Before the Storm (15 page)

‘I am taking you to one of the most beautiful houses in all France,’ Venetia said with a mysterious smile, settling back in her seat and putting up her yellow silk parasol. ‘It’s owned by a most adorable old gentleman, who has a terrible reputation for breaking the hearts of young ladies. He lives there with his beautiful daughter who has a habit of falling in love with penniless artists and his son, who is handsome and charming but, alas, too poor to be able to attract a wife.’ She lifted up a wicker basket that her maid had stashed on the floor of the phaeton and opened it to reveal a dusty bottle of champagne and three glasses. ‘Shall we?’

The carriage rolled through a huge weatherbeaten sandstone gatehouse then rumbled down a winding tree lined avenue which led to a small wooded valley, in the middle of which there sat a perfect white stone château that gleamed like a pearl in the bright spring sunshine. It sat on a small island, surrounded by a large still lake, its silvery surface reflecting the château’s myriad of lovely graceful turrets and spires.

‘Oh my.’ Clementine gasped as their phaeton continued down the sun dappled driveway then swept around the edge of the lake. ‘I think this must surely be the most beautiful
 
house in all the world. Who did you say lives here?’

Venetia winked mischievously. ‘You’ll see.’

The coachman drove slowly across a wide bridge that led to the main building and pulled up in front of a low sweep of white marble steps that led to the imposing carved entrance. A waiting footman darted down to greet them. ‘Welcome to Mon Clos,’ he said with a grin as he pulled open the phaeton door and helped them down. ‘Monsieur le Comte is waiting for you in the great hall.’

Laughing and smiling they followed him up the steps and into a huge old fashioned chamber with a beamed ceiling and tapestries hanging on the walls. Two elderly wolfhounds came up and sniffed them in a friendly manner as they walked across the echoing hall towards their host, their high heels tip tapping on the polished wooden parquet floor.

‘You are most welcome to my home,’ the Comte, a tall, handsome man in his middle years said softly, stepping forward and taking first Venetia and then Eliza, who he looked over in an admiring fashion by the hand. ‘I am so charmed that you could bring your friends to see me, Madame la Comtesse.’

Clementine lingered behind the others, enjoying the view across the lake from the hall’s huge windows and also feeling suddenly and absurdly shy as the Comte’s amused blue eyes swept over her. ‘This is my sister, Clementine,’ Eliza said, taking her hand and pulling her forward. ‘She loves old houses.’

‘Do you not have houses like this one in England?’ he enquired with a raised eyebrow.

Clementine blushed. ‘I am sure that we do, but none so beautiful,’ she murmured.

‘I am sure my son will be only too happy to show you around,’ he said with a satisfied smile, offering Eliza his arm. ‘He is in the garden with his sister. We had rain yesterday so they are making the most of the sun.’
 

They made their way slowly through a series of lovely, beeswax and rose pot pourri scented old rooms before finally coming to another huge door that led out into a beautiful formal garden that swept down to the lake. ‘My wife died several years ago so it is just myself and my two children who live here,’ the Comte said as they stepped out into the sunshine, the wolfhounds padding behind them. ‘May I present to you my daughter, Cécile and my son, Antoine.’

Clementine smiled up at the handsome young man who stepped forward to take her hand, only for her smile to slowly drain away when she looked into his pale blue eyes and realised who he was. ‘Monsieur,’ she managed to murmur before snatching her hand away and stepping back behind Venetia again.

‘Mademoiselle Garland,’ Antoine said with a smile that gave nothing away. ‘What a pleasure to meet you at last.’ He held out his hand to his sister, a pretty blonde who Clementine immediately recognised as the girl in pink from Lady D’Eversley’s ball. ‘This is my sister, Cécile.’

The girls exchanged curtseys before the Comte claimed Eliza’s hand again and led her away, leaving the others to stroll through the blooming parterres and admire the splendid view across the lake, where swans sailed elegantly through the still water. ‘I should apologise,’ Venetia murmured with a low laugh. ‘I intended it to be the most delightful surprise and instead the shock seems to have almost killed Clementine, poor love.’

