Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (9 page)

      
Both women were lost in the past as they walked inside, recalling old hurts. Here Deborah had confronted her husband's mistress and had discovered that he already had two children by Lily when she had just become pregnant for the first time. Despite the passage of years and the constancy of her husband's love, Deborah still felt the pain when she remembered Melanie as a small child rushing innocently into the midst of the bitter fight between wife and mistress. That child had been hurt most of all. Looking over at Melanie, Deborah said softly, “Let's go through her things and you select what you want to take home. Then the lawyers can sell the rest. You need never come here again, dear heart.”

      
Melanie looked around and made a small moue of disgust. “She loved expensive trinkets—china, porcelain, silver, jewelry. Although I expect we're the same size, I don't want her clothes. I know that,” Melanie said with finality.

      
Although Melanie's overly plain and sensible wardrobe was a continual frustration to Deborah, she knew the ‘‘bird of paradise” clothes of a kept woman would be completely unsuitable for her gently reared girl.

      
They spent several hours going through the small house room by room. Lily's husband had been a fencing master, killed in an affair of honor with another Free Man of Color over a year ago. From the first time he had seen Lily's daughter, Bertin had hated her because she was a distasteful reminder that his wife had been a white man's property. He had made her life a misery when she came back to New Orleans from St. Louis after the deaths of her grandmother and aunt. “We'll give all his things to the sisters to dispense to the poor,” Melanie said, and slammed his armoire door.

      
The expensive china and sterling they packed up carefully. Deborah offered a delicate suggestion to Melanie. “Someday when you're married and have a home of your own, you might want these dishes—they're truly beautiful.”

      
“Only the rose crystal punch bowl and cups. They belonged to
Grandmère
Marie,” Melanie replied tersely.

      
When they finally came to Lily's jewel cases, both women were amazed at the beauty and variety of the pieces—emeralds, pearls, sapphires, and rubies, even the icy glitter of diamonds, all set in delicate silver filigree or massive gold mountings. Melanie ignored most of it, selecting only a few old pieces of lesser worth that had belonged to her grandmother. When she opened one small black velvet box and took out a heavy scrimshaw necklace, Melanie heard Deborah's breath catch. Quickly, she looked up and saw an expression of anguish etched on her mother's face. “Papa bought this for her in Boston, didn't he?” Melanie knew the ivory carving was a New England whaler's art. He must have selected it for Lily during the same business trip on which he'd married Deborah.

      
“Melanie, that was a long time ago. Rafael and I were both different people then. I have a new life with my husband now. She can't hurt us anymore. But she still can hurt you, can't she?” Holding her breath, Deborah reached over and gently took the necklace from Melanie’ s nerveless fingers and replaced it in the box.

      
“Why couldn't she love me? Why? Everyone else did—you, Papa,
Grandmère
Marie, Aunt Thérèse—but the woman who gave me life didn't even want me in the same house with her! I used to overhear her and Papa. They'd fight about me when I was little. She'd want to send me back to
Grandmère
in St. Louis, and Papa would want me to stay here.

      
“Once, when he came over, she had left me alone in the kitchen—her servant had gone to market and no one was here to watch me. She was still asleep and I tried to reach some fruit on the table. I knocked the bowl over and it broke. I cut myself on the glass. That's how Papa found me—cut and crying. I guess I was lucky I didn't eat any glass slivers with the grapes! After that, he let her send me to St. Louis a lot more often...”

      
Once the monologue stopped, the tears began, slowly at first, then increasing to a torrent. For Deborah, who knew how long that agony had been locked deep inside the girl, it was almost as healing a relief as it was for Melanie. They held each other and wept.

* * * *

      
By the time they arrived back at the Flamenco house late that evening, it was well past the dinner hour. Deborah had sent word by their driver not to wait supper on them. Eating in the same room with Celine was not conducive to good digestion for either Deborah or Melanie. The two went to the kitchen where the cook, Wilma, prepared them a delightful cold meal of thinly sliced roast veal, melon, and cool white wine.

