Sweet Savage Love Read online

  Praise for New York Times bestselling author

  ROSEMARY ROGERS

  and her groundbreaking novel

  SWEET SAVAGE LOVE

  “Sweeping…Swiftly paced…

  It has practically everything—

  intrigue, sex, and a happy ending.”

  —San Francisco Examiner

  “A fiery and resilient hero and heroine…

  The action never stops…

  A big historical epic that really packs it all in.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Teeming with love and adventure.”

  —Buffalo News

  Also available from MIRA Books and ROSEMARY ROGERS

  SAVAGE DESIRE

  A RECKLESS ENCOUNTER

  ROSEMARY ROGERS

  SWEET SAVAGE LOVE

  “To C.E.”

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE: Prologue

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  PART TWO: Beginnings

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  PART THREE: The Conflict

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  PART FOUR: Interlude

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  PART FIVE: “La Soldadera”

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  PART SIX: “La Cortesana”

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  PART SEVEN: “La Guerra”

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER 54

  PART ONE

  Prologue

  1

  Virginia Brandon was sixteen that spring of 1862, and the thought of her first ball, now only two weeks away, was much more exciting than the letter that had arrived that morning from her father in America.

  She had not seen her father, after all, since she was still a baby—perhaps three or four years old; and although he sent money for her care every month through his bankers in San Francisco, his letters were infrequent.

  Why should it concern or upset her that her father had decided to remarry? As her Uncle Albert had pointed out when he read out her father’s letter, William Brandon was still a young man—in the prime of his life. And his bride, a young widow, was eminently suitable—a Southern gentlewoman, owner of a large plantation near New Orleans.

  Virginia remembered that Tante Celine’s gentle eyes had looked troubled as the letter was being read to her. Tante was too sensitive; she was obviously thinking about Ginny’s maman, who had been her own sister—the lovely Genevieve who had died so tragically and so young.

  But I don’t remember maman very well, Ginny thought rebelliously. And why should I care if Papa has married again? It is not likely that I will ever live with him and my stepmother; after all they are fighting a war in America—a civil war that might go on for years.

  “Cousine Ginny—if you will only stand still!”

  Pierre’s voice had a note of exasperation in it that would normally have kept her quiet and still as a mouse, but this spring morning Ginny’s spirits were too high for her to be able to contain them.

  “But I’m tired of standing still! And I’m excited at the thought of going to a ball, and the so-beautiful dress I will wear.”

  Green eyes, sparkling as brightly as emeralds, narrowed when Ginny smiled, and Pierre Dumont sighed again. How could he paint anyone as restless and volatile as his young cousin? And why had he imagined he’d the talent to try?

  Ginny’s face was a shifting canvas—his was far too still. Sixteen, he thought despairingly. How could one ever capture the moods of a sixteen-year-old?

  He coaxed her, bribing her as he had done when she was much younger.

  “Hold still for just a few moments longer—your head slightly tilted as I showed you—just a few more minutes, or I will contrive to take a terrible cold on the night of the ball and you will have no escort!”

  Dark lashes veiled green eyes like storm clouds. The girl’s soft, childlike lower lip pouted.

  “You wouldn’t—you could not be so—”

  “Well, perhaps I could not be such a bear as to disappoint you, petite cousine, but you promised to pose for me this morning, and the light is just right. Come—just a few moments?”

  “Oh, very well then! But pray remember that I’m to go riding in the park very soon, and I have to go upstairs and change first.”

  Repressing a smile at the bored sophistication in his young cousin’s voice, Pierre turned back to his canvas.

  In comparison with Ginny’s sparkling beauty, her painted image seemed to have no life, no depth at all. Here, on his canvas, was merely the picture of a young girl in a green dress, standing beneath an old apple tree, her face turned slightly upward to catch the slanted light that filtered through the branches. He had portrayed her coloring well enough—the green eyes, slightly tipped at the corners, which were the first thing one noticed about her. And the hair, the palest shade of polished copper. Missing, however, was the liveliness and vivacity that could make Ginny’s small face seem not merely vapidly pretty, but downright lovely at times. And the stubborn way she could tilt her chin—how could he duplicate that?

