Moon Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (10 page)

      
“No, I don't, but I do like some of your food.” A heavenly blend of aromas wafted across the room as he lifted the linen cloth from the tray. With a flourish he seated her and began to dish up the feast.

      
As they ate in companionable silence, she found that she was indeed ravenous and wondered idly if making love always used up so much energy. Madame Flamenco was too embarrassed to ask, however, for fear of her husband's teasing. She decided on a safer topic. “How long will it take us to reach New Orleans?”

      
“It depends on the weather,” he said as he cracked a large, succulent lobster claw. “Several weeks this time of year, I'd estimate. We'll have a real Creole honeymoon.”

      
At her look of puzzlement, he explained. “Traditionally, a Creole couple spends the first five days after the wedding in a private bedroom in her parents' house. They are left completely alone. Not even servants intrude except to leave food trays at the door and bring bathwater.”

      
Deborah was speechless for a moment as the realization sank in—they were virtually in the same situation, alone on the high seas with only the ship's stewards in attendance.

      
Seeing his devilish pleasure in teasing her, she retorted, “Well, I have a head start in being a proper Creole wife. I suppose the custom was necessary to allow partners in an arranged marriage to become acquainted after rather than before the wedding. A way of making up for lost time.”

      
He reached across the small table and took her hand, then planted a sensuous kiss in the soft palm. “Oh, I plan to have us become very, very well acquainted before we reach New Orleans.”

      
In spite of herself, Deborah could feel her face heating again. Changing the subject she said, “Tell me more about your family. I have so much to learn.”
Oh, damnation! There I go again with my silly goose tongue!

      
Rafael laughed softly at her unintentional double entendre but answered straightforwardly. “As I already said, I am my father's only heir. That means I have a great deal of responsibility.”

      
“I thought you said you had a sister?”

      
“Yes, Lenore, a beautiful child. You will like her. She has blue eyes and hair like old Spanish gold. A throwback to Mama's French ancestors, or the Castilian side of Papa's family.”

      
“Won't she be your father's heir, too?”

      
He smiled dismissively. “No, not in the way you are your father's heir. She will make a good marriage into a proper Creole family and have a large dowry settled on her at the time the wedding contract is written. It has been understood for years that she will marry our third cousin from Mama's side of the family, Georges Beaurivage. But I have no brothers, so I alone must carry on the Flamenco name.”

      
Deborah didn't like his fondly patronizing attitude toward Lenore and she liked the role he intimated for her even less. “And, as your wife, I am to provide you with lots of male children for the next generation of Flamencos.”

      
He noticed her tone and acknowledged it with a question. “You do want children, don't you, Deborah?”

      
“Of course I do, but I think girls are just as welcome as boys and I'd love to have both.” She forced herself to look into those unsettling black eyes.

      
His smile would have melted Arctic icecaps. “We will,
ma petite
. You don t realize how much we dote upon our daughters. Lenore was always our papa's favorite. But girls cannot carry on the family name or manage business affairs.”

      
She let the latter remark pass. It was a sore subject since she had often argued with her own father about working in his bank. It seemed he and his son-in-law agreed on at least one matter! “I suppose Creole honeymoon customs do guarantee a head start in producing lots of heirs!”

      
He threw back his head and laughed as he began to rise from the table. “I never considered it just so, my practical New England wife, but you may well be right. Come here and let us do our proper Creole duty.” His eyes were glowing with a different light now and his hands on her shoulders were warm and compelling. She could refuse him nothing.

* * * *

      
Their shipboard honeymoon was every bit as cloistered as if they had been a traditional Creole bride and groom. Even more so because they were on neutral territory, so to speak, not in her family's home, nor in his, but in the midst of the ocean. All their fellow travelers were strangers, so the two of them were completely dependent upon each other for company. It was a delightful idyll for Deborah, who found her initiation into the physical pleasures of marriage breathtaking. There was so much to learn and Rafael was a skillful and patient teacher, overcoming her prim Boston inhibitions and convincing her that she was indeed beautiful and desirable.

