THE HONOURABLE FREDERICK Benjamin Prendergast was ambling back through the gardens of Montvisse from the dovecote when he saw the creamy-white Armstrong Siddeley, driven by Céline’s chauffeur, pass the black de Lorvoire Bentley under the avenue of limes. The Armstrong Siddeley, he knew, was taking Beavis to the station at Chinon; he had said his farewells to Beavis half an hour before. It had been an awkward meeting, like most of their meetings this past week, since Beavis felt obliged to tell Freddy on each occasion that he would consider it a great favour if Freddy would refrain from mentioning, to anyone, Claudine’s impromptu return to the château the morning after her wedding. Freddy repeatedly assured Beavis that he had already forgotten the incident, which brought a grim smile to Beavis’ face: he was relieved it was only Freddy who had been up at that hour of the morning, for it would have been an embarrassment, to say the least, to have to ask the other guests to keep silent – and madness to expect them to do so.
However, almost everyone who was staying at the Château de Lorvoire – which included Freddy’s sister, Dissy – knew that François and Claudine had made a brief return, and all had found it highly amusing that Claudine was unable to manage for more than a day without her maid. What none of them knew was that she had gone to Montvisse first, and had come in a lorry a good half an hour before François. They did not know, either, that even before François’ arrival, Claudine had already sped off again in the Lagonda.
Freddy had seen François go after her, and he had also seen the two of them return, but he had no idea what had gone on behind the closed doors of the library and drawing-room after that. All he knew was that François and Claudine had left the château an hour later, and that when he next saw Céline it was apparent she had been crying.
It wasn’t that Freddy had been deliberately spying on the family’s comings and goings, it was simply that he had woken that morning with the sunrise, to compose a sonnet for Monique, and had gone to sit at the window of his room, which happened to overlook the avenue of limes … And Monique had simply adored the sonnet, he thought cheerfully now watching her alight from the Bentley as it came to a stop in front of the château. And thank heavens she spoke English so well, else his sublime efforts might have been in vain.
Seeing him come across the gardens, Monique called out to him, and Freddy’s entire body gave a quiver of pure rapture at the way she pronounced his name.
‘Monique!’ he cried, and running up to her, he caught her hands, kissed them, then held them to his heart.
‘Oh là là,’ she smiled, as she saw the look of adulation in his eyes, and pulling a hand free, she started to tweak at his disorderly thatch of sandy hair. ‘What have you been doing, chéri?’ she said. Then she moved her eyes to his in a way that brought the colour sweeping across his face.
‘What do you think?’ he said shyly.
‘Not another! Oh, Freddy, what am I to do with you?’
He longed to tell her that he was hers to do with as she pleased, but he didn’t quite have the courage, so he said, ‘Would you like to read it?’
‘Where is it?’
‘Here, next to my heart,’ he said, reaching inside his pullover to take the poem from his shirt pocket.
Monique laughed. ‘Then keep it there. I shall read it later, when we …’
‘When we what?’ he prompted.
Her answering smile was so lingeringly provocative that he found himself leaning towards her.
‘Freddy,’ she murmured. ‘You are a naughty boy. I do believe you are thinking to kiss me, right here in front of Montvisse.’
Mortified, Freddy pulled himself together, all his ardour now glowing in his fresh, youthful cheeks, and laughing, Monique turned to Marcel, who promptly leapt from the car and opened the back door for her to get in. ‘Come along, chéri,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder at Freddy.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Wait and see,’ she answered, taking his hand as he got in beside her.
‘But aren’t you going to call on Céline before you leave?’
‘Was she expecting me?’
‘Er, no, I don’t think so.’
‘Then there is no reason for me to do so, is there? You may have me all to yourself this afternoon, Freddy. That is what you want, is it not?’
‘I’ll say,’ he breathed, and she laughed gaily at his boyish enthusiasm as Marcel turned the car round and started back down the drive.
‘I am so pleased you have stayed on at Montvisse,’ she said, when they were heading along the road towards Chinon.
‘It was kind of you to ask Céline if one could,’ he responded. ‘She’s an absolutely spiffing woman, don’t you agree?’
‘Oh, spiffing,’ she said, making him laugh. She adored him most particularly when he smiled.
‘You know,’ she sighed, ‘I had no idea life had become so dreary until you arrived.’
‘Oh, but surely life can’t be dreary with Claudine around,’ he protested. ‘Céline tells one she’s been on top form ever since she arrived in France.’
Monique smiled, almost to herself. ‘Oui, elle a de la presence.’
Not too sure what that meant, but assuming it was a compliment, Freddy nodded happily.
