‘Cross with you?’ He laughed harshly. ‘Cross is a very little word to describe my feelings towards a wife who cuckolded me with my own brother. And in the name of decency, cover yourself. If you think you can seduce me with a display of your body, you are much mistaken. Once, maybe. But not now. I know you too well.’
He turned on his heel, and despair and an overwhelming sense of rejection made Lisette reckless.
‘So you walk away from me!’ she cried. ‘Is it any wonder I look to other men for my pleasures when you treat me so?’
His hand was on the door to his own dressing room, gripping it so hard the fingers turned white.
‘Don’t make excuses for yourself, Lisette. We had a normal married life until you betrayed me with my brother. But it was not enough for you. You had to have more. Now, I am going to bed before I lose what little control remains over my temper, and I do something I shall regret.’
‘Oh!’ she cried. ‘And what might that be? I don’t believe you are enough of a man to carry out any of your threats. And I don’t believe you’re capable of satisfying me either…’
She broke off as he whirled round, crossed the floor in three quick strides, and grabbed her by the wrists.
‘What did you say?’ His voice was a low snarl of rage.
Lisette felt a moment’s sharp fear, and with it a twist of something like triumphant excitement.
Then: ‘If you want a man, Madame, by God you shall have one!’ he grated.
One hand went beneath her knees, the other around her shoulders, and he lifted her as if she were a child, carrying her across the room and flinging her down roughly on to the bed. She gasped with shock at the violence of it, gasped again as he tore her wrap open.
He was towering over her, holding her down and at the same time undressing himself, and as his weight came down on her she knew that this was not what she wanted at all. The triumphant excitement had all gone, swamped by fear.
‘Louis – stop – stop!’ She beat at him with her hands, panic making her voice shrill. He took no notice. With one hand he forced her flailing legs apart, then drove into her. She cried out as white-hot pain knifed through her again and again with the furious thrusts of his body and he covered her mouth roughly with his hand, cutting off breath as well as her cries. The final thrust seemed to tear her apart, the whole of her body was nothing but pain – her tortured lungs, the hand biting into her cheek, the screaming agony of torn tissue in the core of her. And, worst of all, the memories the pain had awakened. Lying helpless, terrified and suffering, Lisette became once again the child she had once been, drowning in the blackness that had swamped her then, and swamped her now.
It was over in minutes – minutes which seemed to her to last a lifetime. As Louis released her she drew in precious air on a series of great sobbing gasps and curled in on herself as if afraid he might take her again. He rolled away from her, getting up and reaching for his breeches, discarded on the floor beside the bed, without a word.
‘You beast!’ she whispered, the tears starting in her eyes.
‘I thought that was what you wanted.’ His voice was rough now, more from shame than anger.
‘How could you?’ she sobbed. ‘You are no better than him!’
Louis tensed, half-in and half-out of his breeches.
‘No better than who?’ She was silent and he turned, gripping her by the shoulders. ‘No better than who, Lisette? He didn’t take you by force, did he? Gavin? Sweet Jesus, I’ll kill him! I should have killed him…’
‘No,’ she sobbed, frightened now by what she had started. ‘Not Gavin. No!’
‘Then who?’ His fingers bit into her shoulders. Still she could not answer, and he shook her as a dog shakes a rabbit. ‘Who, Lisette? Who else have you been with and I know nothing of it?’
‘It wasn’t my fault!’ she sobbed.
‘It’s always your fault!’ he ground out. ‘You play at driving men to distraction. You are no better than a common whore.’
Suddenly, for all that she was still afraid, Lisette was angry too, so angry that she forgot her fear. How dare he treat her so! How dare he say such things! And when she had kept her terrible secret all these years for his sake, too!
‘I am not a common whore!’ she cried. ‘I am not of peasant stock like you! I have noble blood, and don’t dare to forget it. But if you want the truth, Louis, then you shall have it. Have you never wondered why I want nothing to do with Antoinette?’
