Darkest Longings

by Susan Lewis

  For a long moment they glared at one another. Then, to her horror, Claudine found that she was remembering the feel of his fingers as they curled about her breast. The shock of the pleasure it gave her slaked through her body as powerfully as the loathing which hammered at her heart. She struggled to break free of those eyes, but she was bound by their magnetism. Her senses were reeling, she felt she would drown in the sheer force of him. Then she saw the sneer on his lips, the contempt that disfigured his face more brutally than the scar, and at last she was able to turn away. She was dazed by what was happening to her: she knew she hated him, yet she felt so drawn to him that at times it was as though she were in danger of losing herself in him.

  In the dining-room of the château she found Solange waiting for her, her lively grey hair standing on end and Louis’ spectacles perched on the tip of her nose. The table in front of her was in chaos, strewn with cards and envelopes, lists and letters. Today they were to begin the enormous task of sending out invitations. Solange looked so bemused that Claudine felt a great wave of affection for her, and dismissing François from her mind, she sat down to help.

  She didn’t see him again until midday, when Tante Céline arrived for lunch and he walked into the dining-room with her. Claudine got up to greet her aunt, studiously ignoring François, but as she was about to sit down again he put a hand on her arm. ‘I’ve brought you something from Paris,’ he said.

  Claudine stared at him. She watched him reach into his pocket and pull out a small box bearing the insignia of Van Cleef and Arpels. He did not look at her as he put the box into her hand, but simply stepped back, waiting for her to look inside.

  When she did, her mouth fell open. Beside her Tante Céline gasped, and Solange clapped her hands in delight. The diamond was flawless and the size of a centime. Claudine looked up at François, but he was staring at the ring, his face devoid of expression. But as she lifted it from the velvet crease to raise it to the light, he took it from her, picked up her left hand and slid the diamond onto the third finger. It was a perfect fit.

  ‘I hope you like it,’ he said softly.

  Again she looked up at him, dimly aware that her breathing had all but stopped. ‘I like it very much,’ she answered.

  He nodded, and with a flicker of one eyebrow, he turned and walked from the room.

  After that, Claudine threw herself into the wedding plans with renewed enthusiasm – while Solange took to rushing about Lorvoire creating one muddle after another. After three days Louis threw up his hands in despair, declaring that he’d given up all hope of ever knowing a moment’s peace again, while François complained that he had not been embraced so often since he was an infant.

  ‘Oh Maman, not again,’ he would groan as she clasped him to her, but there was a gentleness in his eyes as he kissed her that brought a lump to Claudine’s throat. For her there was no such display of affection; for all the attention he paid her she might just as well not have been there. But all that would change once they were married, she told herself, and treating him to the same chilly disdain as he showed her, she went about her business.

  A week after he’d given her the ring, François went away again, informing her, through Tante Céline, that she should not expect him back before the end of the month. After his departure, at Solange’s insistence, Claudine became a daily visitor at Lorvoire in order that she should get to know the household better. It was a happy time for them all: the old gramophone was dragged from a cupboard, and she and Solange whirled about the neglected ballroom while Louis sat quietly in a corner, his round glasses teetering on the end of his nose and his feet tapping to the spritely rhythm.

  As that scorchingly hot summer progressed the château saw other visitors too, as noble families from all over the region beat a path to Lorvoire, eager to get a glimpse of the English beauty who was to marry François. The hospitality they received was, by normal standards, unusual: there were games of cache-cache in the forest and rowing races on the river, cricket on the sloping bank of the meadow and dancing in the courtyard. But they all seemed to enjoy themselves, and on the rare occasions François was at home, though he never deigned to join in, Claudine occasionally caught him smiling. But never at her. For her there was only the stark hostility she was coming to know so well. But why should she care, she asked herself defiantly, when everyone else welcomed her so warmly?