‘She’s made quite a change to our lives at Lorvoire,’ Monique went on. ‘We have all come to love her a great deal, you know. Maman is missing her terribly, especially now all the guests have gone. Still I’m sure she’s having a simply marvellous time in Biarritz.’
She cast a quick look in Freddy’s direction, but so far, pumping him about the morning Claudine and François had returned to Lorvoire had produced no results – he’d made it clear that he wasn’t prepared to say anything. For her part, she didn’t for one minute believe that nonsense about the maid, but no one else, not even Céline, had confessed to finding the fleeting return unusual, so as yet she had been unable to discover what lay behind it.
‘You’re very fond of Claudine, aren’t you, Freddy?’ she said.
‘I’ll say,’ he answered. ‘Always have been. Used to hope that one day one might marry her, but of course she’s too old for one. I mean, that is to say, she couldn’t possibly be interested in someone so young,’ he added hastily. ‘Not with so many other chaps vying for her attention. That was before she was married, of course. Sure it’ll be different now. In love and all that, you know.’ It seemed nothing he said was coming out quite right, so he decided to shut up.
‘Do you think she is in love with my brother?’ Monique said, gazing nonchalantly out of the window as they crossed the bridge at Chinon.
‘Oh, absolutely certain of it. Wouldn’t have married him otherwise. Would she?’
‘Wouldn’t she?’
‘Grand chap, your brother,’ Freddy said, feeling his colour begin to rise again.
‘I think so,’ she smiled. ‘I just hope Claudine does too. And as for François, well, he obviously adores her. I mean, the way he brought her back to Lorvoire the morning after the wedding to collect her maid proves it, doesn’t it? But he’ll quite ruin her if he insists on indulging her every whim.’
‘He’s a jolly lucky chap,’ Freddy remarked in a dull voice.
Monique sighed, and allowed her head to fall against the back of the seat. ‘I do so envy them being so much in love, don’t you, chéri?’
He took some time to think about that, then with heartfelt solemnity he said, ‘Love can be a very painful experience at times.’
‘Oh, but it can!’ she cried in surprise, but instantly warming to the subject.
He turned to look at her, her lips looked so inviting that he felt his own begin to tremble. For a moment he gazed longingly into her wide amber eyes, but then he turned quickly away, ashamed at the thoughts that were trespassing across his mind. How crude she would think him if she knew the true extent of the passion that beat in his heart, that drummed through his loins and set his blood on fire with ignoble lust. How he longed to hold her, to smother her with kisses and fill her with the rapture she instilled in him! But he had only to look at her to be reminded of what a callow youth he was. A youth whom she had excused the presumption of his adoration, and whose poems she smiled upon in her benevolence.
Swallowing her impatience, Monique looked out of the window. She didn’t have much longer to wait, she reminded herself, and one didn’t actually expire from a want of kisses, even if just at that moment one felt one might …
‘Are we going to the village?’ Freddy asked a few minutes later as they passed the gates of the Château de Lorvoire.
She nodded. ‘I have a message for Liliane St Jacques from Maman. Then we shall walk together, and you shall read me your poem, oui?’
‘Oui,’ he smiled, and his limpid brown eyes misted with adoration.
They left the car at the edge of the village and tramped over the cobbles, strolling up the steps at the centre of the main street to the old well, where each evening the men heaved up the bucket and splashed themselves with water to rinse away the dust of the fields. Now, in the middle of the afternoon, the village with its grey stone cottages and drab street signs was almost deserted. Monique was a little sorry that there weren’t more people to see her with this tall, handsome youth, with his unruly mop of hair, ruddy cheeks and lean, awkward body.
Before his arrival at Montvisse it had never occurred to Monique that she might find a man so much younger than herself attractive, much less fall in love with him, but almost from the moment she had laid eyes on Freddy Prendergast she had felt herself coming to life in a way she hadn’t experienced for a long time. She knew, from the poems he wrote her, that he shared her feelings, but she also knew that he was too diffident to presume any further. In a subtle way she had done all she could to encourage him, but so far she had been unable to break through the barrier of his timidity. But she was determined, and after some thought she had decided to bring him to a particular clearing in the forest behind the St Jacques’ house.
It was known as the waterfall table, a small oval of flat land with a tiny lake at the centre, filled from a waterfall which flowed through the trees and then down behind the village into the Vienne. Clustered around the lake, protecting it from view, were the roots of the huge forest trees which grew up over the hillside. It was a perfect setting for love, and already Monique’s heart was fluttering with the anticipation of what she had resolved to accomplish there.
