The Awakening, Zuleika and the Barbarian (14 page)

"Mais oui,"
her mother proclaimed.

"And what shall I wear? Ohh, I cannot wait to tell the girls that I am leaving St. Anne's!" Emilie said excitedly.

"Have you been so unhappy then?" Marguerite looked stricken.

"Oh,
non, maman
, I love it here, but I would far rather be with you. Will I have to go to a new school in Louisiana?"

"You will be taught at home,
ma petite,"
Beau said. "I have a little son from my first marriage, and he will be your baby brother. We will need you with us to help take care of Michel."

"And will there be more babies, Papa Beau?" Emilie asked innocently.

"I hope so," Beau told her, casting a burning glance toward Marguerite. "I want you and Michel to have several brothers and sisters, Emilie."

"Très bon!"
Emilie declared enthusiastically.

The wedding was celebrated in late afternoon that Sunday. The guest list was small. Renée, François, Josie, Leonie, Clarice, Louis, and Beau's valet, Pierre. Little Emilie attended her mama, dressed in a gown of pink and white striped silk, her pantalets edged in pink silk rosebuds, a wreath of silk flowers in her dark hair. The groom was garbed in a dark gray coat, a white ruffle-fronted shirt, a jonquil yellow brocade waistcoat, and cream-colored pantaloons. The bride's gown was pale blue with a pleated bodice, the hem decorated with a wide band of lace. The gown had long sleeves with a double lace cuff at the wrists, and puffs from the shoulder to midarm. There was a pink cameo pinned at her waist, pearl bobs in her ears, and about her slender throat was a gold and pearl chain from which dangled a matching cross.

The choir stalls were filled with the nuns from the convent. Many remembered the day when Renée had brought the infant Marguerite de Thierry from the Île de Cité prison, and into their care. They had not been at her first wedding, and so it pleased them to be at her second. She would, the Reverend Mother Othalie said, always be in the prayers of the sisters of St. Anne, even if she was an ocean away. Then the nuns in their black and white garb sang the mass, and Father Joseph, the convent confessor, performed the marriage service. Afterward they adjourned to the main salon of the convent, where a civil official awaited to perform the civil ceremony, necessary since the revolution. Wine was provided, the papers signed, and a toast to the newly married couple made.

"When are we going to Louisiana?" Emilie asked her parents.

"We sail from Calais on the tenth of April,
ma petite,"
her stepfather told her.

"But that is two weeks away," Emilie said, dejected.

"You must finish out your school term," Beau told her, "and your mama and I should like our honeymoon."

"Thalia du Pont says honeymoons are naughty," Emilie replied primly.

"I certainly hope so," Beau murmured softly.

"Thalia is wrong," Marguerite said, blushing. "She is too young to know such things. I am surprised she would spread such misinformation based on her own ignorance."

"Quite right, Madame d'Aubert," Reverend Mother Othalie said. "Now, I believe you must leave us. Mademoiselle Emilie must return to her dormitory, eh?" She smiled at the adults and, to Marguerite's surprise, gave her a tiny wink.

They thanked the nuns for their kindness, and the newlyweds bid their few guests adieu, walking hand in hand down the street to their little apartment where Clarice, Louis, and Pierre would have now set out a small wedding feast for the bride and groom. Monsieur Claude had been notified that his tenant, Madame Abbott, married her suitor, Monsieur d'Aubert that afternoon. He and his wife were waiting to tender their felicitations as Marguerite and Beau returned from St. Anne's.

In the little salon a wedding supper had been laid out, but the three servants had discreetly disappeared to their own quarters in the attic. A linen cloth was spread on the table, a fire burned in the fireplace, and the candles in their silver candelabra flickered, casting a golden glow over all. Beau seated his wife, and she began lifting the covers from the dishes, serving him his supper as she did. There were oysters that had been baked in cream, dill, and white wine; a plump capon stuffed with dried fruit, chestnuts, and bread; a long silver dish of asparagus with a Hollandaise sauce; a plate of tiny lamb chops; potato puffs; delicate little haricots verts; fresh croissants; sweet butter; a small round of Brie cheese; and a bottle of champagne. On the sideboard was a Genoese cake, fresh fruit, and another bottle of champagne.

