Winter set in, but it was a far milder winter than Autumn was used to in Scotland. January passed, and they were left in solitude until its last day, when Sebastian d’Oleron came riding up the driveway to Belle Fleurs. His horse slowly crossed the bridge and passed through the chatelet into the chateau’s courtyard. A stableman hurried to take his animal when he dismounted. A tall man with a silver-flecked russet beard came forward.
“You are . . . m’sieu?”
“The Marquis d’Auriville,” Sebastian said. “I have come to call upon Lady Autumn.”
“I will escort you inside, m’sieu le marquis,” Red Hugh said.
Inside Adali hurried forward, garbed in his usual white trousers and long coat, a small turban upon his head.
“The Marquis d’Auriville to see the young mistress,” Red Hugh said. “Best to see if her grace approves first.” The last was said in English.
Sebastian d’Oleron’s face gave no indication that he had understood the Scotsman. The marquis was well educated and spoke several languages, English being among them. He was rather fascinated by this polyglot household of servants. He knew very little about Autumn, except that he wanted her and intended to have her.
“Will you come into the hall, m’sieu le marquis, and I will fetch my mistress?” Adali said. He bowed, then turned and led the way.
The marquis liked the Great Hall of the little chateau. It was warm and inviting with its country oak furnishings, its warm fires, the ancient tapestries hanging upon the stone walls, the Turkey carpets, the fragrance of potpourri.
“Please, will you sit by the fire, monsigneur? Marc! Wine for the marquis.” Adali bowed and then withdrew, leaving their guest comfortably ensconced with a goblet in his big hand. He found his mistress in the chapel with Autumn, who was being taught her catechism by the young priest, Father Bernard. “Madame, the Marquis d’Auriville has come to call upon the young mistress,” he said.
Jasmine rose, raising a restraining hand to her daughter. “I will go. When you have finished your lessons, Autumn, you may join us in the Great Hall. Please see to your coif before you come.” She walked quickly from the chapel. “M’sieu le marquis,” she greeted her guest as she came into the hall. “Non! Non! Do not get up. I will join you. Adali, some wine, please.” She smiled at him. “How clever of you to give my daughter some time after all the festivities we so enjoyed at Archambault. I suggested to the duke and the comte that they not call on us until mid-winter, but you were gone and I could not speak with you. Now here it is the last day of January, and you have come.”
“I want your daughter for my wife,” he said.
“You do not know my daughter, nor does she know you,” Jasmine replied. “I told you that the choice is hers, and it is. If you want Autumn, monsigneur, I am afraid you will have to court her properly, and you will probably have to put up with at least two rivals, as you already know.” Jasmine restrained a smile, seeing his irritation.
“I am not like those two wastrels,” he said. “I personally oversee my vineyards. I have little time for niceties, madame la duchesse. It is almost time to prune the vines, to add lime and fertilizer. The growing season will be upon us before you know it. I cannot dance attendance upon a pretty girl while my vineyards go to ruin.”
“I am no expert in such things, monsigneur, but I believe you may safely give up the month of February to come courting,” Jasmine told him with a small smile. “Tell me now, did you not court your first wife?”
“No, madame la duchesse, I did not. The marriage was arranged by my parents prior to their deaths. When I was seventeen I married Elise. Her dower consisted of some excellent land matching my estates, which I planted new vines upon. You have been told the gossip, of course, and you know that while the vines flourished, the marriage did not. I have been a widower for thirteen years.”
“Autumn’s father was a widower when I married him. He had been for many years,” Jasmine told him. “We had three sons, and two daughters. The children of his prior marriage had died with their mother. I brought four children to our marriage. We are a large family.”
“I have cousins and a sister who is a nun,” he offered.
“And your mistress and her daughter?” Jasmine pressed gently.
“I have bought Marianne a house, pensioned her, and Celine is in school with the nuns. Marianne understands that our liaison is now over. She is a practical woman, madame la duchesse,” the marquis told his companion. “When I wed again, I will be faithful, even as I was faithful to my first wife.”
