by Karen Ranney
It was as if no time at all had elapsed since Jeanne had seen the woman, the last memory that of Justine taking her child. A decade disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving only moments between that deed and now.
“You look well, Justine,” she had said, surveying the former housekeeper. While it was true the gray dress she wore fitted her loosely, her hair was upswept in a style reminiscent of Paris, her nails clean, and through the soot Jeanne could smell the scent of roses.
Wealth was no longer judged by gold and silver, by heavily brocaded gowns or jeweled slippers. The truly fortunate had food to eat and water to drink. The blessed had the luxury of cleanliness. Justine had evidently managed not only to survive the difficult times but also to prosper in them.
Justine had smiled. “I wish I could say the same of you.” The other woman surveyed her up and down, and then surprised her by turning and walking away. After taking a few steps, she turned and glanced at Jeanne, an unspoken summons. Curious, Jeanne had followed.
“I saw your Vallans once,” Douglas said, a remark that summoned her to the present so quickly that Jeanne felt dizzy with it.
“When?” she asked, feeling her heart constrict. Had he come looking for her after all?
“A very long time ago,” he said. “I was seeking someone I knew.”
“Did you find him?”
“In a way,” he said, a cryptic answer that she waited for him to explain.
Instead, he remained silent, and she smoothed her napkin over her lap again and wondered when this interminable dinner would be finished.
“You’ve eaten very little.”
She nodded, agreeing. Determinately, she picked up her spoon, intent upon finishing the soup.
“It was not an order, Jeanne.”
Once again she nodded. “I know that. It’s better to eat when you can rather than when you wish.”
A remark Justine had made to her that day at Vallans when they’d reached the gatekeeper’s cottage. Justine had evidently made it her home, with small comfortable touches like the cloth on the square table and curtains on the lone window.
“You are looking at me as if I’d never done a kindness for you before,” Justine said as she placed an earthenware bowl in front of Jeanne and filled it with soup. Jeanne was so hungry that the smell of food had made her light-headed for a moment.
“You haven’t,” she said, beginning to eat.
Justine smiled. “Circumstances change. People change.”
“The last time I saw you, Justine, you were taking my child from me, and now you’re feeding me and claiming you’re kind. People do not change that much.”
Justine sat opposite her, a small smile playing around her mouth. How strange that age did not diminish her beauty, only added a luster to it like patina on silver.
“He wanted her killed, you know.”
Jeanne stopped eating, carefully placing the spoon on the side of the bowl. “He told me to take the baby and make sure she died.”
Nausea suddenly overwhelmed Jeanne and for a moment she thought she might be ill.
“‘Put a hand over her mouth, Justine,’ he said. ‘Smother her in a blanket.’” She shook her head. “I didn’t kill her,you know,” Justine said. “I do not murder children, even for your father.”
“What happened to her?” The words came slowly, measured by her pendulous heartbeat. The air felt thick, every sound muted. Jeanne forced a breath into her chest and then out, striving for a composure she didn’t feel.
“I might have taken her to foster for myself. I’ve always wanted a child.” Justine shrugged. “What an irony if I had been able to raise the Comte du Marchand’s granddaughter as my own.”
“Instead?” Her chest hurt with the effort of restraining her words.
Joy was a tinny little sound, an unfamiliar bell. It began as a barely decipherable chime somewhere deep inside her, began to gain strength and cadence until it matched the clamoring sound of her heartbeat. Jeanne clasped her hands together tightly in front of her.
“Instead, I found an old couple who agreed to care for her.” She shrugged. “They were grateful for the money I gave them.”
“Why did you never tell me?” The training of the last nine years was in her favor. Jeanne didn’t reveal any emotion at all, neither hope nor despair and certainly not the boundless grief she always felt when thinking of her child.
Justine’s look was not kind as much as pitying. “Because your father was right about one thing. You were young and foolish, and had brought dishonor to the du Marchand name.”
“Where is she?” The question evidently startled the other woman. But surely Justine must have known that she would ask. For a moment her brown eyes were almost kind, her smile appearing absurdly benevolent. Jeanne could not fix this gentler, kinder woman with the terror of her youth.
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Jeanne,” the older woman said softly, almost pityingly.
Four simple words. That’s all. And the chime suddenly stopped. The dawn of her soul turned to midnight again.
What a strange tableau they must have made, two women struggling in life, facing each other across a small square table. As odd as this one, she thought, glancing up to see Douglas looking at her with suddenly intent eyes.
“What happened when you reached Vallans?”
“Nothing,” she said. “There was nothing left of it.” The sight of Vallans scorched and ruined was one of her greatest nightmares. For the longest time, standing there, she’d felt as if she were part of the scene, as destroyed as the magnificent chateau. She was only a ghost on the landscape, as ethereal as the hint of soot in the air.
“Why did you go back?”
She shrugged. “There was nowhere else for me to go.”
“So after Vallans, you left France.”
She nodded.
