Her words were filled with such stinging acrimony, Julian actually fell back a step, looking as if she had just struck him. “Mercy, I’m stunned at you. I’ll not have you speak ill of Justine. As a matter of fact, she was an innocent when she came to me.”
Mercy turned away, blinded by tears. Oh, God, it was too much! The fact that Justine had come a virgin to Julian’s bed only added more appalling legitimacy to their association, and his passionate defense of the woman further devastated her.
She turned on him like a wounded animal. “You mean you never tossed up her skirts and took her in a carriage?”
Julian’s outrage was such that Mercy feared he might strike her. “How can you say such a thing?” he demanded at last, his eyes brilliant with hurt and anger. “That was special. That was just for us.”
“It was a sham, like everything else in this marriage has been!”
He tried to touch her, but she jerked away, gripping the railing as her entire world seemed to splinter apart. Julian had a mistress, a son—oh, God, she could not bear it! What a naive fool she had been ever to trust him! She should have learned from her earlier experiences with him. The man was a villain, totally incapable of honesty or integrity. He could only lie to her, hurt her, manipulate her. All the time he’d been courting her, charming her, he’d been seeing another woman, his paramour! And she’d been beguiled by it all; she’d gone to the altar like a lamb to the slaughter. Memories of the uninhibited intimacies they’d shared tortured her now, mocking her with their obscenity.
At last she turned to face him, her eyes gleaming with hatred. “You bastard,” she hissed. “You were so wise, so cunning. You tricked me into this marriage. You didn’t tell me the truth until you had seduced my body and insinuated yourself into my heart, until I—”
“Yes?”
Until I fell in love with you. Mercy drew her hand to her mouth and gasped. Mon Dieu, she had almost admitted her love to him, and such an admission would have been disastrous. For Julian could never love her. He could only deceive her and take advantage of her feelings. If he knew of her love, he would only use it as another weapon to destroy her.
“You made me bare my feelings to you,” she went on in a choked voice. “You made me admit that I never loved Philippe. You insisted that I be honest with you, when all the time you were hiding this woman, this child—”
“Mercy, it’s different with a man,” he said helplessly.
“Is a man exempt from honesty, from fairness, from any human decency?” she cried. “Oh, mon Dieu, I should have known! I was such a sap-headed fool! I should have remembered what kind of man you are—”
“You mean, the kind of man who would kill your father?” he cut in with sudden, savage anger.
“Yes!” she cried, abandoning restraint in her own consuming hurt. “And the kind of man who would sneak around behind my back and betray me with his mistress.”
“Damn it, Mercy, Justine and I are no longer lovers.”
“I wish I could believe that,” she said with a terrible fatalism. “But all I know is that you are a liar and a cad. When I think of the things I did with you, shameless things—”
He gripped her shoulders. “Mercy, those things were good. They drew us closer together—”
“Close enough so that you can shatter me now?” she asked.
The look in her eyes made him recoil. Indeed, her eyes said it all. Julian turned away in torment, knowing he had just destroyed their fragile relationship. His wife was a creature of pride and passion. She had loved fiercely, and now she would hate fiercely. She would hate him. Not that he blamed her. He had fallen hopelessly in love with her; he had taken a terrible risk. And he had lost.
Her tortured voice drifted over to him. “Why didn’t you tell me the troth about her before we were married? Why didn’t you offer me a choice?”
She turned on her heel and fled for their stateroom.
***
In their cabin, Mercy moved about mechanically, her features as white as parchment. She quickly dressed for bed and turned down the lamps. Only when she was safely in the bunk could she succumb to the torrent of tears she’d held choked in her throat. She sobbed and beat the pillow, cursing Julian with her every breath . . .
Yet her anger could not hold at bay the ocean of soul-shattering hurt he had inflicted, nor could it stop the tidal wave of jealousy following in its wake. She was wounded by his betrayal, and jealous of every second he had spent with this other family he had concealed from her.