"How on earth did Clarice and Louis manage to obtain such a feast?" Beau wondered aloud, swallowing an oyster, a beatific smile lighting up his face.

"I am certain it is all my
tante's
doing," Marguerite decided. "You know what a romantic soul she is." She helped herself to several slices of capon and two tiny chops. "I am ravenous!" she admitted.

He watched her eat, amused by her great appetite, but then her appetite for other tastes was certainly as great. "Do you always eat like that?" he asked as she slid the remaining potato puffs onto her plate to be followed by the last two spears of asparagus.

"Are you afraid I'll get plump, Monsieur d'Aubert?" she countered, her tongue licking the Hollandaise from an asparagus tip. "I have always eaten like this. Charles used to say it was my healthy and most unfashionable appetite that first attracted him to me. All the other girls would go from the ballroom into the buffet and pick. I, however, ate with gusto. The ladies who counted, those doyennes of Almack's, were quick shocked, I am told." She picked up a potato puff, holding it between her thumb and forefinger, and fed it to him.

Catching her hand, he licked her fingers slowly, and most suggestively. "Delicious," he pronounced.

Marguerite smiled a slow smile at him. "Shall we have dessert,
monsieur?"
she said softly.

"What are you offering, Madame d'Aubert?" he asked her.

"There is fruit and Genoese cake," she replied innocently.

"Perhaps later," he said, standing up. "For now I can think of a sweeter treat, Marguerite." He moved around the small table to draw her into his arms.

"Can this all be true?" Marguerite said softly. "Am I really your wife, Beau? And will we leave France in just a few weeks?"

"Oui, oui
, and
oui,"
he responded, kissing her brow.

"I love you," she told him simply.

"I know," he said quietly. "And I love you."

The tears began to slip slowly and quite suddenly down her cheeks. "Oh, Beau, that you should love me after what I have been," she murmured low. "That you could make me your wife. I shall never be able to love you enough, I fear." She slipped her arms about his neck, burying her head in his shoulder as if to hide from him.

Gently he raised her face up to him and began kissing her, tasting her lips on his as if it were the very first time. Shivers of excitement raced up and down her spine, and feeling it, his own arousal was fired. He increased the pressure on her luscious mouth until it opened, allowing his tongue to slip in and forage within the hot cavern, fencing with her tongue, which came forth to meet his. Their passions flared up conjointly. He tore his mouth away from her to kiss her closed eyes, her cheekbones, her stubborn little chin, the tip of her nose. And all the while Marguerite's hands were desperately pulling at his garments to loosen them.

His cravat hung limp. She pushed his coat from his big frame. Her hands fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, opening them, and slipping beneath to touch his warm, bare flesh, for he had worn no undergarment. A wicked thought crept into her head, unbidden. If he wore no upper undergarment, did he wear one beneath his trousers? Her hands smoothed over his broad chest, but then, her curiosity rising, she moved from his chest to grapple with his trouser fastenings.

"I am not
wearing
drawers," he murmured softly in her ear, and Marguerite blushed to the roots of her dark hair with the awareness that he had read her thoughts, but then she murmured back,
"Neither am I, chérie."

Beau laughed softly, then he turned Marguerite about, his big fingers nimbly undoing the dainty mother-of-pearl buttons that held her bodice closed. Slipping the garment off her delicate frame, he pushed the straps of her sleeveless chemisette from her shoulders, pulling the garment down to bare her breasts. His hand slipped beneath them to cradle them in his palm. Kissing her shoulder, he said to her, "You are a most tempting armful, Madame d'Aubert. You fill me to overflowing with lust." His teeth sank into her flesh, nipping at it playfully. "Tell me you want me too."

