Sweet Rewards

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Sweet Rewards - book excerpt

Chapter 1

Olivia Thibodeaux Montgomery sat on the veranda outside her second-floor bedroom at her father’s home and watched jagged forks of the lightning spear the sky to the west. She hoped a late spring storm would do something to diminish the oppressive heat. She fanned herself vigorously as Magdalena, her maid, friend, confidant, and her blood half-sister, brushed her raven hair up off her porcelain-skinned neck to twist into a tight bun on the top of her head.

“If it rains,” Olivia asked, fanning away a petulant mosquito, “do you think Daddy will call off this horrid party tonight?” Since the loss of her husband, William Montgomery, at Vicksburg in a violent clash between Union and Confederate troops, Olivia had resumed residing with her parents on their palatial sugar plantation, Sweet Rewards, west of New Orleans. Her father spent lavish amounts of money on parties trying to lure suitors for Olivia’s hand in marriage. Armand Thibodeaux was desperate for a male heir to Sweet Rewards that only Olivia could give him now that her mother was in her late forties and past her childbearing years.

“Daddy ain’t gonna cancel this party, Miss Livvy. He bettin’ the farm on this riverboat man catchin’ your fancy. He done brung him all the way out here from St. Louis to meet up with y’all.”

“Magda, don’t go calling me Miss Livvy here in my own room. You know I don’t hold with that old slave nonsense. You are not my slave. You are my sister, and everyone in this God-forsaken Parish knows it.”

“That may be, but Daddy still do, and if he heared me callin’ you anything but Miss Livvy, he’d be whoopin’ my black ass for sure.”

“Yes, but Daddy isn’t in my bedroom at this minute, and your ass is about as black as mine.” She jerked her head and yelped when one of Magdalena’s pins stabbed her scalp. “You did that on purpose, and you can stop talkin’ like an uneducated cane-field nigger. You had the same tutors I did and can speak better than I do most of the time.”

“I most certainly can, but I did not do that on purpose. You won’t hold still.” Magda laughed. “I may be an educated house nigger, but Daddy isn’t out there looking for some rich riverboat man for me to marry, is he? He’ll marry me up with one of them dumb cane-field niggers of his and call it good.”

“He will not,” Olivia protested, “you are a free woman and can marry any man you please. Daddy can’t force you to marry anyone you don’t want to anymore.”

“You mean like he can’t force you to marry up with no rich riverboat man?” Magda snorted indignantly. “He still treats me like a house slave. He made me bed with that fat old bastard Remus last week when he was here.”

Olivia stood and jerked the tie of her dressing gown tight at the waist in anger. “Why didn’t you come to me, Magda? I would have put a stop to that nonsense. He’s got no right to do that. You have not been a slave for almost ten years now.”

“It’s alright, Livvy.” Magdalena walked to the wrought-iron railing around the veranda to try and catch a cooling breeze. She ran a hand the color of heavily creamed coffee over her black hair, twisted into a tight bun at the back of her neck, and wrapped with a cotton cloth, denoting her place as a house servant. “Mammy says that if I’m nice to Remus, he might ask her to come work for him, and she’d like that. She loves your mother, but she’s gettin’ too old to put up with Daddy’s depravities anymore. Anyhow, old Remus just rolls over and goes to sleep after I suck his little cock.”

“Magda, don’t be crude,” Olivia chided and then asked with a giggle, “Is it really all that little?”

Magdalena stuck her thumb into the air and smiled. “Not much bigger than this. With that belly of his, I bet he ain’t been able to see it in years unless he’s in front of a mirror.”

Olivia giggled along with her sister.

She took Olivia’s hand and tugged her toward the bedroom. “Come on in now, and let’s get you into the bath. Daddy’s going to want you smellin’ all fresh and sweet for tonight.” They went through the glass-paned French doors into Olivia’s opulent bedroom, where a servant had filled her white enameled tub with hot water.

