He seemed like only an ominous shadow above her as she stared through the darkness and her tears. She felt his hands then all over her—ripping the undergarments from her body until she lay naked, defenseless, and shivering before him.
She heard a flint strike and suddenly a sulfurous flare torched the gloom. He stood beside the bed, leering down at her while he tore at his own clothes.
“Your time has come,” he snarled.
She screamed when he fell upon her.
Chapter Fourteen
Nicolette soon learned the only way to survive as the wife of Diego Bermudez was total suppression of all feelings, all emotions. She became not a person, but a possession—something jealously guarded by the man who owned her, who despised her even as he used her. Her sole prayer, day and night, became that he would tire of her eventually and turn to Jada or some other.
The five days and nights of their honeymoon seemed like a torturous eternity to Nicolette. Diego never let her sleep at night. When he wasn’t satiating his ferocious lust, he was baiting her—telling her the things he had planned for her next, and at all times threatening worse if she tried to resist in any way.
As dawn broke each morning, she would lie naked on the soiled sheets with vacant eyes and a bruised body. At first, she tried to ignore the awful things he was subjecting her to, emotionally as well as physically. She tried to concentrate all her thoughts on Jean Laffite—her love for him and her belief that he would return at any moment to rescue her. But as the days wore on, she gave up hope.
The rattle of steel with the rising sun became a welcome sound to Nicolette. Finished with his bride for another night, Bermudez handcuffed Nicolette’s wrists to the bedpost so that she couldn’t escape while he slept. Then, and only then, did she know any relief from total degradation.
A smirking, preening Jada brought their meals. No other person dared intrude upon the solitude of the bride and groom. But a small eavesdropper lurked about, listening to Nicolette’s cries of pain and anguish. Below the bedroom window, hidden in a bed of azaleas, Gator-Bait sat hour upon hour, trying to figure a way to rescue his mistress.
On their last night in the garconnière, a dull-eyed Nicolette felt some glimmer of hope. If she could endure these final hours alone with him, she could escape to the outside world and the protection of having others around her once more.
Bermudez had water brought and let her bathe that night—the first time since before their wedding. Even the fact that he refused to allow her any privacy for her toilette couldn’t detract from the reviving pleasure of warm water cleansing her skin and hair.
“Your bruises are healing nicely,” he commented from his vantage point on the bed. “Still, it will be beneficial to have Jada waiting on you when we get to The Shadows. She’ll never mention any marks she might discover on your skin, for fear of my giving her the same.”
Nicolette made no reply. She almost smiled at his cunning. Not once since their wedding night had he slapped her face. She had wondered at times why not. Now she understood. He didn’t want to mark her where it would show.
“Hurry along with it, Nicolette!” he snapped impatiently. “I’m getting bored. And I have a surprise tonight that may amuse you—at least, I know I’ll find it rewarding.”
She started to climb into bed naked—as she had been since the first moments, when he tore her clothes off.
“Not like that!” he said brusquely. “You’ll find undergarments and a gown in the armoire. Put them on!”
Nicolette neither hesitated nor asked for explanations. Conditioned by days of being forced to submit to his will, she obeyed immediately. When she was completely covered by corset, petticoats, pantalettes, and a fashionable gown of turquoise moiré, she stood before him and waited for his next command.
“Now! You will tell me exactly how Laffite went about his deflowering process—every detail, no matter how small!”
For the first time since Diego Bermudez hauled her away from her father’s house by force, Nicolette felt her old rebellious urges awaken. He could kill her, but she wouldn’t reveal to him any part of the tender moments she had shared with Jean Laffite!
Her stubborn silence made him angry. He strode to where she stood and repeated his command, adding at the very end, “Or else!”
Nicolette sensed the danger she faced by refusing to answer. Finally, she thought of a way out.
“Someone lied to you,” she said. “It wasn’t Laffite.”
He glared at her for a moment and she thought he might hit her. Then he drew back, frowning. “Who, then?”
“The pirates who attacked the Fleur de Lis.”
