Page 2 of Sweet Savage Love

2

T here was nothing in common between the green-eyed girl in France and the young Union army captain in Louisiana except that they were both wet—and he had lived in Paris, a long time before.

His blue uniform was soaked through already, and he cursed the rain and his errand that day.

Promoted from the rank of lieutenant only recently, and transferred from a lonely outpost in the Territory of New Mexico to New Orleans because he spoke fluent French, Steve Morgan had thought he would enjoy his tour of duty here. But instead he had found himself instructed to perform guard duty—to “keep an eye on” the Beaudine plantation and its chatelaine, who just happened to be married to a U.S. Senator from California.

Now, caught in the slashing downpour, his ears almost deafened by thunder, Steve Morgan damned his luck and the lady he was looking for. What in hell was she doing riding out alone in a thunderstorm? And where was she? He hoped that at least she’d have had the sense to take shelter from the storm somewhere.

“Miss Sonya, she rode off someplace—” the sullen-faced housekeeper had told him when he’d come up to the house that afternoon with an invitation from General Butler. And that was another of the things that galled him—that he should be reduced to the position of either a messenger boy or polite escort; riding out on the general’s errands, and for the rest of the time set to “guard” an icy cold Southern lady from possible molestation. Because Sonya Beaudine had been fortunate enough, or clever enough, to get herself remarried just before the war broke out, and to a Union Senator, at that, she was treated very differently from the rest of the women in this conquered city. Steve Morgan, with four or five troopers, was expected to be on hand whenever she wished to shop or visit friends. Five bluecoats, with their captain feeling foolish at their head, trotting beside Madame Brandon’s carriage like lackeys—lounging around her garden when she was home—not good enough to be asked inside the house because they were, after all, only Yankees.

Even the Negroes, ex-slaves, all of them, treated the Yankee soldiers with a kind of veiled contempt; while the native Louisianans themselves were much worse—not even bothering to hide their contempt and disdain for their conquerors.

Sonya Brandon, in spite of her Northern connections, was a native Southerner and still accepted by her friends. She made no attempt to disguise her dislike for her escort—in fact, she seemed to take a delight in letting it show.

So it was with something like dismay that Steve had heard the lady had left the safety of her house to go riding that morning—alone, and with a thunderstorm brewing.

“Have you any idea where she might have gone?” Steve had asked her servant curtly, and the woman, shrugging, had mumbled something about the river—that her mistress sometimes liked to go to the high ground that overlooked the river, so she could watch the boats.

“Oh hell!” Steve had sworn out loud, forgetting to be cautious. He turned disgustedly to his corporal, a stolid faced, rangy looking man. “I suppose I’d better go look for her—the general will have my hide if she’s met with an accident.”

The grinning corporal saluted smartly and offered halfheartedly to go along, but Steve had instructed him to stay close to the house with the rest of the men, in case she came back. “In which case,” he said grimly, “you can come looking for me.”

As he turned his horse around to leave, Steve heard the black woman mutter from behind him in French that her “maitresse” would no doubt prefer the perils of a thunderstorm or the snakes out in the woods to the company of a bluebelly. Forgetting himself, Steve told her in the same language that she could have saved her mistress from such a terrible fate by going with her, or having the sense to stop her. Leaving the woman gaping with surprise he kneed his horse into a gallop, making for the river and the wooded land that lay between it and the house. The first large drops of rain began to fall before he had quite reached the trees.

The rain dripping off the visor of his cap almost blinded him, and with a muffled oath Steve pulled it off his head and shoved it in the pocket of his uniform. Damn the woman, where was she hiding herself? He was close to the river now, following a path he had recognized by pure instinct. The thought struck him that she might not have followed this trail at all—she could very well have taken a short cut back and might be at the house by now, laughing at the idea of his half-drowning out here in the rain, looking for her. He gritted his teeth with rage. Well—he’d come this far already, so he might just as well go all the way up to the river now and look around before he headed back.

