At the French Baron's Bidding

by Fiona Hood-Stewart

  'But why are you so anxious about a woman for whom you don't have deeper feelings?' Gaston murmured, tongue in cheek.

  Raoul stopped in front of him eyes narrowed. 'You know damn well I love her, mon ami. It has been hard for me to admit, hard for me to realize, but the truth is I do, and I can't live without her.'

  'Then the matter appears quite simple to me.'

  'It does?' Raoul's brow flew up and he looked at his friend, bewildered.

  'Tell her.' Gaston raised his hands in an expressive gesture. 'Tell her you love her.'

  'How can I tell her if I don't know where the heck she is?' he replied, frustrated.

  'I have a funny feeling that if you go over to the Manoir you might find her there. She may have needed a few hours to get her thoughts in line, her ducks in a row. But I don't think Natasha is one to run from adversity.'

  'You think she's back?' Raoul's eyes narrowed. 'But what if she doesn't want me even when I tell her that—?' He cut off, stared out of the window, floored by the novelty of the situation. He had always been so sure of himself, in the driving seat, certain of the outcome. Now, suddenly, the tables had turned. And he hadn't a clue what might happen.

  'The risk of having your pride trampled is one I'm afraid you'll have to take, tr cher. Nothing really worthwhile in life is ever conquered easily. And sometimes there is a price to pay for our blindness.'

  'Oh, stop all your damn moralizing,' Raoul snapped. 'If you really think she might be back then I should get over there and see that she's all right.'

  With that he flung on his shooting jacket and swung out of the castle, determined to find out if his friend was right.

  She heard the wheels crunching the gravel, knew instinctively that it was Raoul, and braced herself for a row.

  When Henri showed him into the grand salon—the formality of which she had so deplored a help now in her moment of need—Natasha straightened her shoulders and prepared to face the music.

  'Natasha,' he said, stopping as Henri closed the door discreetly behind him. 'Where have you been?' he demanded.

  Natasha took a deep breath, determined to remain calm despite her racing pulse and thumping heart. 'It is not important, Raoul.'

  'No,' he said suddenly, looking her over, filling his eyes with her, too relieved to see her safe. 'It isn't. What matters is that you have returned to me.'

  'Raoul, I have not returned to you,' she said quietly, holding on to the small Louis Quinze table to her right for support. 'I came back to my home, that's all.'

  He took several quick steps across the room and was standing over her before she could retreat. 'Natasha, I have been a fool and an idiot, and Gaston has spent the better part of the day telling me so.' He gave a quirky smile, very different from any she had seen before. 'Natasha, mon amour, I have come to tell you that I am that very fool that Gaston calls me. I am a fool because I saw things through the wrong pair of glasses. I saw them through the lenses of pride and honour and all those things that I have surrounded myself with all my life. I don't know if you will want me any more after the way I have behaved, so idiotically, but before you make any decision I need you to know one thing.' He stopped, gazed down at her, then reached for her left hand and raised it to his lips.

  'Wh-what's that?' she whispered hoarsely.

  'I love you. Je't'aime, mon amour. More than anything or anybody in the world. I never dreamed or thought that I could love like this, that I could feel such intense wonderful feelings for any woman. But you, ma Natasha, you have taught me differently. I swear that if you accept to many me I will be a faithful loving husband to you till the day I die. I want you in every sense—in my arms, in my heart, in my life.'

  Natasha felt her fingers tremble in his. She could hardly believe the words tumbling so sincerely from his lips.

  'Raoul, I—'

  'Tell me you love me too,' he said urgently, pulling her close. Tell me that all we have experienced together was as special and wonderful for you as it was for me, that you could never feel the same in the arms of any other man.' His eyes filled with a proprietary gleam.

  A small smile escaped her. 'Oh, Raoul, my darling, you'll never change, will you?' she said, a tiny tender smile illuminating her face as her fingers touched his cheek and she read the anxiety and hope in his expression.

  'My darling, I have changed. You have changed me. I don't guarantee that I will be—what is it you say in English?—a hen-pecked husband,' he said, his smile tender, 'but I will try and make you happy.'

  'God forbid! A hen-pecked husband indeed.' Natasha burst out laughing as he hugged her tight. Then, drawing her against him, Raoul kissed her long and tenderly with a new, deep passion that obliterated any doubt she might still harbour as to his sincerity.

  Then, drawing back, Raoul fished something out of his trouser pocket. 'I almost forgot,' he said, opening an ancient velvet pouch.

  Natasha looked down, amazed, at the sparkling object lying in his palm, and when he took her left hand in his she swallowed.

  'With this ring you become ma promise, my promised wife,' he said firmly, his eyes never leaving hers.

  'It's beautiful,' she whispered, gazing from him to the ring and back.

  'It is the ring Regis had made in Paris before the Revolution, when he planned to marry Natasha. It has been waiting in the vault all this time. Just for you.'

  There was nothing left to say, nothing more to do but rest her head lovingly against his shoulder and feel the wondrous strength of his arms around her.

  And as she did so a shadow on the terrace caught her eye. 'Look,' she murmured.

  Raoul followed her gaze and together they held their breath. For out there, moving in the distance, were the old-fashioned shadowy figures of a man and a woman, disappearing hand in hand into the autumnal mist.

  'We have come full circle,' Raoul whispered, when the moment had passed and all that remained were the leaves on the lawn. 'History has been righted. What a good thing I realized in time.' he muttered, with something of his old self-assurance.

  With a shake of her head and a laugh, Natasha looked up at him, her eyes filled with love and mirth. 'Promise me you'll never change, Raoul.'

  'But I just told you—' he protested.

  'Shush,' she answered, placing her finger over his lips. 'I love you just the way you are.'