She knew now that Julian loved another; he would probably hop right back into this Justine’s bed the minute they returned to New Orleans. And the scoundrel had even claimed he was no longer sleeping with the woman—surely the cruelest lie of all!
He had doubtless married her only to create a façade of legitimacy while he enjoyed his illicit affair. Mercy knew that Louisiana law, as well as social constraint, would forbid that he ever marry an octoroon; thus, his marriage to her would appease society while he continued to pursue his secret passion. And the villain had taken her off on this honeymoon mainly to tell her about his mistress—what an important admission this must have been to him!
To think that he had a child, a son, with this Justine. He had shared her bed, shared his life with her, for so many years. What a powerful bond that must be. By comparison, she must seem a poor substitute. Indeed, Julian already seemed disappointed that he wasn’t having a child with her; perhaps she would never live up to the image of his paramour.
She wanted out of this marriage. She could never trust Julian again, and she refused to let him go on hurting her.
She went on sobbing, agonizing, until all her tears were gone. Even then, she could not sleep . . .
***
Julian didn’t return to the room until very late. When he sank into the bunk next to her, he smelled of brandy and cigars. He touched her shoulder in the darkness, and she recoiled.
“When we arrive in New Orleans, I want to go back to the convent,” she said in a voice thick with tears.
“No.”
“You won’t let me out of this marriage?”
“Never.”
“I hope you rot in hell.”
A sob escaped her then, and, with a curse, Julian hauled her roughly into his arms. She lost control, beating against his chest and calling him every vile name she could think of. He took no note, letting her flail out at him and sob until she fell asleep against him.
He lay awake long afterward, staring at her shattered face, his throat aching with sorrow.
Chapter Twenty
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The next morning, two tense strangers disembarked from the New Orleans Princess. The humidity of New Orleans hit Mercy like the oppressive cloud that had already fallen over her marriage.
Henrí met the newlyweds at the noisy, cluttered docks. He loaded their trunks into the boot of Julian’s coach, then drove them back to the Quarter.
Mercy and Julian sat across from each other, each staring out opposite windows. Mercy couldn’t help but recall the last time they were in a coach together, how he’d hauled her into his lap and made love to her with such raw hunger. The memory mocked her now. For with just a few cruel words last night Julian had shattered their marriage. They’d moved through their morning ritual like two zombies, not even looking at each other.
At last, Mercy dared to break the silence. She turned to the handsome, remote stranger sitting across from her and somehow managed to begin speaking without anger. “Julian, I implore you to take me back to the convent.”
His angry gaze slammed into hers. “That’s out of the question.”
“How can you think I can ever trust you again after what you told me last night?”
“Would you prefer that I kept on withholding the truth from you?”
“The only way you could have redeemed yourself was to have told me the truth before we were married,” she put in heatedly.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “In which case you never would have wed me, so this entire discussion becomes moot.”
“You’re saying that it was acceptable for you to stoop to any trick to marry me? That the end justifies the means?”
“I was determined to wed you, yes,” he said stubbornly.
“Why?”
“I think we both have a pretty good idea by now.”
Mercy felt tempted to spring across the carriage and claw his eyes out, but knew that such a rash move would get her nowhere. Instead, she clenched her fists in her lap and took a moment to gather her fraying patience. “Julian, we made a mistake. Perhaps it’s not too late to—”
“On the contrary, it’s much too late.”
“I want an annulment,” she blurted, her green eyes meeting his hot gaze unflinchingly. “I’m sure the Church will cooperate, since you were less than honest with me when we wed. And the timing will be good, since there’s no child.”
“Try to hide your delight!” he snapped.
“I . . .” She almost admitted that she wasn’t delighted, not at all, but realized in the nick of time that such an admission would only defeat her purpose. Instead, she lifted her chin and said proudly, “Let’s end it now, while we still can.”
An explosive silence fell in the wake of her words. Mercy watched her husband’s face darken with fury as he pulled out a cheroot. She noted with satisfaction that his fingers trembled as he lit the match and held it to his face. He blew out the match, tossed it out the window, and took a deep draw.