She looked at him quickly and then away as if she was shy and he said,
“I visited Madame de Salône this morning and informed her that she must never again set foot on any property that I own and that, if she attempts to hurt you or anybody else, I would have her taken before the Magistrates. If that happened she would undoubtedly receive a long prison sentence.”
Yursa drew in her breath.
“D-did – she believe – you?” she asked hesitatingly.
“She believed me,” the Duc replied in a hard voice.
“She – she must be – very angry.”
“I think at the same time,” the Duc said, “she realised that I was not speaking lightly.”
He paused before he added,
“You must forgive me, Yursa, for not realising before what she was like. But how could I have imagined, how could I possibly have guessed that she was a witch?”
There was silence until Yursa said in a very low voice,
“She is – evil!”
“I recognise that now,” the Duc agreed. “And I was foolish not to realise before the extent of her wickedness.”
His voice changed as he went on,
“It’s all over and what I want you to do is to forget it.”
“I will – try to do – so.”
“Perhaps it would be easier and in fact you will feel safer,” the Duc said, “if I was always there to protect you.”
He saw by the expression on Yursa’s face that she did not understand, and he said very gently,
“I am asking you to marry me, Yursa. I will not only keep you safe but I feel that we would be very happy.”
After he had spoken, the Duc waited for the radiance he expected to see in Yursa’s eyes, which he knew would sweep away her paleness and the last traces of all that she had suffered.
To his surprise, however, she turned her head and looked away from him out of the window,
She did not speak until he said,
“I asked you to marry me!”
“I-I know,” Yursa replied without looking at him, “and I am – of course very – honoured. I know it is what Grandmama wanted, but – please I want to – g-go home.”
“That I understand,” the Duc said, “but before you leave shall we tell your grandmother that we are engaged?”
Yursa clasped her hands together and now she looked at him and then away again.
“I-I am sorry if it seems – rude,” she faltered, “and I know how – important you are – and how much The Château and everybody who – belongs to it means to – Grandmama, but I – cannot marry – you!”
“Cannot marry me?” the Duc repeated.
What he said sounded stupid even to himself, but he had never imagined for one instant that any woman he offered marriage to would refuse him.
For years he had been pursued and pleaded with by his mother and his family to marry again.
It had never struck him for one instant that any woman, whoever she might be, whom he asked to be his wife would turn him down.
“I-I am sorry – I am – very sorry,” Yursa said, “I think you are – magnificent and I shall always be eternally – grateful to you for saving me last night, but – but I don’t want to – s-stay here.”
“I can understand that because you have been so frightened,” the Duc conceded, “but I have a number of other houses on my estates where you could stay and, of course, we will plan a long honeymoon in different parts of the world.”
He smiled at her before he said,
“When we come back, I believe that you will learn to love Montvéal as I do.”
There was silence and he was aware that Yursa was trying to find the words to answer him.
He put out his hand as if to take hers and then saw that she was shrinking away from him.
“It is – not just – The Château,” Yursa said in a low, hesitating little voice, “or even – Madame de Salône – it is that I – do not – love you.”
“You do not love me?” the Duc questioned.
Once again he was surprised.
Women had always loved him and he had taken their feelings for granted.
Although it seemed absurdly conceited, he had never envisaged that any woman he favoured would ever say quite bluntly that she did not love him.
Yursa rose to her feet.
“Please – don’t be angry,” she pleaded. “I am very – honoured that you should ask me to be your wife – it is just that I don’t – want you to be – my husband.”
There was an irrepressible little tremor in her voice as she spoke.
Then, as the Duc sat still, just gazing at her in consternation, she turned and ran from the room before he could prevent her from leaving.
He heard her running down the passage and guessed that she would go to her own room or perhaps to her grandmother’s.
It was then he told himself that he had been a fool.
How could he have been so stupid as to propose to the girl after what she had been through last night?
It would have made her afraid, if of nothing else, of The Château and what had taken place on the estate.
And yet, he told himself frankly, it was not because of The Château that Yursa had refused him, but because of himself.
He saw now that he should have been more perceptive and certainly more intelligent and to have wooed Yursa before he had proposed marriage.
He had known exactly what was intended when Lady Helmsdale had arrived with her granddaughter.
At first it had merely amused him thinking that yet another trap had been set to inveigle him into matrimony.
Yet soon he realised that Yursa was different from any of the other women who had been produced as bait to ensnare him.
To begin with she looked more beautiful than he imagined any young girl could look.
Secondly he had been aware of her intelligence and thirdly he had been surprised, intrigued and astounded that she could read his thoughts.
