My Immortal (12 page)

“What look?” Marley wanted to cry. How could one person know so much tragedy? Damien was wealthy, but he had no one to share his material fortune with. That made her profoundly sad and ashamed. She had no reason to resent her family. While they were flawed, they loved her, and they belonged to her.

“The look that says you want to cuddle me and make shushing sounds in my ear.” He gave her a wry look. “I don’t need to be cuddled, I promise. I am perfectly fine.”

“That’s the problem with men,” she said, a lump still in her throat. “They turn down good cuddling for the sake of pride.”

“If you’re going to be in my arms, it’s not going to be from pity.”

“No? What will it be?” She knew what he was going to say. Passion. Desire.

His nostrils flared. “Lust. It will be from lust. I don’t want you feeling sorry for me, I want you begging me for more.”

Oh, shit. Marley backed up. For some crazy, wild reason, her eyes darted down to his crotch. He had an erection in his jeans. Nothing to be sorry about there.

“I think I’ll just go to bed. Bathroom’s out here somewhere, you said? Thanks. For everything. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”

She turned and fast-walked out the door onto the wooden porch, hoping she would recognize the bathroom when she stumbled on it. Her cheeks were hot and her inner thighs likewise. Nope, she wasn’t feeling sorry for him. She was feeling sorry for herself. Sorry that she was too much of a chickenshit to just stroll up to him and start begging.

“Good night, Marley,” he called after her. “Turn right—you’ll find the bathroom at the back of the garden. And sleep well.”

Like that was going to happen. Marley yanked her ponytail out. Her brain hurt.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Oh, Angelique, if only I had remembered to pray. I feel very fatigued this evening and have not written since this morning. Besides, I ran out of paper and had to fetch some from Damien’s desk. It was unfortunate in that I was discovered by my husband leaving his library, sheets in hand, and he would exact payment.

I am so lost to all that is proper. I know not myself any longer.

You must anticipate that I went to Damien that night in July. It was a course of action I had set myself upon and could not alter. I wanted too badly both the reassurance that my marriage still existed in some measure and I was not to be socially and physically cast off, and as well, to know whether, if I shifted the initiative to myself, I could discover the satisfaction of pleasure.

These new feelings of curiosity, of desire for Damien, led me to follow him into the house. Led me to disrobe with the maid’s assistance, and head down the hall to his chamber in nothing but chemise and wrapper, the carpets shocking and
intimate on my bare feet, my hair unbound, air swirling around my exposed ankles and calves.

I knocked and Damien bid me enter. Though embarrassed and nervous, I can’t say that I hesitated. I slipped inside and shut the door behind me. Damien was sitting in a plush damask upholstered chair by the window, his shirt off, whiskey glass in hand. I had never been inside his chamber, and it was stately and large, very masculine, with dark furnishings and thick carpets. The papering was done in a rich blue, and the linens likewise. It smelled different than my room does, with its powders and perfumes. Damien’s space smelled like soap, leather, liqueur, and tobacco. Like him.

“Well done, Marie,” he said, raising his glass to me as he stood. “I was laying odds at three to one that you’d retire to your own chamber and wish me to the devil.”

I can never predict what is going to come from Damien’s lips, and I do not understand his wit. I realized that this was a source of irritation to him, so I knew I had to speak or risk his ire. “Why ever would I go to all this trouble to dress and pursue your company in the garden only to wish you to the devil?”

Damien laughed. “Alright then. Come closer and tell me what it is you want.” He sank back into the chair, stretching his legs out. “There is no other chair near the window, but here is a seat for you.” He patted his lap.

A fissure of excitement tripped through me. Damien looked very, very attractive, so powerful, so naughty, so sly. I wanted to experience that sort of confidence, arrogance.

I walked over and descended onto his legs, my hands carefully on my knees. Our bodies made contact, his legs hard beneath my soft bottom, my shoulder brushing against his bare chest. It felt strangely intimate, curiously wicked, especially when his hand spread onto my waist, helping to balance me. I turned to look at him, to study his hard jaw and his equally hard green eyes. My confidence grew. “I want you to make love to me.”

