When Dera learned Lianne had arrived at Belle Riviere with Philippe, she insisted Lianne reside at Green Meadows until the wedding for propriety’s sake. Besides, she wasn’t certain Lianne loved Philippe and wished to put some distance between them to allow the young woman a chance to think. Philippe wasn’t pleased when Lianne accepted Dera’s invitation, but he didn’t balk.
“If you insist upon this wedding,” Dera told Lianne one afternoon as they sat on the front porch and gazed at the long row of oaks which led to the river, “then I must insist that your marriage take place here at Green Meadows. I know your mother would have wished it.”
“Thank you,” Lianne said with a soft smile. “I’d like that very much. However, you still don’t trust Philippe, do you?”
A sigh escaped Dera, and she looked down at her hands. “No. He is wrong for you, but then many people told me my Quint wasn’t right for me either. So, who am I to say? Love comes from the heart and only you know what you feel for Philippe.”
Lianne averted her eyes. “I shall be a good wife to him.”
Dera clutched Lianne’s hand. “Once, many years ago, I said the same thing. I married a man I wasn’t in love with. Oh, I was fond of him in the same way I think you care for Philippe, and for a while I thought I was happy. But one day I realized I wasn’t.”
“What happened to make you change your mind?”
“Quint reentered my life and turned it upside down, but we were destined for one another. No man has ever made me feel what I felt for him.”
“Do you feel the same thing for Doctor Markham?” Lianne impulsively asked.
A blush like berry juice stained Dera’s cheeks and she stammered. “Lianne, dear, I’m getting much too old for romance. Doctor Markham is a dear friend, but no, I’ll never marry again.”
“I never mentioned marriage. Has he asked you?”
Her face grew redder. “Heavens no! Tad is a gentleman and settled in his ways. I don’t think he’d ever consider marriage again. He’s a widower from Williamsburg and has a grown daughter.”
Lianne baited her good-naturedly. “I think you’ve been thinking about marriage to the good doctor, Dera.”
Dera began to protest but instead she nodded in reluctance. “I care for Tad a great deal. Not in the same way I loved Quint but as someone to live out my days with. However, I don’t believe he sees me as a potential wife. He’ll return to Williamsburg and his daughter eventually.”
“Then you’ll just have to change his mind.”
Dera laughed. “I’m not a young beautiful girl any longer, Lianne.” Her face grew serious. “I wish you and my Daniel could have met. I think then your marriage to Philippe wouldn’t occur, and Amelie wouldn’t be forced to live a life of pain. She knows he doesn’t love her. It’s too bad one must live life dependent upon destiny.”
Lianne squeezed her hand. “I’m sure your Daniel is a wonderful man, but I’m quite content to be Philippe’s wife.”
Dismay swept through Dera. She knew of Philippe’s dalliances with women, of the quadroon woman he kept on the ramparts, and of the debts he incurred at the gaming halls. She couldn’t imagine a happy union between Philippe and Lianne who was so gentle and loving, but also possessed of an independent streak which would drive Philippe to distraction. But she didn’t tell her about these things. Instead she leaned over and kissed Lianne’s cheek. “I hope you can say that in a few months, my dear.”
The wedding preparations depressed Amelie. She watched as the servants carried fresh flowers into the house and arranged them in vases until she thought she’d go mad with the smell of roses, jasmine and bright red holly which wreathed around the doorways, the stair railings. Christmas had passed with a sudden flurry of guests to Green Meadows, courtesy of Philippe. She realized he wished to show off his fiancée and give people the impression that Amelie and Dera approved of the match. Amelie knew Dera’s feelings though she did her best to hide them with a polite smile on her face. But Amelie didn’t bother.
She sat mutely in the parlor through all the holiday gatherings with a silent Claude who waited in the corner, while Lianne paraded around in the new silk and velvet gowns Philippe had ordered for her entrance into society as his fiancée.
She resented the way she had wormed her way into her brother’s life and Dera’s affections. Oh, why couldn’t these two people care for her? Why must she share her brother’s love with Lianne and relinquish any crumb of affection Dera had shown her to a woman whom she hadn’t seen in years? None of it was fair.
Amelie could have shocked all of them by rising from the couch and dancing around the room. She hadn’t told Dera or Philippe she could walk. Not even Lallie knew. Only Claude. Her eyes glanced furtively in his direction. She noticed he watched her with love, with a hunger of which only she was aware.
She flushed despite the slight chill in the air as she thought of the wondrous nights when he crept into her bed, inflaming her with a passion she hadn’t known she possessed. She had met his hot kisses with her own and surrendered to his every variation in lovemaking.
Claude had taught her many things, things she’d never done with Daniel, and she wasn’t the least bit frightened or repulsed as his lips and hands sought her most private places. With Claude, it seemed natural. She knew then that Daniel had never truly wanted her or loved her. Otherwise, he’d have pleased her in the same way. In fact she no longer cared if Daniel ever returned home. She had Claude, and she belonged to him. Yet she couldn’t tell anyone she could walk. She feared that if Dera learned the truth and informed Daniel, he’d insist she leave Green Meadows. And she couldn’t. Not now. Not when her brother was ready to take a wife. She’d have no place to go, and there would never be a way for her to take Claude with her, not without risking their love affair. She’d never give him up, just as she’d never relinquish her position as Daniel Flanders’ wife.
