‘No! What if Chapin’s out looking for me? He’ll see —’
‘His half-brother, escortin’ his dear wife safely back to that house on Prytania. That house where he leaves her unsatisfied. Untouched, most likely.’ He penetrated my soul with his gaze. ‘What sort of a lover would I be if I left you to face him alone, Eve?’
I swallowed hard. ‘You’re not my lover, Dewel. I appreciate your gallant —’
‘Not yet. But I always get what I want, which is precisely why my big brother can’t stand me.’
He released me, but while I hurried into my clothes, that maddening man told Monique and T-Jon to run along — leaving me no choice but to let him escort me home. He wasn’t the least bit concerned about the hour, or the way my late arrival wouldn’t escape the housekeeper, or my husband. He dressed calmly, all the while watching me fuss with my dishevelled hair and dirt-smudged blouse. He glowed with the confidence of a man who cared nothing about appearances, or what others might think. Like a lion, Dewel assumed the rest of the jungle revolved around him, the king of beasts.
As we left the clearing, still littered with remains of the Cajun feast, Dewel poured us two last glasses of wine. Then he dipped his fingers and ran them along my face and beneath the top edge of my peasant blouse. I was so startled by his wet fingertips skimming my skin, I could only drop my jaw.
‘Chapin will think…I’m going to smell like a bum.’
‘Better than smellin’ like me,’ he drawled. Then he kissed me, heading immediately into that ravenous realm of possession where I couldn’t think or act. I could only shiver with the thoughts he planted in my poor muddled head, and fear for my future.
We finished the wine during the ride in the pirogue: while Dewel rowed deftly between cyprus stumps and lumps I suspected were alligators, I tipped the glass to his lips. This meant I sat close enough to feel the deep strength of his body, rekindling our heat with his every pull on the oars. When the claret liquid sloshed on his white shirt, he laughed. After he pulled us ashore, we walked towards the plantation house in the moonlight, swinging our clasped hands between us like carefree children.
The carriage ride into town was another example of pleasure a married woman should never allow herself: Dewel took every advantage of those twenty private minutes to fondle me into submission again. Dazed by his potent kiss, I sprawled across his lap as his hands roamed beneath my clothes. He went straight for my wet cleft.
‘No underthings,’ he remarked with a lascivious grin. ‘Such a wayward wife.’
‘Monique talked me into —’
‘No, ma’am,’ he countered, his wine-scented breath sending shivers of need up my spine. ‘Your body was preparin’ for me, even before your mind realised it.’
‘And how did I know you’d be there? Monique invited me to a family gathering,’ I retorted, playfully slapping his shadowed face.
He grabbed my wrist, and then ran the point of his tongue around my palm. ‘You and I are family, Miss Eve,’ he teased, but then his eyes darkened. ‘I knew the moment you set foot on my property. Watched you girls scamperin’ to the pirogue, from my window. And I started plottin’ your fall.’
I stared at him in the dimness, fearing his seductive powers yet enthralled by them. The carriage slowed as we headed up the driveway towards the house. ‘Don’t come in. I don’t think Chapin’s home, but I can’t take any chances.’
I reached for the latch of the carriage door, but Dewel drew me back for a final kiss — an elixir far more potent than the wine he’d baptized me with. ‘Take care of yourself, Miss Eve. Till we meet again.’
Reeling, I stepped from his carriage and hurried through the kitchen door where Fanny took deliveries. I listened for signs of anyone being around, but all I heard was the sonorous striking of the clock in the hall. Bonggg…bonggg…bonggg.
I could never recall being awake — downright electrified — at three in the morning. I removed my shoes with a smug smile, and then moved quickly through the dark pantry, deciding the back stairs were the quietest route to my room. I delighted myself with how silently I climbed — this sneaking around was easier than I’d imagined!
I topped the stairs, my door in sight —
But then Chapin stepped from his suite, fully dressed and ready for me. His face was pinched with anger, almost demonlike in the light from the hallway table lamp.
‘And where have you been, Mrs Proffit?’ he asked in a sinuous whisper.
