Louisiana History Collection - Part 1

by Jennifer Blake

  With burning abruptness it came. Félicité drew a ragged, agonized breath that lodged in her chest. Maddened, feverish, lost in the sensation of wounding fullness, she turned her head from side to side. She was scarcely aware of the moment when the man above her hesitated, the air leaving his lungs as if he had received a body blow. A soft imprecation rustled on the air, nearly drowned in the rumble of thunder overhead. Morgan’s grip loosened, though he did not release her. The tension inside Félicité ebbed infinitesimally. She sensed the slow surfacing of a curious expectation. Pain receded, became a tingling awareness of the hard, naked body against her and the sultry dew of perspiration that seemed to melt them together. She allowed her tightly closed eyelids to relax, permitted her lashes to sweep slowly upward.

  Morgan was a warm and heavy shadow, constricting movement, until lightning gleamed across his features. There was a grim shadow of doubt in his eyes until he looked into hers, seeing the glitter of tears and the accusing, bewildered fury. His expression hardened as dark descended once more.

  “A high price, I will admit, my darling Félicité,” he said, his breath warm against her cheek, “but not nearly as high as I would have paid if you could have had your way.”

  “I — I never meant—”

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” he cut across her words. “Nor did I. But fool though I may have been, I am not one to argue with the hand of fate.”

  Words, biting, blistering, explaining, pleading, tumbled into her mind. They never reached her lips. Morgan eased deep inside her, submerging her once more in pain and the tumult of the senses. He drew back, thrusting again and again, his movement quickening. He released her wrists, levering himself higher. Caught in the rending storm of his ardor, crazed by the inescapable violation of her innermost being, Félicité clutched at his chest, digging her nails into him in her extremity. She raked across the edge of ragged flesh, felt the liquid slide of blood. At the edge of her mind, she heard his swift, indrawn breath of pain, but was powerless to stop herself. Locked together in torment and the heated essences of their bodies, they strove in immortal combat. Fear had left Félicité. She would survive, though nothing would be the same, she would never be the same. She would never be so certain of her strength, or of her right to remain inviolate, nor would she be so righteous in her anger, positive that she was free of blame. For there was within her the corrosive knowledge that in this attack upon Morgan McCormack she was not without guilt. Beyond the windows the storm broke with a roar and the rain came hissing down.

  Some time later, Morgan eased from her. The bed frame creaked as he rolled to the edge and came to his feet. He moved to the window with swift strides and swung back the shutter, filling the room with the wet rush of the rain. Thunder rumbled, a distant mutter. The minutes ticked past. Félicité lay without moving, her wide gaze on the dark shape of the man at the window, standing with his arms braced on the sill.

  Morgan took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before he turned back toward the bed. He sat down on the side, reaching to curl his warm fingers around her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  She jerked away from him, pulling the coverlet over her. Though she ached in body and mind, pride dictated only one answer. “Yes,” she snapped.

  “I could apologize, but it might ring a bit false.”

  “I don’t require anything from you — except your absence! I would like you, to leave my house, now. Get out!”

  “That may be what you want,” he said slowly, “but I don’t think it would suit me at all.”

  “What — do you mean?”

  “Staying here in this house might have certain advantages. I can think of several without half trying.”

  “You can’t,” she began.

  “Oh, but I can,” he answered, deliberately misunderstanding her. “To begin with, if your brother puts in an appearance anywhere in New Orleans in the next few days it will be here, to check on your welfare. It would be only sound tactics to await his return. Secondly, housing is scarce; the governor-general has been considering commandeering quarters for his officers, mostly to get them out of his own hair. It would be a relief to him, I’m sure, if I arranged my own domicile. And thirdly, there is your condition. Ravishing virgins has never had any appeal to me. If I had known — but I did not. It is a burdensome responsibility.”

  “Hah!” Félicité ejaculated in bitter scorn. Clutching the coverlet to her, she sat up higher in bed.