“This is a curious turn of events, but again, I must remind myself that you desire a child.” He stroked his thumb along my back. “And perhaps it’s jealousy. I don’t imagine it pleased you to see me on the porch with Rosa.”

No, it hadn’t. And my jealousy had been twofold—jealousy that my husband had sought out another woman, and jealousy that she knew pleasure at his hand.

“Is that her name? Who is she exactly?”

Damien just shrugged. “A whore, nothing more. Don’t trouble yourself overmuch.”

Marley reread Marie’s handwriting three times, swore, then finally stuffed her feet in sandals and headed out of the bedroom Damien had put her in.

Something wasn’t right with these letters. She understood why Marie’s husband was named Damien. It was a family name. Okay. The first Damien du Bourg had built the house, and Marie was his wife from France. Sure, fine, whatever. But how in the hell could the woman Marie saw her husband cheating on her with be named Rosa?

She ran down the stairs, her footsteps echoing in the empty house. It hadn’t bothered her to be alone here the night before when she had retreated from Damien to the big house, but suddenly she was aware just how vast and shadowed the structure really was, even in the strong sunlight of mid-morning. With a shiver, she jogged out the front door.

So the Rosa that Marie had described didn’t really sound like the Rosa that Marley had met twice, but she still thought it was an unusual coincidence. One that made her uncomfortable.

Avoiding the side of the house with the
pigeonnier
, since she didn’t want Damien seeing her out of the window and questioning her destination, Marley ducked around to the north side of the house and hoped she could remember the way to Anna’s cottage. Since she was practically running, five minutes later she burst out in front of the house, winded and sweaty.

Anna was on the porch. “Mornin’, Marley. Didn’t expect to see you today, but it’s a pleasure. Come on up here and have a chat.”

Wiping her palms on her denim shorts, Marley sucked in her breath and climbed onto the porch.

“How are you, Anna?” she forced herself to ask.

“Still here. That’s something. How about you? I thought you left, thought you were heading back north.”

Marley shook her head. “I decided to stay in the house until Damien’s next party…I’m hoping my sister will show up.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Anna raised an eyebrow. “Was that Damien’s idea?”

“Yes.” She would not blush, would not blush…Too late.

“He’s hard to say no to, isn’t he? All the du Bourg men are like that.”

“Actually, I wanted to ask you about Marie’s letters. She mentioned a woman named Rosa, a woman that her husband was, well, you know, with.” God, how old was she? She couldn’t even bring herself to say
sex
out loud. “Don’t you think it’s strange that the current Damien du Bourg knows a Rosa too?”

And who was the present Rosa exactly? But Marley supposed if she wanted the answer to that, she should ask Damien.

Anna just shrugged, her lilac T-shirt slipping off her bony shoulder. “Not so much. These families round here all use the same names, generation after generation. The du Bourgs only have two names: Phillipe and Damien. They just switch them out.”

“For two hundred years?”

“Yes.”

“What about when they have girls?”

“They don’t have girls.”

“Ever?” How was that genetically possible?

“Never. They’re not a real fertile folk.”

“Why do you live here, Anna?” Marley kind of thought Anna was a retired nanny or housekeeper, but it occurred to her she had no reason to assume anything.

“My great-grandmother was the quadroon mistress of one of the Damiens. He gave her this house in 1834. My family has lived here ever since.”

“Oh. Well, that was nice of him.” Marley was embarrassed. That was a really stupid thing to say, but it had just slipped out, Anna’s explanation shocking her.

Anna laughed, the sound trailing off into a cough. “Suppose it was. But I’m sure my great-grandmother, Marissabelle, earned it. It’s not easy to keep a du Bourg man pleased and satisfied.”

Great. Just what she wanted to hear. Like Marley didn’t have enough anxiety over sleeping with Damien, now she had to hear it was in his genetics to be unsatisfied. “Because they’re rude and arrogant? Or because they’re, you know, always wanting attention?”

