Chateau D'Armor

by Rebecca Stratton

  “Of Charles Louis Vernais,” Jesamine told him. “My grandfather remembers seeing it when he was a boy, but he can’t remember what eventually happened to it. Possibly it was sold some time during the early nineteen-hundreds, when the old family house was sold, Grampy doesn’t remember. It definitely isn’t in the family now, or I’d have discovered it while I was looking for background for this article.”

  “Une dommage,” Francois d’Armor said, shaking his head, and Jesamine could only agree with him.

  Madame d’Armor, she realised suddenly, was looking curiously interested in the subject, and every so often she was glancing across at Jesamine, as if something about her was puzzling. It was several seconds before she said what it was, and then she mentioned it only cautiously, as if she was unsure of her ground.

  “You speak of a miniature, mademoiselle,” she said in her quiet voice, “which was presumably given by Charles Louis Vernais to Mademoiselle Sutton. Is it not so that sometimes lovers exchanged such likenesses? As mementoes, n’est-ce pas? Souvenirs d’amour, oui?”

  Jesamine nodded. There was a curious fluttering sensation in her stomach that she could not quite explain as she looked across at the old lady. “Why, yes, Madame d’Armor,” she said, “I think you’re right. They exchanged miniatures as people today exchange photographs.”

  “Then perhaps,” Madame d’Armor suggested, “there were—how do you say?—a pair of these miniatures exchanged.” She was looking at her husband and one elegant hand indicated that he should take a look at Jesamine sitting beside him. “Regarde Mademoiselle,” she told him, and Francois frowned for a moment curiously.

  Then he did as he was asked and turned his dark curious eyes on Jesamine and studied her for a moment. She saw realisation come suddenly in a bright glitter of expression, and he raised his hands. “Mais oui!” he said, his voice sharp with excitement. “Mais oui, mon amie, you are right, so right!”

  Jesamine looked from one to the other curiously, that flutter of excitement now more urgent than ever, and she felt Paul’s eyes on her too suddenly, narrowed and glistening. He was smiling too, showing strong white teeth in that craggy face, and her heart gave a sudden lurch as she met his gaze briefly.

  “Ah mais oui, naturellement, Grandmama!” he said. “La fille de la nuit. The dark girl,” he translated for Jesamine’s benefit, “with the face of an angel!”

  His grandmother looked momentarily startled at his extravagant compliment, but she nodded as if she found it apt, and smiled at him. “Perhaps Mademoiselle Arden would like to see it,” she suggested tentatively, and Paul was already on his feet before she had finished speaking, and making for the door.

  “Naturellement, Mademoiselle must see it!” he said.

  Francois d’Armor was nodding his head approvingly and smiling at his wife. “So clever of you to see it, ma chere,” he told her, and Jesamine’s heart beat hard in anticipation, for she felt sure she knew what was happening, or about to happen.

  “You will find la fille de la nuit to you liking, mademoiselle,” Madame d’Armor promised, and her husband looked at her with a hint of mischief in his eyes.

  “This is an unexpected moment for you, mademoiselle, n’est-ce pas?” he asked. “But there can be no doubt at all who la Fille de la nuit is—or was.”

  “I can still scarcely believe it,” Jesamine said, and laughed a little unsteadily. “It’s marvellous to think that a picture of Louise exists after all. I didn’t expect anything like this!”

  “She has hung in the small salon for many years,” Francois told her. “We did not know who she was but she was so tres jolie that we had not the heart to part with her!” He inclined his head in his grandson’s direction when Paul returned carrying a tiny gilt frame in one large hand. “Regardez, ma chere!”

  The gilt frame contained a miniature painted in soft, glowing colours, and when Paul handed it to her he leaned his weight on the arm of her chair so that his face was close beside her own, and she felt her senses respond when she was enveloped in the warmth of his body as he leaned even closer to point to the small painted face surrounded by a cloud of dark hair. She found it hard to concentrate, but determinedly fixed her attention on the likeness of Louise Sutton.

