'Vous êtes la plus belle fille du monde!' You are the most beautiful girl in the world! He had hesitated, painfully searching for words, and had been rewarded by a flash of inspiration. 'You ... you smell like woods full of muguet des bois after a shower of rain !'
The swell of music grew louder and as light fell across her face Chantal hesitated, clutching Peter's arm as he was about to guide her across the threshold.
'Is my mask straight?' she quavered, touching nervous fingers to the decorative silver strip shading her eyes.
'It's fine,' he encouraged gently. 'Don't be afraid, everyone will be wearing one, so we'll all be strangers until twelve o'clock, at least.'
She had not thought of that. Bolstered by the knowledge, she once more accepted his arm and allowed him to sweep her inside.
In keeping with the informality of the occasion, no names were announced, no introductions were made. As they stepped inside a magnificent hall Chantal caught a glimpse of a great stairway spilling like a princess's train across the black and white marble floor, great wall mirrors, the glitter of ormolu, and an impression of wood, silk, and wool faded with age to shades of muted splendour.
A footman took their coats, a second accepted their invitation card and a third escorted them towards large double doors thrown wide open, then bowed, leaving them on the threshold of a grand salon huge enough to accommodate in comfort the hundreds of couples standing chatting in groups, sitting around tables, circulating from one company to another, and dancing to a hit tune of the moment being belted out by a group of musicians seated at the far end of the salon.
Immediately they stepped inside a young couple split up and claimed them as partners and before Chantal had time to feel nervous, or even to search for a glimpse of a blond, proudly-held head, she was swept into the middle of the dance floor by her wildly energetic partner.
Amazingly, within the informal atmosphere, and together with a succession of partners who saw to it that she did not sit out even one dance, she discovered that she was thoroughly enjoying the company of predominantly young men who, caught up in the enjoyment of mysterious anonymity engendered by concealing masks, insisted upon introducing themselves by their first names only. Once or twice she caught sight of Peter dancing past with a dark-haired girl in a startling red dress that could only have been Nicole, but not once during three hectic hours of merriment did she see the man who was uppermost in her mind, the man on whose behalf she had daubed herself with a liberal amount of muguet des bois, the scent to which, according to her grandmother, Frenchmen were especially susceptible.
Supper was provided from an elaborate buffet served from tables set out in a separate room. After being persuaded to try a helping of lobster, another of smoked sheep's tongues and a portion of cremet—a superb mixture of cream and curd, sprinkled with sugar and served with tiny strawberries which she found so irresistible she could not refuse a second helping—tiredness began pressing heavily behind her eyes, making it difficult to stay awake.
'Too much champagne!' she scolded herself, hiding a yawn behind outspread fingers. The room seemed to have become oppressively hot, so, feeling more than a little lightheaded, she dodged the attention of her current escort and began edging out of the room in search of a quiet spot in which she might regain her composure, as well as a breath of reviving air.
Stumbling into a deserted hallway, she hesitated, undecided, wondering behind which of the many doors she would be safe. Cautiously, she advanced on tiptoe towards the nearest, depressed the handle then stepped into a room that was a perfect oasis of peace and calm. Sparing barely a glance for huge candelabra, lanterns of gilded bronze, the framed portraits hung upon the walls, she sank down on to a high-backed, velvet-covered sofa, snuggled deep into the cushions, and with a sigh of satisfaction closed her eyes.
Barely half an hour had passed when she was awakened by a voice speaking her name. Before she could move, a second voice made a reply, a hard, brittle tone which she immediately recognised as Nicole's.
'Had I known you were anxious to make the acquaintance of Mademoiselle Barry and her brother I would have introduced them to you as soon as they arrived. But knowing how much you dislike these informal affairs, Maman, I assumed that you would wish to follow your usual custom of remaining out of sight for as long as is politely possible. However, now that you are ready to join the rest of the guests I will search them out for you.'
'I am not at all anxious to meet them, as you are very well aware, Nicole.' Without even seeing her Chantal guessed that Nicole's mother's expression was as acid as her voice. 'I merely wish to be kept informed of their intentions. What I cannot understand is why Brut insisted upon inviting them here, nor am I happy about the way you and he have fraternised with the Barrys ever since their arrival.'
