Tender Fury (32 page)

“The truth, you little bitch! What did you do to Gabby?”

“I’ll tell you, only don’t hit me again!” She watched through fearful cat’s eyes as the huge, hurtful hand lowered before she spoke. “One night I… I had Madame Gabby taken from her bed and placed upon the altar of Damballa.”

“Sacre bleu!”
Philippe cursed. “You meant to sacrifice her to that… that snake?” He was incredulous to think that Amalie would go to such lengths to rid herself of a rival.

“No! No!” denied Amalie, fighting now for her life. “I would never have hurt her. I meant only to scare her into leaving you. I wanted you to love only me. We belong together, Monsieur Philippe. Didn’t our coming together a short while ago prove that? Can you truly say that your wife pleases you as well as I? Surely her passion pales in comparison to the fire in my blood.” Amalie’s small hand inched confidently along Philippe’s body until she grasped his manhood.

She was unprepared for Philippe’s blow and her head veered sharply sideways. “What happened to Gabby on that altar?” he demanded, unappeased by her impassioned plea or her wild groping.

Amalie realized there was no placating him; he would make her suffer until he learned everything there was to know. Head reeling from Philippe’s telling blow, eyes nearly swollen shut, cheeks afire, she revealed all that had taken place upon the altar of Damballa, leaving out nothing except her frenzied coupling with the huge, black slave on the ground before the altar.

“I cannot believe that you could be so cruel,” said Philippe, shaking his head in disbelief at the end of the telling. “If Gerard hadn’t come upon the scene when he did who knows what might have happened. I’ve seen your Obeah rites. I know the kind of frenzy your people work yourselves into over that damned snake. No wonder Gabby left Bellefontaine, she must have been driven mad with fright. Why that snake could have…”

That’s as far as he got. While Philippe, eyes wide and horror-struck, tried to visualize Gabby’s pale body on that cold, stone altar, Amalie saw her chance for escape and leaped from the bed like a sleek panther. Philippe, ever alert, grabbed her ankle before she cleared the bed, sending her crashing to the floor. Then he was straddling her inert form. When she made no move to rise, Philippe strode to the door, calling for Gerard in a voice loud enough to awaken all the house servants sleeping on the third floor.

Within minutes Gerard appeared at the door, lamp in hand, a bewildered look on his face. Tante Louise, a wrapper thrown over her nightgown, was not far behind.

“What is it, Monsieur Philippe?” Gerard asked sleepily.

The loud shriek coming from Tante Louise told Philippe that she had spied Amalie’s bruised, nude body sprawled at his feet.

“What have you done to my
petite fille?
” she cried, moving swiftly to kneel beside her daughter. When she saw Amalie’s swollen and battered face she began to wail pitifully. “What have you done to her? What have you done to her?”

“No more than she deserves,” answered Philippe coldly. “I should take the whip to her. And you two are no better. How dare you conceal her dastardly tricks from me! Surely you couldn’t have condoned what she did?
Mon dieu!
Gabby might have been bitten by that fer-de-lance, or raped by a sex-crazed slave!”

“No! No!” denied Gerard. “I reached her before any harm had been done. Amalie was jealous of Madame Gabby but she would never have hurt her!”

“I should whip her, or better yet, sell her!”

Tante Louise sucked in her breath sharply and rolled her eyes until only the whites showed.

Amalie, who by now had risen to a sitting position with her mother’s help, threw herself at Philippe’s feet, pleading, crying out, “Forgive me, Monsieur Philippe! Do not sell your Amalie! Whip me, but do not sell me, I beg you!”

Philippe gazed down dispassionately at the golden body that had once given him so much pleasure and he knew he could not bring himself to mar her beautiful flesh. There was but one alternative.

“Take her out of my sight and lock her in the servants’ quarters,” Philippe ordered, ignoring Gerard’s stricken look.

“What are you going to do with my child, Monsieur Philippe?” asked Tante Louise, for the first time in her life finding herself hating her master. “She was born on Bellefontaine. This is her home. You took her when she was no more than a child. If you bear any love for me do not sell her!”

“I never want to set eyes on her again. After the cane is harvested I intend to sell her in St. Pierre.”

“But I belong to you!” wailed Amalie. “I want no other master!
Je t’aime! Je t’aime!
”

“You love only yourself,” Philippe spat, unmoved by her pleas. “There are many fine bordellos in St. Pierre and I will see that you are placed only in the best.”

