The master decided that Josette should have a parlor of her own. He planned to install a harpsichord that he was ordering from Vienna, and full-length mirrors on the wall that he was ordering from Holland, and the finest carpets to be ordered from Morocco. It was planned that Josette would spend her hours practicing Mozart and Bach and learning to dance the minuet. With a parlor for her exclusive use, she would gain the necessary skills of a lady to attract the right sort of gentleman.
So he charged Angelique with a task. "Pack up everything in my study. Put it all in crates. Have it stored in the attic. Only keep what's in my desk drawers, but everything else... I want it all gone by Friday. Do you understand?"
"Yes, monsieur, I understand." Angelique entered the master's study and halted. The clutter assaulted her eyes and the enormous scale of the task fully hit her consciousness. The study had floor to ceiling bookshelves built into the walls. Every shelf was crammed with loose leaf papers, leather portfolios, rolled up scrolls and parchments, cigar boxes, and dusty published books. More papers lay heaped on the floor, in mounds knee-deep from end of the room to the other.
"See that it's done by Friday!" Andre duPres swaggered off and was gone.
Jean-Baptiste the butler carried in an empty crate. "Do you need a hand, child?"
Angelique smiled her thanks to him. "No, thank you, I'll be fine. Can you bring more crates?"
"More? This here is goin' to take you a while."
"Oh, a couple of hours at most. I work quickly!"
The butler winked at her. "But there's no reason to work quickly, child. You got till Friday, dontcha? Till then, why be in a hurry to do what Master wants?"
Angelique laughed softly. Why does the master deserve to have anything he wants. "I see what you mean. All right, then, I'll do as much as I can with this crate today."
"There's my little angel." He slouched off towards the door. "See you at supper."
When he had gone, she checked the latch of the connecting door to be sure it was closed. Then she strolled to the window, stepping over heaps and piles of papers on the way. She made sure the curtains were drawn. Assured of her privacy, she took a stand in the middle of the room. Slowly she drew in a deep breath and savored the scent of old stale paper like fallen leaves. Her awareness of the mundane details blurred. She had a sensation like going underwater. The ambient sunlight shining through the linen curtains gave a ghostly sheen to the pale papers. She looked deeper in search of the slumbering loa who had once been the trees from which the papers were made.
"Hear me, old ones," she said in Creole, the language that the native trees would understand. "Hear my voice and rise from your sleep. Hear me and obey. Rise... Rise from where you are. Rise and fly at my command. Fly into this box!"
A wave of her hand, and the papers exploded off the floor as if blown by a great wind. They fluttered and twirled in the air. A cyclone of loose sheets and hard-bounded ledgers flapped loudly. Her hands worked in the air like a puppet master. Her concentrated will guided them into swirling an arc. Books and papers shoveled themselves into the crate and stacked neatly up to the rim.
"Ah," she sighed at the job well done. Now she had time to go and find Barnabas at whatever he was doing. She would ask him more questions about the Greek philosophers and get him talking again. She would make him a pot of coffee—black with a half spoonful of sugar, just the way he liked it—and happily would listen to him lecture for the rest of the afternoon.
One of the leather-bound ledger books jumped out of the crate on its own. Angelique pointed at it like scolding a naughty child. "What are you doing? You! Get back in there with the rest of them!"
Chilly winds rushed through the room, like nothing she had ever felt before. Her breath came as a puff of vapor.
Angelique whirled in place, looking frantically to the ceiling, to the door, and to the window. "Who is it? Who's there?!"
The pages of the ledger flipped open, fluttering the way the countess duPres shuffled her deck of Tarot cards. Then it stopped and lay flat. The room became warm once more.
"So you want me to see this?" she said with a trembling voice. "All right, I'll look."
The page dated nineteen years ago was a bill of sale for a slave woman. A red smear splotched the lower left hand corner. Angelique sank to her knees and touched the wine stain. She sensed in the texture of the paper that Andre duPres had spilled it in a drunken stupor, blubbering tears of anguish over a secret. The slave's name was Sophie and she had been sixteen years old at the time Andre sold her away to a gentleman in Virginia with a tobacco plantation. The notations on the receipt were in English, and Andre's pinched handwriting was difficult to read. But Angelique squinted and gradually the inky scratches made sense: octoroon with green eyes, can pass for white... nubile and fertile... has already born one child, a girl.
