One Final Night (4 page)

PART TWO

THE FINAL NIGHT

Chapter Four

I’ve only had to wait a week for my final night. He called me yesterday to let me know. Perhaps he feared I might pay him unsolicited visits or bombard his phone with lovesick calls if I had to wait longer. I have done neither as it happens, possibly because it is yet to sink in it that our relationship is over. I stuck to my vows to leave him in peace until he called, even though his silence burned. The thought of a life without him has been tempered by the flow of excitement regarding tonight’s events. The preceding days have crawled by with agonizing lethargy. Withstanding the urge to see him became an exquisite torture, a thrill that drove me to my room over and over. Why hadn’t I just waited for his call all those times, rather than turning up uninvited? I might still have been with him now.

Tonight he is giving a soirée for some ambassador or another, along with other dignitaries. It is ostensibly a business affair but, typically of him, he has spiced it up by making the event fancy dress. There is a loose theme of “Revolution and Empire”, so I’m envisaging countless cleavage-tumbling Josephines amongst the ladies, and a lot of military wear amongst the men, hopefully with tight breeches and leather knee-boots predominating. He relayed the details, but omitted to tell me what I was supposed to wear. The answer, it transpires, is nothing.

His car collected me at seven, just as his first guests would have been arriving for drinks and canapés. I was instructed to pour myself some champagne in the back seat, a glass or two of Salon to settle the nerves; still only the best for me. It was pitch dark when we approached, the chateau lit up by spotlights around the lawns and the lights of the lower floors blazing out into the darkness.

I was whisked in the back way, met by Patrick but hurried in through the noisy kitchens where the
grand repast
was being prepared, the plates of oysters piling up for the first course. I was kept to the servant’s corridors and the secret passageways that were hidden behind the panelled walls, taken through a creaking door to the foot of a gloomy set of steps. On the landing above, sat upon an ancient grey bench, was a dashing captain of the Royal Cuirassiers, complete with epaulettes and plume both in bright red, plus a spotlessly shining breastplate, and very tight riding trousers. It was him, of course.

‘Unsheathe your sword, sir!’ I called up to him.

I clambered up excitedly and he greeted me with a kiss on each cheek, no more than any of the other female guests would have got from him this evening, but then maybe it is hard to embrace someone lovingly when your breastplate is getting in the way.

‘No swords allowed tonight.’ He laughed. ‘I don’t want the Ambassador getting hacked to death before he’s even got his feet under the desk. He is, after all, such a dislikeable fellow.’

I noticed he hadn’t called me “
ma chérie
”, as was his habit. He had seemingly already set me adrift, despite the promises of the night. It was too much to hope now he didn’t want me that he would look ridiculous in his fancy dress. He looked irresistible. It was an exact copy – the original displayed in a glass case in the library – of the uniform one of his many proud forebears wore at both Austerlitz and Friedland. It made him look every inch the hero, but I already knew this. He bade me sit down beside him. It seemed an odd spot to meet one’s Waterloo, sat facing the wood panelling that separated this dim, dusty, undecorated backstage from the glories of the main house. It was cool and quiet but I could hear the clamour of a gathering coming through the wall. I suddenly felt very isolated.

‘So what of my night?’ I asked him.

‘Have a look,’ he said, and slid open a flap in the wood, letting two thin beams of light in through a pair of eye holes. It was one of those trick paintings that you see in spoof horror films, he told me, one where your eyes replace those of the portrait sitter’s, so you can spy on proceedings. From the other side the guests would see only a study of his great grandmother, and they would be wondering, as I peered at them through the panel, how it was that the old bat’s eyes were following them so closely around the room!

I pressed my face close and got my first view of the guests down below me, all munching on nibbles and swigging bubbly, the golds and blues and greens and creams everywhere on their fancy dress.

‘If anyone invades your party tonight they are in for a shock,’ I said, my face still pressed to the partition. ‘You’d think with over 30 generals present we might be able to mount some kind of resistance, although one of the Bonapartes does seem to have spilled salmon mousse down his front.’

