The drug blurring her inhibitions, Elizabeth gave herself up to his mouth and caressing hands, her arms wrapping hungrily around his neck, her naked body arching against his. Only half aware of what she was doing, she offered her slender young body to him, her mouth opening for his frankly carnal exploration, her hips moving sinuously against him.
With a soft growl of pleasure, Rafael forgot everything but the lovely, warm flesh under his hands. His mouth never leaving her body, sliding from shoulder to breast, he ripped off his clothes. A sigh of satisfaction drifted in the air when at last his tall, nude body joined hers on the bed. Gathering her fiercely into his arms, his mouth tasted and teased her breasts until the nipples were throbbing and tight with anticipation.
Elizabeth's ivory body fitted exquisitely into the hard muscle and bone of his dark form, and passionately Rafael's hands traveled over her silken skin, touching, caressing, arousing until she felt liquid fire flowing in her veins. A yearning, seeking ache she had never before experienced grew between her thighs, and Rafael's probing fingers only increased it, driving her half mad with a longing for something more, and she moaned with pleasure and frustration.
Hearing the small sounds she made, Rafael's desire became so intense and urgent that it was almost more than he could bear. Savoring the moment and yet hotly eager for it, he slipped between her thighs and thrust himself inside her.
Unaware of her virgin state, thinking he was with a woman who knew what she was about, he did not take the care he would have and, though she was aroused to sobbing acquiescence, Elizabeth felt a burning pain as that first plunge tore through her. She stiffened and sought to escape from him, her hands pushing in fear against his hard, warm chest.
Rafael felt the slight obstruction and the change in the body that had been lying so pliant and eager beneath him, and for one incredulous second he wondered if he had made a dreadful mistake. But then the impossibility of it occurred to him and, thinking it was only a bit of coyness, a teasing on her part, his mouth fastened with determination on hers and he forced a response from her. His hands slid under her slender hips and pulled her roughly to him; he began to move again, hungrily, urgently wanting the release that was only seconds away.
The first shock of pain lessening and his lips compellingly on hers, Elizabeth felt her earlier state of arousal returning. His hands at her hips, holding her to him, was exciting and erotic, and she discovered a need to press herself even closer, to eagerly meet the thrust of his body. Incredibly she began to feel a wild surge of sensations as his body continued to move upon hers, and she twisted under him, her fingers raking his back.
Rafael was not gentle with her, nor was he brutal, but he was an angry, disillusioned man taking what he thought was a woman who knew the ways of men. Because he was angry and filled with a bitter hurt at finding her with Lorenzo, he wasn't the seductive lover he could be. He simply possessed her body and released all of his pent-up fury and passion into it.
Elizabeth didn't know the difference. She was too entangled in the fiery pleasures that were surging through her body as Rafael continued to drive himself deep within her to be aware of anything but the sensations he was creating. And then, just as the spiraling, intensely pleasurable ache between her thighs became nearly unbearable, he shuddered and it was over, his body sliding off hers.
Dazed, she stared up at his dark, angry face. Her arms tightened about his neck and hungry for something only guessed at, she murmured, "Please, please..."
For a long moment Rafael looked into the achingly lovely features, the wide violet eyes framed by the heavy gold-tipped lashes, the full, inviting ruby mouth and, furiously he felt his body stir with desire again. It enraged him. Promiscuous bitch! Bitch with the face of an angel! And yet he desired her—Dios, how he desired her!
Furious with himself, Rafael wound his hand in the mass of silvery curls and, twisting her face closer to his, he snarled, "No. I do not share my women, English. You are Lorenzo's and you must find it boring to have just one man in your bed. I have no intention of having a woman that is not mine and mine alone."
Her eyes locked on his, she demanded, "And would I be the only woman in your bed?"
He gave a twisted smile. "Perhaps. I think you are lovely enough to keep my interest from wandering to another." His smile faded and he shook his head. "No, English, it would not do. If I were to possess you again I would make you my mistress, willing or not, and sooner or later, I think, you would betray me. Besides," he finished with a thread of amusement in his voice, "you would not like the places I would take you."
