Daughters of the Summer Storm by Frances Patton Statham

Author:Frances Patton Statham [Statham, Frances Patton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 1978-12-31T14:00:00+00:00

20

A week later, Maranta left her room for the first time since she had become ill.

On the veranda she sat, content to be lazy and do nothing more strenuous than gaze out toward the slopes of coffee plants in the distance.

"So you finally decided not to make a widower out of me."

The voice spoken from behind prompted Maranta to turn her head. Vasco pushed his rolling chair toward her and stopped. His calculating inspection of her thin body in the aqua dress that Sassia had altered and the dark circles under her eyes made Maranta nervous.

"D-Dom Vasco," she said, surprised to see her husband on the veranda.

"You gave Ruis quite a scare. And now I see why. There isn't much left of you, is there?"

At his brutal frankness, Maranta paled and could not think of a reply.

Evidently, Vasco expected none. "He thought you had rabies, you know. From the bat."

"I. . . did not know."

"Of course, Ruis said nothing to Mãe about his fears. It would have shattered all her carefully laid plans. And I doubt she could have stood that."

"What do you mean?"

"Come now, Maranta Monteiro é Tabor. Do you think I do not know why you were brought to the fazenda?"

He leaned toward her and with relish, he whispered, "Ruis loves Mãe too much not to give her what her heart desires—even though it means taking to bed a girl he has no feeling for."

Maranta's hand went up to her cheek, and she fled from the veranda, the sound of Dom Vasco's taunting laughter following her.

All the time Ruis had taken care of her, he had been doing it for Mãe. Maranta meant nothing to him. And she meant nothing to Dom Vasco either, except as someone to taunt and tease in her humiliating situation. Why had the conde not allowed her to die? She did not belong on the fazenda. She would never belong. Even if she should bear the child the condessa wanted, Maranta would still have no official place in the Monteiro family. She might even be sent away later.

Maranta thought of her little brother, Raven, so sweet in her arms. How she had enjoyed holding him and singing to him. And what a wrench of the heart to leave him. How much more heartache if Dom Ruis should be so cruel as to send her away after her own baby was born.

But Maranta was not with child. The night spent with Ruis had accomplished nothing but the taking of her maidenhead.

"Hello," the blond woman called out to Maranta as she passed through the sala. "You are Maranta, Dom Vasco's wife, are you not?"

"Yes, and you must be—Innocencia."

The tinkling laugh was musical and refreshing after the harsh, cynical laughter of her husband. "I have been so bored today, playing only with the pickaninnies. Come into my room and have tea with me."

Unable to think of an excuse not to do so, Maranta followed Innocencia through the sala and into the large room whose iron-grilled door stood open.

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