Daring Widow: Those Notorious Americans, Book 2

by Cerise DeLand

  Her mouth fell open and she rapped on the coachman’s box with her fist. “Stop, stop!”

  The man idled the coach and she pushed the oil cloth back to gape at the scene before her.

  “Beautiful, eh, Madame?” the coachman called down to her. “A pearl. Cut from the same quarry as all of Paris.”

  The house glistened in the afternoon sunshine. She sat in awe of its color, snowy white. Its height, two stories as tall as Versailles with a high sloping slate mansard roof of dark grey. The entrance rose from the long cobbled driveway on wide stone stairs up to the main floor where three large porticos secured by huge iron grates greeted visitors. Behind them stood three black lacquered doors with brass fittings fit for a king. Or in this case, a duke who was also a prince.

  This was no house.

  She’d lived in a six-room farm house as a girl. A ten-room plantation house as a bride. Uncle Killian’s two-story mansion in Baltimore on Charles Street. And the formidable luxury of the four-story townhouse in Rue Haussmann.

  But this was no house. This was the aged and renowned Chateau de Remy, first built by the Comte de Remy in the fifteenth century, so Edouard Montand informed her when she told him that she was to travel here today.

  But she, for all her cosmopolitan upbringing, could not stoop to dub this structure a simple chateau. She could fit five of Frederick’s house in here. Three of the Rue Haussmann.

  Chateau de Remy was a palace.

  She let the curtain fall and she sank back to the cushions. This was Andre’s home and she had not predicted how formidable the house alone would be. To face him here, angry as he was with her, would require more than courage.

  She’d need audacity to state her case and win him or leave with her head held high…if in the end, he threw her out.

  She paid the man his fee and told him he could leave. He motioned to her traveling case and she nodded that he could carry it up the portico steps for her.

  As she climbed the broad stone steps to the central door, a butler dressed in black frock coat opened the door wide. “Madame?” he asked, his manner kind but curious. “Have you an appointment?”

  “No, I don’t. I’m here to see Monsieur le duc, if you please.”

  “Your name, Madame?”

  “Marianne Roland.”

  He lowered his eyes, bowed slightly and indicated with a polite gesture of his hand that she should follow him. She entered into a rotunda big as the Pantheon in Paris, a reception hall of extraordinary opulence. Surrounded by the same glittering limestone as outside, she moved in a circular trance to mark the sculptures around her in the stonework. Reliefs of Greek gods and goddesses topped the pillars that adorned the room. No furniture marred the symmetry.

  Only the footsteps of the butler resounded in the room. “Wait here, Madame.”

  She could stand here for hours. Admiring the statues of Zeus and Psyche, Apollo and Athena, Marianne smiled up at the lifelike quality of their faces and forms. Andre had grown up here. No wonder he thought beauty lived in every day life. In here, was the essence of what an artist created to adorn his world.

  She walked to the far doors and gazed out upon the landscape at the back of the house. The gardens, the elaborate partiere of boxwoods and rose bushes, evergreens and hollies stretched before her for a mile, perhaps more. To the left stood brick and stone houses that she would guess were barns. To the right, a large brick and stone edifice stood, its broad doors flung wide. Inside stood two carriages. One a silver and brown brougham. The other a large shiny black landau.

  She bit her lower lip. Here was Andre’s heritage, his past laid out for her. Such wealth she had not imagined for anyone and not him, either.

  “Madame Roland?”

  She spun at the sound of a woman’s voice.

  An elegant white-haired lady approached her from the far wing. The perfection of her oval face, the eloquent blue eyes and the careful refined manner proclaimed her as Andre’s mother, Princesse Amalie Sabine d’Aumale et Duchesse de Remy.

  Marianne steeled herself for this encounter and curtsied. “Madame la Princesse, I am delighted to meet you.”

  The woman clasped her hands before her at her waist and surveyed Marianne, head to toe. “Pardon e moi, Madame Roland,” she said, her words were polite, her tone ice. “You recognize me?”

