My Immortal (8 page)

“Shit. Have you seen a coat, tan, a trench-shaped raincoat? I think it got left in the foyer.”

Rosa shrugged. “I don’t know. But we can go that way.” She turned and headed down the long hallway toward the main stairways.

“This house is huge,” Marley whispered, awed in spite of her need to escape her humiliation.

“It’s big, moldy pile of bricks. I don’t know why Damien hangs on to it.”

Marley was a little astonished at that kind of attitude. This house breathed history. It had been in Damien’s family for centuries. She caught sight of Marie du Bourg’s portrait on the wall. The same sorrow reached out to her, just like it had the night before. That hadn’t been a drug-induced hallucination. Marie’s eyes had called to her, pleaded.

Remembering the letter in her purse, the printed e-mail from Lizzie, Marley slowed down. “What do you know about Marie du Bourg?” she asked Rosa, pointing to the portrait.

Rosa stopped. “Damien’s wife? She came from France, a fragile French flower, got her portrait painted, then died.”

Marley was startled by the disdain in Rosa’s voice. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. But if you really want to know more about Marie, or anything else about this place, you need to ask Anna. She is about a million years old and knows everyone and everything that has ever happened here.”

“Really? Where can I see her?” Marley should let it go, but she wanted to know, hear all there was to hear.

She also needed to e-mail Damien the letter from Marie. He had done his part to find Lizzie, and she couldn’t ask for any more than that. The letter did belong to his family and he was entitled to see it. Fortunately she had his e-mail address from the other day when they’d had lunch together and he’d given her his card. There was no reason to subject herself to a face-to-face encounter.

“Anna lives in a crappy little house that used to be the overseer’s place. I can point you in the right direction. It’s a ten-minute walk from here. Anna loves to get visitors. And she has such an eagle eye it’s possible she might have noticed your sister. She watches everything that goes on here. Binoculars.”

“Really?” So there was no chance of pretending she wasn’t a party guest if this woman had watched her arrive the night before. That was somewhat embarrassing, but since the whole week was a series of uncomfortable moments, Marley was willing to risk one more to gain any information about Lizzie. “Great.”

She followed Rosa down the stairs and into the foyer. There was no one around, the house hushed except for the distant sound of a vacuum. “Damien?” she asked Rosa, tilting her head toward the sound.

But Rosa snorted. “Damien running the sweeper? That would be the day. There’s a cleaning crew here picking up after last night.”

“Oh, of course.” Duh, Marley, she told herself. Like rich people needed to vacuum their own mansions. Her raincoat was still sitting on the Louis XIV chair, and a quick check revealed the keys still in the pocket.

She jingled them. “I’m ready. Do we drive to Anna’s or walk?”

“Walk. Do you want to say anything to Damien before we go? We could pop in to the
pigeonnier
.”

What could she say? Apologize for throwing herself at him? “No.” Just the thought of seeing Damien made her cheeks go hot. “I have nothing to say to him.”

Rosa abandoned Marley twenty feet from the house. “She’ll be on the porch. That’s where she always is. See ya.”

“You’re not going with me?”

“Nope. I have to get my nails done.”

And Rosa bolted back the way they’d come.

Marley stared at the weatherworn house and gathered some courage. She was in desperate need of a shower, hot from the hike over through the tall grass and humidity, wearing Damien’s T-shirt and basketball shorts, which, horrifyingly, were a little snug in the waist. She didn’t need a mirror to know that her hair was snarled and sticking out in six directions, and she would lay down cash that she had a couple of big old dark circles under her eyes. Hopefully the old lady had cataracts, because Marley was probably downright scary.

But since she couldn’t fix that, she’d just forge ahead.

When she came around the corner of the house, the woman was sitting on the porch, like Rosa had said. She looked old, petite, her body enveloped in a pink knit top and shorts, her feet tucked into crisp white sneakers.

“Good morning,” Marley said, smiling as she went up the walk. She stopped at the bottom of the steps. “My name is Marley Turner. Rosa said you wouldn’t mind speaking to me a bit about the history of the plantation. Am I interrupting you?”

“Come on up here, child. Have a seat. The only thing you’re interrupting is me waiting to die, and most days that’s damn boring.”

Marley laughed at the wry humor in the woman’s voice. She went up the stairs and sat gingerly in the rocker next to Anna. She put her hand out. “Marley Turner.”

“Anna.” She shook Marley’s hand very delicately. “And you’re a Yankee.”

