New World, New Love (36 page)

Still without looking up, he stopped writing and put down his quill. Then he sat back in his chair, crossing one leg leisurely over the other, and eyed her coldly. ‘I don’t remember the name, but it’s possible.’

His bland acceptance of her knowing the awful truth about him caused her to take a step back from the desk in revulsion. ‘Have you no conscience about their lives, and others that were lost – some of them children – through your actions?’ she exclaimed incredulously. ‘No repentance?’

‘Of course not. It’s all in the past now. I began giving my support to the Revolutionary cause as a precautionary measure when the future of the monarchy began to be in doubt. If I hadn’t taken that step and afterwards proved my worth by doing what was required of me, I’d have gone to the guillotine with all the rest. As it was, I had a lucky escape when eventually something I did upset someone in power. If that accident with the tumbril had not happened, I’d have been in an unmarked grave somewhere now, minus my head.’ He took up his quill again, raising an inquiring eyebrow. ‘Is there anything else you wish to know?’

She put a hand to her throat and answered him in a voice taut with horror. ‘How am I to endure living under the same roof with you?’

He grinned. ‘We can solve that matter when your old aunt dies. There will be a fortune that you’ll not be able to keep from me and I’ll be off to live in Paris for the rest of my days, visiting this château only when it suits me. You can stay here and rot!’

His laugh followed her out of the room. Out in the hall, she shook her head wearily and went slowly up the stairs. The duchess had described him as a monster. It was an apt description.

Although Fernand returned to his writing, something about Louise niggled at the back of his mind. She had looked very pale, but their confrontation could have caused that. No, there was still more that had not been as usual. Then realization hit him. She had been in black, a colour she never normally wore by day or evening, and black ribbons had been fastened to the coil of her luxuriant hair high at the back of her head. She was in mourning!

He flung down the quill and knocked his chair over as he sprang to his feet. Out in the hall, he shouted to the timid little maidservant, Isabelle, who was adding water to a vase of flowers, ‘Where’s your mistress?’

She gulped at his red-faced rage and pointed upstairs. He charged past her up the flight and along to Louise’s bedroom. Flinging open the door and then slamming it shut behind him, he faced her where she stood, halfway across the room.

‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ he snapped angrily. ‘That’s why you were in Paris this time! The old bitch has finally gone. Why didn’t you tell me in the library instead of raking up the past? How great is her fortune? How much land? What properties? Answer me, damn you!’

Louise spoke quietly. ‘She has left a large fortune, or it will be when everything is sold, because, apart from her jewels and some other small things kept for me, that is what she wanted.’

‘What about the mansion on the Rue d’Anjou? I went specially to take a look at it one day when I was in Paris. It will suit me very well as my city residence.’ His anger had subsided and, rubbing his hands gleefully, he began pacing about the room with a buoyant step.

‘That is to be sold too.’

‘No matter. I shall buy it. Quite apart from it being one of the finest houses in Paris, it will amuse me to live there. It will be my revenge on the old bitch for not giving me as much as an English penny when I called on her in need.’ He stopped to face Louise with his feet apart and his hands resting low on his hips in a triumphant stance. ‘How long did the lawyers think it would take to settle the estate?’

‘It will take quite a while, but nothing is yours, Fernand. My aunt left her fortune to me, for which I’m intensely grateful. Debts can be paid, the vineyards expanded, and improvements to the land will provide much-needed employment for more people in the area.’

He dismissed her words contemptuously. ‘You’re my wife. You can’t make any decisions about the money! It becomes mine by right of the laws of marriage. It was only the craftiness of your father that stopped me acquiring your inheritance when we married. But it is different this time.’

She steeled herself for his wrath, which she knew would come. He was between her and the table by the bed where she kept her pistol, and she could not reach it. There was nothing else within reach by which she could defend herself if he should react violently.

‘No, Fernand. My aunt’s will prevents you from having a single franc. When all is sold, the money will be tied up in trusts that you cannot touch.’