I felt nervy, perhaps jealous too. In there was such splendour and jollity, but I was out here. I could almost smell the wealth seeping through the ancient timbers, and something else too, something
carnal
. It was in the closeness of the couples, eating the nibbles out of each other’s fingers, in the whispers and the glances. It was in the way the males stood with hands on hip and legs apart to best show off the tightness of their riding breeches, how they leered into the hoisted cleavages of the females.

There were naughty negotiations and secrets going on here; nearly all wore eye masks or held masks on sticks up to their face to help conceal their identity. I stopped watching with envy and began to feel the buzz inside once more. There was beauty and splendour here, and a confidence that was palpable. There were all shapes and sizes present, but the men were mainly tall, filling their tight uniforms in all the best places, while the woman looked elegant and were made extra curvaceous by the bones of their skirts and corsets. It was hard to tell ages, what with all the wigs and hats and masks being worn, but the men were upright and moved with poise, and the skin of the women looked white and smooth.

It was hard not to conjure images of myself at the mercy of a group of these gallant, masked officers. Is it possible to deduce whether a man is handsome just from his deportment and the set of their jaw? Probably not, but my instincts told me they were indeed all handsome, a fact they certainly seemed to go along with, hence their determination to flirt so outrageously. Many seemed to be vying for the attention of one in particular, a very striking female with blonde hair piled high and held with a jewelled tiara. They jostled around, trying to get her favour, stepping in to bow and kiss her hand. I noticed they respectfully tried their hardest not to gawp too long at the twin swells of her huddled, dove-soft cleavage. Most of them failed.

‘Who is the Marie Antoinette in the silver dress?’ I asked. ‘The one with the sapphire in her hair and the magnificent bosom.’

‘That is the Comtesse, easily the most beautiful of the three I know, which is why I invited her and not them.’

And beautiful she was, made all the more alluring by the thin band of black sheer fabric she wore across her eyes. It merely tinted her features rather than obscured them, being see-through, like a fine stocking material. I suddenly felt my breath flutter. Imagine being side by side with her with all these gentlemen around; two females whose looks my hero considered above all others, though her beauty was surely greater than mine.

‘Do I take it her husband is the tall lieutenant of the Imperial Carabiniers, the one with the Zorro mask and the rather fetching scarlet plume?’

‘No, she is estranged from her husband, much to the relief of so many of my gentleman guests – although they might not be quite so relieved if they knew the reason why. She is perhaps the biggest flirt in all Europe, which is why my friend David is sticking to her like glue. He is the tall lieutenant. When he isn’t charging into battle he owns a very successful charcuterie business. He has his eye out for a new mistress, so be careful of him.’

This was the first hint given that I might expect interaction with the guests. I immediately looked with a keener eye, trying to get a better view of standout individuals in case our paths were to cross that evening. He slid the flap back across the holes to draw my spying mission to a close.

‘So what of my night?’ I asked again, far more optimistically this time. He took my hand.

‘Patrick will take you to get ready. In the meantime my guests will dine, to finish at 9.30 sharp. The men will then briefly retire for drinks and also to strip ourselves of this nonsense regalia and get these stifling tunics off. This is ostensibly so we can move more freely when the dancing begins at ten, but it is also to get certain gentlemen a little more ready for action when the time comes. The dancing marks the start of the party proper. Full-face masks will be available to all, each identical, so that every guest can mill about and let their hair down and make as big a fool of themselves as they wish. It will also allow them to sneak away unnoticed.

‘For your part, you will be kept in the duke’s room in the guest wing. That’s the one you liked best when I showed you around, the one with the ancient four-poster bed made from Limousin oak. That bed was given as a present to the first of my ancestors to live here, over 400 years ago. It has to be that room because no one ever goes in without my say-so, not even other family members. And it has to be that bed because it’s the easiest one to tie you to.

