10

I RAN BACK ALONG THE DARK CORRIDORS to my room and, once safely inside, I threw up into the washbasin.

My stomach lurched and my head ached. I lay down on the rug in front of the fire and waited for the pain and nausea to pass.

Anger surged through me. I wanted to find a knife, a big long cane knife, and chop Alexandre and the hateful woman Laure to gory pieces. I wanted to kill them with a glance like a quimboiseur. I wanted to put poison into their food, the food they no doubt shared from a single plate, while lounging naked in their big bed.

Murderous images flashed through my mind as I lay there on the rug, hot tears running down my cheeks. They had humiliated me, my husband and his mistress. They had no regard for me whatever. They were content to ruin my life, just so Alexandre could have his inheritance.

The thought that, for most of the past year this blond woman had been carrying Alexandre’s child made me furious. He loved her, she was bearing his son—and all the while he was cynically bargaining with my father to make me his wife. Did my father know all about Alexandre and his mistress? Clearly Aunt Edmee knew. That was why she protested when Alexandre told the coachman to take us to Milizac. Who else knew? My mother? My grandmother?

My nausea passed but the anger I felt persisted. When Alexandre came into my room the following morning, before I had completed my toilette, I unleashed my fury.

“How dare you deceive me about that woman? How dare you marry me, in church, in front of God and all his saints, when you already have a wife in all but name? Wait till I tell my father! And Scipion! They will avenge me!”

I wrapped my thin dressing-gown tightly around my waist, suddenly aware of my state of undress. Alexandre had never before seen me without a gown, or with my hair as it was now, loose and falling in waves down my back. I felt my face grow hot as I spoke, and knew that my cheeks were pink and flushed.

Alexandre leaned against a table, his grey eyes appraising me coolly.

“I blame Edmee,” he said at length. “She should have prepared you.”

“Prepared me for what? For being an unwanted legal wife when you already had a family with your mistress? For being humiliated?”

“For your role as Vicomtesse de Beauharnais.”

I had never before heard my new name pronounced. It startled me.

“Let me instruct you, as no one else seems to have thought it necessary to do so. Lesson one, Madame la Vicomtesse is always agreeable, good-tempered, with a sweet disposition.”

He raised himself up and began slowly circling the room, arms folded as if in thought, speaking to me in measured tones as he paced.

“Lesson two, Madame la Vicomtesse does nothing to create discord. She never complains. She never criticizes. She is gracious to everyone, especially her husband, whom she admires and to whom she is grateful for giving her his exalted rank.”

I swore then, repeating a foul curse I had often heard in the marketplace in Fort-Royal.

Alexandre went on, unperturbed. “Lesson three, Madame la Vicomtesse never soils her lips with vulgar language. And lesson four—” he came over to me and reached for the ties of my dressing gown, slowly pulling on them until the gown fell open. I wore very little underneath. I felt mesmerized, unable to resist. Even as he was doing this I thought, why am I permitting this intimacy? Why don’t I scream at him to stop?

He appraised my body coolly, then pulled the gown back into place.

“Despite your uncouth manners, you are not without appeal. There are times when I must be apart from Laure. And much as I am attached to the son I have with her, he cannot inherit my future title or my estate.

I must have another son, and you must be his mother. All this,” he concluded, “dmee should have explained to you.” He paused, and raised one eyebrow inquiringly, as if seeking confirmation that I had understood what he said.

I was still seething with anger, but it was no longer a hot, blind fury. While I listened to Alexandre it had congealed into an icy fury.

“What I now see,” I began quietly, “is that the arrogant, hateful boy I knew in Martinique has grown into a selfish, callous man. A man I can never love or honor. I have pledged myself to you, but I regret it. Oh, how I regret it! And if I should, one day, bear you a son, I will pray every hour that he grows up to be nothing like you!”

He shrugged and left the room. I was shaking, and felt a chill. I called Euphemia, who warmed my sheets and put me to bed with a bladder of hot water. I told her what had happened, and she listened, rolling her eyes and clucking her tongue.

“Men think they rule the earth,” she said, shaking her head, when I finished. “Especially Grands Blancs.” She thought for a moment. “Why couldn t you have married that good Monsieur du Roure, the one that was so kind to us on the ship? Maybe you should have gotten a love potion from Orgulon after all. What do you think?”

“I think, Euphemia, that I should never have left Martinique.” And with that I cried, my anger having at last given way to pain.