Last night, after he had saved her from being burned to death at the stake, he had known that she was everything he desired in a wife.
Her innocence, purity and incredible courage appealed to him in a way that no other woman had done in the past.
After he had saved her, she had not clung to him in the manner he knew only too well was merely another manner of ensuring that his arms encircled the female in question.
He would then have kissed her, sweeping away any of the discomfort she was suffering from.
Yursa had cried like a child weeping in exactly the same manner that she would have wept against her father’s shoulder or her mother’s.
The Duc rose to his feet to stand staring blindly out into the garden.
‘I have been a fool,’ he told himself, ‘and a conceited one at that!’
He had been so sure that Yursa had come to Montvéal with the same determination to marry him as he knew that her grandmother had.
Now, for the first time in his life, he had met a woman who did not want to marry him.
He was aware that he wanted Yursa in a way that was different from any woman he had desired in the past.
Because their thoughts were so closely attuned, he knew that she would understand and enjoy helping him look after his estates.
She would also understand his position as Head of the Family.
He had not missed her politeness and her consideration for the older men and women amongst his guests and almost everybody had praised her to him.
He realised that they were signifying their approval to what they thought was his inevitable marriage to her.
It had made him determined not to surrender his freedom too quickly, even though from the moment he had met her, he had recognised that Yursa was exceptional.
He knew now that she was exactly the sort of woman he required as his wife.
‘But she does not want me as a husband!’
He repeated the words to himself and found them hard to believe.
&n
bsp; Every woman, even though they were already married, had always told him that he was their ideal.
How often, when the flames of passion had allowed them to speak, had he heard a soft voice say,
“Oh, darling César, if only we could have met before I was married. How different everything would have been!”
He had told himself somewhat cynically that, while the woman had aroused in him an irresistible desire, if she had been a jeune fille, it was doubtful if he would have noticed her.
And if he had, he was quite certain that he would not have proposed marriage.
Now it was something he had done at last, after so many years of prevaricating and fighting off every suggestion from his mother.
Incredibly he had made a mess of it!
‘I will have to start again,’ he told himself. ‘I must woo Yursa, as I should have done from the very beginning and then I am quite certain that she will fall in love with me.’
He thought complacently and with some satisfaction of the women who had thrown their hearts at his feet and loved him overwhelmingly.
Yet inevitably he had become restless and bored.
They had tried to enslave him, to capture him and it had meant that like a wild animal he had made a frantic bid for freedom.
The more he thought about it, the more he realised that Yursa had never shown the slightest sign of desiring him as a man.
She had listened to him intently and been thrilled by what he told her about the history of Burgundy and the treasures of Montvéal.
Looking back, he could not remember anything she had said or even one look that would have told him that he fascinated her as a human being.
‘How could I have been so obtuse and idiotic?’ he asked himself angrily.
For the first time César de Montvéal looked at himself dispassionately and was not very impressed by what he saw.
He was a man who possessed everything material that any man could possibly desire.
Yet he realised that in the past years, since his wife had become insane and then died, that he had gradually lost much of the spiritual side of his nature.
This he was aware had been predominant during his boyhood and when he first grew up.
It was not only his faith in God that he liked to believe was unshakable.
He had the ambition to assist, inspire and lead those who looked up to him because of his position in life.
He thought that he must do good, not because it was his duty, but because he himself wished to.
But the ‘primrose path’ he had trod so easily had gradually swept away from him everything but his own selfish interest.
He had become preoccupied with a desire to be amused, to succeed in material ways and the rest had been forgotten.
The Duc walked backwards and forward across his study as he criticised himself as he had so often criticised others.
He wished that Yursa had not left him, so that he could have told her what he was thinking.
He wondered if he could change her opinion of him and make her feel for him what he felt for her.
“I want her,” he said aloud. “I want her as my wife, and, by God, I intend to have her!”
He wondered if he sent a servant upstairs to ask her to come back to him whether she would do so.
Then he was afraid of risking a refusal, which would be a titbit of gossip in the servants’ hall.
*
As it happened, Yursa had not gone to her bedroom, as the Duc imagined, but to her grandmother’s.
She had knocked lightly on the door thinking that if the Dowager was asleep she would not hear her.
Then she heard her call out “come in” and entered.
Her grandmother was lying on a chaise longue in the window with a beautifully embroidered silk cover over her.
“Yursa, dear child,” she exclaimed. “I thought you were with César.”
“I was, Grandmama.”
Yursa walked across the room to kneel down beside the chaise longue and look up at Lady Helmsdale with an expression which made her ask quickly,
“What is the matter? What has upset you?”
“I-I want to – go home, Grandmama.”