“Probably. I’m from Cincinnati.”

“What brings you to this old place? You don’t look like the usual type we see round here.”

Marley was going to try not to read anything into that, positive or negative. “I’m looking for my sister. Lizzie Turner. She was here early in the summer, at one of Damien’s parties.”

Anna nodded. “She young?”

“Twenty-four.”

“These young ones, they don’t understand what they’re getting themselves into. It’s fun and exciting for a while. Then it’s not, and they’re alone.”

“Rosa said maybe you had seen Lizzie. That you know what’s going on at the big house.”

Anna gave a laugh, her hands folded in her lap. “Rosa gives me too much credit. I see things, sure, but just people coming and going. The past is more my expertise, not the present. I don’t leave this old porch very often.”

Marley felt tears in her eyes without warning. “So you wouldn’t recognize my sister?”

“No, child. I’m sorry.” Anna patted her hand. “But she’ll turn up.”

Wiping at her eyes, Marley tried to get control of her emotions. She felt like ice, slowly cracking from the edges in, the split racing faster and faster into her center. “I hope so.” Taking a deep breath, she quickly spoke again before she totally lost it. “I also wanted to ask you about Marie du Bourg. What happened to her?”

Anna frowned a little. “Why do you ask about Marie?”

“My sister sent me an e-mail and it had a letter by Marie attached to it. It was a confession to her priest, dated in 1790. Then upstairs, in the house, I saw her portrait. I want to know what happened. Her words, her eyes…I can feel her pain.”

Recrossing her crisp sneakers, Anna stared at Marley. “Marie married Damien du Bourg in France in 1789, right after the death of Damien’s father, Phillipe, who built this plantation. It was said that Marie hated Louisiana, that she was of too delicate a nature, her husband too wild in his ways. But that is the way of the du Bourg men.”

Given the current Damien’s nocturnal gatherings, Marley could believe that. Not that Damien had been wild with her. He’d been perfectly restrained, damn him.

“How did she die? They couldn’t have been married very long. Was it yellow fever?”

“No.” Anna studied her. “Tell me, Marley Turner, do you understand what it is like to be trapped in your life?”

Yes, she did. She was trapped inside her family, held there by her love and worry.

“I’m trapped inside this body that is too old to be any good to me. Marie du Bourg was trapped inside this plantation, in a marriage that had no love. Can you understand that?”

“Yes,” Marley said, her throat tight.

“I believe you.” Anna stood up, startling Marley with the quick movement. “That’s why I’m going to give you Marie’s letters to read. Not the pretty letter she meant for her priest, but her real thoughts, her account of her time here.”

“You have a journal?” Marley was stunned. Why did Anna have something like that?

“Of sorts. Can you read French?”

“Yes.” It made sense the letters would be in French.

“Old French?”

Marley nodded. She had majored in Education, with a dual minor in French and Theology. All three had suited her shy personality, fueled her love of history and religion. “I can actually read it much better than I can speak it.”

“Okay, give me two seconds then.”

“Can I help you?” Anna was shuffling to the door, so Marley jumped up to assist.

“I’m fine, but thank you. You sit on down and I’ll be back before you can blink.”

It was a little longer than that, but Anna came back, with a stack of letters inside a ziplock bag. “Now, I expect you’ll have a care with these. They’re damn old.”

“Of course.”

Anna sank into her seat with a sigh. “And the other rule is that you can’t be running off and telling Damien about these letters. I can see in your eyes when I bring him up that you’ve got that crush on him all the girls get.”

Marley dropped her mouth open, ready to protest. She did not have a crush. That was preposterous, high school, unfathomable. Even if she found him mildly sexually attractive, she would not under any circumstances call that a crush.

“No, don’t bother denying it. I can see it. It’s none of my business. I’m only bringing it up because I won’t give these letters to you if I don’t think you can follow the rules. For over two hundred years no man has ever read these letters. They’re passed down through the women here, and they are for the eyes of women only.”

“Why?” Marley’s already dry mouth felt raw and scratchy.

“Because there are some things only a woman can understand. There are desires, wants, pains that no man can feel, and only another woman knows a woman’s heart. Marie’s thoughts should be read with the respect she deserves.”

“I can do that.” Marley wouldn’t have it any other way. “I’d be honored to read her letters.”

Anna nodded and handed her the bag.

“Marley!”

Marley jerked in her chair and gripped the letters tighter. “Shoot, that’s Damien.” He was yelling her name from some distance away, but he was clearly getting closer. They could hear his feet crushing the grassy brush.

