Deceive Not My Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

service."
    Uncertainly Noelle looked at him. "Mon fils, let it be," she said at last, her own volatile temper evaporating as quickly as it had surfaced.
    Morgan sent her a cool, mocking smile. "Of course, if it is what you wish." His reply was polite enough but there was a note in his voice that caused her to glance at him sharply. Morgan had always tended to be headstrong; even as a child he had been aloof, going his own way, but there was a difference these days. Once she had known his every thought, had shared his youthful dreams, and despite his iron-willed personality, there had been a sweetness in him—especially with women... but no longer. Not since the terrible end of his marriage barely two years ago....
    The conversation switched to other subjects and the meal continued in leisurely harmony, but an hour later, as she sat in a small room which looked out towards the cotton field behind Bonheur, Noelle's troubled thoughts were on her eldest son.
    He is so wary and hard, so far away from us, she mused unhappily. It is almost as if he has erected a barrier to protect himself from women, even from me. Her small face tightened and for a moment she looked quite ferocious. That Stephanie! I could kill her, if she were not dead already! To treat my good Morgan so, to break his heart, to shame him, to take away his child, and to destroy his trust in women! Mon Dieu! I would like to cut her heart in little ribbons!
    Staring blindly out the window, oblivious to the soothing view before her, she recalled vividly the day Morgan had come to her, his face alight with joy and pleasure, and nearly stammering with excitement he had burst out with the news that Stephanie Du Boise had consented to marry him. Noelle had been full of reservations from the beginning—he was too young; Stephanie, hardly eighteen, was also too young. Noelle was very much afraid that Stephanie had been as attracted to Morgan's wealth as much as his person. The Du Boises, while of good blood, were poor, and it was known all about Natchez that the girls had to marry money. Stephanie was a lovely girl, that Noelle couldn't have denied, and at first she did seem sweet and charming.
    Certainly Morgan, just twenty, had been plainly besotted by her blonde beauty and great green eyes—there was nothing he wouldn't have done for her. And Noelle had stilled her doubts and had smiled to herself at the sight of her usually determined son ready to do anything that his adored bride had wanted.
    It was a marriage that should have brought them happiness, and if Stephanie had truly loved Morgan, it might have, Noelle reflected sadly. They had been young, Morgan deeply in love with his wife, and within a year there had been a healthy, handsome son. Thinking of her first grandchild, of Phillippe's first tottering steps and his happy gurgle as he had played in this very room, her brown eyes misted with tears and her throat closed with a tight ache of pain. Mon Dieu, does the pain ever go away? she wondered. Did Morgan, behind that cool, uncaring exterior of his, grieve too? Noelle knew he did—sometimes when he thought he was unobserved, an expression of unutterable misery would cross his chiseled features—and she guessed that he must be remembering his little son. If he had been besotted with Stephanie, he had adored his son. How many times had she seen him put aside his growing air of maturity and like a child gambol on the floor with Phillippe? Too many times to think about, she decided tiredly.
    When had it all gone wrong? Noelle wondered. There had been no blight on the horizon in the beginning. Stephanie had appeared happy and contented and Morgan's feet never seemed to touch the ground.
    So when? When Morgan first began to talk of moving away from Bonheur? Of setting up his own residence, of building a fine home away from Natchez for his young family? Had it been then that Stephanie had shown the first signs of discontent? Or had it been because in that last year