The chalky outline of the snail had nearly been obliterated from their play. There was still enough of it to determine who would be the winner and Isadora was certain she would carry the title.
The weather had cooperated with her wishes, keeping warm enough so they could enjoy the afternoon game. Though the gardens were bare of plants at the moment, the paved walkways scattered throughout were a perfect place to play.
Somewhere behind her, Minerva watched them from a stony gaze underneath her helmet with her wings stretched out like a priest’s hands in benediction.
‘Uh-oh, mademoiselle! Don’t step on Monsieur le Marquis’s square.’
The warning came from the joyful tongue of Jacqueline who stood by Dieudonné, cheering her on. Dieudonné had lost some time ago, though none of them had decided to tell him. Jacqueline had finished after him and so the remainder of the game was between herself and André.
Her tongue caught between her teeth, Isadora eyed where she needed to jump to. It was almost impossible to get to the centre of the snail, but Isadora jumped on one leg, advancing forward.
One of the reasons why she’d had such a hard time concentrating on the game was how transfixed she was by the change that had come over the Marquis.
André still wore his impeccable clothes, and his wig was still on his head. Yet, his waistcoat was now unbuttoned, and his jacket lay somewhere on the grass.
It was reminiscent of their time in the sauna, but much more sedate. She would have preferred to see him bare-chested and follow the trail of blond hair down the centre of his muscular body only to disappear tantalisingly into the waistband of his breeches.
Her cheeks warmed at her wanton thoughts.
Trying to take control of her imagination, which was becoming more and more vivid, Isadora shifted her mind to something else. More than his relaxed appearance, she couldn’t get over how different André looked.
The smile on his face seemed as if it wouldn’t ever go away. His lips stretched out, revealing his white, even teeth, while his eyes, usually either impenetrable or cool, were warm and bright.
Isadora jumped ahead two squares, getting ever closer to the centre of the snail. It was empty so she was able to use the chalk and write her initials in it, and thus claim it.
‘Ha! I shall win when I claim the most squares!’ she cried out in a triumphant voice.
André rubbed his hands together, his eyes gleaming with humour. ‘We’ll see, mademoiselle.’
She hopped backward, according to the rules of the game. On the last square, she took a leap. Unfortunately, as she did so, André was standing too close, and her jump made her crash into him.
There hadn’t been any chance to call out a warning because she didn’t know it herself until they collided. They tumbled together onto the soft grass, their legs and arms tangling within each other.
It took a moment for Isadora to catch her breath, but then it lodged again in her throat, when she felt André move against her.
Somehow, when he had fallen, he had pinned her body beneath his, flattening her breasts against the wall of his chest. Pinioned under him as she was, she couldn’t move.
Not that she wanted to.
Isadora had never lain with a man, something that Stéphane had made sure would never happen. Although she wasn’t ignorant of what went on between men and women, she had thought he’d done it because he’d wanted to keep her chaste for a man of his choosing.
Now Isadora knew it was to ensure the King was not offended. As such, she’d never been this close to a man in this way till this moment.
Forbidden pleasure coursed through her like the waves of an ocean. Through the layers of their clothes, Isadora could feel every inch of him along her body. His heartbeat thudded against her trapped hand, its rhythm steady and strong. His strong thighs forced her legs apart, as if he’d claimed the space between them. His legs tangled with hers like ropes on a ship, keeping her bound while his scent wafted up to her nose, a mixture of something earthy and lemony.
André was staring down at her and there was nothing Isadora could do to hide the excitement and desire she was certain he could see on her face. Why should she? They may not have acknowledged it out loud, but they were both aware of this attraction between them. They both, through an unspoken agreement, had decided to carefully bank this fire that now threatened to flame out of control.
His mouth was close, so close, she could feel the clean warmth of his erratic breathing on her lips. The pulse at the base of his neck pounded like a piston while his nostrils flared, and she knew he was scenting her as she supposed an animal did a captured prey.