  “Your opinion of my principles notwithstanding, I feel a most inconvenient need to offer reparation.”

  His tone was dry and slightly ironic. Félicité wished suddenly that she could see his face. “Are you suggesting—”

  “It had occurred to me, yes, that an offer of marriage would be in order.”

  “You cannot be serious. One moment you accuse me of conspiring to murder you, the next you offer me your name. It’s ridiculous!”

  “Nevertheless, I mean every word.”

  “Why?” she flung at him. “To curry favor with O’Reilly? This would be improving relations with a vengeance!”

  There was a trace of grim amusement in his tone as he replied, “Would it not?”

  “Aren’t you afraid of giving me even more reason to be willing to rid myself of you?” she asked in waspish tones.

  “You were, I think, an inexperienced conspirator. That being the case, I will undertake to protect myself from anything else you might devise.”

  “I was no conspirator of any kind!” she cried, clenching her fists in front of her. “I had no idea there was anyone waiting, none at all.”

  “You expect me to believe that, after seeing you with your brother?”

  “That had nothing to do with you. I never dreamed—”

  “So you do admit it was Valcour?”

  “But I didn’t know what he meant to do, I swear.”

  He got to his feet, bending to take up his coat where it lay on the floor before he moved into the salle. She heard the striking of flint, saw the yellow flare of cotton in a tinderbox, one he must have taken from his own pocket. It was followed a few seconds later by the spreading glow of a lighted candle. Its brightness grew as Morgan returned, striding in splendid nakedness to set the bronze candlestick he had found upon her dressing table. Hastily, Félicité averted her gaze, staring at the black square of the window, where rain spattered in, splashing with a quiet and oddly musical sound upon the floor.

  Morgan stepped to the foot of the bed and leaned one shoulder against its hand-hewn cypress post. “If I believe what you are saying,” he drawled, “it would make it all the more imperative that you become my wife.”

  Félicité swung to face him, her brown eyes hard and her voice low and vibrant. “Never, never in this life.”

  “Never,” he said, his green eyes holding hers with a steady regard, “is a long time. I trust you won’t come to regret that decision.”

  Any answer she might have made was routed from her brain as she really looked at Morgan for the first time in the candlelight. Blood crept in twisting rivulets down his chest and one arm, dripping slowly from the tips of his fingers. It streaked his body, smearing it with drying, rust-brown smudges. Her widened gaze moved to the coverlet she held. It was so stained, so covered with splotches and smears of blood, it was impossible to tell which was Morgan’s and which her own.

  “Mon Dieu,” she breathed, and spread one hand before her, staring at her bloodstained fingers with the nails rimmed with red.

  Morgan glanced down at himself. With a grimace of irritation, he clamped his hand to the long gouge that was cut into the flat muscles of his upper chest, running across his arm. “Sorry, I didn’t realize.”

  Sickness moved over Félicité. She could not think what to say, what to do with this man who had invaded her life so thoroughly. Confused and deathly tired, she felt the need to weep, but knew she was past the relief of tears. The rain slackened, its fall muted to a soft drumming. Above it came the sound of a distant banging, as
if someone was beating at a door. The noise was insistent, catching at her attention. She turned her head to listen.

  Abruptly, she remembered. “Ashanti,” she whispered.

  “Your maid?”

  “I don’t know what they did to her, or to the other women.”

  “We had better go see.” Morgan frowned.

  “No, I’ll go,” she said hastily, her brown gaze flicking to the blood that seeped through the brown fingers he held over his wound. “You had better sit down.”

  He lifted a brow, his tone caustic as he answered, “Your concern is touching, but this is nothing. It’s been like this for some time now. A little longer isn’t going to hurt.”

  “I — I don’t need you,” she said.

  “As you please.”

