Andre grabbed her hand and pulled her to a low wall skirting the edge of the dirt area. Once there, he surprised her by lifting her up and plopping her on the top of the wall. He joined her, legs dangling, hands loosely clasped between his knees. Since their perch remained outside the perimeter of flickering flames, they could watch the spectacle in anonymity.
“What are they doing? Who are they?” Sophie couldn’t help but stare at the dark-skinned people, flushing as she eyed the bare-chested men and scantily clad women. She’d never seen a man without his shirt on. Even on her wedding night, she’d avoided looking at Andre.
She had lived amongst men for almost a year, but pirates were not prone to going shirtless or shoeless. Sunburn was not their friend. So now, she stared from within the shadows, a hot blush of embarrassment burning her face as she watched the men and women wind about each other, bodies close, sometimes touching. It seemed like they were performing a mating ritual.
“They’re slaves mainly, brought here from Africa, or some of the remote Caribbean Islands. When they have time off, they gather here at Congo Square to dance, romance, and keep their customs alive. Every time I visit the Vieux Carré I come to this place.
“I like their music. The words to their songs. Their dances. They tell stories about people, and hardship. Their music has meaning, not like those pompous minuets where everyone prances around the fact that men and women get hot and sweaty together, and enjoy the hell out of every minute. These people are real life.”
As he talked she stared into his dark eyes, forgot the dancing and singing going on under the torchlight. At this moment, he fascinated her, for he had become more than just another man trying to get under her skirts. He had empathy for others, definite opinions about life.
Granted, it all boiled down to the intimate act between a man and a woman. He seemed fixated on that subject, but his feelings ran deeper. He criticized society for its treatment of people from other lands. He was a true pirate, going against all popular beliefs to follow his own. She admired him for the first time in their short acquaintance.
Blinking into the present, she realized he was returning her gaze in smiling puzzlement. She’d been looking at him too long. Embarrassed, she faced forward even as she felt him scoot closer to her on the wall. His body brushed against hers in the sultry night air.
He hooked a finger under her chin and turned her face toward him. “You like what I say, don’t you? I’m not just another man looking for treasure and a quick tumble anymore, am I?” His heavily fringed eyes reflected the firelight as he challenged her to disagree.
She jerked her chin from his grasp. “Don’t be ridiculous. Yes, you seem more perceptive than I first thought, but don’t get excited. It will take more than a few thoughtful comments to talk me into your bed.” She raised her nose in the air in hopes of ending the discussion. He responded with a deep laugh, leaning in and stealing a quick kiss before hopping down from the wall and reaching for her waist. Without waiting for her consent, he swung her to her feet and grabbed her hand.
“I am already excited, mon amour however, if you feel need more wooing, then come with me. they were off, andre dragging her by hand, tails from his head kerchief fluttering in face as he pulled them through the streets of Vieux Carré.
Their next stop was a little kiosk on a street corner where a mulatto woman of undetermined age stood chattering in French to two young Negro children. Immediately she stopped as they approached, shooing her children behind her gray skirt as she asked in halting English if they would like some beignets. Andre smiled and answered in rapid french while sophie studied his profile.
She noticed his straight nose flanked by incredibly high cheekbones, and the dark mustache drooping over firm lips, meeting the stubbly beard that never thickened nor thinned. His facial hair remained soft to the touch, tickling her cheeks and lips when they kissed.
She realized with a jolt that she found him quite attractive, and her mind skittered away from that discovery as he raised a brow, indicating the puff pastries with a nod of his head. She took a deep breath and clasped her hands together in the folds of her shirt.
“I am French. Of course I’ve eaten beignets." Did he think she’d been hatched? Kept under lock and key all her life? It might have better if she had been.
He laughed and shared a look with the mulatto woman before saying, “Not like these, I’ll wager. Try one.” He popped one into Sophie’s mouth. It promptly melted against her tongue, releasing its delicate, buttery flavor in an explosion upon her palate.
Its light, pleasurable taste surprised a groan from her throat. “You’re right. These are fantastique, mmm."
