Awakening His Duchess (9 page)

Then Beau’s resurrection meant that she’d been lied to about
him. He hadn’t died in front of her as she thought all these years. He hadn’t
been buried. Her parents and perhaps her husband must have known that Beau was
alive. Even as she despaired, they hadn’t told her the truth. The betrayal sat
like a stone on her heart, cold and painful. If people she loved and believed
loved her could treat her so badly, what would make Beau different?

Even he had made promises to her—said he’d love her, would
take care of her—promises he clearly hadn’t meant or didn’t intend to honor
now. She’d thought from everything she knew that he’d meant the marriage, meant
the words he said, meant the vows he’d spoken until this new harsh man stared
at her and said the marriage was not legal, had never been legal.

“It occurs to me, if Etienne is gone, I am not a problem for
you.”

As she watched him work through the biting accusation, pain
flickered in his eyes.

She wished she could pull back her words.

He stared at her, his arm keeping her from moving any
closer.

A shiver traveled down her spine. What was best for Etienne
was that she bite her tongue and accept anything Beau wanted of her, but she
would take him away if she had any inkling Beau would take out his anger toward
her and her family on their son. Still until he showed otherwise, it would be
best for Etienne to have his father, to not bear all the weight of being the
duke’s sole heir. “I am sorry. Truly I am glad you are alive. I did not—”

“You think you can apologize and everything will be all
right? I went through years of hell thinking I was mad—” He bit off his words and
stared at the ceiling while his fingers tightened like osprey talons on her
shoulder.

“No, of course not.” She resisted wincing while her heart
thumped oddly.

Slaves were treated horribly. She had known it was bad in
Saint-Domingue, but not how horrible until she came here. All around here
tenant farmers and itinerate laborers worked hard without whips applied to
their backs. Her father, her husband had told her how slaves were treated was
just the way of the world and she was silly for being concerned for the welfare
of men who were just beasts of burden. She witnessed far too many Africans
being beaten down until they moved like molasses, their spirits as broken as
the bodies that gave out on them in just a few years in spite of the poultices
and treatments she gave the ones she could.

Had Beau been treated like the rest? How had he survived?

“The best thing you can do is stay out of my sight. When my
father passes,
if
I outlive him, I will make arrangements for you to
live elsewhere. But so help me God, were it not for that boy in there, I would
have you cast in a gutter and consider that too good for you.”

He presented his back and walked down the hall, never
looking back.

Her chest tightened as if the air was no longer available to
breathe, and her stomach knotted. He hated her. She’d held onto her memory of
that night they shared and held it close to her like a candle chasing away the
darkness of memories of the bloodbath that had been her home. For that one
shining moment her life had been perfect. She’d loved him enough to risk her
future, but had she been nothing more than an amusement for a spoiled rich
nobleman’s son?

As she rubbed her shoulder where he had gripped her, she
couldn’t find it in her heart to blame him. He had endured hell, not that she
had ever wanted him to suffer.

She straightened and gathered herself. She had faced far
worse crises than this. Beau was alive, not dead, and home to take his rightful
place. That was good, she told herself, not for her, but in the greater scheme
of things. Etienne would have a father again. His rightful father. A father who
wanted him to ride horses in spite of the danger.

But no matter what Beau thought she wouldn’t let him hurt
her son. Their son. His son. Her head spinning with the evening’s developments,
she just wanted to go to her room and shut out the world.

She turned down the corridor to her room only to step inside
to find a bare mattress.

Her maid stood at her dressing table putting her bottles,
boxes, and toilet articles in a basket. “I’m just getting the last of your
things, my lady.”

Her heart jolted in her chest. “Why?”

“The duke ordered your things moved into the second suite.”
The maid rearranged the items in the basket and wouldn’t meet Yvette’s eyes.
“Since your husband is home.”

Her momentary relief at not finding out she was being
expelled from the household dissolved into a vat of mortification, bitter like
acid. No doubt Beau’s repudiation of their marriage had traveled like a
wildfire through the servants’ ranks.

