When Strangers Marry (11 page)

Inhaling deeply, Lysette moved away from him, heading to the dresser where her nightclothes had been placed. As was the way of most Creole couples, they had agreed to occupy separate bedrooms.

“The marital relationship seems quite simple,” she said, somehow managing to keep her bodice up and simultaneously remove a nightgown from the drawer. As she straightened, she saw Max’s reflection in the square Queen Anne mirror on the dresser. He had removed his shoes and was sitting on the bed, thighs spread.

She concentrated on the nightgown in her hands as she continued. “The husband and wife embrace and kiss, until he becomes aroused. Then he puts his…his…male part inside her, and it is painful. After the first time, it is no longer quite as unpleasant, but it is an obligation that a wife may not often refuse. Unless she has her monthly courses, or some other illness gives her a respite from his attentions.”

“A respite,” Max repeated in a strange voice. Risking a glance at him, Lysette saw an almost comical mixture of amusement and consternation on his face.

“Well, yes. I can’t see that any woman would actually look forward to letting a man do
that
to her. My sister Jacqueline says that it is quite unpleasant.”

“Does your sister love her husband?”

“I don’t believe so. It was an arranged match, and they don’t suit. He is somewhat older than she.”

“How old is he?”

“About a hundred and fifty,” Lysette said glumly, and Max let out a rich laugh.

“And you were worried about
our
age difference?”

Lysette shrugged and smiled, unable to help contrasting her sister’s decrepit husband with the virile creature before her. “I wasn’t, really,” she admitted. “I was just trying to provoke you.”

“You succeeded,” he informed her, and she laughed.

Regarding the balled-up gown in her fists, Lysette wondered how to change clothes while preserving
her modesty. It didn’t seem possible. Wryly she reflected that she had no secrets from him, anyway. Before she let herself think about it too long, she shed her wedding gown and chemise, untied her garters, and unrolled her stockings. The entire process took less than a minute, but she felt her husband’s blistering gaze on her, and it seemed an eternity before she finally donned the nightgown.

Her face was vivid red as she glanced at him.

“You’re very beautiful,” Max said, his voice hoarse.

Lysette knew that she was hardly a raving beauty, but the way he stared at her left no doubt as to his opinion to the contrary. And she was certainly not going to argue. “
Merci
,” she murmured. Cautiously she came to the bed and stood beside him, raising her brows expectantly. “Well? Is my version of the marital relationship accurate, or do you wish to modify it?”

Max gestured for her to come to him. Extending one hand, he tugged her up onto the mattress, where she settled with her legs partially curled beneath her.

“There are a few things I want to clarify,” he said, lifting a hand to her hair. His fingers smoothed over the ruddy curls and found the pins that anchored her coiffure. With great care, he took down her hair and sifted through the wild mass. She could not suppress the quiver of pure bliss that went down the back of her neck. The tiny aches where the pins had pulled her hair dissolved in a tingle of comfort.

“First,” Max said, “it is not a obligation that can only be avoided in the case of illness or monthly courses. You may refuse me at any time, without having to give a reason. Your body is your own, to be shared or withheld at your discretion. I wouldn’t find it pleasurable to force myself on an unwilling partner—which leads to a second point. There are things a man can do to make the sexual act pleasant for his partner. It doesn’t have to be uncomfortable, after the first time.”

Lysette was very still, lulled by his stroking hands in her hair. “Max…” Heat blazed over her face, and she felt suffocated by embarrassment. “When we were kissing the other day…I
felt
you…that is, I felt your…and I don’t think…”

“Yes?” he prompted huskily at her mortified silence.

“There is no possible way that you could make it comfortable,” she blurted out.

To her everlasting gratitude, he did not laugh, but replied in a serious manner. “Lysette.” He nuzzled the top of her head and worked his way down to her ear. She felt his lips brush the tender lobe. “I think your body will learn to accommodate me,” he whispered. “Trust me about that,
d’accord?
”

“All right.”

To her surprise, he left the bed. “I have to leave you now,
petite
.”

