As he spoke, he shrugged himself into the long robe that he had left lying on a chair.
Only as he tied the sash around his slim waist above his narrow hips did he realise that Zelée had not replied.
She was looking at him with her strange dark slanting eyes in a way that he did not understand.
Then, as he bent to take her hand and kiss it with a courtesy that was part of his upbringing, she said very softly,
“You are mine, César, and I will never give you up!”
His lips barely touched her skin before he turned from the bed to walk across the room and quietly open the door.
He did not look back, although she was waiting for him to do so.
Only when the door had closed behind him and she realised that he had gone did she make a sound that was like a rumbling roar in a tiger’s throat.
‘You are mine! Mine!’ she wanted to scream at him.
Then she flung herself back against the pillows and told herself that she would hold him however hard he might try to escape.
*
It was at breakfast the next morning that the Duc remembered to say to his cousin, an attractive Marquise, that a relative, Lady Helmsdale, was arriving to stay.
“Oh, I am so glad,” she exclaimed. “I have not seen her for some time and she is one of the most charming old ladies I have ever met. I hope when I reach her age that I am exactly like her.”
The Duc smiled.
“That is a long way ahead, but I agree with you. Elizabeth Helmsdale has a charm that is ageless and I am always delighted to see her.”
“We must ask some of her old beaux to dinner,” the Marquise suggested.
“Of course, but we must also ask some young beaux as well,” the Duc replied.
The Marquise raised her very elegantly pencilled eyebrows and he explained,
“The Countess is bringing her granddaughter, Yursa Holme, to stay.”
“How old is she?”
The Duc thought for a moment.
“I have heard my mother speak of her and I think that she must be seventeen or eighteen.”
“Good Heavens!” the Marquise exclaimed. “She will find us a very old party. Where am I to find some charming young men of twenty or twenty-one?”
“I am sure they are there, if you look for them,” the Duc answered indifferently.
The Marquise was silent for a moment and then she said,
“I think, César, it would be wise, if we are to have a debutante in our midst, that Madame de Salône should terminate what has already been a very long visit.”
She knew that she was being outrageous in speaking to him so openly.
For a moment she thought that the Duc would be angry at her and she wondered nervously if she had gone too far.
To her surprise, however, he replied,
“Perhaps you are right and it would be a good idea if you concentrate on having young people to stay which will give us a good excuse to dispense with some of my other guests.”
As he finished speaking, he rose from the table and left the dining room and the Marquise stared after him in amazement.
Then, as she felt as if she could breathe again, she wondered if Madame de Salône’s hold over the Duc was waning.
When he was not present, the family talked of little else and the Marquise knew that they were terrified that she might in some magical way change his determination to remain a bachelor.
‘I hate her!’ the Marquise said to herself.
She was expressing what every other woman in The Château felt about Zelée de Salône .
She had, they thought, although they could not prove it, an evil influence on their beloved César.
To everybody’s astonishment Zelée informed them that afternoon at teatime that she was leaving on the following day.
For a moment following her announcement there was complete silence.
Then, as if those listening were embarrassed by their thoughts, they all began talking at once.
Travelling through France with her grandmother was the most exciting thing that Yursa had ever known.
*
She had been thrilled from the moment that they crossed the Channel into the land that she always felt that she belonged to.
This was not because she had been at school there but because she was proud that a little of her blood was French.
It was a long and tiring journey to reach The Château, but it was as if it all passed in the flash of a second, as Yursa stared out of the windows of the train.
She had always longed to see more of France than Normandy, which was very like England.
Now she looked from the carriage at the great vistas of rich cultivated land, at the distant mountains silhouetted against the sky and the long straight roads bordered by trees.
When at last she saw The Château standing high on a steep hill overlooking the valley, it was exactly how she had imagined it to be.
Its towers and turrets made it seem enormous and jutting out at one side was the steeple of the private Chapel where she knew that the Ducs of Montvéal were buried.
As if she wanted Yursa to capture the atmosphere of her beloved France, her grandmother talked to her all the way of the history of the family and of Burgundy itself.
She said very little about the Duc and yet Yursa knew perceptively that he was always in her mind.
She could read her grandmother’s thoughts and knew that more than anything else she wanted her granddaughter to be the Duchesse de Montvéal.
The Duc’s superb horses, which had been waiting for them with an elegant well-sprung carriage at the Station, pulled them slowly up a drive of huge trees that met overhead.
It seemed as if The Château touched the sky itself and Yursa was instantly caught up in a spell of enchantment.
How could she be anything else when everything was so beautiful?
The secret dreams that had held her captive since she was very small had at last materialised into reality.
The entrance to The Château was impressive, huge oak doors opened into the courtyard and a flight of stone steps led up to the front door.
On each side stood carved in stone the heraldic animals that featured in the Montvéal coat of arms.