Bermudez smiled, envisioning a gang rape. His first disappointment at not hearing of Laffite’s methods vanished and a new excitement gripped him.
“Very well. I mistook the villain, but not the crime. Tell me all about it.”
He sat down on the foot of the bed, watching her closely, an eager expression on his face.
She had no idea what to tell him, but she hurried her words to have it done with. “Two of them burst into my cabin. The larger one hauled Sukey away, leaving me at the mercy of their captain.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know.”
“He was devilish handsome, of course.”
“No! Brutishly ugly!”
“Describe him to me.”
Nicolette looked straight at her husband and described him instead of Silas Browne. Diego didn’t seem to catch on to the deception. He nodded, seemingly fascinated.
“And what did this brute do when the other man left you together?”
Nicolette felt a twinge of pain twist her heart as she relived the frightening scene. “He grabbed me, roughly. He kissed me and tore open my bodice. I fought him and tried to bite him. He hit me and threw me to the bunk.” She stopped for a moment, fighting for composure. She had meant to make up the scene, which she had been unable to remember before. But now, to her horror, bits and pieces were coming back to her in all their terrible, vivid details.
“Mon Dieu! Don’t stop there, woman! It’s just getting interesting. He hit you, he threw you on the bunk, and then…?”
“He tied me!” she screamed at Diego, crying now.
“Fascinating!” Diego murmured in a raspy whisper. “He tied you so you couldn’t escape him. So that you were totally at his mercy… his prisoner… his helpless victim!”
While Diego talked on in that strange voice, pitched high with excitement, he moved toward Nicolette. Had tears not blurred her vision, she would have seen that his hands were trembling, his face had gone pale, and an erection strained at the fabric of his britches. Only when she felt his fingers grasp the lace of her bodice and heard the material rip did she understand his intentions. With a vicious jerk he tore her gown and basque, exposing her breasts.
“He began like this?” Diego asked. “And then he kissed you… roughly.”
When Bermudez bent over Nicolette, she fought him instinctively, as if she, too, were reliving the shipboard nightmare. This fed Diego’s passions. He shoved her toward the bed and ripped down the ropes holding back the mosquito baire. In minutes, he had tied her spread-eagle fashion on the bed. She struggled against the restraints, but there was no use.
“Once he had you bound securely, what then? Did he fall on you at once, or toy with you first?”
“I… I don’t know exactly.” She saw the look of rage in his eyes and added quickly, “He tossed my skirts up over my face. I couldn’t see anything… I could only feel and hear.”
“And how did it feel? Was it good or did he hurt you… make you cry out, begging for mercy?”
To answer this question would sentence her to his abuse either way, and she knew it. If she said the man hurt her, Diego would do the same. But if she said she enjoyed it, she would be punished with even more severe treatment.
“Well?” he demanded.
“It hurt!” she screamed.
Immediately,
the lights in the room dimmed for Nicolette as Diego threw the heavy fabric of her skirt and petticoats over her face. He no longer waited for her description of the pirate’s proceedings, but went about inventing his own depravities.
During the long night, when all she could do was strain against the ropes and pray for dawn, the whole awful scene with Silas Browne returned to haunt her. He had stripped her, fondled her, told her what he meant to do in the most vivid and descriptive gutter language. But he was interrupted before he could rape her. Jean Laffite’s boat had been spotted in the distance and word sent down to Silas Browne. It was then that the pirate hauled her up on deck, meaning to kill Laffite, then take his time with Nicolette.
Jean Laffite had saved her from degradation at the hands of Silas Browne, but no one came to save her from Diego Bermudez.
Gator-Bait knew the terrain among the bayous and swamps. He knew, too, of Laffite’s storehouse and hideout near Donaldsonville. He feared Laffite, but more than that, he feared for the life of his mistress. She had risked everything to save him. He could do no less for her. The small boy hurried with the quickness of a young fox to find help.
“Them high-falutin’ niggers don’t give a damn!” he muttered to himself, seething with anger every time he thought of how Sukey had threatened to take a whip to him for eavesdropping on the honeymooners when he’d tried to explain that M’sieu Diego was hurting the mistress bad. “Ain’t nobody gonna do that to Madame Boss and get away with it!” he yelled out, shivering with fear when the echo of his own voice bounced back at him unexpectedly.
