by Susan Lewis
They turned to find Solange holding the hand of a remarkably striking young woman dressed and coiffured in the height of Paris fashion. She was, Claudine surmised, about her own age, but it was difficult to judge when her face bore an expression of such blatant hostility. This, Solange told them proudly, was her daughter, Monique.
Again, Claudine met the hostile gaze, and wondered what on earth she could have done to provoke it. ‘Enchantée,’ she said, holding out her hand and smiling.
‘Enchantée,’ Monique repeated, but though she returned the smile, her eyes remained cold.
‘You two are going to be such good friends,’ Solange enthused.
The situation was temporarily saved by Beavis, who stepped forward to embrace Monique in the French way. To Claudine’s surprise, Monique responded with genuine warmth, and for a few moments she felt as though she were looking at a different person. Then those suspicious amber eyes, with their cumbersome black brows, were upon her again as Monique embarked upon a formal recital of welcome.
Claudine remained silent throughout, smiling politely until Monique had finished. Then, to her amazement, as she was about to reply Monique turned on her heel and walked back into the body of the party.
‘Well!’ Claudine gasped, turning to her father, and to Solange’s delight they burst out laughing.
‘You see!’ Solange cried. ‘I told you you would love her!’
‘Oh, I do,’ Claudine answered. ‘Really I …’
She stopped, and the smile vanished from her face as her eyes were suddenly arrested by the massive figure standing just inside the door. He was talking to Léon Blum and a man her father had introduced earlier as Colonel Rivet, and though Claudine had never seen him before in her life she knew beyond all doubt that she was looking at François de Lorvoire.
For the moment shock paralysed her senses so that all she could do was stare. Not in her wildest dreams had she imagined him to look like that. He was tall, taller even than Beavis, and his unfashionably long hair, which was combed straight back from his forehead and curled over his collar, was as black as night. His head was bowed and he appeared intent upon what his companions were saying, then he turned slightly, and Claudine started as she saw the pronounced hook of his nose beneath the heavy, hawk-like eyes. His mouth was set in a firm line of concentration, but she could see the cruelty in it as clearly as she could see the hideous scar that curved jaggedly round his cheek bone to his jaw. He was the ugliest, most sinister-looking man she had ever seen.
Her mind started a slow spin, adding a strange lightheadedness to her stupor. She was both appalled and mesmerized; she couldn’t tear her eyes away as she felt herself responding to the bewildering force of his presence. It seemed to fill the room, to push aside the guests, opening a path between them and pull her towards him. But he wasn’t even looking at her, he didn’t know she was there. Her lips parted, but still she made no sound, and her eyes remained unblinking as a remote tightening sensation spread throughout her body, engulfing her in feelings she couldn’t begin to recognize.
Beside her, her father, though he was making a pretence of talking to Solange, was quite aware of his daughter’s confusion. Then suddenly Louis was there too, taking his wife by the arm and leading her away, almost as if he knew that Beavis and Claudine needed this moment to themselves. Claudine looked at her father, still too shaken to find her voice.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said.
‘But why? Why did you…?’
‘Claudine,’ he interrupted, ‘I have, from the start, made it clear to you that the decision is yours. You have, of course, put yourself in an extremely difficult position by letting everyone know why you are here. However, should you …’
‘But he’s so … Oh, dear God, Papa.’
Beavis looked across the room with a grim smile. Then turning back to her, he said, ‘You will, of course, meet him.’
It was the closest to an order she had ever heard him give. It made her feel dizzy, and it brought, too, a suffocating sense of betrayal. But worse was the feeling that she was suddenly a stranger to herself; new sensations were confusing her, frightening her almost. Then, as though they had a will of their own, she found her eyes moving back to François. He was talking now to Anton Veronne, a man Claudine had always considered handsome. Yet strangely, beside François Anton seemed almost insignificant. Then she realized that so too did all the men around him.
