Now his beautiful new wife had introduced a strong element of doubt into his mind. She was all the things that the pastor had said a woman shouldn’t be; she was totally different from any woman he had ever known; and yet after almost three weeks of marriage to Skye he believed that for the first time in his life he might be falling in love. Skye! It was an outrageous name, but he was already used to it and liked it. She had been named after the island from which her mother had come, Skye had told him. Strange, it suited her. She was not a Marie or a Jeanne or a Renée.
She was beautiful, and willful; and gentle and independent; and tender and intelligent. She was, in fact, all the things he had never before even considered in a wife except perhaps beautiful. She had yet to refuse him her body, although his two previous wives had always been seeking excuses to avoid their wifely duties, and then when he had finished with them they had moved quickly away from him. Skye always snuggled next to him, or held him within her own arms. He found he liked that in particular, pillowing his head upon her soft breasts, breathing the marvelous rose fragrance of her. She was cleaner and sweeter than any woman he had ever known.
One night she said to him as he lay sated with pleasure, “Do you know, Fabron, that you have never kissed me?”
He was startled, for he had never been one for that kind of closeness. Nonetheless he suddenly wanted to please her, to give back some of the kindness she was bestowing upon him despite their wretched beginning; a beginning he winced at when he remembered it. “Would it please you if I kissed you, Skye?” he asked her anxiously.
“Yes,” she said softly, “it would please me greatly, mon mari.”
Raising himself upon one elbow, he bent his head down and touched his lips gently to hers, drawing away as quickly as though he had been burned. With a soft laugh Skye drew his head back down with her hands, and pressed her mouth to his ardently. Fabron de Beaumont felt a delicious weakness race through his veins, felt his flaccid manhood tingle and stir to life again.
“That, monseigneur,” she said as she released her hold on him and drew her mouth from his, “that is a kiss. Not altogether an unpleasant thing, is it?”
“Are you mocking me, madame?” he demanded, but his dark eyes belied the sternness of his tone.
“Perhaps a little,” she replied. “Laughter goes with love, mon mari.”
“You lack respect for me, madame,” he said, “and I must claim a forfeit for this absence of decorum.” Then he was kissing her, sweeping her into his arms, his lips seeking her sweetness with a gentle strength that quite surprised her. For the first time since their marriage a tiny tingle of desire stirred within Skye. Perhaps, she thought, there is hope for us after all.
He held her lightly against him, and she knew that he gained tremendous pleasure from the proximity of her body, the warmth and the silkiness of her smooth perfumed flesh. “Do you like it when I caress you?” he asked her hesitantly.
“Yes,” she whispered to him.
“Do you like it when I kiss and caress your lovely breasts?”
“Yes, mon mari, I like it very much,” was her soft answer.
“I want you to like it,” he said in what Skye thought was a shy voice. “I want you to like it when I make love to you.”
“Oh, Fabron,” Skye said, touched and pleased that she was beginning to get through to him. “When you are gentle and tender with me I, too, find pleasure. Should we both not find pleasure in each other?”
“Pastor Lichault says—”
Her hand stopped his mouth. “What does a priest, a priest of any faith, know of passion between a man and his wife, Fabron? I believe that God gave a man his wife not only for companionship and the procreation of his children, but for pleasure as well. I believe that God gave woman her husband for the same reasons. Love me, and I will love you in return. Where is the wrong in that, mon mari?”
Kissing her hand, he removed it from his lips, and said, “You make it all seem so simple, Skye.”
“It is simple, Fabron. Love me, and I will love you back.”
He made love to her then, made love to her as he had not made love to her before. He was tender and considerate. He sought to please her for the first time, and was surprised to find that her pleasure excited him greatly. When she attained the top of the mountain he realized that all the other times she had only pretended in order to please him. It was then he knew that he loved this beautiful woman who, despite his bestial treatment of her that first night, had sought to make their marriage work. “Je t’aime, Skye,” he murmured in her ear, and she held him close, knowing now that they had a chance to succeed in their marriage.