Coming out of the dense woods into an unexpected small clearing, Steve reined his horse in sharply. If he had gotten himself lost it would be the last straw! Then he saw the crumbling, abandoned warehouse at the other end of the clearing and her mare, its head tossing nervously, tethered by the door.

So she did have some sense after all—she must have decided to wait out the storm here, which wasn’t, after all, such a bad idea. Grimly, he wondered if she’d be surprised to see him.

Sonya Brandon sat huddled up on an old wooden crate she’d found and turned on its side, her arms wrapped around her knees to keep herself warm. She was soaked to the skin, and vastly uncomfortable, but the thunder frightened her more than anything else, and each time she heard an angry explosion overhead she shivered and closed her eyes.

Her straight blond hair had escaped from its decorous chignon and hung in rat tails down her back, and the velvet of her new riding habit was utterly ruined. She knew she must look a fright, and she felt much worse. Why had she been so determined to ride today? She had known that a storm was coming, and she had always been afraid of thunder. If only Tante Victorine hadn’t told her it wasn’t proper for her to go riding alone—if only she hadn’t hated the thought of seeing those Yankee soldiers hanging around her house again, playing cards and criticizing Southerners and the citizens of New Orleans in particular, in their loud, nasal voices! And their captain—she detested him most of all. He wasn’t polite enough to hide the fact that he resented having to escort her wherever she pleased to go, and she’d noticed the bold and almost derisive way he’d assessed her body from head to toe—as if she’d been some quadroon slut on the city streets.

Oh, God, why had she agreed so complacently to let William go to Washington so soon after their marriage? And why, why had she so naively agreed to stay and look after the plantation and their interests while he attempted to drum up support for the Southern cause in California? All his efforts had been in vain, after all—California had elected to join the Union and they were separated. In spite of her conviction that the South was right and their cause a sacred one, she had the depressing feeling that they might actually lose the war in the end. Look how easily the Yankees had taken New Orleans!

The Yankees! She hated their arrogance, their attitude towards the city they had conquered and its proud people; and in spite of her own unhappy beliefs, she hated their calm, sure assumption that they would win the war.

An extraordinarily loud burst of thunder, sounding almost directly overhead, caused Sonya to clap her hands over her ears and give a small scream of fear. And then, as the shaky wooden door burst open and a man stood outlined for a moment by a vivid flare of lightning, she screamed again, this time with pure terror. He looked like the devil himself filling the doorway for an instant, with his black hair plastered to his head, and his dark blue eyes seeming to gleam evilly in the half-light.

He walked inside, closing the door behind him, and she heard his voice, lazy, mocking.

“Why ma’am, you look like you’ve seen a ghost! And here I thought you’d be relieved to see me come to your rescue.”

Unreasonably frightened and angry, she sprang to her feet.

“You! What are you doing here? How dare you follow me?”

“Just performing my duty, ma’am.”

He seemed quite unperturbed as he stood there, shaking the water from his hair and clothes like a wolf. And indeed, that was what he reminded her of at this moment—a dangerous, feral animal. There was something about the way he stood, with his legs slightly apart, the reckless slant of his lips, the thin, straight nose with nostrils that curled slightly as if he scented her…now, what had made her think that?

An unreasoning, blind panic took hold of her.

“Get out!” she whispered hoarsely, and then, more loudly, “get away from me!”

“But ma’am, I haven’t come anywhere near you!”

His voice sounded coldly reasonable, but she’d seen the way his eyes had narrowed, the way his mouth twitched in a mocking, somehow knowing smile. She could almost sense it now, his sudden awareness of her—the velvet habit clinging snugly, rainwet, to every curve of her body; her wide, frightened eyes and lips that parted as she panted with fear and unexplainable, irrational panic.

And as they eyed each other warily, she, in her turn, became aware of him—as a man instead of a hated blue uniform. She saw a tall man, slim-hipped and hard-muscled, with wide shoulders and a lean, sun-browned face that formed a surprising contrast to his very blue eyes. His wet uniform, plastered closely to his body, left nothing to her imagination, not even the fact that he had begun to desire her.