“All of the above. And Marissabelle wasn’t an obvious choice for that Damien…she was too old to be innocent and fresh, too young to be a jaded sophisticate, both of which might appeal to a man like that. Instead, she was right in the middle, twenty-five years old, the daughter of a mulatto slave and her white master, not much loved by either. But while they were never the most caring of parents, her father did pay for her to receive an education and for gowns, and the usual frills for a young girl.”

“How did she meet Damien?” Marley pulled her shirt off her sticky back and leaned closer to Anna. Her voice was soft and soothing, but hard to hear, genteel Southern, and Marley wanted to know the story, hear what had happened between Anna’s ancestor and yet another Damien du Bourg.

“That’s a long story.”

“I have time.”

Anna stared at her for a second, then made a sound with her teeth. “Well, when Marissabelle was eighteen, her father planned to marry her off to some white man he knew who didn’t mind her black blood, and who welcomed the money her father offered. Since an interracial marriage would have been illegal, they planned to pass her off as white. But Marissabelle had fallen in love with a slave on the plantation she had grown up on, and he got her with child. When the baby was born black, her father beat her for ruining her chances to make something better out of herself. She ran to the baby’s father, the man she loved, but he turned her out. He wasn’t going to risk trouble just for a woman he’d taken a tumble with.”

“God, that’s horrible.”

“Yes, it was.” Anna glanced over at her. “Picture a young girl, raised to think she was beautiful, a bit spoiled materially, knowing nothing about the hard truths in life, not understanding the brutal reality of racism. She didn’t understand that no matter her father being white, she was still a black girl. Her mother wasn’t going to stand up to her father, and her father wanted her to abandon the baby, pass it off as belonging to another one of the slaves on his plantation. Her man had broken her heart. And when she went to her father’s friend, the one who had thought to marry her, he told her he could tolerate marrying a quadroon, but he’d never marry a slut. However, he had a deal for her. He’d find her a place to stay, let her keep her baby, pay for all her and the babe’s needs, if she would just spread her legs for him whenever he asked her to.”

Marley looked at Anna in horror. For some reason, she had not seen that coming. “Men are disgusting.”

“And women are practical. She took the offer, of course, so she could keep her child.” Anna closed her eyes briefly. “Have you ever loved a child, Marley? Do you understand why she did what she did? She couldn’t leave that baby at the mercies of anyone else, couldn’t imagine life without her flesh and blood in her arms. She would have done anything to keep her son with her.”

Marley swallowed hard. “I know how she feels, even though I don’t have a child. I’d do anything to protect my sister, and even more to keep my nephew happy and healthy. I can’t imagine giving up my baby.”

“The man was decent to her. He kept his word, finding her a nice place to live, a shotgun cottage in the French Quarter, getting her a housemaid to help with the baby. And he taught her what her impatient first lover hadn’t—how to draw out pleasure, how to pull your heart right out of the bedroom and let your body be all of you. No love, no emotion, just eye-rolling ecstasy. You can have that, you know, pleasure just for the sake of pleasure, and you can learn each other’s bodies, be comfortable together and still never feel anything for the other.”

Marley wanted that too, just once, wanted to have an affair that felt good, that pleased her but meant nothing. That’s what she wanted from Damien, just selfish sex.

“She never loved that man, but she learned to welcome his attentions, learned to look forward to his visits. Learned to take for herself what she wanted, and manipulate him by turning his desire for her against him. Yes, Miss Marley, she learned a lot about how to tease and coax and please a man, and how to please herself along the way. She had two daughters with that man because she loved children and he was decent to her son. He brought all three of them toys and sweets, and he’d play with them, toss them up in the air, and tickle their bellies to make them laugh.”

The way a man treated children said a lot about his character. And yet that long-ago man hadn’t married Marissabelle. Had called her a slut. Marley felt the injustice, at the same time her heart longed for the happy ending she knew wasn’t coming. “Did he love her?”