“Then I have no objections to your paying your addresses to my daughter, Sebastian d’Oleron, but if you want Autumn, you will, I fear, have to court her properly. She is young and inexperienced, as I’m certain you realized when you kissed her. But you opened Pandora’s box with that kiss, I fear. Now she wants to know whether other men kiss the way you did.” Jasmine chuckled.
He laughed, and as he did he wondered why he was not upset by the duchess’s revelation. He had wed Elise and found her to be totally promiscuous. Instinct told him that the lovely Autumn was entirely different. Her curiosity was only temporary. The lips that had softened beneath his belonged to him, as she would soon learn.
Part II
AUTUMN 1651–1655
Chapter 6
Autumn came into the hall, her heart fluttering nervously. God’s blood, he was so handsome! He was tall and lean and hard. She wanted to touch his thick, coal black hair. She wanted his mouth on hers again. She had thought of nothing but those two kisses for weeks. She doubted the kisses of Guy d’Auray and Etienne St. Mihiel could possibly equal the kisses of the marquis, but she certainly intended to find out before she committed herself in marriage to any man.
“Adali says we have a guest, Mama,” she said, feigning innocence.
He rose, Jasmine noted, restraining himself from going forward to greet her. He bowed formally. “Mademoiselle Leslie.”
“M’sieu le marquis,” she answered, and held out her hand to him to be kissed.
He complied and, releasing the dainty hand, said, “Your mother has given me her permission to court you, mademoiselle. Do I have your permission also?”
Clever, clever man! Jasmine thought. You already know her.
“Why do you desire to court me, m’sieu?” Autumn asked sweetly.
“Because I am seeking a wife, and you excite me,” he told her frankly. “It would appear to be a good beginning.”
“I must love the man I wed,” Autumn replied.
“I am a widower, mademoiselle. I have learned from bitter experience that I too must love the wife I next take,” he told her. “It may well be that we will discover we do not suit one another, after, of course, we have gotten to know each other a bit better. That is what courtship is all about.”
Gray. No, silver! His eyes were silver. “You may court me, m’sieu le marquis,” she told him, “being advised that there are two others who are courting me as well.”
“If I decide I want you, Autumn Rose Leslie, they will have no chance,” he said softly.
“If I decide I want you, Sebastian d’Oleron,” she quickly countered, “they will have no chance.”
Oh, my, Jasmine thought, as she quietly observed her daughter with the marquis. The sparks that flew between the two hurled her back in time for a moment. Such similar sparks had ignited a lifelong love match for her and James Leslie. Oh, Jemmie, if you could only see her now. If only you were with me instead of in your tomb at Glenkirk. She felt tears pricking at her eyelids and blinked them back. Very soon, she realized, she would be alone for the first time in her life, and this time there would be no new love. Yet she was content in that knowledge. She had had three husbands, each unique and each loving. She had her marvelous memories to fall back on. Now it was time for her youngest child to find love.
“Mama, the marquis would like me to ride with him now. May I?” Autumn’s little heart-shaped face was begging her to assent, although the tone of her voice wa
s calm and well-modulated, as if it really didn’t matter at all to her.
“Of couse, ma petite. Go along and change your garments, remembering that the day is chill and the sun not particularly warm,” Jasmine said.
“Merci, madame la duchesse,” the marquis said to Jasmine.
“I shall call you Sebastian,” she said to him. “And you may address me as Madame Jasmine from now on, mon brave.”
Autumn had run from the Great Hall to exchange her gown for riding clothes.
“Tell me about her father,” Sebastian said to Jasmine. “How did he die? There is so much I need to know about her.”
The question endeared him to Jasmine, although he could not know it. Neither the young duke nor the count had ever inquired into Autumn’s family. Obviously her fortune was all they needed to know about her.