Instinctively, shockingly, Sonya’s eyes had dropped downward, and now she raised them quickly with a muffled, horrified cry, her pale cheeks flushing bright crimson.

“Do you expect me to apologize? There are some things a man cannot control, I’m afraid.”

His voice was pleasant, but he smiled at her impudently.

Sonya took a backward step, her hands crossing instinctively over her full breasts.

“Don’t—don’t come near me! I’ll scream if you take one step—”

“You think anyone will hear if you do? Over that noise?”

A sudden rattle of thunder seemed to shake the whole building and she jumped, gasping, frightened even more by his words. Perhaps he sensed something of her blind terror, for he shrugged, studying her face.

“You have no cause for worry, ma’am, believe me. I’ve no intention of raping you, if that is what you fear. In spite of evidence to the contrary—” he added wickedly, his eyes fastened derisively on her.

She stood still, feeling trapped, and with a kind of despair she saw that he had started to take off his jacket. With a small choked cry she backed off against the wall, and he spoke to her quietly and reassuringly, as if she was not quite bright.

“All I’m doing is taking off this wet jacket. I promise you I’ll undress no further, if that thought alarms you.” He flung the jacket from him and looked at her again, measuringly. “Would you mind if I sat down? No use our starting back until this storm’s over.” He let his glance flicker around the small space. “Maybe I can get a fire started.”

His calm assumption that he was going to stay here with her made her heart pound.

“Oh please—” she whimpered suddenly, “please go! I—you make me so afraid!”

“For God’s sake!” he said impatiently, “what do you take me for? A devil? A wild animal who’d take a female against her will? Or was it the sign of my damned male urges that frightened you so? Let me tell you, madam, that desire or not, I won’t touch you unless you want me to. New Orleans is full of women who are not only beautiful and desirable but willing as well!”

He stood frowning angrily at her, a muscle twitching in his cheek, and had half-turned to stalk outside and leave her when there came a blinding flash and an explosion of thunder so loud that not only the building but the floor as well seemed to vibrate.

Sonya’s mouth opened and she screamed hysterically as she heard a crackling, crashing noise outside and realized that the lightning had struck something nearby. Steve Morgan, his face both angry and alarmed, cleared the distance between them in two long strides and caught her by the shoulders. He shook her roughly.

“Damnation! Will you shut up? You’re safe, I tell you—it was outside—stop screaming now, or I’ll have to slap your hysterical face!”

His roughness and the cruelty of his words silenced her screams while provoking her, at the same time, into a blind fury that made her bring her fisted hands upward and pound them against his chest.

At one moment her hands flailed against him, and at the next—she could not recall, later, how it came about—her hands were clinging to him instead, as if she was drowning. She felt the linen of his shirt tear under her clutching fingers and she felt his muscles tense, and then her head fell helplessly back under the onslaught of his mouth on hers.

She felt her body bending backward, felt the length of his hard body against hers, and then somehow, they had almost fallen onto the rough, dirty stone floor together, still kissing. Their hands found and uncovered each other, and then, without preliminaries, he was over her, penetrating her roughly and deeply and, after her first cry of despair, completely satisfying.

It was only afterwards, when it was all over and they lay panting and exhausted together, that Sonya began to sob uncontrollably. Her suddenly awakened realization of what had taken place, coupled with a deeply cutting sense of humiliation and revulsion at herself, made her turn her head away and close her eyes, the tears trickling forlornly down her face. They had not even taken the time to undress completely—somehow, that seemed to make it much worse!

With a sudden change of mood that was all the more startling because of his earlier harshness and the rough, crude way he’d possessed her, Sonya felt the man pull her into his embrace and begin to stroke her hair and face tenderly. His surprising caresses soothed her as if she had been a child. Lying shivering and helpless in his arms, Sonya became gradually aware of all kinds of small things—the incessant dripping of the rain, the mutter of thunder, the fact that his shirt was made of fine linen and his voice had no nasal Yankee accent, but a deeper, almost lazy drawl. Whoever he was, he had at least been a gentleman at one time. He murmured soft, tender endearments to her, gentling her until her sobbing stopped; and gradually, as his hands continued to caress her she became aware of him, again, in the physical sense.