Tucked behind the bill of sale page was another folded paper. Angelique drew it out, and with her heart pounding, she opened the folds of a finely crafted parchment. It was a simple baptismal certificate bearing the name Angelique and the date of her birth. Andre duPres had always said that the nuns of the orphanage had told him her birth date, and until now, she had never doubted his story. Yet here it was—clear evidence that he had planned to baptize her. The certificate was not signed by a priest, and the christening date was a blank line. Angelique's hands began to shake. Her eyes blurred with tears. The nuns of the orphanage would have baptized me, if I came from the orphanage at all.
"Ah!" she cried as the full weight of the realization slammed into her. I am the daughter of Andre duPres and his slave! I am Josette's half sister! The master had almost wanted to do the right thing for her soul, by having her baptized, but he was too much of a coward to carry his own bastard child into a church and stand before God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and all the angels and saints. So he sold off her mother and kept her as a playmate for his daughter. You speak of gentlemanly honor and courtly etiquette, monsieur, and yet you do this? Weren't you also married, at the time, to Josette's mother when you forced your desires onto your slave? You took what you wanted and then you discarded her when she became an embarrassment?
Angelique folded up the certificate and tucked it back in the page. She slammed the ledger shut. She picked it, hugging it to her chest. Leaving behind her chore half done, she dashed out of the door. She hurried down the corridor, faster and faster, turning the corners with more reckless speed. She navigated the maze of connecting rooms and shortcut passages on her way to the rear of the house, impatient to reach the servants' rooms that adjoined the pantry and the kitchen.
Tears started dribbling out of her eyes; she could not make them stop. For the first time in many years, she wept openly, blindly, in soft choking sobs that burned the back of her throat. I'll never let this happen to me! No man will ever treat me so cruelly, or if he does, it will be his last act of life on this earth!
"Angelique, is that you?" Barnabas called from the open door to the library.
She ducked her head and dashed past. At the far end of the straight corridor, the glass-paned double doors beckoned with sunlight. "I'm... so-sorry, monsieur, but I... I have to... to..."
"You're upset." His horse boots clumped on the floor boards just behind.
"No," she whimpered. She put a hand over her face to hide, even as her other arm still clutched the ledger to her thin chest. He can't see me this way! Not now!
"What's happened? What's wrong?" He chased after her, strong and swift. He caught her just as she reached the double doors.
"Nothing!" She pushed through to the outside air. This was the side of the house where the pathway of sand made a course from the wagon road at the front to the pantry, storerooms, and servants' quarters in the back. No one was here at this time of day. Lunch had been served, and supper was not yet being prepared.
Angelique hurried along the sandy path, dodging around the large earthenware pots that sprouted a variety of savory herbs. Barnabas stayed with her in earnest pursuit.
"Obviously something is terribly wrong. Why won't you let me help you? Tell me what's happened."
"Nothing has happened!" Angelique panted heavily by the time she reached the servants' quarters.
The stucco was painted coral pink and the wooden door was colored robin's egg blue, giving the illusion of a happy country village in the south of France. Until now, she had felt at home here in this austere one-story cottage, where she used to share a room with her nursemaid Veronique, and where she found refuge from the Countess duPres's demands. No one was here at this time of day, either. She had sought out privacy and she knew—with the awareness of a predator—that all of the rooms were empty.
"I don't believe you." Barnabas put his hand to the door frame and blocked her from going inside. "Is it something to do with that book you're holding?"
"This?" Angelique clutched the ledger even closer to her chest. "No, this... This is nothing."
"Is it?"
She looked at him. The sunshine glared behind him and made his face a mask of darkness. He was a shelter from the burning glare; she was safe in his shadow. I can't lie to him; he's too clever. I don't want to lie to him, but I can't bear to tell him the whole truth.
"Well, the master told me to pack up his study and I found a paper that shows I was never baptized."
"I see."
Angelique blinked to clear her eyes of tears. "Yes, you understand why I'm upset?"
"Yes I do, but then..." He put a hand to her cheek and gently wiped away the dribbling tears. "You know that I don't think any less of you because of it. Remember what I told you of my readings in philosophy? I don't care one whit for this heaven and hell nonsense. Cogito ergo sum, or je pense donc je suis, as Descartes said over a hundred years ago. It is our rational mind and conscious will that validates our existence, not the fantasy of some bearded old man on a cloud."