‘Isadora,’ André groaned, and shifted. His hard manhood pressed against her through the barrier of his breeches, and she gasped, her eyes rolling in the back of her head at the delicious sensation. ‘Are you trying to test me beyond my control, ma bijou?’
My jewel. Isadora swallowed, knowing the endearment had been an unconscious utterance torn from his throat like a guttural cry. Still, she wanted to wrap her arms around his shoulders and draw him even closer.
Back on Saint-Domingue, she could remember the open displays of affection and loving on the island. It was as if the island itself lent freedom to its inhabitants. She’d known men and women of all races made love to each other underneath the open sky, or behind some building, or in one of the many palatial plantation homes.
It didn’t matter where the intimate joining took place. It was a sign that something as old and beautiful as sexual union could happen anywhere. Though she had been desired by many men, Isadora had never wanted it for herself till she’d met André that first day. No man had ever set her heart thundering or caused her to want to give herself to him in a fit of passion.
His mouth was right there! All she had to do was lift her head up and their lips would finally—
‘Tonton and I’dora fall!’
Dieudonné’s voice shattered the moment like broken glass. They both blinked, remembering their surroundings and that they were locked in a very intimate way on the grass.
‘André, can you move?’ she whispered.
‘Barely,’ he groaned. ‘If I stay here, I’m damned, and if I get up, I’ll be equally damned.’
A little smile lifted her mouth. At least she wasn’t the only one feeling this way.
Humour lit his eyes, as well. ‘I take it that pleases you.’
Before she could say anything, André pushed himself up and away. Instantly, Isadora missed his weight and his warmth. He reached down and pulled her to his feet with a single tug.
‘I did not mean to crush you, mademoiselle. Are you hurt?’
Isadora shook her head. ‘Non, monsieur. I am well.’
‘Tonton? I’dora well?’ Dieudonné looked at her, his childlike face creased with concern.
Thankful for the young boy’s intrusion, Isadora knelt and cupped his cheeks, glowing with healthy colour. He hadn’t had an asthma attack since their time in the sauna.
‘We’re fine, mon cher. Why don’t you play with Jacqueline?’
The young boy needed no further encouragement, and his tiny legs ran away.
Alone once more, neither said a word, listening to the maid and the child romp on the chalky outline of the game. A cold breeze blew, and Isadora shivered.
‘Why not go inside, mademoiselle?’
‘Non,’ she said too quickly. She didn’t want to leave his presence. Not right now, although she knew she’d soon have to.
André’s eyebrow arched into his forehead. When he spoke, it was to say, ‘Dieudonné’s enjoying himself. I wonder if he’d be as carefree back on Saint-Domingue?’
‘More than likely,’ she answered.
‘How different is Saint-Domingue from Paris?’
A sad smile lifted her mouth. ‘As the sun is from the moon.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘I would have thought your brother would have written to you about.’
‘It’s possible he did,’ André said slowly. ‘But I’d like to hear about it from you. There’s a bench nearby where we can sit and still be able to watch the others.’
Her face warmed with pleasure as she followed him a few feet away from the goddess statue and to a tall bare hedge in front of which rested a stone bench to sit on.
‘I’m glad that you are getting along much better with Dieudonné.’
‘I thought all he needed was my sense of duty to him as a member of the family,’ André told her, crossing his leg over his knee. ‘But truly, he is a delightful young boy. I spoke with my mother today and she thinks it’s best that I marry soon to give him a proper stepmother. And myself an heir, of course.’
Isadora stopped breathing. Then, when she could no longer do without air, she gulped in more. Carefully, making sure to keep her voice bland, she said, ‘It’s a good idea, monsieur. Dieudonné does need a mother. A woman who will care for him and treat him as much as a part of the family as you do.’
Whoever the future Marquise would be, she would have to treat Dieudonné as her own child. Isadora would insist upon it.
