And Sable did enjoy it—each and every nuance of his vast expertise—so much so that when he slid a bold finger over her swollen gate, the sensation made her hips rise and a moan slip from between her lips. He plied the small jewel until the sounds she made became a song in the night, and release crackled over her like lightning.
When she finally regained enough sanity to open her eyes, his bearded face was above her looking down. She reached up to stroke his cheek and he turned her palm to his lips. She realized she knew very little about this man she’d married, the man she loved, but the thought soon fled as his lips found her wrist. He blazed a trail from it back to her mouth and the loving began again.
He kissed her eyes and nose, her lips and chin. He kissed his way down the front plane of her body, using his hands to keep her breasts ripe and hard, then pulled away and stood.
Raimond took a moment to remove his clothing, then as nude as the good Lord made him, he joined her on the bed. He kissed her gently, coaxingly, thoroughly.
Sable thought him the most beautifully made man she’d ever seen, and she used her hands to tell him so. She’d lost her modesty about the male form during her stint at the camp hospital, where she’d viewed far more of the male anatomy than was proper, but she’d never seen a man whose physique made her hands yearn to explore. The dark muscles of his arms seemed to be fashioned for her to caress. His shoulders and collarbone conformed perfectly to her kiss. She’d always enjoyed his kisses, and tonight she couldn’t seem to get enough.
Raimond reacted to her hot, seeking mouth like any other male. He gathered her close and lost himself in the feel of her softness melting against his strength. He slid his hand up her luscious behind and discovered yet another set of carvings. He rolled her onto her stomach to get a better view of the two sunbursts adorning a golden bottom he couldn’t help but squeeze. He kissed each sun with the passion of a lover and the reverence of a knight, while his hand played brazenly. She reacted to his touch by turning to seek his kiss, and he gave her what she craved.
Unable to break the kiss, he eased her again onto her back. Skimming his hands down her thighs, he gently
parted her and as slowly as he could manage, eased his manhood home.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked, kissing her ear softly as he moved gently within her.
Sable wanted to say no, but the joining was more painful than she’d anticipated. Still, the slow, lulling rhythm was as impossible to resist as the distracting spell of his kisses and hands.
“Relax,
ma reine
…” he breathed against her ear. “Let me teach you…”
And soon, because of his patient and fiery tutelage, she was no longer filled with pain, no longer tense with anxiety. His distracting hands and fabled kisses filled her instead with his virile male heat.
Raimond found her so beautifully responsive, he burned to ride her like a stormy sea, but because she was new to this and to him, he kept his movements slow, as slow as his near-bursting desire would allow. Maintaining the pace became difficult, however, as she began to rise and fall to his thrusts. Soon, they were in the midst of the whirlwind. Her sharp cries of response mingled with his hoarse cries of pleasure. He filled his hands with her sunburst hips and stroked her as possessively as he’d ever dreamed.
Sable met every stroke with a fierce and possessive wildness of her own. She wanted to brand him and be branded in return, but release claimed her and the world exploded and she was swept away.
Raimond watched
le petite morte
tear through her body, and the sight set off his own roaring release. Increasing his thrusts, he rode the storm of love to its tempestuous conclusion.
Under the light of the lone and now dying candle the newlywed couple returned to an awareness of their separate selves like castaways washed upon the shore. Just before Sable fell asleep, she felt Raimond pull her close,
kiss her softly, and whisper, “
Bonne nuit, bijou
.”
That last part must have been a dream, she decided, because she knew he’d never call her his jewel again—not in reality.
T
he next morning, Sable awakened still close to Raimond’s side. She looked up to find him watching her. Innocent though she’d been, she knew last night had been extraordinary. She sensed that he too had been touched by their passion.
“Well?” she offered. She had no idea how to approach him in the fresh light of a new day.
“Well, what?” he responded, all the while wanting to pull her atop him so he could kiss her lips and fill his hands with her sunburst bottom. He resisted the urge, telling himself he had no plan to become entrapped by his thieving wife.
