Awakening His Duchess (2 page)

Vicious
winds tore at him, and rain pounded down driving like nails into his flesh, but
he relished the fury of nature.

He lay in
the mud with the torrential downpour streaming down on him. He didn’t know how
long he’d been dead or near dead or whatever had happened to him. He just
sucked in deep breaths of fresh wet air. Silhouettes of swaying palm trees and
the dark hole of his grave let him know he hadn’t gone blind. He rolled to his
back and heaved in life, feeling the rain beating on his face, the suck of the
mud, and the sting of his awakening flesh. Filthy, wet, and alive, he laughed.

The wind
whipped away his harsh strange bark. Twigs and pebbles pelted him.

He needed
protection from the weather. He might be better off sheltering in the casket,
but crawling back into the flooding muddy hole was more terrifying than the
violence of the storm.

His right side
still didn’t respond to commands. Had he only half cheated death? The knifing
pain in his head made him dizzy. He used his left hand to lift his right arm.
The limb felt foreign as if it didn’t belong to him. Perhaps if he waited long
enough the feeling would come back, but he couldn’t wait.

The palm
fronds swayed wildly. The wind howled and slung dirt into his eyes from the
pile beside his partially filled grave. He needed to find shelter to wait out
this wicked tempest.

In the
distance little white stone buildings with crosses on them squatted on the
hillside. Mausoleums. But one would provide shelter and a better shelter than
his own coffin and grave. Beau tried to stand. The wind buffeted him and his
right leg refused to cooperate. He pitched to the ground.

He crawled,
dragging his unresponsive right side. The wind threatened to rip his clothing
from him even as he hugged the ground. He focused on the pale stone and inched
his way through the muck.

Wet and battered,
Beau reached the little stone structure. Using the building to stabilize his
half wooden body, he wrenched his way upright and wrestled the catch on the
door. Once inside he collapsed on the cold stone floor. The smell of death hung
thick and dank in the tiny mausoleum, but he was out of the wind and slashing
rain. He tugged his jacket over the bottom of his face, replacing the awful
scent of death with the smell of wet wool laced with coffee.

Now free
from the grave and the weather, his brain churned on what had happened. Had he
suffered an apoplexy? But surely he was too young. How could an otherwise
healthy man have ended up appearing dead? Was he harboring some illness he knew
nothing about? A tropical malady with odd effects?

What must
Yvette think?

In all the
time he’d spent with her, he hadn’t told her who he really was. He’d wanted to
know she loved
him,
not his family’s status. She’d been stunned when he
dragged her onto the English sloop that had brought him to Saint-Domingue and
ordered the captain to marry them.

He thought
she’d question his ridiculously long moniker or notice that the captain slipped
and addressed him as Lord Beaumont. Or she’d ask about the crest on the ring he
slipped on her finger. She’d said her vows with an uncertainty not like her,
but she’d fallen into his arms afterward readily enough.

But her
mood had changed in the morning.

“I know it
is not a real marriage,” she’d hissed as she stomped ahead of him up the lane
on their way to her home.

“Real
enough,” he’d answered. “We can have a proper ceremony in due course.” But a
Catholic priest might not be willing to perform the sacrament with a
non-believer like him, and Yvette might not be satisfied with a Church of
England ceremony. But Beau never let trifles stand in his way for long. The
bigger problem would be convincing his father that Yvette was worthy of the
Havendish name. He figured a marriage ceremony, binding or not, would provide
more ammunition in the upcoming battle royal with his father.

Poor
Yvette. He hadn’t even told her that his family would take care of her. She
didn’t need to marry that other man to have a good life. This had to be
horrible for her. She’d thought she was risking everything, and she wouldn’t
even know that she’d gotten a better deal by marrying Beau. But she had risked
it, had said yes, and had made love with him all night.

If he
needed one last bit of proof of her feelings, she had shown her true colors in
her passionate kisses and caresses. Even though she’d been shy in her
ignorance, she’d clung to him and had been eager to learn how to show him her
love with her body as well as her declarations in both their native tongues.
All he needed to do was get back to her and confess everything he’d withheld
from her.

Violent
tremors shook his body throughout the night as the storm lashed about outside.

The morning
was only certain because the darkness grew lighter and the wind eased. Beau
pushed open the mausoleum door and breathed deeply of the tropical air. The
rain still came down in sheets and water cut little rivers all around.

A cart
pulled by a sorry donkey creaked toward him. Two dark-skinned men in loose
trousers followed. Toting shovels over their shoulders, they walked with
shoulders back, heads high as if it weren’t raining. Odd that they would come
to dig a new grave in the dastardly weather, but Beau supposed death waited for
no one, not even a break in the storm.

He hailed
the men, but his call came out slurred. Had he not regained his speech yet? It
mattered not. If he could get back to the harbor and the boat, Danvers would
take care of him until he regained all his faculties. Surely for the payment of
the two coins that had covered his eyes they would take him back in the cart.

The two men
pointed, and an old man who looked shrunken like a piece of fruit left out in
the sun far too long stepped around the wagon.

Beau
thought the words,
take me to Port-au-Prince
, but they came out as
jabber. He gestured with his working hand. The workers dropped their shovels
and approached silently. The wizened man muttered in a language Beau didn’t
understand.

French. He
should be talking in French, not English.

Would they
even understand that? Surely they would.

Beau hadn’t
had any contact with the work force of the island, the slaves, other than the
ones that served as domestic servants in the houses of the wealthy. He’d been
no farther than the boundaries of Port-au-Prince and not even into the poorer
areas of the city. A grand tour only extended to the majestic sights and finer
sides of life.