Amalie’s horror-stricken face followed Philippe as he turned away from her in disgust.

The next day Mt. Pelee began rumbling and belching thick wads of smoke and ash. Throughout the ages Pelee’s occasional flare-ups had become commonplace among the islanders. After a few days the rumbling would cease and the spewing of fire and ash would slow to a halt. Everyone expected it to be the same this time and even the inhabitants of St. Pierre, the city most likely to be annihilated if a major eruption took place, went about their business as if there were no Mt. Pelee and the sooty ash that covered everything but a minor disturbance in their everyday lives. Most of the experts considered Mt. Pelee dormant for there had been no eruptions of major proportions for many, many years.

For the next two weeks the volcano continued with its fireworks and Philippe began to experience vague feelings of unease. Even the slaves sensed a force in the atmosphere that left them restless and discontented. They walked around with an air of expectancy, their eyes ever on the volcano towering above them.

But even if Mt. Pelee were to erupt, Philippe knew that Bellefontaine would be safe. The flow would take a path directly for St. Pierre and the sea, destroying everything that lay in its way.

Between the sultry August heat, the acrid ash residue clogging his throat, and his haste to complete the harvest so he could take Amalie to St. Pierre, Philippe was worn and exhausted. Only when the last of the cane was cut did he allow himself to relax and think of Gabby. He knew from both Marcel’s and Dr. Renaud’s reports that she was well and happy. The doctor still appeared vague on the exact date of the expected birth but Philippe surmised that the baby would be born within weeks. Perhaps he should call on her when he was in St Pierre, just to see if she needed anything… But even as he thought it, he knew he would not. Gabby did not love him; Marcel was the man she cared for. The best thing he could do for her was to stay out of her life.

The next day the sun was nearly obscured by thick clouds of gray ash. What rays found their way through to the ground were dim and diffused. In a carriage driven by Gerard, Philippe and Amalie set out at daybreak for St. Pierre. Amalie had long since given up pleading with Philippe. Her two weeks of enforced confinement had left her withdrawn and sullen. If she thought Philippe had relented in his attitude toward her, she was mistaken; his face, grim and determined, held no traces of remorse. Evidently he no longer felt a need for her body and he was bent on selling her to a bordello!

Amalie settled into a corner of the carriage, her yellow eyes narrowing as she thought of various methods of revenge, discarding one after another until her lips curved in a feline smile, sly, smug.

It was nearly dark when Philippe’s carriage drew in before a large, brightly lit building in a section of the city that could not be called well-to-do but neither could it be considered a slum. There were many fine houses lining both sides of the street, all ablaze with lights. Philippe descended the carriage with Amalie in tow. To his surprise she did not resist but followed, chin thrust forward, shoulders squared, as he led the way to the front door, swinging her hips suggestively and tugging at the front of her peasant blouse until her dimpled shoulders gleamed like dull gold in the light of the rising moon.

At Philippe’s knock, the door to the house opened; Amalie stopped abruptly in the portal, turning to Philippe, cat’s eyes blazing, defiant, small white teeth bared. “You will pay for this, Monsieur Philippe!” she hissed. “One way or another you will be made to suffer!”

Then the door slammed, leaving Gerard staring after them, his features lined with sadness, his eyes bleak. Yet, he could not entirely hate his master. Hadn’t he seen with his own eyes the fer-de-lance ready to strike at Madame Gabby’s defenseless body with its deadly fangs? When Philippe emerged from the house, his expression grim as he entered the carriage, neither speaking nor looking at his driver, silently Gerard picked up the reins and turned the horses in the direction of Philippe’s townhouse, casting one last, soulful glance over his shoulder.

In another part of the city, Gabby and Marcel, finished with their dinner, sat in the salle drinking coffee. Gabby, preoccupied with thoughts of her own, was quite unaware of Marcel’s rapt eyes upon her, longing clearly visible in their brittle, emerald depths. His expression was dreamy, soft, and Marcel wondered if Gabby’s thoughts were on the child she would soon bear. To him, Gabby was the essence of maternal beauty. Her face, gently rounded, and her figure, blossoming forth in the last stages of pregnancy, appeared lovelier than ever. She had been progressing normally in her pregnancy and Dr. Renaud expected no complications at delivery, which he now proclaimed would take place around mid-September, a short month away. Gabby’s heavy sigh interrupted the poignant silence.

“What is it,
cherie?
” Marcel asked, his face filled with concern. “Is it the child?”