Angelique raised herself to her tiptoes and chomped a hard kiss into his mouth. Barnabas inhaled surprise but did not pull away. His arms whipped around her, clamping on, squeezing her so tightly that she could hardly breathe. She did not want to breathe, smothered in his warm soft lips; she did not ever want to come up for air again.
His left hand fumbled for the door knob and clumsily managed to get it open. Together they staggered inside. The kiss had to break but he never let her go. He clutched at her like a drowning man, caressing her cheeks and shoulders. He gnawed hot wet kisses into her neck at the same time he reached around for the buttons at the back of her gown. The ledger thudded to the floor. Angelique's knees weakened, sagging into a sort of half curtsey, adrift at sea and clinging to the power of him.
All his politeness and refinement vanished, replaced with a hungry beast that devoured her. Barnabas tackled her onto the narrow cot, sprawling her sideways, and he climbed on top of her. His hands worked quickly, skillfully, to peel away her gown's bodice so he could fondle and kiss her naked breasts. Angelique gasped and groaned at the fiery chills coursing through her. Helplessly pinned under his weight, ecstatic in the surrender, she clutched onto the rickety bed frame and held on for her life. He raised her layers of skirts and crushed himself into her.
Angelique closed her eyes and succumbed to the total darkness. She lost all awareness of the spirits of air and sky; she no longer remembered the loa in the trees and ghosts wandering unseen in the graveyard; she gave no thought to the mystic eyes in between the flames. All that mattered was this man and herself, his body joined to hers, kneading and pounding her into a collapse of exhaustion.
She drifted afterwards into a dreamless doze. A tepid fever clouded her mind. Weariness drained her limbs of all strength or will to move. Yet her blood rushed swiftly tingling with new life. Her skin felt brittle like a snake's skin sloughing off and about to be shed.
A little while later, she awakened. Barnabas sat up on the edge of the cot. His back to her, he was busy at fixing his buttons.
"Are you leaving me, mon cher?" She raised her left arm, reaching over herself to stroke the back pleats of his satiny vest.
"I'm sorry."
"If you're sorry, then stay."
"I can't." Barnabas stood up. His indigo cravat hung in two long bands at either side of his starched collar. "I'm supposed to be at the docks to meet my father's ship! He'll be furious if I'm late."
"He will understand if you tell him you're in love."
"Love," he repeated, making a sour face. Barnabas quickly looped the cravat several times around his stiff high collar. He tied up the thick bow under his chin. "My father doesn't understand 'love'. Of that you can be sure."
Angelique sat upright. She reached out to touch the front of his waistcoat. Her palms caressed against the firm strong chest that had just pressed the very breath out of her.
"You do love me, don't you, Barnabas?"
He smiled down at her with such tenderness as it made her blood melt. "If I were a man inclined to believe in Heaven, then it is you—my dear angel—who has shown me to paradise." Then he bowed over from the waist and kissed her full on the mouth, long and deep and lingering. Angelique swayed underneath him, wondering if they might tumble backwards and start all over again. But he pulled away.
She clung to the bedpost as she watched him hurry for the door. "Return to me soon, my darling."
"Every minute that I am not in your arms will be a torture." Barnabas tugged straight the lapels of his tailcoat.
He opened the door, checked left and right that no one was outside, and then launched into the sunshine. After he had gone, the room was so empty without him.
Angelique felt thirsty and went to the wash basin atop her unvarnished bureau. She poured a cup of tepid water out of her stoneware pitcher. Between her legs it ached. Speckles of blood stained her white sheets. And she smiled.
#
Within the hour, Angelique had changed her gown, combed her hair, and was back on duty at the plantation house. She pretended to make herself busy with a dust rag wiping the tabletop statues in the foyer. Gradually she inched her way closer and closer to the half-open sliding door that separated the foyer from the parlor.
Joshua Collins's haughty, nasal voice carried poorly as he tended to mumble. Angelique only caught fragments of his monologue, but it was enough to gather that his only son had disappointed him in almost every way. "...delay in unloading and loading of cargo... inefficient scheduling around predictable weather patterns... fraternizing with Navy men... time you settled down... come back to Collinsport... daughters of several prominent families in Boston..."
"I'm not interested in being matched to ladies from Boston," Barnabas said clearly. "Or from New York, or Philadelphia, for that matter. When I marry, it will be someone of my own choice, someone I love!"
"Love! Bah!" his father snorted. "If I had waited to fall in love, I never would have married your mother, and where would you be?"
Angelique crept closer to put her ear by the crack in the door. She held the dust rag limp at her side.
