this gift upon him and he will be mine forever."
"Forever?"
"Forever."
"Whether he wants to be or not?"
She stuck her tongue out at him. "Of course he will want to be. I told you, I'm going to be the most beautiful woman on the Vermilion River."
"Aida!"
She startled slightly at the sound of her father's voice. "I've been looking all over for you," the man said. "I told you to wait for me at the church door. We are to take supper with Father Denis."
The bright-eyed youngster looked momentarily horrified.
"Oh Poppa, I forgot!"
"You always forget. Now hurry! Hurry!"
She shoved something in Armand's hand as she rushed away. Momentarily he gazed down at what he held and then shook his head. Armand Sonnier held in his grasp the love charm.
Chapter One
Destiny, a divine plan and a game of chance.
The gleam of moonlight on the dark water of the Vermilion River illuminated more than the broad expanse of Prairie l'Acadie. On the porch of the Sonniers' sturdy half-timbered house near the outside stairs, three men sat around an overturned wood-slat washtub, their faces serious and unsmiling in the yellow glare of the lantern.
Jean Baptiste turned over the last card he dealt himself and looked into his opponent's eyes. "Trump is clubs," he said evenly.
Armand glanced with feigned carelessness at the card and surveyed his own hand once more. He forced his insides into a deliberate calm so that his face would reveal nothing.
Armand's best friend, Laron Boudreau, sat silently observing the two brothers. He had bourred on the last hand, requiring him to ante the value of the pot. He'd thrown in all he had, but it wasn't enough to earn him another play. The huge pile of coins and paper notes on the washtub was enough to make a man's mouth go dry and his heart beat faster. Bourre was a dangerous game for a gambling man; big losses were common even for a skilled player. Big stakes, however, always drew the interest of young men still in their twenties, still with plenty to learn, yet confident in their own abilities.
The two Sonnier brothers, Armand and Jean Baptiste, were alike in many ways, the same light brown hair, the same fair complexion, the same bright blue eyes. Armand was like a miniature version of his brother. While Jean Baptiste was of medium height, stocky and broad-shouldered, his brother was a man of small stature and fine-featured. He carried not an ounce of extra fat upon him. It was only the strength of his jaw that kept his face from appearing delicate.
"I will play," Armand announced finally, raising that prominent chin deliberately, almost in challenge. He had gambled against his brother many times and he knew well that any show of his own confidence was sure to make Jean Baptiste reckless.
Jean Baptiste gazed back at him, his face so much like Armand's own, and nodded slowly. "Dealer plays also," he said.
Cards were casually tossed, one at a time, toward the center of the overturned washtub. Armand took the first two tricks with the ace and queen of clubs. Jean Baptiste took the third and looked across at his brother. Armand's stern concentration wavered as a smile took over his features.
Jean Baptiste made a sound that was almost a groan as he led his best card. Armand bested it and took the trick. Armand then led and Jean Baptiste threw in his last with a sound of disgust. "Take it, go ahead, take it," Jean Baptiste moaned. "It's only money, the root of evil, and I never have enough to matter."
Armand laughed delightedly as he pulled the winnings toward him. "Don't worry, big brother, if your gambling gets so bad you can't feed the family, I'll always make you a small loan." He grinned conspiratorially toward Laron. "Five for ten is prime terms for this bayou."