Shocking herself she argued with him. "How do you know—unless you take me with you?"
He shook his head. "That horse won't run, querida. I'll not let you goad me into doing something both of us would regret. Stay here where you belong."
Driven by some perverse devil that wouldn't let her terminate the conversation, she murmured, "And if I don't?"
His gray eyes narrowed and a cruel smile curved the full mouth. "Crossing swords with me, English? If you were foolish enough to run counter to my advice, you would regret it, I can promise you that. Stay here where you are safe, nina, but rest assured that if I ever meet you again, I shall treat you as you deserve."
With a catlike grace he left the bed and swiftly dressed. Fully clothed, he walked over to the bed and glanced at her as she lay in the tangled sheets.
Elizabeth knew he would leave her in a moment, knew he was on the point of walking out of her life, and yet, regardless of her marriage, she wanted to make him stay... or take her with him. The violet eyes were bright with unshed tears and the soft mouth was tremulous as she stared up at him, wanting somehow to keep him with her, to make time stop.
There was a brief silence between them, Rafael's eyes unmoving on her features, almost as if he was memorizing them, and then with a low groan of frustration he dragged her head up to him and kissed her with a rough sort of tenderness.
"Adios, English," he muttered thickly. Releasing her, he spun on his heel and walked away. He didn't glance back, didn't see the bloodstained sheets that told of virginity lost and that would have made him question the lies he had been told. Disgusted, as much with himself for being blinded by a pair of wide violet eyes and an enchanting mouth, as with the others involved, he walked out of the room, the gray eyes empty.
With a queer pain in her heart Elizabeth watched him go, a tear trickling down her cheek. She fell back against the pillows, staring blindly into space. She must have fallen into a fitful doze, for she didn't fully awaken until a hand at her shoulder shook her. Groggily she stared up at the woman's face above her; memory came flooding back as she recognized Consuela's maid.
Elizabeth jerked upright, feeling a slight pain between her legs; horrified, she glanced down at the bloodstained sheets as memories she didn't want to face came rushing back. There is no describing the emotions that Elizabeth experienced as the full import of what had transpired flashed across her brain, but horror, fright and pain were all there as well as rage and regret.
Shattered by what had happened, listlessly, she allowed herself to be sponged off and dressed by the silent maid. Barely aware of what was happening around her she was placed in a carriage and taken back to the hotel she had set out from, what seemed like eons ago. Resembling a small, pinched-face statue, she eventually found herself in the hotel suite that she and Nathan had reserved.
Bewilderedly she glanced around the room, her gaze locking on the note on the mantel she had left propped for Nathan. She approached it and slowly ripped it into shreds. No one, her tired brain said, no one would believe her. She didn't believe it herself, except that the faint pain between her thighs told her it had happened—Rafael Santana had taken her virginity and hadn't even known it. Somehow, that made everything so much worse.
Still moving in a daze, she wandered into her bedchamber, smiling mechanically as Mary looked up from the embroidering she was doing while waiting for her mistress to return.
> Mary smiled. "Did you have a nice visit with your friends?"
A hysterical laugh burst from Elizabeth and she answered feverishly, "Oh, yes. It was delightful. We had tea, you know." She was babbling, but anything was better than the truth.
"Well, that's nice. It will be good for you to meet a few of your own companions."
Everything was suddenly more than she could bear, and in a voice clogged with pain and suppressed tears, Elizabeth said raggedly, "Would you mind leaving me, Mary? I would like very much to be alone."
Startled, but being a well-trained servant, Mary gathered up her things and departed, wondering what could have made her little mistress look so forlorn... and abused.
For a long, long time, Elizabeth lay on her bed. She thought of many things during those hours that passed so slowly—Consuela, Lorenzo, and most of all of Rafael Santana's careless taking of her. She blamed him and in another way she didn't. He had believed her Lorenzo's lover and there was no way he could have known she was a virgin...