Andre duPres said, "Forgive me for interrupting, gentlemen, but we were talking about the shipping schedule? We only have two months left before the Atlantic storm season."
"Yes, thank you," said Joshua Collins. "At least someone in this room has a rational head."
"Father, really, must you! I have as much a rational head as any man."
"Oh do you?" Papers rustled. A chair creaked. "Tell me, son, what is the current market price for a barrel of molasses? Don't know? Well, then tell me the volume of the cargo hold on our flagship? Don't know that either?"
Barnabas said, "Why should I memorize such trivial details? That's why we keep ledgers and logbooks, isn't it?"
Fabric rustled in the corridor behind her as someone approached. Angelique hurried to resume the pretense of dusting the narrow tables in the hallway. Busy with wiping over and over a spot that was already clean, she did not look up to see who strolled behind her. She did not need to look; by the scent of jasmine perfume and the rhythm of those clicking silver shoes, she knew.
"Is papa in the parlor?" Josette asked.
"Oui, mademoiselle. He is discussing business with Monsieur Collins and Barnabas."
"Business? Only business?" Josette leaned closer to the crack in the door.
Angelique whispered, "Mademoiselle, it is not polite to eavesdrop!"
Pouting frustration, Josette turned away from the door. "I had dared to hope... Angelique, do you think I'm being foolish?"
"I don't know what you mean."
Josette held up a pair of folded letters: one on coarse parchment, and the other on hand-pressed paper infused with lavender leaves. "I have received two proposals of intentions, and I don't know what to do! One is from Monsieur Bellefleur from Trinidad who is planning to relocate to Quebec, and the other is from Monsieur Monteau of Jamaica whose father is a slave trader. They are both handsome and worthy gentlemen, but I do not love either one of them. I don't wish to move to Quebec, and I am loathe to marry into a family who traffics in that disgraceful cargo."
Angelique inclined her head at that last choice of words, disgraceful cargo; it was exactly how Barnabas had described the slave traders.
"I don't understand your dilemma," Angelique said. "If you do not wish to marry either one of them..."
"But I must marry someone!" Josette stomped her little foot. Her large brown eyes glistened with moisture. She looked about ready to cry. "I'm almost twenty years old and if I'm not engaged soon, I might wind up an old spinster like my Aunt Natalie!"
"I'm sure that's not going to happen." Angelique caressed her arm soothingly. "If you're patient, the right man will come along."
"When he does..." Josette looked aside in the pause. "Do you think he will want me as much as I want him?"
"Any man would be a fool not to want you." Angelique patted her forearm, stirring the layers of the mademoiselle's frilly cuff. "Now, why don't you go into the garden with your rosary and start saying a novena? Ask the Blessed Virgin to send you the right husband, and I'm certain she will hear your prayers."
"Yes, yes!" Josette's face brightened with her smile. "I'll use my very special rosary with the pearl beads and the silver crucifix."
"That's an excellent idea." Angelique holding her arm turned about, in a sort of slow-paced gavotte step, and maneuvered Josette in the direction of the staircase. "If you hurry, you can finish one recitation of the rosary before supper is served."
"Yes, I will." Josette hoisted her long skirt and charged up the stairs. Angelique smiled to watch her running after such foolishness. If the coquette's mind was occupied with prayers, she would not be thinking of Barnabas. Put him out of your mind and look elsewhere, Josette; he belongs to me, now.
#
Countess duPres refused to share a supper table with Joshua Collins, calling him a rude and insufferable snob. Excusing herself with a vague complaint of womanly weakness, she demanded that a tray be carried up to her bedroom. Angelique brought up a silver tray weighted down with shrimp scampi sauteed in butter, whitefish in a mustard sauce, tomato cream soup with a garnish of mint leaf, a mixed fruit salad, and a crouton of bread still warm from the oven. Her own stomach gurgled; she had not eaten supper yet.
As night fell and darkened the windows, Angelique thought of him. Perhaps he would visit her room again in the cover of darkness. He had promised to return! He had said that each minute apart would feel like torture, and she felt the same way. Bearing the heavy tray full of food for the countess, her arms ached to be holding him again. Strange, new sensations tingled in deep places that she did not know existed. It was like performing her first magic spell, all over again—that sense of wonderment and curiosity, the thrill of power being tested.
"I hope he's not staying long," the countess said as Angelique entered the room. "That insufferable man, Joshua Collins! If I have to complain of a headache every night until he leaves, I will."
