Bitter Greens (36 page)

He shifted lower, his tongue finding a winding path towards my cleavage. I pressed both hands into his cropped curls, stopping his slow descent. ‘I don’t believe that was part of our wager.’

He groaned. ‘Charlotte-Rose, you are cruel. Lovely and cruel. Won’t you let me … just a little taste …’

I shook my head.

‘Another game?’ He hoisted himself up on his elbow so he could play with the dark ringlets coiling over my shoulder.

‘I had better not. My family’s good name, you know.’

‘Just one round? My perfume, wagered against …’ He paused and drew his hand in a rapid motion down my shoulder to my breast.

I shook my head. He leant closer, kissing my mouth, my cheek, my neck, sucking gently on the lobe of my ear. I tried to turn my head away, but he seized my chin and kissed me again hungrily. For a moment, I let him, surrendering my mouth, taking his tongue into my mouth, sucking it, biting it, letting him slide his knee between mine, arching my back so he felt the whole of my body press against him, my breasts almost spilling from the tight cage of my bodice. Then I thrust him away. ‘No.’

He dropped his head onto my shoulder. ‘Please, Charlotte-Rose. Just one more game.’

‘All right then,’ I said. ‘One round. If I win, I get the perfume that will make men fall madly in love with me. And then I’ll use it to find a man who will love me and care for me and
marry
me. Do you understand?’

He nodded. The candles had all guttered out, so I could only see his face by the faint light of the fairy lanterns strung overhead. I could not tell what he was thinking, but the quick pant of his breath made me hope that I had him where I wanted him.

‘Very well, then, this is what you must wager. If I win, I get to see your breasts. I get to see you and I get to touch you.’ He ran one finger down my bare skin, towards my cleavage. My body jolted under his touch like a racehorse under a whip. I could scarcely draw oxygen to my lungs.

I managed to shake my head. ‘The stakes are too high. I don’t believe in this perfume of yours.’

‘Trust me, it’s working. It’s working on me.’

‘Really?’

He nodded. ‘I promise I’ll do nothing you would regret. I’ll not … take you. I just want to look … and touch … and maybe … taste.’

My body was as hot and soft and malleable as melted wax. If he had wanted to, he could have taken me there and then, and I would have opened to him like a flower to a hungry bee.

‘If you win, you can look,’ I said harshly. ‘But no touching … and no …’ I could not say the word.

He smiled and leant forward to kiss me, confident my mouth would open under his. It did. My head fell back and he sucked gently on my tongue. ‘But you taste so good,’ he murmured. ‘Sweet as honey. I’d like to taste every single part of you.’

‘That is not … part of the deal,’ I managed to say. Somehow, things had got away from me, rather like a carriage drawn by runaway horses.

He smiled. ‘Perhaps another game,’ he said briskly, lifting himself away from me. ‘Shall I cut? Do we need more light? I think we do. Let me light some more candles. When I win this game, I want to make sure I can see … everything.’

I lost the game. It’s no wonder, really, drunk as I was on champagne and
brandy and love play. The Marquis made me undress for him, removing first my beribboned garter, then my silk stockings, then my outer skirts, then … very slowly and shyly … I undid my bodice and let it fall, standing before him in only my stays and chemise. He drew a deep shuddering breath.

‘You’ll have to undo my stays. I cannot unlace myself.’

‘It would be my pleasure,’ he answered. He drew me down so I sat on the edge of the couch, my back towards him, his thighs on either side of my body. I was so aware of him, it was as if the space between our bodies sizzled and smoked. He lifted the great mass of my hair out of the way, kissing the small bones at the back of my neck one by one. Slowly, he unlaced my stays, kissing my back lower and lower till he reached halfway down my spine. Then he slid his hands forward until he cupped both my breasts, pulling me closer to him so my bottom slipped into the space between his legs. I was instantly aware of the hard bulge between his thighs, pressing against my buttocks.