"Oh
mais oui
, Monsieur d'Aubert, I very much want you," she told him. Marguerite arched herself back against him, her round bottom grinding provocatively into his groin. "Very, very much," she repeated.

She was making him hard, but it was too soon. This was their wedding night, and while they knew each other very well by now, he still wanted it to be wonderful and memorable for them both. Removing his hands from her breast, he began to undo her skirts, both outer and under. The fabric puddled about her feet, and he lifted her free of the garments even as she drew the chemisette over her head and tossed it to the floor with the rest. She was now attired only in her cream and blue striped silk stockings, held up by garters of pink rosettes, and her heelless round-toed cream silk slippers with their seed pearl bows.

He stepped back from her, his look admiring.
"Mon Dieu, ma petite
Marguerite, you are utterly perfect. You are like a small marble Venus,
chérie."

In reply she giggled at him. "And you, sir, are all awry with your garments askew while I stand as God fashioned me."

He grinned, and began to pull off his remaining garments. "I do not believe,
madame
, that
le bon Dieu
made you with silk stockings and such suggestive little garters. Do not remove them yet. They are very tempting and exciting." He sat down to yank off his ankle-high brown leather shoes with their low square heels and his stockings. Then looking up, he beckoned her. "Come, Madame d'Aubert, and sit upon my lap. It is time for you to be naughty, I believe." He waggled his thick dark eyebrows at her wickedly. "Eh?"

She stood facing him, an index finger in her mouth, which she then withdrew slowly. "How naughty, Monsieur d'Aubert?" Her little tongue flicked swiftly over her lips.

"Very naughty,
chérie,"
he told her, and held out his hand.
"Very, very, very naughty."

Her cornflower blue eyes moved to the thatch of dark curls between his thighs, where his love lance now bobbed eagerly. "I do not know if you are ready to be
that
naughty with me,
mon mari."

"You are trying my patience, madame," he growled, and reaching out swiftly, he yanked her to him, pulling her over his lap. His big hand descended upon her bottom with a satisfying
smack
, and she squealed, more with surprise than any hurt. The big hand spanked her four more teasing blows. "Are you ready to be naughty now,
madame?"
he demanded with mock severity.

"No! No!" Marguerite cried, wiggling her now pink buttocks at him. "You daren't spank me again,
mon mari!"
Her agitated motion sent her shoes flying.

"What?" He pretended to be outraged, but the truth was he was enjoying this game every bit as much as she was. "You would defy your husband,
madame?"
Then he rained six more spanks upon her hapless bottom, his own excitement rising as she wriggled and wiggled against him.

"Oh! Oh! Do stop, Monsieur d'Aubert. I promise to be bad! I do!
I do!"

He slid a hand beneath her, his fingers pushing through her nether lips, feeling the sticky wetness of her juicy cunt. "You are deliciously wicked,
madame,"
he said softly, "and may you always remain so because it is for me you will cry out with pleasure." Turning her over, he fastened his hands about her narrow waist and lifted her up, lowering her onto his raging cock with a deep groan.

"Ahhh!"
Marguerite sighed as she sheathed his hardness, then she squeezed him as tightly as she could, and he cried out. Her arms rested lightly about his neck. She leaned forward to rub the tips of her breasts against his smooth broad chest even as she raised her slender legs encased in their silk stockings to wrap about his middle. Her silk-clad toes tickled his spine.

"Ahh, vixen, you are indeed ready to be naughty," he approved. "Now, will you do as I say, or must I spank you again?"

"I will do as you say,
mon mari,"
she vowed.

"No, do not close your eyes,
chérie,"
he said. "I want to see the look in them when I make you come, and it will not be long now, for you are a greedy wench. I can only imagine what our hot Louisiana nights will do to you. Now ride me, as you would your mount in the Bois."

"You are my stallion," Marguerite agreed, and did as she was bid until they were both so filled with pleasure that they collapsed into each other's arms gasping with their exertions.