“Home, dear child? But why? There is no reason for us to leave for at least another week.”
“I want to go – back to – Papa.”
There was silence and then Lady Helmsdale asked,
“Will you give me a reason?”
“I-I have just – refused the Duc’s offer of marriage!”
The words were hesitating, but Lady Helmsdale heard them and stared at her granddaughter in consternation.
“You have refused César?”
“Y-yes – Grandmama.”
“But, why? Why?”
“Because I don’t – love him. I am sorry – Grandmama and I know how – disappointed you will be, but I have no wish to – marry him.”
Yursa spoke quietly, but firmly as she added,
“I know Papa would not have me – forced into a – marriage I do not want.”
Her grandmother just stared at her, apparently speechless at what she had just heard and then Yursa rose and kissed her on the cheek saying,
“Forgive me – Grandmama, I know you are – upset, but there is – nothing I can – do about it.”
She walked across the room towards the door and, only as she reached it, did Lady Helmsdale find her voice.
“Yursa, don’t leave. Let’s talk about this.”
“There is – nothing to talk – about,” Yursa replied. “But, please – arrange for us to – leave either – tomorrow or the next day.”
She did not wait for her grandmother to reply, but went from the room closing the door behind her.
Chapter Six
Having walked about the study for some time, the Duc then decided, as he could not see Yursa, to go riding.
He went to the stables and chose, instead of one of his new spirited stallions that needed breaking in, a horse that he had owned for years.
It nuzzled him affectionately when he patted it.
He knew that it was the sort of mount he needed when he wished to think and not concern himself with mastering a young animal who was fighting him.
He rode away unaware that the grooms looked after him apprehensively.
They had seen the scowl on his face and the expression in his eyes that told them he was perturbed.
Because many of them had known him since he was a boy, they were receptive to every mood and they wanted above all things for their Master to be happy.
The Duc rode first of all down from The Château into the woods and almost as if he could not help himself, he rode into le Bois du Dragon.
He had a feeling that he must see it as it was and convince himself that what had happened there last night was something that would never occur again.
His interview this morning with Zelée was something he did not wish to think about or remember.
She had greeted him with a self-assurance that to his astonishment was not false.
It was difficult for him to recognise in the smartly dressed soignée woman who came into the room where he was waiting for her, the wild drugged creature who had tried to murder Yursa.
“Cher César,” she had exclaimed. “How delightful to see you.”
It was then with his eyes hardening and his voice like a whip, the Duc had told her what he thought of her and her evil intentions.
She listened to him with a faint smile at the corners of her lips and a disconcerting glint in her eyes.
He had the feeling that he was not hurting her and that she was quite unashamed of her behaviour.
In fact she might not even remember exactly what had occurred.
He did not allow her to speak, but merely informed her forcefully with an undeniable violence that he exiled her from his estate and warned her what he would do if she disobeyed him.
When finally he turned towards the door to leave, she had merely said in a soft s
ensuous tone that he knew so well,
“Au revoir, mon brave, you will miss me as I will miss you and, when you do, all this unpleasantness will be forgotten.”
“Never, as far as I am concerned,” the Duc retorted.
He went from the room slamming the door behind him.
Now, when he reached the clearing in the wood, he thought that the stake in the centre of it and the half-burnt logs were the only thing that could convince him that the whole episode had not been just a bad dream.
How could any woman who was supposedly civilised, educated and accepted in Society be a witch?
How could she have collected together all those foolish peasant girls and persuaded them to follow her without there being an uproar in the neighbourhood?
He drew his horse to a standstill and sat looking at the scene that last night had been an expression of an evil that he never knew existed.
He recognised that it had been easy for Zelée with her brains to seduce the peasants by the sheer fear of her powers.
Witchcraft had for long existed in certain parts of France, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
When he thought about it, he had a picture in The Château of a witches’ Sabbat, which his father had put away in a locked cupboard for fear that it should disturb the servants.
He had heard of the witch hunts in Scotland and the North of England.
There thousands of innocent women had been branded as witches and condemned to death after suffering unbelievable tortures.
At the same time there had been stories of the Black Mass being performed in Paris and certain sections of the community becoming Satanists.
Yet it was something that he had never expected to be perpetrated in Burgundy.
Least of all that he should be associated and, if he was honest, infatuated with a witch.
Because he could not bear to think of what would have happened if he had not saved Yursa at almost the last minute, he rode away.
He decided that he would have everything cleaned up.
He would also send for the woodcutters to cut down a number of trees.
The mere fact that they were working there would, he hoped, discourage the witches from using that wood again, if they persisted in their evil ways.
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