Much of their chateau’s architecture resembled Francis’s demands for handsome accommodations for himself. His vassals imitated him. Here at Valerie, while the ceilings were much too high for Del’s taste or practicality, the gigantic fireplaces could warm the rooms quite well.
When Del had first discovered and later catalogued the furniture stored up in the attics, she’d praised the French kings who had influenced their vassals to decorate their homes with upholstered chairs and settees, thick drapes and voluminous sheer curtains. She’d found many folded delicately away in four-foot tall leather trunks in as excellent condition as the day some wise soul had packed them away during the Terror. She’d hung the white limestone walls in medieval tapestries she’d discovered rolled up and standing in the rafters. She’d found old crimson velvet window hangings embroidered with the entwined gold vines that were the official escutcheon of the House of Valerie. She made use of them all.
“Madame la Comtesse?” A chamber maid emerged from the boudoir and curtsied. “Monsieur le Comte’s bath is ready.”
“Merci, Collette.”
Winter, especially snow and rain, continued to aggravate Neville’s wounds. She’d insisted he indulge in hot baths every afternoon to soothe his pains. The hour before supper had become a welcome time they shared their news of the day for there was much to learn about their land. Often their hour of sharing became an hour of sensuous satisfactions. The finer points of marriage agreed with both of them.
“Well done, Collette. You may leave.”
She entered the small boudoir to inspect the preparations. One of her first acts as chatelaine had been to hang linen curtains over each bare wall here and line the parquet floor with a thick Aubusson she’d discovered among the treasures in the attic. The room now was cozy and welcoming for her husband. She dipped her elbow in the water. The servants had gotten temperature of his bath just right.
To them, she spoke always in French. They seemed surprised at her skill that day Neville and she had arrived at the front gate. They’d lined up down the wide front steps, expectant looks on their faces. That had been more than two months ago. But the transition for all of them had gone without incident.
Their steward Monsieur Duroc, Collette’s father, had managed the estate during the turmoil of the republic and the empire. The land, he said, had been productive.
“We’ve eaten well,” he told them. “But we lost half our men in the wars. Eighteen died. Six of them on the road home from Moscow. Another six have lost an arm or leg. Our women and children have worked very hard to make up the lack. Though we have food, we are poor and we welcome your ideas to prosper. The truth is we need money for seed, two new ploughs and at least three younger horses.”
Neville had promised to buy them. And he had done so quickly, to the tenants’ gratitude and some surprise.
“What I would do for those on my lands in England,” Neville had said to her after the purchases, “I would do here. Why not? We have the means.”
Neville had also reapportioned the land so that families worked more hectares than ever before. One third of the entire estate had been reserved for the comte and his family, but Neville cut that to one-eighth.
“There are only two of us, but each of their families are four or more.” He also ordered that any surplus they produced would be sold at market fairs in the village. Proceeds would be shared equally among them.
The children were a greater concern. They worked alongside their parents on the land or in the chateau. War and poverty meant many had never had any education. Del sought to change that.
Collette, the pretty blonde fifteen-year-old who was their steward’s oldest daughter, was one example of that change. In the mornings for three hours until noon, she, like other young children of this estate, was in class. Del organized it with her own gifts of books and taught reading and arithmetic, that is, until she found a tutor she deemed qualified.
“Every child will attend classes.” Del had ordered Duroc to relay her message to the tenants. “They will learn to read and write. Simple addition and subtraction as well.”
Duroc blanched at the order. “My four children can read the signs of the shops.”
“And the others on the land?”
He responded that he doubted they’d do much better.
She informed him that was not good enough and the children of Valerie would go to school, become literate and functional with numbers. “That or they will not work the land or in the chateau until they do.”
What had been a hardship was fast becoming a point of pride. The French vicomte whose estate abutted theirs west to Amboise had learned of her orders and had called upon Neville to complain. Neville rebuffed his requests to close the school. To the other man’s shock, Neville suggested that he open a school for his own peasants. As yet, they had no idea if the man had decided to emulate the Valerie example.
Meanwhile, Neville and she insisted that Farnsworth and Mary learn French. His valet and her maid had promptly accepted their offer to accompany them to Paris and south to the Loire. They, who had developed affections for each other during the Marsden Christmas house party, had married the same day Neville and she had taken vows in church. Vicar Eldridge had been a busy man the three days after Christmas.
The clergyman, unhappy at Del’s marriage, had officiated at her sisters’ weddings with a smile. Alastair, who had purchased a special license to marry when he’d arrived in London, had wed Belinda the day after Christmas. The following day at ten, Marjorie and Griff had wed. The third morning Neville and she said their vows. The house party guests and friends of Aunt Gertrude who lived in town, rode to Brighton and crowded into the church to witness the ceremonies. Aunt Gertrude, overjoyed with her matchmaking success, hosted a lively reception, upstairs and down, for all the newlyweds. That meant not only for her nieces and their bridegrooms, but for Mary and Farnsworth, too.
“Bonjour, Madame, comment ça va?”