  Félicité glanced at his face as she slid from the bed, dragging the coverlet with her. His features were set, closed in. Swooping to the armoire, she took down her dressing saque, draping its voluminous folds around her before she dropped the stained coverlet and stepped away from it. It was only then that she noticed she wore her soft leather sandals with their ribbons still laced up the calves of her legs. For no reason that she could think of, the discovery brought the heat of a flush to her face. Without looking in Morgan’s direction, she hurried from the room.

  In the salle, there was a blanket chest where rags were kept. She paused and lifted the heavy lid, drawing out a roll of bandaging made from the worn center of a clean sheet. Her fingers tightened upon it, then with her lips pressed together in a straight line, she whirled back into the bedroom, tossed the roll onto the bed beside Morgan, then hurried out once more.

  The thumping noise she had heard was louder as she ran down the stairs. It seemed to be coming from the court, possibly even from Ashanti’s sleeping quarters. She was right, she found as she emerged into the damp night. Ducking her head against the streams of rain still failing from the roof, she slipped along beneath its protective overhang. Outside the maid’s door, she lifted the wooden bar that held it in place, the usual method of restraining slaves at night, though it had not been used at her father’s house for years.

  The panel swung inward. Ashanti hung back, outlined in the glow of a tallow candle, until she recognized Félicité.

  “Mam’selle!” she cried, throwing herself forward to take Félicité’s hand, clinging to it. “I have been out of my mind with worry.”

  “It’s all right,” Félicité said, a catch in her voice.

  “Those men, they set upon me in the dark, threw me in here and shut the door. I heard you call, but could do nothing. Tell me what has happened. What has M’sieu Valcour done now?”

  In a few short phrases Félicité told her, not even stopping to feel surprise that the maid should guess the attack was her brother’s doing.

  “You say the colonel was injured? Was it bad?”

  “He says not,” Félicité answered in a suffocated tone, “but there is a great deal of blood.”

  “Where is he? We must see to him.” The maid slipped past Félicité, glancing back as she did not follow at once. Her face changed then. “Why, mam’selle, you are wearing your dressing saque, and your hair — your hands—”

  “It — it was a mistake.” The words were unplanned. Why she should attempt in any way to exonerate Morgan she could not have said.

  “Are you hurt?” Ashanti demanded, searching her face, her eyes dark with concern. “Tell me what that one has done to you, that monster of cruel pleasures? What has he dared to do?”

  “The colonel thought that I was a part of the attack against him. He—”

  “The colonel, not M’sieu Valcour, has made you look so?” The maid came close, a frown drawing her brows together.

  Félicité lifted a hand, rubbing at her face in distress, massaging the bruised place on her temple where she had struck the staircase earlier. As difficult as it was to find the words, her maid would have to know. She sighed, letting her hand fall. With a slow nod, she began to tell Ashanti what had happened.

  The maid touched her arm in a gesture of sympathy when she understood. “Come then, mam’selle, and let us go upstairs. I will make a tisane for you and put you to bed.”

  “But the colonel is there.”

  “If it is as you say, he will not harm you,” Ashanti said soothingly.

  Félicité sent her a swift glance. “I am not afraid of him! I only want him to go, and he will not.”

  “Perhaps—” the maid began, then paused before going on with a rush, “Perhaps it would be better if he stayed?”

  “Why? What are you saying?” Félicité demanded, staring at the other girl in the dim light of the wavering candle in the room behind them.

  “Never mind. Come, let me tend you.”

  She was so weary, so sore. The splattering of the blowing rain was slowly wetting her dressing saque. The wind through the thin material was cool to her fevered flesh, and she shivered, drawing it around her. “All I want is a bath.”

  “You shall have it,” Ashanti promised, and, turning, led the way back toward the stairs, waiting there to allow Félicité to ascend them before her.