  “I see the resemblance to your son, Madame.”

  To that, the lady leveled her eyes on Marianne. The look assessed, but did not welcome. “We had no notice you were to arrive.”

  “No, Madame. Forgive me. I do come uninvited.” As well you must know. His mother would not make this easy for her.

  She had to have her wits about her.

  “Follow me.” The princess turned on her heel, her skirts snapping to one side.

  The woman strode down the hall from whence she’d come, Marianne trooping along behind her. In en filade, the rooms marched on. A library, shelves of thick mahogany, jungle dark and lustrous, rising floor to ten-foot ceiling, encumbered by hundreds of books, all sizes, all bindings, smelling of the years of dust upon their bindings. A bedroom, with the widest bed Marianne had ever seen, hung in rich burgundy and gold brocades, tapestries tall as the walls hanging there as kings and queens hunted stag and dogs swarmed to take down birds. A dining room, a table laden with gold plate centerpiece, a bust of Louis XIV on a pedestal in one corner, and in the glass-faced closets lining the walls, china from Sèvres, from Peking’s Ming and Ch’ing periods, Aubussons of incredible pinks and greens and plums stretched out before her, a carpet in the spectrum of paradise.

  The princess turned into a blue room, smaller than the others they’d passed. Upon the walls, stern-faced ladies in panniers and jewels, men in sumptuous satin coats and codpieces gazed down upon them. Here the princess indicated a settee and then, as the butler who had greeted Marianne bowed his way out, the doors were closed upon them.

  “Please, Madame.” The lady pressed the settee upon her. “I know how long that journey is from the rail station. What’s more,” she said in perfect English, “I have experienced the unique charms of Monsieur Villar’s carriage. Only once, but it was enough to last me for decades.”

  “Merci beaucoup, Madame,” she said and sat.

  “I am pleased to meet you, Madame Roland.”

  Marianne wagered that kind sentiment was not to last. “And I you, Madame. I have heard Andre speak of you often and I—”

  At the mention of her son’s given name, the princess’s blue eyes hardened to stone chips.

  Marianne sucked in a breath, grabbing all her courage. Very well. I may not be here long. Best to be bold. “I came to talk with Andre.”

  “But you confront me first. If indeed Remy will deign to come to speak to you.”

  Marianne told herself that might well be the case. “Madame, I do not wish to argue with you.”

  “Madame Roland, I do not argue. I declare. And it is done.”

  Marianne stared at his mother. This was behavior she understood. Behavior she need not tolerate.

  She stood. “I would hope you would tell me if Monsieur le duc is here. And where I might find him. Outside perhaps? If you cannot tell me, I will return to Tours and hire a messenger. He’ll ask Monsieur to meet me in the Hotel de Vers there. Hopefully he will decide to grant me that and I can speak my peace.”

  The woman arched a long pale brow. “You would remain in Tours until Remy comes to you?”

  “Yes. Of course. Why not?”

  “You have the nerve to do so?”

  She set her jaw. “I have the will to do so.”

  “And do you know what he told me to do if you appeared here and you wished to speak to him?”

  “Yes,” she barely got out the word. “Pardonnez moi, Madame. I shall leave.”

  She pulled open the double doors and headed toward the rotunda. Tears burned her eyes, but she would not cry here.

  “Wait!” The princess called to her. “Wait, s’il vous plait.”

  S
he paused in her tracks.

  The swish of the princess’s skirts punctuated the woman’s approach. She rounded Marianne and looked her in the eye. Shorter than Marianne by several inches, the lady had a stark look of despair about her. “I understand you are a widow.”

  What that had to do with this interview, she’d no idea.

  “And that he was not a noble man.”

  Marianne chose not to add to that.

  “That you have had no children.”

  The princess was concerned with her son’s future progeny? No. No. That was not relevant here.

