Moon Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (13 page)

      
Deborah responded honestly. “I've never met Mr. Armstrong, so I don't know. Just because he's an American doesn't mean he espouses women's rights. I know Rafael wasn't very supportive the other night when you discussed Mr. Armstrong, but perhaps he'll soften in time.”

      
Lenore sighed and nodded. “I hope so, but I have to do what he and Papa say even if they insist I marry Georges.”

      
Recalling her own near miss with Oliver Haversham, Deborah said forcefully, “No one can make you marry against your will. You must face up to them if you find your cousin so unpleasant.”

      
It was like talking into the fog, however. Lenore had been so sheltered, cosseted, and molded into her role that she could not imagine openly defying the men of her family.

      
If she despaired about Lenore, Deborah found her own situation little better. She hated the boring social whirl of dances, masquerades, horse races, and operas, the trips to the modesties and shoemakers, the endless tittering gossip of the young matrons in tea shops and cafes. Boston was a town with the motto: Business occasionally stops for pleasure. New Orleans seemed to have that concept completely reversed: Pleasure occasionally stops for business.

      
Most frustrating of all for Deborah was Celine's hostility. First on the agenda had been a trip to the dressmaker. Deborah's clothes were too heavy for the steamy tropical heat, and she did love the gauzy sheer muslins, silks, and organzas the southern women wore. However, when it came to style, she and Celine were doomed to clash. Like most Creole women, the Flamencos were petite. Delicate, frilly clothes with ruffles and bows in frothy, elaborate styles looked attractive on them. Not so their Yankee in-law. Deborah was tall and slim; ruffles and bows made her look gawky.

      
Madame Manlon, the modiste, was sympathetic to Deborah's tastes but knew where the power lay. Madame Flamenco had been her valued customer for years. She quickly bowed out of what became the ribbon riot of Dumaine Street.

      
Holding a pale aqua watered-silk dress up with a disdainful sniff Celine said, “We must at least put some color in this gown. I know! Some of that cunning grosgrain.” She snatched at the spool of ribbon on the counter. It was a bright rose pink color, heavy and shiny. “Yes, along the shoulders and caught at the hem. Of course, the shoes should have buckles made of it, too.” She babbled on, completely ignoring Deborah's blazing violet eyes.

      
“Mama, perhaps the dress would be more dramatic if it were plainer,” Lenore ventured but was quickly waved aside.

      
After a full morning of arguments over colors and styles, enduring all sorts of sweetly delivered slurs about her taste in clothing, Deborah had had enough.

      
“Mother Celine”—she hated the title but suspected not half as much as her mother-in-law did—“I will not wear that or any other dress with gewgaws on it. They do not flatter me.” Her voice had an edge of steel to it that even Celine could not ignore.

      
The dressmaker quickly excused herself and fled the crowded fitting room. Lenore was trapped haplessly but backed off into a corner, instinctively reacting like a rabbit in the presence of two Airedales.

      
Celine's eyes snapped. “You know nothing about fashion. Northern women may be plain as posts, but this is New Orleans and women dress as ladies here.”

      
Deborah's expression was surprisingly cool now, although she was seething inside. She stared down her mother-in-law's spiteful glare. “I dress to please my husband, not the Creole ladies of New Orleans.”

      
Celine stamped her foot, shoving the dress at her daughter-in-law and throwing the heavy spool of ribbon on the floor, where it unwound in a splashy pile of rose glitter. “I shall have a talk with my son about your manners.” With that she whirled to leave, chin held imperiously high, only to fall face-forward through the door. She had stepped into the entrapping pile of ribbons, which wound around her ankles, tripping her in a tangled web. As she grabbed for the doorframe, she heard the rip of her skirts, which had caught on a protruding bolt. Unable to free her bound feet or her crinolines, she crumpled in a sobbing, ignominious heap on the floor just outside the dressing room.

      
Hearing the commotion, Madam Manlon came flying down the hall and knelt to assist her customer. The pink ribbon had entangled Madame Flamenco's stiff red taffeta dress like a fisherman's net. Celine rather closely resembled a pink and red blowfish freshly netted from the Gulf. As her plump body thrashed amid her billowing crinolines, she appeared even more rotund. The thick mass of her glossy chestnut hair had come unceremoniously down and was tangled around her shoulders. Her face was as red as her dress by the time the modiste, Lenore, and Deborah had extricated her.