'Fraternised ...!' Nicole's laughter was sharp. You speak of them as if they are dangerous enemies, Maman!'
'Well, aren't they ... ?'
Chantal crouched into a tense ball, praying that the two women would not move into the centre of the room to discover her skulking on the sofa.
'Enemies, perhaps,' Nicole agreed negligently, 'but dangerous? Never ... ! The boy especially is callow, awkward, and screamingly funny when he attempts to imitate his sophisticated elders. For weeks I have forced myself to endure his clumsy pawing, his moist, immature kisses, but my exercise in restraint is paying off and I can now mould him like putty in my hands.'
'But why?' her mother sniffed. 'For what purpose?'
Nicole's tongue clicked with aggravation. 'For the purpose of regaining what rightly belongs to the Etablissement, of course. I surely don't have to spell out to you of all people how important the vineyards of Trésor d'Hélène are to the House? The Barrys had no moral right to take over ownership-if the Comtesse had not been so acquisitive, if she had not hung on to the land too long, it would naturally have been willed to Brut. It was as good as stolen from him, so we intend to deprive the Barrys of the land that ought never to have been theirs.'
'And how do you propose to do that?' Her mother sounded contemptuously amused.
'By copying the ways of our ancestors,' Nicole addressed her mother in a tone of hard dislike. 'Didn't my father acquire his vineyards by marrying you? And haven't you many times stated that your brother, Brut's father, was upset when his intended eloped with her lieutenant not so much because he had lost a bride but because he had lost all hope of gaining the land he coveted?'
'You are cruel, Nicole!' her mother hissed, 'cruel and selfish—too selfish to sacrifice your own happiness by marrying a callow youth!'
'Too true, Maman ... !' Nicole's trill of laughter pierced the ice that had formed around Chantal's heart. 'The only husband I want is Brut. But Peter need not become acquainted with that fact until after he has been persuaded to sign over his half of Trésor d'Hélène to me. Once Brut has gained possession of the other half the outcome cannot be in doubt. Even he, wary bachelor though he is, will be forced to bow to the inevitable. I have no doubt whatsoever that he will be eager to combine the two halves—so ensuring a perfect marriage.'
'How outrageous!' Her mother did not sound outraged, merely amused. 'Where is Brut, by the way? It is almost time for the unmasking.'
'He is tied up with local dignitaries—pompous bores who consider it beneath their dignity to mix with the younger element.' There was a rustle of skirts as the two women began moving towards the door. 'It is time that he, too, had a little fun; I'll go and rescue him with the reminder that it is his duty to distribute the flowers.'
When the door closed behind them Chantal remained seated, her fists tightly clenched, her limbs shaking as she fought to control shock, anger and horrified revulsion. The conversation she had overheard had told her nothing new, it had only clarified what she had already suspected, yet to have heard the plot outlined with such cold-blooded indifference to any hurt inflicted upon Peter and herself was to come face to face with a cruelty so barbaric it took her breath away. Robespierre
could not have displayed less humanity when deciding which of his enemies were to be guillotined. And as for Nicole's mother, it was easy to imagine her as one of a crowd of gloating revolutionaries applauding with delight while heads rolled.
A shudder racked her out of her frozen trance.
Glancing at a clock upon the wall she saw that it was almost midnight, the moment of unmasking, the time when missing faces would cause comment ! She stood up, stiffened by resolve, and moved without thinking to peer into a wall mirror. Amazingly, the face she saw reflected looked composed, a little white, a little pinched around mouth and nostrils, but the eyes deceivingly serene, giving no hint of the white-hot anger seething within.
'If the Marquis wants to play his dirty game then let him!' she fiercely advised her image as she smoothed an errant wisp of hair. 'Mere words won't convince Peter of their duplicity, but if you play the Marquis along pretending to fall in love with him,' she almost choked on the words, 'sooner or later he'll slip up, reveal his true colours, then Peter will be bound to be convinced.'