“What happens now, is what I’m asking,” she explained quietly.
Unable to resist touching her any longer, Raimond ran his finger gently down the curve of her spine. “You’ll return to my mother’s home until this house is ready, and I will go back to my own world.”
He cupped her bottom and traced the small raised sunbursts. “How old were you when this was done?”
Sable forced herself to move away from his too tempting touch. Sitting up, she dragged a sheet across her nakedness. “I was twelve, thirteen.” Until their relationship became clearer, she would not succumb to his
seductive play. “It was part of my great-aunt’s traditions.”
“Was it painful?”
“No. Vashti, our root woman, gave me something to drink that numbed my skin and made me feel like I was part of the clouds. When the marks began healing they burned like the dickens. I think they’re very beautiful.”
Gazing into her eyes, he agreed, “Very beautiful.”
Looking away lest she be snared, Sable added, “Sally Ann didn’t think so. She called them heathen jungle carvings. She just about fainted when my sister Mavis asked to have her skin marked too. Sally Ann got so mad she banned us from going to see Mahti for a month.”
“I’ll bet you went anyway.”
Sable smiled. “As a matter of fact, I did.” She observed him seated across the bed and said truthfully, “I didn’t know Baker intended to hurt you.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. You and your accomplices planned on stealing Sherman’s papers and disappearing into the night.”
Sable stared at him. “What papers?”
“Oh, come on, Sable, playing the innocent is fine in bed, but don’t take me for a fool.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
And she truthfully did not.
“Be glad you changed your name to Elizabeth Clark, because if the army had found you, you and eventually your friends would’ve been tried for treason.”
Her eyes widened. “Treason?”
“That’s what it’s called when you work for the enemy.”
“Are you saying they thought we were Rebel spies?”
“Weren’t you?”
“Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Where’s Baker now?”
“Still in Massachusetts, I assume.”
“Who else was involved besides you?”
“I wasn’t involved in anything other than the theft from your chest, and I already told you that Bridget came North with us.”
Sable studied him closely. He actually believed she was a traitor! No wonder he acted so thunderous all the time. “I had nothing to do with the general’s papers.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She now had her answer to the question as to whether he would change his mind upon hearing the truth. She set aside the hurt and with a raised chin replied, “Whether you believe me or not, I was not involved.”
“You stole from me.”
“I’m an ex-slave, Raimond. I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Being reenslaved. I know you said you would protect me, but never in life have I seen a man of the race win a battle against a man like Morse. When Bridget told me Baker overheard Morse and Major Borden making a deal to send me back, what was I supposed to do? I’m sorry I stole your gold, but I saw no other solution.”
“You could have waited for my return. Had you asked, I would have given you the gold.”
“There wasn’t time.” The set of his face told her he didn’t believe a word. “I’m sorry you don’t believe me,” she whispered.
“I am too.”
With the past standing between them like an impenetrable wall, Sable slid from the bed to get dressed. Her eyes strayed over small spots of blood on the sheet, proof of her deflowering, but she did not dwell upon them. Because she had no other clothes, she slipped back into the gown she’d been married in. She wished she could wash but doubted he’d want her there any longer than necessary. The contract had been fulfilled, the marriage consummated. Now he would return to his mistress and his own life and she would try to carve out a niche of her own while waiting to see if last night’s loving had produced a child.
Raimond came up behind her and fastened the hooks of her dress. He hadn’t planned on ending the morning this way, but it had. He waited while she ran one of his brushes through her hair and braided it at her nape. She faced him then as bold and as proud as one of the Old Queens. “I will wait for you downstairs.”
But she didn’t wait.
When he came downstairs with the intention of escorting her back across the city, he found she’d already gone.
Juliana appeared surprised to see Sable at her door, but per Sable’s request, she paid off the hack waiting in front of the house and joined her in the study.
“Whatever has happened?” Juliana asked, closing the study door. “Where’s Raimond?”
