Lion of Languedoc (15 page)

Elise was happier than she had been for a long time. At last she had persuaded Léon to wait a little while longer before marrying her. The
Abbé
had been as shocked as she herself had been at the thought of her remarrying within weeks of her husband's death.

To her surprise and relief Léon had not argued. Another few weeks would make no difference. The urgency he had felt on first returning was now lost in a welter of emotions that he was powerless to understand. When Marietta, unable to stay away any longer from the drawing-room without seeming to display bad manners, had finally descended the stairs and joined them, he had turned his back on her pointedly, engaging the Duke in deep discussion.

Marietta licked dry lips and forced a smile in Jeannette's direction. Jeannette, even more curious about her son's and her guest's activities than Lili or Cécile, smiled back, patting the seat beside her. Raphael, ensconced with Céleste in the window, was unable to join her as he wished. Another few minutes and then he would have done his duty by Léon's cousin and be free to drink in the sight of Marietta, her red-gold hair brushed into a semblance of order, her simple gown transformed by her natural grace. Her feet, as always when they dined, were slippered in velvet as Céleste's and Madame Sainte-Beuve's. He preferred them bare, and felt a rush of heat to his groin as the vision of a completely naked Marietta arose before him.

‘
Please
say you'll do it for me,' Elise was saying, her small hand reaching out for Marietta's. ‘ It would mean such a lot to me. I shall never have the chance of such a gown again, not even if we go to court, for the Duke tells me that a gown of
point de Venise
would cost thousands of livres.'

‘But I couldn't, Elise. There isn't time.'

‘Then only the bodice. Oh
please
, Marietta! Please say you will.'

Marietta looked into the pleading blue eyes helplessly. How could she possibly make Elise's wedding gown after the scene that had just taken place between herself and Léon? Yet how could she refuse? To do so would seem churlish in the extreme.

‘I've seen the collar you made for Jeannette and it's exquisite.
Please
, Marietta. It would make me so happy.'

Marietta sought for an excuse that would be acceptable and failed to find one. ‘All right,' she said at last, ‘but I doubt I'll be able to finish a whole gown, Elise.'

‘Oh, the bodice alone would be enough. I could fit it on to a skirt of heavy satin.' She clapped her hands with joy. ‘Oh, Léon! Marietta has promised to make me my wedding gown!'

Léon turned to his future bride, a tiny nerve throbbing at his temple. ‘If it pleases you, my love.'

‘Of course it pleases me! It will be the finest gown in the whole of Languedoc. Oh you are kind, Marietta. I do wish you'd promise to stay in Chatonnay instead of returning to Venice.'

Léon kept his eyes determinedly averted from Marietta and the Duke, like so many others, began to wonder. Léon's reputation with women was notorious, yet the Duke; who had known him since he was a child, would have sworn that when it came to marriage Léon would have entered into that contract with loyalty. He had been right when he had said he was no courtier. The morals of the court might have suited Léon in his single state, but where his marriage was concerned he would be as old-fashioned as his father had been, loving one woman and one woman only. Yet he was sure he saw an agony of longing in Léon's dark eyes whenever they rested on the Riccardi girl.

Puzzled, he turned his attention to the fair-headed vision in ice-blue silk, receiving a smile that would melt the hardest heart.

‘What about some music?' Raphael asked, finally disentangling himself from Céleste's attentions. ‘ I've yet to hear that spinet play.'

‘It does, I assure you,' Jeannette said with a laugh. ‘There's nothing I would like better than to hear it played.'

Céleste longed to suggest that she should play, but she knew that if she did so, instead of shining in Raphael's eyes, she would only show herself to be a provincial. Her playing was not of a high enough standard for a man used to the accomplishments of court women.

Raphael's garter hose fitted indecently tight, bunches of ribbon at his knees and at the shoulders of his silk doublet. In his high-heeled shoes of scarlet leather Céleste thought him even more magnificent than the King himself, but his eyes were no longer on her. They were on Marietta, the question in them clear but unspoken.