A few minutes later they rounded the wall of the chapel and climbed the grassy slope to Liliane’s house. Freddy waited outside, but Monique was gone only a short time, and soon she and Liliane came out together. The old lady, with her toothless smile, waved to him, then called something after Monique as she came over and took his arm.
‘What did she say?’ he asked, as they started up through the vineyards towards the forest.
‘She was telling me to be sure that Claudine goes to see her the minute she returns.’ Then, after a pause, ‘It was odd, you know, but she said that Armand saw Claudine’s car the morning after the wedding, and that Claudine was driving it. Of course I told her that Armand must have been mistaken, but she absolutely insisted.’
She was watching him out of the corner of her eye, and saw how troubled he looked. Yes, she was almost sure now that, just as she’d suspected, Claudine had returned to Montvisse the morning after her wedding. And the only conclusion to be drawn from that was that Claudine had run away from François. Which meant, of course, that things were already going badly between them. However, instead of the satisfaction that might have given her a week ago, Monique felt only sadness. Now that she was on the brink of finding love herself, she no longer resented it in others. ‘Come on,’ she said to Freddy. ‘What I want now is to listen to your poem.’ And she ran on up the hill ahead of him.
Relieved to be let off the hook, as he always had found it hellishly difficult to keep a secret, Freddy started after her, and taking the hand she held out to him, climbed up through the vines with her and into the woods.
‘Here,’ he said, stopping her as he stooped to pick a flower.
She waited as he tucked it into her hair, then picking one herself, she put it behind his ear and stood back to admire him. ‘Tu es très beau,’ she murmured as she gazed into his eyes. Then she stood on tip-toe to brush her lips gently over his before taking his hand and running with him through the trees to the clearing. When they reached it, she stopped and looked up into his face, and with a flutter of joy she saw that his reaction was all she had hoped for.
‘Sit here,’ she whispered, pulling him down onto the grass beside her. ‘Sit here and listen to the waterfall.’
He sat, his eyes transfixed by the beauty of the lake; the way the beams of sunlight streamed through the trees in ephemeral lines of silvery mist that exploded in a glittering mass of light as they touched the water. The way the gnarled, leafy branches drooped to their reflections, and the lily pads floated in the current. After a while Monique pulled him back so that he was lying with his head in her lap. He looked up at her, but she ran her fingers over his eyes, closing them. ‘Be still, chéri,’ she murmured.
They stayed like that for a long time while she stroked his hair, then his face, then his neck. Above them the birds were rustling the trees, while the waterfall trickled and gurgled down through the forest. It was cool, and blissfully calm. In the end Freddy’s eyes fluttered open. Monique was resting against the bole of a tree, and pulling himself up on one elbow so that his face was very close to hers, he murmured, ‘ “Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, And slips into the bosom of the lake: So fold thy self, my dearest, thou, and slip Into my bosom and be lost in me.”’
‘Oh, Freddy,’ she whispered. ‘Did you just think of it?’
He smiled. ‘Yes, but it was written a long time ago by Tennyson.’
She moved towards him, but as her leg brushed against the treacherous hardness of his body, he turned abruptly away.
‘What is it?’ she said, putting a hand on his shoulder and turning him back.
As he looked at her, his face was crimson and his eyes flooded with pain. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, looking down at the ground. ‘Nothing at all.’
Monique smiled, and understanding only too well what was troubling him, her heart went out to him in such love and pity that it was all she could do to stop herself taking him in her arms. But she knew it would be wrong to touch him at that moment, so lying back in the grass, she allowed several minutes to tick silently by before she said, ‘Have you ever made love to a woman, Freddy?’
He sat up, wrapped his arms about his knees and buried his face.
‘Would you like to make love to me?’ she said softly.
She watched him, her heart thudding with dread as she waited for the rejection. It was too soon, she had frightened him, and now she would lose him … But then his hand reached out for hers and his voice was muffled by his sleeve as he said, ‘How can one subject you, the most beautiful woman in the world, to such ignominy? One cannot debase you with the lust one is unable to control. You are sweet and perfect, and you touch one’s soul with your kindness.’
Sitting up, she put an arm about his shoulders and pressed her cheek against his. ‘Do I have to tell you, a poet, the beauty of making love?’ she said. ‘You will not be debasing me, cheri, not if you love me.’
‘Oh, Monique,’ he groaned, and clutching her to him, he pressed his lips brutally to hers.
Gently she pushed him away, then holding his face in her hands she said, ‘Let me show you,’ and parting her lips, she pulled his mouth back to hers and kissed him with a searing tenderness.
