Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (40 page)

“I don’t believe you!”

“Try,” he advised, his tone dry, before he went on. “I don’t require that you return the feeling, only that you allow me to give you the protection of my rank and title. Since I am a Sun, I cannot be put aside when a woman wishes, as other men of the Natchez can be, but I swear that when this is over, you have only to ask and you will be free.”

Her amber eyes were stony as she stared at him. “Suppose I say I want my freedom now?”

“That isn’t possible.”

“No? Why?”

“The decree has been handed down. We are to marry to show that it was not my preference for the French but for you, a Frenchwoman, that prompted my desertion of the Natchez. And, more than that, because I want you.”

“So much for love.” Her laugh was forced.

“Do you doubt me?” he asked, his voice suddenly rough. “Shall I prove it?”

She stood her ground. “By force?”

He stopped, the muscles of his face going taut. “How can you think it?”

Assailed suddenly by the memory of all that had passed between them, she looked away from him. There was a constriction in her throat as she said, “I don’t.”

He reached out to touch her cheek with work-roughened fingers. “That is something. Can you not trust me in this matter of the wedding also?”

“You tricked me before when you arranged it so that I became your slave.”

“Not this time.”

“You — you have said what must be, what you want, but you have not asked me what I want.”

He trailed one finger to her chin, pressing it upward so that she had to meet his dark gaze. “What is it you want, Elise?”

The warmth of his touch, his nearness sent a small shiver along her nerves that seemed to lodge in the lower part of her body. Her lips parted, but no words came.

When she did not speak, he said softly, “Is it so hard to say? Shall I help you? You despise me, what I am and what I have done, and yet you respond to me. If it were not for pride and fear—”

“I am not afraid of you!” she cried in distress, wrenching away from him.

“Not of me, but of what may happen if you admit to desire, if you allow yourself to come close, to accept what I offer you.”

“You leave me so little choice.” The words should have been a shout, but were instead a whisper.

“That is so.”

“There — there is no reason for this.”

“The Great Sun thinks otherwise. He considers it best, for both of us as well as for the Natchez.”

She spun back to face him. “He what?”

“My brother,” Reynaud said, his gaze intent upon her flushed face, “thinks we are suited, as do I.”

What had been said between the two men? She wished she knew. “I — I don’t know what to think.”

“Don’t, then, only feel.”

“If — if I agree, I will make you miserable.”

“No. I intend to safeguard my own happiness by assuring yours in all things. Shall I bid the others enter now?”

What might she have said to his proposal if she had not known it was his brother’s idea, if he had not been so quick to reassure her that it was not binding? She was not sure, and yet in her mind lingered the memory of the Great Sun hinting that she was in love with his brother. Was she? No. It was impossible. What she felt was a natural attraction to the man who had brought her release from her fear of physical love. Attraction. Desire. That was all. But they were powerful emotions, for she trembled inside with them.

Did she consent to the marriage? She did not remember it. Regardless, the audience waiting outside crowded into the hut. The women took Elise aside where they combed her hair and braided it with blue beads and freshwater pearls. They released the knots of her skirt and cape, whisking them away and replacing them with others of soft, white doeskin sewn with more blue beads and pearls. Kneeling before her, Tattooed Arm put her gift of soft, white slipper-like moccasins, also beaded, onto Elise’s feet. A small branch of laurel was placed in her left hand and a sheaf of maize in her right, representing fidelity and fecundity.

Across the room, Reynaud was being dressed in like fashion. He wore his cape and breechclout of woven swansdown, and braided in his hair was a tuft of red swan feathers and a sprig of oak leaves. The first signified that he was no longer free, the second showed that he would not fear going into the forest, but would supply his wife with all the game they would require. In his hand he held his bow and arrow as symbols of his vow to protect and defend his new wife.

Elise and Reynaud stood before the elders and answered the questions that were put to them. Afterward a bride gift exchanged hands, only a token since she had no family there to receive it, though Little Quail and the wives of the Great Sun acted the role as they had in the protesting of her ritual capture.

Then came the moment when the maize was taken from her and Reynaud clasped her right hand. His voice deep, he asked, “Do you want me as your husband?”

Elise, staring into the gray darkness of his eyes, answered, repeating after Little Quail in the Natchez tongue the proper reply: “I want it very much and I am happy. Love me as much as I love you! I do not love and will never love anyone except you.”

Reynaud, watching her face and hearing the softly spoken words, wondered how much she understood of what she said. For a fleeting moment, the wish that he had conducted this affair differently came to him. And yet them had been so little time. He had what he wanted; he must be content. His voice steady, he repeated the simple vow.

There was more: a threat of banishment from the family if they did not live together in peace and happiness. Then came the small feast spread by the women and the dancing. Elise did not remember what she ate or who had danced. She only knew that Reynaud sat beside her, holding her hands in his warm grasp.

Finally it was done; the last, toothless old woman, smiling hugely, was helped out the door. Pierre and Little Quail wandered off with their arms about each other. The voices of their well-wishers faded into the night.

The hut suddenly seemed huge. In the silence could be heard the distant call of an owl, the peeping of frogs hatched in the wet, warming weather in preparation for spring, the lonely sound of a cane whistle played in a minor key. Reynaud stepped around to extinguish the swaying lamps, to bank the fire. Elise, in elaborate housewifely concern, moved to test the bed furs and the fresh matting of straw that they covered.

She wished with an abrupt, fierce longing that this was a true wedding, her first and therefore her first wedding night. She wished that she could have had something pretty to wear like the soft nightgown that had been left behind at Reynaud’s house. It would have been so lovely if she had had the trousseau that other women had to celebrate their nuptials: the daintily embroidered underclothing, the demure but enticing nightgowns. It was not that she cared overmuch for such things; it was only that she would have wished to have some appearance of a bride.

