“Your Imperial Highness is very gracious, but as the Marquis has already said, we have a previous engagement.”
“Why not let him go alone and you come with me?” the Prince asked. “I assure you he will not be lonely for long!”
“That I can well believe,” Yola answered. “But I am sure that Your Imperial Highness would not wish me to appear impolite to my friends.”
“Quite frankly, I am not in the least interested how you appear to them,” the Prince replied. “All I want is for you to be polite, and perhaps a little more, to me!”
There was a glint in his eyes that told Yola that he would be prepared to fight to get his own way, but she took her hand from his and said,
“I am sorry, monsieur.”
“It would be some consolation if I believed you really were,” the Prince answered, “but I shall hope to see you tomorrow. Perhaps you will dine with me?”
Yola drew in her breath, but again the Marquis stepped in.
“It is unfortunate, sir, but I have arranged to take the Duc, Aimée, and Mademoiselle to the theatre.”
The Prince glared at the Marquis and it was obvious that he suspected that this was not the truth.
“Curse you, Leo! This is not the first time you have proved obstructive and quite frankly I resent it!”
“I can only regret, sir, that you should think it is anything personal,” the Marquis said. “It is just that Mademoiselle’s visit to Paris is such a short one and a full programme has already been arranged for her.”
“Then it can be cancelled!” the Prince said, almost spitting out the words. “And make no mistake, I shall see that it is!”
Once again he took Yola’s hand in his.
“You are fascinating and quite irresistible,” he said, “and I assure you that I shall not give up easily.”
He kissed her hand, his lips lingering on the softness of her skin. Then with a baleful glance at the Marquis, he walked back to the inner room from which he had come, leaving them alone.
The Marquis put his hand under Yola’s elbow and said,
“The sooner we are out of here, the better!”
The carriage was outside and, as she stepped into it, Yola told herself that had the Marquis not been there she would have felt afraid.
The Prince had somehow been overpowering and it was obvious that, because he was Royal, he thought it presumptuous of the Marquis to interfere and unheard of for her not to accede immediately to his request.
As the door closed and the horses started off, Yola said nervously,
“Will he make – trouble for you?”
“Are you thinking of me?”
“Of course,” she replied. “And thank you for protecting me. I realised that that was what you were doing.”
“You are quite sure you would not have liked to accept the Prince’s invitation? After all, he is a very influential man.”
“I have no – wish to be – alone with the – Prince.”
She made an effort to speak calmly, but there was a perceptible quiver on the word ‘alone’, which the Marquis did not miss.
“This sort of life is not for you,” he said forcefully.
Yola did not answer, and he then asked,
“How old are you?”
The question was sharp and, because she had not expected it Yola found herself stammering over what she and Aimée had agreed she should say.
“I am – t-twenty-two – nearly t-twenty-three.”
“I don’t believe it!”
Yola was silent and after a moment the Marquis went on,
“I will believe it if you tell me you have stepped straight out of a Convent and have seen nothing of men and women or of the world – any sort of world. Otherwise, I know irrefutably that you are much younger.”
“I have always been told,” Yola said in a small voice, “that it is rude to discuss a lady’s age.”
“The number of years is not really the point,” the Marquis said. “It is what you feel and who you are that counts and I know in my heart that you are little more than a child and so you are quite incapable of dealing with a man like the Prince!”
“Then I shall not – deal with – him. He cannot – force me to be – with him.”
“He will use every weapon in his power to get what he wants,” the Marquis said. “No one refuses his advances – no woman! He will hunt you as the huntsman does his prey until he captures you.”
Yola gave an involuntary little cry and then she said,
“You are trying to – frighten me. No one can make me accept the – advances of the Prince. I think he is – horrible!”
“You would rather be with me?”
Before she could think, Yola told the truth.
“Much rather.”
“That is what I want to hear. And don’t be afraid, I will see that the Prince does not frighten you.”
“But what could he – do to you?” Yola asked apprehensively.
“He can make himself very unpleasant,” the Marquis said with a serious note in his voice, “but I think he is unlikely to do so. If people ask the reason for his enmity and learn we have fallen out over a woman, it would damage his reputation as a ladykiller!”
“I hope you are – right,” Yola said nervously.
“Let’s forget about him.”
The Marquis put his arm along the back of the seat so that it was behind her.
“Let’s forget that he ever happened,” he added in a beguiling tone. “Instead I want to tell you what I have felt tonight since we have been alone together.”
There was a different tone in his voice and Yola thought suddenly that in a way the Marquis was even more dangerous than the Prince had been.
She sensed that he wanted to make love to her and, because she was afraid of her own feelings, was uncertain and bewildered, she said involuntarily,
“No!”
“Why do you say it like that?” the Marquis asked.
“Because I don’t – want you to – say what I – think you intend to say.”
