Ryan's Bride (29 page)

Angele saw that she looked absolutely terrified. “Selma, what is wrong with you? What are you afraid of?”

“Nothin’. Just come on with me.”

“He’s not going to hurt either one of us.”

Selma shook her head wildly. “I just can’t. You go on if you want to, but I can’t.”

The woods were thick with vines and undergrowth, the sun shielded by leafy oaks. It reminded Angele of every haunted forest she’d ever read about in fairy tales and decided to follow Selma instead.

But she still wondered why the girl was so scared. Slaves were not to be mistreated at BelleRose. Ryan had told her it was an unbreakable rule. So what was there to fear besides a harsh scolding?

As the house came into view, Selma pointed and said, “Look. I can see some carriages in front. Miz Clarice’s tea done started. You’d better hurry. I’ll take these roots to Mammy Lou, and then I’ll be right on up to help you with your bath. We’ve gotta get them juice stains off of you. I’ll fetch some lye soap.”

Entering through the back door, Angele turned toward the rear stairs which the servants used. If she could make it to her room without being seen, Clarice would never know she’d been outdoors picking berries with Selma and think instead she had been out walking and lost track of time.

But luck was not with her.

Clarice was standing outside the double mahogany doors that led to the north wing.

“In heaven’s name, where have you been? All my guests are here, and they’re waiting to meet you. And what is that horrid purple stain you have all over your hands and face? You look dreadful.” She threw up her hands. “What am I going to do with you?”

Angele carefully stepped around her. “It’s berry juice, and it will wash off. I’m sorry I’m late. I’ll hurry and be right down. Please offer my apologies.”

Clarice started after her. “Berry picking? What do you mean? You have no business out in the fields. My Lord, hurry up and bathe. I’ll make excuses for you.”

Angele wondered if she was ever going to do anything right. When Clarice told Ryan—as she surely would do—he wouldn’t take up for her this time. She had sneaked away from the house, and he’d be angry about that, for sure.

Selma came with a string of servants behind her, each carrying a bucket of hot water.

Selma scrubbed her with the lye soap and managed to get the stains off, then slathered her with fragrant toilet water. But it seemed to take forever, and Angele feared the ladies would leave before she got downstairs, and that would make Clarice all the more angry with her.

While Selma had scrubbed, Angele silently lectured herself to try harder to get along with Clarice, even if she was mean and nasty when no one else was around.

She brushed her hair out smoothly and let it hang down her back. There was no time to do anything else.

Hurriedly, she took out the first gown she got her hands on. It was a sheer, straight-line drape, caught to her figure only by a narrow high-waisted girdle that supported her breasts. It was cut low and the skirt was slashed to several inches above the thigh. The fabric was a thin silk in a soft melon color, and the only undergarment accompanying the gown was a cotton slip.

The French stylist had insisted it was the latest fashion and predicted the rest of the world would, too, just as soon as windblown ships could carry the new designs across the ocean. Angele wasn’t so sure. It seemed a bit more sophisticated than the garments the ladies in Virginia wore, but there was no time to worry about it now. She stepped in matching slippers and rushed out.

She could hear voices coming from the parlor and felt relief that the ladies hadn’t yet left. There was still time to make amends. Clarice had already told her none of them spoke French but that she would interpret.

“There you are,” Clarice said with an irritable frown when Angele appeared in the doorway.

The ladies raised their brows in unison as their eyes flicked over Angele’s gown. She knew then, beyond all doubt, that it really was too sophisticated.

Clarice, blinking against her own reaction of disapproval, coolly said to no one in particular, “This is Ryan’s bride, Angele. Smile and nod and make polite noises, but she won’t know what you’re saying.”

They were introduced in turn, and Angele decided they seemed nice enough.

Servants were passing silver trays of sugar cookies, spice cakes, hot tea, and cold lemonade.

Despite the large size of the parlor, Angele found it was charmingly informal and inviting. Three Palladian-style French doors were open to the side terrace, and the air was laced with the delicate fragrance of mimosa and lavender.

Angele politely sat with the ladies and sipped her tea and munched a few cookies while they talked of mundane things that would not have interested her even if she had been able to join in. They gossiped about other women, the stale-as-day-old-bread sermons, as they called them, of Pastor Barnes. They also complained about lazy slaves who had to be watched every minute to make them get their work done.

“Mary Etta, did they ever find those two runaways from your place?” someone asked.

Angele concentrated on picking cookie crumbs off her skirt while carefully listening to the woman bemoan the fact that the two Negroes had disappeared. She said her husband, along with some of the other planters, were suspicious that an underground movement was going on, and they were keeping a closer watch on their slaves in case they thought about running away, too.

“We don’t have to worry about that at BelleRose,” Clarice said airily, lifting her little finger as she sipped her tea. “Our slaves are so well treated we’d have to run them off.”

The ladies shared a laugh, and a few teased Clarice that she might be overconfident.

Afraid her annoyance and boredom might show, Angele quietly drifted out the open doors and onto the terrace.

“Oh, dear she’s leaving,” one of the women said. “I guess we weren’t very polite.”

“Don’t worry about it,” came Clarice’s snickering response. “It’s like being around a deaf mute if you can’t speak French. Ryan is going to hire a tutor for her when he goes into Richmond in a few days.”

“Do you think she can learn enough to carry on a small conversation, at least, by the time you have the ball?” someone else asked.

“I hope so. It’s so awkward.”

Another woman giggled, “Well, Denise speaks French, and I imagine she’s got a lot she’d like to say to her—although I doubt Angele would want to hear it.”

