by Meg Hennessy
“Aurèlie, I’ll never harm you, nor force you, and by our contract, I offer you legal protection. If you allow me the liberty, I will, from day to day, see what more charms you have for me. By the time I bed you, Aurèlie, you will have most certainly learned my touch and I’ll do so only at your bidding.” He leaned down and graced her heaving breasts with his lips, the heat of which pooled deep between them and like kerosene poured onto a fire, she burned…slowly.
“I have instructed Hattie to show you around. Good day, Aurèlie.”
He left her standing alone in his dreary study surrounded by musty old books and worn leather furniture. Yet his touch lingered over her like warm silk. The impatient pounding of her heart demanded more but he was gone, having sensed her resistance. She clutched the corsage of her dress closed and sank into the butacas, catching her breath.
No, no, this was not as she had expected. Instead of tolerating his touch, she was fascinated by him. His gentle hands so lulling, her knees had melted. No, she could not allow herself to respond like this, having tender feelings for him were not only dangerous but foolish. The man was white. This was business, his for wanting a son, and hers for wanting Liberty Oak. No love, no commitment, just a business deal.
Expanding her lungs with a deep breath, she pushed to stand, buttoning the corsage of her dress. Her fingers brushed against her bare skin, rekindling his touch. She closed her eyes, willing thoughts of Jordan away. Maybe he was being kind, but she almost wished he wasn’t. If he wasn’t, she could easily resent him, their fake marriage, and his possession of Yellow Sun. If he wasn’t, she could find a way to take Yellow Sun and force a transfer of property. If only he wasn’t…
Renewed with conviction, she headed for the door but hesitated with a glance toward his desk, remembering the document that had erroneously appeared and Jordan’s suspicious reaction.
“M-a-r-q…” she whispered as she slowly backed up to his desk, trying to fill in the missing English letters. Where had he put the key?
Chapter Seven
Jordan had been walking through the sugarcane field back to the house, when he saw Aurèlie sitting on the back piazza. Because her father’s barrel didn’t have a complete insignia on it, Jordan needed to get another barrel.
He understood her father’s situation, for the backwater pirates had taken much of the market in New Orleans with stolen goods and low prices. But he resented the man for using his daughter without her knowledge. She believes to be in a plaçage for the purpose of joining the two properties when in truth the plaçage was to ensure her family’s financial future through illegal trade.
Loul had made more than twenty barrels with fake bottoms and Jordan’s men had already started filling them with prize: brandy, gin, coffee, and brown sugar. All would fetch a good price in the heart of New Orleans.
After being under so many national flags, the citizenship of New Orleans had grown tired of taxes and customs. The hostility felt by the large French population toward their new American masters had grown by the day, Men like Jordan were folk heroes for providing much needed staples and distilled spirits at substantially reduced prices, making the most law-abiding citizens into loyal customers and many officials were on the payroll.
But Jordan kept his identity a secret, having no desire to risk an alliance with the citizenry or corrupt politicians. If any one of those sea-roving bandits knew he was a Kincaid hunting a particular pirate and an abducted woman, he’d most likely meet the same fate as his father.
It was a dangerous business.
Jordan thought about Aurèlie’s innocence in this but pliable she was not. She was calculating and took only measured steps, demonstrated when she had entered the men’s parlor at her father’s house, or when she had insisted on currency rather than property. Though unexpected, he liked that about her and couldn’t resist a slight smile when she’d stepped into the male domain, filled with cigar smoke, the night of their wedding.
Her appearance was exquisite—from her long, glossy black hair to the soft luster of her light mocha skin. Her eyes had captured his interest the most. Oblong rather than round, surrounded by thick lashes, they were expressive, dark, exotic, and mysterious. Somewhere deep within those eyes lived the real Aurèlie. Like his secret life, what intrigue had she locked away behind the well-kept facade of the dutiful mistress?
The memory of the meeting in his library pooled into a feeling of guilt. He had gone too far with her this morning, but once he had run his fingers across the lovely, smooth skin of her hand, he had needed to feel more.
