My Cherie Amour Read online

  My Cherie Amour

  by

  Shara Azod

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright© 2009 Shara Azod Editor: Terri Morris

  Cover Artist: Shara Azod

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. This is a work of fiction. All references to real places, people, or events are coincidental, and if not coincidental, are used fictitiously. All trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, and registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Claude Bonnet had been a simple sailor. He never held illusions of grandeur, never

  wanted more than his simple lot in life. He had been perfectly content with his meager

  salary as a deck hand on a regular cargo ship that traveled from Savannah to New

  Orleans on to various ports in the Caribbean. That was before he met Amélie Durand.

  He had been enamored of the beautiful mulatto from first sight, wanting her

  desperately. Unlike so many young French men of his day, he didn’t simply want to set

  her up in a little cottage where he could visit her at will. Claude wanted something far

  more permanent and secure. He wanted to marry her and her his for all time. It wasn't

  something that was done often, but it could be done.

  The problem was, she was the daughter of a wealthy Creole, one who actually

  acknowledge his by-blow. Claude had very little money and no family connections to

  speak of. There was no way he could go to her father as a simple sailor. So he signed on

  to a ship that traveled all over the New World to France importing raw materials, rum,

  sugar cane and rice. He saved every penny staying on the ship while in port, keeping to

  himself. He never whored or drank to excess. He was determined to make his mark so

  that he could claim Amélie. It was on his last run to France that he met Luc, who signed on to the ship in Brest.

  The mysterious blond man was no common sailor. He gave orders to the other men on

  the ship as if he was born to it. Claude suspected he was. Lucky for him, the others

  didn’t seem to notice. They simply did whatever it was that Luc told them to do. It was

  odd, but Claude decided it was none of his business. He’s saved up enough money to

  purchase a good tract of land and build a house. He was going to start a cane plantation

  as soon as he returned to New Orleans using share croppers to work the land. By his

  calculations it would be far more profitable than buying human beings to do the work.

  Coming from a poor family he had an aversion to owning human beings.

  While Claude covertly watched Luc, Luc watched him in return. The dark haired

  man was far more driven than most of the sailors onboard the ship. He kept his head

  down and his profits in his pocket. Luc had been raised as his grandfather’s heir,

  something he could never be now thanks to the deviousness of his mother, but he knew

  how to spot potential when he saw it.

  The men formed a fast friendship, staying close together throughout the year the

  ship travelled back to the New World. The bond grew over time, developing into

  something far deeper. Luc was not a man to deny his passions. When it came to lovers,

  male or female, he had no true preference. L’Amour was l’amour no matter what shape it

  took. Claude was far more traditional however. Although Luc knew he felt the same growing attraction, Claude would not act on it. His heart was set on a woman back home,

  he wouldn’t deviate from his course.

  But fate had a way of working out all things. When the ship finally returned to New

  Orleans, Claude bought his land and set about building a grand home for his lady love. He

  wouldn’t allow Luc to assist in the cost, determined to do it all on his own. Luc

  accompanied Claude when he finally made his way to request an audience with Monsieur

  Gasper Durand, the father of the young woman who held Claude in complete thrall.

  Monsieur Durand listened to Claude, seemingly considering the offer, which in

  Luc’s opinion was a damn good one. His friend had shown his worth by working to build a

  future for the man’s daughter. Being a bastard himself, Luc knew such an offer didn’t come

  to those born on the wrong side of the blanket often. The man would be a fool to turn

  Claude down.

  Yet, that was exactly what he did. Not only did the Monsieur deny Claude his

  daughter, but he actually offered his legitimate daughter instead. Not only did he wish

  Claude to marry the woman, he was willing to settle a huge amount if Claude would do so.

  Claude was incensed. Luc was forced to jog to keep up with his friend as he stormed

  from the Monsieur’s offices down to the Quarter. “Claude! Why are you so upset? Did you not hear what the man said? He was

  willing to give you not only his legitimate daughter with one hell of a dowry. I know your

  heart was set on the other, but if they are sisters…”

  Luc’s sentence died on his lips when Claude stopped staring at a young woman in

  the market. He had never seen a woman who looked quite like that. Her skin, her hair,

  even her eyes were varying shades of copper, seeing to glow in the late afternoon sun. She

  seemed to ethereal to be real, it almost hurt to look at her.

  “I am supposed to walk away from this?” Claude whispered more to himself than to

  Luc.

  Luc didn’t answer. Anything short of no would’ve been a lie.

  *****

  Claude did marry the sister. Agathe Durand was not a pleasant woman. Though

  Claude tried to make his marriage work, with each passing day it became more and more

  impossible. Luc would have rejoiced; Agathe’s sourness drove Claude closer to him, but

  Claude was so miserable, Luc couldn’t find happiness that Claude had finally come to his

  bed.

