Return to Paradise (Torres Family Saga) (22 page)

      
He entered the house by a rear door, avoiding the summer kitchen as he crossed the rain-drenched courtyard. Today was his wedding day and this night they sailed. He considered the weather an omen.

* * * *

      
Miriam had never been in a Christian church before entering the Basilica of St. Victor. How grim and forbidding it seemed. The priest waiting to perform the simple ceremony seemed scarcely less so, as if he could see through her forced conversion right down to her tainted Jewish soul. Francois Moreau, the council member who had arranged the matter for Uncle Isaac, escorted her to the church. Portly and balding, he was kind, as was his wife. Flanked by these two stalwarts, Miriam walked down the aisle, hearing their footfalls echo in the deserted vastness of the dark building.

      
Rigo emerged from a small niche off to one side of the high altar. The glow of several candles from the smaller altar at his back silhouetted his splendidly attired body. As was his wont, he was dressed all in black, rich velvet with silver thread for trim on the sleeves of his chamarre. His long, sinewy legs were encased in sleek black wool hose. He wore one heavy silver chain about his broad shoulders and his inky locks caressed the gleaming metal where they fell against it. She could not see the expression on his face, yet knew it was austere and guarded.

      
Miriam looked frail and alone, a stranger in this big dark church, frightened by its alien statuary and ornate altars. Rigo's eyes swept from her pale face to the rich, warm amber of her gown. Ruth and Isaac had not stinted in providing her with a splendid wardrobe to make up for all she lost in leaving Judah Toulon's house. The candlelight reflected on the intricate patterns woven into the honey-colored brocade. She had chosen well, for it set off the bronze sheen of her hair, now covered with the sheerest of silk veils and a simple circlet of topaz at the crown of her head.

      
Their eyes met, and the earlier panic he had sensed in her subsided. Her clear gray gaze met his piercing blue one unflinchingly. As he took her hand in his, he damned her self control. She knelt stiffly with him before the priest and Rigo wished desperately that he could read her thoughts.
Do you now repent your bargain? Would you rather be in a synagogue with DuBay?

      
Miriam made her responses as prompted by the priest, while the Moreaus looked on worriedly. When the cleric gave his final benediction and bade them stand, she searched Rigo's face for some hint of emotion...and found none.

* * * *

      
Standing on the deck of the
Galiante
, Rigo and Miriam watched Isaac, Ruth and their grandchildren grow smaller on the stone landing. Rebecca, their only granddaughter, had sweetly hugged her and pressed a small gold cross on a fragile chain into her hand, whispering, “Twill be your new way now. Follow it and be happy as my cousin Aaron is with his Christian wife.”

      
Everyone wished Rigo and his bride well, sending them off laden with letters for the Torres family across the Atlantic. The rain had finally abated and the water was almost glassy as the ship reached the narrow neck of the Lacydon and headed past the sprinkling of islands in the Golfe du Lion.

      
“At least we begin the first leg of our journey with good weather,” Rigo said as he took her arm and turned her from the melancholy sight of Marseilles receding in the distance. “Look ahead, not back, wife.” He gestured toward the western Mediterranean's brilliant blue-green waters.

      
Obediently she turned as he commanded her, but said nothing. Rebecca’s gift burned in the small velvet pouch at her waist.

      
“What was it Rebecca gave you?” he asked as she unconsciously touched the purse.

      
“A simple farewell token, and her wishes for our happiness,” she replied in a neutral voice.

      
He arched one black eyebrow and looked cynically at her flawless profile. “I can see how much you believe that possible.”

      
“And you, of course, have done all to assure we will be blissful!” The frayed cords of her control at last snapped.

      
“You are not the only one to sacrifice, Miriam. I gave up my career in the army and lost Benjamin's love as surely as you did. And I, too, am leaving the only home I know to journey to a distant land.”

      
“You go to meet your father while I have forever lost mine,” she said softly, fighting the hateful weakness of tears. She could not bear to think of Benjamin or of Judah.