“Still at the house, I suppose. He’s convinced I was a Rebel spy.”
“What?!”
Sable waited until her astounded mother-in-law took a seat before explaining as best she could what Raimond had revealed.
“No wonder he’s so distressed,” Juliana said softly.
Sable nodded. “I understand now too, but how will I ever convince him of the truth?”
“In your own way and and in your own time. You love him, he loves you. Raimond has broken female hearts all over the world. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and he’s finding the fit very tight, that’s all.”
Sable found that theory hard to swallow. “If he was in love, Juliana, which I doubt, he is no longer, especially not if he believes I betrayed him in such a vile way.”
“Once he takes the time to hear your words in his heart, he’ll change his mind. Faced with the prospect of becoming a slave, who among us can honestly say what we would or would not do to stay free?”
Sable thanked the Old Queens for pairing her with
such a wise woman. “So do you have any advice?”
“No, but I do know that because you were the one to break my eldest son’s heart, you are the one who must mend it. Whether he admits it or not, beneath all his mistrust and anger, he loves you.”
“I still think you’re wrong, Juliana.”
“Mothers are always correct. Wait until you have your own children, you’ll see. Now, it appears you could use a bit of buoying. How about we draw you a nice hot bath? You can soak away the despairs of the past, take to bed for a while, and awake a new woman.”
Sable thought the idea a grand one.
For the next two weeks, Sable threw herself into her new life as the wife of Raimond LeVeq. She worked at the new schools for the freedmen in various churches throughout the city, went shopping with Archer for the extensive new wardrobe Juliana insisted she have, and spent the evenings sitting around the table with Juliana and her brothers-in-law. There were at least two brothers present at each evening meal, and when they weren’t poking fun at one another, they were usually discussing politics and the future of the country. One subject they avoided was Raimond. From his siblings and others around town Sable knew that he was hard at work with the Freedmen’s Bureau, but she hadn’t seen him since their passionate wedding night. She made a conscious effort not to think about him but with little success.
One afternoon as she and Juliana sat writing letters requesting yet more aid for their causes, Sable asked a question that had been on her mind for some time. “Why doesn’t Raimond favor any of his brothers?”
Juliana looked up. “He and the Brats had different fathers.”
“Ah.”
“My parents married me off very young to a handsome man in Port-au-Prince. I was in love, or so I thought. He was wealthy, the eldest son of a powerful
count, and I was certain I would be with him for the rest of my life.”
“What happened?”
“On my wedding night I learned he enjoyed inflicting pain. For him, pain was pleasure. I went to my parents the next day, but they refused to take me in. A contract had been signed. He was my husband. My parents and the church said I had to stay.”
Sable realized that Juliana had experienced her own form of slavery.
“Raimond was born during that first year. I ran away eight months later, not knowing I was carrying Gerrold. I knew my family would be furious and would try and bring me back, so I went to the one person they feared most—my pirate grandfather in Havana. He gave me a place to live, and most of all protection. We were with him for almost a decade, the two oldest boys and I. Since I’d always been good with numbers, he made me his bookkeeper. Everything I know to this day about finance and acquiring real estate I learned from him, practicing with his gold. He was a very wealthy man when he died, and since I’d been saving and investing right alongside him, I was a very wealthy woman.”
“What happened to your husband?”
“He died about five years after I ran away. From syphilis. I didn’t grieve.”
“How long was it before you married again?”
“Two years after the old pirate died. Raimond was nearly twelve and Gerrold a year younger when François LeVeq blew into my life like an ocean gale. I never thought I’d be able to love again, but to him I gave not only my love but my soul. When the sea took him in our twelfth year together, had I not had the boys I would have walked into the sea to join him. I loved him that much. His best friend, Henri, saw me through most of my early pain. Henri kept me focused on the needs of my sons, kept reminding me that they’d lost their father
too, and needed me to be strong. Henri and I shared a mutual grief for many, many years.”