“Damien du Bourg, don’t you set foot in the front of my house,” Anna roared, with surprising volume for such a tiny lady.

Marley was shocked silent.

“Anna?”

“You know it’s me. Don’t you do it, Damien. We have an agreement. Now get yourself back to that big house.”

“I just want to speak to Marley for a moment. Is she there?” Damien’s voice sounded charming, conciliatory.

Anna clucked in disapproval and muttered under her breath to Marley, “Chasing you like a dog after a bitch in heat. Never change, I’m telling ya. They’re all the same. You make him work for it, honey.”

Marley almost laughed. Damien wasn’t going to be working for it. He didn’t want it, not even when she had offered it free and clear with no effort on his part. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

“Marley?” Damien called again. “I need to talk to you. Can you come back to the house?”

“In a minute. I’m having a nice chat with Miss Anna here. You go ahead back and I’ll be there soon.” She winked at Anna, who gave her a wide grin back. “Let him wait,” she whispered, irritated with him for making her feel undesirable, vulnerable.

“Five minutes. I’ll be on the porch,” he said, sounding frustrated.

“Great.”

They heard him moving away and Marley felt immense satisfaction. “So why can’t Damien come into your house?”

“Because he’s a pig and I don’t allow livestock in the house.”

Marley laughed.

Marley couldn’t avoid Damien forever, but she did dawdle on the walk back to the big house, hoping maybe he’d given up and moved on to more exciting activities, like telling the maid where to mop. Unfortunately, he was standing on the front steps, pacing.

Her sandals suddenly became very interesting to her, and she studied them intensely as she approached the steps he was already heading down.

“I see you found the clothes I left,” he said, stopping on the third step.

Nothing like cutting right to the heart of it. He might as well announce she’d been virtually naked.

“Yes, thank you.” She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and crossed her arms over her chest. Eye-level with his knees, she spoke to them. “I’ll send the clothes back after I wash them.”

“You don’t have to bother. It’s not a big deal.” He moved, coming lower.

Marley already felt her cheeks heating. But she sucked in a breath, pulled herself and the shards of her dignity together, lifted her chin, and faced him. “It’s not a big deal to send them back.”

Shrugging, he took the last step and stood next to her. “I wanted to see you this morning because I want to apologize for last night. I can’t tell you how terrible I feel that you were drugged. I don’t like that kind of behavior at my parties and I try to police it, and that it would happen to you of all people…”

What the hell did that mean? She brought her arms in tighter.

“I am very sorry.”

Damien looked and sounded sincere, and Marley couldn’t really find any reason to fault him. He wasn’t the one who had doctored her drink. “It’s okay. You told me not to come to the party and I didn’t listen. I accept responsibility for my role. And thanks for taking care of me. I was a little, uh, out of it.” That was as close to the subject as she was willing to skate, but Damien suddenly covered his mouth and coughed a little. She realized in shock he was amused. She wasn’t. “You think that’s funny?”

Despite the shake of his head, his eyes told her the truth. The bastard was on the verge of laughing.

“Yeah, it was just hilarious that I took my top off in front of you.”

His eyes darkened. “That was not amusing, no.”

Now that hurt. Marley was already raw, feeling bruised, battered. She was worried about Lizzie, worried about herself, wondering why exactly she had done the things she had the night before. Was she really so needy, so vulnerable, so sexually repressed?

Damien’s reminder that he did not find her attractive was the last drop in an overflowing cup of emotion. “Can we just forget that ever happened, please? I’m leaving, you’ll never see me again. Can’t you just let me walk out of here with at least a shred of my dignity intact? I got the message last night—you’re not interested in me, and I can live with that. I never would have thrown myself at you anyway if I hadn’t been loopy, because I realize my limitations. But it would be nice, polite, if you could stop pointing out that you would not have sex with me if I were the last woman in Louisiana.”

Okay, that was a little dramatic. Marley clapped her mouth shut and mentally winced. She was losing it. She was on the edge of some kind of meltdown and she needed to go back to the hotel, regroup mentally, pack her bags, and get the hell out of there.

Thinking to do just that, she brushed her fingers over the T-shirt, reassuring herself the bag of letters tucked in her waistband wasn’t going to fall out, and turned to go.

Damien grabbed her elbow. “Marley.”