  It was perhaps a consequence of his birth, but Luc couldn’t stand idly by and watch

  his lover and friend disappear in a sea of bitterness. He went to Gaspar Durand with every

  dime of the dowry the older man have given Claude. “I am taking him away from him; away from your viper of a daughter.” Luc didn’t

  mince words, it was not his way. “Find some other fool to listen to harp day in and day

  out. Tell her he is dead, I don’t care.”

  “How is this any of your business?” Gaspar demanded. “He took the deal. Agathe is

  his wife. A real man doesn’t leave his responsibilities.”

  “A real man wouldn’t sell his daughter. He wanted Amélie, I was the fool that talked

  him into marrying your fishwife. I thought it would bring him closer to me.”

  “Didn’t it?” Gaspar was no fool. He had seen the looks between the two, he had

  witnessed the secret touches when they thought no one was looking.

  “The price it too high. He still pines for Amélie.” As did Luc, but he would never

  admit it. “It is hell to b
e in the same city and not be able to talk to her, to have been so

  close and not be able to have her.” Luc wasn't sure if he was referring to Claude or himself

  at this point. “Agathe is too much of a cross to bear. We were all wrong to believe this to

  work.”

  Gaspar didn’t want to admit he’d been wrong, but he had. He simply wanted to do

  something right by Agathe. The woman had no prospects. Claude had seemed a good man.

  He had believed they could be content if not happy eventually. As for Amélie, not many saw her and didn’t want her. He hadn’t known his

  youngest child had developed affections for the simple sailor. He had to make this wrong

  right. He had to find a way to make both of his daughters happy.

  *****

  Many in Baton Rouge society considered her to be quite on the shelf and homely to

  boot, but what Agathe lacked in looks, she more than made up for in cunning and

  determination. She taught Claude not only how to run their small plantation,

  Bellemere, but she also taught him how to use their location between the two major

  cities to turn a tidy profit in trade goods.

  Bellemere grew prosperous over the years. Agathe spent a great deal of time in Baton

  Rouge with her head held high. She had married beneath her, but now she was richer

  than the merciless bitches that had sneered at her behind her back. She loved flaunting

  her wealth in front of those who, in her mind, had wronged her. Life was perfect –

  almost. The one thing Agathe had not been able to succeed in doing was giving her

  husband a son.

  In the beginning of their marriage, Claude had been attentive. He visited her room

  nightly, treating her with a gentleness she would not have expected from a simple sailor.

  But the months ran into years, and still she could not conceive. Claude’s visits began to

  decrease, slowly, but definitively. After five years of marriage, he ceased to darken her bedroom doorway. He still treated her with the utmost respect, though Agathe secretly

  thought he should be a hell of a lot more grateful. After all, she made him what he was,

  a wealthy landowner, the crème of Creole society, didn’t she? Regardless, she could not

  complain. He didn’t complain when she went into town for weeks at a time, buying

  fashionable townhouses in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. So what if she could not

  have a child? Perhaps it was for the best. Claude was not exactly descended from

  aristocracy as she and her family were. He had served his purpose; he was her husband,

  ensuring her place in society. She would never have tolerated being dismissed as a poor,

  pitied spinster. He had more than he ever could have hoped for. He should be thanking

  her on bended knee.

  Had Claude been aware of his wife’s train of thought, he have would probably been

  amused. He knew Agathe believed he had married her to secure a place in society, but

  nothing could have been further from the truth. After years of longing, Monsieur

  Gasper Durand, his good wife’s father, had finally given him his heart’s true desire,

  Amélie. As beautiful as Agathe was plain, Amélie was the daughter of Monsieur Durand

  and a woman who had been his slave before she became his mistress. Amélie was

  everything Agathe was not. Her copper colored skin glowed with health and vitality,

  turquoise eyes twinkled with laughter, sultry lips begged to be kissed. She was the reason Claude had given up life at sea; it had been thankless, true, but nothing Agathe

  had to offer could have made him give up the adventure. But for Amélie he would.

  Claude spared very little thought for his wife while she was at Bellemere, and even

  less when she was away. Amélie was, for all intents and purposes, the mistress of

  Bellemere. Agathe thought it she was the power behind Bellemere, that her ideas made

  the plantation prosperous. In truth, it was Luc and Amélie who came up with the most

  inventive ideas. Claude had a knack for putting their plans in action. Families who lived

  there were free, unbeknownst to Agathe. They received large four bedroom cabins and

  worked as sharecroppers under the protection of Bellemere. It was this that made

  Bellemere so prosperous. The workers gave their all because they were not abused or

  misused and hard work was always rewarded. Amélie had a natural gift with numbers,

  so she handled all of the plantations accounts and finances.