  “And so I wonder if you have any idea what it is to have one child. One perfect son. A boy who grew in grace and beauty with each passing year. A child who became a man of principles and ethics. A talented artist who gives his all to his work and rises to the pinnacle for it. Da Vinci, Bernini, Canova. They are dead. But now for many there is this new genius Remy. No equal to him. No one who gainsays him. He could take any woman to him and tell her he loved her, and who among them would refuse him?”

  Marianne swallowed her sorrow. “I do not refuse him, Madame. Have not, ever. You may wish to vent your anger at me here. I understand that. How do you love and not live to protect the one who means the world to you? You don’t. Thank you for your time. Au revoir.”

  She sidestepped the princess.

  “Madame Roland! If I am to summon Remy, I need your assurance that you will not harm him any more than you already have.”

  She faced the princess. “You think I came here to hurt him more? I came to apologize to him if he’ll permit me to try. And if I can do more than that, I will do that too.”

  Chapter 15

  The wind pierced her coat as she hurried through the lower kitchen doors on the ground floor of the chateau toward the carriage house.

  In the dimly lit expanse, she heard male voices emanate from the rear. She hastened along, her heels thumping on the solid earth, making little noise.

  At once she was upon them, Andre and an older man both dressed in old cotton work clothes. Both of them stared at her, an apparition in the middle of the afternoon.

  “Bonjour, Monsieur le duc, et Monsieur,” she bid them both and curtsied to Andre.

  Andre frowned, running his bare forearm against his forehead. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice light with wonder at her appearance.

  “I came to talk with you.”

  The older man made his excuses and backed away from them. Turning on his heel, he jogged away.

  Andre looked outside, focusing on the cobbled path to the chateau. “How did you get here?”

  “Monsieur Villar’s coach from the train station.”

  Gaiety passed over his features like a ray of sun, quickly to vanish. “A nightmare.”

  “I’ve known worse.”

  In his hands, he held a farrier’s rasp. “Did you dismiss him?”

  “I did.”

  She saw Andre think of the possible reasons for that, reviewing them with a twist of his lips. “You should not have sent him off. Maurice!” He called to his servant. “Maurice, come hitch the gig for our visitor.”

  Marianne took a step forward.

  “She’s leaving,” Andre announced and turned from her.

  She took another step toward him. “Do not walk away from me.”

  He halted in his tracks.

  She raised her voice, anger tingeing her need to stop him. “I came all this way and I will not be ignored.”

  “Then speak to yourself.”

  “I’ll follow you.” She kept pace with him. “Follow until you listen.”

  Maurice approached. “Monsieur le duc?”

  She advanced on Andre, but she acknowledged the servant. “Very well, Maurice, you are my witness. Andre, I am here to apologize.”

  Dismissing her with a wave of one hand, Andre walked on.

  So did she. “And to tell you that you are arrogant.”

  He whirled on her, his blue eyes aflame with hurt and distrust. “I? Am arrogant?”

  She stood her ground. Chin up, she would win this argument. “All your life, you have had everything you wanted. Whether easily or not, I do not know. Not yet. But you have put your hand to anything you owned and perfected it, anything you wished and claimed it, shaped it and won it for your own. On your own terms.”

  He snorted. “That is no apology.”

  “And that is another character flaw of yours.”

  His brows arched high. “Pardon me?”

  “You are impatient.”

  Maurice shifted from one foot to another. “Sir, I—?”

  Andre raised a hand to his man. “Do go to your work, Maurice.”

  The man trotted off.

  Marianne stood taller. Say this she would. “You have become so used to success you are blind to its effects on you.”

  His lips thinned. He fairly seethed. “I dare say, you are the one who’s arrogant to come here and—”

  “Yes. And it’s about time, wouldn’t you say? Or…well, you would have said. But in any case, you should call me arrogant. I need a strong dose of it to counter you.” She advanced on him. “You are so confident that you are blind to your faults.”