“What am I wearing to this little circus tonight?” Olivia asked as she dropped her dressing gown to the floor, revealing a tall, slim body with raven hair falling nearly to her shapely behind. She stepped gingerly into the tub, testing the water’s temperature with her toes before climbing in and sitting.

“I think you should wear that new orchid gown your mother brought back from N’Orleans last month. It is so pretty and looks just like one I saw in a color plate of Empress Josephine. Nobody wears that old-style anymore, and the color is almost the same as your eyes. I’m sure it will impress that riverboat man.” Magdalena went to the wardrobe and brought out the orchid silk-chiffon dress with its high empire waist and short puffed sleeves. She laid it out across the bed and went on to pull clean undergarments from the heavy oak bureau.

“I’m gonna fix that pretty little diamond tiara in your hair and,” Magdalena went on pulling things from the bureau drawers, “this diamond choker and dangling earbobs. You will look just like a princess from the court in France.”

“I’m certain that is exactly what this man is looking for,” Olivia sighed as she squeezed warm water from a sea sponge over her face to run down her throat and over her pale white breasts, “a plantation princess with two hundred acres of cane fields and a processing plant for sugar.”

“What difference does that make if he can give you the babies Mr. William couldn’t?”

Olivia thought of her sweet William and how their hopes had been dashed every month when her flux had come. “I don’t think it was William’s fault. I’m the only living child Mother ever bore. Daddy says she comes from bad blood. Maybe I’m the same. William and I were married for two years before he went off to the war, and I never conceived once.”

“Livvy, you were young. Lots of girls don’t conceive until they get into their twenties. You are twenty-four now, and maybe this riverboat man will have a huge set of ballocks to make lots of good strong seed. Mr. William, he was a small man. Did he have small ballocks too?”

Olivia’s face flushed in her tub. William’s were the only human ballocks she had ever seen. She had no idea if they were big, small, or otherwise. She knew Magdalena had much more experience with men than she did, having been passed around to her father’s friends on many occasions and having had dalliances with young men on the plantation over the years.

“I am quite certain William’s ballocks were more than sufficient for the task.” She stood and pulled a large cotton towel from a brass hook on the wall and wrapped herself in it before stepping out onto the long, oval, braided rug.

They both gave a start when someone tapped on the door. Olivia pulled the towel tight around her as her mother came into the room from the hall, aided by her silver-handled cane to walk. Marie Thibodeaux saw the orchid dress lying out on the bed and smiled.

“Thank you for choosing that one, Olivia. Your father will be ever so pleased.” Marie picked up the dress and held it up, admiring the soft, ethereal fabric that fluttered in the breeze coming through the open French doors from the veranda.

“Thank Magda,” Olivia told her mother bluntly. “It is not what I would have chosen.”

“I’m not gonna let her wear another one of them old black dresses to any of her father’s parties no more, ma’am,” Magdalena declared, giving Olivia a petulant grin.

“Thank you then, Magdalena.” Maria laid the dress back onto the bed. “Would you mind giving Olivia and me some time alone, dear?”

“Of course not, ma’am.” Magdalena gave Marie a quick curtsey and left the room.

“Olivia, William has been gone for seven years now. It’s time for you to move on with your life.” Marie rested her frail frame on the bed and leaned her cane next to her. “I was hopeful when you took off your mourning clothes two years ago, but you have spurned the advances of every man your father has presented to you since.”

“Mother, no man will ever be able to replace William in my heart. His grasp on it is still strong. I can think of no other.” Olivia’s gaze fell on the silver-framed photo resting upon her nightstand of the man in a starched gray captain’s uniform of the Confederate Calvary. The image was all in muted tones of black and gray, but Olivia swore she could see the bright blue twinkle in those silent, fixed eyes.

“Ma Cherie.” Marie took her daughter’s hand. “I know you loved William very much, and he loved you very much too. That is something most women never experience in a lifetime. You are a very lucky woman, but it is time to carry on with your life and find another to father your children.”

And there it is. The reason Father wants me to marry. All he cares about is a male heir for Sweet Rewards. I’m nothing more than a damned broodmare, in his opinion.