Again she looked at François, and this time her mouth dried with shock. He was looking at her, and his expression made her want to step behind her father, to have him protect her from such malevolence. But sensing her intention, Beavis moved away into the crowd, leaving her still bound by that invidious gaze.
Claudine blinked. It was inconceivable that someone could have such an effect on her – but then she had never before met anyone who emanated such power. She was afraid, though she didn’t know why, and yet she was unable to wrest her eyes from his. In the end, François was the first to turn away, but as he released her eyes, instead of being relieved she felt as though she had been cast adrift, left to drown in her own internal confusion, and without realizing what she was doing she found her arms starting to move from her sides as if they were seeking something to save her.
‘It’s all right, chérie, I’m here.’
Claudine spun round to find Céline standing beside her with a glass of brandy. ‘Drink it,’ she insisted. ‘You’ve had a shock, you need something.’
‘A shock?’
‘Don’t pretend, Claudine, I saw your face.’
Unthinkingly Claudine took the brandy and sipped it. ‘Did you see the way he looked at me, Tante Céline?’ she whispered. ‘It was as if he hated me.’
Céline smiled. ‘No, chérie, he doesn’t hate you. It is simply the way he looks. Which, I take it, is nothing like what you imagined.’
Already beginning to realize how ridiculous she had made herself, and acutely aware of the curious glances being thrown in her direction, Claudine forced herself to smile. To her surprise, this actually made her feel better – and suddenly her indomitable sense of humour broke free of the lingering pinions of shock, so that she actually laughed aloud at her melodramatic reaction to her first sight of the man she had vowed to marry. ‘Never mind,’ she said, giving Céline an impulsive hug. ‘Anyway, now I shall go and meet him.’
But to her consternation, he seemed to have disappeared.
‘What an infuriating man,’ she muttered. And then her heart gave a monstrous lurch as a voice behind her said, ‘Would you be looking for me, by any chance?’
With every pulse hammering in her body, Claudine turned around, and steeling herself, lifted her head to meet the black eyes that gazed down at her from beneath their hooded lids. For one fleeting second she thought she detected a glint of humour in them, but then his shadowed face was once again as severe as the tone of his deep, strangely alluring voice, as he said to Céline, ‘If you can bring yourself to do it, I should appreciate an introduction, Céline.’
Céline’s response was delivered through gritted teeth. ‘Claudine, may I present François de Rassey de Lorvoire. François, my niece, Claudine Rafferty.’
‘Thank you,’ he answered. ‘Now, as Mademoiselle Rafferty has seen fit to inform half of Paris as to the purpose of her visit here today, I’m sure there are a number of people in this room requiring details of her first introduction to me. Perhaps you would care to oblige, Céline.’
Céline’s gasp of outrage took his eyes, which had not yet moved from Claudine’s, to hers. ‘How dare you!’ she hissed. ‘I am not a servant to be dismissed …’
‘Céline, please go.’
Claudine watched as her aunt drew herself to her full height and stalked off. Then turning back to François, she said, ‘Was it necessary to be so rude?’
‘Shall we just say I try not to disappoint expectation,’ he answered smoothly. ‘Now, unless you want to stand here being ogled by the entire gathering, I sug
gest we take a walk in the garden.’
There was an unmistakable lull in the general conversation as François held open the door for her to walk out ahead of him. She followed him through the dimly lit hall, past the wide mahogany staircase and into a small, untidy sitting-room. Curtains fluttered at the tall, open windows, and François stepped over the sill onto the gravelled courtyard outside, then turned back to give her his hand.
For a moment Claudine was confounded by the extreme tightness of her skirt, and looking up, saw his eyes narrow with impatience at her hesitation. By the time she had hitched her dress up over her thighs, however, he had already started down the wide stone steps that led down to the water garden. He neither stopped nor turned round when she started to follow – and pride prevented her from hurrying after him.