  Brushing back a lock of blond hair that had fallen forward onto his forehead, Pierre Dumont sighed. It was a good thing, after all, that painting was merely his hobby, and a job in the diplomatic service awaited him later, through the influence of his father. No—he could do still life passably well, but portraits—pah!

  Biting the end of his paintbrush, Pierre squinted at Ginny. He had half a mind to make a dramatic gesture and rip his canvas in two, but in spite of her grumbling over having to stand still, he knew that Ginny was excited at having her portrait painted. Well, he would just have to keep trying, that was all.

  For a change, she was standing quite still, her face tilted obediently. Pierre had a suspicion that she was daydreaming as usual—thinking about the ball, perhaps. He studied her face, now in repose. His aunt Genevieve had been considered a beauty in her day, and Ginny had inherited her coloring and the shape of her face, but the mouth and chin were Ginny’s own. Her chin was small, with the barest suggestion of a cleft, her nose straight. But the mouth—ah, yes, that mouth, it was the mouth of a courtesan, a demi-mondaine. Perfectly shaped, with a short upper lip and full, sensuous lower lip, it was a woman’s mouth, promising untold delight for the man who kissed it. Combined with her hair and rather high cheekbones, it gave her face a smoldering, gypsyish look in repose. Only when she smiled, and her lips curved upward, flattening slightly, did Ginny look childlike.

  Almost against his will, Pierre found his eyes travelling lower, to the rounded curve of her youn
g breasts, the small waist, and the billowing folds of her skirt. A woman. He corrected himself. An almost woman. She was only sixteen, after all, and he had known her since childhood. She was growing up, this was evident, but he could not, must not, think of her as anything but a child—and his cousin.

  “That’s enough, you may relax,” Pierre called sharply, more sharply than he had intended.

  Ginny blinked her eyes. She had been lost in some childish daydream after all, then.

  “Have you finished? May I see it?”

  He covered his canvas hastily.

  “Not yet—of course it isn’t finished, I told you it would take time! I’m going to fill in some of the background now, while you go upstairs to change.” He pulled at a strand of her hair teasingly as she came by, swinging her wide hat. “No peeking! You promised, remember!”

  Annoyed, she turned her head away.

  “It’s not fair that I shouldn’t be allowed to look.”

  She might have stayed to argue with him, but her aunt had sent Marie down into the walled garden to remind Ginny that she must change. With what she hoped was an airy shrug of her shoulders at her grinning cousin, Ginny flounced indoors.

  Upstairs, Marie had laid her clothes across her bed in readiness, and while the woman helped her change, grumbling as she usually did that mademoiselle was always late, mademoiselle must remember she was no longer a child but a young lady; Ginny went back to her daydreams.

  Against her will, she thought again about America. Strange, that she should have been actually born there, although it was France she loved, France that was her real home. People shrugged and said that America was scarcely civilized yet, but her mother had loved New Orleans, and her father was a man of wealth and education.

  Why then, had her mother left him and come back to France? Tante Celine had never told her the whole story, Ginny was sure of that.

  “Your maman was always delicate, even as a girl, you understand,” Celine had said. “The climate in Louisiana did not agree with her, and in those days your father travelled much. She was alone too often, and my poor Genevieve hated to be alone. Your papa was busy making his fortune in the goldfields of California, but your maman wanted only to be near him—”

  Why, then, had she taken her small daughter and left? Was there some secret about her papa that no one would tell her? Once she had ventured to ask Pierre this same question and he had laughed at her.

  “You read too many romances, Ginny! Your mother became sick, and she wanted to come back home. Your papa could not refuse her. That is all there is to it.”

  “But why didn’t he send for me? Did he not want me?”

  “A man, living alone—travelling in rough and remote parts of the country, what would he do with a young child? No, your papa is a practical man, and I’m sure he knew it would be best for you if you were allowed to remain here, with us. Aren’t you happy here, cousin?”

  Of course she was. Certainly she would not want to live anywhere else, Ginny told herself. And yet—she shivered, involuntarily. Her father had spoken of sending for her when the war was over. Had he meant it? Above all, did she want to go?

  “You must not worry about this,” Uncle Albert had said. “The civil war in America, it might drag on for many years, who can tell. And the choice will be yours to make, Virginie.”

