Louisa Rawlings

by Promise of Summer

  Denis smiled. His eyes were soft with devotion. “For such thanks, I’d give a hundred gifts.”

  “I’d give a thousand,” said Carle-André sullenly.

  Their attentiveness gave Topaze hope. She’d play on Lucien’s jealousy, force his hand. She managed to look shy, turning her head aside. “Do you ask for nothing more in return than a kiss, Denis? Other men might ask for dearer rewards.”

  His expression was somber. “The reward I seek is something, perhaps, that is best discussed with your parents in private.”

  Adelaïde laughed. “Such a deal of tiptoeing about, Monsieur de Rocher. Do you mean marriage?”

  “Well…yes,” he said.

  “Then say so. I, for one, am prepared to allow Véronique to do as she wishes in the matter.”

  Hubert rose from his chair and crossed to the group, a frown on his face. “Madame, you speak with intemperate haste.”

  “Maybe so. But I want Véronique to marry whomever she wishes. She’s safely home again, and I want her to be happy. Even if I have to defy you on this, husband.”

  For a moment Hubert’s eyes glowed with anger. Then he shrugged, turned, resumed his seat. “We’ll see.”

  It seemed an opportune time to press her advantage. “Do you mean I can marry any man I choose, Fleur?” asked Topaze.

  “Yes. Any man.”

  She giggled. “Even Cousin Lucien?”

  “Oh, I say!” Carle-André looked horrified. “You can’t marry a man who’s a…” He stopped, flustered.

  “Does it stick in your craw, Montalembert?” drawled Lucien. “Say it. A man who’s a bastard.”

  “I’d have no objections to it, nephew,” said Adelaïde softly. “Not if Véronique wanted it.”

  Lucien stared. Topaze saw that Adelaïde’s generosity had momentarily cracked his mask of indifference. He turned away. “Your trust is probably misplaced, Aunt,” he muttered.

  Denis gave a little bow. “I’ll welcome the competition, Renaudot,” he said coldly.

  “And I.” Carle-André stepped forward, his hand resting lightly on his sword.

  Ave Maria, but this wasn’t what she hoped for! Jealousy might work with Lucien; it only seemed to make the other two belligerent. She stamped her foot… “Am I a bone? To be yapped over by dogs? Go away. I don’t want to see any one of you until tomorrow. Fleur, may I take supper in my room tonight?” At Adelaïde’s nod, she turned, curtsied to the men, and swept from the drawing room.

  She lingered in the upstairs passageway to greet Léonard, who’d just come in from an afternoon of fishing. He was unhappy that she’d spent the day without him. She kissed him on the forehead and promised to make it up to him by going on a picnic on the morrow. She moved off to her own suite. She heard steps behind her and turned.

  Lucien was bearing down on her. Before she could protest, he took her by the arm and steered her to the end of the corridor. He opened a door, pushed her inside the room, and followed, closing the door behind them. It was a small bedchamber. Lucien’s, she guessed, from his familiar cloak thrown carelessly across the bed. He turned on her. His eyes were blazing. “Your coquette’s role is becoming tiresome,” he snapped.

  She refused to be cowed. It was a long time since she’d feared him. “It’s not tiresome to me,” she said airily.

  “I think it’s time to announce our marriage. While Adelaïde is still agreed, and before Hubert has hardened his heart against the idea. Seize the moment now.”

  She tossed her head. “I’m not ready.”

  He puffed his cheeks. “Merde, but you’re an exasperating woman. What the devil do you want? You had your courtship, your wooing. Wasn’t it enough? And now you’re back to your games with those idiots. What do you want now? Do you want me to say I’ve been wrong to hate my father all these years?”

  It had played on his mind, what Gilles had said. “No, Lucien. Only if you think it’s wrong.”

  “Then what the devil must I do to finish the business?”

  Tell me you love me, she thought. “Are you so eager to ‘finish the business’?” She tried to keep the dismay out of her voice.

  He ran his hands through his hair. “I want to go home. To Guadeloupe. I’m sick of it all.”

  “Will Mademoiselle de Ronceray be waiting?”