Hearing Denise’s name, Angele’s interest was piqued.

Then came a different voice to say, “Well, from what I hear, everyone thinks Ryan only married her because Denise turned him down. I’ll wager he still loves her.”

“Of course he does,” Clarice agreed, as though stricken that anyone could possibly think otherwise. “He worships her, and, yes, I do think he married impulsively. Men do that sometimes when they’ve been hurt, and, according to Corbett, Ryan was truly crushed. He was positively sick all the way to France, and when he got there, he lost his head. But”—she gave an exaggerated sigh—“it’s too late now. What’s done is done. We have to respect the sanctity of marriage. I just hope Angele can make him happy. I adore Ryan, you know. He’s like the brother I never had.”

Angele was glad her back was turned, because never would she have been able to hide the devastation that was surely mirrored on her face.

Ryan loved Denise.

He had asked her to marry him.

And she had refused.

So he had married
her
instead.

Impulsively.

Foolishly.

And probably wished a hundred times over that he hadn’t.

Her arms were folded, nails digging into her elbows. Her knees were trembling, and she managed to make it to a nearby chair and lower herself into it lest her legs give way.

Such a silly fool she was to have let herself fall in love with a man who had only married her to keep from losing his inheritance…a man who loved another woman and always would.

Then, slowly, from deep within, the spirit that had once made her want to seize all life had to offer and be willing to face any obstacle to make her dreams come true suddenly began to surface.

Fate had hammered her into the ground, but she had managed to survive and would, by God, continue to do so. As long as Ryan wanted her, she would stay at BelleRose, but if she ever felt that she was a burden; that he honestly and truly regretted having married her, then she would go.

Until then, she was going to fight tooth and nail for what was rightfully hers…even if he did love another.

And so what, she asked herself with fiery determination, if he
had
married her because Denise refused him? Had he not chosen her, then it would have been some other woman. Certainly there was no cause to worry or stew over that. Angele knew what she had to concentrate on was making him ultimately glad she was his wife.

And she would start this very night.

She was naked.

She was also in Ryan’s bed.

And if Miss Appleton could know, she would probably scream and fall into a dead faint.

It was quite late. Ryan had rushed through supper, then gone back to the stables. He was leaving for Richmond early in the morning and would be gone for two days, so there was a lot he had to take care of.

She was far too nervous to sleep. She lay there staring at the silver webs the glow of a full moon had spun across the ceiling. She had left the French doors open, wanting the hallowed light to creep inside, and also to smell the fragrance of the jasmine twining about the porch railing.

She didn’t have to worry about a manservant hovering about waiting for Ryan to come in, because he refused to have one help him dress and undress as Corbett did. Angele smiled to think how Selma had told her he thought it was silly and that he also liked his privacy.

So far, she hadn’t regretted letting Selma know they could understand each other. Selma was a talkative sort and liked to gossip, so she had learned a lot in only a short while, most of it quite interesting.

She knew that Corbett and Clarice fought a lot, and that Clarice had sworn she would never have another baby, because having little Danny had hurt so much.

She also knew that Clarice drank more wine and brandy than she wanted people to know about, and that she made Selma sneak the empty bottles out of the house.

And she had also found out, thanks to Selma, that Roussel Tremayne enjoyed music and had been known to visit the slave cabins once in a while and pick a little banjo himself. He was a good man, and all the Negroes loved him.

“He never sells a family,” Selma had told her. “Once a man and woman jump the broom, he never lets ’em be separated.”

Jumping the broom
, Angele learned, occurred when, after the ceremony, someone held a broom a few inches off the floor, then, holding hands, the newlyweds hopped over it to seal their marriage.

“Actually, he hasn’t sold anybody in years,” Selma had explained. And, proudly, she had recited how she knew America had banned slave trading from Africa and the West Indies ten years earlier, so Master Roussel had kept the ones he had, decided to pay the artisans small wages, and said he regarded all his slaves as part of his family and would not have them broken up.

“A good man,” Selma repeated several times. “A fine, God-fearin’ man. And it scares us to think what’ll happen when he dies, ’cause Mastah Ryan, he’s always left things to Mastah Corbett, and…”

She had stopped talking at that point, a fearful gleam taking hold of her eyes, and no amount of prodding by Angele could entice her to continue.

The sound of a door opening and closing snapped her back to the present.

It was Ryan.

He came in from the parlor, and she saw in the moonlight that he had already stripped off his shirt and was working on his belt buckle.

He yawned, and she knew he would not have crossed to her room this night, but she was leaving him little choice now.

He liked to sleep naked, and she liked to look at him when he did without letting him know it. And she could watch him now, as well, because he was not yet aware of her presence.

She held her breath against a heavy sigh to think what a glorious body he had. His buttocks were high and round and tight. His waist was narrow, and his back was broad and strong. Just to look at his sinewy arms made her tingle with wanting to have them hold her tight.

His thighs provoked a delicious tremor, as well. Firm, muscular.

Her heated gaze moved to the place between his legs, and she gasped in awe at the size of his manhood even when not aroused.

He turned toward the bed, and that was when he saw her.

“Angele? What are you doing here?”

Mustering every thread of bravado she possessed, she slowly drew the sheet away so he could see the rest of her…see that she was not wearing a gown.

“Do you have to ask?” she said in a voice so husky with desire that she didn’t recognize it as her own.

He laughed uneasily. “What’s this all about?”

“Is it so difficult to figure out?” she purred, stretching lazily, arms above her head so her breasts would lift provocatively. “You’re my husband, I’m your wife…and I want you to make love to me.