French Passion (7 page)

Lights burst inside my head, pain shot through my skull, and I fell onto the tapestry rug. The shelved collection of miniatures spun, slowly righting themselves. Minuscule jade eyes, ivory eyes, gold eyes, a thousand pairs of tiny eyes gazed down on me without compassion. I tried to pull my gaping bodice closed.

“No need for modesty,” said the Comte in a deep, clenched voice, as if it were he, not I, who'd been hit. He, not I, who were in pain. “I let the servants off.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“So much for feminine intuition. No. As I said, punish you. Hurt you as you've hurt me. I propose, my dear, that we start our relationship on an equal level.” He leaned over and took my hand, pulling me to my feet, roughly jerking.

I bit my lip.

“There's nobody here. Cry out if you want.”

“Never,” I whispered.

“You will, my dear, you will.”

I didn't make a sound, not even when he used his riding crop. Sweat broke out on my forehead, I bit my lip until it bled, yet I didn't cry out. At the end, though, he sodomized me with such brutality that he wrenched a sound from me. A low, sobbing gasp, like a death rattle.

Buttery sunshine, dappled by pruned oak branches, moved on dark velvet over my head. For a moment I wondered where I was. Then I moved. And raw pain reminded me that I lay in the Comte de Créqui's bed.

The bed hangings had been opened, and the Comte leaned against a bedpost, watching me.

For the first time I saw him wigless. He was quite bald. Strong black curls surrounded his skull. His black velvet
robe de chambre
, opened to the waist, showed a powerful chest covered with crisp hair that, near his neck, changed from black to gray.

In dishabille he was far uglier, and far more human.

His dark eyes impaled me. I couldn't lie there, a helpless butterfly pinned by his gaze. Without thinking, I started to sit up. My raw buttocks and thighs throbbed unbearably. I tried to stifle a groan, failed.

“May I help you?” he asked. His voice was different. None of last night's savagery, none of his usual ironic hauteur. He sounded sympathetic. He sounded kind.

“Look away for a minute,” I said.

Last night, endless and brutal, should have made me more frightened of him. Instead, the respect I'd given him as my guardian, for being old, for advising the King, had vanished. Fear had fled, too. The Comte had shown me his worst self and—or so I naïvely thought—there was nothing in him left to respect or fear. Grimacing, wincing, I managed to find a less painful position on his soft mattress.

“Better?” he asked.

“A little.”

He turned back to me. “Not much, though?”

“A little,” I repeated. My voice had a leaden quality.

Sunlight moved on velvet. Outside, a lark sang.

The Comte said quietly, “Whenever I'm hurt, a demon possesses me. Revenge is the only way to exorcise my demon.” He paused. “As a child I was page to the old King. A group of us young nobles were pages. We shared the same tutors, the same riding and fencing masters, the same Greek, Latin, and philosophy teachers. I, alas, was smaller than the other boys. Far more clever at lessons. This made the others merciless. I was tripped, beaten, made the butt of their every joke. Once, they almost drowned me in a black-smelling horse trough. As a future peer of the realm I couldn't let myself run sniveling to my father. Instead I used my fists continually. I defended myself against any who hurt or teased me. Before long, the pages respected me. Eventually I became their leader. As a young man, I campaigned against the Prussians—I was the kind of field general who went with his men into battle. Your father, my dear, as one of my staff officers, admired me enough to request that in case of his death I become guardian to his children. You see, I was considered a man of exceptional valor.”

He was looking at me, so I nodded.

“To be honest, though,” he went on, “my courage was the desperation of that small boy hitting out to defend himself. When I became adviser to the King, it was necessary to leave physical exploits behind me. There were still slights, though, demons to be exorcised. I learned to repay with logic. And this is interesting. Using reason, one can inflict far more hurt. I've never been able to forget a wrong. You betrayed me in the worst way a woman can betray a man. Still, humbling you to be my mistress should've been punishment enough, even for me. You touched a nerve I never knew existed. And not since I was very young has my anger exploded that way. I lost control. Completely.”

We exchanged glances, surely the most honest look two people could share, and thus we acknowledged the brutalities he'd performed on me.

“I don't usually explain myself,” he said.