“Tell me, Mother, is this man a friend of Father’s with all of his same distasteful proclivities? Does he frequent whores and abuse women for the fun of it?”

Marie reached to touch the silver handle of the cane at her side. “Your father was not always the man he is now. We come from different times, Olivia. Your father and I had our slaves and our French culture. Armand was an extremely handsome young man, and I was overwhelmed by his charms and that he chose to ask for my hand out of all the debutants presented that year.” Marie sighed sadly and took a deep breath. “Then he was involved in that foolish duel that scarred his face, and he changed. Your father is a vain man, and the loss of his looks affected him more than I could ever have thought. In the end, he blamed me because he’d called the man out for insulting my virtue. Then when I failed to provide him with a living male child to carry on the Thibodeaux name, he blamed me again.”

“Mother, none of that was your fault,” Olivia protested to her sad mother. “Father had no business calling out a man to duel with blades when he didn’t have the skill to do so, and women lose children out here in this miserable swamp all the time. He should have taken you into New Orleans, where there are good doctors and midwives. He should have taken you to the townhouse in the city instead of leaving you out here in this filthy swamp.”

“I had good care here, Olivia. Georgia took very good care of me, just like Magdalena takes good care of you.” Marie stood and hobbled with her cane out onto the veranda, where a cool wind had picked up, blowing clouds heavy with rain up from the Gulf. Olivia bit her lip and followed her mother. “New Orleans in the summer is a terrible place to be. It is hot and has miasmas. Yellow fever takes hundreds every year. Sweet Rewards was the only place I ever wanted to be during my pregnancies.”

“So tell me about this man Father has chosen for me to marry this time,” Olivia said, changing the subject. “Have you met him?”

“We have dined with him on occasion in New Orleans. He is quite handsome and owns a shipping line on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. He has offices in New Orleans, but his main office and home are in St. Louis, I believe.”

“Why has he not married already? Is he widowed, or does he simply prefer paid women in his bed?”

“There is no need to be crude, Olivia Marie. From what I have seen of him, he is a hard-working man who has put many years into building up his business on the rivers. I think he has simply chosen to wait until he could offer a woman security before looking to marry. I think that is commendable.”

“I think he is simply looking to add a sugar plantation and a processing plant to his holdings by marrying the widowed daughter of the plantation’s owner,” Olivia sneered.

“Olivia, I could not give your father a proper heir to Sweet Rewards, so that responsibility now falls upon you.” Marie limped back into the room and sat upon the chaise lounge by the doors where she could enjoy the breeze while watching her daughter dress.

“Mother,” Olivia dropped her dressing gown on the bed and began pulling on her bloomers. “I will not make you any promises, but I will meet this man and listen to what he has to say.”

“I cannot ask for more, Cherie. Your father will be ever so very pleased.” Marie took her daughter’s hand again and smiled. “And I am very pleased about the dress and the tiara. Make certain you wear the white opera gloves with it. You will look tres chic, ma petite. You will look just like Josephine herself in all her royal splendor.”

Chapter 2

From her room, Olivia could hear the noise rising from the parlor below. The orchestra warmed up, and the knocking at the door announced new arrivals to the night’s soiree. Magdalena fussed over her, fitting the tiara perfectly straight upon Olivia’s head, and slapped her shoulder every time she fidgeted in the chair.

“Will you please hold still, Livvy? I want to get this pinned in nice an’ tight, so it doesn’t go slidin’ off your hard head into the punch bowl.”

Olivia let her sister have her way and sat perfectly still. They heard another knock on the door from below. “Do you think that might be him?” Olivia asked with a twinge of nervous energy. “The orchestra won’t begin to play until he gets here. Then I can make my grand appearance on the stairs.”

“You’re going to take that rich riverboat man’s breath plum away, Livvy.” She patted the diamond choker down flat around Olivia’s white throat. When they heard the orchestra, she pulled Olivia to her feet. “Now, walk carefully, so you don’t knock that tiara off.”