She held out her hand for more from him while he stood like a statue, his only movement a blink of his eyes. Annoyed at his slowness, she grabbed two more of the delicious morsels out of his grasp, devoured them and licked her fingers while the mulatto woman giggled at her appetite.
Using her tongue to swipe each finger clean of the beignets’ powdery residue, sophie frowned at andre, who continued to follow her movements watchfully. puzzled his odd behavior, she turned the other woman.
“I’ll pay you, Madam,” she offered, reaching for her money pouch hanging from her belt. At her voice, Andre roused, took in her payment and shook his head. He pushed her money away and retrieved his own, apologizing in French to the pâtissier after smiling at the two children hiding behind woman, they went on their way.
~*~
He was going straight to hell, Andre concluded as he followed Sophie like a pet dog toward his father’s home. The sight of her licking her fingers seared his brain, as did the thoughts of where else she could use that tongue. He walked faster.
Now in the lead as they went around the corner, he glanced into the open doors of Madame Thibodaux’s brothel, and then slid his gaze toward Sophie. he realized she tempted him more than any of the women inside whorehouse. ignored clang warning bells that discovery set off. they’d reached father’s home, anyway.
He knocked on the entrance door before trying the handle. It was open. Shaking his head, he hollered, “Papa? Êtes-tu ici? Are you here?” A response from the back of the residence sent them in search of Le Commandant, finding him in his study with the French doors opened upon the water fountain in the courtyard.
The old pirate looked up. A grin creased his lined face as he rose from behind his ornate desk. He came around to kiss their cheeks. Sophie enveloped him in a hug before he could draw back. Well, hell, Andre thought, she’d probably usurped his rightful place as the beloved offspring, too. After all, she was a sight prettier than he was.
“I wondered when the two of you would return from your wedding trip to visit the old man who got you both together.” Only Louis’s sly smirk let on that the trip reference was a sham.
Throwing himself into one of the wingback chairs opposite the desk, Andre replied without bite, “Stow it, Papa. You summoned us. We obeyed. But my...wife might like to clean up a bit.” He hoped his slight hesitation went unnoticed as he raised his brows at her, who visibly perked up at the mention of a bath.
Her radiant smile was like the sun appearing after a storm, and she turned it on Louis, who reached out and pulled on a tasseled bell pull, calling a servant to start the water. Immediately a young Negro woman in a mobcap entered, curtsied, and nodded as Louis told her to draw a bath in the guest bedroom. He added, “Bring her some women’s clothes as well, Cora, along with a light supper. I’m sure my daughter-in-law would like clean garments to sleep in and something besides ship food to eat.”
Andre watched in bemusement as Sophie threw her arms around his father’s neck. She gave him a solid kiss on the cheek, and then thanked him before skipping to the door after the maid. She didn’t even acknowledge Andre as she disappeared from sight.
Irritated by her disregard, he swiveled back to face his father. He narrowed his gaze on Louis, who pulled out a cigar and took his time readying it. Andre stroked his mustache with his thum
b and forefinger during the older man’s prolonged preoccupation.
“Why are we here, you conniving old buzzard?” he demanded, unable to wait any longer. “And don’t give me that ‘fruit of my loins’ rubbish. It better be a damn good reason, since I’m just now getting Sophie to talk to me without throwing something or pulling a gun.”
Louis raised his eyebrows over his cigar. “You’ve lost your touch, son. You didn’t inherit that from me. I never had a woman throw things at me.”
“That’s because Mama was a saint.”
Pursing his lips, Louis nodded in agreement. After a couple beats of silence, during which he blew smoke rings toward the ceiling, he asked, “Have you recently been to Formosa, Andy?”
Andre shifted in his chair, wondered where this line of questioning was going. “Aye, we just got back. Why?”
Louis cocked a gray eyebrow. “Do anything you might regret?”
Andre wrinkled his nose, and then wiped a tired hand down his face. “Don’t think so. Why?”
“Have you bed anyone’s wife besides your own lately?”