‘My darling, this is your night to remember, and this is how I intend to honour you. You will be bathed and prepared, and then left in that room in total darkness with your wrists bound to the bedposts. Certain people – some guests, some staff – already know you will be there. Selected others, throughout the night, will also be made aware. They will be told that they may come to you at any time they please, and do to you whatever they please. They have been told you will take whatever they give you, without question, and I know that you will. None of them has an inkling as to your identity, other than that you are a good friend of mine. You, of course, will never know who paid you a visit tonight.

‘Because of the masks, they can come to you in perfect anonymity. Inside your room will be total darkness. The party downstairs will become very raucous and so your visitors will come to you will their blood already up. Be aware that no act is barred tonight, so a few will almost certainly take the opportunity to indulge in some of their ruder passions. The gentlemen will come to you as they are. Any ladies will be allowed to use the next room to prepare before entering by the adjoining door. That is the only thing you will be able to gauge about the occupants: whether they are male or female, dependant on which door they come through.’

I was already shaking. Even though he had intimated before it would be “as many as it takes to give you the perfect night of bliss”, and with all these handsome men on show, I hadn’t dared imagine that I was to be the focus of their rudeness, let alone that some of those buxom beauties might want to use me too. I wanted to snatch another look at the crowd. I needed to get better details, to study the women as well as the men so that I would know who came to me in the darkness. I made to slide the wood away from the holes, but he put his hand out to stop me.

‘It is time to get ready now,’ he said gently.

The shivering wouldn’t stop, from nerves as well as expectation. The prospect was enchanting, but it couldn’t stop the stage fright.

‘Won’t they want to know of my looks before they use me?’ I whispered.

‘They will know enough. They will feel that your skin is smooth and flawless and the flesh beneath it firm with youth. They will feel the softness of your hair splayed out upon the pillow. They will smell your sweet scent. They will form their own image; they won’t need any more. I could give this same treat to the plainest of my maids and she would feel exactly the same joy as you. Tonight is about being whoever you want to be, of doing whatever you want without having to feel even a second of guilt or shame about it afterwards. Tonight is about breaking barriers, about freedom of expression. It is time to be yourself at last.’

Before, it had all been speculation and fantasy, but now it was real and the enormity of it was seeping into my body.

‘Will David come? Will the Comtesse?’ I asked.

‘Rest assured,
ma chérie
, whoever you want to come, will come.’

It was comforting to hear him use that name again.

‘But
you
will come, won’t you?’

He just shrugged and smiled.

‘I will certainly know where to find you,’ he said.

And that was all I got from him. I didn’t even know if I would ever see him again.

Patrick took my hand and led me back down the steps and away. My emotions were tumbling; I could barely focus on my way through the maze of secret passageways. I felt Patrick’s hand at the small of my back, guiding me. His familiarity suddenly sent a rush of adrenaline through my body. Was
he
going to come to me? Was I going to have to take that huge thing inside me? Was I to be helplessly fucked by this very man, who even now was under orders to be at my beck and call? Even if his master hasn’t given him leave to do so, who would stop him from slipping into me under the cover of darkness?

On one hand I feel like a lottery winner, on the other I’m like the accused, waiting at the gallows. It would have been so much easier if I hadn’t known of my fate and hadn’t had to picture it for the last two hours. He assigned me a maid to help me prepare. Once in my changing room the door was locked behind me and the maid guided me to a chair, hustling around to get me settled and bring the food that had been prepared for my supper. I could barely eat a thing.

She was a petite, pretty little thing, the maid. I wondered if he actually even employed any
plain
maids – I was certainly yet to see one. I wondered how she would cope, that tiny body, with all those men coming to her. Would she feel the same joy as me, as he claimed? I almost asked her out loud what she thought about a group of dashing army officers, the very kind found so regularly in fantasies – and not just one of them but
as many as it takes 
– all there in leather boots and tight bright uniforms, all taking out their weapons to use on you over and over again. I was almost halfway through my bath before I could even gain a semblance of composure.