  “The face of an angel,” he murmured, “n’est-ce pas, mademoiselle?”

  Jesamine took the miniature, her stomach curling with excitement. Louise Sutton looked to have been about eighteen years old when the picture was painted, and there was no denying she was pretty. She had large blue eyes and a look of innocence that must have appealed to the bold chevalier as much as her beauty.

  Her dress, as much of it as was shown, was almost severe for that age. Dark blue in colour, it had a fichu of lace tied modestly over the low-cut bodice, matching the little white cap that was barely visible on the thick, dark hair. Nothing as extravagant as the richness of blue silk such as her lover affected in the portrait in the hall.

  Jesamine studied her for several minutes, then she shook her head slowly. “She’s pretty,” she said, “but—not quite as I expected her to be.”

  “You are disappointed?” It was Paul d’Armor’s voice that questioned her opinion and he sounded surprised.

  Jesamine took a second to answer. “No,” she denied at last, “not disappointed. But I feel somehow as if—” She laughed a little uncertainly. “I feel I should know her,” she confessed, and the sound of Paul d’Armor’s laughter mocked her uncertainty.

  “Mademoiselle,” he taunted, “do you not know your own face?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT had been Madame d’Armor’s decision to hang the miniature of Louise Sutton in Jesamine’s room, and the gesture had been so unexpected that it gave her double the pleasure. During the past couple of days she felt she had, to some extent, overcome the old lady’s initial wariness of her and, as a consequence, she felt more at ease herself.

  She had made little or no progress with the actual writing of the article, although she had added enormously to her knowledge of the d’Armor family history, for Francois d’Armor was as eloquent a story-teller as her own grandfather and she was nothing loath to sit and listen to him.

  Surrounded by the elegant trappings of the Chateau d’Armor, it was easy to lose herself in the stories of the earlier members of its family. Bold, arrogant and romantically dashing, they seemed to fairly describe Paul d’Armor as Jesamine saw him. Only one obvious omission from the old man’s narrative struck her, and that was that he made not a single mention of his only child—the other Louise, who had been Paul’s mother.

  The tiny portrait of Louise Sutton was hung in an alcove near the window, its detail more clearly visible in the broad light of day, and several times since it had been put there, Jesamine had taken time to study it. She had come to the conclusion, after close study of her, that possibly that large eyed look of innocence need not be a true indication of Louise’s character.

  If one looked closely enough there was a certain tilt to the chin that suggested a will at least as strong as her own, and there was a steadiness about that innocent gaze that suggested more strength of character than the angelic features might at first imply.

  It seemed incredible that she should have been with the d’Armor family all those years without their having had an inkling of who she really was, but at the same time it lent strength to Jesamine’s theory. Charles Louis would surely never have brought the likeness of his English lover back with him and kept it for the rest of his life unless he had truly loved her. No matter what Paul d’Armor implied, Jesamine still saw them as a pair of tragic lovers parted by circumstances, and she meant to portray them as such.

  She looked again at the tiny painted face surrounded by its cloud of dark hair, and speculated. The face of an angel, Paul d’Armor had described it as and, almost in the same breath, asked if she did not recognise her own face.

  Of course there was a likeness, Jesamine herself had seen it, once it had been pointed out to her. Enough of a likeness f
or Madame d’Armor to have recognised the unknown dark girl for who she was after so many years. None of them had any doubt that la fille de la nuit with the face of an angel was Louise Sutton, and Jesamine speculated for a moment on whether Paul d’Armor also considered that she too had the face of an angel.

  Her own likeness to Louise, and Paul d’Armor being a more fair-haired image of Charles Louis Vernais, led her to speculate in another direction too. Like whether the same situation could arise in the present circumstances if she did not guard against it, and before she turned away she reached out and touched the ornate little gilt frame with a forefinger, smiling ruefully.

  “I hope I have more will-power than you had, Louise,” she whispered to the girl in the portrait.