  Monsieur Durand was a pragmatist; the world was a cruel enough place, but it was

  damn near impossible for his half-breed children. All six of the sons born of his mistress,

  Solange, were successful businessmen in France. Their only daughter chose Claude

  Bonnet on her own free will. Amélie and Luc were everything Claude could ever want,

  and Monsieur Durand was pleased.

  Claude and Agathe had been married for seven years before Agathe found out about

  her husband’s lover. What had started as a few weeks away here and there had gradually progressed to just about all of her time spent away from Bellemere. She was in Baton

  Rouge during the rainy season, New Orleans for the winter and at her father’s largest

  plantation in Natchez with the majority of the extended family for the entire summer.

  It just so happened on a jaunt from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, the steamboat was

  traveling a little too close to shore and ran aground. Agathe considered it providence

  that they just happened to be a few miles from Bellemere. She imperiously informed the

  hassled captain she would be spending the night at her plantation and if by chance the

  steamboat was towed out of its current predicament, he was to wait for her return. She

  was, after all, the only daughter of the richest man in all of New Orleans.

  After hiring a sad, old, musty carriage that broke down at least five times on the way,

  Agathe finally made it to Bellemere after full dark. There were no houseboys to assist

  her luggage from the dilapidated carriage, there were no lanterns lighted outside, the

  front door was unlocked and unguarded. After imposing on the elderly Cajun who

  drove her home to drag her luggage into the foyer, Agathe made her way up the

  winding staircase to her husband’s suite determined to get answers. There were no

  servants anywhere in the house, which was totally unacceptable. She was going to have

  to set the house to rights in the morning, but for now Claude would have to bring her

  luggage upstairs and go find Luc to have him bring a ladies-maid immediately. Agathe sailed through the sitting room that adjoined Claude’s bedroom in high

  dungeon. This entire situation was too much to be borne. Why she had ever expected a

  peasant to care properly for all she had given him she would never know. She had just

  swung the bedroom door open prepared to wake her errant husband when the words

  died on her tongue. There on the huge four-poster bed was her husband kissing some

  slave woman with all the passion he had never once showed her, while Luc had his head

  buried between her shapely thighs. Claude was caressing her rather full breasts as the

  woman whimpered into his mouth.

  As much as she wished she could, Agathe could not turn away. She was both

  repulsed and fascinated by the scene unfolding before her. Her heart sped in her chest,

  her mouth felt dry, and an uncomfortable moist heat began to pool between her legs.

  The woman had begun to moan in earnest as Claude moved from her lips t
o trail kisses

  all over the woman’s face, down her neck, to suckle the nipple on one breast while his

  hand moved to pinch the nipple of the other. Agathe watched in fascination at the way

  her husband’s fingers alternately squeezed and rolled the chocolate protrusion while

  nipping and suckling the other as if it were some delectable treat. The woman was

  thrusting her hips into Luc’s face in earnest while her head rolled back and forth on the

  pillow, waves of silky black hair spilling across the virginal white of the crisp cotton sheets. Her gasps and moans increased in pace and tempo until she screamed clutching

  Claude’s head as she did so.

  Luc moved up the woman’s body, kissing a trail from her thighs to her stomach as

  Claude lay on his back, pulling her to a sitting position on top of him. Were they done?

  But no, Claude lifted the woman up slightly as Luc reached between Claude’s legs to

  clasp his impossibly hard manhood placing it at the woman’s opening. Claude had

  never been so eager for her, Agathe thought peevishly while pressing her thighs together

  tightly. The achy heat was becoming unbearable. Never in her life had Agathe felt the

  feverish feelings now coursing through her body. She had to press a hand to the V

  where her legs met, trying to rub the throbbing ache away.

  Claude was moaning as the woman rocked gently back and forth on his lap. Luc was

  kneeling behind her rubbing her backside while whispering encouragement, while

  Claude was telling the woman how beautiful she was and how much –

  He loved her?! How dare he?! One did not love a slave! Only the most ignorant of

  women did not know that gentlemen often relieved their baser needs in the slave cabins.

  The point was to keep it in the damned cabins! Perhaps this could not wait until

  morning. She should take care of this right this second! Squaring her shoulders, Agathe

  prepared to march forward when Luc parted the woman’s backside and slipped his root

  inside her nether regions. Agathe could not withhold the gasp that escaped from her gaping mouth. The trio

  on the bed remained blissfully unaware of her presence. Their moans increased, as did

  the tempo of their glistening, writhing bodies. Passionate kisses passed indiscriminately

  between them, hands caressed, kneaded, pulled and plucked. Their groans and sighs