Moon Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (6 page)

      
“You shouldn't ride alone, little one,” he said softly in French. “It is not safe. You also should not let their innocent questions hurt you. It's natural Bostonians are curious about such an oddity as a Creole.”

      
“You know why they're so curious, Rafael. They think you and I are—well, that you...” Her sentence suddenly became too awkward to complete.

      
“That I am going to take Oliver's place,” he supplied for her. “Would that be so awful?” There was a teasing tone to his voice now.

      
“Let's just say we come from such different worlds that it would be unrealistic to consider,” she replied very carefully.

      
He shrugged at the practicality of her answer. “Always so levelheaded, Deborah.”

      
“It's a fault of mine, I fear.” She tried to keep the sudden stab of desolation from her voice.

      
Rafael felt a queer sense of loss at her cool rejoinder. She was right, of course. Nothing could come of these brief weeks together. They disagreed on everything—abolition, religion, the rights of women. Nevertheless, there was this physical spell, an attraction that he kept trying to dismiss as mere sexual frustration. He had simply been too long without a woman. Then why did none of the willing wenches in the public houses appeal to him? He brushed the disquieting thoughts aside and said, “Spring has finally come to New England. I'm glad to see a few green buds on the trees and shrubs. In New Orleans everything is flowering now.”

      
“April is only the beginning of the growing season here, I'm afraid,” she said, once more conjuring up visions of a lush subtropical paradise.

      
“It's also the beginning of the storm season,” he added, noticing the suddenly darkening sky.

      
“These spring squalls often blow inland quickly,” Deborah explained. “They don't last long, but they can be fierce. We'd better get back to the house.” Her filly was already shying and nervous as the first plump, cold droplets began to pelt them.

      
When they came to a fork in the overgrown, seldom-used trail, Rafael shouted above the wind, “Which way?”

      
Deborah shrugged in perplexity. “I don't remember the path splitting here. I haven't ridden at the Beechers in years.”

      
He muttered several French oaths beneath his breath and took the lead, heading in what he hoped was the general direction of the house. Within ten minutes the rain had become a downpour, and he knew they were lost. Being lost in the bayous of Louisiana was one thing, but whoever heard of wilderness in Massachusetts farm country!

      
The rain was getting colder as the slate skies continued their pitiless downpour. Deborah was having increasing difficulty controlling her mount. Each jagged bolt of lightning and accompanying peal of thunder set the filly to more sidestepping and shying. When Rafael spied a deserted saltbox house, he decided it might be wise to stop before she was thrown and seriously injured.

      
Once inside the dilapidated structure, he saw to the horses, quartering them in the lean-to where they would be somewhat sheltered. Then he looked around the main room. The sooty remains of a stone fireplace stood against one wall. He had matches on him, if only they had stayed dry. Without hesitation he reached for a dust-covered chair and began to break it in pieces, swearing as splinters embedded themselves in his palms and fingers.

      
Deborah watched him as she stood shivering with cold in one corner of the room. He heaped the dry rotted wood in a pile on the hearth, then scavenged a few bits of brown, curled paper from the table in the corner. When he carefully positioned them under the wood and lit them, the fire filled the room with a warm orange glow.

      
Deborah stepped closer to the enticing warmth. He helped her free of her sodden jacket and draped it near the hearth to dry. “You must get out of those soaking clothes and try to dry them by the fire. Let me see what's here for you to cover with.”

      
He rummaged about and finally found two musty quilts stuffed in a wooden crate in the lean-to. When he reentered the main room, Deborah was standing uncertainly in front of the fire, her body silhouetted in its rosy glow. She had taken off her boots and heavy riding skirt, but her thin silk blouse and batiste petticoats clung to her like second skin. Lord, why had he ever thought her too thin? The sleek curves of her hips and buttocks and the startling fullness of her upthrust young breasts made an erotic picture as she turned herself in front of the leaping flames.

      
Seeing him watch her with such intensity made Deborah even more self-conscious and embarrassed. She stood very still as he walked toward her. Laying one quilt on the table, he took the other and began to wrap it around her, massaging its scratchy surface against her wet clothing and skin. It acted rather like a blotter, taking some of the dampness from her silk shirt. Her petticoats, however, were another matter.

      
As if reading her mind, he said, “Take your underskirts off and wrap this more tightly around you.”

      
Deborah could hear his teeth chattering as he shivered in his soaking wet clothes. “You'd better follow your own advice,” she said, surprising herself. “I'll turn my back and close my eyes, if you do the same,” she dared him.

      
“Always practical,” he grunted, but did as she had bidden, stripping off his shirt, pants, and boots, then wrapping the other quilt around himself.

      
She worked her petticoats off, no easy trick with the waist tapes knotted and the long skirts clinging to her legs. When she heard his voice speaking softly, she clutched the quilt tightly around her and turned.

      
He had pulled a splintery but sturdy-looking bench up close to the fire and was motioning for her to join him on it. “If we huddle together, we'll dry faster.” Sweet reasonableness.

      
As she undressed Deborah's thoughts raced. Adam's stern warning about Rafael and her own declaration that she would never marry flashed through her mind.
You may never have another chance. You're attracted to one another in a way you and Oliver never were. Just this one time—a memory to last a lifetime.
Her subconscious kept taunting her as she huddled against him and shook, only half from cold now. When his bare arm slipped from his quilt and tightened around her shoulders, she wondered,
How would it feel to have those long, tapered fingers caress your bare skin?
As if mesmerized, she turned her face up to his and watched his profile in the dancing firelight, bronzed and beautiful, like some ancient Latin god.