Slowly Marietta rose to her feet. Why not? It would do Léon de Villeneuve good to see that the Riccardis were brought up as ladies of accomplishment. That he had made a grave error in treating her as a peasant. She felt a tightening of her stomach muscles as she approached the spinet. It had been ten long years since she had last played, not since her father had been alive and they had lived in comfort. She sat herself at Jeannette's spinet, every eye in the room on her. To all of them she was an enigma. If she could play, then the breeding she displayed in her every action would prove to be no play-acting. The Riccardis must have been as high-born as Marietta claimed.

Jeannette felt a sudden wave of apprehension and knotted her hands in her lap, whispering a silent prayer. Only Céleste and Elise were happily oblivious of the sudden tension. Marietta raised her hands, and the Duke's eyes narrowed speculatively. Raphael's willed her to prove to them all that Marietta Riccardi was fit to marry a de Malbré, while Léon's were unreadable.

The music came pure and sweet, every note perfect, and Marietta allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction as she heard the intake of breath around her: the Duke and Léon surprised, Raphael and Jeannette relieved.

‘Can we dance?' Céleste asked eagerly. ‘ Oh, please let us dance.'

The Duke, nothing loth, rose to his feet and held out his hands to Elise. Elise blushed prettily and accepted. Raphael had no option but to proffer his hand to Céleste.

With hands held high the two couples moved down the length of the vast drawing-room in the stately steps of a minuet. Apart, together, apart. The Duke felt like a man twenty years his junior. Reluctantly, as the music ended, he returned Elise to her future husband. Céleste remained firmly on Raphael's arm as Marietta began to play again.

Léon made a move to join his friend and cousin, but Elise protested with a little laugh and a flutter of her fan. ‘One dance is enough! I am quite breathless.'

The Duke solicitously poured her a glass of reviving wine and proceeded to tell her she danced like an angel.

Raphael, frustrated at dancing and not being able to hold Marietta's hand in his, asked Céleste if she could sing.

‘As sweetly as a nightingale,' Jeannette assured him and so it was that Céleste found herself given the opportunity to show off her own accomplishments, but only so that Raphael could dance with Marietta.

And Marietta did not tire as easily as Elise Sainte-Beuve. Refusing to let Léon see the pain he had caused her, she laughed and danced with Raphael, her velvet-slippered feet as light on the floor of the drawing-room as they were nimble in the kitchen garden. Raphael, eyes alight, laughed down at her. She was a delight; accomplished, graceful, passionate. A constant source of surprise and wonderment. He would marry her, and be damned with the sniggers of the court. They would stop soon enough when she had charmed the King and she would do that as easily as she had charmed him.

All too soon Céleste protested she could sing no longer and Raphael reluctantly parted hands with Marietta. He would propose tonight, he resolved. They could be married before they returned to Paris.

Léon escorted Elise to her carriage, placing a gentle kiss on the forehead of her upturned face. Elise felt reassured. This kind of attention she could submit to. The passionate kisses he had forced upon her earlier, and which had so frightened her, had only been because of the years they had been parted; a last remnant of his roistering days at court. They would not occur again. Elise felt happy at the thought.

‘I envy you,' the Duke said sincerely as Léon returned to the drawing-room and Elise's coach and six had thundered away down the drive. ‘She's utter perfection. You're a lucky man, Léon.'

A brief smile twisted Léon's mouth as he accepted the Duke's congratulations, his attention elsewhere. It was on Marietta and Raphael, who were nowhere to be seen. The torches flickered in the iron rungs on the wall, illuminating the passage in a soft light as Raphael de Malbré asked Marietta Riccardi to be his wife. She gazed at him uncomprehendingly, and he laughed softly taking her hand and palm upwards kissing it.

‘I've learnt my lesson,
ma chère.
No more trying to tumble you in the hay, only in a marriage bed.'

He drew her confidently into the circle of his arms, kissing her with increasing fervour. For a moment Marietta was so numbed by shock that she was unable to react, and when she did so it was to pull herself determinedly away from his embrace. Undaunted, he tenderly traced the outline of her cheek with his finger.

‘What a beauty you are,
ma chère.
What a sensation you will be in dresses of gold and silver at Versailles.'

She shook her head. ‘Versailles is not for me, Raphael. And I can never marry you.'

He smiled, his fingers moving to the softness of her lips. ‘Because your family is not known? You have said yourself that the Riccardis are noble and they are also beautiful.' His hands slid around her waist, pulling her close. ‘ Breathtakingly beautiful,
ma chère.
'

She said quietly. ‘I don't love you, Raphael.'