‘Is it not delightful?’ Antoine asked Clementine, who walked in blushing silence at his side. ‘I must confess that I have been longing to be reunited with you in less awkward circumstances, Mademoiselle Garland.’

‘You didn’t mind that I was lying to you?’ Clementine asked in astonishment.

He laughed and offered her his arm, which, after a moment’s hesitation, she took. ‘Not at all. I thought it the most delicious joke and when Jules explained to me the reasons for such a stratagem, well, how could I not be charmed?’

She stole a sidelong look up at his profile, admiring the decided set of his chin, his full lips and the way that he wore his shoulder length dark hair loose. Small gold hoops swung from his ears, which made her think of pirates or Elizabethan adventurers. ‘I am glad that you found it amusing,’ she said. ‘I was worried that you would be scandalised.’

‘So scandalised that I felt it my duty expose your schemes, I suppose?’ He laughed and picked some lilac from a tree which he handed to her with a gallant bow. ‘Not at all. In fact I was at some pains that evening to cover your tracks - I told one confused lady that your mis-pronouncing of a certain word was all the rage at Versailles and another that I’d never seen you look lovelier in all the many years that I have known you.’

Clementine blushed and dipped her head to sniff the sweetly fragrant lilac blossoms as Cécile and Venetia smiled at each other and silently slipped away, leaving them alone together. ‘That’s not fair - Mademoiselle Violette is very pretty,’ she said.

‘Not as pretty as you,’ he said.
 

They paused at the edge of the lake and she gazed across at the swans as they bashfully dipped their heads to the water. ‘You are so lucky to live here,’ Clementine whispered. ‘I think this must be the most beautiful spot on earth.’

‘You are too kind,’ Antoine replied with a smile. ‘We are lucky though. Many people, my cousin Jules for example, would take all this beauty for granted but Cécile and I have always felt honoured by it.’ He turned to look back at the gorgeous little château with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘I could not bear to lose this place. It has been in my family for over two hundred years now and, God willing, will remain in our hands until the end of time.’

Clementine nodded silently, envying him the fact that he belonged to a place so completely, a feeling that she felt sure she would never experience for herself. She thought of Highbury Place with a smart of shame as she recalled its gleaming newness and the portraits that Mrs Garland had bought from auction houses, the remnants of other more aristocratic homes. Even if her father gave in and bought the country estate that her mother so desperately desired, it would be generations before they’d be accepted as its owners or even felt properly at home.

‘You are quiet, Mademoiselle,’ Antoine said, smiling down at her. ‘Is the sunlight too much for you? Would you like me to get you a drink?’ He gestured back to the house where several maids had appeared, carrying huge silver platters covered in carafes of wine and plates heaped high with delicious looking bread, cheese and cold meat. ‘We are more used to entertaining hunting parties here so I hope you weren’t expecting anything refined.’

‘Thank you,’ Clementine said, her stomach growling as she looked at what was to be their luncheon. ‘I am so hungry, I don’t think I care what I eat!’

After their meal, there was enough time to escape the afternoon sun while looking around the main rooms of the château before they had to return to Clermont. Clementine was enthralled as Antoine walked with her down the sunlit long gallery, telling her the names and stories of all the noble and occasionally roguish subjects of the full length portraits that lined the wall, until they finally came to stand in front of a glorious painting of a beautiful blonde woman dressed in shimmering black and white satin, her red, plump lips stretched into a wide smile.

‘This is Diane de Poitiers,’ Antoine said. ‘She was the first owner of Mon Clos and had intended it to be a hideaway for herself and her lover, Henri II. Sadly though, he was killed in a joust in Paris before they could take up residence here and, unable to bear setting eyes on it again, she sold it on to my ancestor.’
 

‘But her portrait remains here,’ Clementine breathed, staring up into Diane’s smooth white face. ‘How lovely she must have been.’

‘Yes, very lovely,’ Antoine replied with a wry smile. ‘I’m told that she was very fond of some rather outlandish beauty treatments although I can’t imagine anything more peculiar than the paints, powders and pigeon excrement face masks that you ladies today subject yourselves to.’