She jerked free. The last thing she needed or wanted was to see pity in his eyes, compassion on his gorgeous face. But he was stronger than she was, and he stepped in front of her and took both her wrists in a viselike grip.

“Why do you see yourself that way?” he asked in a low voice. “Why don’t you recognize how stunning and alluring you are?”

She sighed and stared over his shoulder. “You don’t have to do this. I’m not insecure and I don’t need you to make me feel better. I’m just having a really bad week. I want to find my sister, and I want to go home.”

“Let me try one more time. One more party to lure Lizzie.”

“No.” She couldn’t do that again, couldn’t see all those people, couldn’t stand next to Damien and pretend she didn’t want him so much her body ached. She couldn’t take the heartache of picking through room after room of partygoers reveling in sexual oblivion and still not finding her sister, wondering in the back of her head if Lizzie was dead.

“I’ll let the police look for her. Maybe I’ll hire a private investigator if I can afford it.”

“You should do that. But one more party won’t hurt.” Damien bent over, trying to get her to look at him.

Marley kept her eyes averted.

“Unless you’re afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” she asked with disdain, giving in and looking at him.

“Afraid of what you want.”

Her heart started to hammer loudly in her chest. He was picking through her fabrications, wandering too close to the truth. “What do you think I want?”

“I think you want to be the queen. You want to stand up for once and have everyone bow to you.” Damien stroked her wrists with his thumbs and leaned over, his lips suddenly brushing her cheek, her temple, her ear. “Or at least have one man bow to you.”

She could deny it, but he wouldn’t believe her. And it would be a lie. She did want that liberation, just once, that kind of confidence, that courage to demand what she and her body wanted. Marley crossed her arms tighter but let Damien rub and nuzzle against her, until he was kissing her neck, her ear, the corner of her mouth, caressing her flesh with his mouth. Making him stop would be the right thing to do, but she was afraid if she stepped away, had to be strong just one more time, that she would cry.

Tears never came easily to her, and they were a failure, a display of emotion she couldn’t afford the luxury of having, and after last night, she refused to cry again. Which meant she had to stay put, had to let him play his game with her, let herself unbend just a little and indulge in his touch, whatever his motives. He was certainly good at what he was doing, and her body was stirring to life, appreciating the attention.

“Let me bow to you.” Damien flickered his tongue across the corner of her mouth, his hand gently pulling her arms away from her chest, forcing them to her sides before returning higher to cup her breast.

He found her nipple easily and toyed with it, rolling and rubbing over the peak until Marley was breathing harder, head starting to slide back. His hands were here, they were there, they were stroking and caressing and moving, big and demanding, yet graceful and fluid.

“I like seeing you in my clothes. They’re workout clothes, functional, yet on you they hug and tug and make me think all sorts of things I shouldn’t.”

Now there was a hand sliding over the satin nylon shorts, right along the apex of her thighs. Marley shivered as he found her clitoris, even through the layers of clothes. He pressed lightly, circled, pressed, circled, pressed. “What things?” she asked, swallowing hard, desire thick and hot in her mouth.

“Hot and sweaty things. Sports imagery, like you in this shirt with no bra, soaked from a Gatorade dump. Sitting on a basketball, legs spread. You hitting the showers, me assisting…I can keep going if you’d like.”

That was plenty to keep her fantasies rolling for months after she got home.

“I absolutely love your body,” he added. “I want to lick you from head to toe.”

His mouth closed over her breast and Marley bit back a moan. That thing he was doing, the way he sucked, then pulled—she was going blind with pleasure. Desire was dragging her in, emptying her mind, stirring and rising, her body screaming yes, this was what she wanted.

Then she heard the crinkle of the ziplock bag under her shirt.

Marley jerked back, startled. She wasn’t supposed to let him see the letters.

And if he was the one bowing to her, why did she feel so out of control, so pushed and led and coaxed?

“What’s the matter?” He reached for her again.

Marley retreated backward. “Nothing.” She put her hand on his chest to stop him when he would have taken her into his arms again. “But if I’m in charge, then we play it my way. And I don’t want to do this in the driveway.”

The corner of his mouth tilted up and he looked aroused, excited. If she had doubted his interest ten minutes earlier, she didn’t now. He couldn’t be faking that tightness in his jeans, that lusty look in his eyes.

“Are you teasing me? Going to make me work for it?”

Marley didn’t know the rules to these kinds of games, but she knew she couldn’t let him see the letters from Marie, and she knew if she took pleasure from him, it was going to be precisely and only that. She wasn’t going to open up to him, she wasn’t going to give herself, her heart, or her trust, or try to take more than Damien was offering.