“Your room is very nice with its own dressing room and
everything.”

Did
everything
include locks on the door to the adjoining bedroom? A separate entrance? She
imagined Beau would like his father’s dictate even less than she did.

She couldn’t usurp the duke’s orders; she was too dependent
on staying in his good graces. Likely Beau would confront the old man with
enough anger for both of them when he found out. Tonight she was too weary to
fight anything. Perhaps if she were quiet as a church mouse he wouldn’t know
she was there, sleeping just feet from his bed.

He might not realize, but she suspected she wouldn’t be able
to think of anything else.

*~*~*

It had taken everything Beau had not to drag his right foot
as he walked away from Yvette. He wasn’t sure why he cared. Either he didn’t
want her to see he was still affected by her betrayal—or he didn’t want her to
see him as a broken man.

Neither reason made a great deal of sense. All he knew was
that she looked at him and her eyes went flat—just like the Africans when the
last hope of ever returning home drained from them. He hated that look. She had
no right to it.

Mazi roamed around the library touching the spines of books.
“So many. I don’t know where to start.”

Beau poured two glasses of brandy and plunked down in the
armchair in front of the fire. “It is disgusting to have so much, I know. Feel
free to take any you like.”

Mazi turned and tilted his head. “You honor your ancestors
by keeping their knowledge alive. And by passing it on.”

“Then I should have read more than the occasional novel.
There are so many men in Saint-Domingue who will never hold a single volume in
their hands.” Former slaves were hungry for the education he’d scoffed at. It
had been so wasted on him.

“Most would not know what to do with a book. It did not come
from their forebears so most would not have reverence for them. They would give
them as offerings to Legba or their dead fathers.”

Not liking the reminder of the ancestor worship of the
island, Beau shivered. “I believe the agriculture treatises are to your left.
History to the right.”

Mazi plucked titles from the shelves.

Beau closed his eyes. He’d have to apply himself to learning
all the things he’d bypassed as unnecessary in school. He’d been a pathetic
teacher and more of a fraud than not as he taught the slaves to read and write.
It was a good thing he’d never had to make it beyond scratching in the dirt
with a stick, and Mazi was likely to quickly surpass him in knowledge if the
armful of books he carried to the table between them was any indication.

Mazi picked up the tumbler of brandy.

Beau raised his glass. “To having a son.”

Mazi gave a short nod and sniffed the liquor.

“Better than rum, more layers to the flavor,” coaxed Beau.

Mazi took a cautious sip. Gave a slow tilt of his head and
raised his eyebrows. He lifted the glass again and said, “To having a son.”

Beau took a second gulp, not that he liked drinking to
excess anymore—he didn’t like to alter his acuity too much—but it had been a
day that needed a drink to finish it or he would never sleep.

“And to you having many more sons.”

Beau choked, the brandy burning a hole down the wrong pipe.
Fighting the burn, he squeezed shut his watering eyes. Once he started
coughing, stopping was often impossible. Many times Mazi had needed to take
over the rudimentary lessons to the others while Beau tried to throw a lung. It
was no good. He coughed until his fingertips tingled and the room spun.

Setting the glass on the table he bent over and put his arms
above his head as the coughs kept coming, dry and hacking.

Mazi thumped his fist on his back, which helped.

“No more sons,” Beau sputtered out when he could finally
draw air into lungs that resisted and wheezed. He heaved in as deep a breath as
his tight chest would allow and fought the urge to cough.

“Your wife is here.”

“She betrayed me.” Beau was never certain how much Mazi knew
of his past. He knew he’d rambled a lot while the bokor poisoned him and Mazi
understood enough English to realize Beau wasn’t just talking gibberish,
although it had been a while before he could make the words come out as he
thought them. “I don’t want her anymore.”

“You are rich enough. Take a second wife.”

“Can’t.” Beau tilted up his drink and allowed himself a wry
smile. The complexities of Christian civilization occasionally baffled Mazi.
“Second wives aren’t allowed here.”