"Yes my lady." Angelique set the tray on the little table by the fireside. She checked the arrangement of the spoons and forks on the folded napkin.
Countess duPres had made a throne of the window seat. Her grand skirts spread around her in a half circle. Her glorious auburn curls piled high on top of her head. Coils of curls—now sagging by the end of the day—draped on one shoulder. She had her deck of Tarot cards and was turning them over on the window sill, one by one.
"Tell me, Angelique, is Josette having her supper in the dining room with the Collinses?"
"Yes, she is." She politely clasped her hands in front of herself. "Will that be all, my lady?"
"Stay with me." The countess turned over another card, and then another. "Something very... very important is going to happen tonight."
Angelique blushed, thinking of Barnabas, and turned her head aside. "Do the cards say so?"
"Yes... yes, they do. See here are The Lovers which may signify an existing relationship or one that is about to exist. And here is The Chariot which signifies a struggle of some sort against formidable obstacles."
Curious, she strolled across the room to observe the cards. Before now, she had never taken much interest in them. Clearly the cards had no power of their own, no loa sparkled in those flat paper wafers, no spirits lurked on Natalie duPres's shoulders to shuffle the order. All the pictures were the same, time and again—not mercurial and variable like the seas and the winds and the tides. The only thing that changed was the reader's interpretation, and the definitions so broad that any reasonable guess had a chance of coming true.
"What sort of obstacles, my lady?"
The next card was a picture of two dogs howling at the full moon. "I can't be sure. The path is one of darkness, of night and wild nature. It is the moon that lights our way through the realm of the unknown."
"I see."
Countess duPres looked up at her. "You don't believe in the Tarot."
"I am not sure if I believe or if I don't." Angelique bowed her head demurely. "But it is interesting. Can you tell by the cards who the lovers are?"
"No, but I think it's obvious."
"Oh?" Angelique turned away to hide her blush. She pretended to make herself busy at the canopy bed with fluffing the countess's sheets and arranging the mosquito net.
The countess put away her Tarot cards on the window sill, in the same place where she had lost them before. She rose in a loud swish of taffeta and satin. The grand lady made a graceful glide across the room to the little table by the fireplace. Only when she was properly seated, with a napkin on her lap and a silver fork in her left hand, did she continue the conversation.
"Josette and Barnabas, of course."
"Oh?" Angelique punched the pillow.
"Surely she has told you that she's utterly enamored of him." The countess took a bite of shrimp and frowned her disapproval. "The Gascon has overcooked them again."
"Josette... is interested... in Barnabas?" Angelique had to choke it out, repeating the words so she could be sure if she had heard correctly.
"Very much so."
"Then why was she flirting with all those other young men at the birthday party?"
Countess duPres laughed in between sips of her creamy tomato soup. "Love for persons of your station must be such a simple task. You see someone you like, you propose, and you marry—just like that. Ladies such as Josette, and myself, are obligated to follow a more complicated etiquette. A proper lady does not simply throw herself at a man. She must test his sincerity by appearing to court his rivals. She must entice him with her charms, but not directly. When he finally comes to her, she must at first reject him—but not too vehemently. Only in this courtly dance will a lady learn of his true intentions, for if a gentleman is determined to pursue her through all obstacles, then his love will be everlasting."
"It sounds cruel." Angelique glanced aside to the flames waving in the fireplace. Gaps in the orange shadows had small eyes looking back at her. The whispers were silent, but she had the sense that somewhere the spirits were laughing.
"On the contrary, it would be cruel to marry someone out of convenience that one did not fight to win. Such passionless marriages are their own special hell." The countess picked at the whitefish fillet with her fork.
Angelique looked to the door. Her eyes widened, frantic to know what was happening in the dining room at this moment. Yet she could not invoke the eyes of the flames to see beyond the reach of her mortal sight, not with the countess demanding her presence.
"May I be excused, my lady? I haven't had supper myself."
The countess offered her plate of shrimp in butter sauce. "You can eat these. I don't want them."
"I would rather eat downstairs, if it pleases you, my lady."
The countess shrugged. She ripped open the crouton and dipped the crust in her soup. "As you'd like, though I can't imagine that a bowl of stew made of kitchen scraps would be preferable."
"I have, uh, simple tastes." Angelique dipped her knees in a curtsy. "I shall return in about an hour to fetch your tray."