“My husband died at Dunbar, fighting for King Charles. He was a very brave, very loyal man. It was that loyalty that cost him his life, for he was too old to have been involving himself in such a battle. Autumn will tell you that the Leslies always find themselves in difficulties when they throw in their lot with the royal Stuarts. They are bad luck for our family. Belle Fleurs belonged to my grandparents. My grandfather de Marisco’s mother took the Comte de Cher as her second husband and gave him several children. That is how we are related, through my great-grandmother de Saville.
“Belle Fleurs seems to be the place I come to escape. When I was last here it was with my four oldest children. I had not yet married Jemmie Leslie, Autumn’s father.” She smiled wistfully. “King James had ordered our marriage, but Jemmie and I had a difference of opinion, so I came to France with the children.”
“You obviously settled your differences,” the marquis said with a small smile.
Jasmine laughed. “Indeed we did, although we had many others over the years of our marriage, the last being when he insisted on going to fight for the Stuarts, damn him! Forgive me, Sebastian. The wound is new and very painful. Tell me about your home.”
“It is the chateau nearest to Archambault,” he began. “It is called Chermont. It has been in my family—the lands at least—for as long as any can remember. The chateau itself is over two hundred years old, and very beautiful. It was built, I am told, on the ruins of an earlier dwelling. It is smaller than Archambault, but larger than your home. Autumn will be very happy there, Madame Jasmine.”
“Happy where?” Autumn came back into the hall dresed in her riding breeches. She had wasted no time in changing from her gown.
“Chermont, my home,” the marquis said.
“I have not said I would marry you, m’sieu le marquis,” she told him pertly. “I have only said I would ride with you.”
“Go along,” Jasmine told them before the difference degenerated into a full-blown argument.
They walked from the hall out into the courtyard, where Red Hugh was waiting with their horses. After he had helped Autumn to mount, he climbed upon his own horse. As they walked their animals over the chateau’s little stone bridge he followed behind them at a discreet distance. Hearing the hoofbeats behind her, Autumn stopped and turned about.
“What are you doing?” she demanded of Red Hugh.
“I am your escort, m’lady,” he told her calmly.
“I do not need an escort,” Autumn said in a tight little voice.
“It is your mother who gives me my orders, m’lady, as you very well know. I am certain m’sieu le marquis understands.”
“I do,” Sebastian d’Oleron said. “If you were seen riding with me alone, cherie, and our betrothal not yet announced, it could cause gossip. I am sure you do not want any gossip.”
“Why should I care? Particularly if the gossip is not true,” Autumn remarked. “It makes no difference to me what people may say, as long as I know my honor is intact, monsigneur.”
“Honor and reputation are closely related, cherie,” he explained. “If one is tarnished, then so is the other. People are quick to believe the worst of even the most saintly person. As my intentions toward you are most honorable, I find no insult in your escort.”
Autumn clamped her lips together to quell the further protest welling up inside her. With Red Hugh tagging along behind them, how was she going to get him to kiss her again? She clapped her heels to her horse’s sides and cantered off. To her surprise, the marquis was right by her side, and behind them she heard Red Hugh’s horse. They rode to the top of a gentle hillock overlooking the river Cher. There was a fine view of Archambault on a neighboring hill, and all around below them the vineyards lay sleeping in the weak winter sun.
“The vines are so beautiful, even without their leaves and fruit,” Autumn said. “They look like an army of gnarled brown gnomes. There is such peace here. Where is Chermont?”
“Down the river a few miles to the south. It is nearer to Chenonceaux, the royal estate, than Archambault or Belle Fleurs,” he explained.
“Does the king come there?” she wondered.
“In the past the court has,” he answered her. “Little King Louis has been much too busy learning the lessons of statehood and running away from those who would protect him to have had much time for chateaux like Chenonceaux. It is a very romantic place. When we are married I shall take you there, cherie.”