Because they had been travelling all day, Lady Helmsdale insisted that they went straight to their bedrooms.
“We must rest,” she told the Major Domo, “and change before we meet our host.
“There is sure to be a large party,” she told Yursa, “for, as you know, French houses, unlike those in England, make every member of the family welcome whenever they wish to come.”
“What happens if they all arrive together and there is no room for them all?” Yursa asked.
Her grandmother laughed.
“There are more rooms in The Château than I have ever been able to count and I am quite sure that nobody would ever be sent away, however crowded it might seem.”
Yursa had learned that the Duc enjoyed having people round him and was extremely hospitable.
It was a trait that he had inherited from his father and his grandfather and many generations before them.
This in turn they had inherited from the ancient Ducs of Burgundy who, if history was to be believed, entertained royally all their lives.
She knew that Yursa was listening intently as she said,
“Philip the Bold was the greatest Valois Duc. He loved chivalry, founded the Order of the Golden Fleece and his own Order of Chivalry. He received at his Ducal Court Ambassadors of all the Kings and Emperors of the time.”
“And is that what Duc César does now?” Yursa asked.
“Anyone who is invited to The Château feels it is an honour,” the Dowager replied. “At the same time, César is a young man and he does not only entertain those who are successful, but also those who decorate The Château like flowers.”
Yursa knew that her grandmother was speaking of women.
For the first time she wondered if she woul
d look dull and perhaps dowdy amongst the French women who were not only beautiful but invariably chic.
Then she remembered the delightful gowns that her grandmother had brought for her from Paris and thought that as far as clothes were concerned she should be able to hold her own.
It was very unusual for her to think about herself and, when they entered The Château there was so much to see and so much to absorb.
She was walking down the stairs beside her grandmother after they had rested, bathed and changed for dinner, when she remembered the conversation that she had overheard outside her father’s study.
In fact she had forgotten in her excitement at reaching The Château that the reason for the visit was that her grandmother and apparently the Duc’s mother felt that she might make a suitable bride for him.
‘I am sure that there is no chance of such a thing happening,’ Yursa reassured herself.
Yet she was still excited at the thought of meeting him.
There were footmen dressed in elaborate livery with powdered wigs and white silk stockings to direct them towards the reception room.
As two of them flung open the doors, the Major Domo, even more resplendent than the others, announced their names and Yursa felt that she was entering fairyland.
It was not surprising for already the huge chandeliers had been lit.
The whole room seemed to shimmer with light so that it was for the moment difficult to see anything but a kaleidoscope of colour and beauty.
Then through what seemed a haze there came a man so startlingly different from what she had expected that Yursa gave a little gasp.
He was taller than most Frenchmen and had an athletic figure that might have made him a warrior like the original Ducs.
His hair was very dark and brushed back from a square forehead and his features were almost classical but had an originality about them that made him different from any other man.
This was perhaps because his dark eyes, bold and penetrating, seemed to take in everything, seeing not only what was on the surface but what lay within the person he was looking at.
Then, because of the twist to his lips and the lines that ran from his nose to his mouth, she thought that there was something cynical and at the same time raffish about him.
It made him, Yursa thought, look like a pirate or a buccaneer and certainly not what she would have expected of a Duc.
Yet he did look omnipotent and overwhelmingly authoritative.
It made her, despite herself, curtsey a little lower than she had intended and she found it difficult to meet his eyes.
First he bent and kissed Lady Helmsdale’s hand and then her cheek, saying as he did so,
“It is enchanting to see you again! I cannot tell you how glad I am that you are here.”
“It is what I have been looking forward to for a long time,” the Dowager replied, “and you are so kind to let me bring my granddaughter with me.”
She indicated Yursa with her hand and, as she curtseyed, the Duc said,
“I am delighted to welcome you. Lady Yursa. But must we, seeing that we are distantly related, be formal? I shall call you Yursa, which is how I have always heard of you.”
“I am honoured, monsieur,” Yursa managed to say.
She knew as his eyes flickered over her that he was surprised at her appearance.
She wondered if it was because she was smarter than he might have expected of an English debutante.
She had no idea that the Duc was in fact astonished by her beauty.
Lady Helmsdale and Yursa were then introduced to the other guests of whom there seemed to be, as they had expected, a large number.
Many of them were, Yursa learnt, relatives of the Duc and therefore distant connections of her own.
While they were sorting out the very complex family tree, the last guest made an appearance.
While the women thought scornfully that it was so like Zelée to make a dramatic entrance in order to make out that she was more important than she really was, the Duc was amused.
He was well aware that Zelée never did anything conventionally and never missed an opportunity of drawing attention to herself.
Tonight she had succeeded in being immediately the focus of everybody’s attention.