When she let him go, he sobbed and threw himself back in the grass. ‘One is so useless!’ he cried, flinging an arm across his eyes. ‘I want you so much, Monique, but one doesn’t know how … One has never …’
‘Ssh,’ she said, putting a finger over his lips. Then pushing her hands beneath his pullover, she fanned her fingers across his chest. His eyes were still covered by his arm, but she could feel the rapid beat of his heart. ‘Look at me,’ she murmured, as she lowered her hands to his waist and began to tug his shirt from his trousers.
He opened his eyes, but she could see that he was too overwhelmed to hold her gaze. Smiling, she took his hand and placed it on her breast. His eyes closed again as he moaned softly. Knowing that he would never have the courage to do it himself, she unbuttoned her blouse, then pulled it free of her skirt and slipped it over her shoulders. ‘Look at me,’ she said again.
When he saw the sharp points of her nipples pushing against the silk camisole, his breath caught in his throat, but before he could turn away she lifted his hands and kissed them. ‘Touch me,’ she said. ‘Touch me here, Freddy,’ and lowering his hands to her breasts, she pressed them against her.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘Oh, Monique, you are so beautiful.’
She sat quietly as he tentatively lifted her camisole over her breasts and began to fondle her bare skin. Her nipples ached for his lips, but then he took them between his fingers and rolled them gently. She let her head fall back, murmuring and showing him what pleasure he was giving her. Then, when she judged the time right, she lifted a hand and placed it over the front of his trousers.
He froze, then his hands fell to the ground and his head rolled from side to side as he began to groan. Slowly she began to unbutton his fly, watching him and pulling his hand back to her breast.
‘When we are married we can do this all the time,’ she told him, as she began to ease his trousers over his hips.
‘Yes, oh yes,’ he moaned, by now too enslaved by the sensation of her fingers as they closed around him to think beyond them.
With one hand she started gently to massage him, while with the other she turned his face to hers. ‘Kiss me,’ she said, leaning towards him. His lips parted, and as she pushed her tongue between them, she tightened the grip on his penis.
‘Oh my God!’ he spluttered. ‘Oh my God!’ The semen was shuddering from his body in urgent, excruciating spurts. ‘Oh no!’ he cried, pulling himself away from her. ‘No, no, no!’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, trying to turn him back. ‘Freddy, it doesn’t matter.’
But he had covered his face with his hands and raised his leg so that she could no longer see his shame.
‘Freddy, I love you!’ she cried. ‘It doesn’t matter. Please, let me hold you.’
‘Oh Monique,’ he sobbed, as he buried his face in her neck. ‘Monique! What a child you must think me.’
‘No, you are a man, Freddy. A man who is finding love for the first time.’
‘I am so ashamed.’
She smiled, and kissed and stroked his hair until finally he pulled away.
‘Can we try again?’ he asked. Then, colouring, he added, ‘I don’t mean today. I mean, can we…? Maybe tomorrow…’
‘Of course, chéri. But not tomorrow. I must go with Maman to Paris tomorrow. But I shall return next week. You will wait for me?’
‘Yes, oh yes!’ he gasped.
‘Oh, Freddy,’ she laughed. ‘You are so romantic!’
As they strolled back down the hill, hand in hand, she leaned against him and said, ‘I wonder what everyone will say when we tell them?’
‘Tell them what?’ he said, horrified.
‘That we are going to be married, silly,’ she laughed. ‘When should we tell them? Shall we do it today, when we get back? But no, maybe it’s a little too early. I think we should wait until I return from Paris. Oh, Freddy, I’m so happy. I love you so much. I want to hold you in my arms and never let you go. Do you feel the same way, chéri? Tell me you love me too. Tell me you’ve waited all your life for this to happen. But you’re only nineteen, how could you have known it would happen so soon? But me, I have been waiting for you…
‘I knew that one day you would come, that there was a reason for all the rejection I have suffered. But those men, pah! They mean nothing now. They are épiciers compared to you – you, who are so sweet and so full of love. How am I going to keep this to myself, Freddy, when I want to shout it from the hilltops? I think, don’t you, that we must spend our summers in France, but I can barely wait to see your home, my darling. And soon, very soon, we shall fill it with children …’
He let her go on, too stunned to interrupt. All he was thinking was, when, during those few ecstatic moments, had he asked her to marry him? He had no recollection of it, but he must have asked her or she wouldn’t be carrying on like this. He felt almost suffocated by his own breath as he tried to speak, tried to assure her that he loved her. Only an hour ago he had hardly been able to stop himself saying it, yet now …
Why was it that she suddenly seemed like a stranger when they had just shared such intimate moments? Why was it that he wanted to pull his arm away, to escape her, when earlier the very touch of her fingertips had set him on fire with passion? Why was it that everything she was saying repelled him? The more she went on, the worse it became. Even the sound of her voice, that beautiful throaty voice, now grated on his ears.
