Moon Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (25 page)

      
“Whut yo frettin' ‘bout, Miz Debra?” Wilma's round black face creased in a frown. “Not still worryin' ‘bout babies, is yo? Be happenin' by 'n by. Doan be givin' up, thas all.”

      
Deborah replied in a flustered voice, “No, Wilma, I'm not worried about that. I know it takes time.” She looked up at Guy, who was driving the wagon, but quickly realized that like all the other Flamenco slaves, he spoke only French. She and Wilma could have a private conversation. There was a question she wanted to ask of the kindly older woman, who was the only other person in the Flamenco household not born into Creole culture. “Wilma, do you think—that is... ” She stuttered to a halt, mortified at how to ask such an indelicate thing.

      
“Whut yo be wantin' ta know? ‘Bout birthin' babies?” Her face split in a broad grin now. “Doan be listenin' ta Miz Celine. It be easy.”

      
“Oh, it's not that, Wilma. I just wondered when a woman gets pregnant”—she paused and reddened again—“well, she gets fat and unattractive...I don't even know if she can...I mean, would it hurt the baby if...”

      
Wilma nodded in dawning understanding. Small wonder the mistress feared, with a handsome devil of a husband who had half the women in New Orleans at his beck and call. Smiling, she reassured the young woman. “No, Miz Debra. It be fine foah ever'one—mama, papa, 'n baby. Doan fret. Ya jist gits yoself in a family way 'n keeps on doin' it!” She stopped for a minute and then asked, “Be thinkin' yo might have somethin' ta tell Massah Rafael?”

      
“I—I'm not sure yet. I've only missed once, and I want to be positive.”
I also want him to desire me while I'm pregnant.

      
With these thoughts whirling around in her mind, Deborah bargained half-heartedly with the German butcher. She could see Wilma watching her speculatively as she paid too much for the spicy sausage. Flustered, she said, “Here, you take these and then go down to the vegetable stalls. I'll get the oysters from Adolfo and meet you there.”

      
Ordinarily, Deborah loved the sights and smells of the market. Its cosmopolitan bustle was balm to her soul, hearing German, Italian and English spoken. At times, she thought if she heard one more word of French she'd scream. At least she had persuaded Rafael to use English when they were alone together, a major concession to her, she had to admit. “Everything in my life centers around Rafael, damn him! If only I didn't love him so much,” she muttered.

      
As she perused the shrimp and oyster bins, Deborah became uncomfortably aware that she was being watched. Perhaps, she should not have sent Guy with Wilma, she thought in annoyance, turning to give a cold, withering stare to another insolent Creole roué as she had to do so frequently. When she saw who was staring at her, she froze.

      
The most beautiful Woman of Color she had ever seen stood not twenty feet from her. She was tiny and voluptuous with delicate bone structure and regal bearing. Lustrous raven hair was swept high into a magnificent coil on top of her head. The fathomless gold eyes were enormous, fringed with thick lashes. They radiated hate.

      
Deborah almost recoiled from the venomous look Lily Duvall gave her, but her shock at the woman's nerve was compounded when her eyes caught and held at Lily's throat. Her long, lacquered nails stroked the gleaming patina of an ivory necklace—a unique, heavy piece of scrimshaw that Deborah instantly recognized. The matching earrings swayed gently from her tiny earlobes.
It's the necklace and earring set I found in Rafael's valise on shipboard!
At last the mystery of what he'd done with it was solved.

      
Lily had watched the beautiful silver blonde walking through the market stalls. She was tall for a woman, but then Rafael was tall for a man. Although she refused to admit it, Lily knew her slaves had lied. The Yankee's large violet eyes were thickly fringed with dark gold lashes and her patrician bone structure was exquisite. A gently curving figure was concealed in the rather plain cotton dress, but Lily knew it was a good one. Nothing, however, compared with the hair—like sun and moon blazing and shimmering as she moved. Lily had never seen hair that color. Here was a far more dangerous rival than she could have ever conjured up in her worst nightmare.