      
Deborah had always thought of herself as unconventional looking, if not downright unattractive and unappealing. Nonetheless, she obviously appealed to her husband, who made love to her during the scandalous hours of broad daylight, as well as under the respectable veil of night. She found herself more and more drawn into his sensual web. Indeed, when he put his hands on her and kissed her with sweet abandon, she felt herself oblivious to all the principles, ideals, and causes that had heretofore shaped her life.

      
Since Rafael had been initiated into sexual pleasure at the age of fourteen, he did not find their lovemaking new, but the way he felt toward his wife was disturbingly different from what he had felt toward any other woman. His discovery that he loved her had been a shock, but even more troublesome was the way she filled his thoughts. It was delightful to trade witticisms with her, to debate and enjoy her lightning quick intelligence. Even when he felt her opinions woefully wrongheaded, he admired the logical way she could defend them. For the first time in his young life, he was intrigued by a woman's complete personality, not just her body.

      
He was a man most blessed, especially considering that most Creole men married teary-eyed virgins who lay cold and stiff in their marriage beds, merely doing their duty. His own parents had such a relationship. Yet, his intense emotional involvement with Deborah left him distinctly uneasy. No woman should have this much power over his heart and mind. With the careless optimism of spoiled youth, Rafael simply decided to enjoy the delectable honeymoon and face the problem of Deborah's place in his life after they arrived in New Orleans. Once he was back in his own world, surrounded by people and customs he understood, he would be able to put this obsession in perspective.

      
Rafael looked forward to their arrival in New Orleans, but Deborah dreaded it more as the distance lessened. She feared his parents' reaction to a Yankee. To humor her, Rafael agreed to switch their conversation exclusively to French. Then, she barraged him with questions about the whole social registry of Creole New Orleans. It was a cast of thousands that made her head swim.

      
“I shall never be able to remember all your relatives,” she wailed one morning as he described a boyhood prank he and several of his male cousins had played on their female counterparts. “Was Jean the same one you took fencing lessons with?”

      
He put down his coffee cup as he answered, “Yes. He and I were often in trouble together. He is my Uncle Francois's eldest son, the oldest of six boys and three girls.”

      
She noted a fleeting expression of regret pass across his face. “All your father's siblings seem to run to large families, especially to boys.” Suddenly, recalling that Rafael was his father's only son, she wished she had not said that.

      
However, he shrugged philosophically. “Yes, it would seem my parents were not so blessed as the rest of the Flamencos and Beaurivages. We shall simply have to remedy the situation in the next generation,” he added with a grin.

      
She smiled, conjuring up images of dark cherubic faces with glowing black eyes and bouncing black curls. “I can picture half a dozen small replicas of you, God help the women of this world,” she said teasingly.

      
“Ah, beloved, I'd rather think of tiny gilt-haired daughters, as dainty as porcelain princesses,” he replied. “God help the men of this world.”

      
“I do wonder what our children will look like. You said your mother has chestnut hair and your sister is a blonde. You must take after the Spanish branch.” She blushed, and confessed, “I first imagined you were some sort of romantic figure from the past, a conquistador riding on a white horse.”

      
Rafael threw back his head and laughed. “Well, it's true I do resemble my Spanish forebears. Grandfather Flamenco used to tell me about our illustrious ancestors from Toledo. Our family name and coat of arms was granted to a mercenary who served with the Duke of Alva in the religious wars of the fifteen seventies. Flamenco means Fleming in Spanish.”

      
Deborah's eyes widened. “You mean your ancestor served with Ferdinand Alvarez, the ‘Bloody Duke,’ on his reign of terror in Holland and Flanders?”

      
He smiled darkly. “Leave it to you to know every detail of history, even one best forgotten. I suppose Alva was an unpleasant sort, and my ancestor probably was too.”