“How can I possibly when you have it tacked to my skull with horseshoe nails?”

From the top of the stairs, Olivia could see the regular swamp-rat gentry from the neighboring plantations. They never passed up an opportunity to show off their Paris fashions ordered from the shops in New Orleans. The women wore the slimmer skirts with all the frilled aprons and ridiculous big bows on their backsides. They simply couldn’t pass up the free food and drink offered by her father on these occasions, and it irritated Olivia to no end.

Between her parents stood a tall man in an elegant black silk waistcoat, trousers, and top hat. He stood almost a head taller than her six-foot-tall father, and his tanned face was extremely handsome in a rakish sort of way. Above his full lips, he wore a pencil-thin mustache, and his eyes were slate-blue like the tiles on their townhouse in New Orleans. They weren’t a bright, sparkling, playful blue like William’s had been but a darker, smoldering, brooding blue, giving him an air of coldness, distance, and mystery. His broad shoulders were well-defined in the jacket and his waist trim in the perfectly pressed trousers. Although this man was easily ten years her senior, Olivia found he aroused her.

Perhaps Mother is right. Seven years without a man between my legs has been long enough.

Olivia was happy for the confining corset because thinking about being with the man had caused her nipples to harden and become erect under the heavy brocade fabric. It also embarrassed her to admit to the throbbing between her thighs and the wetting of her neglected womanhood.

Olivia gracefully descended the winding staircase into the Sweet Rewards plantation house's wide foyer and through the crowd of admiring onlookers. She heard the sighs of women as they saw her in the exquisite dress, and she smiled, knowing her mother would be pleased. She walked directly to her parents and their guest. Olivia raised her head to reach her father’s scarred cheek and plant a light kiss before bending to her mother’s. She started to raise her hand to the tiara but decided against it. Magdalena, she was certain, had secured it.

“Olivia,” her father said, taking her hand and passing it to the tall man next to him. “I would like to present you to Mr. James Devaroe of New Orleans and St. Louis.”

Olivia curtseyed with her gloved hand, absorbing the heat from his through the cloth. “So very nice to make your acquaintance, Mr. Devaroe,” Olivia said, holding his hand just a bit too tightly for convention but reluctant to break the connection.

“And I to make yours, Mademoiselle Thibodeaux.” He brushed her fingers with his lips, and Olivia momentarily regretted the gloves.

Olivia yanked her hand back. “Mrs. Montgomery,” she snapped. “It is Mrs. William Montgomery.”

“Of course,” he amended. “Pardon my ignorance. I meant you no disrespect, Mrs. Montgomery.”

“Of course you didn’t, James.” Armand Thibodeaux slapped Devaroe’s shoulder while he gave his daughter a disapproving glare. “Let’s all go into the dining room and be seated. I believe the cooks have been working their fingers to the bones for this fine dinner.”

James Devaroe offered Olivia his arm, and she reluctantly took it. They followed her parents into the dining room where Georgia and Magdalena had set the twelve-foot cypress table with the Thibodeaux family china, fine crystal and, gold-plated flatware upon bright white linen. Brass candelabras, gleaming like gold, sat every few places apart, giving a brilliant, glittering effect to the elegant table.

Her parents took their places at either end of the long table. Olivia found her place card sitting next to Devaroe’s near the center while others found theirs. Some were seated at the main table with the hosts, while the hostess relegated others to smaller tables situated around the room. One of those was Simon Montrose, the arrogant son of a neighboring plantation owner and an ardent suitor for Olivia’s hand for many years. Olivia could tell by his narrow-eyed stare that he felt slighted by this insult, and she smiled inwardly at his displeasure. Simon Montrose would have been her last choice as a husband, and her father knew it. They had rebuffed Montrose’s offers for years, refusing to allow Sweet Rewards ever to fall into the hands of the Montrose family.

Simon’s irritated glare at her father tempered Olivia’s ire at James Devaroe, and she lifted her champagne glass to her slightly rouged lips and sipped. This vintage she found more to her liking than some, with a sweet rather than dry taste. She emptied her glass in one long swallow.