‘I rather think I may need to stop now,’ the Marquis said thoughtfully. ‘Just let me …’ He ran his tongue slowly over my shoulder, then suddenly, so suddenly that I gasped, he lifted me and twisted me, bending me backward over his arm, his mouth finding my breast. He sucked and bit me, so I groaned and writhed, totally unable to stop myself. His hand rucked up my chemise, sliding unerringly for that most secret and feminine part of me. He found it and plunged his finger in, lifting his head to gasp. I moaned and twisted my body away, grasping my untied stays to my breasts.

‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. You’re just so … Charlotte-Rose, please, I need to …’

‘No.’ I gathered up my clothes and tried to tie them around me again.

‘I … please …’

‘No.’

He caught me and held me fast, dropping down on his knees before me. ‘I think I’m going mad. I must have you. Would it help if I promised to marry you?’

I stared down at him.

‘Please … I mean what I say.’

‘You mean it? You’ll marry me?’

‘Yes … if you’ll just let me …’ He drew down my bundle of clothes so he could caress my bare shoulder. One hand pushed me gently backward, the other slid around to cup my bottom through the crumpled linen of my chemise. His body was against mine, his weight pressing me down against the cushions, his hand pulling my thighs apart. It would have been so easy, so easy, just to lie back, to let him thrust between my thighs, to let him have his release.

But I pushed him away, shaking my head. ‘We must be married first.’

He groaned. ‘But it’ll take weeks … I need you now.’

I closed my knees. ‘When we are married.’

He dropped his head into his hands, his fingers writhing through the cropped curls. ‘Charlotte-Rose, you’ll be the death of me.’

‘Marry me quickly then,’ I said and leant forward to give his bare shoulder a sharp little nip with my teeth.

He groaned, lifting up my face so he could kiss me again. ‘We could always make another wager. Now that I have the devil’s own luck myself.’

The news of our engagement caused an absolute sensation at court.

Smilingly, I handed in my resignation to the Duchesse de Guise, and I stayed at Versailles after she went huffing back to Normandy. Athénaïs was amused and told the King she had always liked me, so the King gave the match his approval. I was allowed to keep my stuffy closet of a room, though it seemed smaller than ever now. I could not wait to be married and have my own chateau in Paris and a country estate and a carriage and six. Roans, I thought.

The Marquis’ family were livid with rage. ‘A Huguenot! Without a dowry! It’s a scandal! A disgrace! It must be stopped!’

But the Marquis de Nesle was smitten. ‘
Je t’aime, je t’adore, tu es mon amante,
’ he whispered into my hair. ‘
Ma belle, ma douce, mon seul amour.
’

It was enough to make me feel giddy. I began to think I was falling in love with him too. I ran to meet him when he came creeping to my room late at night and laughed breathlessly when he swept me up in his arms. I let him kiss me and fondle my breasts and suck on my earlobe, and once I let him take the glass stopper of his costly perfume and run it slowly down my cleavage, parting my clothes till my breasts were bare to his gaze and he could anoint my burgeoning nipples with the scent of roses and jasmine. He bent then and took my nipple into his mouth, and all I could do was clutch his head and try not to moan too loudly.

It was true that he had the devil’s own luck at cards now. Step by slow step, I was persuaded to reveal more of myself to him. We played piquet every night, long past the midnight hour, and every night he won the chance to kiss and touch another part of me.

‘Another game?’ he would say.

‘What’s the wager?’

‘If you win, I’ll give you a necklace of jet to match your wicked black eyes. If I win, you have to sit on my lap.’

‘But I’m really perfectly comfortable here in my own chair,’ I answered.

‘I promise you my lap is very comfortable too.’

‘I’m sure it’ll be quite hard,’ I answered.

He sucked in his breath. ‘
Mon Dieu
, Charlotte-Rose, you never fail to surprise me. If I wasn’t before, I am now. Please come and sit on me.’

‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’

‘I’ll take you to the theatre tomorrow night. And give you a ride on my roan. And a necklace of jet.’