6 Chapin Takes Me
He was scowling at my untied blouse, my messy hair, my rumpled skirt — and he’d caught me sneaking up the back stairs — so there was no point in denying my whereabouts. Chapin Proffit had ways of finding out what he wanted to know, and his clenching hands reminded me who would pay for my lies.
‘Monique invited me to a party with her family,’ I replied as steadily as the wine would allow. ‘I saw it as a chance to confirm her suitability for —’
‘Mrs Frike told me you left with her hours ago, wearing these…inexcusable clothes!’
His tone didn’t surprise me: I was prepared for a dressing-down. I was not ready, however, for him to grab the gathered neckline of my blouse and rip it off me.
‘You’ve been with Dewel, haven’t you?’
He punctuated this demand by yanking my skirt down, and then sneering at the colourful puddle of clothes around my ankles. ‘For years I’ve tolerated that bastard — let him mind his own business while I minded mine. But now that I’m being groomed for the city’s most prominent position, he comes out of his cave. To cast me in a dubious light by chasing after my wife!’
‘The party was on his land, because the Picabous are his friends. What right have you —’
‘Had his whoring mother known her place — and had my mother outlived our father — he wouldn’t have a pot to piss in!’ Chapin pulled me into his face by grabbing my camisole. ‘Beware a man with friends in such low places, Evie. He’s dragging you through the muck, and I’ll have no more of it.’
His fine-featured face now resembled a rabid mongrel’s, contorted with jealousy that had festered into a full-blown infection. I didn’t dare reply. I was too busy taking each breath, fearing it might be my last, for I’d never seen my husband this carried away by his hatred for his half-brother.
‘You smell like cheap wine and cigars. And sex!’ he said, driving his hand between my legs to test my wetness.
‘And you smell like perfume!’
The heavy sting against my face was a delayed reaction, after the loud clapping sound that echoed in the upstairs hall. I’d known better than to make that remark, but his feminine scent and all that Cajun wine had overwhelmed me. I didn’t wait for him to slap me again.
‘Yes — run to your room and hide, little harlot,’ he cried after me. ‘But don’t think I’ve finished with you!’
Where had such rage come from? I slammed my door and leapt on to my bed, sobbing at the swift deterioration of a marriage that was at least civil, if not the affectionate fantasy I’d entertained as a young girl. Chapin and I had experienced difficult days and trying nights, as all couples did, but I’d never foreseen this.
I curled in around myself, muffling my frightened whimpers in my pillow, wondering what recourse I had. Fanny was obviously reporting to her employer, while Monique, Tommy Jon and Dewel were too far away to help me. It was a huge house, with plenty of nooks and hidey-holes, but Chapin knew them far better than I. What a shame that such thoughts were now paramount in my mind as I struggled to catch my breath.
What struck me, however, was that my brief encounters with Dewel — and the evening with Monique’s fun-loving family — had shown me what I’d been missing: the company of people who befriended me for myself, rather than for my contribution to their success. The price I’d paid to keep my own family solvent seven years ago suddenly felt much too high. I’d never heard the amount Chapin placed in that bank account, but if Daddy knew what I’d just endured, he would not tolerate it.
> And neither would I.
I swiped the tears from my throbbing cheek. Packing a valise would only take a few moments; I could stash it beneath my bed, and be gone after Chapin left for the Cotton Exchange in the morning. I could lay my hands on enough jewellery and cash to buy train fare to —
The door to my room opened, and then closed. I remained motionless, peering through the dimness to determine Chapin’s mood.
He was naked.
This alone caught me off-guard, for I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen him unclothed. He was fondling himself, in a patch of moonlight where I could see his slender cock extending beyond his hand, which was a first as well. The soul of sexual repression, my husband. Or so I’d thought, until I spied him with that ‘niece’.
‘He got you drunk, and then he fucked you.’
No, and no! I wanted to cry out, yet his language waved a white flag, and his shaft was its pole. Monique had told me most men rose to competition, and her prediction was coming true: I’d never seen Chapin this aroused! He radiated a heat that threatened to consume me, and it seemed I was attaining my original goal in a most roundabout way.