By the time her chauffeur had dropped him at Montvisse, and she had promised a thousand times that she would call him that night and then again from Paris the next day, he was beginning to realize that he would never again recapture the feelings he had had beside the lake. He still could not be sure why they had changed, and as he turned from waving Monique off and went into the château, he had no idea what he was going to do about it. He went upstairs to his room, informing the butler that he wouldn’t be wanting dinner that evening.
He sat on the edge of his bed, letting the hours slip by. He saw his life’s plans, his hopes and dreams float away from him. He longed to talk to someone, but who could he tell? Dissy was no longer in France, and it was unthinkable that he should mention this to Céline. In the end, he realized that there was no way out. If he had asked Monique to marry him during those lust-crazed moments, then it would make him the greatest cad on earth if he were to spurn her after she had all but given herself to him.
At ten o’clock his valet knocked, and with a heavy heart Freddy prepared himself for bed. The joy of being in France had been extinguished, and he longed only to go home.
It was one of those crisp days of early autumn, when the light was so clear that Paris was even more beautiful than in the spring. The leaves on the trees lining the avenue Foch glinted gold in the brilliant sunlight, and the air was bracing. The breeze that wafted in through the open window of Élise Pascale’s drawing-room carried not only the sleepy purr and growl of afternoon traffic but also the haunting strains of ‘Tout va bien’ played on a gramophone in an apartment below.
Élise adored this time of year – but then she adored every time of year, she adored her whole life, and never a day passed when she did not thank the Good Lord for enabling her to use her exceptional beauty to such unforeseen advantage.
It was her striking resemblance to Titian’s Venus of Urbino that had started her on the road to success, for that was what had first captured the eye of Gustave Gallet, the now forgotten artist who had passed through Toulouse ten years ago, and in return for her favours had taken her to Paris. Before leaving Toulouse her ambition had been merely to marry a man of means and status, and when Gallet first appeared she had already made some headway with the son of the local préfet. But the moment Paris was mentioned, she had seen all her dreams start to come true … Ever since her daughter was old enough to understand, and right up to the time of her own death, Élise Pascale’s mother had read her stories of the great courtesans of France, La Pompadour, Diane de Poitiers, Agnés Sorrel, women whose rise and fall had never ceased to fascinate them both. Élise wanted to be one of them, she wanted her name too to go down in history, and it had angered her that she was living in a France where there were no longer any kings, where she could never be a royal mistress. But then Gustave Gallet had taken her to Paris, and she had known that somehow she was going to make herself the most talked about woman in all France.
Unfortunately, soon after their arrival in the city Gallet had died, and for three years Élise had been an artist’s model, moving from one cramped studio to the next. Then she had acquired her own modest apartment on the Quai de la Tournelle, paid for by an ageing film director, Alain Mureau. She had grown fond of Mureau during their eight months together, but when, at a party to celebrate his latest film, she was presented to Gérard, the bohemian son of the Duc de Verlons, she had no compunction whatever in consigning her lover to the past. And with Gérard her career really began to take off, for he took great delight in introducing her to his wealthy and influential friends, and Élise soon discovered that there was little she wouldn’t do to get what she wanted, and no one she minded hurting along the way.
And now here she was, luxuriously ensconced on the avenue Foch. She never missed her daily prayer of gratitude – but it was at the shrine of her own voluptuous body that she most frequently worshipped, for it was that wonderful body, that face with its brazenly alluring features, that had got her where she was today. That, and ambition – which had seized her first all those years ago in Toulouse, and even now, despite her success, still burned like a fire in her veins.
And now, as she stood at her drawing-room window looking along the avenue to the Arc de Triomphe, Élise felt so triumphant herself, so happy, that she wanted to laugh. For she was not alone in the room; and her engagements for the rest of the day were even now being cancelled by Gisèle, her maid, who had taken the diary to the telephone in the dining-room so that she should not disturb her mistress and their unexpected visitor.
As yet François had said little, but it was not in his nature to indulge in idle talk, and besides, his presence here, at her apartment, told Élise all she wanted to know. It would be unwise to express her delight, though, even if her heart was singing like a teenager’s; François was well aware of the effect he had on her but he hated her to show her feelings. So Élise kept them to herself, and displayed instead the kind of bored sophistication and cat-like indolence he preferred. It was like a game, a game she had come to excel at: always careful to read his moods before she spoke, judging when to disguise her love beneath a mask of indifference; always concealing the deep, secret fear that one day she would lose him. For she loved him as she had never loved any other man.