  The wedding was drawing closer, and it was time to leave the château and go to Paris, where Claudine’s wedding gown was being created by the House of Worth, and almost every other designer of note had a hand in her trousseau. Claudine and Tante Céline stayed with the de Lorvoires at the house in the Bois de Boulogne, where the afternoon parties, while not quite as unorthodox as those at Lorvoire, were nonetheless lively. In return they were bombarded with invitations to the theatre and the ballet, to private concerts and to dinner with friends, and once, but only once, they went in a party of twelve to the most famous cabaret in Paris, the Lapin à Gill. The original plan had been to visit the Bal Bullier where, so Claudine had heard, it was difficult to tell the men from the women, and ladies of the night paraded naked through the ballroom – but Louis had drawn the line at that.

  That was towards the end of August, and François returned from a three-week trip to North Africa the morning after their exotic night out. He was highly amused to hear that his parents had set foot inside such an establishment, and rather regretted that he could not stay, he said, if this was the kind of entertainment they were going in for – but he must leave again the following day as he had business to attend to in Marseilles, and he wanted to call in at Lorvoire on the way, not only to see Armand but also to check on the work that was being carried out on his apartment in the west wing of the château, to make it ready for Claudine.

  Claudine experienced some very strange feelings when she heard that, but she showed none of them when he joined their party at the theatre that night, where he sat beside her, watching as she offered her left hand to those who came into their box to get a glimpse of the by-now famous Van Cleef and Arpels diamond. He accepted their congratulations graciously, but his attitude towards Claudine remained cold and aloof.

  After the play they all went on for a late supper before returning to the Bois de Boulogne, and Monique was the only one to see François slip out of the house after everyone had retired to bed. She knew where he was going, for she had made a brief call on Élise Pascale herself that day, and François had telephoned while she was there to tell Élise to expect him.

  Monique had no idea at what hour of the morning he returned, but he was there at breakfast when she joined the table, as were Louis and Claudine. Often, when François and Claudine were in the same room, Monique would study them, trying to work out exactly what was going on between them, but as the date of the wedding drew closer their relationship became more and more of a mystery to her. They made a striking couple – François so tall, so powerful and so ugly, Claudine so beautiful, so vibrant and so happy – yet they rarely spoke to one another, and never, simply never touched each other. Yet oddly, whenever they looked at one another they seemed suddenly enclosed in a world of their own. But perplexing as their relationship was, Monique felt certain that Claudine didn’t love François any more than he loved her.

  As for her own relationship with Claudine, as each day passed Monique was growing to hate her more. She was no longer afraid that Claudine would come between Lucien and François; now she only longed to be rid of her so that her own private hell of jealousy would be at an end. Each night, as the wedding drew closer, she lay awake reliving the rejections she had suffered. She wept for her own wedding – the wedding she had always dreamed of, but which now, perhaps, would never be. She smarted with the pain of her loneliness, and ached with the memory of being loved. She did not know what she had done to turn her lovers away, she only knew that if there was to be a wedding at Lorvoire, it should be hers. She deserved it for all the suffering, all the heartache she had known – not
Claudine, who had never had a moment’s unhappiness in her life.

  Had she seen any way to destroy Claudine’s happiness, Monique would have taken it. She had even toyed with the idea of telling her about Élise, but Élise herself had warned against it. There was no knowing how François might view their interference, Élise said, and besides, knowing that he had a mistress wasn’t in any way guaranteed to make Claudine change her mind. And so Monique nursed her hatred in silence. When she was with Claudine she worked hard to hide her feelings – with such success that even her own parents believed the two of them had struck up a firm friendship. The only person she had not managed to deceive was Claudine herself.

