Lion of Languedoc (19 page)

The de Villeneuve wedding gown would never be finished. It had been a daydream of the future, not a vision. She would leave today, quietly and unobtrusively. She left the track, climbing up into the hills. Below her she could see the Montpellier road. Soon, very soon, a black-robed figure would ride that way towards Chatonnay, and when it did, she, Marietta Riccardi, would have to be far away.

She slipped from her mare's back, letting it wander freely as she sat in the shade of a giant tumble of rocks. A lizard ran across her path and she shielded her eyes against the heat haze. Surely that was Léon riding for Montpellier? Only he sat a horse with such ease and arrogance, and there were few stallions as distinctive as Saracen in Languedoc.

From nearby came a sound that drove all thoughts of the distant horseman from her mind. A sound that rooted her to the spot in a terror ages old, the unmistakable sound of a wolf.

‘Blessèd Jesu,' she whispered, scrambling to her feet. ‘Not that! Clothilde! Clothilde!' But the mare had sharper ears than Marietta, and was already dashing headlong down the hillside in a terrified frenzy.

Sweat broke out on Marietta's forehead. If she ran the wolf would pounce on her. If she was very still and it was not in search of food it was just possible that it would pass her by.

‘Holy Mary, Mother of God,' she whispered, ‘pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death…'

There came the soft thud of a heavy body jumping to the ground, and the threatening grey form of a wolf emerged from a thicket of trees. It moved towards her, its back arched, its coat bristling. Marietta screamed and continued screaming. Her only hope of safety was to hide herself in a niche of rock that the ravening animal could not penetrate. Feverishly she sought a gap in the tumble of boulders. Only smooth stone met her clawing fingers. She could hear the panting breath; could sense the beast only yards behind her. She turned, flattening herself against the stones, senseless with terror. Her screams rang out over the deserted countryside. Deserted except for one figure and Marietta, her eyes locked with those of the deadly animal padding towards her, was not even aware of Saracen galloping furiously up the hillside in a flurry of dust and falling stones.

She was powerless to move now. Threateningly the animal approached, nearer and nearer; crouching low on its haunches, preparing to spring.

‘Please Lord! No! Please Lord! Sweet Lord.…' Her heart pounded, the blood drumming in her ears. Had she escaped the flames for this? To be torn limb from limb by a fiend with slavering fangs and blood-red eyes? The haunches tightened, and she closed her eyes and gave one last scream.

She never saw him appear. One minute there was nothing in the world but the wolf and herself and the next Léon was there, leaping from Saracen's back with a dagger held high in his hand. The animal turned, springing viciously towards him, and Léon leapt at it, the knife plunging into the base of its throat. They fell together, the wolf still thrashing, man and beast covered in blood. Then, after what seemed an eternity, Léon rose unsteadily to his feet and the wolf lay motionless.

‘Oh, my God! Oh, Léon! Léon!' She threw herself into his arms, uncaring of the blood, uncaring of everything. ‘Has he hurt you? Are you all right? Speak to me, Blessèd Jesu, please speak to me!'

He held her so close she could hardly breathe and, still holding her prisoner, he asked, ‘Am I no longer
Monsieur le Comte
, to be kept at a frigid distance?'

She raised a tortured face to his. ‘How can you talk so? You know I didn't mean it.'

‘I only know what you have shown me, my sweet love. Contempt and scorn.'

‘No! It's you who has shown nothing but contempt. Calling me a trollop, while I … I.…' She faltered, aware for the first time that she was trapped in his arms and that he showed no signs of releasing her.

‘Yes?' he asked softly.

There was blood on his face and jerkin. She could feel its sticky warmth seeping into her bodice. He was hurt and bleeding, but all she could do was stay pressed close to him, her heart turning over as the dark eyes burned into hers.

‘While I loved you,' she said at last.

‘And I you.'

Her knees weakened and without his support she would have fallen.

‘Elise?' she whispered almost inaudibly.

‘Elise will be hurt, but not as much as she would have by marrying a man who does not love her.'

‘Oh, Léon, do you mean it?' She could hardly breathe. Her entire life depended on his answer.