Their idyll was soon over, however. The next morning they sat at a small table that Daisy set up each day in the window of the bedchamber, eating their simple meal of sweet ripe peaches, fresh bread warm from the oven, salt brie, and watered wine. The long windows stood open, and along the stone balustrade blood-red roses grew over the pink stone. Above them the sky was a cloudless blue, below the sea was a sunlit blue-green. A small black and yellow songbird that had taken to visiting them perched himself amid the roses and sang a song before fluttering to their table to eat crumbs from Skye’s hand. Husband and wife smiled at each other.
“How can you do that?” he asked her, intrigued as he always was by her ability to charm the bird.
“The bird knows that it has nothing to fear from me,” she said softly. “If you love a wild creature it senses your love.”
“More than likely it is witchcraft!” thundered a voice from the center of the room. Startled, the bird fled.
“M’lady, monseigneur, I tried to keep him out, but he pushed me aside,” Daisy said indignantly. It was said in French, but Daisy quickly switched to English. “Beware, m’lady! The old devil’s been fuming for days over the duc’s neglect of him.”
“You presume upon my friendship for you, Pastor, that you would intrude upon the privacy of myself and my duchesse,” Fabron de Beaumont said sternly.
Pastor Lichault strode to the table. Skye wrinkled her nose. Did the man never bathe? He smelled as if he slept with the goats. “I come for the good of your immortal soul, Fabron, my son! Since the night I joined you under God’s holy law with this woman you have not come to me. You have neglected your spiritual duties, and God is displeased! He will take his vengeance, and this woman will abort your seed as did your other wives. Down upon your knees, both of you! Beg God’s forgiveness before it is too late!”
The duc looked suddenly uncertain and frightened; Skye was furious and she leapt to her feet. “You wicked man!” she shouted at the pastor. “It is you who should fall upon your knees and beg God’s forgiveness for your distorted, terrible teachings!”
“Whore!” The pastor pointed a bony fìnger at Skye. “Look at her, Fabron, my son! Look how she flaunts her body like a common harlot of Babylon!” His eyes fastened upon her breasts, and he unconsciously licked his lips. Skye was wearing the sheer, rose-colored silk gown she had refused to wear the night of her wedding to the duc.
“You are looking hard enough,” she accused the pastor, “and the thoughts I see lurking behind your evil eyes are hardly those of a holy man!” She was very angry now.
“You have neglected your duties by this woman,” the pastor cried. “Her skin is unmarked. You have not beaten her each day as I told you you must, and she is more unbridled than when she came to you. If you will not follow God’s will, then I must do it for you, for the sake of your immortal soul!” Reaching out, the pastor grasped at Skye with surprisingly strong fingers, and tearing her gown from her, he began to beat her with his hands about the face and head. Skye screamed and struggled to escape his hold.
With a roar of outrage Fabron de Beaumont leapt at the Huguenot pastor and dragged him off of Skye. Furiously he began to pummel the man with knotted fists as Daisy ran to aid her shaking mistress. “You devil’s spawn,” the duc snarled at the pastor, who had suddenly become a sniveling, cringing creature. “You lured me
from my faith, and almost destroyed my marriage before it even began. Were my new duchesse not a woman of strength and character, I should have destroyed her that first night. God forgive me for the weakling I have been, but am no more!”
Then with one sweeping motion Fabron de Beaumont lifted Pastor Lichault bodily into the air and flung him over the balcony. With horror they heard his death scream as he hurtled through the air, then all was silent. Skye and Daisy ran to the balcony and, looking over, saw that he was quite dead upon the rocks below, his neck twisted at a grotesque angle, blood streaming from his nose and mouth.
Turning back to calm her angry husband, Skye saw that Fabron stood, his knees buckling, his eyes bulging from his head, his hands moving frantically from his throat to his head as he struggled to breathe, to speak. Then with a gasping, frantic cry he collapsed onto the floor.
“Get the physician!” Skye commanded Daisy as she knelt by the duc’s side. “Get Edmond also—and hurry, Daisy!”