      
Biting back her laughter, Deborah nonetheless refused the huffy harridan an apology, merely calling after Celine that she would complete her order and have a hired carriage take her home. She and Madame Manlon finished the day peaceably in complete agreement about pale, cool colors and straight, clean lines.

* * * *

      
“I tell you, Claude, you have to do something! She will disgrace us. She talks about nothing but books and philosophy and politics, for heaven's sake! And her clothes. Oh! I can never show my face at Madam Manlon's again.” Celine cried and twisted her kerchief in her fingers, daubing delicately at her eyelids as she watched her husband sigh in exasperation.

      
Just then, Rafael sauntered into the parlor in time to see his agitated parents replaying a scene he had often witnessed—his mother tearful and hysterical, his father stern yet placating.

      
Seeing him, Celine launched into a new fit of weeping, recounting her debacle at the dressmaker's through hiccups of rage and embarrassment. “She is so openly contemptuous of our ways, Rafael. And those horrid washed-out clothes fit only for a governess—it's humiliating.”

      
Used to her tears and pleading, he sighed in resignation, much like his father. “Mama, you have to give Deborah time to adjust. I will speak with her.”

      
As he headed for his quarters, their quarters now, he braced himself for another tantrum. What he found instead was a nervous but dry-eyed Deborah, sitting in their parlor, reading. When he entered, she put her book aside and stood up. “I assume your mother told you I tried to strangle her with grosgrain ribbon this morning?”

      
He smiled thinly. “Something to that general effect. Why can't you let her guide you just a bit, Deborah? She only wants to help you fit in. You really do owe her an apology for your behavior today.”

      
Deborah's temper was coming to a slow boil. Then, an idea flashed in her mind. Smiling sweetly, she said, “You're right, my love. I'll go speak with her immediately.”

      
Rafael should have been suspicious of her easy capitulation.

      
Deborah made a handsome apology to Celine and asked for her help in selecting a gown for the Gautiers' ball. Celine was pleased that her son had at least controlled the hateful chit and vowed to outdo herself selecting style, fabric, and trim. They departed for the modiste once more the next morning. The following week passed with superficial harmony between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Father and son were relieved.

      
When Rafael entered their bedroom on the night of the ball, Deborah was still wearing a silk wrapper. Flushed from a scented bath, she looked delectably ready to be swept off to bed, not to a gala! “Why aren't you dressed, Moon Flower? It's almost time to be fashionably late, as Mama prefers.”

      
Smiling broadly, she replied, “I want to surprise you with the dress. It is special. Will you wait for me in the parlor with your parents? I won't be long.”

      
Brushing her nose with a kiss, he complied, whistling jauntily down the hall.

      
True to her word, Deborah appeared shortly in the doorway to the parlor where Rafael and Claude were engaged in a heated debate over a horse race. Neither saw her as they raised their glasses in a toast. Catching sight of Deborah from the corner of her eye, Celine glided over to her charge and ushered her into the room.

      
Looking over his son's shoulder, Claude's eyebrows arched, but he said nothing as his wife began to speak. “Well, at last here's your wife, dressed as a pretty Creole belle should be.”

      
Taking a deep draught of cognac, Rafael turned with a smile starting to curve his mobile lips. When he saw his wife, the smug grin froze and the fiery brandy caught in his throat. He nearly scorched his lungs as he choked and gasped, attempting to swallow the liquor and yell at Deborah simultaneously. “What the hell have you done with yourself?”

      
Poised regally as a queen, Deborah stood silently in the center of the room with all eyes fastened on her. She was swathed in fuchsia satin, yards and yards of it, layered into billowing ruffles, rows and rows of them, falling from her shoulders, her waistline, and her hips, flaring out to three more tiers. Her fuchsia slippers had large gold lace bows that matched the gathered gold lace trim edging every layer of the ruffled dress. Her hair was pulled back at each side by combs with large gold lace bows on them.

      
“You look like a Spanish galleon under full sail,” he hissed when he finally regained his breath. “Change at once! I'll not be seen in public with you in that monstrosity!”