She spun to welcome her husband home. Today he’d consulted with those who tended his vineyards. Neville knew nothing of wine but sought to learn how to produce the best grapes. Like all his efforts since coming to Valerie, he wished to maximize the fruits of the land.
“Je vais bien, Monsieur le Comte. Et vous?” She offered him her cheek to kiss. As was his wont when he returned home each afternoon, he led her to the largest chaise longue to sit upon his lap.
“How has your day been?” he asked her, his fingers pushing the loose tendrils of her hair back from her cheeks. “Did you feel better after you ate?”
“I could manage bread and some cheese this afternoon.” Avoiding his gaze, she toyed with the collar of his frock coat and unwound his cravat. To the hollow of his throat, she dropped a kiss. He smelled of crisp air and hay from the stables. “I think we see a pattern to my illness.”
He cupped her nape and drew near to give her a loud fierce kiss. Pride glistened in his grey gaze. “Shall we count the months?”
“I’d say September or October. And I’ve decided on a name.”
“Anything!”
“His should be Christopher.”
He hugged her close. “Or hers, Christianne?”
“In English and French. It’s adaptable.”
“Exactly as it should be for a child of both countries.”
They had discussed how their children would have the advantage of knowing two homes, two histories, two languages and two parents who encouraged their appreciation of both. How Neville and she would efficiently manage their English and their French holdings was still at issue. They agreed, it was too early to tell if they could be of as much benefit here as they could at home in England. It was a decision that bore investigation, time and honest assessment.
“What did you learn today?” She asked him the question they posed to each other every day.
“Grapes are affected by sunlight. Too much for too long on a hillside that usually sees less means a change in the quality of the grape. Too little
and we have nothing to work at harvest. And that is done with our feet. Pigeage is grape stomping. It is, I am told, fun. Also very messy. What did you learn?”
She rose, extracted Aunt Gertrude’s letter from her pocket and beckoned him with a wink. “Come disrobe while the bath is hot. I’ve much to share.”
He stood and allowed her to slide off his frock coat and waistcoat and flick open one button of his linen shirt. “You’re laughing. Good. I need to hear this!”
She’d save the best for last. “A tidbit for each item you remove.”
“Madame, you bribe me?”
“Absolutely.” She shimmied off his shirt, dropped it to the chair and wrapped her arms around his warm chest. “I’d like nothing better.”
He took a sumptuous kiss from her and she sighed. “Me, either.”
Then he swatted her bottom. “News, my lady.”
She cleared her throat and stepped back to push at his breeches. “Young Tom has formed an attachment to the new teacher at the vicarage school.” She’d worried about the little boy when they left Brighton. He cried bitterly when she told him and the other students that she was to be married and move to France. Aunt Gertrude, Marjorie and Griff had hired a new teacher before Griff and Marjorie left for Paris in early January.
“I know that sets your mind to rest.” Neville smiled. “He is a sweet child.”
Del had yearned to adopt him but to take one orphan with them and not the others would have been cruel. She’d contented herself that Aunt Gertrude had agreed to visit many times each week to read to them and to keep watch that the new teacher showed as much good humor toward them as she did devotion to their studies.
“Aunt writes that Bee and Alastair have invited her to visit them after Easter. Bee vows to have one wing of the house painted and renovated for her.” When they’d arrived at Alastair’s newly bestowed ducal seat, Bee had taken to refurbishing the mansion with an eye to visitors.
“We’ll return next year,” Neville promised her, a hand on her gently rounded belly, “when you are recovered.”
“And Christopher too.”
“Or Christianne,” he added.
“I’d like to go for next Christmas to Aunt Gertrude’s.”
“You would?”
Del’s mouth watered at the sight of Neville naked. The man might have been wounded, he might walk with a limp, but his naked body was muscular perfection. Her pulse jumped at the sculpted beauty of his arms and ribs and thighs.
He grunted. “Del?”
“Hmm?”
“Your aunt?”
“Ah. Yes.” She pointed a finger at him. “She plans to host another house party.”
He shook his head and bent to test the water. “You don’t say.”
The sight of his rounded backside clogged her throat.
“Del?”
“Yes?”
He gave her a pained look. “We’ll do that soon.”
“We will?” she asked, hope in her heart to do that very soon.
He tipped his head toward the tub. “Would you like to get in with me?”
“Oh, no. You like it hotter than I do. And it’s too small.”
He chastised her with a knowing look. “I promise to be quick.”
“Oh, do. Please.”
“Your aunt?” He sank into the copper hip tub.
“Right you are.” She licked her lips at the sight of him stretching out his very appealing limbs. Men were built so deliciously different from women. Long and hard and…irresistible. “What about her?”
He raised a cloth to her hand. “She’ll give another Christmas house party? Hasn’t she had enough of everyone sleeping in other people’s beds?”
Del laughed. She bent down and dipped the cloth in the hot water, pausing as she spied a long part of him rising from the deep. She swallowed hard on her interest in those bits. But it was difficult to keep up this conversation. “Where were we?”
“Del!” He leaned back and submerged fully into the water, to come up chuckling. “Give me the news before I rise out of here and tickle you mercilessly!”