  “I expect so. Now, shall I speak to Adelaïde tonight?”

  His answer was a knife to her heart. He still thought of his Adriane. “No, dear cousin. I’m not ready to marry you yet. I’m enjoying myself. With my suitors.”

  “Damn them both.”

  “You’re jealous.”

  “No.”

  “Yes you are, Lucien. I see it in your face. Why? Why are you jealous?” Jealous, perhaps. Loving no. Oh, Lucien, tell me what I yearn to hear.

  He smiled, his devil’s grimace. “I could always reveal that we’re married. That I married you when you still used the name of Topaze Benoîte. I have the paper, you know.”

  “Ha! You can’t. It would make a liar of you. Bonnefous has already had a letter from a captain in Nantes, swearing that you came over with him just a few weeks ago. If you show our marriage contract, signed in Bordeaux in February, what will they think of your story then?”

  He muttered an oath. “I suppose you think you’re clever.”

  “I’m only enjoying Lucien the suitor. I think I want to be wooed a little longer.” Perhaps another night of love, under the moonlight, would unlock his heart.

  If she was hoping for him to soften, she was mistaken. His hands shot out. He grabbed her by the shoulders and propelled her backward onto the bed. He leaned over her and ground his lips against hers. “Perhaps if the wooing is a little less tender, it will help you to make up your mind,” he growled. She felt a twinge of fear. Would he rape her?

  “No, Lucien. Not this time.” She jerked her head aside as he tried to kiss her again. “I’m not your whore. I’m Véronique de Chalotais, whether you believe it or not. And I won’t be bullied into doing what I don’t want to do. Now let me go.”

  He stood up and watched—his eyes like blue ice—while she struggled to her feet. “To think the little chit has come so far,” he sneered. “Now she’s a noblewoman, born to the purple.”

  Damn him. “I don’t know. Not for sure. But I intend to marry into it. Go home to Guadeloupe. To your de Ronceray. And content yourself with ninety-three thousand. I shall be a marquise. I intend to marry Denis de Rocher. And there’s not a damned thing you can do about it!”

  His eyes narrowed. “I think you’ll regret that,” he said softly.

  She shivered at the menace in his look, and escaped the room.

  She spent an unhappy evening in her suite. She picked at her supper, dismissed her maids early, paced her boudoir. It had been a mistake. She’d only sworn to marry Denis to make Lucien jealous. But it was clear she couldn’t win him that way. Perhaps there was no way to win him. She couldn’t hope for his surrender. She sighed. You’ve won, Lucien, she thought. In the morning she’d tell him she’d decided to marry him. And quickly. Let it be done. Let him go back to his Adriane de Ronceray.

  Her musings were interrupted. What was that? She put down the book she’d been attempting to read. She’d heard what sounded like a soft scratch at her door. She went to see. A folded piece of paper had been pushed under the door. She picked it up and read it. Come to the grotto tonight at midnight. Take the tunnel. Lucien.

  She felt like a condemned prisoner who’d been reprieved. The moon was still bright. They’d make love by its light; she’d tell him she never had intended to marry Denis de Rocher. Perhaps she’d even tell him she loved him.

  She waited, impatient eyes on the clock, until she’d heard the sounds of the château die away into the night. It was warm. She didn’t even bother to put on her dressing gown, but slipped out into the dimly lit corridor with only her night shift and mules.

  Below the library steps she found a lantern, lit it, and made her way carefully through the tunnel. It wa
s only after she’d passed the open door just beyond the tower that she noticed how small the candle was in her lantern. She almost turned about and fetched a new lantern, then changed her mind. This one would light her to the grotto. And there were fresh lanterns at that end for the trip back.

  She breathed deeply. The air was close tonight. She remembered Lucien telling her that long ago one of Simon’s dogs had died here. Of suffocation, no doubt. It wouldn’t take long in such a confined space, despite the tunnel’s length. She shivered. What a macabre thought!