The ugly colour had soared back into his face, his eyes narrowing into glittering slits. ‘That’s not possible! You are lying!’

She shook her head. ‘It’s the truth.’

‘I shall contest the will in court!’

She shook her head. ‘My lawyer assured me that it would be pointless for you to even try.’

He was shaking with temper, his fists balled at his side, his voice thick with rage. ‘You dare to speak to me of conniving with some crooked lawyer behind my back! I, your husband, who could throw you out of this house now with only the clothes you’re wearing.’

She ignored his threat, for the château was hers to live in or to dispose of as she wished, but she was desperately afraid of what he might attempt in his rage. ‘I have told you how some of the money will be spent, and I have other plans too!’

‘You’ll do nothing with it! You will sign everything you have inherited over to me!’

‘I refused to do it in the past and neither shall I do it now.’

‘You had the Queen’s protection then, but that’s gone long since. You’ll do as I say!’

‘No!’

He lunged at her, seizing her arm and twisting it behind her, making her scream with pain, his face close to hers. ‘I’ve had enough of not being the true master in this house, with your locked doors and penny-pinching ways! From now on you’ll do what I want, even if I have to beat and starve you to my will!’

She screamed again as he twisted her arm still further, holding her in such a grip that she could not escape. Kicking and struggling, she beat and clawed at him with her free hand, but he grabbed it. Thrusting it behind her, he was able to hold both her wrists in the iron grip of his left hand, and he punched her hard in the left breast, grinning savagely as she shrieked out, almost fainting from the pain. He was not going to disfigure her face. That had been a mistake last time and had sent rumours circulating. It would be an even bigger error now, for she was friendly with too many people of importance in the district and he had his own reputation to consider. Better to cause her pain where bruises were hidden, and he knew many other ways that would pleasure him as much as they would torment her. He punched her again on the other breast, followed by another in the stomach, before releasing her as she sank to her knees on the floor, almost fainting with pain.

He put a hand under her chin and tilted her agonized, tear-wet face upwards as he looked down at her. ‘Now you’ve had a taste of the treatment you’ll receive if you don’t sign your aunt’s money over to me as soon as everything is settled.’

Her head sank down again. As yet she could not move, holding a hand to one throbbing breast while her twisted arm hung limply. She feared it was broken. Before leaving the room he went in turn to the small tables, one at each side of the bed. He found her pistol and ammunition in the drawer of the second one.

‘I’ll take charge of this, Louise. You’ll have no need of it. I shall not come to this room again until your aunt’s estate is settled. But if you fail to sign immediately the papers that my lawyers will have ready, that is another matter. Think about it carefully. You have a desirable body. It would be a pity for it to become one that no lover would ever want.’ He went from the room.

For a while Louise could not move. Then she managed to crawl across to the bell-pull by her bed and reached up just high enough to tug it.

It was Isabelle who heard the bell ringing in Josette’s room, but knew the lady’s maid was outside in the grounds, so went to find her. Recently a new good-looking gardener, named Barnard, had taken the place of an elderly one who had retired, and he and Josette had become attracted to each other. As Isabelle had expected, she found them together, Josette watching him as he worked.

‘You’re wanted!’ Isabelle called as soon as she was within earshot. ‘Madame is ringing her bell.’

‘At this time?’ Josette questioned in surprise as she and Isabelle fell into step in the direction of the château. ‘Perhaps she has lost something.’

‘The master has been with her. He went up to her room in a terrible temper. I was as scared when he shouted at me as I was on the day the foreigner came. He was in an awful mood then too.’

Josette had increased her pace, certain there had been trouble. ‘I don’t remember any foreigner coming.’

‘It was when you and Madame were in Paris. Not the last time, but one of the times before. It was a gentleman from the New World.’

‘An American?’ Josette came to an abrupt halt, taking Isabelle by the shoulders and giving the surprised girl a shake. ‘Think now! What was he like?’

