by Susan Lewis
She twisted her hands free and slammed them into his chest, struggling to push him away. But he was holding her against him, pressing his body into hers and probing the depths of her mouth with his tongue. Her hands flew to his face, raked at his skin and tore at his hair, but he wouldn’t let her go. Then his hands were beneath her skirt, pulling it to her waist, pushing inside her knickers. He grabbed her buttocks so hard that he lifted her from the floor, and he kissed her as though he would devour her.
She moaned and gasped and fought his tongue with hers, holding his face between her hands, coiling her fingers in his hair and panting for breath. Then she was tearing at his trousers, pulling the buttons apart, and she heard the silk rip as he tore her knickers from her. He lifted her onto the table and pulled her legs wide.
‘Do you want me?’ he growled.
‘Yes,’ she gasped. ‘Yes, I want you.’
‘Where do you want me?’ And she cried out as he thrust his fingers inside her. ‘Here? Is this where you want me?’
‘Yes. Oh my God, yes.’ She writhed madly beneath the pressure of his fingers, jerking her hips, pushing herself onto them, feeling them probe even deeper inside her.
He pulled his penis from his trousers, and as she saw him come towards her she sobbed out his name, opening her legs wider and twisting them about his waist. He withdrew his fingers and caught her by the hips, dragging her towards him, ready to enter her.
Then suddenly their eyes met and he stopped.
For a long moment he looked down at her. She held her breath, unable to read his expression as her blood pounded savagely through her body. Then his face changed, and suddenly she wanted to scream. The bitterness, the loathing, the contempt that glittered in his eyes was unmistakable.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘François, no!’ But he had already turned away.
‘Cover yourself up,’ he growled, rearranging his own clothes.
‘François, why are you doing this? Why, when …’
He turned back, and she flinched at the malicious smile on his lips. ‘I did it to show you what a fool you are. To show you …’
‘No! You did it because you wanted me. François I saw it, I felt it.’
‘You saw and felt what you wanted to,’ he snarled. ‘Now, cover yourself!’
‘I won’t! I want you and I’m not afraid to say it. You want me too …’
‘No!’ he roared. ‘I don’t want you, Claudine. I’ve never wanted you. If I did I’d have taken you, just as you wanted me to. But you disgust me, do you hear? You disgust and repel me!’
For one dreadful moment she thought he was going to hit her, but then the anger suddenly died in his eyes, and in its place was a sinister light of pleasure. She stared up at him, too shocked to speak – and then he turned away and started towards his bedroom.
‘François,’ she said.
He looked back at where she stood beside the table, her coat covering the skirt that was hitched around her waist. Her face was pale, but her voice was perfectly steady as she said, ‘I want you to know, François, that I wish with all my heart that the child I am carrying was Armand’s. But it’s not, it’s yours. It can only be yours because until I married you, I was a virgin, and since I married you I have never slept with another man. I don’t care if you believe me, I don’t care what you think or do any more, but I want to know one thing. I want to know whether, if the baby had been Armand’s, you would have let me go.’
The corner of his mouth lifted in a ghastly smile as he took his time contemplating her. In the end she could stand it no more.
‘What would you have done?’ she screamed.
Finally, with a diabolical lowering of his eyebrows, he said, ‘Remember Hortense?’ And chuckling quietly to himself, he walked into his room.
– 13 –
CLAUDINE WAS NOW in her sixth month of pregnancy, and though there were still times when she felt listless and depressed, on the whole she was coping much better than she had in the earlier stages. She never allowed herself to think about François now, and had firmly banished from her mind the memory of that terrible day when she had told him she was pregnant. Instead she concentrated on Armand, doing everything she could to recapture the friendship they had had before the harvest celebration. Of course, things were different now, they both knew that. There were times when her need for his love, his kindness, his comforting arms, reached such a pitch that, but for the fact that they were careful never to be alone together, she would have been unable to stop herself touching him.