  Quite what she was going to do about her future sister-in-law, Claudine didn’t yet know. She had worked out for herself what lay at the root of Monique’s enmity, and though she had no intention of calling off her wedding she was already wondering what she could do to make it less painful for Monique. It was a shame, she thought, that she couldn’t discuss the matter with François – but then he told her something that pushed every other thought from her mind. He had arranged their honeymoon, which was to be in Biarritz. Honeymoon. The word alone was enough to send her nerves galloping into disarray. So too was any thought of intimacy with François, who had not as yet even attempted to kiss her …

  A week after his departure for Marseilles, she was at the opera, though paying scant attention to what was happening on stage as she was engaged in a rather gratifying fantasy in which François came bursting into their box, grabbed her by the hands and dragged her off to a secret place to tell her how much he loved her. She didn’t get as far as to what her response might be to such an unlikely occurrence, as some twenty minutes into the first act she became aware that someone was watching her. She glanced around the darkened opera house, but all eyes seemed to be on the stage. However, the feeling didn’t go away, and when the lights came up for the interval she looked again to see who it might be.

  ‘What is it, chérie?’ Céline asked when she saw the puzzled frown on her niece’s face.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ Claudine answered.

  ‘Come, have a glass of champagne. And perhaps tonight we should go straight home after the performance. We’ve an early start for Touraine tomorrow, and you must be tired after all this gaiety in Paris.’

  ‘Claudine, tired!’ Louis exclaimed. ‘How I have longed for the day!’

  They all laughed, but as Claudine turned in her seat she was again aware of someone watching her, and this time as she scanned the faces in the adjacent boxes, her attention was caught by the downward sweep of a fan. Then, to her amazement, she found herself looking into eyes of the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Instantly the smile dropped from Claudine’s face, for she knew beyond a doubt that this was the person who’d been studying her. She was breathtaking. With her heavy, honey-blonde hair, delicate ivory skin and seductive eyes, she looked like a Greek goddess reclining in the glow of golden light that fell around her.

  Finally, with a barely perceptible nod of her head, the woman looked away, and collecting herself, Claudine turned back to her aunt.

  ‘Tante Céline,’ she whispered. ‘Tell me, do you know that woman over there? She’s been staring at me ever since we arrived.’

  Céline followed her niece’s gaze, and Claudine felt her stiffen. ‘Ah no, you’re imagining things, chérie,’ Céline said.

  ‘But do you know her?’

  Céline glanced quickly at Louis, who gave a brief nod. ‘She’s Élise Pascale,’ Céline said.

  The name meant nothing to Claudine. ‘Can we meet her?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘I think not, chérie.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because she is not quite … how can I put it? She is not quite …’

  ‘She is what we in polite circles call a courtesan,’ Louis supplied.

  ‘Oh,’ Claudine said, drawing out the word as her eyes brightened with laughter. She looked back at Élise. ‘How absolutely fascinating,’ she whispered. ‘I’d still like to meet her!’

  Of course it was out of the question, and it was to Céline’s profound relief that Louis came to the rescue once again by saying, ‘I would prefer that you didn’t, chérie. I wouldn’t want her putting ideas into Solange’s head.’

  They all burst out laughing, and as the curtain rose for the second act of Milhaud’s Le Pauvre Matelot, the conversation was, to Céline’s relief, at an end.

  Later, as they were leaving the theatre, Claudine scanned the foyer in the hope of getting a closer look at Élise Pascale. When she saw her her heart gave a sudden vicious lurch as she saw an appallingly familiar figure leaving Élise and coming towards them through the crowd. She’d had no idea François was planning to return to Paris that night – nor, it seemed, had anyone else. He had just arrived from Marseilles, he explained, and had come to meet them in the hope of joining them for dinner. And so, their plans for an early night abandoned, they joined another group of friends and strolled off down the avenue de l’Opéra for a lobster supper at Drouant’s.

  The following morning François escorted them to the railway station, where he assured his mother that he would be home in time for dinner the next day. Lucien, however, would not be home tomorrow, he told her in response to her urgent enquiry.

  ‘But he is coming to the wedding, isn’t he?’ Solange cried, as Louis gently pushed her onto the train.