She took a deep breath, then turned from the window to look across the sumptuously furnished drawing-room. With its muted shades of turquoise and yellow it was a blatantly feminine room, arranged so that every chair and sofa faced the tall arched windows and the white wrought-iron balustrades of the balconies beyond. As she looked at François a teasing light flashed in her narrowed emerald eyes. ‘So,’ she drawled in her low, husky voice, ‘you are married.’
François was sitting in an Aubusson tapestried armchair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, a Gauloise in one hand and a glass of his own wine in the other. For answer, he merely raised an eyebrow, took a final draw on his cigarette and ground it out in the ashtray beside him.
The corners of Élise’s soft mouth twitched. Lifting a hand-mirror from the little table beside her, she inspected her delicately rouged lips and patted the waves of her expertly coiffed yellow-gold hair. ‘I didn’t expect to see you so soon,’ she remarked.
When again he didn’t answer, she put down her mirror and went to sit near him on the sofa. ‘Weren’t you supposed to be in Biarritz for two weeks?’ she asked.
‘My wife was eager to leave,’ François answered, taking a sip of wine.
‘She didn’t find Biarritz to her liking?’
He met her eyes, and after a moment or two the corner of his mouth pulled into a smile. ‘Shall we just say that my wife prefers to be at Lorvoire?’ he said smoothly.
She hated him referring to The Bitch as his wife, but said nothing, understanding that she would be wise to let the matter rest there.
‘Have you heard from von Pappen?’ he asked, holding out his glass to be refilled.
‘I thought he’d left a message for you at Poitiers?’
‘He did. Do you know where he is now?’
‘In Munich, I believe.’
François was quiet for a moment. Then, as she handed him his wine, he said, ‘I am leaving for Berlin in a few days. I want him to meet me there.’
‘Berlin?’
‘I have a new customer there with a penchant for Lorvoire wine.’
Their eyes met fleetingly, and Élise smiled. Sitting down again, she rested her finely pointed chin on her hand and watched him as he sat once more immersed in the privacy of his thoughts.
It was two years since he had come into her life, and almost as long since she had fallen so desperately in love with him that, when he asked it, she had abandoned every one of her other rich and titled lovers and kept herself for him alone. From that time on, he had become her whole life. Only once had she made the mistake of telling him how she felt about him. In return he had made it plain that he did not love her, and did not now – nor ever would – entertain the slightest intention of marrying a whore from the gutters of Toulouse.
It wasn’t the first time he had called her that, but it was the first time she had allowed her fury and pain to get the better of her. The clock she hurled at him had missed, but the bone china pot she threw after it found its mark, and blood began to flow from the barely healed scar on his face as he moved purposefully towards her. Terror kept her fighting, beating her hands against his chest and insulting him with all the foul language she knew, until he threw her across the sofa and began to make love to her. But it was hate, not love, for at the end he had left her begging and screaming for the total satisfaction he sadistically denied her.
‘Love me if you must,’ he told her when he had had his fill of her, ‘but I don’t want to hear it. All I want from you is what I have just taken.’
After that she hadn’t seen him for a month, during which time she had heard the rumours about Hortense de Bourchain. Immediately she had resolved never to see him again; but when at last he came again, when he stood looking at her with those mesmeric black eyes, she had felt herself drawn to him as a moth to a candle. She had run towards him, ready to embrace him – but he put out a hand and held her at a distance, looking at her. Then, with a smile that twisted through her heart like a knife, he had lifted his hand to her cheek, saying, ‘I shall never repeat this, but perhaps you should know that I desire you as I’ve never desired another woman in my life. I will give you all that I am able to give, and it will be to you, and you alone, that I shall turn for fulfilment. However, your declarations of love revolt me – which is why I spoke as I did. And I warn you, that is the only response you will ever get from me should you be so unwise as to mention your feelings again.’
And then he had pulled her into his arms, and kissed her with a tenderness he had never shown her before. That was when, looking up into those curiously compelling eyes, she first began to recognize the extent of his power.