“So you are as perceptive about me as I am about you?”
“Only in this – I think.”
“You knew that I was going to tell you how much you attract me, how I have been thinking about you ever since you made that dramatic entrance last night, skilfully thought out by you and Aimée.”
Yola looked at him in a startled manner and then realised that he was very near to her.
The new gaslights installed by Baron Haussmann flashed on the Marquis’s face as the carriage passed them and the expression in his eyes made her heart give a sudden leap.
“You know without my telling you,” the Marquis said, “that I want to kiss you more than I have ever wanted anything in my whole life.”
“No!” Yola said again, turning her head towards the window.
The Marquis looked at her profile for a moment, then asked very softly,
“How many men have kissed you already?”
Yola did not answer and after a moment he said,
“You don’t really have to answer that question. Oh, my dear, you are very transparent. It is like looking into a clear stream, quite the most intriguing thing I have ever done!”
“I think I should – go home,” Yola said a little nervously.
“I have told the carriage to drive to the Bois de Boulogne,” the Marquis replied. “There is something I want to show you when it is not crowded by the world of fashion and when even the nightingales can be heard in the silence.”
Yola felt that if she was wise she would protest that she wished to go home at once.
But instead she moved a little farther into the corner of the carriage and she realised that the Marquis was no longer encroaching upon her.
He had taken his arm from behind her and was merely looking at her, but, because she was afraid of the expression in his eyes, she dared not look back at him.
It took only a short time for the carriage to reach the Bois de Boulo
gne and, as there seemed to be little more to say, they sat in silence.
Yet, Yola had the strange feeling that they spoke to each other without words.
As the carriage came to a standstill, the footman jumped down to open the door and the Marquis stepped out to help her alight.
He took her hand in his and put it on his arm, then drew her along a little path through the woods. It wound in and out amongst the trees until they came to a small rock garden.
It was one of the attractive innovations arranged on the Emperor’s instructions and it had changed the wild forest that had been full of robbers and footpads into an oasis of beauty.
Yola remembered someone saying that it could only have been accomplished ‘by the hand of an enchanter’ and that was what she felt now when she saw what the Marquis had brought her here to see.
There was a small waterfall cascading down into a pool and the moonlight coming through the clouds turned it into burnished silver.
Then it wound in a rippling stream between banks of azaleas and spring flowers, which were all in bloom and their fragrance filled the night air.
It was almost like a child’s garden, for everything was in miniature and it had a Fairy tale quality that made Yola think of The Castle and the places where she had played when she was young.
She stood gazing at the loveliness of it and then she heard the Marquis say quietly,
“I brought you here because tonight you look like a nymph, a nymph from the cascade, like a water-sprite who enchants and bemuses a mere man, yet ripples away from him so that he finds it hard to capture her.”
There was something in the way he spoke and in the depth of his voice that made Yola feel as if she vibrated to every word.
Then, as if she could not prevent herself, she turned her head and the moonlight was on his face.
There was an expression in his eyes that she had not seen before and it made him look different and yet in some strange way familiar, as if she had known him long, long ago and had now found him again.
Just for a moment they stood looking at each other with only the sound of the cascade to break the silence.
Then the Marquis’s arms went round her.
He drew her very slowly into his arms and, although Yola knew that she ought to prevent him from touching her, she was somehow magnetised into doing what he wished.
He looked down into her eyes and then his lips were on hers.
It was the first time that Yola had ever been kissed and she had never imagined that a man’s lips could be so possessive.
She felt as if he not only held her captive but took her will from her, so that she ceased to be herself and instead became a part of him.
She tried to define to herself what she was feeling, but his kiss was all part of the music of the water, the fragrance of the flowers and the wonder of the moonlight.
It was so perfect, so romantic, so everything she thought a kiss should be.
Then he held her closer and his lips became more insistent, more demanding.
She told herself that he was drawing her heart from her body and that somehow she should prevent him from doing so.
Chapter Five
“It is really tremendously exciting!” Yola exclaimed.
Her eyes were sparkling and her lips smiling as she moved from exhibit to exhibit in the International Exhibition.
The Marquis had driven her there in his open chaise and she was thrilled from the moment they stepped into the enormous glass and iron building in the Champ de Mars on the Left Bank of the Seine.
There were fairgrounds and an Imperial Pavilion, which was an Oriental concept carried out with striped awnings and a multitude of golden eagles.
But the majority of the exhibits could be found in the Palais de l’Industrie and the different National Pavilions.
England was presenting a Bible Society kiosk, a Protestant Church, a model farm and machines for agriculture.
The Marquis laughed at it.
“Nothing could show more clearly,” he said to Yola, “the social and spiritual chasm that divides Victorian England from the Second Empire of France!”