“Then why?”

“To get you to accept my apology.”

Slowly, I shook my head.

“Why not?”

“I don't know.” I frowned, quite honestly puzzled.

My body ached and throbbed, true. Under other circumstances, though, I would have been deeply touched by that short brave boy who'd almost been drowned in black-smelling water, yet who'd coped on his own. Touched, too, that the Comte had chosen to reveal himself to me. As one of the high nobility, he owed apologies to the King alone. The words must have been almost impossible for him. Besides, I have a flighty trait—I can't harbor a grudge. So why couldn't I simply forgive him and accept his hard-given apology?

The Comte sat next to me on the bed. “Would flattery help?” he inquired with a hint of his usual irony. “You're more radiant than any of the Court beauties—and I confess to having seen a great many at this close a range. Your skin is the finest silk, incredibly white and soft everywhere, and your hair is the color of a swan. Would you prefer literary allusion? You're Venus incarnate. Well, maybe a trifle small to be a goddess incarnate, but then, as you noted, I prefer miniatures.” His lips brushed my shoulder.

His touch no longer repelled me. His lips roused no nerve endings. I felt nothing. Nothing. And then I understood why his apology had touched no responsive chord in me.

I
was
like one of his miniatures. Cold, hard. Last night had numbed me.

Until last night I'd been touched only with love. A happy, careless girl. Last night had taught me, more harshly than the Comte had intended. Last night the Comte had proved to me exactly what I was. The impoverished daughter of an old family. Dowryless. A girl who no longer possessed the one commodity needed for the only career of decency open to her: marriage. Lying numbed in the Comte's huge brocade-curtained bed, I could scarcely remember my old vulnerability to shame. My aversion to selling myself was gone. I would have to rely on my body—and my wits—to enable myself and those dependent on me to survive. In my position I had to jettison virtue, honor, love, and hope of love.

My body was the object I had to sell. I must learn to sell it for the best price.

The Comte again kissed my shoulder.

I shrugged away. “Not now,” I said. Lesson one, I thought numbly. Set the terms.

“A week?” he asked. “Is that fair enough? A recovery period. After that—”

“Don't worry. You'll get your value. I might be secondhand goods, but I am quality. D'Epinay must be the most illustrious name of any whore in France.”

“The illustrious whores, my dear, never hint at what they are.”

“Thank you for the advice, Comte. Until last night—whatever you think—I was innocent. But you keep giving me lessons in my trade.” I glanced up at him. “I'm not as I was.”

“You're just as strong-willed.” He smiled. I couldn't tell if he was amused, or pretending to be. “And very young. Before long, you'll be as impulsively generous as ever.”

I wondered, not really caring, if I could find a protector more to my liking. “What would you do if I were to leave?”

Instead of answering, the Comte went to pull the narrow tapestry bell ringer. His lack of reply was more menacing than any words he might have chosen.

Two footmen served us. One frothed chocolate with a small wooden beater, the other poured from a silver chocolatier into fragile Sèvres cups. The demeanor of both footmen was stolid. It was as if the pair was accustomed to serving me in the Comte's bed, my shoulders and slender arms naked, my cheek bruised, and a bloodshot purple welt marking my right breast just above the drawn-up silk coverlet.

Chapter Seven

“Insufferable!” Jean-Pierre cried, his hand on his sword. “I'll call him out!”

“Go ahead, fight a duel. And after that I can sell myself at a lower price.”

“Manon, you're not funny.”

“The drunk I told you about, the one I pushed down, do you know what he offered?”

“No, and I don't want to hear.”

“A sou. Maybe I could've bargained for more, but—”

“Stop talking like a street woman! We're of honorable blood.”

“I'm afraid the blood's thinned down.” I sighed. “Jean-Pierre, listen to me. It's, not so terrible. We'll live together in our own house, you, me, and Aunt Thérèse. The Comte wants a salon. Think! We'll give those parties we dreamed about. With fine wines. And pheasant pastries. Jean-Pierre, last night the chef made the most delicious frozen dessert. It's from the Americas and called ice cream.” I forced myself to sound as impetuously vivacious as I did yesterday. “You'll have a pianoforte and sing. We'll have a card room and play piquet. Oh, we'll be happy as we were before!”