  Morgan had donned his breeches, though nothing else. He stood scowling before the mirror of the dressing table with one hand holding a pad of cloth to his wound while with the other he tried to wrap the trailing ends of the roll of bandaging around his shoulder. He was not having much success. As Félicité came to a halt in the doorway, he threw her a glance, but did not speak. She moved a few feet into the room, permitting Ashanti to enter.

  The maid sent Morgan a long stare, then lowered her eyes. Her face shuttered, she went to the curtained recess where the small copper-lined bathing tub was kept and drew it out into the room. From the washstand she took a linen cloth, a small, precious cake of soap, and a glass box containing scented starch. Placing these on a ledge molded in the tub, she turned to the bed. With a few quick movements, she stripped the soiled sheets from it and, bundling them under her arm, left the room again.

  Félicité hesitated where she stood just inside the door, torn between the need to repossess her own private quarters and the urge to turn and flee, leaving them to Morgan McCormack. How strange it felt to see him there, to see his boots lying beside her bed and his waistcoat and shirt thrown across a chair, as if he had a perfect right to strew his things about. It was irritating, and at the same time disquieting, especially when coupled with his refusal to leave, his hint that he might take up residence.

  The dressing saque she wore had a ribbon tie at the neckline, but the edges of the front opening merely came together without lapping. Catching them close in one hand, Félicité moved to the window. The rain had nearly stopped. In the courtyard below, Ashanti had appeared to fling the sheets she carried into the laundry room. She must have released the young maid and the cook from the room they shared, for they came from the kitchen, talking, waving their hands, as Ashanti moved into that room to stoke the fire, preparing to put water on to heat. The maid was taking the change in her mistress’s circumstances very calmly. There was no point in hysterics, of course; still, such fatalistic acceptance was not quite what Félicité had expected. It was almost as if the girl had no objection, as long as the man was Colonel McCormack.

  Ashanti had tried to warn her. Félicité could not quite bring her words to mind, but she had stressed a need for caution, almost as if she had a presentiment of what might happen. That was all well enough, but given the situation, Félicité did not see how she could have behaved any differently. Her eyes bleak, she leaned out to catch the shutter, pulling it in to latch it.

  Behind her, Morgan cursed under his breath and tossed the roll of bandaging to the top of the dressing table. As she turned he was holding the blood-soaked pad he had taken from his shoulder in his hand, looking for a place to dispose of it.

  “There in the bowl,” she said, indicating the china ewer and matching washbowl that sat on the washstand.

  He stepped to cast the pad in
to the bowl, sending her a dark glance from the corner of his eye as ‘he moved back. “I don’t suppose you would have a needle and thread close to band?”

  “Why, yes.”

  “This damned gash needs something to hold it together. Every time I raise my arm it parts and starts bleeding again.”

  “You mean to sew it up?” she asked, her gaze flicking to the oozing cut across his chest before flicking away again.

  “No, my sweet, I mean for you to sew it.”

  Her startled brown eyes met his bright green gaze. “I couldn’t.”

  “Oh, come,” he mocked, “I would have thought the prospect of poking a needle in me would have delighted you.”

  “You have a strange idea of my character, colonel.”

  “I am willing to be enlightened,” he said, his tone soft.

  She lifted her chin. “Are you now, when you refuse to believe a word I say?”

  “Deeds, they say, speak louder than words.”

  “So they do,” she answered, allowing herself a small smile. “What then do yours say of you, Morgan McCormack?”

  “I did offer an amende honorable,” he reminded her.

  “You cannot have wished, or expected, me to take it!”

  “You think not?” he queried.

  The emerald brilliance of his stare was difficult to sustain. She dropped her gaze to his chest. “You are bleeding all over everything,” she snapped. “I’ll get the sewing box.”

  When she returned, she set the basket on the dressing table, but did not remove her hands from the handle. “Don’t you have a surgeon who came with you from Spain to deal with things such as this?”

  “A man came with us, yes, but I would as soon have a gravedigger attend me. So far, nearly every man he has touched has died with gangrene. Besides, he never bathes.”