As news of her pregnancy spread people had started to come from the nearby châteaux to see her, and some even motored down from Paris. She was happy to see them, but knowing that their presence was a constant reminder to Armand of the great difference between their lives, she was always relieved when they left. And in fact she was never happier than on the quiet days, when she could drop in to see Liliane and relax in the rocking chair beside the fire, while the old lady chattered on and the early spring sunlight shone in through the open window.
Little Janette and Robert Reinberg always kept a look out for her car, and if they saw it outside the St Jacques’ house, would come bounding along the street to see her. Madame Reinberg’s tailoring business was now beginning to thrive, and Claudine loved the way Armand spent whatever time he could with the two children, trying in his own way to make up to them for the loss of their father. They adored him, and Janette, who had discovered that one coy look from under her outrageously long lashes could persuade him to do anything, used her charms shamelessly.
Whenever Claudine went to the village she invariably arrived at midday, knowing that Armand and several other men from the vineyards would come in soon afterwards for their lunch. Sometimes, as she watched Armand helping himself to food or tossing back his wine, the coarse golden hair on his arms glinting in the sunlight, his handsome face intent on the business at hand, she would imagine what it would be like if it were just the two of them there, safe and secure in their love, with their child growing in her womb. It was a fantasy which she knew would only distress her later, when she was forced to return to the reality of her marriage, but she couldn’t deny herself the happiness of those few minutes spent dreaming of how things might be. Sometimes, rocking in the chair, she fell into a doze; then feeling a hand on her arm, she would look up and see Armand standing over her, his eyes alight with laughter and love as he gently teased her for snoring through her dreams. How she managed to stop herself reaching out for him then, she never knew.
But there were days when Armand was bad-tempered and snapped at everyone. When he was like that, Janette and Robert would take themselves off, the meals would pass in silence and Claudine would watch him with a heavy heart. It was always when François was at home that he was like this. She came less often then, knowing that during those times it hurt him, rather than pleased him, to see her.
The night before her birthday was one of the occasions on which François was at home. He gave her a diamond and ruby necklace in a Mauboussin box – at least, he left it on the table in their sitting-room for her to find. She hadn’t realized he even knew it was her birthday, but of course Solange or Louis would have told him. When she opened the box, she gasped. The necklace was the most beautiful and unusual she had ever seen, with three ruby crosses of Lorraine hanging from a three-tiered diamond neckband. It must have cost him a fortune.
She had intended to thank him over dinner, but he was so engrossed in talk with his father – France was being torn apart between the Left and Right, they were saying, and Louis was highly critical of Léon Blum’s intention of forming a new Popular Front government – that she decided to leave it until the next morning. But immediately after dinner, François informed them that he must return to Paris that night.
She allowed herself no feelings about the fact that he wasn’t intending to stay for her birthday, though somewhere in the deepest recesses of her mind, she thought she was pleased. Perhaps she was at last beginning to o
vercome her obsession with him. And besides, if he had stayed she would have had to cancel the party she was planning with Solange and Monique, for his presence would have made it impossible.
The morning of her birthday was the morning the Germans finally marched into Austria. But no one at Lorvoire heard the news that day, for it was the day Claudine had her accident.
She was woken early by the baby, who was being even more active than usual, and laughing, she clutched her hands to her belly and started to scold it. Then, thinking of Armand and the day ahead, she felt a sudden rush of happiness. She got out of bed and strolled onto the balcony outside her room, where the branches of the forest were almost close enough to touch and the sun glittered through the leaves.
A little while later she heard the sound of the door opening and then Magaly’s gasp of alarm. It wasn’t the fact that she was outside that had dismayed Magaly, it was that she was wearing nothing more than a rapturous smile.
‘Madame!’ Magaly cried. ‘You will catch a cold! Think of the baby!’
‘I am,’ Claudine said. ‘It’s so restless this morning, it’s as if it knows it’s my birthday.’ She ran her hands over her swollen stomach and started to murmur softly to her child. ‘I wish I could walk like this through the forest, Magaly,’ she said. ‘It seems so right to be naked with nature when I am carrying a baby.’