  As she asked this question at least once a day, François rolled his eyes and said, ‘Yes, Maman, Lucien will be coming to the wedding if he can.’ And he smiled at her shriek of delight.

  ‘And what about you? Will you be coming to the wedding?’

  He turned to find Claudine standing beside him. Her hat cast a light shadow over her eyes, and in her pastel chiffon dress, with the steam billowing around her, she was like an apparition.

  ‘A strange question,’ he remarked.

  ‘A strange engagement,’ she countered.

  He looked at her for a long moment, but she was unable to read his eyes.

  ‘It’s the first of September today,’ she said. ‘You have ten days in which to change your mind.’

  ‘So have you,’ he answered, and her cheeks flooded with colour at the way she felt suddenly naked beneath the lascivious smile that curved his thin lips, the eyes that swept the length of her body.

  ‘I have no intention of changing my mind,’ she said, through clenched teeth.

  ‘A pity,’ he replied, and held the door open for her to board the train.

  The day of the wedding dawned. The evening before, Claudine had moved into one of the guest rooms in the west tower of the château de Lorvoire – a circular room with wide, arched windows that overlooked the meadow and gardens at the front and side of the house. The four-poster bed was of carved oak, the hangings, like the window curtains, pale yellow brocade, and the Heriz carpet was a field of sea-green. There were two Louis XV armoires, and a Sormani kingwood and marquetry dressing-table on which Magaly had set out her ivory-backed hairbrushes, silver-topped bottles and two vases of flowers.

  Since she had woken at six o’clock Claudine had been aware of the day’s excitement. Through the leaded windows she had watched the caterers arrive, then the florists. Then there had come designers and hairdressers, an army of extra staff hired for the day, and a band of musicians. She had seen Tante Céline’s car draw up outside, and heard the clatter of horses’ hooves as her father and Lucien returned from an early morning ride.

  There had been several knocks on her door, mainly from Dissy, who had arrived with her husband, Lord Poppleton, at the start of the week. But Claudine wasn’t ready to see anyone yet today – not even her best friend. She was perched on the edge of the bed, staring into space as she struggled to make sense of her astonishing reaction to what she had discovered last night, when she crept upstairs to take a look at the apartment she would be sharing with François.

  The first room she entered had been a pleasant surprise
– an elegant but intimate drawing-room, with fringed lampshades over brass lamps, candy-striped sofas and armchairs, and big windows opening onto a terrace that was only feet away from the trees on the hillside behind the château. But it was when she opened the door to her left that the extraordinary reaction started. It was a bedroom, a very beautiful bedroom, with rose-silk-panelled walls, matching bed linen and carpets, rosewood furniture, marble fireplace and high, arched French windows. But a sixth sense was telling her something else about the room. And then her heart started a strange, unsteady rhythm. This was her room, she realized; hers alone.

  ‘What do you think?’

  She turned to find Lucien watching her from the sitting-room door, hands in pockets, one shoulder leaning casually against the doorframe.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she answered shortly. ‘I haven’t seen it all yet.’

  He frowned. ‘You seem angry.’

  ‘Angry? Why should I be angry?’

  He shrugged. ‘Shall we take a look around, then?’

  She nodded. After all, she was telling herself, it was quite normal for husband and wife to have separate rooms, wasn’t it? But why, then, did she feel so disturbed? She took the hand Lucien held out to her, and allowed him to lead her across the sitting-room to a room she hadn’t yet entered.

  It was, as she had expected, another bedroom. It was plain, uncluttered and unmistakably masculine – just as the other had been unmistakably feminine. From the moment she walked into it Claudine felt she was trespassing, and would go no further than the foot of the vast oak bed, though Lucien explored the bathroom and dressing-room, loudly voicing his approval. She showed him her own suite. At the far end of it was another door which, when she opened it, led out onto a narrow landing. Across the landing, Lucien showed her, was the nursery; and the door at the end of the corridor opened onto a bridge leading from the château into the forest behind. He and François had often used it as an escape route when they were children.