#
Scrambling to the downstairs, she rushed to the closed door of the dining room. She put her ear to the narrow gap between the panels. As if choreographed by the trickster spirits, her timing was perfect.
In the dining room, Josette in her rich, jovial voice proclaimed, "Papa, I have received two letters today, from Monsieur Bellefleur and from Monsieur Monteau, who are both expressing interest in socializing with me further. Do I have your permission to invite them over for tea?"
"Not at the same time, surely," Andre duPres remarked.
Josette just giggled. "Perhaps or perhaps not. I haven't decided. Barnabas, what do you think?"
"About what?"
"Monsieur Bellefleur and Monsieur Monteau."
"I'm not interested in either one of them," he said.
"Of course not," Josette said merrily. "I meant, which one should I invite to tea first?"
A chair loudly squeaked on the wooden floor. Barnabas said, "I need some air. The wine... the wine is quite going to my head."
Joshua Collins exclaimed, "You're still on your first glass!"
"Yes, well, it's... it's... Excuse me."
As his footsteps approached the door, Angelique whirled about and dashed into a connecting corridor. She held still, out of his sight, as he emerged from the dining room
He passed by on his way to the garden. She allowed him to go first and waited by counting to twenty, so as not to appear too obvious. It was torture to walk his trail at a slow unhurried pace, to hold herself back from running to his side. She had to be careful for his sake as well as hers. Before turning a corner, she checked that no other servant was coming from that way. She passed the open door to the kitchen only after peeking around the door frame to be sure that everyone was busy at the fireplace.
She opened only one of the double doors and just enough to slip her slender body through. This night in July was humid and warmer than most, as warm as the daytime, and the only difference being the absence of light. Shadows consumed the moon down to a crescent sliver. The cicada bugs loudly sang their mating song from the trees, a desperate chant of insect voices, mem-mem-mem-weee, that almost sounded human.
Barnabas stood at the fountain. He dipped his kerchief into the dribbling waters and then dabbed the back of his neck.
She approached from the side, admiring the darkness of him. The black coat and black trousers blended with his smoothly combed hair. The outlines of his body blurred into the shadows all around. He was lost—as lost as she had ever seen anyone—and she feared that if she did not reach out to him at this moment, his human face would dissolve and he would become a ghostly spirit haunting the trees.
He noticed her and revolved to face in her direction. She held forth her hand. Without a word, he took hold of her fingers.
Together they walked the garden path around the side of the great plantation house. They avoided the golden pools of candlelight glowing out of the windows. They slipped quietly through the shadows and came to the door of her servants' quarters. By night, the cheery colors had faded to dark gray and darker gray. On this very spot, that afternoon, she had first kissed him; the memory of it raised a rush of thrill that heated her blood. Her hands trembled as she turned the knob.
As soon as they were safely alone, Barnabas swooped in to embrace her. This time, his kisses were long and deep. They stood for a while clasped in each others' arms, savoring the taste of each others' mouths. He undressed her slowly, picking out the buttons one at a time. Her gown toppled off her shoulders. She stood nude before him like the statue of the nymph at the garden fountain. His hands stroked down the curve of her back, and she sighed a long moan.
Angelique fumbled with the knot of his cravat. She desperately wanted to loosen his collar and kiss his neck. She remembered his skin was soft, not like what she had expected a man's skin to be. But the satin was looped over and tied too tightly. "I can't..."
"Let me." His strong thumbs pried open the knotted bow under his chin. In a few quick tugs, he got it loose.
She clamped her mouth onto the side of his throat and slurped and sucked at his salty skin. In response, his breaths became shallow and quick. His fingertips dug into the hollows of her shoulder blades, and he squeezed her tighter. They swayed in place, dizzy, the floor reeling like the deck of a boat. Somehow he managed to wriggle one-handed out of his tailcoat. Deftly, he plucked open the long chain of buttons running down the front of his vest.
Angelique stepped backwards, her arms outstretched in beckoning him to the bed. He yanked off his shirt overhead and tossed it like a rag to the floor. He dropped his trousers on the way, and in two quick steps, he fell into her. They landed together on the bed frame. The wood creaked as if to split in half. Again he slammed himself into her, fierce and desperate and hungry, and this time it did not hurt at all. She squinted her eyes shut to be swept away in a whirlpool, to drown in the spiraling current that dragged her under the sea, then raised her up on the force of a wave, and smashed her against the rocks of the shore.
#