As she’d sat across from him, the dim light from the window had cast a light shadow across her face and mingled within the hollow of her throat. A faint beat had fluttered in that shallow basin. He had wanted to touch that little spark with his mouth, knowing she’d taste sweeter than her father’s wine. He could only imagine how soft she would have felt beneath that dress.
Her body had reacted to him with deeply drawn breaths, her beating heart trembling beneath his fingertips until the stoked fire had blazed too hot, and she’d retreated. There was an innocence to her that made him want to sink deep inside of her, to disappear and wash his soul of all that he had become.
She’d hold up her end of the bargain. She was committed to the plaçage, yet she made him curious. Why would a woman of her beauty, whose very wish was to marry a man of her own choosing, agree to such a commitment with him?
Granted, it was done all the time. Most white men of affluence had mistresses of mixed blood. Pure demographics of the area had forced the interracial marriages between women of color and white men. American law prevented a legal marriage, but a plaçage was just as binding in court, especially for the children of such an engagement.
But she was a woman of passion, of a free mind. Aurèlie wanted more and for her to forgo the marriage of her dreams made him suspect she wanted something from him.
If it was Liberty Oak, she’d be sorely disappointed. All had gone wrong the moment his father had built Liberty Oak. His mother had died of a mysterious illness dubbed as melancholy and Judith, who had hated the South, had died of fever. Colette had been snatched from beneath Jordan’s nose and his father had been murdered.
Who would want such a cursed land? Sell it? No. Some day, he’d plunge a knife into the heart of it, bring in mud mills with booms the length of the backyard and dredge the land and allow the bayous to reclaim what had once been a beautiful plantation.
He pushed through the dry, dead sugarcane stalks toward the piazza when something caught his attention. Looking around him, he stood alone, buried deep within the dead field but sensing something. Apprehension stirred the back of his neck. Loul had made some comments about Aurèlie’s voodoo powers and as much as Jordan wanted to dismiss the comment, it had put him on alert.
The dried lifeless leaves of the stalks fluttered in the breeze as the winter sun wove shadows throughout the sugarcane. The air smelled musty, damp with swamp water, like any other day, except today he heard something different. He heard a low, rhythmic sound, beating in the wind, similar to what he had heard last night.
Feeling danger creep in around him, Jordan migrated his hand toward the pistol beneath his vest, but as quickly as it had begun, it seemed to evaporate. He waited a moment, dismissing the feeling, allowing his heart to return to a normal beat before he headed toward the piazza.
Aurèlie started when he approached, but recovered quickly.
“Good afternoon.” He climbed the stairs to join her.
“Bonjour, monsieur.” She rose and stepped away from him.
“Did Hattie show you around the house?”
“Oui, tried all the locks, I did. A key for my room, I did not find. There is one, n’est pas?”
Jordan forced himself not to react. Obviously, she knew she had been locked in last night and was none too pleased about it. But hell, locking her in had been for her own good. He had to keep her safe. Plantations along the bayous provided excellent cover for pi
rates slipping in and out of inlets with their prize, pushing their pirogues along. British ships hovered along the shoreline of the Gulf like sharks and American gunboats roamed the backwaters. This house had been broken into twice. These were dangerous times.
He turned a chair around and sat on the rush seat. “I don’t know, Aurèlie, there might be a key somewhere.”
“If so, I should have it, oui?”
He stretched out his legs and drew a relaxing breath, sizing up his beautiful opponent. “Does my new bride intend to lock me out?”
“Oh…non, monsieur.”
He motioned toward her father’s house across the bayou, wanting to change the subject.
“If you’d like, Aurèlie, I can take you over for a visit this evening.”
She looked stunned. Her eyes went from oblongs to large circles. God, she is beautiful. He shook his head, not wanting to think about that.
“I much appreciate, monsieur. A visit, oui?”
He shrugged as if it was a casual thought. “I’ll send a messenger to announce our intentions. We’ll arrive after dinner. Maisie enjoyed her stay last night and should enjoy returning.”