She? Insist? Who was she to think such thoughts? This wasn’t Saint-Domingue where she had sway over her own life. Here, in Paris, Isadora was nothing more than the governess. More than a servant and less than a woman of rank.
If anything, André’s future marquise would probably dismiss her from the premises!
Before she could respond further, mirth brightened André’s eyes. ‘Although, before I marry, we must find some other villain than the floor for me to conquer.’
Isadora winced in embarrassment, ignoring the twinge in her heart at the thought of his prospective bride. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to make the floor a villain. I was just trying to stop his tears.’
‘Now, even the servants are expected to vanquish the dastardly Monsieur Plancher.’
They both laughed, and the sound was open and free. Contentment swept over her.
Unthinkingly, she said, ‘I would have loved it if Stéphane had tried to play such games with me. It would have made my childhood, pleasant as it was, a bit happier. Alas! When he forced me to leave, those dreams died, never to return. But we mustn’t look back, must we?’
Isadora was smiling, but André couldn’t do the same. Not after he heard that.
Unable to keep the frown from his face, he asked, ‘What do you mean Baron de Beauchêne forced you to leave?’
Immediately Isadora’s mouth pressed together. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said dismissively. ‘There is no need to go into that now.’
She looked furtively around, as if she were trying to see if she were being watched or overheard. How odd, but it wasn’t enough to distract him from the conversation.
‘There’s every need.’ André insisted. ‘Now, explain yourself, please, Isadora. What did you mean?’
She pouted, looking no older than a small, spoiled child herself. ‘Must I tell you this?’
After what had just happened, how close he’d come to ravaging her in front of his nephew on the grass, he had to know why this woman should draw him like a moth to flame. Not even when he’d shared kisses with Édeline had he been so close to taking a woman without caring who was around them.
Granted, Édeline had never been as responsive as Isadora. She’d play coy, submitting to his kisses and caresses, but all the while planning to sell her virginity to the King for the title of royal mistress. Looking back, he wondered whether her reticence had less to do with maidenly nerves and a lot more to do with her natural, cold reserve. With an insight that came from three years’ separation, had he married Édeline, she probably would have thrust him out of their bed within a year!
He couldn’t imagine Isadora doing that. A man would crawl through broken glass for one moment in her arms. Isadora was flame—a brown, golden fire that burned with an intensity unable to be contained. He had nearly been scorched by her, tempted right up to the edge of his control.
Too late, a voice in his head whispered. Far too late for you to try to hide yourself from me, Isadora de Beauchêne.
‘Oui, you must.’
Isadora glanced away staring out into the gardens. Jacqueline and his nephew had abandoned the snail and were now playing among the many pathways. After a few moments, she spoke.
‘I hardly know where to begin.’
‘I find it’s always helpful to start at the beginning.’
An odd, humourless laugh erupted from her lips. ‘The beginning? What is the beginning?’
‘I don’t understand you.’
‘I hardly understand it myself. Perhaps I should start when my mother died.’
‘How did that happen?’
‘She was poisoned.’
André stilled. The lack of emotion in her voice astounded him. ‘Is that so?’
Isadora’s face looked devoid of all expression. ‘My mother’s name was Marguerite St John. She was an extraordinary woman. An octoroon with the sort of beauty to rival the fabled Helen of Troy. All men, no matter their status in life, or their race, wanted her. She had green eyes and peach-hued skin just kissed by the sun. Even as a child I was in awe of her beauty and felt blessed to be her daughter.’
She looked over her shoulder. ‘Creole women are known for their great beauty and are highly sought after as mistresses and lovers of the aristocracy. Among those on the island, she ranked far above all other women.
‘You must understand the nature of Saint-Domingue. Baron de Beauchêne is a Grand Blanc, or “Big White”. He is one of the few nobles that lives on the island. Most of the Grands Blancs choose to live here in France. He has a position that wields a lot of governmental power.’