“Oh, God, I’m so ashamed!” she whispered brokenly, and felt him kiss her tear-wet cheek again, and then her mouth. Gradually, her body warmed and stirred under his roving hands, and she began to murmur incoherently and clutch at his shoulders; her head shaking in silent protest even while her body moved to accept his once more.

“I—I’m ashamed!” she wept again. “What will you think of me now? How can I live with myself?”

“Hush, sweet—you’re a woman, remember. A live and passionate one, under that icy surface. It’s nothing to be ashamed of…”

She could hardly believe that he was ready for her again so soon; but she felt the proof of it and yielded to him, letting his hands do their work while his body rocked gently against hers—slowly, teasingly, while his hands moved like burning brands over her skin, making a complete wanton of her.

Afterwards Sonya felt as if she had come to rest after a long and tiring journey, and she said no more about feeling ashamed. That came later, when she was alone in her room, and the precepts of her rigidly conventional upbringing warred against the sudden discovery of her own passionate nature.

Oh, yes, later she despised herself and hated him but when she saw him again and he acted so formally polite, as if nothing had ever happened between them, then she wanted all of it all over again—his hands on her body, his lips stopping the moans that came from her mouth, and most of all, to have him inside her, taking her with him to the point of animal forgetfulness.

Steve Morgan had told her bluntly that any repetition of what had happened between them would have to be of her own will and wanting, and although she hated him all the more for saying it and meaning it, she found herself helpless to resist her own suddenly awakened desires.

They met again and again after she had finally broken down and forgotten her pride, asking him to escort her to the river bluff one morning. Sometimes they had their secret, stolen meetings in the abandoned warehouse where it had all begun, and sometimes she’d insist he come to her in her own bedroom, late at night. But he never spent a night with her—never stayed longer than an hour or two at most, and she learned to her anger and chagrin that he was not to be pinned down or questioned. His moods were unpredictable and changeable. Sometimes he was rough and brutal with her, quick to possess her and to leave her. But at other times he could be as gentle and tender as any ardent lover—kissing and petting her and taking endless time and pains to arouse and satiate her.

Just once, she asked him half-fearfully, “But—do you love me?” and he’d laughed shortly.

“I love making love to you—I want you. Isn’t that enough for you, Sonya?”

And she wondered how many other women he had, and said the same thing to—whether even now, when he was her lover, he saw other women as well. She dared not ask—he refused to answer questions, and merely looked at her with a raised, mocking eyebrow, ignoring her sulks and tantrums.

She would tell herself, over and over, when she wasn’t with Steve, that she had no right to question him. They weren’t married—she was married to William, and she loved him, deeply and comfortably. Sometimes she’d think, oh, if only William would come, and take me away with him! And then, desperately, she’d find herself praying that he wouldn’t, not yet!

This is only an episode, she would tell herself in her saner moments. I’m married to William, he’ll come back here for me and it will have to end—that is what Steve says, that we are both lonely and so we console each other—and yet, and yet she was bitterly jealous and resentful of the time he spent away from her, and all those other, faceless women she knew he must meet and enjoy and perhaps possess in much the same way as he did her. Lightly, casually; sometimes with concentration and even affection, but always selfishly—never really giving too much of himself.

Sonya Brandon attended General Butler’s ball, mainly because she hoped that Steve would be there. He was, but beyond a polite bow in her direction, he stayed away from her. The General himself took pains to entertain her, and introduced her to all his senior officers, but Sonya had a miserable evening.

The old Governor’s mansion was crowded—the musicians played well and the food was excellent. But none of her friends were there, and she saw too many brown and caféau-lait faces—“they” were everywhere now, it seemed, and she could not understand how the white Yankee officers could so obviously and openly enjoy dancing with quadroon and octoroon women who would, just a few years ago, be forced to attend their own balls or stay hidden in their small, secret apartments.