It was the sort of remark that her father would have made and Yola fancied that the Marquis was testing her to see if she understood what he was trying to say,
“There is no lack of the exotic,” she murmured demurely, “if that is what you are looking for.”
They had already seen the Morocco tents, the Turkish Mosque and the Moslem sarcophagus. They had also visited the bamboo house from Japan and seen a porcelain pagoda in the garden presented by China.
“I want to know what you think of this,” the Marquis said.
Yola saw that he was pointing out a fifty-eight-ton steel gun manufactured by Krupp of Essen and displayed in the Prussian section.
As Yola stared at it he said,
“It is capable of firing a thousand-pound shell and the French newspapers regard it with a great deal of ironic amusement.”
Yola looked at him before she enquired,
“But you are taking it seriously.”
“I think if it was directed against us it could be very serious indeed,” the Marquis replied.
He moved Yola on to where there was an exhibit of a graceful new rifle, the chassepot.
“Is that the only weapon we have on show?” Yola asked in a low voice.
“There is a relief map of our Forts,” the Marquis replied, “which, last time I was here, was being studied with concentrated interest by a number of Prussian Officers.”
Yola knew exactly what he was trying to say and she felt a little shiver of fear in case those who talked of France going to war might prove to be right.
The preceding year the Austrians had suffered an unexpected defeat at the battle of Sadowa and the event had marked the emergence of Prussia as a military power.
Yola remembered how her father had said that the French would never tolerate the Germans menacing them on their frontiers.
Then she told herself that she was being needlessly apprehensive.
The whole country was at the moment intoxicated with pleasure and pride – pride in its machinery and its spectacular Army as well as pleasure in its money and its beautiful Capital.
“There will be peace in the future,” Yola murmured almost to herself.
“I wish we could be sure of that,” the Marquis replied.
Then with a change of mood that she realised was characteristic of him, he swept her away to admire the French food courts where every wine district had its own exhibit and cellar.
“There is so much to see!” Yola said with a sigh after they had been walking for hours. I keep feeling we must come to the end, only to discover that there are hundreds more exhibits I want to see and admire.”
They found it difficult to make a decision as to where to eat.
“There are two miles of cafés and restaurants,” the Marquis said. “You can eat and drink in every language. Which shall it be?”
It was in fact a very difficult choice.
In the Spanish restaurant, the waitresses, with their rich olive complexions, straight eyebrows, and round eyes, wore purple satin skirts, white lace shawls and high combs and damask roses in their raven-black hair.
Yola had almost decided to eat there, but then they peeped into the Russian café, where the waitresses were blonde and wore elaborate diadems with ribbons floating behind.
“One place we will avoid,” the Marquis said firmly, “is the English tavern. The girls wear very unbecoming clothes and I am told that the food is dreadful!”
In the end, because they felt it would be amusing, they ate in the Tunisian café, where there were girls with slanting almond-shaped eyes framed in kohl.
“I know one thing,” Yola said when they had finished and had laughed all the way through the meal, “when in France one should eat with the French.”
“When in France, you should do everything with the French!” the Marquis replied. “And that a
pplies to love.”
There was a note in his voice that made Yola feel shy.
There had been so much to see and do at the Exhibition that there had been no chance of speaking intimately.
But she was vividly conscious of what had occurred the night before and that she had gone to sleep thinking of him and had awakened to find his name on her lips.
She could still feel the sensations he had aroused in her and she knew that because they were together she felt a strange excitement she had never known before and it affected everything she said and did.
‘I am not in love,’ she tried to tell herself, but she knew that she was lying.
They spent another hour in the afternoon looking at more exhibits and then, because the Marquis said he thought she was tired, they found his chaise and drove back towards Aimée’s house.
“You are dining with me this evening,” the Marquis said, “and then I shall have a chance to talk to you.”
There was a groom perched up behind them on a small seat and, although it was unlikely that he could overhear what they were saying, his mere presence made it impossible for them to talk intimately.
“Are you asking me or commanding me?” Yola enquired.
“I am asking you – begging you, if you like,” the Marquis replied, “but I shall not allow you to say no.”
Yola had no wish to refuse his invitation.
At the same time she felt that she was becoming more and more deeply involved with him and she was not quite certain what she should do about it. She had wanted to get to know him, to find out what he was like – but now she felt as if everything was happening too quickly and it was impossible to think and almost as hard to breathe.
“Thank you for taking me to the exhibition,” she said conventionally.
“It was like taking a child to her first pantomime,” the Marquis remarked with a smile.
“Are you really so blasé?” Yola retorted. “The French Exhibition should make you feel very proud.”
“I found it difficult to look at anything except the person I was with.”
Yola was well aware that the Marquis’s eyes had been on her almost the whole time they had been going round the Exhibition and she had deliberately not looked at him because she was half-afraid of what he was saying without words.
64 The Castle Made for Love Page 10