Ciji Ware (29 page)

Much to his amazement, he suddenly felt a stirring in his groin as a result of such licentious thoughts. He turned his back on his father and strode to his wife’s side.

“He’s being difficult as usual,” he said impatiently. “It’s time we stopped treating him as if he were the Etienne LaCroix of old. The man’s unable to speak or think.” He stared at his wife’s enormous taffeta-cloaked bosom. For some reason he yearned to bury himself in its fleshy folds and forget the burdens of running a huge plantation with no true authority at his command.

“Etienne is perfectly lucid,” his wife countered, her shifting eyes communicating her discomfort at the suggestive way in which he was regarding her bodice. “Why were you shouting at your father? The guests might hear.”

“I don’t give a damn about our guests!” Julien said, reaching with his right hand to cup her silk-clad breast in his palm. “I need a drink.”

“Albert can fetch you one,” Adelaide replied stiffly, staring beyond his shoulder as if she were examining the wallpaper on the opposite side of the bedchamber. “He’s downstairs.” Julien gazed at her impassive expression. Partly as an experiment to gauge his wife’s reaction, he provocatively pressed his thumb against the nipple faintly outlined beneath the silken fabric. “Julien!” she protested, her voice edged with anxiety. “Stop this!” She cast a frantic glance at the still form staring at them from the bed.
“Your father!”

“Stop?” he asked, palming her other breast with his free hand and ignoring Etienne’s silent, oppressive presence. “Why should I stop? Does this not give you an ounce of pleasure, my dear wife? Or this?” His thumbs massaged his wife’s bodice in rhythmic circles, and he felt himself grow hard beneath his trousers.

“No, it doesn’t,” she retorted, taking a step backward. “Your behavior revolts me!”

“And when I kiss you?” he inquired, the anger he felt toward his father rising like a gulf tide surging up the river. “I’ve been told by certain mademoiselles on the Champs Elysées that I do this quite expertly…” he murmured, pulling her roughly to him in an agony of frustration. His mouth found hers closed and clamped tight against her teeth. Adelaide had rebuffed his polite advances for months now. And polite or not, this evening would only prove to be more of the same—a state of affairs that goaded him to insinuate his tongue between his wife’s lips.

“Julien!” she spat. She pushed hard against his chest, her stout arms galvanized with sudden strength. They broke apart, both panting from exertion. “How dare you!” she said, her massive bosom heaving in indignation.

“And how dare
you
,
madam,” he replied with as much dignity as he could summon under the circumstances. “How dare you close your bedchamber door to your husband all these months! Have you a problem you would like to share with me?” he mocked. “Or perhaps you fear it will be
I
whose ardor will evaporate, should I see you naked as the unappetizing pig you’ve become!”

“Julien…” she cried, her eyes suddenly welling with tears. “Why are you so angry? Why are you—”

“Angry? Loving? Respectful? Patient?” he asked in quick succession, the heat of barely leashed fury staining his cheeks. “It matters not what face or feeling I present before you, Adelaide. You are no wife to me, and since our dreadful honeymoon, you hold little attraction for me, beyond a mere receptacle for my lust. And now,” he said with loathing, both for her treatment of him since their wedding night, and the humiliation he had long suffered at his father’s hands, “I do not even desire you as
that
.”

And before Adelaide could respond, the heir to Reverie Plantation bolted past his bride of less than two years, charged down the back stairs, and out the kitchen door. In a blind rage he made his way for the dock. His path was illuminated by the harvest moon that shone down from a clear night sky onto the swiftly flowing water that coursed toward New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.

***

The sensation of bachelor André Duvallon’s hand upon Mrs. Randall McCullough’s back felt sinfully delicious as they whirled around the dance floor.

One-two-three… one-two-three…

Corlis thrilled to the seductive rhythm of the small orchestra playing music for the daring new dance from Vienna, the two-step waltz. Not since her marriage had she been so physically close to an unmarried man in a public place, and she found it delightful, even if the underarms of her pale green gown were sopping wet. If only the dancing could go on forever, she thought dreamily, as her long silk skirts glided gracefully across the surface of the parlor’s polished cypress floors. If only she had met a man like André
first
…

“Your auburn hair is like fire,” André said softly, glancing at the top of her head with a grave smile as he expertly avoided less agile couples twirling around the converted ballroom. “It’s rather like you, my dear Corlis… full of light and heat and vibrancy.”

At dinner they had agreed to call each other by their first names, although Corlis knew she should never have condescended to André’s bold suggestion. She glanced at his ink-black mane and yearned to tell him how handsome he looked. A light, giddy feeling had taken possession of her, almost as if someone other than the daughter of Elizabeth and Enoch Bell of the Pittsburgh Bells were cavorting at Reverie Plantation’s annual
roulaison
. Randall and Ian had retired to the side veranda, smoking cigars and talking business as best they could considering the sorry state of their spoken French. For his part, André had been an absolute dear and insisted that he and Corlis converse in English.

The music ceased, and Monsieur Grammont announced that the favorite activity of the sugarcane harvest was indeed about to get under way outside on the veranda.

“The taffy pull will commence in five minutes!” the conductor declared, and was greeted by applause and a burst of excited chatter from the crowd.

“Is it acceptable among you Creoles for a distinguished banker to take part
in
the taffy pull?” Corlis asked laughingly of André, doing her utmost to mask her nervousness at the unexpected warmth and tingling anticipation that continued to flutter in her abdomen.

“Ah, the taffy pull,” André murmured. He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially in her ear. “It provides us with a perfect opportunity to explore the plantation,
nest-ce pas
?”