‘So, while I can’t hold you totally responsible for your actions, we can’t pretend they haven’t happened,’ he continued in a voice tight with desire. ‘And you can’t tell me you didn’t like it!’
His arrogance set me on edge, but I kept quiet. It was enough to know he’d taken his anger in hand…a rather fascinating sight, watching my husband stroke himself. I’d never dreamed a man’s member could withstand such frenzied attention, and the sound of his rapid rubbing renewed the wetness between my legs. I shifted slightly, wanting to touch my slit.
‘I’ve spared you the marital relations you found so messy and inconvenient, but no longer,’ Chapin declared. ‘I thought you’d come around — if only to have the children we once longed for. But my indulgence has been a mistake.’
He walked slowly towards my bed, casting a long, lurid shadow on the wall behind him. ‘You’re my wife, Evelyn, and you vowed to love, honour and obey me. It’s time you accepted the responsibility that comes with this fine life I’ve provided you. So — will you submit? Or must I take what’s rightfully mine?’
I hadn’t uncurled from my original position atop my bed, and my crocheted counterpane cut its pattern into my palm as I clutched it. This was the first I’d heard of Chapin’s eagerness to be a father — or that I’d considered sex messy and inconvenient. Lord, when I married this man, I knew next to nothing about my own body, let alone what to do with his!
Although I pulsed with desire, part of me wanted to lash out, to tell him where he could stick that thing he now pointed at me. But in Southern society, a woman had nowhere else to go — at least not without a well-planned strategy in place — if she defied the man who supported her. I stretched tentatively, considering my options.
Insisting that Dewel and I had done nothing would be the wrong approach. Correcting my husband’s notion about my feelings towards sex wouldn’t be in my best interest either, because his accelerated breathing told me that, ready or not, he was going to come.
Best to play Chapin’s game for now — or at least make him think I was. After all, I wanted my husband to enter me as eagerly as he had Savanna. I wanted to feel like a desirable wife…a woman he craved.
‘I’ve always been yours for the taking, Chapin,’ I whispered, rising up on my elbow to better display my breasts. ‘Kiss me now. Let’s put this nastiness behind us and live like lovers.’
He inhaled as though to continue his lecture. So when he opened his mouth, I rolled forward to hook my arm around his neck — to pour my heart and soul into a kiss. He was so startled by this move that, while our lips were still locked, I rolled backwards to coax him between my legs.
He broke the kiss to inhale, rubbing his cock against me. ‘Get the rest of your clothes off, before —’
‘Take them! Put me in my place, Chapin, open and willing, beneath you.’
‘Bitch!’ He yanked down my drawers while placing his other hand behind my head, holding me hostage. ‘High time you showed some interest —’
‘Forget the past,’ I insisted again, arching up until the tip of him nuzzled my slit.
So many other retorts, about how seldom he was home and how disinterested he had always seemed, danced madly in my mind. But this was not the time to air such grievances. It was a slim, faint hope that by behaving this way I could inspire his affection for me — that we might change the course of our downward-spiralling marriage, here in my bed. For I did want to love this man. I wanted us both to be happy.
Chapin surged like a man possessed. In and out of me he slammed, grunting and rutting as though overwhelmed by his animal passion. I wrapped myself around him, thrusting up to meet him, thinking that yes, this was the enthusiasm he’d shown his little blonde lover. He was trying to satisfy me that same way. I looked up, to bask in the flames I envisioned in his pale-blue eyes.
But they were closed.
Chapin’s lip was curling and he was hurtling towards climax. Even to my inexperienced mind, he appeared lost in a mental vision…calling up all the cues and images that produced the desired results. He shot into me, and just that quickly he disengaged. He chose to recover at the foot of the bed.
‘I’ll be leaving at first light for St. Louis,’ he announced between breaths. ‘And while I’m conducting our family’s business, you shall be hiring more servants for the parties to promote my campaign. I want them settled in and working upon my return.’