“Have you any family in Scotland?” he asked, the tone of his voice dispassionate and almost bored, as if he were disinterested in the answer. It was as if he quoted from an invisible text in his mind. How to entertain a guest at dinner: Discuss the weather, inquire after absent relatives.
“I have no relatives at all,” she said, equally as distant.
His glance flicked in her direction and then away again as if afraid of giving away too much interest.
How easily they pretended that they hadn’t discussed their lives intimately, including their dreams for the future. How arrogant they’d been in their youth, how easily convinced that the days stretched out empty and waiting to be filled with precious memories. But men fared better at futures then women, didn’t they? Her life in the last ten years had been a simple exercise of enduring the present. Living in the past was too painful and it was foolish to project herself into a future that looked too much like the eternal sameness of her days.
As the meal wore on, she realized he was studying her intently. She pretended not to notice, but he was not so easily ignored. He was simply there, like a thunderstorm, a force of nature so strong that the very air in the room seemed charged.
The last quarter hour they hadn’t spoken to each other. Two courses were brought in and taken away but she couldn’t remember eating. The food was unmemorable, and that had nothing to do with the cook and everything to do with the man at her side.
“Why Scotland?” he asked, as if there had been no lull in the conversation.
“I came to find my aunt. But I learned that she died a year earlier. I found myself needing shelter and food. The most commonplace way to do that is to be employed.”
“You could have married,” he said.
“Marry?” She was genuinely amused.
“Why not? It’s been the answer to a woman’s dilemma for thousands of years, has it not?”
“In my case, I do not believe it would suit.”
“Why is that?”
The conversation had taken a turn that was uncomfortable. She wished, suddenly, for the silence they had shared during most of the meal.
“I have never met anyone who would inspire the emotion necessary for marriage,” she said. An answer as good as any. Better the lie than the truth. You were in my heart and marked your place there forever.
“Is love necessary for marriage? I thought other things were more important. Income, connections, legacy.”
“I had been reared to believe that all true. But I have no legacy anymore, no connections, and my only income now comes from you.” She smiled at him, wondering where she’d found her courage. “What else is left but love?”
“Should I feel guilty about last night?” he asked abruptly, surprising her.
She reached for her napkin below the table, twisting it between her hands. Several silent moments passed between them before she looked at him again.
“You mustn’t,” she said composedly. “You didn’t, after all, force me.”
She held his look, determined not to be the first to glance away. When he finally broke their gaze, she felt released, and looked down at her plate once more.
“Does that mean that you would care to repeat the experience?”
Where had he learned such control?
The Douglas she had known had been an impulsive, almost rash young man. He wanted to see the world just like his older brothers, and conquer it in a way that the other MacRaes had not. He’d had so many plans and it looked to her now as if he had accomplished all of them.
Only to become a man who was intimidating and slightly dangerous.
But she resented his attempt to control the conversation. She resented the fact that he sat here whole and healthy and hale opposite her, seemingly untouched by life itself.
“If you wish,” she said, mimicking his offhanded manner.
To the casual observer, her response had no effect on him. But she knew him too well. There was a patch of color high on his cheekbones and the rim of his ears suddenly deepened in color, signs that Douglas MacRae was angry.
The emotion made them equals, and the meal abruptly more palatable.
“What did you do to make your father send you to the convent?”
She’d been wrong. They weren’t equals at all. He held the upper hand. Taking a sip of her wine, she considered how to answer. She wondered what he would do if she told him the truth. Because I bore your child. Because I was a whore. A name her father had called her. Those months had been unbearably lonely and filled with sorrow. She remembered putting her hands on either side of her round belly and conjuring up what life would be like with all three of them as a family. But Douglas had disappeared, all thoughts of responsibility evidently terrorizing him.
The moment she’d learned she was with child, her body had ceased to be her own. There was another being sharing it, altering her shape, dictating her moods and wishes. She was more a vessel for this child than a person belonging to herself, and the sensation had been both unsettling and awe-inspiring.
A part of her had disappeared when they’d taken her child from her the day she was born. Another part died when she’d been dragged from Vallans, placed in a coach, and bound and muffled with a gag in case she screamed and shamed the du Marchand name.
Nor had she ever returned to herself.
Instead, she had her own secrets, didn’t she? Reasons not to bring up the past and play this game with him.
“My father sent me to the convent because I’d disappointed him,” she said, the only answer she was going to give him.
Again, he sought refuge in silence. The man was a great deal more mysterious than the boy had been, and more cautious with his words and thoughts.
“What were you doing while I was at the convent?”
“Living here,” he said shortly.
“With your daughter.”
“Yes.”
He suddenly stood and bowed to her. “If you will forgive me, I’ve remembered some duties not yet attended to.” With that, he was gone, leaving her staring after him.
Chapter 15
J eanne expected him that night, and waited for him to come. Attired in her nightgown, she sat in the chair by the window. Would she welcome him? Or sit silent, a chastising sentinel, when he opened the door? With her hands clasped on her lap she watched the candle burn down, casting the lavishly appointed guest room in shadow.