When at last she caught up with him, he was standing with one foot on the low wall surrounding a small, circular fountain where three cherubs with arms and wings entwined in stone spouted water from their pouting lips. He had rested his arms on his knee and was gazing thoughtfully down at the goldfish darting about in the pool.
Joining him, Claudine perched on the wall, and crossing her legs demurely at the ankles began trailing a hand through the cool water. After a while the silence became uncomfortable. She was hunting about in her mind for a way to begin, yet at the same time was stubbornly determined not to. After all, he was the host, it was the correct thing for him to address her first. But the awkwardness became so insufferable that, unable to disguise her irritation, she said at last, ‘Do you intend to speak at all?’
To her amazement and outrage, he merely threw her a quick glance, then returned to his study of the fish.
She stood up, and as she walked round him he pulled at his bow tie, loosening the knot until it was free of his collar. Then he resumed his stance. The most infuriating thing was that he gave every appearance of being completely oblivious to her discomfort.
‘What were you thinking when you looked at me earlier?’ she demanded.
Casting her a look from the corner of his eye, he said, ‘I wasn’t aware of thinking anything.’
Claudine decided to swallow her temper and try a different approach. ‘Papa tells me you were delayed in Paris,’ she ventured.
There was a brief pause before he spoke, but still he didn’t look up. ‘My apologies for keeping you waiting.’ His tone was so thick with sarcasm that she felt the colour rush to her cheeks.
‘If the apology were meant I’d accept it,’ she snapped. ‘As it is …’
He made no response to her unfinished sentence though she stared furiously at him for several minutes. Then, before she could give herself time to think, she had kicked his foot from the wall so that he was suddenly ankle-deep in the fountain. To hell with him, she thought, as she marched angrily along the cobbled path. Then, hearing the slosh of water as he drew his foot from the fountain, she started to grin. She felt even better when she heard his footsteps behind her, but she didn’t stop until she reached a nearby lily pound, by which time her shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter.
‘I take it,’ he said, as he came to stand beside her, ‘that it is your childish behaviour that so amuses you.’
‘Actually, no,’ she replied. ‘It’s your pomposity that so amuses me. And after just these few minutes of knowing you, I can already understand why Tante Céline dislikes you so intensely.’
When she looked up into his face she could see that her words had not succeeded in ruffling him at all, but when he looked back at her she felt a horrible heat burn across her cheeks, and turned quickly away.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘has Céline ever cared to enlarge upon why she dislikes me so intensely?’
‘Are you going to tell me?’ she countered.
‘No.’
They lapsed into silence again, and Claudine, assuming an air of nonchalance, looked about her. They were on the edge of the forest here, and there were several inviting pathways leading into the trees.
‘Why are you making this so difficult?’ she asked eventually.
His answering laugh was more of a sneer. ‘My dear girl,’ he said, ‘if you are expecting protestations of love and promises of undying devotion, then I am afraid you are going to be disappointed.’
‘I was expecting nothing of the kind,’ she snapped. But a small interior voice told her that that wasn’t strictly true. Suddenly she had had enough and reaching up to remove the pin from her hat, she shook out her curls, and started off into the forest. Should he take it upon himself to come after her, then maybe she would try again – providing he apologised first, of course – but as it was, she really didn’t see why she should put up with his rudeness any longer. And so, hitching her skirt up over her knees and gripping the branches to help her up the steep path, she climbed higher and higher into the woods.
As she reached the brink of the hill the shadows gave way to bright sunlight, and she found herself in a narrow meadow from which there was the most magnificent view over the next valley. Every hillside, for as far as the eye could see, was covered with row upon row, acre upon acre of leafy vines, and at the heart of the valley, where the river shimmered and sparkled in the sunlight, was a cluster of tiny cottages.
The unexpected and awe-inspiring spectacles of nature never failed to move Claudine, and by the time François came up behind her she was too delighted to bother about his earlier unpleasantness, or to feel any satisfaction that he had followed her again.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ she murmured.
