Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (128 page)

She fought then, kicking, arching her back, jackknifing, trying to claw despite the confinement of her arms. It did no good. She was swung dizzyingly and dropped upon the bed.

Lightning flashed, streaking into the room in an unearthly glow. Morgan McCormack stood above her, a terrible being, godlike, with the bronzed planes of his face gleaming like sculptured metal and the emerald fire of desire in his eyes. He was stripping the buttons of his waistcoat from their holes, shrugging from his jacket. Félicité rolled, scrambling across the wide, soft surface of the bed, sliding with her gown riding above her knees, reaching for the other side. He dived after her, clamping his arm around her waist, hauling her backward. His hand swept over her naked thighs as he lifted her, dragging her toward him. The pins slipped from her hair, allowing the silken mass to spill across her shoulders in a gilded skein, cascading over the corded sinews of his arm as he pulled her beneath him.

She writhed, panting, pushing at him, gasping in triumph as she freed one arm. In desperate wrath she struck for his eyes with her fingers curved into talons. His head snapped back out of range, but she had the satisfaction of feeling her nails rake along his neck and chest before her wrist was caught and imprisoned in an iron grasp.

Her girdling belt loosened as they struggled; she felt it fall from her waist. His mouth seared the tender curve of her neck, trailing a fiery path along her shoulder. She braced her feet, heaving under him. He shifted his weight, stilling her movements, forcing her to straining quiescence. Her breast tingled as his lips found one trembling mound. He tugged at the flimsy muslin of her gown, pushing it lower over the taut flatness of her abdomen.

“No,” she whispered, that rasping word a plea and a denial. This could not be. It could not. It was wrong, impossible, unbelievable.

The protest seemed to inflame him, fueling his rage. He kicked off his boots and divested himself of his clothing in a few quick movements. With merciless strength he stripped the tatter of her gown from her, forestalling her attempt to bring up her knees by sliding his own heavier leg across them. With one wrist fastened beside her face by the iron grip of the hand that passed under her neck, and the other pinned under him, he held her immobile. He cupped her breast, brushing his thumb over the rose peak that was contracted in anguished apprehension. As his hand moved lower, smoothing the slender curve of her waist, tracing the tautness of her stomach and down along her flank, a shiver ran over her. His traveling touch drifted over the marbled whiteness of her thighs, slipping between in a caress of startling, unbearable intimacy.

Convulsively, Félicité lunged away, trying to roll, wrenching her arm in its socket until a red mist of pain rose to cloud her vision. She managed to push one ankle from under him before she recognized her error. He thrust a knee between her opened thighs, raising himself above her. She felt the heated firmness of his manhood against her, knew in shafting horror the tender vulnerability of her own body. In frenzy, she arched away from him, her nerves and muscles shuddering with the force of her resistance. By slow degrees he pressed her against the waiting, unyielding rigidity poised for the relentless entry.

With burning abruptness it came. Félicité drew a ragged, agonized breath that lodged in her chest. Maddened, feverish, lost in the sensation of wounding fullness, she turned her head from side to side. She was scarcely aware of the moment when the man above her hesitated, the air leaving his lungs as if he had received a body blow. A soft imprecation rustled on the air, nearly drowned in the rumble of thunder overhead. Morgan’s grip loosened, though he did not release her. The tension inside Félicité ebbed infinitesimally. She sensed the slow surfacing of a curious expectation. Pain receded, became a tingling awareness of the hard, naked body against her and the sultry dew of perspiration that seemed to melt them together. She allowed her tightly closed eyelids to relax, permitted her lashes to sweep slowly upward.

Morgan was a warm and heavy shadow, constricting movement, until lightning gleamed across his features. There was a grim shadow of doubt in his eyes until he looked into hers, seeing the glitter of tears and the accusing, bewildered fury. His expression hardened as dark descended once more.

“A high price, I will admit, my darling Félicité,” he said, his breath warm against her cheek, “but not nearly as high as I would have paid if you could have had your way.”

“I — I never meant—”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” he cut across her words. “Nor did I. But fool though I may have been, I am not one to argue with the hand of fate.”

Words, biting, blistering, explaining, pleading, tumbled into her mind. They never reached her lips. Morgan eased deep inside her, submerging her once more in pain and the tumult of the senses. He drew back, thrusting again and again, his movement quickening. He released her wrists, levering himself higher. Caught in the rending storm of his ardor, crazed by the inescapable violation of her innermost being, Félicité clutched at his chest, digging her nails into him in her extremity. She raked across the edge of ragged flesh, felt the liquid slide of blood. At the edge of her mind, she heard his swift, indrawn breath of pain, but was powerless to stop herself. Locked together in torment and the heated essences of their bodies, they strove in immortal combat. Fear had left Félicité. She would survive, though nothing would be the same, she would never be the same. She would never be so certain of her strength, or of her right to remain inviolate, nor would she be so righteous in her anger, positive that she was free of blame. For there was within her the corrosive knowledge that in this attack upon Morgan McCormack she was not without guilt. Beyond the windows the storm broke with a roar and the rain came hissing down.

Some time later, Morgan eased from her. The bed frame creaked as he rolled to the edge and came to his feet. He moved to the window with swift strides and swung back the shutter, filling the room with the wet rush of the rain. Thunder rumbled, a distant mutter. The minutes ticked past. Félicité lay without moving, her wide gaze on the dark shape of the man at the window, standing with his arms braced on the sill.

Morgan took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before he turned back toward the bed. He sat down on the side, reaching to curl his warm fingers around her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

She jerked away from him, pulling the coverlet over her. Though she ached in body and mind, pride dictated only one answer. “Yes,” she snapped.

“I could apologize, but it might ring a bit false.”

“I don’t require anything from you — except your absence! I would like you, to leave my house, now. Get out!”