Louis’ blood ran cold suddenly. ‘Don’t bring my daughter into this.’
‘Your daughter?’ She laughed shortly. ‘Antoinette is not your daughter. I was already with child when I married you. And every time I look at her, I am reminded of it.’
His mouth had gone slack, his eyes narrowed with shock.
‘You foisted another man’s child on me?’
‘Foisted? No! You took her willingly – just as you took me. Oh Louis, it was so easy to make you love me then, when I was young and fresh…’ Tears filled her eyes once more; she blinked them away. ‘Now, just like him, you no longer want me. He found someone younger and fresher, and so will you. Men! I despise them!’
Louis’ fingers bit into her shoulders once more.
‘Who are you talking about? Who was your lover? Who is…?’
Antoinette’s father, he had been about to say, but could not form the words.
Lisette laughed harshly.
‘Oh Louis, if only you could see your face! It was my uncle, of course, who else? He took me into his bed first when I was just nine years old. And then, when I grew, he didn’t want me any more. He had his new little girl, and I couldn’t bear it. I’d thought I hated him, hated what he did to me, but when she took my place… oh, I minded so much! I couldn’t stay and see her take my place! So I chose you.’ She laughed again, this time a giggle of childlike delight. ‘And it worked! It made him jealous, just as I knew it would. He wanted me again, even if only for a little while.’
‘Dear God, Lisette! Are you saying your uncle molested and raped you…?’
Her mouth hardened to a tight little line; the tears sparkled again on her lashes.
‘At least he was kind and gentle with me! At least he loved me! He told me so! You… you hurt me. You hate me. And I hate you! But I have the perfect way of making you pay, don’t I? What will they say, all your friends and business associates, when I tell them the truth? That Antoinette is not your child at all, but the product of incest?’
Louis was dazed with the shock of her terrible revelations. They were almost beyond belief – and yet, at the same time, all too believable. They explained so many of the puzzles that were Lisette – her precociousness at the time he had met and fallen in love with her, her desperate dependence on male admiration, her belief that her sexuality could buy her whatever she wanted, her rejection of Antoinette, her mood swings, her inability to settle into a normal life as a wife and mother. She had been damaged physically and emotionally, and, he was beginning to believe, mentally, too, for at this moment she appeared quite unhinged. Love, hate, dependence, all were hopelessly confused within her until there was no longer any logic in anything she thought, or said, or felt.
‘Lisette – for God’s sake think of Antoinette!’ he said harshly. ‘You cannot reveal this terrible truth. It would blight her for ever.’
Lisette shrugged. ‘She’s damned anyway. And why should I care about her? She doesn’t care about me.’
‘Because you have never been a mother to her.’
‘And now she will know why! Now she’ll understand!’
‘Lisette – she is just a child! She must be protected!’
‘No one ever protected me when he came to my bed. And no one protected me tonight when you forced yourself on me and hurt me!’
There was no reasoning with her, Louis realized. Always unpredictable, always volatile, she had now crossed the borderline into madness – and he was to blame. But that was no longer his chief concern.
&
nbsp; Whether Antoinette was his child or not, he loved her. She was an innocent victim in all this. He could not, would not, let this selfish damaged woman blight yet another young life. Somewhere, somehow, the evil that had been spawned by a lecherous old Frenchman must be stopped.
Louis could think of only one solution.
Six
Louis was, I knew, greatly disturbed by my account of what had happened that afternoon between Antoinette and John, the gamekeeper’s lad, and he went directly to her room to speak to her about it. As I freshened up and changed for dinner I heard raised voices coming from her room, and when we all met in the dining room she glared at me, resentment that was not far removed from hatred burning in her foxy green eyes.
I wished with all my heart that I had not had to tell tales on her, I would have much preferred to be in a position to win her confidence, but I did not regret it. The incident was far too serious for me to keep it to myself. It was only right that Louis should be aware of her behaviour so that he could take steps to ensure it did not happen again – though what those steps would be, I could not imagine. A girl as wilful and scheming as Antoinette would almost certainly find ways to do as she pleased, and short of locking her in her room and barring her windows, I could not see how Louis would be able to restrain her – in the long run, at any rate.