But still he hurried on. It was near dawn, four nights after the wedding, when he found the rough cypress warehouse used by the smugglers. Quietly, he eased through the shadows, looking for any signs of life. Not a torch lit the place and no human beings were in sight. He leaned against the splintery side of the building for a moment, trying to catch his breath and decide what to do next.
“Gotcha! You little sneak-thief!”
A calloused hand grabbed Gator-Bait by the scruff of the neck. He let out a yelp like a trapped rabbit.
“Don’t hurt me, massa! Please! I’s come to fetch the Boss… quick!”
“The Boss?” the grizzled watchman repeated scornfully. “You think he’d have any truck with the scrawny likes of you?”
The man’s grating laughter made Gator-Bait’s nerves twitch with fear. He squirmed against the grip and fought to control the scared quiver in his voice.
“I reckon as how he would, seein’ I belongs to him and Madame Boss and she’s in a powerful heap of trouble! And I further reckon as how he’ll be mighty put out and fearsome mad if he don’t get to hear what I got to tell him!”
“What’s all this commotion?” another man growled from the shadows of the doorway.
“Boss!” Gator-Bait squealed, recognizing Laffite’s voice. “It’s the mistress! That man makes her scream and cry all the time!”
The deadly scowl on Jean Laffite’s face could be seen in the violet light of early dawn.
Nicolette endured her last night of torture by telling herself over and over again that with the rising sun freedom would come. Once she left the garconnière to rejoin her family, Diego would not dare treat her as he had these first days.
He won’t have a chance, she told herself. If my parents won’t protect me from him, I’ll run away… to Jean!
Bermudez allowed Jada in to help Nicolette bathe and dress before they were to leave the honeymoon cottage. The young slave obviously understood what the arrangement among the three of them would be—that she would be the master’s lover while his wife would take a secondary position. The idea pleased Jada and made her feel superior. Her outspokenness offended Nicolette, but she kept her peace.
“I reckon M’sieu Diego done finished with you. Pretty soon you be swellin’ up like a sow at litter time.” Jada preened before the mirror, running her long fingers appreciatively over her slender waist. “M’sieu Diego, he say he gonna put me in the room next to his over to the plantation. He say he don’t even like the sight of a woman when she’s carryin’ a sucker… it purely make him sick! So I’ll be the one what gets the lovin’ from now on ‘stead of you, missy!”
“You’re welcome to him,” Nicolette said under her breath, then she added, “You two deserve each other!”
“You best hurry and get dressed. M’sieu Diego say he be back any minute and he want you ready to travel.”
Nicolette stared at Jada’s condescending face. “Travel? But where are we going? We’re supposed to spend the first day after our honeymoon with my family. That’s tradition!”
Jada gave a harsh laugh. “M’sieu Diego say, ‘Piss on tradition!’ We goin’ to The Shadows… right now… today!”
Nicolette felt her mouth go dry and her hands begin to tremble. She had to get away! A knock at the front door made her jump. Jada went to answer it and came back looking angry.
“It’s that no-good little nigger of yours. He wanted to see you, but I sent him off. He got his nerve! M’sieu Diego say nobody is to see you!”
Nicolette noticed an envelope in Jada’s hand and asked, “What’s that?”
“Ain’t none of your never-mind! This here’s for M’sieu Diego.”
At that moment, Diego Bermudez came into the room. “What’s for me, Jada?” he asked, after giving Nicolette a cold glance and the slave girl a brief but passionate kiss. She lingered in his embrace as he opened the envelope.
“That Gator-Bait done brung this for you, M’sieu.”
Diego frowned. He tore open the wax seal and his obsidian eyes darted over the page. Slowly, a smile started, then grew and spread.
“Our plans have changed, Jada.” He addressed the slave as if Nicolette were of no importance and beneath being informed of anything he had in mind. “How would you like to go to New Orleans?”