This time he paused, his eyes searching hers. It had never occurred to him that she would have been anything but delighted at accepting a proposal of marriage from a de Malbré.

‘That one of us is marrying for love is miracle enough,' he said at last. ‘ Let me assure you,
ma petite
, that once married and in my bed you will soon overcome your reluctance.'

She shook her head again but Raphael only smiled.

‘Sleep on your doubts. They will vanish like the night.'

Behind them could be heard the sound of approaching footsteps and Raphael, intending to kiss her once more, reluctantly let her go and turned to meet Jeannette's curious gaze. Marietta made her escape and Jeannette said with unaccustomed coolness, ‘ I hope I was mistaken in what I saw, Raphael.'

‘Indeed you were not, madame, but there is no need to distress yourself. My intentions are strictly honourable.'

‘They did not look honourable to me,' Jeannette said bluntly. It was bad enough entertaining doubts about Marietta and Léon, without finding her in Raphael's arms as well.

‘I have just asked your enchanting guest to be my wife,' Raphael said, enjoying Jeannette's look of complete stupefaction and then delight.

‘Oh, Raphael! That's wonderful! I've been so worried about her—where she would go, what she would do.'

‘She will go to Versailles, madame. As for what she will do …' Raphael's eyes gleamed suggestively, but Jeannette was too happy at having Marietta's future secured to scold him for his impudence.

‘Why such scenes of joy?' Léon asked as he approached them, his tunic jacket slung negligently over his shoulder and hanging by his finger, his shirt already open to the waist as he made his way to his bed.

‘Marietta is to marry Raphael!'

Too late Jeannette realised that her son might not share her pleasure in such a fact.

‘Is this true?'

Not a muscle of Léon's face moved. He was like a man turned to stone.

‘Quite true,' Raphael leaned against the wall, savouring the moment to the full. Léon should never have tried to ride two horses at the same time. Marrying the milk-and-water Widow Sainte-Beuve for respectability and keeping Marietta for enjoyment had been nothing but sheer greed. Raphael felt a sense of superiority for the first time over his friend. He himself didn't care a fig for respectability. He was going to marry her, and to hell with what the gossips said. For once he had shown himself more fearless than Léon.

‘Then I wish you well,' Léon said through clenched teeth, and without more ado nodded a curt goodnight to his mother and strode off down the candlelit passage to his room. Seconds later there came the angry slamming of a door that both Raphael and Jeannette pretended not to hear.

Later, leaving Raphael to explain his decision to his appalled father, Jeannette wrapped a shawl over her nightdress and tiptoed softly towards her son's room. They had to talk. She had to know what his feelings were. What was happening to change him from the laughing, devil-may-care son she had known into the brooding, taciturn figure that sat silently for hours staring into the flames of the fire?

His candles were lit, the light seeping beneath the door. Jeannette raised her hand to knock and paused. There came the distinct sound of a decanter against glass and the pouring of liquid, and then a chair fell as he stumbled across the room. There was no point in talking to Léon. He was too drunk to talk. Too drunk to see anything but the image of Marietta Riccardi—naked and abandoned in Raphael de Malbré's bed.

The next morning Marietta avoided both Léon and Raphael by summoning Lili and Cécile for their lacemaking lesson at an unusually early hour. The sun was already warm, drying the dew on the grass and promising another day of sun and endless blue skies. The village women had not yet appeared, and the orchard was unusually quiet as the girls bent diligently over their work and Marietta began to make the lace that was to become Elise Sainte-Beauve's wedding gown.

Cécile and Lili spoke softly between themselves from time to time, but Marietta became gradually unaware of them. A strange sensation crept over her as she gazed into the distance. She no longer saw the orchard and hills beyond, but the church of Chatonnay and Léon and his bride standing hand in hand, the bride radiant as she wore a gown of
point de Venise
lace, the relief so beautiful that it looked like sculpture. Her face was unseen, hidden by her veil, but she could see Léon clearly. Tall and strong, jet-black curls hanging freely to his shoulders, dressed in a tunic of scarlet velvet edged with gold braid, his knee-high boots gleaming, his sword at his side.