She flinched from examining too deeply the trauma that was sure to evolve from flirting dangerously with the devil. 'It must be done, if only for Peter's sake!' she scolded her suddenly whitened features. 'So pull yourself together and get in there fighting!'
She managed to sidle unnoticed into the salon just as the band reached a final crescendo and a signal was given to remove all masks. Edging around the fringe of laughing, excited merrymakers, she made towards an alcove where curtains were billowing across french windows left open to create a welcome draught of air. Her heart began to pound when she caught sight of the Marquis, smiling and debonair, standing beside a table laden with shallow wicker baskets filled with fragile, bell-shaped flowers, their white heads nodding against a background of dark green foliage. Blood drumming in her ears made her deaf to his words, but when after a loud cheer of approval all the men rushed forward to claim a spray of muguet des bois—their licence to love—it became obvious to Chantal that the time for kissing had begun.
Pulses rioted when, standing with her back pressed against the wall, she saw the Marquis advancing towards her. Courage evaporated at the sight of the flowers he obviously meant to present in order to claim a rewarding kiss. With a gasp of sheer panic she twirled on her heel and escaped through a gap in the curtains on to a dark, deserted terrace.
Her flight was abortive, a mere challenge to the man who treasured above all else that which was not too easily attainable. She tried not to cower when his dark bulk towered over her. His face was in shadow, but the mockery in his voice was unmistakable when he bowed and presented his gift.
'For you, mademoiselle, I bring flowers of the woods, in the hope that I may be permitted to compare their pale fragrant beauty with the petal softness of your lips.'
Her low gasp of dissent was smothered when his forceful mouth captured hers in a kiss so vibrant it shocked alive every pulsating nerve. Helplessly she clung to him while he plundered her lips of sweetness, draining his fill, tenacious as a bee foraging into the heart of a flower.
Gradually she forced herself to surrender, delighting him with a response that was shy at first, then escalated with courageous boldness. Dredging her mind of every hint of seduction she had ever read, copying the actions of film stars she had seen acting out torrid love scenes, she pressed her body close to his, forced leaden arms around his neck and parted soft lips beneath his questing mouth, simulating the hungry desire of a woman utterly and totally captivated.
Predictably, he was surprised, the surprise of a warrior with mind and body conditioned to engage in a long and weary battle only to discover his opponent falling at his feet at first encounter. Chantal's greatest ally in duplicity was the fact that a man gripped by intense arousal will believe anything he wants to believe, which was why her low moans of self-disgust were mistaken for gasps of pleasure, when his hands gripped close a bodv trembling with what he imagined to be uncontrollable passion but which, in reality, was acute revulsion.
Feeling the wetness of tears beneath his searching lips, he cradled her in his arms and rocked her gently, scolding in a hoarse murmur.
'Please don't cry, mon ange, with me you need never feel afraid ...'
She was not merely afraid, she was terrified, terrified that the hatred surging inside of her would erupt, overruling her determination not to give in to an urge to bite savagely into his lip, not to utilise the many painstaking hours spent on her manicure by scoring pointed, red-tipped fingernails down the length of his deceitful face.
'Amour de mon coeur!' The rough catch in his voice, the tenseness of his steel-sprung body, communicated urgent need. 'Amour de ma vie, I had not meant to speak tonight, I felt it was too soon, that your delicious innocence has made you unprepared. But, as always,' a shudder of desire racked his strong frame, 'you have managed to confound me.' Violently he pulled her closer, so close that their shadows merged in urgent consummation. 'I want you, darling, belle châtaigne, please say that you will marry me.'
A cold clinical part of her brain clicked into action. With claws carefully sheathed, she ran her fingers down the length of his cheek until they rested tenderly upon a faint scar, newly healed, where her signet ring had branded her initials upon his lip.
'Brut, darling Brut ...' she sighed, projecting masterly conviction. 'I thought you would never ask me ... !'
CHAPTER TEN
'How are things in the vineyard, Louis?'