Jada threw her arms around his neck and hugged him soundly. “Oh, M’sieu Diego, I ain’t never seen N’Orleans!”
“Well, you’re about to.”
Nicolette remained silent, her mind whirling with plans of escape. She paid little attention to anything going on around her until she heard Diego mention Jean Laffite’s name. Then her head jerked toward him.
“What did you say?” she demanded.
“Oh, still interested in your river rat, are you? Well, it seems he’s forgotten all about you and our little disagreement. In fact, he’s invited me to sit in on a poker game this very night. So instead of going to The Shadows as I’d planned, we’ll head for New Orleans. I believe your house in Bourbon Street is ready. Jada can keep an eye on you there while I go to Laffite’s blacksmith shop and relieve him of some of his Spanish doubloons.”
Nicolette sat staring, trying not to show her excitement. Surely, this must be a plot on Laffite’s part to rescue her. Her heart pounded with renewed hope.
“I’m sorry, but you won’t be allowed to see your lover, Madame Bermuda. I plan to tell him that I’ve left you at The Shadows to rest after our exhausting honeymoon. And, too, this being the fever season, I couldn’t be expected to subject my lovely bride to such dangers. Especially when she’s probably carrying the next Bermudez heir!”
Nicolette couldn’t suppress a slight smile. She was not pregnant! Her proof had come only hours before.
He jerked her arm roughly to make her rise and commanded, “We’ll leave now. The carriage is waiting.”
The three passengers, Bermudez, Nicolette, and Jada, boarded quickly and left before anyone on the plantation saw them.
Only Gator-Bait knew of the hasty departure, and even the driver failed to realize that the carriage hosted a stowaway. Gator-Bait clung to the luggage rack as the vehicle swung down the drive.
Chapter Fifteen
“He’s not coming!” Laffite said to Pierre as the two waited in the dim, smoky interior of their blacksmith shop on the corner of Bourbon and St. Philippe streets.
“Take it easy, Jean. Have you ever known Bermudez to pass up a
game? It’s early yet.”
Pierre smiled when a lovely woman with skin the color of wild honey entered the room with a tray of tankards and a plate of pineapple cheese. She offered one of the mugs of ale to Laffite, but he never noticed that she was there.
Her almond eyes conveyed her worry to Pierre. Though Marie Louise Villars, a griffe by virtue of her white father and quadroon mother, was Pierre’s mistress, she loved both these men in different ways. She knew the joy… the misery… brought by deep affection, and she ached with empathy for Jean Laffite.
“Will he be all right?” she whispered to Pierre.
Her lover slipped a caressing hand about her slim waist clad in guinea-blue calico.
“We can only hope, my darling,” he answered.
“You two talk as if I’m dying of fever or something!” Jean Laffite shot at them, attempting a weak smile.
“That is better, Mon capitaine,” Marie said. “Some fevers of the heart can be more deadly than those of the body. Your brother and I only wish for your happiness.”
The gentle woman went to Laffite and placed a consoling hand on his shoulder. He covered it with his own and squeezed affectionately.
“Pierre, where did you ever find such a woman? If I had half a wit about me, I’d give up this mad scheme to steal another man’s wife and steal Marie Louise instead.”
She smiled at one brother and then the other and spoke in a lyrical voice. “That would be very difficult to do, mon frère. Pierre is my life!”
“I know,” Laffite answered, matching her quiet tone. “And Nicolette is mine.”
“So how do you plan to pull this off?” Pierre questioned.
Laffite shook his head. “I only wish I knew. The first step is to get Bermudez here. Once the game begins, I’ll have to make up the rest as I go along. I’d like to kill him outright the moment he steps through that door. But being hanged for murder isn’t part of my plan.”
Nicolette plotted her escape silently through the long hours of riding the corduroy roads that led to New Orleans. But upon their arrival in the almost deserted city, she realized how futile her dreams had been. As their carriage rumbled along Bourbon Street, she gazed out on shuttered houses—their interiors lampless and empty. All her friends, her neighbors, were in the country. Her own house, the wedding gift from her parents, would be the sole occupied residence in this part of the city.
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