She was going to be in control, and she was going to stand up and get what she wanted, exactly what she wanted, for the first time in her life.

“Yes. I want you to work for it.” Marley shoved him backward with the palm of her hand, knocking him off balance.

Damien shook his head slightly, a scoff of disbelief escaping. But he was smiling, a dangerous, sensual smirk.

“Then start running, Marley,” he said in a low, rough voice. “Because I’m going to start chasing.”

The conception of our baby had arrived so quickly, mere weeks after our marriage, that I think we both assumed a second pregnancy would occur just as easily. But as the winter thawed into spring, and the spring warmed to summer, there was no baby, and I was secretly pleased.

I wanted an infant, absolutely, but I couldn’t help but feel a vicious sort of triumph that whereas Damien had put random effort into conception the first time and succeeded, he was denied again and again now. He seemed to take it as an affront, as if I were doing something to prevent it, and he
showed up night after unpleasant night, reeking like whiskey and climbing into my bed with a grim determination.

One night he said, “Are you preventing a babe?” Then before I could even shake my head, he laughed, a cold, empty sound. “Of course not. As if you’d know how to do such a thing. No, we’ll just have to keep trying.”

I didn’t answer. I never did. I never spoke.

Another time he complained bitterly about that very thing. “Don’t nod your head! Use a goddamn word. I want to hear you say a word.”

He was unbuttoning his breeches, and he looked sufficiently angry that I forced myself to say, “Yes,” to his original question, which had been to inquire if I was eating when I first awoke in the morning, a suggestion from the physician to build my strength back up.

“What?” He put his hand by his ear in a mocking gesture. “Did you hear that? I thought I heard something. It sounded like my wife, but she speaks to me so infrequently I’m not sure I’m right. She’ll repeat it now so I can verify that is what I heard.”

“Stop,” I whispered, wondering if I had finally pushed him too far.

“That’s another word! This is astonishing. This brings us to a grand total of eight words you have spoken to me in the past two weeks. I have been tallying them, you know. I was hoping we might achieve double digits before we reach week’s end.”

I sat up in bed, suddenly ashamed of my behavior. “Damien.”

The candle flickered on the nightstand, the shadows playing across his face. “You know, I believe I have changed my mind,” he said. “I’ll leave you alone in your misery tonight.”

He left, slamming the bedchamber door behind him. I could hear his boots stomping down the front stairs, and his anger was sufficient enough that I even heard the front door shut behind him, the windows rattling.

Unable to return to sleep, I paced the floor in front of my open windows. There was a soft breeze stirring in the June night, and I stepped out onto the gallerie, not caring that I was in my nightrail. I was suddenly worried. I had resented and despised Damien’s visits to my bed, but it came to me for the first time that the cessation of those visits would in fact be worse. At present, it appeared my husband wanted relations with me, wanted a child. I had that, such as it were.

If he lost the desire for me or for an heir, what would I have then? Nothing. I would be thousands of miles from home, the despised and deposed wife of a wealthy man, the talk of the neighborhood, the unenviable little nothing of a social whisper, shut behind the doors of this plantation for the rest of my life. No baby of my own.

Damien could live his life as he chose, with or without me. But I, without the care, concern, or support of my husband, for all intents and purposes, would be nothing. Less than nothing. And everyone would breathe a sigh of relief when I succumbed to the climate and finally took myself off into eternity. I would receive a small stone marker in the du Bourg mausoleum, beside my child, and that would be that.

I found, quite vehemently, that I didn’t want such a fate. I wanted a husband who respected me. I wanted a child, then a second, and a third. But I needed to acknowledge that I was going about my marriage in an entirely wrong fashion.

Which was confirmed at that exact moment by the realization that I could hear my husband’s voice floating up from the front steps. He was speaking to a woman, voices too low for me to hear exactly what they were saying. Neither could I see, not even by leaning as far over as I dared, so I found myself, with neither thought nor direct purpose, heading down the stairs and pulling open the front door.

I’m not sure what I expected to find. A part of me had to have known that any business my husband was conducting
at midnight on the front porch with a woman when he had been drinking was undoubtedly inappropriate. Yet I confess myself still shocked to see the vicious truth of it directly in front of me. My husband was embracing with a woman, his hands on her backside, hers digging into his hair. They were flush against one another, mouths entwined, legs entangled.