The same afternoon, Jean-Pierre had just arrived home. The two of us were in my silk-lined boudoir. He sat on the end of my pale blue chaise longue, his shoulders slumped with dejection. I took my tea standing, pretending I wished to gaze out at vivid autumn trees. My bruised cheek was painted. Naturally I hadn't burdened my brother with the beating. Or with the part his IOU had played in making me accept the Comte. Poor Jean-Pierre. He couldn't take any more. As it was, I feared he would carry out his threat to challenge our guardian. In a duel the Comte must win. He was old, an ex-soldier, physically brave, and Jean-Pierre an inexperienced seventeen-year-old.

Attempting to distract my brother, I extended the hand with the large diamond. “Behold,” I said.

“He pays promptly,” said Jean-Pierre, with bitterness rare to him.

“It was a gift. Before …” I tried not to think of what had happened. “Jean-Pierre, whatever am I going to tell Aunt Thérèse?”

He lifted his blond head in that angle I loved. “Why not the truth? As you told me.”

“That's different! I
had
to tell you. You're my brother. We're so close.” This, at least, had not been deadened, my great and protective love for my brother. I sipped from my tea dish. “Poor Auntie. She's so proper and old-fashioned. Knowing would kill her.”

“You tell me, Manon. How can you manage to have
him
support us, sleep with
him
, and keep it secret?”

I sighed again. After a long pause I set down the tea saucer. “She always wants to believe the best. We just have to keep her in the dark. What if I say I told the Comte about … that … what happened in the coach, and though he can't marry me, he still wants to be our guardian and look after us?”

“Our benefactor!”

I knelt by my brother. In this position my welts throbbed fiercely. It was all I could do not to wince. “Why wouldn't she accept that he's giving us a place of our own? And as for the other—you know how early Aunt Thérèse goes to bed.”

I clasped both Jean-Pierre's hands. His refined features were drawn into a grimace. Like me, he was fighting back tears.

The house the Comte rented for us was near the Palais Royale, where cafés lined the arcades. Our street, however, was very quiet. It reminded me of the country. In front of our cobbled entry was a tiny steep-roofed gatehouse where Old Lucien lived. Behind the big back garden stood the stables with a smart new lacquered carriage, a pair of matched white horses, and a bay stallion for Jean-Pierre.

The house itself charmed me. Four reception rooms opened one into the other with doors that folded back to make a vista leading to the room we called the music room because it contained Jean-Pierre's new pianoforte.

I had the big front bedroom. My bed, daringly uncurtained, reminded me of a harem sofa, and the walls were hung with paper. Monsieur Sancerre had told me wallpaper was all the rage, the newest thing. Mine came from China, and bright, odd Oriental birds flew in delicate branches. I spent a lot of time enjoying the exotic scene.

The Comte's prediction of my rapid recovery hadn't come true.

Oh, the welts and bruises were healed. My spirit wasn't. I'd never been like this. Lethargic. Without appetite. Mornings were worst. Sometimes I lay in my sofa bed until noon—me, who moved with rapid, dancing steps from dawn until as late as possible!

I'd told Aunt Thérèse that the Comte, while unwilling to marry me in my deflowered state, was delighted to continue as our generous guardian. She swallowed the story. The Comte went along with the pretense. He even made it easier for her by announcing that on December 2 he would marry Mahout de Valois, heiress to vast estates, descended from Henry II, and therefore a remote cousin to King Louis.

I took comfort in the Comte's betrothal. After December 2, I would think wistfully, he won't be after me so often.

Since the rage of that first night, there had been no brutality. In fact, I suppose he was rather tender. On my pretty sofa bed, by candlelight, he would make love to me, first kissing me all over, as if he wanted not only to possess my lips, my breasts, thighs, but also my hands, my arms, my legs, slender feet—and maybe my intractable spirit.

I remained numb to his touch.

I did, however, enjoy his conversation. The Comte de Créqui was worldly wise, sophisticated, an utterly amusing man. Though he was old and quite ugly, he was dignified in his diamond-glittered black. Women glanced admiringly at him in my salon.