“No, Marcel,” assured Gabby, directing a fond smile toward him. She was so grateful to him. How could she have managed without him? she wondered. “For some reason I am restless tonight. The babe moves constantly within me and it is increasingly difficult to assume a comfortable position.”

“It can’t be much longer,
cherie
. Soon the babe will be in your arms.”

He placed a gentle hand on the great rise of her stomach and was rewarded with a steady thump, thump against his palm. Almost reverently he lowered his lips to the spot and moved his hand upward to cup an engorged breast. A tremor went through his body and when he raised his head, his eyes were shot with green fire. Ignoring Gabby’s meak protest, Marcel sought her lips, the force of his kiss startling her by its intensity.

When he released her, Gabby felt drained of all strength. She had tried not to encourage Marcel’s intimacies but was powerless to prevent his kisses and fondling. She almost dreaded the day her child would be born because it meant she would be forced into a decision she knew she must make: share a bed with Marcel or leave and make a life for herself and her child. Either choice would be a difficult one.

Now, as Marcel unbuttoned the top buttons of her dress and pressed hot kisses on her breasts, she pushed ineffectually at him and tried to rise. For some reason he seemed more abandoned tonight than he ever had before, almost as if the thought of the imminent birth of her child had released the passion he had held in check for so long.

“Do not pull away,
cherie
,” Marcel begged. “I will do nothing to hurt you, you know that. I want only to touch you, to kiss you, to feel your flesh beneath my fingertips.”

“I don’t see how you can want to touch me like that, Marcel,” Gabby complained. “I am gross and ungainly and surely unlovely to look upon.”

“You have never been more beautiful in my eyes,” said Marcel reverently, placing a chaste kiss on the top of her shining head. “Soon,
cherie
, soon,” he promised, his eyes dark and sultry, “you will be mine.”

Gabby breathed a sigh of relief when Tildy, Marcel’s housekeeper, chose that moment to interrupt. Her discreet knock was answered with some annoyance by Marcel who directed her to enter after allowing Gabby time to put herself in order. She came into the room followed by the groom from Le Chateau.

“Lionel!” Marcel exclaimed, jumping up from the couch. “What are you doing here? Has something happened at the plantation?”

“Bad trouble, Monsieur Marcel,” moaned Lionel, shaking his shaggy head and rolling his black eyes skyward.

“Out with it, man!” shouted Marcel, losing patience with the slave’s melodramatics. “Is it an uprising?”

“No! No! Nothing like that,” replied Lionel hastily.

“Then what? Speak, man!”

“Fire, Monsieur Marcel, fire!” blurted Lionel breathlessly. “Everyone work hard to get cane harvested… fire start in the warehouse. Last night sparks from Pelee set off fire, destroy everything!”

“All the cane?” questioned Marcel bleakly.

“Everything,” lamented Lionel.

“Damn, damn, damn!” cursed Marcel. “And the house, too?”

“House fine, Monsieur Marcel,” smiled Lionel. “Overseer save house but he burned bad. He send me to fetch you. Say come quick!”

“Go with Tildy and get something to eat, then get some rest. We’ll leave at dawn.” Lionel turned and followed Tildy from the room leaving Marcel to pace back and forth nervously.

“I’m sorry, Marcel,” began Gabby, feeling deeply Marcel’s loss. “So great a loss must come as a shock to you. And your overseer, poor man.”

“I can bear the loss of one year’s crop,
cherie
,” said Marcel turning toward Gabby with a gentle smile. “What really bothers me is leaving you when you are so near your time.”

“I have a whole month yet before the baby is due. By then you will have had time to see to your overseer and set your plantation to rights. Besides, isn’t Honore due to arrive next week from New Orleans? You remember she wanted to be here in time for the birth. Once she arrives I will not be alone.”

“I must return no matter how badly I wish to remain with you,” sighed Marcel wretchedly. “And as you say, Honore will be here to look after you in my absence.” He drew Gabby carefully into his arms. “I will be gone before you arise in the morning. Are you sure you shall be all right?” he asked, studying her intently. “The eruptions won’t distress you? Your restlessness of late worries me and I don’t want anything disturbing you at this point in your pregnancy.”

Marcel’s tender concern touched Gabby deeply. “I shall be fine,” she assured him with more conviction than she felt at the moment. “Dr. Renaud is never far away and Tildy is quite capable of seeing to my needs. I don’t want you worrying unnecessarily about me. Your overseer and your plantation are more important than I am right now.”