Daisy sped from the room, her legs moving automatically, for she was partially in shock from the events of the last few minutes. Behind her Skye checked to see if Fabron de Beaumont was still alive. He was; his barely noticeable breathing and a faint pulse throbbing in his neck were the only real evidence of his survival. “Oh, Fabron,” she said, “I am so sorry! Please don’t die, monseigneur. Get well for me, and I shall make you so happy.” Skye took his head in her lap, stroking it as she sat quietly waiting. There was nothing else she could do to aid him. He was so still and so white now, and her heart went out to him. She did not know if she would ever love this strange man, but he obviously loved her. Loved her enough to come to her defense against the pastor. She felt no loss over that one’s death. He was an evil man who brought only fear and unhappiness to those whose lives he had touched with his withering hand.
“Chérie!” Edmond de Beaumont was suddenly there by her side. “What has happened?”
“Madame la Duchesse.” It was the physician. “I will take over now.” He looked at Daisy. “Help me, girl. We will move him to the bed, where I may examine him more closely.” Together the two lifted the limp man over to the bed, still tumbled from the night before.
“What has happened?” Edmond repeated, seating Skye back down in a chair. His eyes lit admiringly on her breasts, the nakedness of which she was totally unaware. Then walking to the bed, he picked up a gossamer knit shawl and draped it over her shoulders.
“Fabron had a terrible argument with the pastor, and became so angry that he threw Pastor Lichault over the balcony. Don’t bother to look. He’s dead. Then your uncle had some kind of attack.” She shivered. “Get Père Henri, Daisy. I’m sure Edmond knows where he has been hiding.”
“The room at the top of the old north tower,” Edmond said.
Within a few minutes the priest joined them. It was the first time Skye had seen him, and she liked what she saw. Père Henri was a small man in early old age. Still, he possessed a full head of wavy white hair and kindly warm brown eyes. Although his features were very aristocratic, his speech was that of a less educated and privileged man. He was, she suspected, some lord’s by-blow on a peasant girl. With the devotion to duty that had made him loved among the castle folk, he hurried to the duc’s side and blessed him. Then, looking to the doctor, he asked, “Well, Mathieu, will he live?”
“Possibly, mon père. He has suffered an apoplectic fit. Its severity I cannot tell until he returns to consciousness.”
The priest nodded and then moved across the room to Skye and Edmond. “How did this terrible thing happen, Edmond?” he asked.
Quickly Edmond de Beaumont told Père Henri what he knew, and when he had finished the priest put a gentle hand upon Skye’s head and blessed her, finishing with the words, “And the Church welcomes you to Beaumont de Jaspre, too, Madame la Duchesse. Now, my daughter, you will tell me the rest of it, from the beginning, from the night when you were joined with Fabron in matrimony.”
“You must marry us, mon père,” Skye whispered. “That creature who called himself a man of God was not fit to do so.”
“For the time being, my daughter, you must not worry. The signatures on the betrothal agreement between you and the duc make your marriage legal in the eyes of the laws of this duchy. When the duc is able, we will, however, bestow the Church’s approval on your actions.” He patted her hand, and repeated as he sat down opposite her, “Now, tell me everything.”
She told them of the horrors of her wedding night, of how she had been trying these last three weeks to make a better thing of their marriage. Then she went on to tell them of how the pastor had burst in on them this morning, of the terrible things he had said, of how he had begun beating her—and of how the duc had gone to her defense. The duc had repented his lapse from the true Church, Skye assured Père Henri.
“You are to be commended, my daughter,” Père Henri said when she had finished. “Fabron was a disturbed and confused man. You showed true Christian patience in your efforts to win him over and to bring him back to Holy Mother Church. In the end, despite this tragedy those efforts were rewarded, praise God. Will you keep a vigil with me tonight in the chapel for your husband’s recovery, my daughter?”
She nodded, and he patted her hand again with approval. She looked at Edmond de Beaumont, whose violet eyes were filled with admiration for her, and asked him, “Will you see that the chapel is restored before tonight, Edmond?” She turned again to the priest. “Will you purify and rebless the sanctity of the chapel, mon père, before we begin our prayers?”
Both men looked upon Skye with great approval, and she felt a twinge of guilt. She had not been this religious in years, she thought uncomfortably. She certainly did not want to mislead the two, and yet this was how she felt right now. The duc needed her prayers. Surely God would hear the prayers of even a less-than-perfect Catholic. “I am no saint, gentlemen,” she said to salve her guilt. “Please do not attribute to me virtues which I do not possess, lest you later be very disappointed.”