She was dancing the waltz with a Major Hart, a rather portly man who paid her a lot of respectful attention, when she caught her first glimpse of Steve Morgan, dancing by with a girl who was young, breathtakingly beautiful, and obviously a quadroon. He was holding her very close, and smiling down into her face with the lazy, half-mocking smile that Sonya both hated and loved. And it was clear that the girl adored him—her eyes never left his face, and every now and then she’d laugh breathlessly and happily.

Sonya caught her partner staring at her with a puzzled expression and caught herself.

“I’m sorry—” she murmured apologetically. “But I find I—I cannot quite get used to that!”

“I know just how you feel, ma’am,” the major said, squeezing her waist very slightly. “I’m originally from Tennessee myself, and we don’t like it much either. But you know—this is why we’re fighting the war!”

She was drinking a glass of punch with a Colonel Beamish when she had a first opportunity to talk to Steve Morgan. He walked by, rather abstractedly, and Sonya’s light voice halted him.

“Why, it’s that nice captain that General Butler sent to look after me! Are you enjoying yourself, Captain Morgan?”

He bowed to her politely, but she could see an almost appreciative glint of devilry in his eyes.

“Yes ma’am! It’s good to see you here, ma’am.”

How well he plays the country bumpkin, she thought viciously, even while her lips were curving upward in a smile.

“Are you going to escort me back tonight?” she asked sweetly, knowing that he was supposed to be off-duty.

“I believe Major Hart has already volunteered for that pleasant assignment, ma’am,” he said, and this time the laughter in his eyes was apparent.

Colonel Beamish cleared his throat, and Sonya gave him her most brilliant smile.

“Are all of your young officers so shy, Colonel? I declare—here I see Captain Morgan almost every day, and he hasn’t even asked me to dance.”

She had him this time, there was no way in which he could escape his duty now. She saw him glance apologetically at the colonel, who growled impatiently “For heavens sake, Morgan, we don’t want Mrs. Brandon to think we’re all mannerless savages, do we?”

The musicians were playing another waltz, and Steve Morgan bowed to her again.

“I would be honored, ma’am.”

He danced well, although he did not hold her as closely as she had seen him hold the quadroon wench; and although she had half-expected him to be angry with her, he was only amused.

“You could have asked me to dance before!” she pouted, and he grinned at her teasingly.

“You’re a Senator’s wife, Sonya, sweet. Being a mere captain, I could not have presumed…”

“You presume a lot more!” she snapped at him, but he refused to be drawn into an argument with her.

“I didn’t think you would actually come today,” he said lightly. “Is it quite proper, with your husband away?”

“William knows, of course. I wrote to him, and he agreed that I should be—friendly. Especially since General Butler himself invited me. He’s an acquaintance of William’s.”

“I’m glad your husband is so understanding.”

She glanced at him sharply, but his face looked quite expressionless. And against her will, she found herself wondering if he was impatient to get back to his partner—if the girl had been his partner. Perhaps he was only being polite? She wanted to think so, but the way he had held that girl, the way she had laughed up into his face made her feel differently. How could he? How dared he? And yet, she knew him well enough by now to keep her thoughts on the subject to herself.

Steve Morgan did not ask her to dance again, and it was Major Hart who escorted Sonya back home that night. After he had left, she lay awake for hours, with sleep eluding her, even though she knew that he wouldn’t come.

The war dragged on, the spring dragged on, straggling into summer eventually; and their affair continued, somewhat cursorily.

Sonya heard regularly from her husband—he was busy in California. Politics and his other business affairs kept him away, he explained reasonably enough. Travel was extremely dangerous, she was safer where she was, although of course he missed her. Sometimes she hated William for staying away and longed for the safety and sanity that his return would bring her. What am I doing? she would wonder sometimes, despairingly. What is happening to me, what am I turning into? But she did not want to face the answers. She was Captain Morgan’s mistress, his casual light-of-love—and although she sensed that was the real extent of their relationship she refused to admit it.