      
She sniffed in conciliation. “Well, it is best forgotten by the Spanish because they lost the war. Anyway, that was over two hundred and fifty years ago.”

      
With an exaggerated leer, he rose from the breakfast table. “Still, you never know. I may be a throwback, another bloodthirsty ravisher of women, worse than Alva.”

      
She chuckled and threw her arms around his neck, happy to forget the tangled web of the past. If they loved each other enough, nothing else would matter, not even those thousands of relatives.

Chapter Six

      
They would be landing in less than an hour. Rafael had gone above deck to talk to the captain and Deborah was finishing the last of their packing. She scooped up a satin robe and began to fold it, then discovered Rafael's razor strop lying beneath it. He must have forgotten it when he shaved earlier that morning. She picked it up and walked over to the small bag in which he carried his toilet articles. Opening the bag, she placed the strop inside and attempted to refasten it. It would not lock. Puzzled, Deborah reopened it and riffled through its contents. A long velvet case was jammed edgewise in the bottom. She pulled it free and it popped open in her hand, spilling its contents across his shaving gear.

      
“Scrimshaw,” she murmured to herself. It was a beautiful necklace, earring, and comb set of etched ivory whale's teeth. A gift for his mother? Shrugging, she placed the jewelry back in the case and laid it lengthwise in the bottom of the bag, then rearranged everything so the valise would close.

      
Idly, Deborah wondered if Rafael's Creole mother would appreciate such a uniquely New England gift.
Or, more to the point, will she appreciate a New England daughter-in-law?
She critically studied her outfit, a simple but elegant lilac silk suit and navy blouse. She assured herself Rafael's family would like it; she prayed they would like her.

      
Looking out the window at the shore, Deborah could see the landscape changing as they moved from the delta upriver. The flat, marshy, coastal plain was giving way to awesome stands of cypress draped with long, airy tentacles of Spanish moss. The dense swamp forest was alien and eerie to her New England eyes; but as they had come closer to the city, Rafael identified magnolia and pecan trees for her, exotic and truly beautiful in this subtropical paradise. Louisiana was enchanting. Her adventurous spirit and natural curiosity would have been piqued if she had not felt so much was at stake. As Rafael's wife, she must make this foreign land her home. Her worst fear was adjusting to his family. The exotic environment only added to her sense of apprehension.

      
Rafael entered their cabin while she was peering out the window. “Why not come above deck and see everything firsthand?”

      
Surprised out of her reverie, Deborah turned with a small gasp. Before she could speak, he gave her a swift kiss and took her arm, escorting her to the deck to meet the Queen of the South, Belle New Orleans.

      
Deborah could hear and smell the strange new sounds and odors even before the panorama of the waterfront unfolded. As they climbed the ship's stairs to the main deck, the babble of at least half a dozen languages melded together, some recognizable, others not. Aromas from around the earth mingled with the familiar salt smell of waterfronts everywhere. Heat hung in the humid air like damp clothes stretched on a line, mingling the odors of fermenting molasses with Oriental spices and West Indian rum with overripe fruit. It was perfume. It was pestilence.

      
Once more in his element, Rafael breathed deeply. He was wearing a lightweight cream linen suit and thin silk shirt, clothes that had marked him as a foreigner in Boston's chill. Now, it was Deborah who was dressed inappropriately. She could feel the perspiration seep through the layers of her clothes and dampen the nape of her neck where her heavy hair was pinned in a loose chignon. She hoped she could get used to the heat.

      
As Rafael helped her take the last step from the gangplank onto solid ground, he squeezed her hand and said, “Welcome to New Orleans, Mrs. Flamenco.” He watched her wide lavender eyes gaze around the bustling wharves that were filled with barrels of tobacco from upriver Louisiana, gleaming bins of coal from Pittsburgh, mountains of paving stones from Liverpool, and, most conspicuous of all, bales of cotton and casks of sugar.