In the months that followed she had seen him exercise that same anomalous power over politicians and generals, and she began to realize that François was playing some sort of political game. By observing him closely, she soon understood, too, the nature of that game. It was dangerous, more than dangerous, at times it was lethal, but then she had suspected from the beginning that any association with François de Lorvoire would be exceptional …
After a time, in quiet ways, she had let him know that she understood what he was doing and that he could trust her. To her surprise he seemed to accept it – though he was always scrupulously careful to conceal from her the precise details of the information he auctioned while they entertained ambassadors, generals and even prime ministers at her apartment; and though she had tried on many occasions, she had never been able to discover the source of his information. What she did know was that he had connections in the corridors of power that went right to the very top, not only in Paris, but in London, Rome and Berlin. In these critical times, such connections could be extremely profitable. She also knew – as their dinner guests did not – that François’ patriotism was, to say the least, questionable: his dealings were often complicated, even tortuous, but ultimately the information he had for sale went to the highest bidder. And always before the information was handed over, François would graciously accept a munificent order for the unexceptional though perfectly palatable, Lorvoire wine. For a proprietor of vineyards, selling wine was the most natural cover in the world, and it enabled François to move about Europe without exciting suspicion …
Élise looked up. François, emerging from his thoughts, was getting up and walking over to the telephone. She had missed him these past ten days, and now his vast shoulders, arrogant, almost sinister face and powerful hands were arousing her in a way she couldn’t ignore. She took a deep breath and swallowed hard, trying to prove to herself that she could – if only this once – conquer her need for him, but as he turned and casually crossed one long leg over the other, resting against the back of a chair, she found herself moving towards him.
A flicker of surprise sparked in his eyes as he saw her standing there, then he smiled as he read what was on her mind. Her heart turned over at the rare expression of tenderness on his face, and already her breath was quickening as he lifted a hand and cupped it around her delicate jaw, drawing her to him. But as his mouth closed over hers, the telephone operator chose that moment to ring back, and he pushed her away.
‘Get me Lorvoire four-five-nine,’ he said into the receiver.
Élise’s carefully schooled features betrayed nothing of what she was feeling, but the fact that he was calling his home angered her. ‘I will give you all that I am able to give,’ he had said, ‘and it will be to you, and you alone, that I shall turn for fulfilment …’
There had never been any doubt in her mind that he meant what he had said, and he had never done anything since to suggest that his intentions had changed. In fact he had gone out of his way to tell her of his marriage plans before she could hear them from anyone else, and had even gone on to explain that the Rafferty girl was his father’s choice, not his – it was a marriage of convenience. She had been moved by his unprecedented consideration for her feelings, and so convinced of his aversion to the match that she had almost pitied l’Anglaise.
That was until she had laid eyes on the bitch.
She had never asked François for a description of his intended. English women all looked the same as far as she was concerned – buck teeth, rosy cheeks and sturdy thighs. But when La Rafferty had turned out to be at least six years her junior, and so breathtakingly beautiful that all Paris was talking about her, Élise had turned sick with fear and jealousy: Louis de Lorvoire always had known what he was doing, and in the choice of bride for his son he had remained consistent.
By way of comfort, Élise would remind herself of what François had said after his first encounter with The Bitch. ‘If it wasn’t that Beavis would consider it a great insult, I should ask him to remove his daughter from Lorvoire within the week. As it is, she gives me the distinct impression she has made up her mind to marry me, and seems quite undaunted by the fact that I find her not only superficial but lamentably immature.’
Despite her jealousy, Élise had found his predicament amusing, and had laughed aloud when he’d told her how Claudine had kicked his foot into the fountain. Obviously, Claudine didn’t have what it took to handle a man like François: a subtlety and cunning to match his own, and the ability to recognize his changing moods without registering any kind of emotional reaction. Claudine Rafferty was too gauche and too flighty even to begin to understand what was necessary to negotiate the darker side of François’ nature. But reality would hit her soon enough, and providing The Bitch wasn’t some kind of masochist, it wouldn’t be too long, Élise had told herself then, before she went scuttling back to England where she belonged.
But, to Élise’s horror, within eight days of meeting the girl François had come to her and demanded that she, Élise, pay a visit to Van Cleef and Arpels to select a ring of betrothal. She had chosen the ring, as she did everything François asked of her, with taste and care, but she had resolved there and then that, if ever it was necessary, she would not hesitate to betray him and let The Bitch know her precious ring had been the choice of her husband’s mistress.
When Monique had come to see her, two weeks before the wedding, to suggest that together they might somehow arrange to be rid of Claudine, Élise’s initial response had been one of enthusiasm. But then she had remembered François’ uncanny knack of finding out the very thing you least wanted him to know – and though he might not want the marriage with Claudine himself, he could not be guaranteed to find interference from other parties – in particular his ‘whore from Toulouse’ – acceptable.
But as the day of the wedding drew closer, Élise had begun to wonder if she had done the right thing in sending Monique away; their interference might have been welcome after all – for François was now almost beside himself with rage that the girl refused to pull out. ‘She behaves as though I am in love with her and refusing to believe it!’ he stormed. ‘What must I do to prove that I find her the most tedious woman it has ever been my misfortune to meet? God knows, I don’t want to be married at all – I don’t want a woman meddling in my affairs or wheedling for my attention – but if I must marry, why in hell did my father have to pick someone who is nothing more than a wilful, over-indulged child? I can’t understand why my parents are so ridiculously smitten with her. She’s a fool. She’s even fooled herself into thinking she’s in love with me.’