Louis' eyes lifted from his plate. It was breakfast time, but already he and Peter had put in a couple of hours work on the terraces. 'The fourth and fifth leaves are emerging from the shoots, Maman,' he told her with obvious satisfaction.
'Good.' With a heavy thump Hortense set down the coffee pot she had been wielding. 'Then it is time for the battle against pests and diseases to commence. Let us pray that the summer does not turn out to be particularly humid so that the minimum of seven sprayings need not be exceeded.'
'Exceeded!' Peter looked appalled. 'The thought of having to lug a ten-gallon drum of solution around the vineyard seven times in three months is bad enough! If you had allowed us to take Brut up on his offer,' he challenged Chantal, 'we would have been saved hours of heavy work. Even now it is not too late,' he urged, willing her to look at him, 'especially now that circumstances between you and him have so dramatically changed.'
She sensed that all three were waiting for her reply, each puzzled by her confusing reticence on the subject of the engagement that had been announced with startling suddenness by Brut two weeks ago on the night of the bal masqué. Since then he had paid her frequent and ardent attention, turning up each morning at the vineyard, spending as many hours he could spare at the side of the girl he supposedly adored. What puzzled them most was the fact that while in his company she epitomised their ideal of a happy, radiant fiancée, yet immediately he left she assumed an attitude of detachment that could not be explained away as being the understandable reaction of a girl pining in the absence of her lover.
When Peter had attempted to tease her out of one of these moods his jocular remarks had been met with frozen solemnity. Hortense's one solicitous attempt to encourage confidences had evoked what could almost have been termed a snub. Even Louis' reproachful looks had prodded from her an uncharacteristic burst of irritation.
Shamefaced, knowing how unreasonable her actions must seem, she toyed with the food on her plate, wishing she could indulge in the luxury of unburdening her mind. But to whom? Hortense's initial reaction to the news of her engagement had been one of awed astonishment. 'Monsieur le Marquis ... ! You are to marry Monsieur le Marquis?' The implication that she should consider herself the most fortunate girl in the Province had been unmistakable. Then delight had taken over. 'Oh, mademoiselle !' she had clasped her hands together as if in joyful prayer. 'How clever of you to have captured so great a prize—and with such small a dot ! How I wish your grand'mère were alive to bless the union.'
Peter, too, had displ
ayed an astonishment that was less than flattering when, in the midst of a cheering throng whose excitement had been escalated by Brut's announcement, he had bent to kiss her cheek. 'Congratulations, dark horse,' he had murmured, then with the selfishness of youth that considers no one's affairs should take precedence over his own, he had turned her heart to stone with the hissed undertone, 'How do you feel about a double wedding?'
Not to one of them, not even Louis whose attachment was so strong his happiness had become dependent upon her moods, could Chantal confide how her flesh shrank from the caresses of a man who was demonstrating his possessiveness more and more plainly as each day went by, whose laughing face hid cunning deceit, whose murmured lies tortured her ears, whose enthusiasm as he outlined his plans for their future sounded so genuine she found herself having to fight a powerful current of persuasion by reminding herself time and time again of the cruel, shameless duplicity he was practising.
'Well,' Peter's sulky tone impinged upon her mind, 'as you don't seem disposed to help out in that respect, you'd better come with us to the vineyard—you can mix the compound while Louis and I do the spraying.'
Without comment, she followed them outside and began trekking in their wake, deliberately closing her ears to Peter's loud, pointed references to water storage tanks scattered around a neighbouring vineyard, and to the numerous small motorised tankers shuttling between the tanks and the vineyards to keep workers supplied with water.
By the time she had finished mixing her sixth batch of solution Chantal was feeling grateful for the sleeveless tee-shirt she had chosen to wear that allowed the small amount of breeze available to cool her skin as she toiled non-stop beneath the heat of an early summer sun. She suspected spite in the voraciousness of Peter's demands for more and more solution to fill up the container he had strapped to his back, and ignored his resentful mutterings as time after time he was forced to retrace his steps, scrambling along uneven paths, toiling up steep slopes, in order to carry out the back-breaking task of spraying the precious vines.
Champagne Spring by Margaret Rome Page 10