“I haven’t even bed her.”
He cursed his loose lips when his father’s expression grew calculating. Louis sat back in his desk chair, considering his cigar before looking over it at Andre. “Well? Answer me question, boy.”
Andre picked at the ends of his head kerchief. “I might have.”
“Either you were in or you were out, boy. There’re no might-haves in copulation.”
Andre jumped out of his chair to pace the study. “Yes, I slept with Junjie Zheng’s wife. I didn’t know who she was at the time, or that she was even married. I thought she was someone’s mistress.”
“Seigneur, ayez pitie," mumbled Louis, following Andre’s nervous pacing while shaking his head. “Can’t you go anywhere without pulling out your pecker?
With a venomous look toward his father, Andre dropped into the wingback again, dangling his hands over its ends.
“I can’t help it if I’m irresistible to women, Papa.”
He swallowed his wolfish grin when his father snapped, “Apparently your wife doesn’t find you so irresistible, eh, mon fils?"
“That’s a whole different story. But I’m guessing you already know it, am I right, old man?”
Louis’s overly innocent look clinched his suspicions, even as his father hedged, “What do you mean?”
“You knew Sophie’s history, didn’t you? At least enough of it to guess. My question is, why me? If I always ‘pull out my pecker’ as you say, why’d you saddle her with me? This leopard isn’t likely to change his spots.”
As his words faded, Louis puffed on his cigar in the silence, the end glowing like an all-knowing eyeball pinpointing Andre’s weaknesses.
Finally, he removed it from his lips. “I didn’t know the particulars. Still don’t. Only you and she do. When her father challenged me about the territories and then came up with this marriage compromise, I figured there was more to the story. But she looked beautiful, her father swore she was biddable—”
Both men snorted at that description of Sophie before Louis continued. “Besides, I figured it was time you settled down. You could’ve done a lot worse, am I right? Or is she too intractable for you?”
“Quit fishing, you old codger. We’re getting to know each other, but as you’re well aware, Sophie isn’t ‘biddable’ in the least, and her past has a direct influence on the present. However, I think marriage might suit us both, once I gain her trust.”
He stared out the open French doors behind his father. Was he ready to settle down? With Sophie? If he was, what of the annulment? It was burning a hole in his pocket and his conscience with his continued silence. He daren’t confide in his father, that he did know. That man was notorious for being unable to keep secrets.
The old man was still talking. “My sources tell me Zheng might not have been so ignorant of his wife’s indiscretions. I’m told he has a vendetta for the man who defiled his wife. That he will travel to the ends of the earth to make restitution. If that man was you, son, I suggest you guard what is yours carefully. Zheng is no one to take lightly. If he finds out it was you with his wife, and I’m guessing he made her tell him, you will have to fight him.”
They stared at each other, the dangerous situation Andre had put them in floating between them. The buccaneer world knew that Junjie Zheng had taken his territory by force years ago, and that he never worked with the other pirates within the Confederation. Usually he stayed in his end of the world, wreaking havoc in Asia. Now Andre’s slip-up had brought the Chinese warlord to their part of the land.
“What exactly are you saying, Papa?”
“An eye for an eye, Andy. You took his wife. Mark my words, he’ll take yours. Where’s her ship?”
Grief washed over Andre at the thought of losing Sophie, as well as anger over anyone else bedding her. He clenched and unclenched his fists. “She’s still sailing it. We haven’t—”
“Beach it. Beach it and her crew. Keep her on the Princess and don’t let her out of your sight. Stay vigilant. If Zheng can’t get to her, he’ll come for you.”
This he could agree to.
“He’ll come for me anyway. I’ll be ready for him. How long do I have?” Andre stood up, arching his back to stretch cramped muscles. His father rose also, stubbing out the cigar.
“Unclear. He’s probably at least a week behind you, so keep your eyes open. When will you tell Sophie?” He spoke with genuine concern for his daughter-in-law.
Andre headed toward the exit. “Certainly not now. I could use a good night’s sleep, and I won’t get that if I tell her tonight. Tomorrow’s soon enough. See you in the morning, Papa, and thanks for the head’s up.”