      
So intent was Rafael on his wife's hideous appearance that he had completely forgotten his mother. Celine's face darkened to the shade of Deborah's dress as she fanned herself with small, jerky sweeps of her lace kerchief. “Is it my fault, darling boy, that your overly tall, overly pale wife can't wear such a beautiful gown? Why, on Minnette Gautier it would look positively delicious.”

      
Deborah said not a word, but looked soberly from one Flamenco to another. Old Claude's eyes betrayed a sort of grudging respect, although he was careful to conceal it. He sipped his cognac, saying nothing.

      
Rafael looked from his furious mother back to his wife's calm face.
You conniving silver-haired bitch. You arranged this.

      
Then Celine's small plump fingers dug into his jacket sleeve. “Surely you don't fault my taste in fashion, do you, Rafael?” Her voice was tight as a bowstring.

      
Now, the faintest trace of a smile hovered on Deborah's lips. “Perhaps, it is you who owe your mother an apology this time, dear.” With that parting sally, she quit the room, five tiers of ruffles and lace swirling about her.

      
“With all the air that costume stirs up, we'll never need a ceiling fan again,” Claude said dryly. When Celine stomped her foot in fury, he raised his glass in mock surrender and subsided.

      
Celine glared at her husband, then turned her attention back to Rafael. “Well, have you lost your glib tongue? When your sister wears pretty dresses you always compliment her. Why not your wife?”

      
“Look, Mama, I'm sorry I called it a monstrosity. I'm not blaming you or criticizing your taste. But Deborah is tall and has such different coloring that she must wear different clothes to bring out her beauty—not that the dress wasn't beautiful,” he amended quickly. “As you said, it would have been perfect for Minnette Gautier.”

      
“Then you should have married Minnette Gautier, not that gauche foreigner!” Dabbing at her eyes with a kerchief, Celine choked out, “I'll see if Lenore's ready—that is, once I've composed myself.”

      
Claude refilled Rafael's glass, saying ironically, “I do believe, courtesy of your Yankee bride, we shall be more than fashionably late for the soiree.”

      
Rafael's first impulse was to throttle his wife; but observing Claude's calm, cynical air, he decided his father's ability to ride out these teapot tempests was perhaps the best method of dealing with women. He took a good stiff gulp of the brandy.

      
Within twenty minutes Deborah returned dressed in an elegant gown of aqua watered silk. She looked radiant.

      
“Pleased with yourself, Cherie?” he whispered softly in English as she glided over to him.

      
“I only hope this dress is acceptable,
Cheri,
” she replied innocently.

      
Ignoring their exchange in the distasteful foreign language, Claude said resignedly, “I shall go cajole your mother, Rafael. Why don't you escort your bride to the carriage?”

      
The ride to the Gautiers was made in strained silence, but mercifully the Flamencos' old friends lived only a short distance away. Jacque Gautier was one of the city's leading bankers and his daughter Minnette was a leading belle. Lenore had already warned Deborah about the beauteous Minnette, who had enlisted Celine in her cause to become Rafael's wife.

      
As they stepped from the coach, Deborah could feel Rafael's eyes on her. In spite of his anger, she knew he approved of her pale aqua gown, cut in straight lines and molded to her slender curves. She wore a cluster of fresh jasmine blossoms in her hair, which was knotted on top of her head in a sleek coil with a few tendrils whispering along her temples. Her only jewels were the aquamarine earrings and necklace that had been in her wedding basket.

      
When Rafael introduced his wife to Minnette Gautier, the spoiled beauty's petulant snappishness was apparent to everyone but Celine. Chattering and hugging Minnette to her, the older woman discussed the upcoming trip to their summer homes on the lake. Standing discreetly to the side, with her hand rather possessively on her husband's arm, Deborah watched Minnette. She was no more than seventeen, petite and black haired, with patrician features and large dark eyes that narrowed whenever she glanced in Deborah's direction. She was beautiful in the same classic Latin way Rafael was. Deborah could understand why Celine had chosen her. Minnette was Creole to her fingertips, coy and flirtatious, a daughter-in-law Celine could understand…and control.