      
Rigo stiffened. “I go to meet the man who deserted his byblow and left him with savages. Forgive me if I am not overjoyed with the idea of a blessed reunion. But unlike him, I understand duty, Miriam. You, after all, are a white woman and cannot be treated as a savage.”

      
“Yet I am wed to one!” She responded to his cruel words without thinking, then instantly wished to call hers back. Dear God he looked as if she had just run him through with a Swiss pike!

      
“Yes, you are wed to one,” he whispered. His face was tight with fury as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her toward their quarters. “As your bridegroom, I would see the goods so dearly bought.”

      
Their cabin was tiny with only a narrow mattress upon a raised platform. Windowless and bare, but for a small wooden stool and table, it looked like a prison and smelled of mildew and human sweat. Rigo set her none too gently on her feet beside the bed and then lit the fat tallow candle on the table.

      
Miriam stood watching him. His every step was rigid with fury as he deliberately closed the cabin door and latched it, then turned toward her. The flickering candlelight made his face seem even more swarthy.
I am darkness.

      
His black clothing perfectly suited his expression. He pulled the heavy silver chain from about his neck, and tossed it on a stool. Then the embroidered chammare followed, along with his silk tunic. After sitting on the edge of the bed, he pulled off his boots and rose to stand directly in front of her. She could smell the faint male muskiness of sexual arousal. Perversely her instinct was to reach out and touch that hard dark chest, to run her fingers through the crisp black mat of hair and trace its cunning pattern, leading downward... Her face flamed as she clenched her fists in the folds of her gown, fighting the urge to touch him.
I am darkness
. His words and his presence bewitched her. She dug her nails into her palms, frightened, frustrated.

      
She was pale as Alpine snow, and trembling. Was it lust...or revulsion? Perhaps both. He stretched out his hand and toyed with a soft lock of hair that had escaped her veil. “You said I was a savage, but I am your husband. I would see your body—all of it.” She recoiled, but he held fast to the curl. “Our previous encounters were too swift and lusty for us to disrobe.” She blushed prettily, but met his gaze, waiting to see what he would do.

      
“Do not salve your sensibilities by having me rip the clothes from you,” he began in a low, deadly voice. “Do not push me that far. Remove them yourself.”

      
“I am with child, Rigo. My body grows fat and ugly.”

      
“I will judge for myself whether you are ugly.” A slight smile curved his lips but did not touch those glacial blue eyes.

      
Miriam could tell his patience grew thin. With fumbling fingers she began by pulling the sheer silk veil and its jeweled circlet from her hair. When she dropped it, the headpiece floated over the pile of his black velvet clothing like a caress. The lacings on her gown were not too difficult to loosen, but the brocade was heavy. As she struggled with it, she suddenly felt his warm strong hands assisting her in lifting it over her shoulders. He took the lovely creation and hung it from a peg on the wall while she stood in her long, sheer undertunic, too mortified with embarrassment to remove the last few remnants of modesty.

      
Rigo's breath felt squeezed from his chest when he turned to see her silhouetted in the candlelight. The shift was gauzy and sheer and revealed the lushness of her body beneath it. Her hair gleamed darkly and fell in a cascade of silk to her waist. He braced his feet wide apart and fought the urge to go to her and enfold her in his arms. “Patrice would envy you those full young breasts,” he said.

      
“I doubt she would envy me my swollen belly,” she snapped, turning from his lascivious leer.

      
“Because it contains a half-caste child? At least since tis you who carries it I know it is mine. With Patrice it could have been any man's bastard.”

      
“A man is as good as the company he keeps, Spaniard,” she replied, feeling a surge of raw jealousy over his whores. “If Patrice Farrier had been punctual that fateful night, we would not be wed.”

      
“I give you leave to regret that...as long as you finish the task at hand.” His voice was silky, yet under it lay steely anger.