‘You are too harsh, monsieur,’ Venetia said with a laugh. She had sneaked up behind them in the gallery and now took Antoine’s arm in a flirtatious manner. ‘You gentlemen are all the same - you criticise we poor women when you think we don’t put enough effort with our appearance and then when we do amuse ourselves with such trifles, you are quick to mock us.’ She turned to Clementine. ‘Well, we just can’t win can we?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ Antoine replied with a low bow, before escorting them both back down the gallery again.

He stood with his father and sister at the entrance to the château as their pretty visitors climbed into their phaeton then, with much waving and blown kisses, rolled down the drive and then around the lake.

‘So that is the intended bride of Comte Edmond?’ the Comte remarked drily, lifting his hand in one final salute before turning away back into his house. ‘She is very lovely. Did you not think there is something Greuze like about her countenance, my son? Those melting blue eyes, that radiant peaches and cream complexion...’

Antoine smiled and linked arms with his sister as they followed their father inside. ‘I didn’t but now that you mention it, I can think of nothing else.’
 

‘I wonder if Madame Garland would think it impertinent of me if I wrote and suggested that she take Mademoiselle Eliza to sit for Greuze,’ the Comte mused as they went back out to the garden. ‘Really, I can imagine nothing more enchanting. Clearly she was born to pose with a dove clasped to her breast or woefully gazing upon a broken vase.’

‘I rather think that our dear Antoine was far too busy contemplating the charms of the younger Mademoiselle Garland to pay much heed to those of the elder,’ Cécile said with a sly smile.

The Comte looked surprised then knit his brows together. ‘The younger girl? My son, I hope that you have no ambitions in that quarter! She is a pretty girl, to be sure, but there was nothing exceptional about her.’ He turned away and fed some biscuits from his pocket to his dogs. ‘Why, I barely noticed her.’

Cécile gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Oh really, Papa!’ She winked at Antoine. ‘Although we all know that your tastes run to expensive pouty blondes these days.’

Her father frowned. ‘Mind your tongue, Cécile. It’s not too late to put you into a convent you know.’

‘Oh, yawn.’ Cécile poked her tongue out at her father. ‘You’ve been threatening to put me into a convent for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I wish that you would, just to bring this sad charade to an end. After all, it’s not likely that I will ever find a man wealthy enough to take me without a dowry.’

‘Convents require dowries as well,’ Antoine pointed out.

‘It looks like you are both stuck with me then!’ Cécile declared before dancing away.

Her father sighed then returned to the subject of Eliza. ‘Lovely as she is, I pity our cousins at Clermont if they feel reduced to this stratagem in order to restore their fortunes. I should be sorry indeed if you felt compelled to follow suit, Antoine.’ He sat down on a marble bench that offered a splendid view over the lake. ‘An English girl! The daughter of a London merchant who has no name that anyone has ever heard of and no illustrious ancestors that anyone cares about. It isn’t to be thought of.’

‘My God, father.’ Antoine was close to losing his temper. ‘We are up to our necks in debt and all you can dwell on is what some girl’s father does for a living.’ He sighed, thoroughly exasperated. ‘I would have thought that you would be happy if I could secure myself a rich wife.’

His father shot him a sharp look. ‘Rich, yes, but are there no girls of both wealth and breeding to be found these days?’

Antoine rolled his eyes. ‘Apparently not.’ He stretched his long legs out in front of him and gazed out across the lake, allowing the beautiful serenity of the scene to seep into his soul. He had always believed that there wasn’t much that he wouldn’t do for the sake of his family home, no sacrifice too great, but now he wasn’t so sure.

Chapter Fifteen

The heavy doors at the end of the Hall of Mirrors swung open and the hundreds of people crammed into the exquisite crystal and gold gallery stopped talking and yawning behind their fans and turned as one, desperate to catch a glimpse of the King and Queen and their dozens of splendidly dressed attendants and ladies in waiting as they went past on their way back from morning mass.
 

On their way to the chapel, the royal party swept past at a brisk pace, the ladies feet barely seeming to touch the floor as they glided along with quick little steps but their return was far more leisurely, as King Louis and Marie Antoinette took the opportunity to exchange pleasantries with favoured courtiers and visitors.