By the time Claudine was ready for breakfast, she was so happy she felt she might burst with it. She could hardly wait for midday, for all the vineyard workers had been invited to take their lunch at the château today, and so too had the children who were too young to be at school, their mothers and grandmothers, Father Pointeau and Doctor Lebrun. Even Florence Jallais was coming, though only because Armand had agreed to drive her in his van. So, apart from her family, all her guests would be village people, and she was looking forward to it so much that the only thing that had come close to upsetting her was that she couldn’t find François’ necklace. Never mind, she was too excited to worry about that now. And she began to sail down the stairs in her crimson wool maternity dress, looking, as she had told Magaly, exactly like someone in a bell tent.
It was as she reached the second flight that she heard the noise behind her. Everything happened so quickly then that no one had the chance to shout a warning. Yet when she remembered it later, it was as if it was all happening in slow motion – the clatter of china and silver making her pause, then turn, then she opened her mouth to scream as the footman’s body came thundering towards her. As she hit the stairs she felt something sharp dig into her shoulder, then her body seemed to be twisting away from her as the chandelier above started to spin. The last thing she knew was a blinding, star-spangled pain as her head struck the bottom stair.
Hearing the noise, Solange and Louis ran out into the hall, followed by the servants. Monique and Magaly came flying down the stairs, and the instant Magaly saw her mistress’s inert body entangled with the footman’s, and surrounded by the remains of a breakfast tray, she started to scream.
‘Jean-Paul!’ Solange barked. ‘Find Marcel …’
‘I’m here, madame.’
‘Marcel. Go for Doctor Lebrun. Monique! Get away, don’t move her. Tilde, Fabienne, fetch some blankets. Louis, take your medication. Now!’
The footman started to groan with pain. ‘It’s all right, Philippe,’ Solange told him, bending down to take his hand. ‘Marcel’s gone for the doctor. He’ll be here soon. Just lie still.’
It seemed an eternity before the doctor arrived, but in that time Solange managed to ascertain that Philippe had probably broken his leg. There was also a deep cut on his jaw, and an angry swelling had started over one eye. He was conscious, though it was clear from the way his head kept rolling from side to side that he was dazed and disoriented.
However, he would live – as would Claudine, Solange told herself vehemently. But her daughter-in-law’s lovely face was so pale, and though she had been rubbing her wrists for some time, and wafting smelling-salts under her nose, Claudine showed no signs of coming round.
Monique’s hands were resting gently on Claudine’s stomach, and when she met her mother’s eyes she shook her head. ‘It’s not moving,’ she whispered.
After leaving the château the night before, François had driven straight to the avenue Foch. Almost two months had passed since Élise had told him of Claudine’s pregnancy, and her affair with Armand, and he hadn’t seen her again in all that time.
Élise had been uneasy at his prolonged absence, particularly since he hadn’t even telephoned to say where he was. She knew he was in communication with his courier, Erich von Pappen, but for once von Pappen had refused to divulge François’ whereabouts – and her other methods of finding out had, on this occasion, failed her.
By way of comfort, she had reminded herself that a great deal had been happening in Europe over the past couple of months to interest François. Adolf Hitler had pronounced himself Germany’s Supreme Military Commander, and Lord Halifax was now the British Foreign Secretary. Most important of all, perhaps – at least, as far as François was concerned – the Nazi plot to annex Austria had been made public. Though the exposé had obviously come far too late, Élise thought, because Erich von Pappen had told her that the Germans were poised to walk into Austria the very next day.
She wondered how many other people knew that – and how much von Schuschnigg, Austria’s Chancellor, had paid François for information on the Nazi plot. But that was the kind of detail François never disclosed to anyone, and in truth it didn’t really interest Élise. All that mattered to her, as she sat alone in her drawing-room, was that at last he had telephoned to say he was coming.