      
When she noted the way Deborah's face paled as her eyes traveled from the necklace to the earrings, Lily suddenly realized that Deborah must recognize the set. Yes! Rafael had said it was made by Boston whalers. His bride must have known he bought it. Now, she knew for whom he bought it! Lily glided toward the statuesque form frozen at the oyster bin, saying nothing but daring much. As she strolled ever so slowly past her taller adversary, she stared at Deborah, taking in her uncoiffed hair and drab day dress with insolent assessment written plainly across her face.

      
Addressing her houseboy in a clear voice that carried back to Deborah, she said, ‘‘Come along, Jules, I have better things to do than spend my day in the market.”

      
She knew the message she had sent to Rafael would bring him to Rampart Street that evening. Melanie would arrive from St. Louis today.

* * * *

      
Rafael swore as he scanned the note, then tore it up and tossed it carelessly into the fireplace. “Bad enough Deborah's acting wounded and morose all afternoon, refusing to tell me what's wrong, now this!”

      
Claude watched his long-legged son eat up the carpet with his agitated pacing. He knew the note must be from Lily. “After a brief truce, it seems you and your ‘bride’ have once more drawn the battle lines,” he said with his usual sarcasm. “I had hoped before she once more drove you to quit her bed you might at least get her breeding.”

      
Rafael looked distractedly at his father, lounging with indolent ease in his favorite chair. “Papa, I have to go out tonight. Let matters between Deborah and me remain private.”

      
“You go to Lily.” The old man said it without inflecting a question. He knew how a man could need solace from a cold wife.

      
“I go to see my daughter.” He swore and finished off his brandy, preparing to leave the room.

      
“Better look to legal heirs, not those kissed by the tar brush, Rafael,” the old man said dryly.

      
Pausing with his hand on the door, his son quirked one brow and said, “I may already have taken care of that matter, too. I suspect my wife's ill humor and recent bouts of morning indisposition may indicate she has news for us—in her own good time.” With that surprising announcement, he left the old man to nurse his brandy alone.

      
In fact, Rafael only hoped that what he had said was true. Deborah had been moody for the past several weeks and he knew that she had been sick yesterday morning; but he was far from certain she was
enceinte
. He had planned to wait her out instead of questioning her directly, not wanting to make her feel she was only a brood mare. He had hurt her grievously last summer, telling her she had a duty to give his family heirs. As much as he did want children with her, he had not really meant it the way anger had made it come out.

      
After she had tried to leave him, he had admitted to himself that he could not imagine life without her.
I love her too much ever to give her up,
he thought grimly as he swung onto his big black stallion at the rear entrance of their quarters.
Annulment, indeed,
he snorted to himself, arrogantly assured he'd keep what was his.

* * * *

      
Deborah sat pressed against the side of the coach with her heart in her throat. Huddled in the shadows, her bright hair hidden beneath a dark veil, she watched Rafael ride away from the house, then leaned out and instructed the hack driver, “That's the man. Follow him and I'll pay you as we agreed.”

      
The following morning, Deborah arose leaden-eyed and aching but determined to look her best for the forthcoming confrontation. She rang for Tonette and had a hot bath drawn. All had gone smoothly last night. She knew where Lily lived.

      
When the carriage pulled up in front of the small white house on Rampart Street, it was nearly noon. Deborah checked her appearance once more, smoothing her carefully coiled hair with one gloved hand. She had dressed in her best new suit of deep violet velvet and wore her amethyst jewelry. The necklace and earrings were ornately elegant and would put the scrimshaw set to shame.
Let me look every inch the part of a Flamenco lady
, she thought grimly. After all, she was the wife, the one with legal rights as well as moral ones!

      
“Good day,
Mademoiselle
Duvall,” Deborah stressed the unmarried title with cool disdain, then swept past Rafael's petite mistress into the expensively cluttered parlor. Lily stared at her in round-eyed wonder.