      
While they ate and relaxed after an emotionally charged day, Rafe spent a bitterly unhappy evening with his mother and his cousins.

      
“Are the children asleep?” Celine asked Rafe when he returned to meet them in the study. He nodded, adding conversationally, “Deborah and Melanie are taking supper now.” He enjoyed reminding the intolerant Flamencos that his mixed-blood daughter was treated like the rest of the family.

      
“I've talked with the lawyers and they see no problem with my plans. All property will be given to you, Mother, but Caleb Armstrong will be executor.” He looked meaningfully over at his cousins, Jean and Philippe.

      
Celine let out a gasp of horror and considered fainting. One glance at the stony countenance of her son convinced her of the folly of such a ploy. Once, he would have rushed to comfort her, but no more. Now, he'd let her drop to the floor in a heap! “You've become as savage and unfeeling as those wild red Indians in that accursed Texas! Your father wanted you to take care of me, Rafael. You are my only son. That's why he left you in charge of everything, to—”

      
“To bring me back to New Orleans, to my old life, to heel” he interrupted her tightly. “Well, he gambled and he lost, Mother.” Then a sardonic grin split his face. “But I am grateful to keep the estate from being squandered by the Beaurivages, I will say that, even if I don't want or need the money.”

      
“Now see here, Rafael. I've called many a man out for less.” Philippe rose, red color infusing his cheeks.

      
“Really, cousin?” Rafe said, turning to stare Philippe down. “Would you like to challenge me? It would be my choice of weapons. I fight with a bowie knife now.” He grinned like a shark, and Philippe quickly subsided.

      
“Please, children—Rafael, Philippe—you grew up together. We're all family. We must act together,” Celine remonstrated.

      
“Caleb is family, too—my only sister's husband and a damned honest and sensible banker. He'll handle the estate for you, Mother; but you'll have to face your daughter and your grandchildren—something you resolutely refused to do while my father was alive. This is your chance. I won't stay here tied to the Flamenco wealth. I've made my own life in Texas, and that's where my family and I choose to live.”

      
“You and your Yankee wife and your daughter kissed by the tar brush,” Jean said mockingly. “Texas must be a very liberal place, indeed.”

      
“The place we live is. Renacimiento is larger than some of the eastern states,” Rafe replied levelly, his black eyes piercing his old drinking companion's facade, daring him to pursue the dangerous topic further.

      
“Nothing will change your mind, will it? You're going to give huge sums of money to your father's second family and let that odious American dole it out to me as well.” Celine's voice was amazingly calm. Yesterday, she had cried and pleaded, but Rafael had calmly moved Melanie into his apartments with Deborah's children. Deborah treated the girl as if she were her own. It was obvious that every social and cultural imperative under which Celine's world operated had been abandoned by her son. “Like a snake, you have shed your skin in the hot Texas sun. You are no longer Rafael Flamenco, but some American, Rafe Fleming, whom I do not know.” With that, she turned and swept imperiously from the room, leaving Rafe facing his two Beaurivage cousins.

      
Having lived a lifetime with Celine's theatrics, Rafe knew nothing would ever change between them. Sighing, he turned to Jean and Philippe. “Gentlemen, the well has run dry. You can inform the rest of the family that my father's money will go where his son-in-law wills. I somehow doubt that Caleb Armstrong will be well disposed to subsidize your carousing.”

      
“And what of you, cousin?” Jean asked of his boyhood companion, now grown a stranger.

      
Rafe grinned in relief, glad to be quit of the whole troublesome scene. “My family and I are GTT,” he replied in English, then switched back to French. “We're gone to Texas, from where I plan never again to return!”

Chapter Five

Santa Fe, 1851

      
Dust hung suspended in the pale golden light filtering through the grilled window of the cantina. The air was still, dry, and very hot. It was late afternoon and a motley assortment of men were trickling into El Escondedero after their siesta. Despite its name, the barroom was not at all hidden, but a rather popular, if sleazy, gathering place off the main square of the bustling trade capital of New Mexico Territory.