“That may be what you want,” he said slowly, “but I don’t think it would suit me at all.”

“What — do you mean?”

“Staying here in this house might have certain advantages. I can think of several without half trying.”

“You can’t,” she began.

“Oh, but I can,” he answered, deliberately misunderstanding her. “To begin with, if your brother puts in an appearance anywhere in New Orleans in the next few days it will be here, to check on your welfare. It would be only sound tactics to await his return. Secondly, housing is scarce; the governor-general has been considering commandeering quarters for his officers, mostly to get them out of his own hair. It would be a relief to him, I’m sure, if I arranged my own domicile. And thirdly, there is your condition. Ravishing virgins has never had any appeal to me. If I had known — but I did not. It is a burdensome responsibility.”

“Hah!” Félicité ejaculated in bitter scorn. Clutching the coverlet to her, she sat up higher in bed.

“Your opinion of my principles notwithstanding, I feel a most inconvenient need to offer reparation.”

His tone was dry and slightly ironic. Félicité wished suddenly that she could see his face. “Are you suggesting—”

“It had occurred to me, yes, that an offer of marriage would be in order.”

“You cannot be serious. One moment you accuse me of conspiring to murder you, the next you offer me your name. It’s ridiculous!”

“Nevertheless, I mean every word.”

“Why?” she flung at him. “To curry favor with O’Reilly? This would be improving relations with a vengeance!”

There was a trace of grim amusement in his tone as he replied, “Would it not?”

“Aren’t you afraid of giving me even more reason to be willing to rid myself of you?” she asked in waspish tones.

“You were, I think, an inexperienced conspirator. That being the case, I will undertake to protect myself from anything else you might devise.”

“I was no conspirator of any kind!” she cried, clenching her fists in front of her. “I had no idea there was anyone waiting, none at all.”

“You expect me to believe that, after seeing you with your brother?”

“That had nothing to do with you. I never dreamed—”

“So you do admit it was Valcour?”

“But I didn’t know what he meant to do, I swear.”

He got to his feet, bending to take up his coat where it lay on the floor before he moved into the salle. She heard the striking of flint, saw the yellow flare of cotton in a tinderbox, one he must have taken from his own pocket. It was followed a few seconds later by the spreading glow of a lighted candle. Its brightness grew as Morgan returned, striding in splendid nakedness to set the bronze candlestick he had found upon her dressing table. Hastily, Félicité averted her gaze, staring at the black square of the window, where rain spattered in, splashing with a quiet and oddly musical sound upon the floor.

Morgan stepped to the foot of the bed and leaned one shoulder against its hand-hewn cypress post. “If I believe what you are saying,” he drawled, “it would make it all the more imperative that you become my wife.”

Félicité swung to face him, her brown eyes hard and her voice low and vibrant. “Never, never in this life.”

“Never,” he said, his green eyes holding hers with a steady regard, “is a long time. I trust you won’t come to regret that decision.”

Any answer she might have made was routed from her brain as she really looked at Morgan for the first time in the candlelight. Blood crept in twisting rivulets down his chest and one arm, dripping slowly from the tips of his fingers. It streaked his body, smearing it with drying, rust-brown smudges. Her widened gaze moved to the coverlet she held. It was so stained, so covered with splotches and smears of blood, it was impossible to tell which was Morgan’s and which her own.

“Mon Dieu,” she breathed, and spread one hand before her, staring at her bloodstained fingers with the nails rimmed with red.

Morgan glanced down at himself. With a grimace of irritation, he clamped his hand to the long gouge that was cut into the flat muscles of his upper chest, running across his arm. “Sorry, I didn’t realize.”

Sickness moved over Félicité. She could not think what to say, what to do with this man who had invaded her life so thoroughly. Confused and deathly tired, she felt the need to weep, but knew she was past the relief of tears. The rain slackened, its fall muted to a soft drumming. Above it came the sound of a distant banging, as if someone was beating at a door. The noise was insistent, catching at her attention. She turned her head to listen.

Abruptly, she remembered. “Ashanti,” she whispered.

“Your maid?”

“I don’t know what they did to her, or to the other women.”

“We had better go see.” Morgan frowned.

“No, I’ll go,” she said hastily, her brown gaze flicking to the blood that seeped through the brown fingers he held over his wound. “You had better sit down.”

He lifted a brow, his tone caustic as he answered, “Your concern is touching, but this is nothing. It’s been like this for some time now. A little longer isn’t going to hurt.”

“I — I don’t need you,” she said.

“As you please.”

Félicité glanced at his face as she slid from the bed, dragging the coverlet with her. His features were set, closed in. Swooping to the armoire, she took down her dressing saque, draping its voluminous folds around her before she dropped the stained coverlet and stepped away from it. It was only then that she noticed she wore her soft leather sandals with their ribbons still laced up the calves of her legs. For no reason that she could think of, the discovery brought the heat of a flush to her face. Without looking in Morgan’s direction, she hurried from the room.

In the salle, there was a blanket chest where rags were kept. She paused and lifted the heavy lid, drawing out a roll of bandaging made from the worn center of a clean sheet. Her fingers tightened upon it, then with her lips pressed together in a straight line, she whirled back into the bedroom, tossed the roll onto the bed beside Morgan, then hurried out once more.

The thumping noise she had heard was louder as she ran down the stairs. It seemed to be coming from the court, possibly even from Ashanti’s sleeping quarters. She was right, she found as she emerged into the damp night. Ducking her head against the streams of rain still failing from the roof, she slipped along beneath its protective overhang. Outside the maid’s door, she lifted the wooden bar that held it in place, the usual method of restraining slaves at night, though it had not been used at her father’s house for years.

The panel swung inward. Ashanti hung back, outlined in the glow of a tallow candle, until she recognized Félicité.