Armand Thibodeaux stood with his stemmed glass in hand when waiters in white waistcoats and black trousers made certain everyone had champagne in their glasses. An impressive figure of a man, even with the hideous scar that marred and twisted the right side of his face, he raised his glass and tapped it with his fork. The room quieted.

“I would like to thank you all for coming tonight,” he said in a clear, deep Creole-accented voice. “I would like us all to drink a toast to my lovely daughter, Olivia, and my dear friend James Devaroe of Devaroe Shipping and Cartage. Many of you know him, I am sure, and do business with his fine company.” Thibodeaux raised his glass toward the couple and then drank, signaling the others at the tables to also begin enjoying the fine vintage before them.

At one of the satellite tables, a chair scraped across the polished marble floor, and someone cleared his throat. Everyone looked over to see Simon Montrose standing and looking pointedly toward Olivia and Devaroe, while his stoic white-haired father, Sterling Montrose, sat looking on with an aggravated frown. His glass sat on the table untouched. He only stood a few inches taller than Olivia’s five-foot-six but was of a muscular build. He wore his stringy brown hair long to his shoulders and had a long whip-thin twisted mustache and pointed goatee.

“Monsieur Thibodeaux, I find it revolting that you would offer your lovely daughter to this pirating scum when I, a man of long-standing, local blood, unashamed of the spelling of my good French name, have made numerous offers of an honorable marriage and a joining of our two fine houses.”

Olivia saw her father’s and Devaroe’s faces darken with Montrose’s insults. She placed her gloved hand over James Devaroe’s clenched one and gave her head a slight shake. He eased a little. Olivia saw the tension leave his shoulders, and his hand relaxed beneath hers.

“Simon,” her father said, deliberately using the less formal first name of his offending guest, “while your offers have been sincerely received, my daughter has on regular occasion refused them. She is a grown woman and, I fear, has a mind of her own. She will take a husband again when she sees fit and not one minute before. It has ever been beyond my ability to change her mind on that accord.”

“Perhaps that is true, Armand,” Simon Montrose said with a doubtful smirk, “but I still cannot believe you would countenance this nouveau riche pretender to soil your fine bloodline. His parentage is that of pirates, for God’s sake.”

Olivia felt Devaroe tense again like a cat about to spring on its prey. She held tight to his hand, hoping to keep him from leaping over the table and attacking the odious Simon Montrose.

“Furthermore,” Montrose continued to bait her father, “I always assumed you kept a tighter rein on the women of your family. If you told the girl to marry, she should, as an obedient daughter, feel it her familial duty to obey her father and wed the man of his choosing. She is obedient under your roof, is she not, Armand?”

Simon Montrose walked to the table directly across from Olivia, who stood to face him but kept a hand on Devaroe’s shoulder to keep him in his seat. “Olivia Thibodeaux Montgomery,” he said, holding out his own gloved hand over the table to her. “I again offer you my hand in marriage to unite two good Louisiana families and two prosperous plantations into one.”

The tension in the air hung as heavy as the humidity on the hot June evening hung over the steamy bayou. “Simon Montrose, you officious little fool, I wouldn’t have your hand in marriage if you were the last man of any bloodline in this mosquito-infested swamp,” Olivia seethed. “Now, please sit back down like a good little boy and stop insulting my father and his guest or get out of our home so we can enjoy the rest of our evening.” Several ladies in the room, including her mother, stood and clapped while Simon Montrose, followed by his father Sterling, stormed from the dining room, slamming the door behind them as they exited the mansion.

Olivia took her seat along with the other ladies, several giggling at Montrose’s humiliation. Armand Thibodeaux tapped his wine glass with a fork again and stood.

“Thank you, daughter, for ridding us of that buzzing mosquito,” he said and smiled at Olivia with pride. “I told him she had a mind of her own.” The room broke out in loud laughter. “Again, a toast to my lovely, mule-headed daughter, Olivia Thibodeaux Montgomery.”