‘I mean it,' he said huskily. ‘The men of Evray were right, you are a witch. You bewitched me the minute I set eyes on you and it's my belief you will continue to do so until death—and beyond.' He kissed her tenderly and then with increasing passion. Her mouth answered his with a savage joy, her arms around his neck, her fingers deep in the riotous curls.

‘Hell's light, what a fool I've been,' he said at last as he lifted his mouth from hers and stared down at the heart-shaped face that had haunted him waking and sleeping. ‘And to have it pointed out to me by a de Malbré! Will you ever forgive me, my sweet love?'

‘There is nothing to forgive,' she said, her mouth still sweet from his kisses. ‘You acted as you did out of honour.'

His lips curved in a faint smile. ‘Not completely. You'd make a saint forget honour,' and he kissed her again, this time with the hunger and the longing of a man long starved.

Her body yielded pleasurably against his. It was as if all his strength passed into her and she knew that never again would she be afraid. ‘The vision,' she said softly as his lips moved to her forehead, kissing the satin-smooth softness in a gesture of homage.

‘Only witches have visions,' he said caressingly, his eyes laughing down at her.

She shook her head. ‘Sometimes the good Lord gives them to those who pray.'

‘And what did you pray for, sweet love?'

‘For a husband who would love me so much that he would fight even a wild beast for me.'

He smiled. ‘Then your prayer has been answered—and not only wild beasts but witch-hunters and snakes. You've ruined more of my tunics than have ever been ruined in battle. And brought me nearer to death.'

Horrified, she looked down at the blood that stained his clothes, noticing for the first time the rents in his shirt and jerkin.

‘Oh! You
are
hurt. Why didn't you tell me?'

‘Because I was too busy kissing you,' he retorted truthfully.

‘Where is the blood coming from? Show me quickly.'

With a grimace of pain he tore open his shirt, revealing a chest scored by claw marks.

‘Blessèd Jesu,' she whispered, her eyes widening, and then she was spurred into action, staunching the flow of blood with her hastily discarded petticoat.

‘First my face, now my chest,' he said wryly.

Her eyes were anguished. ‘I didn't mean to mark your face like that. Truly.'

‘Or get chased by witch-hunters and wolves?'

‘Of course not.' She was indignant.

‘I think I would prefer to make love to you away from the carcase of that wretched animal, and in more comfortable surroundings. Where is your horse?'

‘The coward ran off.'

‘She'll find her way home. Let's mount Saracen. After all, he is quite used to carrying the two of us.' And with his arm tight around her waist they walked to where Saracen waited. With a wince of pain Léon vaulted into the saddle, and Marietta swung herself up behind him, her arms around him, her head against the broadness of his back, just as it had been in their flight from Evray.

Neither of them remembered the witch-hunters in Montpellier, or Céleste gaily meeting Elise Sainte-Beuve's wedding guest and prattling artlessly about the beautiful newcomer at Chatonnay.

‘Did you truly love me from the minute you set eyes on me?' she asked, her lips pressed close to the thick black curls.

‘Ever since you so graciously slapped my face,' Léon affirmed, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth despite his pain. ‘And what of you, my sweet love? Since when did I cease to be so objectionable to you?'

She nuzzled her head closer to the glossy curls. ‘You have never been objectionable to me, Léon. Never. I've loved you ever since the night at Evray when you called me an old beldame!'

Despite their predicament; the blood that was drying on her bodice and clotting on Léon's jerkin, there was a hint of laughter in her voice. She would bathe his wounds in brandy the minute they reached Chatonnay. Léon was strong; he would suffer no ill effects from his duel with the wolf. And he would be hers for ever and all eternity. The claw marks would leave scars but they would be a constant reminder of the moment their love had been acknowledged.

She sighed, and it was the sigh of a truly happy woman. One who wanted nothing else in life but that which she held in her arms.

‘And may a man ask his future wife why she loves him with such devotion?' The expression in his voice made her heart race.

‘It isn't because I would be lonely without you. I had already faced up to a life for ever on my own. It isn't because I want to be a Comtesse. It isn't even love for love's sake. It is because you are in my heart and in my blood. You are part of me, Léon. You will always be part of me. I love you because I cannot help it.'