As she listened to Isabelle’s description, she was certain it was Daniel Lombard who had come in their absence. She almost groaned aloud. What a cruel trick of fate that he should have come so far and then her mistress had not been at home. But she could not tell her. It would be too cruel on top of all else that the poor woman had had to endure.

She flew into the house and up the stairs. Louise was still lying on the floor, unable to move, but raised her eyes gratefully as Josette rushed to her.

L
ouise’s arm was not broken, but so badly strained that she had to wear a sling until eventually the pain subsided. Fernand made a visit to Paris, where he went first to consult his own lawyers, who emphasized that his wife’s signature on a document surrendering everything to him was the simplest solution. Otherwise there could be months of costly litigation in the courts, with no guarantee of success unless he could prove that his wife was mad. It gave him food for deep thought. There were ways of making a woman appear out of her mind that were sufficient to make a bribed doctor certify her for an asylum. But he hoped it would not come to that, for she did manage the château and its estate most efficiently. He might be swindled by anybody else.

He estimated that it would take some months for everything in the will to be sold and settled. After three months he did not absent himself from the château again for any length of time, determined to be at home whenever Louise’s lawyer should come to see her. He had his own document, drawn up by his lawyers, ready for her signature.

Louise found Fernand’s constant presence a daily ordeal. They passed each other on the stairs without a glance and, since his brutality against her, they had never again eaten in the same room, except, under some social obligation, in the presence of others. When she entertained, it was to hold all-female gatherings for card parties, musical evenings and literary afternoons, when a chosen book was read aloud. Most people guessed that the marriage was in crisis, but it was not an uncommon state of affairs and little notice was taken. Only Rose knew the cause. Had others known of Fernand’s betrayal of his own kind, all doors in the district would have been barred to him.

After four months, a courier from the American Embassy in Paris arrived to deliver a letter to Louise personally, refusing to give it to a servant. As she directed the messenger towards the kitchens for refreshment, Fernand came hurrying to see what she had received.

‘Is it from your lawyer?’ he demanded eagerly.

‘No, it’s a letter from Alexandre,’ she replied calmly, letting him see it was from America while ensuring that he did not snatch it from her. ‘When I was in conversation once with the American Ambassador in Paris, I said how often letters were lost between our two countries. He kindly agreed to include correspondence from me in the next diplomatic bag carried to Washington by one of his couriers, who would arrange personal delivery. So, I gave him a letter for Alexandre. It was most kind of the Ambassador to have the reply given right into my hands.’

Fernand gave a grunt. He had already lost interest and turned away. She went swiftly up to her room and locked the door before she opened the letter. After reading it through, she gave a sigh of satisfaction before putting it away in the secret compartment of her jewel case.

Three weeks later, when Monsieur Terain arrived just before midday one morning, Fernand was the first to greet him.

‘You have had a long and tiring journey, monsieur,’ he said, anxious to get the lawyer out of the hall and into the library before Louise was informed of his arrival. ‘A glass of wine while we discuss business?’

‘Thank you, but I stayed overnight in Bordeaux and I’m not in the least tired. Nevertheless, a glass of wine would be welcome. But I’m here to see the marquise.’ Then his face lit up as he saw her appear at the head of the stairs. Turning away from the threshold of the library, he went to greet her, bowing over her hand when she reached the foot of the flight.

‘I have no objection to my husband being present,’ she assured him as Fernand stood stolidly in the doorway of the library. The lawyer showed no surprise, having been forewarned what to expect in a letter from her. He sat at the library table, since he had papers to show her, and she and Fernand sat opposite.

‘How much?’ Fernand demanded at once, tapping his fingers impatiently on the wooden arms of his chair. ‘What’s the total figure?’

‘All in good time,’ Terain replied coolly. He then proceeded to go through receipts and papers dealing with the sales of everything Violette had owned. Fernand became more and more elated as the total figure rose in leaps and bounds to culminate in a fortune beyond even his expectations.

All the time, the lawyer had addressed Louise as if they were on their own. ‘That is the total figure,’ he concluded, indicating where it was written down.