Moon Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (23 page)

      
Rafael was just coming from another miserable dinner-table battle with his teary mother and tight-lipped father, both insisting that he do something about Deborah. On several occasions, he and Claude had discussed the possibility of an annulment, a drastic recourse that earlier would have shocked Celine. Now even she saw it as a lesser evil than continuing his marriage. He had let them talk, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, confused over his own feelings and most uncertain about his wife's.

      
Just then he looked up and saw her coming down the stairs, dressed in a traveling costume of rose silk, carrying two suitcases. Placing one booted foot firmly on the bottom step to block her path, he asked, “Just what in the hell do you think you're doing?”

      
“That should be obvious, Rafael. I'm leaving you.”
Don't cry, damn you! Stay in control.

      
He quirked one brow in mock amazement. “And just where will you go? Back to your beloved father?”

      
“Yes.” He loves me. You don't.

      
“Like hell!” Her cool self-possessed answer sent ripples of fury coursing through him. And to think only moments ago he was debating ending the marriage!
Fool. As if I could ever let her go, no matter what she does!
He reached up and yanked the bags from her, tossing them carelessly to the floor.

      
“You can't make me stay, Rafael,” she said mutinously. “You don't want me.”

      
“You're my wife and I always keep what's mine, Deborah.” With that he drew her roughly into his arms and ground his mouth down over hers in a fierce, possessive kiss. He could feel her resistance, stiff and unyielding, her lips pursed closed. He continued to savage them as he held her tightly pressed against his chest while his hands roamed with insistent familiarity across her back, down her buttocks, around to cup and massage her breasts. When she gasped for breath in his bruising hold, he plunged his tongue inside her mouth to tease and tantalize.

      
She began to weaken, first trembling with the urgent need to salvage her wounded pride, then gradually as desire overrode shame, she opened to him with a small moan of surrender. He could feel her response as her arms slipped around his shoulders and her tongue entwined with his. Once sure of his hold on her, he gentled the kisses and caresses, slowly, languidly making love to her with his mouth and hands.

      
When he could hold off no longer, he scooped her into his arms and carried her back upstairs, taking the long, steep steps quickly in his haste to reach their bed. “Let me show you how much I want you,” he whispered.
Let me show you how much I love you
.

Chapter Thirteen

      
It was the opening night of the opera and Deborah was late. She hated to go, but it was expected that the Flamenco family put in an appearance, especially Rafael and his notorious Yankee wife.
We must put on the facade of a happily married couple to quell the gossip,
she thought bitterly as Tonette fussed with her hair.

      
Deborah sat disconsolately before the large mirror in her room, staring at her reflection. She had used creams and even powder, but the deep purple smudges beneath her enormous eyes would not go away. She looked haunted.
It's because I
am
haunted by the nightmare my life’s become in the past six months.

      
“Monsieur Flamenco will find you most beautiful, madam,” Tonette said as she let the last springy coil of silver-gilt hair fall artfully to Deborah's shoulder. The elaborate style was set with pearls twined through it to match the seed pearls on the neckline and sleeves of her soft rose silk gown. Despite the pallor of her cheeks, she looked ethereally lovely.

      
“I hope so, Tonette,” she replied levelly.
I am beautiful to him—a beautiful thing, a mindless ornament for his pleasure. I must only do my duty and breed for him, that's all.
She rose and picked up her fan and wrap, then headed with leaden feet to join the rest of the family in the parlor.

      
Ever since she had tried to leave him at the lake house last summer, Rafael had resumed his attentions to her in bed. They slept together; but if they were passion-enslaved lovers by night, they were distant strangers by day. An uneasy truce had been gradually established in the Flamenco household. Claude and Celine were icily civil to her in return for her acquiescence as Rafael's wife.

      
She never again attempted to leave her husband after he informed her precisely of his legal rights. He could drag her out of Adam Manchester's very house—in the unlikely event she got that far. No one could shelter a runaway wife if her husband wanted her back. And Rafael had made it clear that he did want her, at least physically. Under the law, she had no more say in her life than did a Congo slave.

      
In spite of her hurt and resentment at Rafael's high-handedness, Deborah desperately wanted her relationship with her husband to return to what it had been when they were first married. They must find a way to recapture the magic, the love.

      
A child might bring us close,
she thought wistfully. However, even in that most basic duty Deborah was proving an unsatisfactory Creole wife. Rafael made love to her every night, yet she did not quicken.
Perhaps I’m barren,
she thought sadly, then forced the disquieting thought from her mind as she walked down the long hall.

      
When she entered the parlor, Rafael saluted her coolly by raising his crystal glass of sherry the tiniest bit, then sipping it as he watched her with brooding midnight eyes. “Your gown is superb,” he said with the voice of a connoisseur. A small smile tipped his lips as he watched her flush at his inspection, which lingered overlong on her décolletage. He took her arm proprietarily and said, “Shall we go, my love?”

      
When they arrived at the opera house, Orleans Street between Bourbon and Royal was jammed with vehicles and pedestrians, everyone splendidly attired in their finery for the beginning of the New Orleans social season. Because of the press of carriages, the Flamencos had to wait their turn to pull up the short block in front of the theater.

      
Since it had been a dry fall, the streets were mercifully free of mud and easily traversable. A number of elegantly dressed Free People of Color were making their way along the street to the special theater entrance reserved for them. The second tier of the Orleans had been their exclusive domain for many years and no white would ever have intruded. The separation of colored and white by floors comprised a racial layer cake with many a wealthy Creole gentleman seated on the first floor with his white family, while his quadroon or octoroon family sat directly above him.