Reynaud came to stand behind her, drawing her back to lean against him. One hand cradled her arm while the other gently held her rib cage just under her breast with his thumb grazing its softness. Against her ear, he murmured, “Tired,
untsaya
athlu?”

Wife of my heart
. “No. Are you?” After all, he had been working on the wall since early morning.

“No.”

His voice vibrated in his chest against her. He released her rib cage to lift his hand to her cheek, turning her head and bending to lower his mouth to hers. Warm and sweet was his kiss, with an undercurrent of swift exhilaration.

Desire, love, duty — which of these compelled either of them? Did it matter so long as the blood ran warm and turbulent in their veins and they were alone together in the night? Elise relaxed against Reynaud with a sigh, letting her anger and her reluctance go.

She raised her hand, tangling her fingers in his duck hair, drawing his head down so that her mouth burned with the pressure. His tongue touched hers, faintly rough against the infinite sensitivity of her own. She met it, teasing, softly caressing, shamelessly inviting his deeper penetration.

He drew in his breath, raising his head to look at her. She gazed back, her amber-brown eyes liquid with desire in the dim, fire-lit hut.

“Elise,” he whispered.

The dark fire of answering passion leaped into his eyes. His fingers sought the knot of her short shoulder cape, untying it with practiced ease before searching out the fastening of her skirt low on her hip. As he loosened it and let it fall, she turned in the circle of his arms to find and release the leather thong that held up his breechclout.

Together they stood, their bodies bronze and cream, gilded, enameled by the play of gold-and-blue firelight on their skin. As shameless as pagans, they observed each other. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered, touching the back of one finger to the curve of her jaw, the turn of her arm, the flat of her stomach.

She rested her fingers on the muscled width of his shoulders, trailing them upward along the column of his neck to touch lightly the high cheekbones of his face. “As are you.”

Drawn irresistibly, they moved against each other pressing close, breast to breast, thigh against thigh, mouth to mouth. His aims tightened until she could scarcely breathe. She clasped her arms closer around his neck, molding herself to him, driving her body against his until she could feel the taut nipples of her breasts digging into him. She moved her lips on his with a sound like a sob deep in her throat; he drew in his breath, brushing a hand lower down her back to hold her to the pulsing heat of his loins.

Spark and tinder, they caught flame, straining closer still, their mouths slanting, devouring. It was a consuming conflagration that made them sway, absorbed and absorbing, unable to think of anything except the urgency of the need that gripped them.

He stepped over to the bench, putting a knee on it, carrying her locked in his arm as he sank down upon it. He rolled to his side, burying his face in her neck to breath in the scent of her. His hand smoothed the curve of her hip, the slender turn of her waist, sliding upward to her breast. His thumb brushed the trembling peak before he bent his head to take it into the warm adhesion of his mouth.

She moved nearer, offering herself without restraint. His fingers pressed into her, holding her still. He lifted his head with a groan of despair. “Elise, I need you so … If you don’t — if you encourage me too much, I won’t be able to wait.”

“Don’t, then,” she whispered and opened her thighs, pressing upon the firm and heated length of him.

With a twist of his hips, he accepted her invitation, plunging deep. Moist and resilient, she felt that sudden entry with an internal shiver of ecstasy that radiated upward to the surface of her skin in a prickling of gooseflesh. Warm and liquid, she moved to accommodate his quick, hard thrusts, accepting, returning, giving. Her heartbeat quickened, beginning to pound as she felt his hand upon her, his fingers touching her where their bodies were joined, increasing her pleasure.

She wanted, needed, to take him deeper still. With their legs entwined, she let him press her to her back. Her hands swept over him, taking delight in the power of his corded muscles and sinews. She felt the ridges of the scars on his back. An empathetic pain for them filled her and she wrapped herself closer in an agony of full and tender yearning.

Together they strove, reaching for, coming near to, the instant of perfect communion. It beckoned, a bright and silent explosion of purest pleasure. Elise sensed its approach, its imminent contact. Closer it came. Closer still.

“Love me, Reynaud,” she whispered, recognizing her deepest need. And knowing he would not fail, she let the terrible joy of it take her, trembling, into the brightness.

Had he heard her soft plea? The night was long and filled with love in all its many aspects, soft and hard, tender and violent, and yet when morning came Elise could not be certain. There was warmth in his eyes and in his touch. He watched her with a smile playing about his mouth as she prepared a sketchy breakfast with only her skirt knotted around her hips in the fashion of the Indian women on rising. He pretended to help her comb her hair and braid it for the opportunity of touching the silken strands. He was more hindrance than help though as he insisted on spreading them over her breasts and searching for the nipples with his tongue through the fine and shining filaments of her tresses. He watched her from under his lashes as he made ready to go out to work on the wall. But he said nothing.

He was at the door, ready to pull it open through its supports, when he turned back. “Tell me something.”

“Certainly, if I can.” She gave him a smile over her shoulder as she tied her short cape into place.

“You accepted my offer of marriage, but refused my brother’s. Why?”

She sent him an incredulous look. “You know of it?”

“I know. Why did you refuse?”

“I hardly know your brother!”

“But he is the Great Sun.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed? All that means to me is that I would have the honor of being strangled third in line if he should die.”

“The same could be applied to me, only you would be first.” He watched her with a fight feeling in his chest. What had he expected her to say? That was a foolish question; he had wanted her to repeat the words she had whispered the night before. He wanted to know that she needed him, that her whispered cry had not been the result of nothing more than gratitude, mere bed-fur affection. He should have known better.