‘I’m glad you like it,’ he said, coming to stand next to her.
‘And these are all your vineyards?’
‘Yes,’ he answered.
Every time he drew near her, she felt a thrill of such excitement, such recklessness … She should be repulsed by his ugliness, and yet … She could not make sense of what she was feeling. Could it be fear? All she knew for certain was that she found his physical presence deeply disturbing, and she moved away from him, walking on across the hilltop and gazing down at the unyielding symmetry of the vines as the wind swept through her hair. Far below she saw someone waving. She lifted her hat and waved back. ‘Who is it?’ she called out to François.
‘Armand,’ he answered, when he was close enough not to have to shout. ‘Armand St Jacques. He’s the Chef de Caves, and also the vigneron. In other words, Armand runs the place – as his father did and his grandfather before him. Theirs is the expertise, ours is the name.’
‘Aren’t you involved at all in the wine-making?’
He shook his head. ‘Only in the selling.’
He was looking past her into the middle-distance, apparently unaware of the way she was searching his face. She watched him closely for several minutes, fascinated by the way his gruesome face was almost transformed when he wasn’t scowling. With those macabre features and that hideously disfiguring scar he could never be described as handsome, but when he looked as he did at that moment, his eyes devoid of rancour and his mouth relaxed in something close to a smile, there was an air about him that she found positively intriguing.
‘Tell me,’ she said softly, ‘why did you change your mind about marriage?’
Instantly the frown returned, and as his eyes bored into hers she felt herself grow suddenly weak. ‘Change my mind?’ he echoed.
Quickly she turned away, stunned by her peculiar reaction, but her voice was perfectly steady as she said, ‘I thought, at least everyone else seems to think, that you had vowed never to marry.’
His laugh was bitter. ‘For once the gossip-mongers are right, if a little exaggerated.’
‘So, why?’
‘I think,’ he said, starting to turn away, ‘that you would prefer not to know the answer to that.’
‘I think,’ she said, following him, ‘that if I am to marry you, I had better know the answer.’
‘Then I shall tell you – after I have proposed and you have accepted.’
‘Are you so sure that I wil
l accept? And do you very much care, one way or the other?’
At that he stopped and turned to face her. To her dismay, she found herself caught by those black, impenetrable eyes, and again she felt that strange response to him sweeping through her body. ‘Claudine,’ he said coldly, ‘when I feel that the time is right, I shall ask you to marry me. I shall ask you because it is the wish of our fathers to unite our families. Whether you accept my proposal is a decision only you can make, but I can assure you that I have no personal feelings on the matter whatsoever.’
‘You rather give me the impression that I would be doing you the greatest favour if I were to refuse,’ she said, in a tone that disgusted her by its peevishness.
‘The words are yours,’ he said, ‘not mine.’
She was not a naturally violent person, but in the space of less than half an hour she had not only kicked him, but was now shaking with the urge to slap him. ‘I understand now,’ she seethed, ‘why your reputation is so foul. You are not only rude and insensitive, you are unpardonably offensive. In fact, I would go so far as to say that you are a truly despicable man.’
‘So I believe,’ he answered lightly.
For one horrifying moment Claudine thought she was going to cry – and since she would rather die than give him the satisfaction of witnessing that, she stormed back into the forest. She had gone no more than a few yards when, to her inexpressible humiliation, she slipped in the undergrowth and bumped several feet down the path on her bottom in the most undignified – not to mention, painful – manner. It was the final straw: the tears streamed from her eyes, and at the same time, as she buried her face in her hands, her body convulsed with sobs of laughter.
She heard him coming down behind her, and when she looked up it was to find him standing over her, holding out her hat. ‘Yours, I believe,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ she said, wiping the back of her hand over her cheeks. Then, as she reached out to take the hat she noticed the damp patch at the bottom of his trousers, and unable to contain herself, was consumed by another paroxysm of laughter.