Élise was surprised. ‘You’ve mentioned nothing about this before. Do you really think she’s falling in love with you?’
‘It isn’t what I think, it’s what she thinks. Well, there’s only one way to make her see how ridiculous she is …’
That had been two days before the wedding. Then had come Claudine’s flight from the honeymoon suite – François had no idea Élise knew about that – followed by an early return from Biarritz. Clearly, François had achieved what he had set out to do and knowing him as she did, Élise shuddered at the thought of the methods he would have employed.
And yet, no matter what had passed between Claudine and François over the past ten days, Élise was still wary. It was a perverse truth that François’ unsightliness and his disdain only added to the power of his attraction. Claudine had certainly been strongly attracted before the wedding, even if she wasn’t now; who was to say that marriage might not revive the attraction – or even that François might not come to be attracted to Claudine? That was what frightened Élise more than anything else, for if she lost François she lost everything. As his mistress, she, the daughter of a Toulouse forgeron, was a member of polite society; she received invitations to the opera and the theatre, she was included on the guest lists for charity balls and excursions to the races at Longchamp. She would never, of course, be invited into the homes of the people she mixed with, but for now at least, it was enough that the men came to her apartment to meet François, and that her skills as a hostess were properly recognized. Often the men came when François was away, but there was never anything furtive or unseemly in their visits, they came simply because they enjoyed her company; the bachelors among them might walk with her in the Tuileries Gardens or take her for coffee to a pavement café in Montmartre. Élise took great pleasure in her popularity, for she had no close friends of her own. Since knowing François she had had no need of them – he gave her everything.
But what really mattered to Élise more than anything else – more than the friends François brought her, the clothes, the jewels, the success – were the hours they spent alone together, when the mere touch of his fingers could inflame her with such desire that she felt without him she might die. No man had ever done to her the things that François de Lorvoire did, and no man had made such demands of her. She had thought she knew all there was to know about the art of making love, but he had shown her ecstasy and she dreaded above all else to lose it. To lose it to Claudine … For if François were ever to make love to Claudine the way he did to her, it would mean only one thing, that he had fallen in love with his wife …
Élise, turning these uncomfortable thoughts over in her mind, had wandered from the drawing-room into the bedroom and now stood staring absently down at the bed. She was so deep in thought that she didn’t realize François had followed her until she heard the door close behind him.
She turned, and when she saw him standing there, his dark, unshaven face looking meaner than ever, her eyes began to shine with hunger. ‘What happened to the telephone call?’ she murmured.
‘It can wait,’ he answered, starting towards her.
‘You mean, you aren’t eager to speak to your wife?’
He laughed, and reached behind her to pull the clip from her hair. ‘As a matter of fact, I was calling my mother. Lucien is leaving Spain and returning to his regiment.’
‘Oh?’ She turned her head to kiss his hand as his fingers raked gently through her hair. Now wasn’t the time to pursue the implications of Lucien’s decision, so she only said, ‘You’ve seen Lucien since the wedding?’
‘I have,’ he confirmed, using his free hand to unfasten his collar. He smiled. ‘So you see, there was no need for you to be jealous that I was calling Lorvoire.’
She laughed softly. ‘You know me too well.’ And putting her arms around his neck, she tilted her face to his.
The touch of his lips was light, but it was enough to send an electrifying thrill through her body. She pressed herself against the hardness of his thighs, but he removed her arms from his neck and went to lie on the bed. It was her cue to undress.
For a while, as she peeled the clothes from the rounded curves of her body, Élise kept her eyes lowered, not wanting him to see her expression … If François had seen Lucien in the past ten days, it could only mean that he had left Claudine in Biarritz with the maid. And if he was telephoning his mother, it must mean that he had come straight to Paris – to her – leaving Claudine to return to Lorvoire alone.
Élise’s sense of triumph was intoxicating. It was highly probable, she thought, that Claudine was afraid of François by now, something which in itself would disgust him. She laughed quietly to herself. There seemed little chance now that this marriage would work – and she, Élise Pascale, was going to do everything in her power to see that it didn’t. For no matter how often François told her he would never marry her, she knew that in the end he would. And that would set her apart from all the great courtesans of France. Not for her the humiliation of being cast aside in preference for another: one day she was going to be the Comtesse de Rassey de Lorvoire. And though The Bitch presented an enormous obstacle, Élise Pascale would overcome it – by whatever means she felt compelled to employ.