He focused on me then, his expression brooking no argument. ‘I strongly suggest you dismiss Monique, as she’s the devil’s apprentice. And there will be no more parties on the bayou, and no more trysting with Dewel. Is that understood?’
Of course I understood. We hadn’t been making love: he’d been marking his territory. Mapping out my future as the wife of the next mayor of New Orleans.
* * *
‘And was that the husband’s carriage pulling away this morning? With luggage on top?’ Monique flung the draperies wide to let in sunshine that rivalled her bright smile, her Cajun sparkle. ‘This means we can do as we please, oui?’
‘He caught me last night. Fanny told him I’d left with you, and he was lying in wait like an animal, to pounce on me.’
‘And did he?’ Her dark, arching brow lent her an air of sexual sophistication I could never hope to achieve. How was it some women were naturals at seduction? And why didn’t she look as muzzy as I felt?
‘It wasn’t the least bit satisfying, but it took the edge off his anger.’ I sighed, shivering with this chilly memory. ‘He feels I need more responsibility — namely children. And he expects new servants to be working when he returns from St. Louis.’
‘And what does Dewel expect?’
Blood rushed up into my face, both from her implied knowledge of what went on between Dewel and me and from what I could imagine going on. ‘He’s staking his claim on me too. In a much different way.’
‘Well! How exciting for Auntie Evil, to have two such prominent men vying for her —’ She slipped her hand beneath my sheet to tease my slit with a playful finger, laughing when I jumped. ‘You see? Things happen when Monique comes around. And who will win?’
Just that fast she’d gone from teasing to point-blank. In my headachy state, I could only stare at her face, riveted by eyes as hot as black coffee and lush lips pressed into a determined line. Her hair was again a tousled topknot with a total disregard for decorum, but I could never, never underestimate this young woman’s power.
‘Who will win?’ I echoed, for it was the ultimate question concerning my current situation. And my future. ‘Chapin is determined to become mayor, with me as the perfect society wife on a pedestal beside him. But Dewel…Dewel wants my very —’
‘Non, non, non!’ Monique chattered, waving a finger in my face. ‘You will win, Miss Eve. And I will help you.’
My well-meaning maid couldn
’t possibly understand the hatred between the Proffit half-brothers. Nor did she know Chapin well enough to comprehend my predicament: the wife who wanted his affection, yet who was almost afraid to accept it. But she refused to back down.
‘I will run your bath, Auntie Evil, and then I’ll go back to Miss Delacroix’s School of Domestic Endeavor. When I return, you can instruct the maids I bring you, and all will be well. You are with me, oui?’
My self-appointed saviour was bustling around my room, humming cheerily as she pulled my brightest paisley-print dressing gown from the armoire. She turned on her way to the bathroom, awaiting my reply.
‘Oui?’ she demanded, tapping the toe of her high-heeled boot. ‘I have experience in handling new staff, and you must abide by my rules for their training. Otherwise, we’ll cross purposes and all will be lost — poof! —’
She clapped her hands together and threw them above her head, raising the hem of her uniform well above the tops of her stockings.
‘— and Monsieur Chapin will get pissy again. And Dewel won’t be happy at all. And believe me, ma tante, when Dewel’s not happy, nobody’s happy.’
7 Pretty Maids, All in a Row
My maid returned that afternoon with three young ladies who passed her muster. ‘They’re waiting in the front parlour, Miss Eve,’ she said, her topknot bobbing as she entered the kitchen.
When Mrs Frike and I looked up from the week’s menus, the housekeeper’s face furrowed with disapproval. ‘And why do we need more staff, missus?’ she asked with a sniff. ‘Are you implying my services no longer —’
‘Mr Proffit himself has requested it,’ I assured her, for despite her tale-telling she’d been excellent help over the years. And this was the wrong time to cross her. ‘With the pre-election parties he wants to host, think of these girls — and Monique — as servants to do the menial labour while you, Fanny, remain in charge of the overall preparations. Just as you’ve always done so capably.’
Evil's Niece Page 6