“Nothing is more important than you,
cherie
. And one day I’ll prove my love to you.” Then he kissed her tenderly and led her up the stairs to her bedroom where he said goodbye after bestowing upon her such an intense look of love and longing that it left Gabby guilt-ridden to think that she could not return his feelings.

All that night Mt. Pelee boomed displeasure with the world and deposited a new layer of ash on everything beneath its gaze. Gabby was forced sometime during the night to close her windows and suffer in the stifling, airless room. She tossed and turned fitfully, finally falling asleep near dawn, her dreams filled strangely with Amalie and Damballa; dreams so real that she could almost feel that deadly serpent creeping over her distended belly.

Awakening with a start, bathed in sweat. Gabby arched against the dull ache beginning in the small of her back, radiating to her stomach. Dismissing the twinges of pain, she heaved herself from the bed, her body heavy, her spirits fraught with vague feelings of foreboding. When the pain in her abdomen disappeared into a dull throbbing, she breathed in relief and began her day, unaware of the dark forces working against her.

Having spent the early cool of the day sewing on the baby’s layette, by midafternoon Gabby was more than ready for a nap, exhausted from her insomnia of the night before. A knock on the door halted her slow progress up the stairs. Knowing Tildy was in the back kitchen probably asleep Gabby wearily retraced her steps to answer the insistent rapping. Her shock at finding Amalie standing before her was heightened by the fact that she had just last night experienced a disturbing dream involving Philippe’s beautiful mistress.

“What do you want?” Gabby asked, trying to conceal the tremor in her voice. “You have Philippe to yourself now, why don’t you leave me in peace?”

Amalie’s strange cat’s eyes narrowed on Gabby’s protruding stomach. From the looks of her she was about ready to deliver, surmised Amalie, baring her teeth in a mirthless smile as she prepared to exact her due from the one person who stood between her and Philippe in a way guaranteed to hurt him most.

“Please let me in,” begged Amalie when she realized that she was about to have the door slammed in her face. “Something terrible has happened to your husband.”

Gabby froze, her hand on the door, giving Amalie the advantage she sought as her supple body snaked around Gabby’s bulk into the foyer.

Her heart in her mouth, Gabby closed the door and turned awkwardly to face a gloating Amalie. “What has happened to Philippe?” she asked in a strangled voice, her face a tonured mask.

“He’s dead!” revealed Amalie, reveling in her lie. “He was bitten by a fer-de-lance yesterday in the banana groves!”

Gabby’s stomach heaved convulsively and she clutched at her throat, agony, disbelief, remorse marching across her face. “Philippe dead? No! No! It is not possible! I would have felt something if he were dead!”

Only then did she remember her strange lassitude and restlessness of the day before and the dark foreboding she experienced upon arising this morning. All the signs pointed to the one truth she was forced to acknowledge. Philippe was dead just as Amalie said!

Amalie slanted Gabby a sly look, afraid to show openly her delight at Gabby’s obvious distress. “Do not fret, Madame Gabby,” Amalie purred cruelly, “I was at Monsieur Philippe’s side to give him comfort in his final hour. He clung to me and with his dying breath spoke of his love for me.” She paused dramatically, noting with barely suppressed glee Gabby’s stricken look before inflicting her killing blow. “When Monsieur returned to Bellefontaine without you I made him happier than he had ever been before. I shared his bed, his passion strong and fierce. Not once did he mention you or the bastard in your belly. He made love to me with wild abandon, crying out in…”

“Enough!” cried Gabby clapping her hands over her ears in an effort to blot out Amalie’s hurtful words. “Why must you torment me? How can you speak so when Philippe lies dead?”

“Madame Gabby,” said Amalie, squeezing out a few tears, “I have his last words to comfort me, memories of our shared passions to dispel my grief. And perhaps,” she hinted in her throat voice, “perhaps I have more than that.” Her hands moved suggestively to her stomach, accentuating the noticeable bulge beneath her colorful skin.

Philippe’s child? Did Amalie carry Philippe’s child? No longer could Gabby bear the humiliation heaped upon her by Amalie and her spiteful taunts as she clutched painfully at her middle, the babe lurching in her womb. Everything paled but the need to get away from Amalie, to give in to the grief racking her body in the privacy of her own room. With tremendous effort she moved heavily to the stairway and began the slow, painful ascent to the top, struggling to control her rampaging emotions in Amalie’s disturbing presence.