      
He looked down into her violet eyes. “I was right,” he said softly in French. “Your eyes do darken in passion.” With that he pulled her against him and pressed his lips to her eyes, kissing the lids softly, then trailing his mouth down her cheek and burying his face in the damp silken masses of her hair. She smelled of lavender. He groaned as she tipped her head back, eyes closed, lips slightly parted, baring the slender column of her throat. Taking her head in his hands, he raised it until her lips met his in a bruising, searing kiss. As she gasped in surprise at the sudden change from gentleness to passion, his tongue took instant advantage, plunging inside her parted lips. He deepened the kiss as he felt her respond.

      
He slid one hand inside the quilt and began to do maddening things to her sensitive spine, running strong, cunning fingers up and down. Then, his hand trailed around her ribs to cup and lift a breast, which puckered to a hard point at the tip. Once more she gasped, pressing herself against his persuasive palm, wanting to feel him caress all of her throbbing, quivering flesh. By this time, both quilts had fallen around their legs and their upper bodies were locked in a fierce embrace. Deborah's own hands were busy, exploring the thick black hair of his chest and the hard flat ridges of muscle across his back. Neither noticed the chill anymore as their pounding blood heated their bodies. Above the soft crackling hiss of the flames, the only sounds were their rough erratic gasps and moans.

      
When he tried to reach beneath her blouse to the scorching flesh of her breasts, he was thwarted by the damp silk of her camisole. For a moment, he fumbled with the fastenings. Then, her trembling hands came down and pushed his aside. She began deftly to unbutton the undergarment. Watching her, so virginal and trembling with passion, he was suddenly struck by the enormity of what he was doing.

      
Rafael could hear his father's words about self-control and responsibility. This girl was an innocent, from a good family, one who had every right to expect an honorable marriage. He was taking shameless advantage of her inexperience.

      
Slowly, gently, he pulled her fingers from their task and held her away from him. Taking a deep breath, he forced his passion under control and spoke. “Deborah, we can't do this. It isn't right.”

      
Her eyes flew up to his, filled with surprise, then puzzled hurt. Like him, she had difficulty speaking. “I don't care,” she managed as crimson stained her neck and face.

      
“Soon I'll be leaving Boston, leaving you, forever.” His eyes bored into hers, willing her to understand how difficult this was for him.

      
“I know,” was her calm reply.

      
“You know? You don't expect me to marry you and yet you were willing to have me take your virginity?”

      
She could no longer meet his eyes, but she had to make him understand. “After long and careful consideration, I've decided that I will never marry. But once, just one time, I wanted to know what it was like to be with someone I was attracted to.”
With someone I love
, an inner voice amended, surprising and shaking her even further than her appalling behavior already had.

      
He sat dumbfounded at her revelation. Such audacity, such forthright honesty, and above all, such unstudied passion. “No Creole lady would ever give herself to a man without marriage first.”

      
Deborah's face flamed anew. “I suppose that's a terrible indictment against me; but since I never expected you to marry me, it really doesn't signify whether or not I measure up to your standards, does it?” She pulled the fallen quilt over her shoulders and rose to reach for her half-dried clothes, spread around the large hearth. She turned her back on him lest he see the glaze of tears in her eyes.

      
Rafael also stood up. He felt like a heartless fool. He had never meant to make her feel cheap or to hurt her feelings. In fact, when he thought of the Creole girls he knew and compared them with Deborah, he wondered why any man would prefer them. Muttering to himself, “That's what a man has a mistress for,” he closed his mind and began to dress.

      
They rode back to the house in silence. The storm had ended and Rafael quickly found the cutoff that led them out of the woods.

Chapter Four

      
“You've avoided me ever since you-came home, pleading headaches and other vapors, young woman. I think it's time we had a talk.” Adam Manchester's eyes were piercing and his voice brooked no opposition.

      
Deborah sighed and followed him into the study, wondering how much of a confession he would be able to wring from her. Lord, all she wanted was to forget the entire sordid mistake! Sitting stiffly on the sofa, she nervously arranged her skirts. “What do you want me to say, Father? I came home early from the Beechers because I was not enjoying myself. I was tired and I can't abide Allison Smythe.”

      
“Am I to understand your return had nothing to do with Rafael Flamenco?” he asked as he leaned forward and willed her to meet his eyes.

      
Feeling the pressure of his insistent stare, Deborah forced herself to look him in the face. “If you must know, Rafael and I quarreled. Oh, Father, we've never agreed on anything. I finally realized just how impossible any relationship between us would be.”

      
“I thought you said you never intended to be serious about him—that he was merely a temporary escort until the gossip over your broken engagement quieted.” Adam's eyes were like skewers now, making her squirm like an insect on a board.

      
Deborah blanched. Observing the set of his jaw and the way his hands were clenched, she knew something was seriously wrong. “What have you heard? More gossip?”

      
“You tell me. I've always had complete faith in your levelheadedness. Until you met this damn Frenchman.” He stood up, looming over her, a tactic he had often found useful in intimidating business adversaries. He loved his only child and did not wish to threaten her, but he had to get this tangle straightened out. “Deborah, exactly what happened when you two were alone in that rainstorm?”

      
She propelled herself up quickly to stand facing her father. “I am not damaged goods, if that's what you fear. Rafael didn't take advantage of me—not the way you think.”

      
“What the hell does that mean? You're scarcely acting as if nothing happened.”

      
Shame coursed through her in sickening waves. How could she confess to her father that Rafael had controlled his passions far better than she had hers? That he had rejected her? “Let's just say we had a final confrontation and I will never see him again. I can't tell you any more, father. I have never lied to you and I'm not lying now, but what went on between Rafael and me is too private, too painful to discuss. Ever!” Her face was chalk white and her eyes were dark violet, brimming with tears as she turned and walked from the room.