Beneath her oyster silk peignoir she wore nothing but a pearly-white basque and gartered stockings. Her wonderful golden hair was loose and curling around her shoulders; her pale, luscious skin glowed in the amber half-light, and her ripe lips glimmered a delicate peach-colour. She knew it was the way he would want to find her, she knew too that tonight after such a long absence, he would simply take her, with no thought for her pleasure or care for his own savagery. But the very fact that his body craved such a release was enough to inflame the desire in her own, even if she must wait until the following morning for total satisfaction.
He arrived just after midnight. Hearing his key in the lock, she rose to her feet and, checking herself quickly in the mirror, turned to watch him walk in. The instant she saw his face, her heart contracted so painfully that it was all she could do to stop herself running to him. She had tried so hard to pretend she hadn’t missed him; that she wasn’t afraid he was angry with her because of what she’d told him about his wife; that she wasn’t terrified she might be losing him. But she had been all of those things – and more. It was impossible for her to forget how much she loved him, or how vulnerable that love made her.
But what she did sometimes forget was the way the air, the light, even the temperature, suddenly seemed to change when he walked into a room, and though outwardly she gave no sign of it, inside she was already melting under the burning heat of his eyes. He didn’t have to touch her for her to feel him, he didn’t have to speak for her to know what he wanted.
Her hand trembled slightly as she poured him a brandy, but her voice was steady as she said, ‘It is good to see you.’
He nodded, then reaching inside his coat, he took out a Mauboussin box and put it on the table. She eyed it greedily, knowing that whatever trinket lay inside would be exquisitely expensive.
‘The child is mine,’ he said.
Startled, she looked up – she hadn’t expected him to mention it so soon after arriving. They held one another’s eyes, and in the dim golden light she looked more like a mythical goddess than ever, and he more like a demon. Slowly her lips curled into a derisive smile. ‘That’s what she told you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you believe her?’
‘Yes.’
She handed him the brandy, then sauntered across to th
e sofa but didn’t sit down. ‘François de Lorvoire, the cuckold,’ she jeered in her deep, throaty voice. She turned to face him. He was watching her, his eyes as inscrutable as ever and his lips wet from the brandy. ‘That is what you are, you know?’
He inclined his head, then put his glass on the mantle-shelf beside him.
‘You’re going to let her get away with it?’
‘With having my baby? Of course.’
‘If it is your baby. And what about St Jacques?’
‘What about him?’
A quick temper flashed in her eyes. ‘He is her lover,’ she snapped.
‘Is he? And just how would you know something like that, Élise?’
He appeared unruffled, but she hadn’t missed the dangerous edge in his voice. But it was a question she was prepared for, and was amazed he hadn’t asked it before.
‘Because it’s the talk of the countryside,’ she answered disdainfully, ‘and fast becoming the talk of Paris. Céline has visitors down there at Montvisse, they’re not blind to what goes on under their noses.’
‘I should have thought you were above idle gossip, Élise,’ he remarked equably. ‘However, there is a little truth in the rumours. My wife is in love with St Jacques – or so she tells me.’
‘And knowing that, you’re prepared to accept that the child isn’t his? You’re a fool, François.’
All the time they had been speaking, he had been moving towards her. Now he took his hand out of his pocket and pushed her peignoir down over one shoulder, ‘Do you think so?’ he murmured, feeding his eyes on the ample softness of her skin.
‘Do you care what I think?’
‘The only thing I care about, Élise, is that the child is mine.’ And peeling the peignoir from her other shoulder, he watched it drop to the floor. She looked down at his hand as he trailed it gently over the fine lace of her basque, then watched as he hooked his fingers into a cup of the brassière and eased it down over her plump breast to expose the achingly distended nipple. She took a breath to speak, but his fingers closed over the nipple, and with his other hand he grabbed her hair and tilted her face back to look at him. For a fleeting moment he saw Claudine’s lips before him, red and full and trembling, and as his mouth closed angrily over Élise’s he released her nipple and started to unbutton his fly.