“Must I keep reminding you, monsigneur, that I have not said I will marry you?” Autumn laughed.
“Must I keep reminding you, cherie, that you will, and sooner rather than later. You are as ripe and as sweet as a summer peach. I want to eat you up!” he teased her, his silver eyes glittering dangerously.
“I think you are an impossible man,” she replied, blushing, to her great annoyance.
“Of course I am,” he agreed with a grin, “but then, you are an impossible girl, cherie. We are ideally suited. We will have wonderful fights, and then we will make passionate love afterwards, eh?”
“I have never made love, passionate or otherwise,” she said bluntly, determined to keep him off balance.
“Of course you haven’t,” he responded calmly. “I shall be your first and your only lover, Autumn Rose Leslie.”
“Not necessarily, monsigneur,” she told him sweetly. “My mama has outlived three husbands and a royal lover. My grandmother had two husbands. My other grandmother had two husbands, a royal lover, and was in a Turk’s harem for a time. My great-grandmother de Marisco had six husbands and several lovers in her day. So you see, monsigneur, you might do better to wait until I have outlived several husbands to wed me. Wouldn’t you prefer to be the last, rather than the first?”
“How many sisters do you have?” he demanded. Her outrageous tale was, of course, a delicious fabrication to tease him.
“Two,” she said.
“How many husbands has each had?” he continued.
“One apiece,” she admitted, but then added, “they are yet young!”
He laughed. “Petite menteuse,” he accused.
“I am not a liar!” she protested. “Neither India nor Fortune is old. They would slay you if you said so.”
The marquis turned about and called to Red Hugh, “How old are mademoiselle’s sisters?”
“The eldest is over forty and the other close to it,” he answered. “Her grace will know, monsigneur.”
“And they are happily married?”
“God bless us, monsigneur, aye, they are. Lady India down in Gloucester and Mistress Fortune across the ocean in the New World. Both as happy as clams in a bed of seaweed,” Red Hugh volunteered cheerfully.
The marquis turned back to Autumn. “If your sisters are content with only one husband each, cherie, then so must you be, despite your grandmothers and great-grandmother de Marisco,” he told her.
“I am not my sisters,” she said airily. “Besides, they had more experience in society than I ever had. Before I wed I shall have my little adventures, Sebastian d’Oleron.”
“Oh, very well, kiss your other two admirers. You will quickly see that I am the man for you and end
this nonsense. Shall we wed in April, cherie?”
“No!” she almost shouted.
“Have you noticed that the Comte de Montroi has the beginnings of a second chin?” he asked her pleasantly, changing the subject.
Autumn giggled. She had indeed noted it. Guy was inordinately fond of sweets. “You are terrible,” she told him.
“And I would wager that de Belfort wears a corset,” the marquis continued. “He is a man who enjoys his food and his wine, cherie. In two years’ time he’ll be going to bed an hour after sunset, and sleep will be all that is on his mind, I guarantee you, ma petite.”
Autumn laughed aloud at his observation. “Is there anything you can say that is good about my other suitors, monsigneur?”
“Their blood is blue. They are wealthy. They are both decent and very, very dull,” he answered with a grin.
“What makes you the best candidate for my hand?” she asked.
“My blood is bluer, my coffers fuller, and I will never go to bed an hour after sunset unless it is to make passionate love to my beautiful wife the whole night long,” he said in tones so low only she might hear him. Reaching out, he placed a large hand over her two smaller ones as they gripped the reins of her mount. His look was smouldering.
She could feel her heart hammering suddenly. Chills ran up and down her spine. Her throat was momentarily tight. After what seemed an eternity her voice returned. “Surely you have faults?” she managed to say. “You cannot be perfect.”
“I do not tolerate fools, cherie. I can be reckless. When I want something, truly want it, nothing stands in my way,” he told her as he gently squeezed her hands before releasing them.
“I have a temper,” she replied.
“I know.”
Intrigued Page 12