  Walking across, she picked up her handbag from the bed and glanced idly out of the window as she did so at the broad expanse of the chateau grounds, bright and summery in the sun. She was too preoccupied for the moment, however, to consciously notice anything, and it was only as she turned to go that she was brought sharply back to earth by the sight of Paul d’Armor.

  She paused instinctively in the act of turning, to look at him, striding out across the neatly formal gardens with that long, slightly impatient stride of his and her heart missed a beat. She took the opportunity to observe him without herself being observed, for she felt sure he had not yet seen her. Standing back from the window she was half concealed by the curtains and she felt she was safe from notice while she watched him, trying to identify just what it was about him that was so irresistibly attractive.

  She had known attractive men before, handsome men and younger than Paul d’Armor, but never one as capable of disturbing her emotions as he did, and the fascination he held for her also, in some way, made her resentful. He must be somewhere between thirty-five and forty, she estimated, although it was always more difficult to tell with such rugged features, and the arrogance of his manner owed itself to generations of aristocratic feudalism that would take a lot longer than two hundred years to eradicate. Paul d’Armor was an enigma, and one she felt she just had to find an answer to.

  She suddenly realised he had seen her when he raised his head and looked in the direction of her window. It was a steady, imperious look, well in keeping with the character of the man, and it evoked a curious curling sensation in her stomach, so that she clenched her hands tightly as she gazed down on him.

  For a moment she thought he was going to ignore her, but then he raised a hand suddenly in a careless salute, inclining his head in a brief bow when she fluttered a hand in uncertain response. It was impossible to read any expression from where she stood, and a second later he disappeared, striding out of sight below her window as she turned away.

  Glancing once more at the miniature hanging in the alcove, she looked at Louise Sutton with a glimmer of understanding in her eyes. Her heart was still thudding hard in her breast and she sighed as she opened the door of her room to go downstairs. She was behaving as if she was just as impressionable as the girl in the picture, she thought despairingly, and gave herself a mental shake as she closed the door firmly behind her. She had no intention of allowing history to repeat itself.

  It had rained in the night, but the morning promised to be warm and sunny and Jesamine had decided to take advantage of it and walk down to the village again. She could have driven herself, but she had always found walking conducive to mental activity, and she really must think about putting the article she was supposed to be writing into some more tangible form.

  She had no particular objective in mind other than to be alone with her thoughts for a while and perhaps absorb a little atmosphere. Walking would give her some much-needed exercise too, for she had spent far too long sitting indoors during the past two days, and, pleasant as it was, she was not getting her job done.

  It had not even occurred to her when she saw Paul from her bedroom window that she would probably come across him as she made her way downstairs, and the sight of him coming into the hall from the rear of the house made her hesitate only half-way down.

  He came striding into the hall with the same slightly impatient gait she had noticed from her window. A blue denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up above the elbows, and fawn slacks, were in direct contrast to the smart, formally suited image she had seen so far, but they did nothing to detract from that basic and very masculine aura about him.

  In fact, in working clothes he might have looked less sophisticated, but he was much more earthily attractive, and she felt her pulses responding to him even before he looked up and saw her on the stairs and she was subjected to that steady, almost insolent scrutiny. Then his gaze shifted slightly and he noted the handbag she carried.

  “You are going out, mademoiselle?” he asked, as if he had every right to question her movements.

  “I am,” she agreed.

  There was a suggestion of a smile on his mouth that she instinctively mistrusted, and it gleamed in his eyes as he looked at her. “You will remember to drive on the correct side of the road?” he asked, and Jesamine bit her lip determinedly rather than make the retort she was tempted to.

  “I’m not driving, monsieur,” she told him. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “To the village?”

  It could have been her imagination, but she thought she detected a hint of sharpness in the question, as if he disliked the idea, and she did not answer at once. There was no reason why he should suddenly take an interest in what she did, nor did he have any cause to object, and an uncontrollable niggle of suspicion made her frown at him curiously.