      
Two big Americans, burly and bearded, swaggered over to the bar and demanded beer. A handful of New Mexican
vaqueros
and the cantina owner played a highly vocal game of
Chuza
in one corner. Rosa and another plump, pretty young girl served drinks as they swished their brightly colored skirts and flashed their silver bangles at the customers, especially several off-duty American soldiers.

      
Lee Velasquez slouched in a chair in the rear of the room, his long buckskin-clad legs stretched indolently beneath the table in front of him. He'd taken his siesta in his seat, watching the play of light and shadow across the iron grillwork. He had nowhere to go, at least not until Fouqué arrived.

      
“Hot today, no?” Rosa, the barmaid, inquired as she leaned forward to place a glass of whiskey in front of him, hoping the gunman would take notice of the bountiful charms spilling out of her loose white blouse.

      
His black eyes narrowed in concentration on a shaft of light as he replied offhandedly, “Weather's the same as always.” Without seeming to see it, he reached a slim dark hand toward the drink and tossed it off. Rosa swished away in irritation.

      
How much longer, Fouqué?
As if in answer to his unspoken question, a small, wiry man in greasy buckskins strolled in the front door, spotted Lee, and motioned to Rosa to bring his usual drink to the table.

      
“Ah,
mon ami
, you are the smart one, here in the cool while like our mad English employer I ride in the heat.” He spoke English, their common language, with a heavy Gascony accent. Gold teeth gleamed as he smiled.

      
“He's not my employer anymore, Fouqué,” Lee said wearily. “I just want the money he owes me before he runs off with it like Armijo did.”

      
Raoul Fouqué shrugged philosophically as he sat down. “That was the government; this is private business. Businessmen pay better than military governors, Mexican or Yankee.”

      
Lee's face grew hard. “It's the same line of work.”

      
“Merde, you rode with McGordy's bunch only a few months before the Mexican government fled and the Americans came. It was no surprise when the governor general took off without paying us. Bristol will not.”

      
“Bristol better not,” was the soft reply.

      
Fouqué looked at the younger man, studying his hard, dangerous face. Most women found his classically handsome features irresistible, so unlike Raõul's own irregular ones. But there was more to Leandro than a pretty Castilian face. He had the scars to prove it—one narrow white one vanished into his hairline, and another left a small line across his left cheekbone. They were indications of the kind of life he led, but not nearly so much as were his eyes, black and fathomless, like onyx polished to a pitiless sheen—eyes that no twenty-seven-year-old man should possess.

      
The Frenchman watched Lee surveying the room with seeming indolence, missing nothing, especially the two large and loud Americans at the bar. As a rule Lee didn't like Americans, although he'd ridden with a few under McGordy. Wanting to distract his companion's attention from the obnoxious pair, Fouqué said, “Where do you go if you leave Bristol?”

      
Lee shrugged. “Maybe California, maybe Oregon.”

      
“Not Chihuahua, I know, since the governor still has a price on your head; but you could go to Mexico City, where you once lived.” Fouqué's face was intense with curiosity.

      
“My uncle died three years ago, Raoul.” Lee smiled grimly. “Besides, I'm not likely to fit in with the cultured academic environment I left there. I don't want to.”

      
Fouqué chuckled. “Men like you and me, we make our own rules. You want a wild, open place, why not go back to Texas? There must be as many Anglos here as there by now.”

      
Lee sighed. “That's true enough, but I'm afraid I've got a little problem with the Yankee law there. Besides, like Mexico City, it holds memories...” His voice faded away as he gazed down into the empty whiskey glass.

      
Fouqué knew Lee's wife had been killed in Texas and that he had fled into Mexican territory five years earlier. The rest he only surmised, but it explained why Lee could not return to the land of his birth. “Speaking of Texas, I ran into a man yesterday with a Texian wife.
Quelle femme!
Big as a cottonwood rising by a wide river, with a voice to match. The two were returning to Texas, at the woman's insistence.”