Because she needed to feel that their relationship was more than a purely physical one, Sonya occasionally questioned Steve about himself, even though she had learned that he either avoided or brushed aside her curiosity as a rule. Sometimes, though he would let slip little pieces of information or trivia that intrigued her more.

He was younger than she, of course—only twenty-four, and had been sent to New Orleans because he spoke French. Had he travelled much? It was obvious he had, but he would give her no details, although just once he mentioned offhandedly that he had lived in France for two and a half years. It surprised her. How had he managed it? Did he have relatives in France? He merely grinned at her mockingly.

“My—my stepdaughter lives in Paris,” Sonya offered. “William says he will send for her when the war is over.”

“Oh?” he said without interest, and then he leaned forward to kiss her, and the subject was closed. It did not take Sonya long to realize that he knew exactly how to silence her when she was in a talkative mood.

Once, when Steve arrived late for one of their meetings in the woods, coming up softly behind her and scaring her half to death, she said petulantly, “Why, you even walk like a—a cat, or a wild Indian!”

“But I am one,” he teased her, kissing her between her breasts. “I lived with the Comanche for three years. If I’d seen you then I’d have taken all your lovely hair and worn it at my belt—” he pulled it loose as he spoke and Sonya shuddered, half-believing him.

“Well—you are like a savage, you know! There is something—something untamed and uncivilized about you. I think that you are quite without scruples or conscience, and it frightens me.”

He only laughed, his lips moving down below her navel as he unfastened the hooks that held her gown together, one by one, and she forgot, after a while, to be afraid.

Sonya Brandon thought often about the danger of their liaison and how it must eventually end—for the sake of her marriage and her own peace of mind; but when it happened she was completely unprepared for it, and the circumstances that caused it.

They had fallen into the habit of going riding together, quite openly, for after all, everyone knew that she had always enjoyed her daily rides, and his duty was to escort her. But one morning she waited for him and he did not come. Then, early in the afternoon a strange sergeant came instead, touching his hat to her.

“Where is Captain Morgan?” She was in a rage by this time, and her anger made her blunt. She wondered why the man seemed embarrassed and reluctant to speak. Imperious and insistent in turn, she finally wormed the whole sordid story from him.

There had been a duel the previous night. Over a woman. And the captain had shot and seriously wounded his superior officer of all people—a Major Hart.

“Dear God!” Sonya burst out, unable to hide her feelings. “What did they do to him? Where is he now?”

Shuffling his feet awkwardly the sergeant admitted that Captain Morgan was under arrest, and a prisoner in the stockade. And if the major died, which seemed likely, he would in all probability be executed.

“Oh, God!” she said again; and then, “this woman—the one they fought over, who was she?”

The man obviously did not want to tell her, but when she threatened to go to the general himself and get the story from him, it all came out.

The Captain had a woman—they said he had been keeping her, although that of course was merely rumor. True or not, he’d been walking with the woman on the street last night, in civilian clothes, when the major had come upon them. No one knew what exactly had happened—they said the major had made some disparaging remark and angry words had followed. But the captain had challenged him and the two men had fought with pistols at twenty paces in a deserted churchyard.

It was only later, from her friends in New Orleans, that Sonya heard the whole story of the scandal that had set the town gossips buzzing. The woman was a quadroon.

The long years of rigid training in etiquette and deportment that were her birthright as a Southern lady helped keep Sonya outwardly calm and unruffled. She told her friends, with a shrug of distaste that she had never liked or trusted the man—had always sensed there was something wicked about him.

“My dear—” one of the older women leaned forward, her face falsely commiserating. “I really think you should consider yourself fortunate. I mean—imagine a man like that appointed your escort! I mean, one never knows, with his kind…”

“No, one doesn’t,” Sonya agreed.

Outwardly placid and unchanged, she raged inwardly, and despised Steve Morgan completely. She hoped they would hang him. And she prayed that her husband would return to her soon, to take her away from the war and its attendant nastiness.