‘Yes, I am aware. My family,’ André said slowly as snippets of a letter or two from Thierry crossed his mind, ‘retain a home there for which our workers are handsomely compensated to care for. The House of Godier detests the institution of slavery.’
Isadora gave André a considering look before she spoke again. ‘There are some there who hold a similar stance. Is that enough?’ Her shoulders lifted. ‘Only time will tell. Some people will always feel the need to rule over others to satisfy their own desires. If those kinds of people exist, someone will always end up being enslaved.’
André said nothing but waited for her to continue. After a few moments of silence, Isadora took in a deep breath.
‘My mother was also from a family of high standing and wealth among the gens de couleur. They owned two of the largest coffee plantations. Along with her wealth and beauty, she had sway among the gens de couleur, the free people of colour who were employed by the family, including Creoles and former slaves who had obtained their freedom.
‘In exchange for her autonomy, my mother became Baron de Beauchêne’s mistress and acted as a liaison between the gens de couleur and the Petits Blancs, the “Little Whites” or commoners. Although, I have seen second and third sons of nobles occupy that title, too.’
‘Why did she do this?’
‘There is unrest growing in Saint-Domingue due to the absence and neglect of Grands Blancs who live too far away to have any effect. The strain of the class divide between the gens de couleur and the Petits Blancs. White commoners wanting to be treated in the same manner as their noble counterparts. They hate the audacity that they occupy the same level of society as the free people of colour. And thousands upon thousands of slaves are still forced into servitude. How long can things continue as they are?’
Although André knew her question was a rhetorical one, still he said, ‘It is a witch’s cauldron, mademoiselle. It will soon boil over.’
‘Perhaps the Baron, recognising this early on, used my mother to his advantage. Due to her influence, she could keep certain factions of each party content and compliant.
‘It can hardly be said my mother loved the Baron or he her. They had a mutually beneficial arrangement that worked for them both. But other women have always wanted the position my mother held as his mistress, for it is a powerful and influential one.
‘A rival for the Baron’s affections came in the form of my mother’s closest friend, a woman named Sabine Maria Dimas y Cortez. For many years, Sabine used their close relationship to lure my mother into believing she could trust her. Then, four months ago now, Sabine poisoned my mother.’
Something knifed inside of André at the calmly spoken words. ‘How awful for you.’
‘Awful,’ Isadora agreed hollowly. ‘But not uncommon. After my mother died, Sabine admitted to the Baron what she had done, thinking that his taking her to bed was a sign of his approval and not simply lust. Upon hearing this, the Baron used his own power and influence, and Sabine hung for her crimes.’
‘How did the Baron force you to leave?’
A long silence accompanied his question. It went on for so long that André was tempted to ask it again. But he waited patiently. Then, in a small voice, he heard her say, ‘I thought all this time that the Baron was my father. He’d given me his name and I called him Papa for many years.
‘But when my mother died, he told me the truth. That I was not his illegitimate daughter, but he had done his duty to the person whose daughter I truly was.
‘It was quite distressing to hear that the man who had cared for me since my childhood wasn’t the man I thought he was. Moreover, to see a definite coolness in his gaze, as he looked at me, spoke to me.’
André could see the pain in her face as she continued, ‘Can you imagine what it must have been like to discover the love you had for another, that very thing upon which your life depended, never existed for the other person? I felt like that about the man I thought was my father.’
A vision of Édeline crossed his mind.
Oui, Isadora. I can imagine it very well indeed.
‘I had never been more than a duty to the Baron. An obligation. He was never cruel or unkind to me, but I can remember the distance between us now. The detachment of his interactions with me. After his duty was done, so was anything else he did for me.’
How much desolation was in her voice as she told her heartbreaking tale? André would have been the heartless man courtiers often accused him of being if he wasn’t moved by it. As a man who took his own duties very seriously, he found the Baron’s immediate desertion of Isadora after her mother’s violent and traumatic death reprehensible.