Mazi looked in his glass and took a less cautious sip. “She
is your wife. You will have her.”

The words rippled under Beau’s skin. Yvette was a pretty
woman, a woman any man with eyes would desire, but underneath she was rotten to
the core. Her accusation that he would harm his own son just to be rid of her
showed the deviousness of her mind. He could never even think along those
lines, let alone act upon them.

And certainly her claim that Etienne was all she had was
base manipulation. Clearly she had his father on her side. Not to mention that
a shaft of pain went through him as she made it obvious she didn’t care to have
him back. Didn’t think of him as a woman should think of a husband.

In spite of all that, heat had flashed in his veins when she
caught his arm. Dear lord, he couldn’t succumb to desire. She would find a way
to rip him apart again and he didn’t think he’d survive a second assault.

He shifted in his seat as he shook his head. No, the price
of allowing her to take her role as his wife would be too high. He never wanted
to grant her another piece of his heart, and he didn’t think he could bed her
without exposing himself to her claws. “If it weren’t for the boy, I would not
keep her. But I want no part of her.”

Mazi narrowed his eyes and furled his forehead. “You took
her as a wife, you must take care of her.”

“I wouldn’t let her starve, but I’m not entirely certain I
legally
married her.” Although he’d been in a damned hurry to marry her. She must have
bewitched him. Likely she had used the bokor to ply him with some aphrodisiac
from the first. Certainly he couldn’t remember ever having such a strong
reaction to a girl, especially one he didn’t know.

Mazi frowned. The niceties of legality weren’t going to make
any difference to him. “Perhaps you should forgive her.”

The idea burned through Beau and rocketed him to his feet.
He paced in front of the fire until his bad leg drew him up. “How could you
suggest such a thing? It is only because of you and God’s grace that I am not
dead. If she’d had her way, I’d be long gone.”

Mazi leaned back in his chair and brought his glass to his
lips. He took a slow drink. “Do you know
she
betrayed you?”

The bokor had tormented Beau with her betrayal until he’d
begged the man to stop talking. The black magic priest had known intimate
details only Yvette could have shared with him. And each taunt had been like
the thrust of a knife. Beau gestured wildly. “She knew where I was the whole
time. Besides she was angry when I took her home the morning after. When I told
her I had no money of my own, she thought she’d given up marriage to a rich
plantation owner to be with a ne’er-do-well.”

“But since your brothers are no more, this will all be yours
one day,
n’est-ce pas?”
Mazi waved at the room.

“But it wasn’t supposed to be mine.” Beau sat down hard. His
brothers were both gone. He had often thought that he’d die before he reached
his thirtieth year, and he might yet, but his brothers were supposed to have
been safe in England, hearty and hale. “I never thought I’d own this. Still I
wanted to surprise her with the truth of my family. I knew she wanted to please
her grasping father enough to be relieved by my circumstances.”

He just hadn’t realized how like her father she really was.
A sense of self-preservation had kept his lips sealed about his true identity
long after he should have told Yvette. He’d had that brief respite where he’d
thought she’d fallen for him, not his family name or his father’s title and
wealth. Or she had been pushed by her money-hungry father to pretend to fall
for him.

He knew now that she must have seen hints of his identity
and gambled on it then been grossly disappointed when he said he had nothing of
his own. If only she would have waited a day, he never would have realized how
money-grubbing she was. He reached for his brandy and took a slow sip.

Mazi’s dark eyes followed the glass to his lips as if aware
that he might be needed to rescue Beau again.

No telling what she might do to get on his good side now
because, no doubt, she’d want all the trappings of being a duchess. He wouldn’t
be able to trust anything she said or did because she hid her scheming from him
so well the first time.

Mazi still studied him speculatively. “You are not
indifferent.”

The man knew him too well. They had slept side-by-side in a
tiny stick and mud slave hut for years. They’d shared everything, their hopes
and dreams of home, comparisons of their betrayals by the ones they loved, and
their iron shackles. “I hate her.”