The red-lacquered chest on the south side of the room was adorned with a stylized dragon in black and topped with two blue and white porcelain vases. The bed hangings were red silk, the coverlet white with an embroidered scarlet dragon in the center. The furniture was quite obviously patterned after a French design with claw feet and turned legs. A writing desk sat in the corner, and on the opposite side of the room was a basin for washing. Talc, soap, and tooth powder were arrayed on a silver tray nearby.
A lovely chamber, and one that was unbearably lonely, but she’d had years of practice with that emotion.
Finally, she stood and walked to the window, watching the gray clouds chase a black night. She was in the mood for rain, for heavy storms, and pounding thunder. She wanted lightning and danger and wished, suddenly, to be out in it, challenging the elements. Perhaps she’d stand on the highest hill and dare God to send her a thunderbolt.
As if she had summoned the rain, it began pattering against the windows. When he entered and shut the door softly behind him, she didn’t turn but kept her gaze on the night-darkened street through the rivulets of rain.
“I couldn’t stay away,” he said and it was a confession, one that she knew she’d never receive in the light of day.
“I know,” she whispered and it was an admission of her own, an acknowledgment of their mutual weakness.
He came to her, placed his hands on her waist, and turned her until she faced him. He pulled her to him and kissed her, an open mouth and hungry kiss that replicated all that she felt and more. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as he lifted and carried her to the bed.
In this night of mist and thunder, he pulled the draperies closed until the bed was surrounded in silk. Only then did he speak again, his voice husky and low.
“You knew I would come.”
“Yes,” she whispered in an assent, or perhaps a confession.
“And you want me here.”
How could she not? But instead of answering, she placed her hand against his cheek, her thumb brushing the edge of his smile.
Last night had been the first time they lay on a bed and loved. But their bower beneath a tree had been as magical and their trysting place along the river had been special and beautiful. She suspected that this night would be as rare and remarkable, and then wondered if it was wise to love him again. The question was fleeting and unanswerable, because he kissed her again and every thought vanished.
“Tell me what you want,” he said, the question allowing no evasion.
“Everything.” She could tell that her answer surprised him.
“That covers a dozen or so sins, Jeanne,” he said, smiling.
The word amused her. “I’ve been punished for more than a dozen sins, Douglas. What’s a few more?”
He reached out with one finger, traced her lower lip. “What shall I do first, then?”
“Kiss me again,” she softly said. “I’ve grown accustomed to your kisses.”
“And then?”
“Begin with a kiss.”
“A small enough request,” he said, acquiescing. Long moments later she pulled back.
“I want you to know me so well that I feel a part of you.” She placed her hand on the curve of his face, her palm lightly cupping his jaw. Slowly her fingers moved to his neck and across to his shoulder.
She could feel the muscles bunching there where he supported himself. Unlike the night before he was fully dressed. Only his coat was gone, but he was still attired in his fine lawn shirt and trousers. Even his boots, she noted with a smile.
His look was difficult to decipher, almost as if he willed himself not to reveal any emotion at this minute. But his eyes glittered and there was a flush high on his
cheekbones. The sight of Douglas, aroused, struck an answering chord deep inside her.
“I want you to be so close that you can’t tell if it’s my breath or yours.” She placed her hand flat against his chest, feeling his heart beat strongly beneath her palm. “Or my heart beating or yours. My pleasure or yours.”
She began undressing him, her fingers fumbling on the buttons. He smiled at her fevered attempts, not understanding that her desire was fueled by desperation. She had to feel in order to cease thinking, or her thoughts would overwhelm her.
Perhaps she’d be the instrument of her own downfall, confessing everything rather than bear the suspense.
“Are you trying to seduce me, Jeanne?” he asked, one corner of his mouth tilting up in a smile.
“Do you know that I was once punished for not being a virgin?” Startled, she stared up at him. She hadn’t intended to say that.
He didn’t respond, only covered her hands with his.
“As a woman grows, she enters into evil, taking into her body the strength of men until they are weakened and puny and easily led into sin.”
Douglas drew back, frowning at her. “Who said that?”
“A nun I used to know,” she said, wishing that the shadows were all-encompassing. Instead, the lone candle flickered on the bedside table, illuminating the sudden watchful look in his eyes. “Sister Marie-Thérèse would say that every night before my punishment. She stored the whip on the altar, a constant reminder that the God of her faith was a fierce deity. I used to try to prepare myself but I was always surprised by how much it hurt.”
“Should you be quoting a nun at this moment?” he asked, his voice carefully expressionless.
“I can’t imagine a better time,” she said, savoring the exquisite irony of this moment. She began to smile, realizing that it was the truth. “She was a sour-faced nun who hated everything about me.”
“She wouldn’t be pleased to see you now,” he said, beginning to smile as well.
“No,” Jeanne answered, “she wouldn’t.”