I was glad, however, that I had made no mention of the fact that she had been prying amongst my belongings. For one thing I had no proof of it, for another it was, I felt, something between her and me, and since she had flatly denied any such thing I would be forced to leave it there. Hopefully her curiosity was now satisfied and there would be no repeat excursions to the room that provided me with the only privacy I could expect whilst forced to live here at Belvedere.
Louis, too, was in a black mood, surly and silent, but now, instead of disliking him for it as I had before, I felt a certain sympathy. Bad enough that Antoinette was rebellious, disobedient and frankly uncontrollable, but from the despair I had seen on his face and the comments he had made, more to himself than to me, I did not need to be clairvoyant to guess it was the repetition of a pattern. Had he not said on previous occasions that Antoinette was too much like her mother for her own good? I had not known where the comparison lay, now I could scarcely avoid knowing. Lisette had, in some degree or other, been a faithless wife. But there still remained the mystery of what her end had been.
I thought again of Louis’ curt dismissal of her – I do not have a wife – of Antoinette’s assertion that she had died of a fever, and of Bevan’s curious remark that only Louis knew the truth of what had happened to her. Lisette was an enigma which should not concern me, and yet she did, for although she was long since gone, and I had not seen any portrait or likeness of her displayed anywhere, yet her shadow remained, long and dark, over everyone in this strange household, and simply thinking of her made me uncomfortable in a way I could not understand.
Gavin did not appear for the meal; after the quarrel I had overheard this morning, he had decided to stay away from Louis, I assumed, and I could not help but be glad he was not here. Although I had previously found some light relief in his company, his attention this morning had made me uncomfortable, and certainly there was enough tension around the table without the added strain of the bad feeling that existed between the brothers.
We had finished our main course of poached chicken and been served a delicious junket, when we were interrupted by Polly.
‘I am very sorry, Sir, but there are some gentlemen here to see you. I told them you were at dinner, but they said their business was urgent.’
To my surprise, Louis pushed back his chair and rose without asking if his visitors had given a name.
‘Show them into the study, please, Polly,’ he said, and to me: ‘Will you excuse me, Flora? I may be some time.’
‘Oh, Papa and his business!’ Antoinette said pettishly when the door had closed after him. ‘He thinks of nothing else!’
‘That’s not true, I’m sure,’ I said. ‘But business is important to him. It has to be.’
‘Well, at least he won’t be here to glower at me for the rest of the evening!’ she returned. ‘He’s in a dreadful mood, thanks to you. I don’t know why you had to come here, interfering.’
Quite suddenly I decided I had had enough of her rudeness and aggression.
‘I do not want to be here any more than you want me to be,’ I said tersely. ‘But since neither of us can do anything to change that, don’t you think we should make the best of things? And as regards your father’s mood, that is your doing, not mine.’
She tossed her head. ‘You didn’t have to tell him.’
‘I certainly did!’ I told her. ‘If you think about it, I’m sure you will realize I had no choice. And if you are as grown-up as you like to think, you will learn to accept responsibility for the results of your actions, and not seek to try to lay the blame on others.’
Antoinette pouted, and I thought she was going to argue. Then she sat back, looking at me narrowly. ‘Haven’t you ever done something you shouldn’t?’
I laughed. ‘Well, of course I have! Plenty of times.’
‘I can’t imagine it. You are such a goody-goody.’
‘I assure you I am not,’ I said. ‘And if it seems that way it is because I am trying to come to terms with my father’s death, and a very unwelcome situation. Why –’ my hands went to my throat, feeling the nub of pearls beneath the collar of my gown – ‘I am doing something I shouldn’t this very minute. I am wearing jewellery when I am in mourning.’