  “I was thinking of going to the village, as a matter of fact,” she told him, and left him in no doubt that she saw it as none of his business where she went.

  The merest suggestion of tightness pulled at his wide mouth and there was a glitter in his eyes as he stood in the middle of the hall watching her come slowly down the rest of the stairs. “My interest is practical, mademoiselle,” he said. “I cannot imagine why you should wish to walk when you have an auto or why you should wish to go to the village when there are better shops only a few kilometres away.”

  “But I don’t want shops,” she informed him. “And you don’t have to concern yourself with me, Monsieur d’Armor, I’m quite happy just browsing around.”

  “Browsing?” Obviously the word was unknown to him, and she half-smiled—his English was usually so good.

  “It means that I want to look around Grosvallee,” she told him, “and you don’t have to be suspicious of my intentions, monsieur!”

  He said nothing for a moment, then he inclined his head briefly, his voice coolly matter-of-fact when he spoke. “I am driving through the village on my way to see one of our neighbours,” he told her. “It is some distance to walk and if you prefer not to drive, mademoiselle, perhaps you will allow me to drive you. My concern is for your well-being, I was not aware that I had cause to suspect your intentions!”

  It was a direct challenge that was backed by the gleam in his eyes, and she felt rather as if she had been scolded for petulance. She felt foolish and angry with herself for letting him arouse such emotional reactions in her, and yet she could not resist the idea of riding with him in his car to the village, instead of walking as she had planned.

  “Mademoiselle?”

  His quiet voice roused her, brought her back to earth, and she hastily nodded her head while taking care not to look at him directly. “Thank you, Monsieur d’Armor,” she said. “I can ride there and walk back—I seem to remember it’s quite a long way. If you’re sure it’s no trouble.”

  “None, mademoiselle!” Once more that searching gaze swept over her. “You are ready at once?”

  When she nodded agreement he held out a hand to her, and for a second only, she hesitated. His eyes held hers, steady and challenging, as if he expected her to shy away, but when she moved up beside him he merely touched the underside of her arm lightly with his fingertips. Nevertheless the light, tingling touch on her bare skin jus
t below her elbow brought a fluttering reaction from her senses and she despaired of her own weakness as she walked across the hall with him.

  It should have been so easy to have told him that she would prefer to walk. That she had planned a walk deliberately to give herself both exercise and the time to think, but somehow it had not been easy at all, and here she was sitting beside him in that same big black car she had collided with on the road coming in.

  He drove well, which was no more than she expected, but she could not quite understand his continued silence and found it rather unnerving. Ever since that initial enquiry as to where she was going, she had known he was unhappy about something to do with her visiting the village, but she could not imagine why. Once or twice she glanced at him from the corners of her eyes, but the strong brown face in profile gave her no clue at all.

  “This is all yours?”

  She indicated the vineyards that spread out on either side of them. The vines sprawled like green webs along their supports, heavy with fruit, and the fields that sloped steeply in places and looked stony and barren at ground level. Vineyards seemed to cover the whole valley, girded round by the bright ribbon of the river, pale and bright and glinting in the sunlight.

  “Mais oui, mademoiselle, it is all ours.”

  He seemed disinclined to answer even when she made the effort to open a conversation, and Jesamine felt oddly uneasy about it, as well as a little irritable. She looked again at the strong, disturbing face with its grey eyes and firm mouth, and frowned.

  “Is something wrong, Monsieur d’Armor?” she asked, and he turned his head briefly, scanning her face with a swift, hard gaze, as if he suspected her question.

  “In what way wrong, mademoiselle?” he asked, and Jesamine shook her head.

  It was impossible to put a finger on anything specific, but something was making him silent and unresponsive, and she was almost certain that it was because she insisted on visiting the village. “I’m not sure,” she confessed, “but you—” She shrugged uneasily. “Oh—maybe it’s just my imagination!”