She pouted. She liked when he did that. He followed it by kissing whatever part of her he’d tickled. “Not a bad idea!”
He sprayed water at her.
She thrust up her hands. “You’re right, you are! Aunt’s party would be great fun. An annual event. We mustn’t sound prudish. After all—“
“We have no claim to model behavior.”
She soaped the cloth and began to wash his shoulder, then a long strong arm. “True.”
He leaned over, splayed his fingers up into the wealth of her coif and destroyed it. Then he dragged her near and kissed her, a magnificent exploration of the cavern of her mouth. “News, my love. Tell me.”
It took her a second to clear her brain. “Well, hmm, yes. It seems that you and I are not the only ones who have seen, shall we say, consequences from our Christmas revels?”
“Bee and Alastair?” He beamed.
“Not that I know of. Yet.”
“Well then. Marjorie and Griff?”
“Not them either. As far as I know. Yet.”
“I see.” He traced fingertips across the lace of her décolletage. “You need to take this off, my darling.”
“I do, yes!” She spun to offer her back to him so he could undo her laces. Over the weeks, he had become more adept at the art of disrobing her. She was quite proud of him.
”Who else then?” he asked as he worked.
She could already feel the thrill of his hands on her. His lips to her breast. Her hipbone. Her inner thigh. “Mmm. Who else what?”
“I think being with child has affected your concentration, my love.” He was chuckling, the beast.
She turned round to face him. Clutching her sagging bodice to her chest, she narrowed her eyes on him. “The news of London and Brighton this season?”
“I’m ready.” He crossed his arms, his auburn brows high.
She rose, dropped her gown, stepped from her shoes, worked at her petticoat, her hateful short stays, her shift and stood, save for her white stockings, quite as God had made her. Then she announced, “It seems the Marquess of Tain and Lady Goddard have recently announced their impending nuptials.”
The small room was silent. But she felt his gaze brush her skin, wicked, probing, soft as eiderdown, and very gratifying, too.
Then the water sloshed everywhere.
He rose like a creature from the sea and took her in his embrace.
She wiggled against him, tempting, taunting him. “You’re wet.”
“You will be too!”
His promise had her hooting as he led her to their bedchamber.
Once he closed the door, he put her to the massive four-poster where the counts of Valerie and their wives had slept and made love and babies for nearly three centuries.
“That is good news about Penn and Tain,” he said as he slid between her thighs and nestled his warm firm body there. “I worried about them.”
“You did?” She didn’t wish to talk at all, but it was prudent to finish this topic so that they could enjoy themselves with the best form of communication known to men and women. “Why?”
“Tain wished not to marry.” Neville spread kissed down her breastbone. “He’d had two wives and was happy with neither. Yet he needs an heir.”
“And Penn?” she asked, her knowledge of that lady’s marriages vague. Yet Del knew Penn thought herself a failure for not providing any heirs to any of her three husbands.
“Penn would have liked to marry a man she loved.” Neville kissed the tips of both breasts and Del arched up with pleasure.
“So do you think their match love? Or lust?” she asked him while she fought to focus on the topic.
“Or does Penn bear, shall we say, consequences of their rendezvous in the Marsden library?”
“God above. Who knows?”
“I have no idea.” He wrapped his hands around her knees to curl her legs around h
is hips. “Their problem to solve in any case. At the moment, I have a woman in my bed who needs to experience the consequences of luring a man from his bath.”
“A hot, wet endeavor,” she crooned.
“So well deserved, too.”
THE END
Travels with Cerise and Other Historical Bons Bons!
Royal Pavilion at Brighton, England.
I travel often to research for my novels and many of the places I see offer me not only facts, but little delights that I thought you might enjoy. For extra fun, I add my own photographs here.
What you enjoy here in the CHRISTMAS BELLES series began with an inspiration after my latest visit to Brighton. This lovely seaside town was most popular among royalty and aristocrats during the Regency period. In fact, Prince George the Regent was the one to popularize the town. His attraction to it was at first practical. Far enough away from his parents, the town offered escape from their restrictions. At first, as a young man he visited his uncle. Later, he decided to build his own house.
Statue of George IV outside gate to Royal Pavilion, Brighton, England
The Royal Pavilion, once his grand home, is now owned and operated by the City of Brighton. It stands as a monument to his style and influence. Indeed, as he visited, so too followed the ton. They were eager to claim they lived in the same city, if only to visit when he did. Many at first rented rooms or houses to be close to him and the court. Others built their own homes. And so the town grew in size. Brighton became so fashionable that one lady, who’d been delayed from landing by a storm her ship encountered as it crossed the Channel, complained that if she did not arrive soon, all her wardrobe would be out of style!
Brighton was a resort, a haven for the aristocracy. But it was also a port afflicted with smugglers. Most English ports suffered from theft by gangs. The Crown offered prize money, as we learn in The Duke’s Impetuous Darling, to influence others to catch them. These gangs were controlled by those in the town who had the connections to help them sell the goods they stole. It was one thing to catch a gang of smugglers, but it was far more effective to catch the men who controlled them.
The Viscount's Only Love: Christmas Belles, Book 2 Page 12