Duty did not end because of convenience. One did not shirk one’s obligations because you were tired of them. The gross harm done to the woman before him could not be overstated.
Almost as if she spoke directly to André, he could see and hear her thoughts. All her life, Isadora had looked up to a man who she thought was her father. To discover so cruelly that it wasn’t the case, that her life as she’d known it had all been a veil covering the truth, he could almost feel her devastation reaching across the divide between them.
She turned and faced him. ‘So you see, monsieur, why I have encouraged you so strongly to give Dieudonné more than just your sense of duty. Give him the genuine affection of an uncle who cares deeply for him.’
The silence crackled around them as Isadora finished part of the story which had destroyed her life four months ago. She’d only told the part that related to her alone.
‘I do understand and can sympathise with your pain, having lost both my father and brother.’
A watery smile came to her lips. Of course, he did.
‘Did he ever tell you who your father was and why he could not care for you himself?’
She gulped. Did she dare trust this man before her with her biggest secret? How she wanted to at this moment. The pain of keeping her emotions locked within her had been released with the utterance of how Stéphane had treated her and she was grateful that André had listened to her.
But it was too much of a risk to tell him the rest.
‘The Baron told me that it would be better to think of the man who sired me as dead, than as one who was interested in my welfare.’
Tears stung her eyes at the memory of those cruel words.
So enthralled by her own bubbling emotions, Isadora missed the sharp intake of breath the man before her had taken. She could only think of Dieudonné as she said, ‘For that reason you must be the anchor that your nephew needs, and—’
André cupped her face, shattering her thoughts. The touch of his skin against hers sent a shiver down her spine, and her heart raced with anticipation. As he drew her closer, she felt his breath hot against her skin, and her body responded instinctively, pressing into him.
When his mouth met hers, it was like a lightning bolt had struck her. Blood rushed to her head, making it spin. She melted into him, surrendering to the storm of passion that surged between them.
André’s lips explored every inch of Isadora’s with a practiced finesse that left her breathless. As he deepened the kiss, his tongue traced the contours of her mouth with a skill that made her head spin.
When he nipped at her bottom lip, she jerked in response, her senses exploding in a rush of slight pleasure-pain.
In that moment, all she could think about was André. His touch, his taste, his scent...they filled her senses until there was nothing else left in the world. Isadora was completely consumed by him, lost in a sea that threatened to overwhelm her.
Then, suddenly, André was gone. Isadora’s eyes flew open, and she stared up into his face, confusion etched on her features. His blue eyes blazed with intensity, and tension lined every part of his body. She struggled to catch her breath, her heart racing in her chest.
‘Why did you do that?’ she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
André opened his mouth to answer, but the sudden wail of a child cut off his words like a blade. Whirling around, Isadora turned to see Jacqueline’s frightened eyes darting back and forth between herself and André.
Dieudonné’s face had reddened with giant tears trailing down his cheeks.
‘I’m sorry, mademoiselle. I tried but—’
Isadora rushed over to where the young maid stood, holding the wriggling child in her arms.
‘Dieudonné, Dieudonné...shh, it’s all right,’ she cooed to the boy.
He clung to her, nearly strangling her as his tiny, but strong arms curled around her neck.
‘What happened?’
‘I only turned my head for a moment, mademoiselle. And he fell and hit his head on the ground.’
‘Take him back to the nursery,’ André said from behind her. Without warning, her heart rhythm increased.
‘No go,’ the little boy begged. ‘Stay with Dieudonné, I’dora.’
Her heart lurched in her chest at the anguish evident in his voice. ‘Mon cher, it’s all right.’ She placed several kisses on his face, using her thumbs to wipe the moisture from it. ‘I won’t go. I promise.’
When Isadora pulled away, she glanced up into André’s face, seeing him staring down at her. The memory of their kiss in her mind and, clearly, in his too. Softly, she whispered again, ‘I won’t go.’