      
For an instant she considered refusing. Only for an instant. Slowly she raised one leg and rested it on the mattress to slip off a brocade slipper, then peel down her silk stocking. She repeated the process on the other leg, then stood and unfastened the tie of her undertunic. When she finally freed her arms, Miriam could not drop it but clutched it across her breasts and belly protectively.

      
Rigo still did not move. “Let it fall. I will see all of you.” He could sense her inner struggle as her fingers clenched and unclenched on the thin fabric. Finally it floated to the floor, pooling like ocean foam about her slim ankles. He forced himself to walk slowly around her, struggling to regain control of his passions.

      
Miriam stood with her back straight, refusing to look at him as he inspected her like a piece of livestock. She knew her waist had thickened, her lower abdomen had rounded and her breasts had grown heavy.
I will not cringe
!

      
When he could endure looking without touching no longer, Rigo reached out and covered one tautened breast with his hand. Then, as the nipple hardened, he allowed his fingers to brush past it and graze lightly over the swell of her belly, pausing to press softly against her navel. “My child grows there,” he whispered, half to himself, bemused.

      
The pain was so great she wanted to cry aloud to him:
Is it only the child you care for? What of me?
But she said nothing as he continued his maddeningly slow perusal, his fingers evoking exquisite sensations as the calloused tips ran along the curve of her hip, then up her arm. Finally he lifted her chin with one hand and gazed into her eyes.

      
“Your body still responds to my touch. It remembers.” He pulled her against him with his other arm and she felt the pulsing life of his erection against her belly. “So does my body.” With that he tangled his hand in her hair and kissed her.

      
Miriam felt weak, drained by the long day's wrenching events, humiliated by his cool inspection of her misshapen body. Yet when his lips brushed her mouth and his tongue teased for entrance, all the old, aching hungers swallowed up her pride and fear, leaving only the hot vortex of remembered passion. She raised her arms and held him fast, opening her mouth for his invading tongue, digging her nails into his shoulders as she returned the kiss.

      
Rigo savaged her mouth, then trailed soft, wet kisses down her cheek, along her delicate jaw and onto her throat. He could feel her acquiescence, then the turbulent release of her passion as she clung to him and moaned deep in her throat, like a small wild creature caught in a snare. He lifted her up and lay her on the narrow bed, Then stood to remove his hose. His eyes never left hers as he stripped naked before her.

Chapter Twelve

      
Miriam watched him peel down his tight woolen hose and kick them away. When he stood over her with the candlelight bathing his dark body in golden light, he looked like some pagan god, splendid and barbaric all at once. Her eyes involuntarily traveled from his gleaming midnight hair down to his broad muscular chest, then lower to his pulsing staff, hard and ready for her.
Now I understand why the ancients worshipped fertility gods
, she thought as he lowered himself onto the mattress and covered her body with his.

      
Rigo raised her arms above her head and held her slim wrists imprisoned in his hands as his tongue circled one upthrust breast until she arched and writhed with pleasure. When the nipple hardened, he did the same with the other, then suckled them as he felt her heartbeat pound faster, keeping pace with his own. He raised up and knelt between her parted thighs, then sank down and slid into her. When she tightened her legs about his hips and arched to meet each thrust, he growled out his pleasure in a guttural Spanish oath. Before the blinding red haze of ecstasy could carry him over the brink he stopped, whispering against her throat, “Hold still, lest I finish without you.”

      
With a deep, shuddering sigh, she complied, letting him set a slower pace, languidly fueling the aching hunger inside her until it burned brighter than the sun. Then, just when she was certain she could bear the fiery pain-pleasure not an instant more, it burst in an explosion of pure light. Miriam clawed at him, sobbing out his name incoherently. She felt his staff swell and pulse deep inside her, spilling his seed as his body shook with his release.

      
Fearful of harming her and the child, he did not collapse on her but held his weight on his forearms and buried his face in the rose fragrance of her hair. “What witchery is it you work on me?” he murmured. “You are beautiful.”