Philippe had decided that the wedding should take place late in the afternoon on New Year’s Day. Amelie grew restless as the servants dashed in and out of the drawing room, sweeping and dusting for the wedding that afternoon. Finally when she could stand it no longer, she motioned to Claude. “Take me for a ride in the buggy or I’ll go insane.”
“It’s rather chilly outside, Amelie.”
“I don’t care! If I have to run out of here, I will. I can’t stand hearing that French woman’s delighted giggles or the child’s crying, Claude. Now, take me outside!” she snapped, then was sorry to see the hurt on his face. “I’m sorry,” she said as he picked her up and grabbed her shawl in one motion.
His lips gently brushed against her cheek when the room was empty of the servants. “Tell everyone you can walk. I’ll take you away, Amelie. We could be happy together.”
She loved him and wanted the same thing. But where could they live in peace? He was a mulatto slave, she the wife of a white planter. There was nothing to be done but pretend, and she couldn’t admit how much she loved the pampered life to him, though she felt he had already guessed that. “Don’t make it harder for me, darling.” She whispered in his ear. “Take me to our private spot before it’s time to dress for the wedding. No one will miss us since Dera’s too wrapped up in her goddaughter and your mother is pressing the wedding dress.”
Her slender hands unbuttoned the first button on his shirt, reaching in and massaging his chest with the flat of her palm. “I love to touch you,” she whispered.
Her touch started a fire deep in his loins. Within minutes he settled her in the buggy and had cantered to their secret place, a place he had found at the edge of the property which bordered on Belle Riviere and was covered by thick undergrowth and tall trees. He stopped the buggy behind a clump of foliage, sure that it was hidden from the view of the house and helped Amelie down. The moment she fell in his arms again, he kissed her, taking her breath.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. He gazed into her eyes, a hazy blue at that moment and clouded with desire. They reminded him of the river on a warm, summer afternoon. He didn’t know what he had done to deserve her love, her passion, but she belonged to him and he’d never give her up. Not even to her husband. She smiled a bewitching smile at him, and they entered the foliage which shielded them like a curtain.
With her shawl he made a cushion against the grass. She shimmied out of her gown, taunting him with her small, rounded breasts. She had on no undergarments and his desire increased as he realized that she must have planned this sojourn into the woods.
She reached out and unbuttoned his shirt, her fingers massaging and kneading the dusty brown flesh. Then her hand slid to the rope at his waist, and his pants fell to his feet. She bent to kiss the hairy expanse of navel and abdomen. Claude groaned as her tongue worked lower.
“Amelie, Amelie,” he moaned over and over as her mouth and hands showed him how much she loved him, wanted him. Then when he could stand no more, he bent and pushed her onto the shawl and pleasured her in the same intimate way.
Her whimpers of pleasure echoed through the still morning air. Her breasts trembled as she flexed upward at the deep sensations coursing through her lower body. She pulled his head away from her, unable to stand the intense pleasure, demanding more of him. When he snaked up her body to capture her lips, her legs wrapped around him.
“Do you want more, chérie?”
“All of you, Claude.”
He wanted her too, and when he entered her, he thought he’d die from the exquisite pleasure of it. She arched against him moaning and writhing. Her nails scratched the skin of his back and excited him to a fever pitch. Then his seed of life rushed into her and she cried his name in ecstatic moans which he muffled with his lips.
Amelie lay gasping, unable to believe anything could be so wonderful. The times she and Claude made love had been filled with passion, fulfillment, but she knew this time was different and would remember it for the rest of her life. Her fingertips stroked the hardness of his chest, and he smiled into her eyes.
“I love you, Amelie. Love you so much.”
“Even more than the kitchen wenches you’ve had? As I understand it from Bruno Haus, you’re quite a man with the ladies, known for your prowess.”
His hand lightly brushed against her breast, an amused look coming to his eyes. “Are you jealous?”
“Not for the women you’ve had because evidently you were taught very well. But don’t take another woman to your bed, Claude. I couldn’t bear it.”
“I don’t want anyone but you.” He grew serious. “What happens when your husband returns? Suppose Daniel demands his rights?”
Her tongue flicked across his lips for a second. “Daniel doesn’t know I can walk, so he won’t bother me. I’m yours, only yours.”
She kissed him deeply. Her hands massaged the hard muscles of his thighs, and he knew he’d take her again. And again. And he did. By the time he finished with her, Amelie was so exhausted that she dressed in a warm, sleepy afterglow. They rode back to the house then, and after he carried her to her bed, she kissed him, and fell asleep for a few hours of rest before the wedding.
Bruno Haus wasn’t sleepy. He was wide awake and much aroused after silently witnessing the future mistress of Green Meadows writhing in ecstasy beneath a slave.
He knew he had had the power to intervene and whip the arrogant Claude to an inch of his life and perhaps even take Amelie for his own pleasure. But he didn’t. The fact that she could walk was important and the way she made love to the slave might just give him power over her at a future date. He laughed. Claude wasn’t the only one who wanted her, and he vowed Claude wasn’t the only man she’d service with that hot body. In time, his own turn would come.
That knowledge didn’t quench the fire in his loins. So, to ease it, he went to the fields where a lone slave girl worked. He knew that she feared him and wouldn’t say a word to Mrs. Flanders, so he threw her down and hiked up her skirts, taking her in the middle of the field, but his desire was for Amelie.