He strode out of the study, head and heart churning over all the information he’d learned, hoping he’d be prepared when the time came.
~*~
Standing at the open window in her borrowed lawn nightgown and dressing gown, Sophie stared out over the Vieux Carré, luxuriating in feeling feminine again. Piracy was the life she wished to live, but she had to admit, it felt good to remind herself she was a woman.
For example, tonight she had indulged in warm, scented bath water the young maid and footmen had delivered to her boudoir, complete with floating rose petals she could still smell upon her skin and hair. Afterward, instead of braiding her hair, as she was wont to do, she chose to wear it down, just so she could smell the rose fragrance swirling about her.
Having eaten a light supper as well, she now stood at the open window reminiscing of her previous life in La Nouvelle-Orléans with her father. A touch of melancholy drifted over her as she listened to the low rumble of her husband’s and his father’s voices below. Unable to make out their words, she nevertheless felt content with the sounds of their conversation wafting up to her.
Sometime later, a knock came to her door. Deep in reverie and thinking it to be the serving girl checking up on her, she bade her enter, not turning from the dark view of the courtyard below.
“It smells like a rose bower in here, and the most beautiful blossom stands before me, yet to be plucked.”
Sophie whirled around, hand at her throat as she took in the sight of her buccaneer husband leaning against the door jam. He filled the space with his raw masculinity. His dark, gleaming eyes coursed from the top of her head to its unbound raven tresses, over her lightly covered body, right down to her pale, bare feet peeking out from under her dressing gown.
She was trapped. In the room, and in his heated, hooded gaze. Something had happened while she’d been bathing. Gone was the pleasant, eager-to-please tour guide with whom she’d spent the evening. In his place stood a dangerous, unsettling pirate.
Her heart began to pound inside her chest as he uncoiled from the doorframe, taking slow, measured steps farther into the room. His glittering gaze never wavered from her face. He resembled a jungle cat stalking its prey as he advanced toward her, loose-hipped and predator
y.
Lips trembling, body quivering, she stammered, “This...this is m-my room.”
He smiled a predacious smile.
“Au contraire, mon amour, it is my room as well tonight."
Her mind whirled like a carousel, finally settling on one thought, her husband was finished wooing her.
Chapter Ten
Staring into those dark, kohl-lined eyes was like sinking into a quicksand of desire and fear. Desire because that velvet gaze promised ecstasy to a woman willing to sink into his mire of seduction. Fear because that same woman might not emerge from his erotic quagmire with her heart intact. Sophie wasn’t sure her body, or her heart, was ready for Andre’s form of entertainment.
For that was all her husband offered—entertainment. She didn’t think he was even capable of love, and marriage meant love in Sophie’s eyes. Her parents had had it. She wanted it. However, first Gilbert took her innocence, and then her father married her off to a man incapable of anything more than a few memorable tumbles. Why he’d done so she couldn’t fathom.
Andre awaited a response from her, standing so close the heat from his body threatened to send her up in flames. How could his nearness elicit such a response? She didn’t even want a husband. She fought the idiotic urge to reach out and touch him, so she stared at the hollow of his throat instead and stammered, “So...so you’ll sleep on...on the floor?”
She glanced up and intercepted his wide grin. He reached up to wind a strip of her dark hair around one forefinger, and she trembled, from his touch or from awaiting his answer she wasn’t sure.
His hooded gaze shifted to his finger wrapped in her dark hair. “Not bloody likely. I don’t want the servants talking about ole Andre not being welcome in his wife’s bed under his own father’s roof. No, we share the bed, love. I promise I don’t steal the covers. Much.”
That cocky smile struck a nerve within her, bringing forth the pirate figure she’d been until he’d swept into her life once more. Angry at herself for turning shy and voiceless, she reared back, took in her husband’s disheveled appearance—his lank hair, limp head kerchief, bruised shadows under his eyes, tar-stained hands, and the light coating of dust that covered his clothes.
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