  At last she reached the grotto door. Lucien, my love, I’m yours. She put down the lantern and tugged on the releasing lever. Nothing happened. Again she pulled. Again, nothing. She threw her whole weight against the lever, pushing and straining with all her might. Damnation! It seemed to be stuck. She examined the door. There was no handle, no pull. And it fit its opening so snugly that there was no way she could begin to pry it open, even if she had a tool. What a bother. She’d have to go back to the château, or at least to the tower, make her way out of doors, and get to the grotto by that means. It meant climbing over the wall somewhere, or squeezing through a hedge. But she’d been a hoyden on the streets of Bordeaux; she guessed she could still conquer a barrier or two, for all her soft life here.

  And she’d die if she couldn’t see Lucien tonight.

  She started to retrace her steps, then remembered she’d wanted a fresh lantern. She returned to the grotto door, reached for a lantern from the shelf. Ave Maria! There were none. But that was absurd. She could swear there were always two or three at hand. Well, perhaps she and Lucien had made the trip in one direction too many times. The spare lanterns must all be on the shelf near the tower: she certainly didn’t remember seeing more than this one near the library stairs. She stared at the flickering candle. Ah, well, it would have to do.

  Again she set out in the direction of the château. It was cold here in the tunnel. She was beginning to regret leaving her dressing gown in her room. She looked up. At last. The old door. She frowned. Strange, she was sure she’d left it open when she came through. She put down her lamp, lifted the door latch, and pulled on the handle. She felt a thrill of fear: the door wouldn’t open. She grasped the handle with both hands and rattled the door violently. There was no doubting it. She could feel it in the way the door refused to yield.

  Someone had thrown the bolt on the other side.

  She pounded in frustration on the door, then stopped and cursed herself. That was madness. The dog that died must have barked. And no one heard him. What was the point in exhausting herself in a self-indulgent fury? She nearly went back to try the grotto again, then changed her mind. Why bother? If this door had been deliberately locked, the sealed grotto door was no accident either. Nor the missing lanterns.

  She sat on the floor and buried her face in her hands, reluctant to face the truth: Lucien was the only one who knew of the passageway. Lucien had sent her the message that had lured her here.

  “Oh, God, no,” she said aloud. “Not Lucien.” But the voice in her head whispered, Why not Lucien? Adelaïde’s solicitor was due to arrive in a few days. There was still the matter of the half million livres. How much simpler for Lucien if Véronique were to die before he could be cut out of Adelaïde’s will. He’d been a cold-blooded pirate. Had she forgotten that? Forgotten the way he’d fought the cutthroats in that alley in La Rochelle? The way he’d tried to strangle her, waking from his nightmare?

  And the way he’d talked about her “suicide”. “How soon do you want to die?” he’d asked. Was it to be a mock suicide, bloody knife and all? Or had he planned it differently from the first—the way he’d planned to return to Grismoulins, and hadn’t told her? A mock suicide? Or the elimination of a confederate who was no longer of use to him? And she’d told him, this afternoon, that she intended to many Denis de Rocher. He saw that the Marcigny inheritance would never be his, but the half million was still willed to him. What better time to kill her? Véronique would simply vanish again, and she’d be entombed in this foul place, not to be discovered until God knows when.

  No. No! How could she think that way? He’d been her tender lover, her sweet companion. She’d seen the dark part of his soul, true enough. Angry, vengeful. But not evil. Sweet Virgin. Not the man who’d charmed her in the moonlight, who’d stolen her heart with his warm laughter.

  But he was a Chalotais. What was it Adelaïde had said? The Chalotais men can be charming, when they want to be. And they had no shame when it came to money. Lucien himself had once told her that the Chalotais men liked to marry well. Wasn’t that what he had planned? Like his father. Like his uncle.

  No! She clapped her hands to her ears to still the ugly thoughts that whirled in her brain. She winced. Her fingers touched the sore spot on her head, where the mill arm had struck her. Ave Maria, was there no end to her fears and doubting? Lucien had tried to make light of it, claiming that the wheel couldn’t have turned. But what if somebody had connected it deliberately?