“But I still have some questions.”

“Unfortunately, there are limits to my self-control.” His hand descended to her bare ankle and squeezed gently. “Let me go, Lysette, so that I can keep my
promise not to ravish you. We’ll talk more later, I promise.”

“Can’t you stay just a little longer?” she asked, reaching out to touch his chest. She felt the play of muscles underneath his shirt, their tension betraying the desire he kept so sternly in check. The soft light of the
veilleuses
, the little lamps on the dresser and bedside table, flirted gently over the firm edges of his cheekbone and jaw.

Wincing visibly, Max removed her hand from his chest. “Not if you wish to remain a virgin tonight,” he said gruffly.

Suddenly Lysette was tempted to invite him to stay. However, she could not allow a single impulsive moment to interfere with her resolve. She could only allow him to make love to her when she was certain that he was truly
in
love with her…or at least that he felt something very close to it. And at the moment she knew that the attraction and liking between them had not yet matured into the deeper emotion that could only come with time.

“Then good night,” she said, and leaned forward to brush a quick kiss against his mouth.

Max shook his head ruefully. “You don’t make it easy to be trustworthy,
chérie
. You’re far too tempting, and I’m not accustomed to denying myself something I want.”

He picked up his coat, shrugged into it, and went to the door.

“Max?” Lysette was perturbed by his actions. He would not have put his coat on unless he was planning to go downstairs. But surely he would not return
to mingle with the guests—that would be the height of bad taste. Was it possible that he intended to leave the plantation?

He paused and glanced over his shoulder. “Yes?”

“Are you going out this evening?

A brief but maddening smile touched his lips, as if he knew exactly what she feared—that he might satisfy his desires with his
placée
tonight, since his wife was not available to him.

“Someday,
ma petite
, my whereabouts at night will be entirely your concern.” He added with wicked gleam in his eyes, “But not yet.”

And with that he left, closing the door gently behind him.

Lysette glared after him, aware for the first time in her life of the acrid taste of jealousy.

Max paused outside the bedroom door, finding it difficult to leave Lysette when every impulse demanded that he return to her. Without conceit, he knew that he had the ability to persuade her to yield to him, and that she would enjoy it as much as he did. However, her trust was too important for him to risk. He would wait as long as she wanted him to, though it was going to be difficult.

Had he wanted Corinne like this? The recollection of his first night with her was little more than a blur, but he did remember that Corinne—the first and only virgin he had ever bedded—had regarded him with resentment and reproach forever afterward. In spite of his efforts to be gentle, it had been a painful and mortifying experience for her. Corinne
had been raised to dread any kind of intimacy with her husband, just as Max had been brought up to think that love for a wife was entirely different than love for a mistress.

Thank God that age and experience had taught him to believe otherwise.

The next day Bernard held a glass of rich red wine between his long fingers as he contemplated his older brother. This was their first opportunity to talk privately since he had returned from France. Max had been gone all day, superintending the repair of a faulty bridge on the property. He had come into the library without changing, intending to have a drink while his bath was being drawn. The filthy condition of Max’s clothes attested to his active involvement in the repair of the bridge.

Bernard could not help being amused by his brother’s appearance. “That isn’t the way I would have expected you to spend the day after your wedding,” Bernard said.

“Nor I,” Max replied wryly as he sat down and crossed his legs, heedless of the crusts of mud that fell from his boots to the fine Aubusson carpet.

“I see you have not changed in one regard: Nothing is right unless you do it yourself. There is no call for you to wallow in the mud and sweat like a field hand, is there?”

Max tightened his mouth with annoyance. Neither Bernard nor Alexandre wanted any of the responsibility of running the plantation. The only times they entered the library were to reach for the
liquor decanters on the sideboard or to extend their palms for their monthly allowances.

However, both of them—Bernard in particular—criticized him freely when they did not agree with his decisions concerning the plantation. The irony was, Max didn’t even enjoy farming, and had inherited little of his father’s fierce love of the land. His interests were directed far more in the areas of business and politics.