Her eyes were dry, and despite the ache of tears behind them, she never did cry as she lay there alone with her painful thoughts. She couldn't—she was beyond tears. Instead she tried to think of some way in which some sense of this afternoon could be made, but she found no solution. If Stella had been here in New Orleans, she could have told her what had happened, but she shrank from telling anyone else. Again the thought went through her brain—who would believe her? Even now she had trouble believing it. And, thinking of the scandal, the curious looks and the disbelief that would greet her words, she knew she would say nothing. Consuela had won. That beastly woman had accomplished what she had set out to do—at great cost to Elizabeth.
What was she to tell Nathan? He didn't deserve a soiled wife... a wife used by another man.
Her head pounding like a drum, she tossed on the bed. She would have to tell him; if she did, would he then challenge her despoilers? Oh, my God, he could be killed! With a moan she turned her face into the pillows. It was then that the most frightening thought of all occurred—she could have Rafael's child. Oh, God, no!
In the end she decided painfully that Nathan had to be told some of the truth. There was no way she could avoid it, and, suffering from the shocks she had sustained during this disastrous afternoon, she could see no other path open to her. She feared most that Nathan would challenge the two men involved to a duel—her own dishonor paling in the face of the possibility that either Nathan or Rafael might die because of what had happened. Of Lorenzo's fate she was indifferent. Consuela, she realized bleakly, would escape with little more than curious looks. It was so unjust that Elizabeth quailed at the thought and knew in that instant that while she would tell her husband the bare facts of what happened, she would never allow the names of the people involved to be torn from her. It was the only way she could think of to avoid a duel. She couldn't bear it, if Consuela's plotting caused the death of either her husband or Rafael.
She heard Nathan come in not many minutes later, and before her courage failed her or before she could change her mind, she left her bedchamber and walked toward Nathan's rooms.
It was only then that it occurred to her that her husband might very well cast her out into the streets, or that he might not believe her... or even blame her. She stopped, shaking with terror. But she had to tell him—it was his right to know. It took her several more seconds to gather her deserting courage and face the full implications of the step she was about to take. It would be so much easier, she thought weakly, to say nothing. But I cannot live with this lie, she decided at last. She would tell him, and if he cast her out into the streets...
Standing before Nathan's door, she took a deep breath and knocked before she had time to think. At his answer she slowly opened the door and entered the room.
PART TWO
DESTINY'S JOURNEY
January 1840
Ah love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this Sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits—and then
Remold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!
~Edward FitzGerald,
The Rubaiydt of Omar Khayyam, Stanza 99
Chapter 6
January of 1840 started out a dreary, wet, unpleasant month. Seated in her cozy office at the rear of the house, Elizabeth stared out at the drizzle of rain that had been falling all morning. Rain would delay the spring planting, she thought glumly. Through her shrewd management, Briarwood had survived the "Panic of 1837" and the three years of ensuing depression unscathed; she wanted no setbacks.
The plantation was her life. The handsome white-columned house and the broad, fertile acres were her reason for living, her reason for driving herself. Every waking moment was spent lavishing thought and care on the plantation, and through her determination, the fallow acres had been turned into tall rows of sugarcane and corn and fields of oats, wheat, and barley.
It had not been an easy four years for Elizabeth. Outwardly she and Nathan had a pleasant marriage, and no one, seeing their comfortable manner with one another, would ever guess that Elizabeth slept alone and that Nathan was impotent... with her. If he had an occasional male lover, he was discreet about it. Elizabeth suspected he did, knowing that he frequented Silver Street in "Natchez under the hill."
They had persisted in their attempts to consummate their marriage, but Nathan had continued to be incapable of doing so. Elizabeth suffered with it for as long as she could and, after too many repetitions of the nights in New Orleans, two years ago, she had gently banished him from her bed. She tried not to feel that Nathan had cheated her, but sometimes as she lay alone in her bed and thought of the nights of pain and embarrassment they had spent while Nathan tried again and again to prove himself a man, she could not ignore the tide of unhappiness that swept over her.