      
It was a warm evening and the Flamencos had taken an open carriage, affording them an excellent view of the kaleidoscope of humanity on its way to the gala. Looking out over the press of pedestrians, Celine said, “Some of the costumes for tonight's performance came directly from Paris, so Madame du May says. The lead soprano—” She stopped in mid-sentence and emitted a small, quickly stifled gasp as she turned her head and fanned herself furiously. Claude coughed and initiated a rather inane discussion with Rafael about the sugar harvest.

      
Sensing the undercurrent, Deborah's eyes scanned the crowd her mother-in-law had been surveying. The sight of two young men, elegantly dressed and startlingly handsome, riveted her to the carriage seat. If she had thought Georges Beaurivage resembled her husband, the two tall, slim men passing on the opposite side of the narrow street were his doubles—and they were most obviously Free Men of Color! With a sinking sensation, Deborah realized that the older woman they escorted was the source of Celine's upset. The quadroon was tall and slim, youthful looking but probably past forty. Her tawny skin was clear, her aquiline features strong and flawless. Beautiful gold coin eyes flashed as she laughed lightly at a riposte from one of the young men. The trio swept inside the theater, oblivious to the Flamenco carriage.

      
Intuition told Deborah that the sophisticated woman was the mother of those two young men. Obviously, Claude Flamenco was their father.
Why am I so shocked
, she thought to herself, feeling Rafael's eyes on her.

      
She had not lived in New Orleans for nearly eight months without learning about the demimonde and the shadow world of second families fathered by wealthy Creole gentlemen. A seasoned roué such as Claude Flamenco would certainly partake of such fleshly pleasures. Rafael had half brothers, the additional sons that Celine had been unable to give Claude. But they were sons who could not carry on the Flamenco name. A great many things were now beginning to make sense to Deborah—the underlying tension between Claude and Celine and the way Lenore had always avoided the subject of her father's overnight absences. Deborah tried to stop the logical progression of her thoughts, which moved from Claude to Rafael.

      
He must not have a beautiful young quadroon.
I’m not an unresponsive, frivolous wife like Celine. I must hold his interest!
Surely, all he had done since they were married was visit some of the elegant bordellos in the city when he was displeased with her, nothing more binding—certainly not another family. After all, he was only twenty-two years old!

      
Numbly, she took her husband's hand and allowed him to assist her down from the carriage at the front door of the theater. Celine's chatter resumed with forced brightness. For the first time, Deborah felt a stirring of pity for her mother-in-law.

      
Rafael swore to himself as he watched Deborah's face pale and freeze when she saw Damon and Paul, then their mother.
She knows, damn!
He cursed Flamenco heredity that always seemed to make the males in the mirror image of their fathers, regardless of who the mothers might be. If only she understood Creole social conventions. He laughed bitterly to himself. If only she were a proper Creole wife.

      
When he felt her trembling, he wished that he did not love her so obsessively.

* * * *

      
“All right, out with it—what's upset you so, Deborah? You're pale and jumpy as a cat.” Lenore sat pouring tea in her parlor while her sister-in-law fidgeted. They spoke English, as they did on all Deborah's visits, since Lenore insisted on perfecting her fluency in her husband's native tongue.

      
“I have a question to ask you, Lenore. One no proper Creole lady would ever ask.” Deborah took a cup from Lenore and downed several sips of the hot, spicy beverage to fortify her courage.

      
A warning look came into Lenore’s calm blue eyes. “Why is it I feel this might be a question better left unanswered?”

      
“I have to know. I haven't been able to sleep since I saw them three nights ago at the opera. Oh, Lenore, they look exactly like Rafael, both of them!”

      
Lenore set her cup down. “I take it you saw two of Rafael's half brothers,” she said gently.

      
“Two? You mean there are more?”

      
“Four. Sophie gave Papa all the sons Mama could not.”

      
Deborah almost dropped her cup. “How can you be so—so calm about it? How can you accept such behavior from your own father?”

      
“I grew up with it, Deborah. Although it's never spoken of, we know. We overhear servants' gossip, whispers at the opera, we see. We're just supposed to pretend we don't know—or care,” she finished bitterly. “I love my father, but...”

      
Deborah picked up her sister-in-law's unfinished thought. “You would never want to marry a man like him—or like your brother.”

      
Placing her arm around Deborah's shoulder, Lenore said, “I only meant that I can love Papa without excusing his behavior. And I know that Mama never...” She flushed and continued. “Well, she never enjoyed his attentions. I actually think she was glad when he went elsewhere.”

      
“How can any woman want her husband to give another woman children? To have another family—a divided loyalty?”

      
Lenore took a deep breath, realizing she must prepare her vulnerable sister-in-law for the inevitable. “I remember when I first found out about our half brothers—I was twelve years old. I went to the market with Wilma and several other servants. Tonette and I were just children, more ignored than anything else. We slipped off to watch the glass blowers while the older servants made their purchases. I came back sooner than expected, I guess.

      
“Strange, how a child can sense when to keep silent, knowing she's hearing something forbidden. Wilma and the stall-keepers were speculating as to whether Sophie or Mama would sooner have another of Papa's babies. I'd grown up knowing about the
placées
, but I'd never connected such a practice with my papa. When I got home, I ran sobbing to find Mama and begged her to tell me they were lying. I'll never forget her face. For the first time I could remember, she didn't cosset me. She took me into her sitting room and closed the door. Then, she began to explain some things to me, things she coldly told me would never be mentioned again. And, she was right. She never again spoke of Sophie, and I certainly never tried to bring up the subject!”

      
“But you've heard other gossip?” Deborah asked. “Some of it more recent?”

      
Lenore sighed, “I suppose you'll pursue this until you have all the answers, won't you? No matter how painful.”