“Oh much so, I tell her. But, monsieur, it must be for dinner, my maman would have it no other way, oui?” Without waiting for an answer, Aurèlie crossed the loggia and disappeared into the morning room.
Jordan climbed out of the chair as he heard her relaying the plans to Hattie, stumbling a little with the English. He hated Aurèlie’s constant use of French. Hearing the language of his native country burrowed into his mind with a painful twinge. He hated the French and the damned revolution that had forced the Kincaids to return to his father’s homeland, America, where everything had gone wrong.
Jordan stepped inside.
Hattie nodded with excitement as Aurèlie rushed off to recruit little Maisie into the travel plans before she turned her glare on him. “She thinks y’all bein’ kind, when you’re not.”
“Maybe I am.”
“And maybe you’re not. Y’all said you’d not involve her.”
“How am I doing that? I didn’t force her to marry a man I suspected of piracy and smuggling. Her father did that.”
Jordan could hear Maisie’s excited response. He’d never been accused of being kind, nor of being cruel. But he liked hearing the trill in their voices, their shared enjoyment, their sense of adventure, and didn’t want to be reminded of his motive. He was enjoying his gift to both of them. “Why must you discourage me, when this is the time I need you?”
“I want you to get on with your life. You have a daughter to think about, a new wife—”
“Silence.” He turned away, confused by Hattie’s change in thinking. “You once wanted me to dig swales and bring the water over Liberty Oak, allow it to sink. Now you act as if Aurèlie has cast some spell over you.”
“A spell, no, but perhaps hope. Don’t ya feel it?”
That recent apprehension, he thought to have shrugged off in the field, resurfaced. He most certainly had been sensing something since her arrival. “Feel what? Hope?”
“No, something…dark…filled with vengeance.”
“Aurèlie?”
“No, she has a good heart, but her being here has stirred somethin’, somethin’ deep in this land. Perhaps good versus evil.”
A slight twinge drew across Jordan’s chest, he too had felt a change since hearing the soft rhythmic sound echoing off the bayou waters at night.
“A dark heart filled with vengeance? Sounds like me, Hattie. Sounds like me.”
“One by one, the Kincaid’s have died.” She searched his face with her dark eyes, moist with tears. “Who’ll be next?”
…
“So, it is good, child?” Mother patted Aurèlie’s hand as they settled into the settee on the loggia, soaking in the cool evening. The changing season brought a brisk, refreshing chill to the October breeze. Still laced with salt water, the air smelled clean and exhilarating.
By the time Aurèlie and her new family had deboarded, her mother had set up a collation table of hot, spicy dishes and rich sauces. Though Jordan was an American, it pleased her to see that he liked her mother’s Creole cooking.
Her mother illuminated her loggia with lanterns covered with bright, shocking shades of pink, green, and yellow. Years ago, she’d had the gallery painted a bright pink and trimmed in vivid green. It was festive, unlike the plain white of American homes.
“Aurèlie!” Her younger sisters converged on her as if she had been gone for months, not hours, giving her large hugs.
“Come sit with us and tell us how you are. Are you happy?” Felicia asked in French.
Aurèlie noticed that Jordan reacted to their question of whether or not she was happy. The question, asked in French.
“Heureux, je suis,” she responded, saying she was happy and purposefully using French.
Jordan seemed satisfied with her answer, as if he had understood, then turned his attention to the collation table and her father.
“Mon petit l’un.” Mother interrupted Aurèlie’s thoughts. “But it is good, oui?”
“Maman, it has only been a day.” Aurèlie glanced back to see if Jordan had moved out of earshot. He and her father had disappeared into the wine cellar and little Maisie was busy chattering to the younger Fentonot girls. She focused again on her mother, seeing the expectant expression. “Maman, it is early. He is a confusing man.”
“He is pleased, oui?” Her mother looked so hopeful.
“I don’t think I displease him. He did not come to me last night. He says we become accustomed…ah…devenir les amis, friends ah…les amants. He wishes to give me the courtship we didn’t have.”