Antoinette stared at me in amazement. ‘What’s the point of wearing jewellery if it doesn’t show? My mama used to wear beautiful jewellery. It will be mine when I am sixteen, and I shall never hide it away. Not even if I were in mourning, which I never will be, since I have no one to mourn.’
‘That is a terrible thing to say!’ I said, shocked. ‘And I don’t believe for one moment that you mean it. Why, you would miss your father dreadfully, just as I miss mine.’
Antoinette sat back, considering.
‘I suppose I missed Grandmama. Yes, I did. I remember crying a good deal when she died. She used to play with me…’ Her eyes went far away. ‘And she taught me to sew. And we’d go riding together in the carriage with a rug over our knees and she’d hold my hand – that was nice – and she’d point out the flowers and the trees and tell me their names. She’d come to my room when my nurse had put me to bed, and she’d sing to me sometimes…’
‘After your mother died, you mean?’ I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.
‘Oh – and before. Mama never came. It was always Grandmama.’ She was silent for a moment, lost in her memories, and something about her face, so knowing sometimes, so vulnerable now, tugged at the strings of my heart.
‘I grew up without a mother, too,’ I said. ‘But I was lucky – I had her until I was nine years old and I have very happy memories.’ I smiled faintly, picturing her in my mind’s eye, her brown unpowdered hair coiled thickly, the sprigged muslin dress she wore for church on Sundays, the grey serge everyday gown that felt comfortingly warm against my cheek when I nestled on her lap. And smelling again the faint scent of lavender that clung to her, and which lingered in a room even when she had left it. ‘She didn’t own much jewellery,’ I went on. ‘There was no money to spare for such things. And she didn’t have fine clothes. But she was very beautiful, all the same, and I loved her very much.’
Antoinette was looking at me intently, and there was something almost wistful in those narrowed green eyes.
‘Who looked after you when she died? Did you have a grandmama too?’
‘I had a granny, yes – Granny Livesay, whom I also loved very much. But she lived some way off, at Cockington. No, after my mother died, there was just my father and me.’
Tears filled my eyes suddenly; I turned my head away so that Antoinette should not see them, and the spell that had bound us together briefly was broken.
/> ‘And you had no nurse either?’ she asked incredulously.
‘No.’
‘And no maid to wash your clothes and brush your hair?’
I shook my head.
‘It must be very strange to be so poor,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t care for it.’
I brushed the tears out of my eyes with the back of my fingers.
‘There are some things, Antoinette, that money cannot buy,’ I said. ‘Love and happiness chief among them.’
Her lips curled. ‘Poor people always say that, don’t they? I suppose one must allow them something. But I simply couldn’t bear a life without pretty things – and servants to do the hard work.’
‘Perhaps, then, Antoinette, you should learn to show a little gratitude for all you have, and take for granted,’ I said tartly.
Her green eyes flashed. ‘Gratitude to whom? To the servants? They are paid, aren’t they? They have a roof over their heads and plenty to eat. Why, it’s they who should be grateful to us!’
‘To your father, perhaps, for working hard to provide you with all these things,’ I suggested.
She tossed her head. ‘Oh, I don’t think I care to have this conversation. I am going to my room.’
‘Where the window, I hope, will remain firmly closed,’ I said.
She shot me a narrow look of dislike and stalked out of the room.
What a strange child she was! I thought, sipping the last of my dessert wine. Spoiled, thoroughly selfish, disrespectful, wilful. And at the same time lonely and rather pathetic. I did not know whether to feel sorry for her or to dislike her. And I wished with all my heart I could teach her the worth of the things she seemed to despise.
Perhaps there was some value, after all, in her friendship with John, the gamekeeper’s lad. Not the dangerous liaisons in her room, of course; not the sexual experimentation I feared they might be indulging in. But John was of the class she looked down on so disdainfully, and yet she called him her best and only friend. She didn’t dismiss him as if he were no more than a chattel. And she had seemed so wistful, too, when I had spoken of my happy childhood. Given time I might be able to find a way to influence her.
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