      
Her huge gold eyes quickly slitted, shifting from shock to fury. With one hand on her fuchsia silk robe, Lily returned Deborah's assessing air. Her robe was carelessly belted with an expanse of tawny cleavage spilling bountifully from its confines. Her hair was spread around her shoulders like a tangled mantle of blue black satin.

      
Artlessly, she pushed the dark mass from her eyes and flung it backward. “You have dared too much, Yankee. This is my home. You have no business here,” she snapped.

      
“No, you're the one who has the ‘business’ here,” Deborah returned. “But that's going to change—or at least your customer is going to change.” She stopped and looked down at the tiny woman in morning dishabille, trying not to think of how her hair had become so mussed and her eyes had received their heavy-lidded look of satiety.

      
“And just how do you plan to accomplish this feat?” Lily taunted scornfully. “Forbid Rafael my bed? Or deny him yours if he refuses? I'd fear to push it, Yankee. You're no match for me when it comes to pleasuring a man.” Lily looked like a cream-fed cat, and Deborah wanted to claw her eyes out.

      
Instead, the “Yankee” hid her balled up fists in the heavy folds of her dress and said, “I didn't come to trade bedroom recipes. My husband is well enough pleased with me that way; and, Lily, he is
my
husband, the father of
my
child.”

      
At Lily's sharp intake of breath, Deborah paused to look directly into her fathomless eyes. “I know Claude Flamenco made an arrangement with you long before Rafael and I married. Now I'm willing to make a generous settlement on you. I can send you to the Caribbean...or France if you wish. You can love and marry there with no color bar to stigmatize you. But I want you out of my husband's life and his child's life.”

      
Lily let her finish her speech, half-curious to know how much the brazen foreigner might offer her. She'd heard the Yankee's father was rich. Still, it would never be enough. With a cunning smile, she walked over to the escritoire and picked up a daguerreotype. “Your child's life is not the only one to be considered,” she said cryptically. “There is also the matter of Rafael's other children—
my
children.”

      
Deborah felt her heart freeze in her breast as Lily thrust the portrait of a beautiful little girl and baby boy into her nerveless fingers. Their luminous eyes stared out, set in classically sculpted Flamenco faces.

      
“Melanie will be six in the spring,” she said triumphantly, watching the color drain from Deborah's face.

      
Six. He fathered a child when he was only sixteen! Swallowing, Deborah said with amazing steadiness, “I will, of course, provide the best education available on the Continent for your children.” One look at Lily's implacable face banished all her hopes.

      
“Melanie's father has already provided handsomely for her education. In fact, he—”

      
Suddenly, the backdoor burst open and a small girl with bouncing black curls darted into the room. Her piquant face was wreathed in smiles and she was expensively dressed in a red velvet coat and gleaming black patent shoes. The rosy glow of outdoor chill still blushed her cheeks as she stopped short and curtsied at the strange lady in her mother's parlor.

      
“Excuse me, Mother. Papa wanted to know—”

      
“Melanie, please leave us!” Lily snapped, then looked past the child nervously. “Where is Morine? Go find her and have her take you to the market.”

      
Melanie bobbed another uncertain curtsy and started to back out of the room, nearly colliding with her father.

      
“Lily, why aren't you dressed yet?” Rafael's voice was annoyed as he caught sight of his mistress standing near the bedroom door, still clad in her robe. Then, when he stepped into the parlor, his gaze instantly shifted from Lily to Deborah—and froze in incredulity. “What in the name of all reason and sanity are you doing here?”

      
“Morine, take Mellie for a walk,” he commanded the young servant girl standing in the door. He scooped up his frightened daughter and gave her a quick hug of reassurance, then transferred her into the arms of the slave.

      
Deborah watched the child's sad little face vanish as Morine whisked her away. The pain tore at her, clawing her insides apart. Why had she ever come? What madness to presume she could beat this insidious system. She felt the room whirling and struggled to breathe.

      
Lily was screaming something and Deborah forced herself to listen, not daring to face the black fury on her husband's face. All traces of love and gentleness had vanished from its austere planes when his daughter had left the room.