  She forced herself to recall every detail: how the mill had looked this morning, what Lucien had said afterwards. If she hadn’t heard the sound of the arms as they turned, and ducked, the blow would have hit her squarely on the head. It might have killed her. It would certainly have knocked her out. And then what? Over the side of the cliff to the rocks below? She shuddered. He could have been hiding in the mill, could have engaged the wind shaft just as she turned her back. She was still dazed when she looked for his message inside; he could have been behind the door, and she wouldn’t have noticed.

  His message. To meet her, so he could tell her something meaningless about Farigoule, whom he’d heard from days ago. Why had he waited to tell her? For that matter, was it important to begin with? Or had he used the handkerchief, the message above the door, merely as a lure? And then, when she didn’t die, he’d had to conjure up a plausible reason for his summons.

  And there was something else. He didn’t seem to believe she was Véronique. He seemed quite certain about that. Véronique won’t return, he’d said. How did he know that? Had he been responsible for her disappearance? And what if she truly was Véronique? He’d looked at her so strangely, when she’d told him that her memories were returning. He’d wondered what the child Véronique thought of him. Perhaps there was something that he feared she’d remember.

  “Oh, Lucien,” she sobbed. It couldn’t be so. It couldn’t! She sniffled and wiped at her nose. What was it she always told the Givet little ones? Pick yourself up. She couldn’t help herself by crying. It was important to think, to get herself out of this predicament, if she could.

  What to do? There was no one to rescue her. Only Lucien was aware of this tunnel, as far as she knew. She could wait here until the candle burned itself out, then die in the darkness and the cold. And it was cold down here, a chill that seeped into her bones. She eyed the candle in the lantern. Another hour or so, she guessed. No more. But perhaps when Lucien had removed the spare lanterns at the grotto, he’d left the tinderbox. She’d fetch it, bring it back here, before the candle died. She’d burn her slippers for light and warmth. If need be, she’d burn her night shift as well.

  She gasped as a thought struck her. By Saint Christophe, she might even be able to burn down the door! She jumped to her feet. Why not? The beams were old and dry. And even if Lucien had taken the tinderbox from the grotto shelf, there was still the shelf itself to use as fuel. She picked up the lantern and started back along the passageway.

  Something on the ground caught her eye, at a spot where the tunnel curved. Small, easy to overlook, unless she were watching the ground as she walked. She stooped and retrieved it. Lucien’s penknife. She opened it up, stared at it, thinking. If she tried to burn the door, she might suffocate on the smoke long before she’d managed to make a hole big enough to get through. And how could she be certain that the foul air of the tunnel was enough to fuel a blaze in the first place? It was risky. But with this knife… The door was old and rotting
, the hinges rusty. She might be able to loosen them, pry out the bolts, push the door open a crack so she could squeeze through. She went back to the door, put the lantern on the ground, and set to work.

  It was painfully slow. The knife was small. And though she was able to gouge out chunks of the soft wood alongside the hinges, the chunks were very small. But she worked as quickly as she could, one eye on the dwindling candle. If it should go out, she’d have to work in the dark. At last she loosened one of the hinges, pulled it away from the wood, cursed as it tore a fingernail. She sucked at the painful finger for a moment (Damn you, Lucien!); and then attacked the next hinge.

  The candle had begun to sputter by the time she’d removed the last hinge. Because of the bolt on the other side, she’d have to pull the door open, not push it. Using Lucien’s knife, she. pried at the door. The tip of the knife snapped. She swore again, and slipped the broken blade between the door and the jamb. This time she was able to pull the door forward enough to get a grip on it with her fingers. She strained, tugged, pulled. Her night shift was damp with sweat.

  The door yielded just as the candle flared up, then died. She squeezed through the narrow opening and groped about in the dark. She found the steps leading to the tower trapdoor, and the shelf that held lanterns. Thanks be to God! The villain clearly never expected her to escape that part of the tunnel: he’d left the spare lanterns here. She lit one, made her way to the library steps. She had a moment’s terror, fearful that he might have blocked that exit as well. But when she pulled on the lever, the bookcase door opened and she stepped into the dark library. She murmured a prayer of gratitude and hurried to her room. At the last moment, feeling a twinge of fear, she locked the door to her boudoir. Let her maids knock for entrance in the morning.