  “Am I?” He fell back against the wooden wall and a flicker of self-deprecating humor passed over his features. “Explain that to me.”

  “You thought you knew me.”

  His lips firmed. His nostrils flared. “Didn’t I?”

  “Partly.” She walked right up to him. So close she saw how exhausted he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. Thinner, as if he’d not eaten well either. If that was due to her, she could say she was gratified she meant that much to him, but dismayed that he could pine for her so dearly and affect his health. “You saw me as a victim of my circumstances, my parents’ deaths, my early marriage and a bad one at that. You saw me as closeted, protected, secluded. Even cloistered. You saw me as a woman who had only an inkling she might enjoy affection from a partner who could nurture her sensual nature.”

  He frowned at her. “I saw your potential there. For more.”

  “Yes. With a man who could show me the erotic pleasures of an affair.”

  He grunted. “With a man who could show you the joys of love.”

  She pointed a finger at him. “Exactly. Even when you also saw that I might grow in professional ways, you gave me that as well.”

  His brows shot high. He was aghast. “And there was something wrong with that?”

  “No! But to show me the path to that and then fail to allow proper time for what growth came from that? That was where your arrogance got the better of you.”

  “Did it?”

  “Yes. And that’s where your impatience ended our love affair too soon.”

  He stared at her, quietly searching her visage.

  “You could not know me as the woman who nursed raving, dying wounded men. You did not know me as the woman who left the safety of her hospital one night and walked for days through strange towns and ugly forests alone. Who dodged remnants of Union lines, scalawags and deserters to trudge north across Virginia plains to the Potomac and buy her way across from fishermen with the gold she’s sewn in her hems.”

  “Marianne.” He blanched.

  “You could not know me, did not hear me tell the tale of how frightened I was, how hungry, how desperate for sleep and warmth that I gladly accepted the safety of my uncle’s home and family. That I declared I would never leave. And why would I? Hmm? What motive did I have?”

  She poked a finger in his chest. “You failed to see me as a person who might grow and change to match you. Failed to see me as one who might declare her freedom from her cocoon, take her freedom in to her own hands and use those tools you gave me to draw a new life from my old one.” She blinked back tears. “And yet it was you who showed me the way. You, always you. You who perceived the essence of me as you perceive images in the depths of your blocks of Carrara. I was there, bound tightly inside, and you carve
d me out, little by little, piece by piece, until I emerged, the creature I was, rough hewn but now liberated to what I can become.”

  Sorrow lined his brows. Anger supplanted it. “I did all that, and yet you stand there and tell me I do not know you?”

  She inhaled and embarked on the more rational portion of her revelations. “Still not, no. You see the morning after you left Montmartre to come here, I packed my belongings and with Patricia Farmer’s help, I found a vacant room in a flat in the Rue Clichy. I rented it for the remainder of the month.”

  That made him blink.

  “I did not return to Rue Haussmann. And I won’t go back except now and then as a visitor or a dinner guest.”

  He didn’t say a word, but crossed his arms again.

  “Yesterday, I went to visit Montand.”

  “Good for you.”

  “He sold my portrait of you to the Mayor of Calais.”

  Andre pursed his lips. And did he fight a grin? “I hope you got a decent fee.”

  “I did. And there is more. Montand likes my other works.”

  “Which?”

  “The ones you told me to take to him. The best ones from each day. Remember you made me promise to take them to him and say he could not have them?”

  His pride lit his features. “I do. Yes.”

  She swallowed and screwed up her courage for this last foray against his defenses. “With my fees, I want to venture out, take a holiday. I want to go south.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Provence. I will rent a house. Patricia tells me it is so warm there, the sun is so close, the colors so intense, it blazes through you. Sears you, forges you into a different being. I want to go. Walk through fields of lavender and—”

  “You earned this much money from the sale of your sketch?”

  “No! But I have savings plus Uncle Killian gave me what was to be my dowry.”