Furthermore, his increasing political activities had changed his perspective on more than a few issues. Many of the politicians who visited from the northeast had made no secret of their abolitionist views, and as he debated with them, Max had found it difficult to defend the system of slavery that he had inherited. Many of their points had made him increasingly uncomfortable and even guilt-ridden.

He had heard that President Jefferson himself had mixed views on the issue of slavery, trying to balance questions of ethics with economic concerns. Max’s own moral dilemma, combined with his lack of interest in farming, had made the Vallerand plantation a burden that he sorely wished he could discard.

“Since I seem to be the only Vallerand available to run the plantation,” Max said sardonically, “I believe I’ll do it as I see fit. However, whenever you or Alexandre wish to assume some responsibility, I will yield gladly.”

“Our father decided long ago what roles we would assume,” Bernard said with a philosophical
shrug. “You were to be the paragon, the choicest of all the aristocratic offspring in New Orleans…the head of the family. I was to be the prodigal, and Alexandre, the libertine. How dare we step outside the parts we were cast in?”

Max gave him a skeptical glance. “That is a convenient excuse, Bernard. The fact is, Father is gone, and you may do as you choose.”

“I suppose,” Bernard muttered, studying his boots.

In the uncomfortable silence that ensued, Max considered ways of broaching the subject that had to be discussed. “Were the Fontaine daughters truly that unappealing, Bernard?” he finally asked.

Bernard gave a weary sigh. “No, no…but how could I possibly consider marriage when I know that somewhere out there I have a woman and an illegitimate child who need my protection?”

“It’s been ten years,” Max said flatly. “By now she’s probably found a husband.”

“And that is supposed to comfort me? That some other man is raising
my
child? My God, every night for the past ten years I’ve wondered why she left without telling me or her family where she went!”

“I’m sorry, Bernard,” Max said quietly. “Back then I might have been able to do something about it, but instead…”

He fell silent. At the time he had been too involved in the turmoil of Corinne’s murder to give a damn about his younger brother’s unfortunate affair with Ryla Curran, the daughter of an American boatman. Bernard and the girl had known that marriage
between a Catholic and a Protestant would have meant disaster for one or both of them. When Ryla discovered she was pregnant, she virtually disappeared. In spite of Bernard’s efforts to find her and the baby, ten years had gone by without a sign of them.

“Bernard,” Max said slowly, “you have searched long enough for them. Perhaps now you should let go of the past.”

“Is that what
you’ve
decided to do?” Bernard asked, changing the subject abruptly. “Is that the reason for this precipitous marriage?”

“I married her because I want her,” Max said evenly.

“You did not stay the night with her—the entire household knows.”

“The household be damned. It’s my marriage, and I’ll conduct it however I wish.”

“I know you will,” Bernard said lightly. “But I think you’re a fool for ignoring tradition. Remember, you should spend at least a week alone with your new bride.” He smiled suggestively. “It is your duty as her husband to break her in properly.”

Max scowled. “Perhaps someday I’ll ask for your opinion. In the meanwhile—”

“Yes, I know.” Bernard’s dark eyes flickered with humor. “By the way, have you decided to give Mariame up?”

As Max parted his lips to answer, some instinct prompted him to glance toward the doorway. Lysette stood there frozen, having just come in search of him. It was clear from her expression that she
had overheard Bernard’s question.
Well, hell
, Max thought in exasperation.

Lysette quickly adopted a bright, determined smile as she advanced into the room. “Forgive me for interrupting,
mon mari
,” she said lightly. Dressed in a light peach gown that molded her breasts together and draped gently over her slender figure, she looked fresh and vibrant. He wanted to seize her immediately, in spite of his sweat-soaked muddy clothes, and capture her mouth with a lusty kiss. “Your bath has been filled,” she told him. “I assume you will want to wash before supper.”

Max was at her side at once, feeling his mood lighten in her presence. She had a remarkable effect on him, reminding him of the time in his life when he had been young and idealistic, and had every expectation of happiness. “Most certainly. We will talk later, Bernard.”