“Non, non.” Her mother glanced around before she leaned forward and spoke in a whisper. “If we must help monsieur along, we must. You must soon carry his child. I have schooled you in our ways. You have learned well. Instruct his cook to serve oysters, add some powdered Spanish flies, make a potion for his drink, you do the spell.”
“His only cook is the housekeeper, Hattie. Instruct her, I cannot.” Aurèlie remembered the library and how Jordan had aroused her with a simple stroke of his hand. Though she enjoyed his touch and regrettably yearned for more, she didn’t wish to hurry him, nor cast a spell over him, at least not yet. She patted her mother’s hand, dismissing the idea. “Not for now, Maman.”
“I send Spanish flies, you use, oui?”
Aurèlie nodded as she checked for the reappearance of her husband but the door to the cellar stood open with no one in sight. She caught her mother’s attention. “Maman, what do you know about his wife?”
“Your husband’s wife?”
“Oui.” Aurèlie kept her eye on the cellar door.
“She died a year or two after the birth of her child. That is all I know.”
“Who are his parents? His maman…his père? There is something so alone about him.”
To her disappointment, her mother shrugged while pouring a café au lait. “I know little except his grand père fought in their War of Independence. His mother died many years ago, his father a couple of years ago.”
Aurèlie accepted the coffee, anticipating the rich chicory flavor. “Where is his wife’s family? She was white, non?”
Her mother whispered, “You must not pry, child. I do not know this.”
Aurèlie sighed, having barely started through her list of questions. “Did he not have other family?”
Mère hesitated, carefully setting her coffee down. “I remember something about that, about a sister. She went to France.”
“France? But why France?”
“I do not know this, but perhaps, I speak the wrong country. She go somewhere. Aurèlie, the Kincaid’s are aristocrats from Boston and politically powerful. That is all any of us need to know.”
A faint twist of pain fluttered through her stomach as she felt a foreign memory suddenly soak into her body. The sound of rushing water and a gunshot echoed through her h
ead. She drew a sharp breath.
Her mother’s hand covered hers.
“Do not do this, child. Do not pry, or you will see more than what you should know.”
“I cannot always control it, Maman.”
“Don’t invite your powers, Aurèlie. Do not forget, you were nearly drowned using those powers and hearing sounds in the night.”
“I do not forget, Maman.”
“Do not ask of his past. Do not ask of his future. Concern yourself with pleasing him. You get a lock of his hair, oui?”
Aurèlie nodded that she could, watching her father and husband as they strolled out of the storage house. “From a brush, I could.”
“Good, wrap his hair into this.” Her mother handed her a lace handkerchief. “Wrap it toward you and place it under your pillow at night. He will come to you.”
Voices carried up the walk as Jordan and her father talked. They were walking parallel, each sipping a large glass of wine.
“My offer is generous. One might think you did not trust me, Étienne.” Jordan relaxed against the pink-and-green column. “You would have your accounts to reconcile.”
Her father looked stricken, as if he had questioned Jordan’s honor and the slap of a white glove was eminent. “Oh, non, monsieur. I think not to accuse you of misdeeds.”
Jordan smiled with a twinkle in his eye as he sipped the wine. “Perish the thought, Étienne.”
They clinked their glasses before finishing off the wine. Several of her father’s servants rolled up another barrel. Jordan wore a puzzled expression.
“No, Étienne, this isn’t the one I had chosen. I plan to tap it for some guests we are having to the house. I’d rather a fresh-looking barrel, with all the stamps and date readable.”
“I can tell you the date.”
“Étienne!” As if realizing his tone, Jordan raised his hand in apology. Looking around, he lowered his voice. “I only wish to brag about your imports and perhaps help your sales, but an old barrel…you understand?”
“Pardonne, pardonne, you shall have the one you want. Cela est bon.” Her father slapped Jordan on the back, then motioned for the servants to return to the cellar and roll out another heavy barrel. Through the theatrics, Aurèlie noted an exchange of glances between the men. What were they up to?