Across the room the duc moaned, and Skye hurried to her husband’s side. But although he was restless, he was still in an unconscious state. “I am here, Fabron,” she said softly, and he quieted.
For the next few days the duc hovered between consciousness and unconsciousness. Skye found herself suddenly in control of the duchy, and the responsibility helped to assuage her worry. With the death of Pastor Lichault the people were able to return freely to their own Catholic faith.
The inhabitants of Beaumont de Jaspre believed that their ancestors had come to Christianity through the efforts of the early disciples who wandered the Mediterranean converting the people. The Beaumontese were devout and simple people who had delighted in their beautiful churches and the many religious festivals they celebrated. Pastor Lichault’s stern Calvinistic coldness, his lack of joy, his constant harping upon sin and damnation had angered them as well as frightened them. They welcomed back their priests and the mass joyfully, and did not mourn the pastor despite their clerics’ admonitions to forgive.
Then the duc regained consciousness, but he could not move below the waist and he was unable to speak. “In time perhaps,” his physician said, but a month passed and there was no improvement. A second month went by, and a representative from the French court arrived. The duc, he said, would obviously not recover. His only child was not fit to rule. Was the duchesse enceinte? Skye was forced to admit that she was not. M’sieur Edmond could not possibly inherit because of his disability. There was nothing for it but France take over the duchy. The French King’s envoy suddenly found himself imprisoned within his apartments.
“There has to be another way,” Skye said as she met with Robbie, Edmond, and Père Henri. “We cannot allow the French to take Beaumont de Jaspre. Is there no other relative who might rule?” She looked to Edmond. “Surely there is someone.”
“There is Nicolas St. Adrian,” Edmond said slowly.
“The duc would not hear of it,” Père Henri protest
ed.
“He has no choice. It is either Nicolas or the French, mon père.”
“Who is Nicolas St. Adrian?” Skye demanded.
“He is the duc’s very noble bastard brother,” Père Henri replied. “A baron if I remember correctly.”
“St. Adrian is not a Beaumontese name,” Skye noted.
“It is not, madame,” the priest answered. “Many years ago your husband’s father fell in love with the only child of an elderly and impoverished noble family in Poitou. Emilie St. Adrian was the love of Giles de Beaumont’s life; and the fact that he already had a wife did not prevent him from seducing the innocent girl. When she told him she was with child, expecting him to do the right thing and marry her, he was forced to confess to his deception. She refused ever to see him again, an act that her elderly father fully approved. When she delivered a healthy son, Giles de Beaumont attempted to contribute to the boy’s support, but neither of the St. Adrians would hear of it. Everything he sent to the boy was returned unopened. Emilie’s old father legally adopted the child, giving him the St. Adrian name, making him his heir, although he was heir to little, God knew.
“Nicolas St. Adrian is some six years younger than your husband. His mother and grandfather somehow arranged to have him educated, the Lord only knows how, and were it not for his lack of money he might have had a brilliant career at court. As it is, he lives alone in his tumble-down castle, helping his peasants to scratch a bare living from his small estate. Both his grandfather and mother are long dead. He has no wife, as he cannot afford one, and he has not the means to go to court and catch himself a wealthy widow who would marry him for his handsome face.”
“He must be sent for,” Skye said quietly. “There is no other choice. Under the circumstances, I do not understand why Fabron did not make him his heir long ago.”
“Madame,” the priest said, “the duc is a rigid man. To his way of thinking, his half-brother was a bastard, a creature of no account. The fact that Nicolas St. Adrian lives in Poitou made it easier to enforce that idea within his own mind. I suspect he resented his half-brother. Duc Giles was frequently heard to bemoan Nicolas’s loss, for he had frequent reports, through a friend, of the boy’s progress, and Nicolas was everything he really wanted in a son. God’s justice is often fitting, but how hard it must have been on Fabron to hear that. Duc Giles’s attitude did not bother Edmond’s father, Gabriel, but it did bother Fabron. He was a sensitive boy, although he hid it well.”
All the Sweet Tomorrows Page 18