Without waiting for her response, André offered Corlis his arm. “If you accept my invitation to take a stroll instead,” he suggested with a mischievous glint in his eye, “it will save those lovely hands of yours from blisters. And besides, we even might find a breath of fresh air in the cool of the oak grove.”

Without replying, she clasped his proffered arm and strolled along with the guests surging past the front door and into the warm evening air. The atmosphere outside was redolent with the scent of pink jasmine blended with a lingering aroma of burning sugar from the cane fields surrounding the house.

As the animated partygoers chose sides for the taffy pull, Corlis and André wandered, unnoticed, down the broad front stairs onto the grass. Initially Corlis hesitated to place her satin slipper on the ground for fear of snakes. However, André appeared unafraid of such encounters and guided her down a gravel path in the direction of one of the
garçonnières
that were attached to both sides of the main house. These solid brick structures, Corlis had been informed by a servant, who had introduced herself as Maisie, were additions that had been built by Etienne LaCroix to accommodate visiting bachelors so that they would not be tempted to wander down the halls of the mansion where the daughters of the family slept.

André’s hand slid down Corlis’s arm until he enfolded her right palm with his left one. He nodded at a swing that hung suspended on ropes from atop a high branch of an enormous oak whose verdant canopy loomed a hundred yards from the house.

“Shall I show you the best way to cool yourself in a climate like this?” he asked.

“I cannot fathom ’tis possible ever to be cool again,” Corlis retorted good-naturedly, “but I am willing to keep an open mind on the subject.”

“Come,” he commanded, striding off toward the towering oak with Corlis in tow.

He stood behind a wooden swing seat attached to two hemp ropes that had been secured to a stout branch high over their heads. André placed his hands on either side of her waist.

“Now, sit down, hold tight, and I shall send you floating to the heavens,
ma petite
,”
he said, his lips nearly grazing her ear as the strange, tingling sensation Corlis had felt while dancing surged once again.

Silvery shafts of moonlight penetrated the sheltering branches of the oak tree as she pointed her dancing slippers to the skies. She leaned back like a delighted child and allowed herself the freedom of soaring toward the thick foliage, her toes grazing the moss that hung in graceful shrouds from above. Her senses seemed alive as never before. Higher and higher she flew, and for a moment she hung at the edge of the world then fell backward with such a rush, she thought she would surely crash to the earth.

However, each time André was stolidly behind her back, waiting to push her ever higher, allowing her to partake of a pleasure so pure that it seemed as sweet to her as all the romantic novels she’d ever read secretly as a girl. She heard herself squealing with joy like a five-year-old, and then she began giggling uncontrollably.

Without warning, André’s arms were wrapped around her waist, abruptly halting her flight. She was panting with exertion and allowed herself to settle her back against the starched expanse of his dress shirt.

“I feared that I would lose you in the heavens,” he said, and his lips brushed against her ear a second time.

“My stars, but that was fun!” she exclaimed between gulps of air. She tilted her head skyward and met his warm, smiling gaze. “May I do it again?”

André chuckled and shook his head regretfully. He came around the swing to face her and offered her his two hands to pull her to a standing position.

“I think we might soon draw the unwelcome attention of the taffy pullers.”

“Oh,” Corlis replied, feeling admonished like a naughty child.

“So, let us remove ourselves from their sight,” André suggested gallantly, leading her deeper into the shadows near the door to the
garçonnière
.

He pointed to a slatted wooden seat where they both could sit down.

“That was a lovely ride,” Corlis said, self-conscious now that a married woman could have behaved in such an abandoned fashion. “Thank you,” she added primly. She gazed toward the main house as a burst of merriment erupted from the two teams engaged in the taffy pull on the veranda. “I would expect that many young ladies will look forward to dancing with you when the winning side triumphs over there.”

“Not as much as I look forward to dancing with you again,” André said solemnly.

Corlis shifted her gaze and stared into his eyes, wondering if there wasn’t a glint of amusement lurking behind thick, dark lashes that any woman would envy.

“I will soon retire, I think,” she said slowly. “I find all this exertion in such humid temperatures quite enervating.”

“It can be difficult for northerners to adjust here,” he replied agreeably. “How have your husband and his partners found building their projects in such a climate as this? Does it greatly slow their progress?”

“They’ve managed to complete the commissions they’ve received so far,” she answered, sensing that André was not merely indulging in idle chitchat. “Ian’s slaves do the labor, of course, while Randall supervises.” She wished to make it clear to Julien’s banker that her husband wasn’t a common hod carrier.

“So, they haven’t had the opportunity to construct any large projects as yet?” André inquired.

Why was he asking about business when there was such a lovely moon overhead?

“The Canal Street development seems a likely possibility,” she ventured cautiously.

“Ah… but of course,” André agreed. “Let us hope that will come to pass.”

“With your participation, I trust,” Corlis declared softly, amazed at her daring for raising such a delicate subject.

“Your husband must be eager to start work on this project.”

“Both my husband and Mr. Jeffries are eager, naturally, to be a part of this worthy effort and to offer their building expertise,” she replied.

“And their own funds?” André asked. “Would your husband and his partner wish also to join in the financial partnership that may be formed to make this development a reality?”

Corlis envisioned her sapphire necklace and earrings basking in the window of the pawnshop on Girod Street and felt her ire rise.

She was not fooled by André’s seemingly innocent query. “I am merely Randall’s wife,” she said carefully, summoning a demure smile to her lips. “I know little of such complicated matters.” She tilted her head at what she hoped was a fetching angle and added, “I do so hope that you and Monsieur LaCroix will be able to… ah… smooth out the financial details so construction can begin.” She suddenly desired to know, as much as Randall McCullough did, whether Julien was serious about this project or not. “Do you think you will succeed?”