Léon's throat constricted as he covered her hands with his. They were of the same spirit: as wild and as free as the hawks they had flown together with such joy. His dream of life at Chatonnay would come true. His sons would hunt and hawk at his side, as would his wife. The love between them would be their fortress and their peace.

‘I love you, Marietta Riccardi,' he said huskily, and then Saracen was walking gently over the wooden drawbridge and already Jeannette was running towards them, her eyes glazed with fear at the sight of her blood-soaked son.

‘What has happened? Who has hurt you? Oh, Léon!
Léon!
' Her last cry held a familiar note of exasperation and Léon grinned, remembering it from the days of his childhood, from the days when he would return bloodied and bruised from fights with the village boys.

‘It's all right, Mother, it isn't half so bad as it looks. Mere claw marks. Nothing more.'

‘
Claw
marks?'

With his arm around Marietta's waist Léon walked into his home. For the first time it occurred to Jeannette that he wasn't holding on to Marietta for support, and that he was quite capable of walking unaided.

‘A wolf,' he said negligently as the Duke and Raphael forgot their usual elegant nonchalance and broke into a run to meet him as he entered the hallway.

‘Only one?' Raphael asked drily, noting the way Léon's arm rested tightly around Marietta's waist and the way her cheeks were flushed and her eyes radiant with happiness. So his sacrifice had been worthwhile. Léon had wasted no time. The little Riccardi was happy at last.

‘I'm afraid so.' Léon answered with a grin. ‘Perhaps a whole pack would have been more theatrical, but one was quite enough, I assure you!'

‘I need hot water and bandages and brandy and the bottle with coltsfoot mixture,' Marietta was telling a wide-eyed Cécile, ‘ and quickly, or infection will set in.'

‘Or love,' Raphael said in an undertone as Léon allowed him to give him some support as he climbed the stairs to his bedchamber.

‘That set in long ago, as you well know.'

The two grinned at each other—the animosities and jealousies of the last few days forgotten. The Duke and Jeannette stared after them, appalled. Léon's arm was still tight around Marietta's waist, and there was a proprietorial air in the way she had ordered Cécile to fetch bandages and lotions—and she entered his bedchamber with him as though she were a wife.

‘Blessèd Mary,' Jeannette whispered, her concern at the wolf paling into insignificance beside the new one that now beset her. ‘What is to be done now?' and she picked up her skirts and hurried after them up the stairs.

The Duke's fine-featured face was hard. He had left Léon's bride-to-be only an hour ago, and where had Léon been? Not in Montpellier as he had said, but cavorting around the countryside with the red-haired chit who had already enslaved his son. He turned abruptly to the drawing-room and a glass of wine. Léon could bleed to death for all he cared. He was hurting the angelic Elise, and for that Henri would never forgive him.

The remnants of jerkin and shirt had already been eased off by Raphael and Marietta by the time Jeannette breathlessly entered the room. At the sight of her son's lacerated chest she gasped, paling so that Raphael thought she would faint.

‘A chair, madame,' he said, crossing hastily to her and seating her against her will. ‘ There is nothing for you to do. Marietta will see to everything.'

‘Yes.' Dazedly she watched the tableau in front of her as Cécile and Lili hurried in with hot water and bandages and the brandy and coltsfoot lotion that Marietta had asked for. She watched the expression in Léon's dark eyes as they rested on the heart-shaped face and concerned green eyes, the tender way in which she bathed his wounds. His hand rising to touch her cheek; her hair. It was as if no one else was in the room with them.

Jeannette's head ached. What had happened since yesterday, when Léon would scarce speak two civilised words with Marietta? Why was Raphael, so proud where his honour was concerned, displaying no anger at the open tenderness between her son and the girl he was to marry? Not tenderness, she corrected herself: love.

The wounds were bathed in brandy, washed clean, and dressed in bandages soaked in coltsfoot lotion. Léon looked hardly the worse for his bloody encounter. In fact, he looked better than he had done since he had returned home. His hand, now that Cécile and Lili had been despatched with empty bowl and bottles, tightly held Marietta's. Jeannette rallied herself.