It had been difficult to confess the events of that ghastly afternoon in New Orleans, but she had forced herself to explain to her husband that another man had taken what was rightfully his. Nathan's reaction had been one of horror that she had been so mistreated, and she found herself in her husband's arms as he comforted her and attempted to soothe her, to lessen her terrible feeling of shame and to stem the tears that had fallen.
It was only when she had gained some semblance of composure, when the sobs had become only hiccups, that Nathan had mentioned the one thing she feared most.
With an effort, he said, "Elizabeth, my dear, you must tell me the names of these people. I mean to challenge them, to kill them for what they have done to you. As for that wicked, wicked woman, whoever she may be, I can only wish for her an agonizing death. Please tell me their names—I cannot let your honor go unavenged. My own," he had finished with a twisted smile, "is in tatters—with you, my dearest, I have no honor."
"If you do care for me, as you say you do, Nathan, I implore you to let it be." Knowing there was only one way to stop him, she asked, "Will you make me suffer the shame and the scandal a duel will bring? Do you want it bruited about that your wife was known in the most intimate way imaginable by another man? Please, I beg of you, do not force me to endure that too."
It had been a telling argument and staring down into her tear-drowned violet eyes, Nathan had known that he would do as Elizabeth wanted. He wanted nothing to distress her further, and reluctantly he allowed himself to be swayed.
Elizabeth's fear of a child had not been realized, and once that was confirmed she never thought of what had happened in New Orleans... except once. It had happened about a year after she and Nathan had arrived in Natchez; Elizabeth was never certain if the man had been Rafael or someone else. She had received a jolt of excitement and dismay when one of the more formidable matrons of Natchez had sailed up to her that spring of 1837 and asked in an arched tone if the tall, dark stranger had called upon her. At Elizabeth's blank expression the woman had looked even more arch and murmured, "He was insistent about seeing you—described you thoroughly. Of course, I assumed from his ma
nner that he was an acquaintance of yours. But then, with the gentlemen one never knows, does one?" The woman had sighed and added, "I understand your reserve, my dear—I wouldn't want my husband to know that a man like that, so handsome and attractive, was interested in me." The subject was dropped, but for several days thereafter Elizabeth was on edge wondering with a mixture of hope and fear if Rafael had come to Natchez looking for her. It appeared not, and eventually she dismissed the incident, telling herself that Mrs. Mayberry must have been mistaken about the gentleman and whom he wished to see. In time Elizabeth was able to push everything connected with New Orleans and Rafael Santana out of her mind. That time and those events were locked away with her youth, her dreams, and her longing for love.
She and Nathan, after the first difficult months, were satisfied in their strange marriage. Nathan, his fears and secrets open between them, found his conscience lightened, and Elizabeth gained growing room and freedom such as she had never known.
Outwardly the scars of that afternoon and the nights of Nathan's impotent fumbling had faded, but instead of following the usual pursuits of a young bride, she had thrown herself into turning the raw and newly built Briarwood into a home that was the talk of Natchez. She did it—the sumptuous furnishings, the spacious rooms all were the envy of half the wives in Natchez, and the surrounding grounds rivaled those of Brown's Gardens, Andrew Brown's plantation built near "Natchez under the hill."
Hard work in those early days at Briarwood was the only thing that kept Elizabeth from giving into self-pity. That and books. She devoured them. Oh, not the romances of her youth, but books that were peculiar for a young lady—books on farming practices, breeding genetics, and, for pleasure, the rare books that came her way concerning the Spanish conquests and explorers of the New World. Cortez, Ponce de Leon, Pizarro, and even the fabulous stories of Cabeza de Vaca's eight-year journey through the uncharted wastes of what was now the Republic of Texas and the northern provinces of Mexico—she read them all. Why these men fascinated her she did not care to speculate: perhaps it was because they had all displayed the same ruthless intensity of that silvery-eyed devil—Rafael Santana?
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