She was wearing a Worth gown, but it was not the typical elegance of his creation which commanded attention, but the colour he had used.
All in flaming red Frederick Worth had combined satin, lace, sequins and tulle with his usual genius. The startling effect was accentuated by the darkness of Zelée’s hair with its blue lights and the whiteness of her skin.
She looked as if she had just stepped straight out of the flames of a blazing fire.
Or, as one or two of the women thought spitefully, out of Hell itself.
Round her neck she wore a collar of rubies and diamonds and the same stones glittered in her ears and on her wrists.
To Yursa, who had thought the other ladies in the party were strikingly elegant, Zelée was a revelation.
She had never imagined that any woman could look so fantastic and yet at the same time so beautiful.
She advanced slowly, very slowly, down the room and, when the Duc moved to meet her, she put out her hand and quite outrageously touched his cheek.
It was a gesture of love and it was also as if she was proclaiming to the world her possession of him.
It was then that Yursa realised who she was and knew that this was the woman who her grandmother had been talking about to her father.
‘She is so beautiful,’ she thought to herself, ‘and, of course, he is in love with her.’
Then, as the Duc drew Zelée across the room to meet her grandmother Yursa had a different impression.
Lady Helmsdale greeted her very coldly though politely, but there was a note in her voice that told Yursa only too well that she disapproved.
Then she heard the Duc say,
“Let me introduce you to Lady Yursa Holme, who is a distant cousin of mine.”
Zelée turned towards her with grace and a smile.
But, as she looked at Yursa, the smile vanished and her dark eyes that had seemed to shine in the light of the chandeliers became suddenly hard.
It was as if she recognised that Yursa as a rival.
She seemed suddenly to become tense and to vibrate with an enmity that was unmistakable.
Then strangely, because she had not expected it, Yursa felt the same.
Now she realised in the passing of a second why her grandmother had said that Zelée was the spawn of Satan and she knew that she was evil.
Her feelings were so intense that they startled her.
As Zelée turned away with a flounce, slipping her arm through the Duc’s, she knew that she had for the first time in her life encountered an enemy.
Without being aware of how it had happened, she was at war.
*
They processed into dinner, the Duc escorting the Dowager as she was the latest arrival.
The Marquise sat at one end of the table as his hostess and Zelée to her intense annoyance was not, as she had expected, on the Duc’s left.
It was the position that she had occupied ever since she had arrived at The Château and she knew that this was why earlier in the afternoon César had insisted that she should go home tomorrow.
“Why?” she asked him. “What is the hurry? I am so happy to be with you.”
“I know,” he replied, “but my mother’s closest friend. Lady Helmsdale is arriving and, although her mother was my relative, she is very English in her ways and I must certainly be circumspect while she is staying with me.”
“So you are turning me out!” Zelée asserted defiantly.
“I am asking you to leave while she is here.”
Zelée had shrugged her shoulders very expressively.
“Why should you trouble yourself with the English, who are dull, frumpish and usually very plain?”
“I am not considering them so much a
s my mother,” the Duc replied, “for I know that she would feel humiliated if she thought that I was behaving badly while Lady Helmsdale was at The Château. Tales of my behaviour would be told and re-told in England.”
“Is it behaving badly to love you and for us to find an inexpressible bliss when we are together?” Zelée asked softly.
“I am asking you to be sensible,” the Duc said patiently.
“That is something I have never been able to be for long,” Zelée replied.
Then, as if she knew that he was determined, she was too clever to make a scene.
“Very well, César,” she said, “I will go home for a week or however long it is that your boring English friends are here, but you will find it very dull without me and the nights will seem empty and long.”
She spoke the words in a voice almost as if she were hypnotising him into believing what she wanted him to believe.
But he merely replied,
“Thank you and tell Hélène that you are leaving. It will come better from you than from me.”
Hélène was the Marquise, whom Zelée disliked, and she shrugged her shoulders.
But he was aware that she was sensible enough to know that what he was saying was right.
She had, however, because Zelée was Zelée, to make quite a scene about it when most of the party were gathered in the salon later in the afternoon.
When the Duc came into the room, Zelée had run towards him to say,
“Mon cher. I am desolated, but alas, it is unavoidable!”
“What is?” the Duc enquired.
“That I must leave you. I have had a message from my father to say that my little dog whom I love very dearly has had an accident. There is no one to comfort him as well as I can, so I must go home.”
The Duc’s eyes were twinkling as Zelée elaborated on her misery at leaving and also her distress at such an unfortunate occurrence when she was away from home.
Only when they were alone for a few seconds before everyone had gone upstairs to change did Zelée ask,
“You are pleased with me – yes? That I am leaving, as you ordered me to do.”
“It was slightly over-dramatic,” the Duc replied mockingly. “At the same time thank you for doing what I wanted.”
Saved by love Page 3