  “This is your home, child, and we love you,” Tante Celine had added, tears in her soft brown eyes.

  Ginny shrugged determinedly as she stood before the mirror, admiring herself. Why think about the possibility of leaving France when it might never happen? She had so much to look forward to here—the ball, two weeks away, and the puzzled, almost unhappy look in her cousin Pierre’s eyes when he looked at her.

  He has noticed at last that I am growing up, the girl thought triumphantly. He does not like to admit it, but he does think I am pretty.

  It seemed to her that she had always been a little in love with her cousin, who had treated her only with a kind of affectionate contempt, as if she had been his sister. But ever since the day his friend, the Viscomte De la Reve, had met them in the park, and had not been able to hide his surprise that she had grown up, nor his evident admiration for her, Pierre had been different.

  Good, Ginny thought, as she went downstairs. It is high time he noticed. She hoped that all of his friends would be at the ball, and that they would notice her too. I will act very sophisticated, very bored, she planned. And when I am asked to dance, I will flirt.

  She was filled with a sense of freedom, of standing on the very threshold of life itself. And when she thought, as she often did, what will the future bring, who will be the man I am waiting for? the thought brought only excitement. There was nothing she was afraid of. She was lucky, she had almost everything she wanted, she would have more.

  Only her Aunt Celine worried. Standing beside her husband at the foot of the stairs she watched the way her niece almost danced down, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling. Suddenly, she was reminded of Genevieve, who had looked that way once—sparkling, beautiful Genevieve, always so full of life, so greedy for excitement, for love.

  And what, in the end, had happened? When Genevieve returned to France she had been subdued, a shadow of what she had been when she had left. She had said nothing, admitted nothing, but Celine knew that something had hurt Genevieve; that somewhere the girl had lost her dreams and perhaps her illusions, and without them, she could not live.

  Do not let it happen to Virginie, Celine prayed. The girl pirouetted, her wide skirts swirling round her for an instant.

  “Hmm—you look like a gypsy dancer!” Albert teased her.

  Last year they had visited Spain and watched the flamenco dancers—Celine could not help smiling when she remembered Ginny’s excitement, the way she had declared that she too would like to dance like that.

  Ginny lifted her chin and smiled at them both.

  “I am glad, now, that I am not a gypsy. I would not like to dance because I had to, for money. No, I would much rather dance the waltz, I think.”

  “Well, you will have your wish, soon. And remember, young lady, I claim the first waltz!”

  Gallantly, Albert Dumont offered his arms to his wife and niece, and they walked outside, still laughing.

  She makes us all feel young again, Celine thought wistfully. Just like Genevieve. But perhaps Genevieve’s daughter would not be so easily hurt. There was a kind of stubbornness in Ginny in spite of her dreamy ways and her romantic ideas; a kind of strength that Genevieve had lacked.

  They returned early from the park, because the sudden gathering of clouds warned of a spring shower.

  Disappointed, Ginny had returned to her room and changed back into her pale green dress. She leaned her elbows on the windowsill and looked out rather disconsolately at the small walled garden where Pierre had posed her for her portrait only hours earlier.

  There were rain clouds scudding across the sky now and everything looked gray and lifeless. The branches of the apple tree bent and its brave spring blossoms seemed to droop and cower. Soon it would rain and the streets would become shiny. The water would drip off the eaves in long, thin streams. It was always boring to be cooped indoors when it rained. It was cold again, and soon Marie would be coming upstairs to light the fire—perhaps she could go downstairs to Uncle Albert’s library and find a book to read. What else could one do on a rainy afternoon?

  The raindrops had already begun to spatter down when Ginny remembered that the book she had been reading earlier—a collection of essays by Emerson, an American, was still outdoors where she had left it. With an exclamation of dismay she ran out of her room and down the narrow staircase, hoping that no one would see her.

  In spite of her haste, Ginny was quite soaked through by the time she started back indoors. Her hair, clothes, everything except, fortunately, the book, which she had snatched up and concealed inside her bodice.

  She paused for an instant in the doorway and let the rain beat down on her
upturned face.

  2

  There 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.