He recoiled
as the three men crowded into the shelter of the tiny white stone building.
Darkness hid their expressions. Beau’s heart tripped, but the unease was just
the feeling of confinement. He’d never liked to feel closed up before, but
after the casket, he never wanted to suffer that trapped, boxed feeling again.

The older
man crouched down in front of Beau. In lilting French he said, “Here, you must
be thirsty.”

He held out
a silver flask that looked far too expensive to be owned by a man who was most
likely a slave. The smell of coffee and rum mingled with other herbal scents
drew Beau. How long had it been since he’d eaten or drunk anything? Nearly
twenty-four hours since he’d had half a seed cake and coffee. Hunger gnawed at
his stomach. Funny how a second earlier he hadn’t even thought about eating.

The man
pushed the flask to Beau’s lips, and he drank so greedily that bits of leaves
in the potent mix went down with his gulps. These colonialists could benefit
from the use of a tea strainer. Civilization lagged behind here, but the basic
comforts were available. His mind leaped ahead to a hot bath, clean clothes,
and a fresh shave. He’d like to appear presentable before he claimed Yvette.

He mustered
the French words together to ask for transportation to the harbor. They, too,
came out slurred. The standing men exchanged looks and then they stood
preternaturally still.

Beau
gestured with his hand, as the old man wiped the lip of the drained flask and
corked it.

The close
feeling crept up on Beau. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. He had to get
out of this place. Using his working left leg and grabbing the uneven edges of
stones he pushed up to lean against the wall.

The old man
issued a command in the strange language and the two men snapped as if
controlled by a puppet master. They grabbed Beau’s arms and tugged him outside,
unmindful of the way his right leg dragged and of the pouring rain.

Chanting in
his foreign tongue, the man in charge raised his thin arms alongside his
elongating head. Light flashed in the edges of Beau’s vision. He twisted,
looking for the direction of the lightning and listening for thunder, but the
rumble never followed though the flashing continued no matter which way he
turned.

He struggled
to stop, but the dark muscular men dragged him forward. The old man moved in
front of them, and in the better light his dark face and yellowed eyes grew
familiar. The wizened old man had been in Yvette’s home shortly after his fall.
Icy fingers of alarm tightened on Beau’s spine.

“What is
happening?” he asked. The words were only half intelligible.

The man
bared his long yellow teeth. But there was nothing comforting about his smile.
He answered in heavily accented English, “Shouldn’t mess with our island girls.
Even the
grands blancs
know how to rid themselves of problems like you.”

Had he been
buried alive because of Yvette?

Beau’s
muscles slackened although his every thought screamed at him to get away. A
thought swam unwanted in his head, slowly rising to the surface. He’d been
poisoned.

Surely
Yvette hadn’t been part of this.

She’d been
watching him with her big dark eyes as he bit into the cake and followed his
every chew. Her mouth fascinated him, so he hadn’t thought any further than
that she suffered the same obsessive enthrallment with him in return. Yet
Yvette had not touched the plate of seedcakes.

His stomach
cramped. Had he misjudged her?

Perhaps he
should have told her she’d never want for anything. With him she could go
anywhere in the world, live like a queen on any one of the Havendish estates,
or they could stay here close to her family. He could give her the world, but
he’d wanted her to want
him.

She’d
known. Why else hadn’t she eaten the pastry? He’d fallen in love and she’d tried
to kill him.

Damn, he’d
done his best to make sure the marriage would be real. Was he bound forever to
a woman who was evil incarnate?

Through the
incessant flashing, the swaying palm trees lifted their limbs to wave good-bye
and the rivulets of water took on the shapes of fish and fowl. They stretched
toward him, snapping at him. He whimpered and twisted to dodge. The men to his
sides seemed oblivious to the threats. They just gripped him tighter,
relentlessly dragging him toward the cart.

The wood of
the cart rushed up to meet his face and then the motion began. The cart rocked
him away from the smell of the sea and deep into the darkness of the tropical
forest. Only it wasn’t dark. Light continued to flash through the trees,
burning his eyes until he closed them. Jagged shards of orange, yellow, and red
stabbed the inside of his lids. Unable to bear the sickening spin of colors, he
opened his eyes and rolled to his back. The trees laughed and pointed while the
rain boiled on his skin, bringing up welts.

No. Trees
don’t laugh, not even in this God forsaken place. He tried to hold onto what he
knew to be real. No rain was hot enough to boil. He stared at his arm. The skin
was untouched. But the men walking beside the cart changed into bears rumbling
along and chanting. He wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

He’d been
poisoned. Twice. Or he really had died and gone to hell.

Chapter Two

Six years later, August 21, 1791

Petit Plantation, Saint-Domingue

Thu-thump, Thu-thump, Thu-thump.
Yvette could no longer
tell if it was the drums or the beat of her heart thrumming through her.
No,
No, No, this wasn’t happening!

A sob caught in her throat. Fighting for calm, she swallowed
it.

Etienne struggled against her. “Maman—”

“Shh!”

“—I can’t see,” he finished.

The rote words of discipline froze on her lips. Praise be to
Our Lady that Etienne had defied her earlier and followed her to the slave huts
or he’d have been slaughtered with all the rest. She shuddered.

Her husband Henri hadn’t wanted her to go to the sick slave,
but then he never wanted her to go. Henri didn’t like her tending the workers.
Only there hadn’t really been a sick slave, just an older slave who tried to
pretend he was ill.

Another slave had sung to Etienne, but the low rumble of his
voice hadn’t covered the first scream or the shot. She’d grabbed her son and
run back to the house, but she was too late.

Her stomach lurched.
Mon Dieu, why? Why?

She pulled her son’s squirming body tighter against her. She
had to get him out of here. But she wanted nothing more than to sink to the
ground and scream until she could scream no more.