‘Oh, all right then. But you know it’s only because I want to ride your horse.’

He muttered something I didn’t catch – but which I am rather sure was a reference to wanting to ride
me
– and cut the cards. And although I won that game and the next, he did eventually win the right to perch me on his lap. He drew me down slowly, spreading his legs, his arm like a vice about my waist, the other sneaking up to cup my breast in its padded bodice, and I could feel that he was, indeed, very hard.

‘You are not very comfortable at all,’ I told him, pouting.

‘No, I’m not. I don’t think I’ve ever been more uncomfortable in my life. Good God, don’t wriggle. Stay like that, very still.’

So I sat very still, but he began to rock me, grinding me down against that stiff protuberance underneath me. I broke free, breathless and squirming inside, and fled to the opposite side of the room. ‘That was not part of the wager. I shall not play with you again.’

He laughed at me. ‘Really? No more piquet? Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure,’ I answered.

He got up, straightening his waistcoat. ‘Very well then.’

‘All right, then, one more game. But I won’t sit on your lap again.’

‘What will you wager? I want your stockings, both of them, and I want to be the one to remove them. What do you want?’

‘A kiss?’ I said in a small voice, feeling a little like a dazzled child.

‘But then I win both ways. All right, let’s play.’

He liked winning garments from me, taking first my garter, then one shoe, then the other, then my necklace, then one of my petticoats. He was just as happy to shed his own clothes, but I did not like to see that heavy little pouch hanging about his neck. I could not bear the smell of it, or the feel of it pressing against my skin. He began to lay wagers for me to undress him, but I never let him win those games. Once, we lay together on my bed, the Marquis nearly fully dressed and me nearly fully naked, with him trying to guide my fingers to undo the fastening of his breeches and me resisting with all my strength.

‘You’re driving me insane, Charlotte-Rose. I want to feel you against my skin.’

‘I can’t trust you,’ I said, and indeed I was right. The Marquis was always pushing me for just a little more. If he won the right to kiss my lips, his hands would be roaming all over my body even as he devoured my mouth. If he won the right to remove my stockings, his hands would slip higher, seeking to touch that secret part of me that so fascinated him. I was always wary, keeping my thigh muscles clenched against him, my knees locked close, and he was always seeking to soften me, making me drunk on Armagnac, inflaming my senses with perfume and delicious foods, inflaming my body with his kisses and his audacious touch.

One night, we kept on playing till I wore nothing but my chemise.

‘One more game,’ he said. ‘Please. I want to see you naked. I’ll not touch, I promise. I’ll only look.’

I shook my head.

‘I’ll wager my roan mare. I know you like her.’

I was, I’m ashamed to admit, tempted. But I shook my head. ‘No. Else there’ll be nothing to look forward to on our wedding night.’

‘Please, Charlotte-Rose.’

‘No.’

He slammed out of my room in a temper, and I felt sick with worry in case I had lost him. But the next morning he came with flowers and a rondeau to my eyes that must have kept him up composing till dawn. And if there were rather a lot of cries and sighs and thighs in the poem, no one but me was ever going to read it. That night, I let him kiss me till my knees were weak and my head lolling. I did not protest when he untied the ribbons of my bodice. I did not stop him as he kissed me down my body, parting my clothes, freeing my breasts, kissing his way down towards my belly button. I did not make him stop. I only lay back and sighed, and clutched his curly head to me, and wished aloud that we were married
right now.

‘When?’ I asked. ‘When can we be married?’

‘Soon,’ he promised. ‘I need my cousin’s permission.’

‘But we have the King’s permission.’

He bent his head again and swirled his tongue in my belly button. I lifted his face so he would look at me. ‘When?’ I asked again.

‘Soon, I promise.’

I sat up and pulled my clothes about me again. ‘Soon is not soon enough.’

‘Set a date,’ he said, pulling me against him and kissing my bare shoulder. ‘Set a date and I’ll make it happen. Just let me touch you … down there.’