A weedy boy came up to them. “I have something, Mistress, er, Madame Dee – Doo –” he gave up on the name.
Émile smiled on him. “The head groom should be with us betimes. Meanwhile, are you both managing?”
She hoped this groom wouldn’t be another disreputable connection of Émile’s.
To be to be fair to Émile, he had offered to tell her his whole criminal history when he proposed. For sure, when she asked him not to, he hadn’t pressed her further. Well, it was too late to worry about such matters now.
It was a mild day for late January and they spent some time with the donkeys and horses. The Count’s wedding presents to them were in the stables, too. Émile’s was his two favourite mounts from the Plas Uchaf stables. These were head flinging, tall creatures he had to fight to ride and which Sophie found alarming. The Count had given her the placid mare who had so often taken her down the lanes to the villages.
They loitered a while in the grounds. Sophie thought these perfect, with the rose and winter gardens, thickets, terraces and formal, yew fringed walks. Émile caressed her arm and once he assaulted her waist. He had cut his nails, but suddenly, the approaching Duties of the Marriage Bed loomed alarmingly. She slipped out of his clutches to admire the sunken garden. From his wry look as he joined her, she could see he wasn’t fooled.
The sun was setting as they went back to the house. Sophie suddenly dreaded one of the vampire bats would appear, but none did. She knew while Katarina had worked to safeguard the grounds against them this protection was limited. Now, Sophie felt more than ever how they should warn people. There was no sense in spoiling the day by raising the matter with Émile; he would reiterate it would be senseless while they could prove nothing.
“Certainment, you are eager for one of your English cups of tea.” He took her arm again and they went through the house, now shadowy, to the drawing room. It was fragrant with hothouse flowers – as was the whole of the house – and she rushed over to the new piano with delight. “Oh, thank you!” She saw the ornamental boxes of sweetmeats all over the room. “Thank you for all these, too, Mon – er – Émile.” Apart from these, there was the whole trousseau he had insisted she order.
“Give you me a kiss in thanks.”
She gave him the kiss, but so reluctantly he sighed and releasing her, went to fetch a taper to light the candles on the piano. “You can thank me by singing that song, what is it called? ‘Ombra Mai Fu’.”
She sang and played his favourite pieces for some time. She feared more assaults on her waist, but he didn’t make any. Instead, he leaned on the piano, intent.
Wandering over to the bookshelves, he entertained her with some of the titles: “’Eighty Eventful Years in Athrington.’ Where is Athrington, ma chère?
‘A History of the Dowling Family of Croydon.’ Three volumes of that, too. The excitement overwhelms me.”
As Sophie failed to eat her dinner – a pity, for there was roast chicken and trifle, her favourites – she thought how ridiculous it was for her to behave like Richardson’s Pamela on her wedding eve. Still, she suddenly wondered why people were so sorry for old maids? They never had to go through this.
Émile meanwhile told her funny stories. These included one so absurd Sophie wondered if he was making it up to test her credulity. She always remembered it; it was about a madman he had known who insisted on feeding his horses hot chocolate.
She forced a laugh, shifting in her seat.
“Hmm.” Émile looked at her quizzically. He turned to the first footman (Thankfully, the jovial butler was not in the room). “We will serve ourselves, thank you.”
The footmen left with bows. Sophie stared after them anxiously, though she realised Émile was unlikely to demand his marital rights at the dinner table. “Have another glass of wine, ma chère.”
“No, really.”
“Only a little, then. Let us toast Absent Friends.”
He came round the table, and insisted they toast absent friends several times. She remained rigid as he pinched her cheek. “Sophie, you are looking terrified. Sure it is ironical that I once suspected you of being an adventuress! We will give up on this dinner and I will drink my port. Then I will come and teach you (she started in horror) – Zut alors, Sophie! – to beat me at chess.”
He spent some time on this hopeless task. She had no talent for chess normally, and now she was worse.
Émile laughed at her puzzlement. “Let me show you a good trap – known as the fork, I believe – which Morwenna used on me. I was writhing so as I first heard you sing that song by Handel I didn’t even see it and she took my Queen.”
A rapid voice in Sophie’s head spoke in slangy French. Somehow, she got the sense of it, as one does in dreams: Marcel Sly Boots has a trick called the knife!
Momentarily, the breathless sensation which overcame her when she had the vision of the blond baby and whenever she had been trying to explain things to Émile in Paris came back.
Recovering, she said to Émile, remembering that first evening, “Was it so?”
“Of course, my sweet one! You have no idea how you made me suffer.”
She rose to kiss him, but a knock came at the door. It was Georges, who held a muttered talk with Émile in unintelligible French.
“Sophie,” Émile came back to stroke her cheek, “A tedious matter claims my attention. I will be back as soon as I can, but it may be two hours. I am sorry I must go off so on our wedding night. Perhaps you should like to have Agnes for company in the meantime? I am sure you wish for some time to face up to the Terrible Ordeal, though I promise that I shall do my best to make it as unlike one as I can.”
Sophie could think of nothing more reassuring than to have some time with Agnes. She said on impulse, “Émile, I do hope your errand is not dangerous.”
He laughed; his eyes were veiled, but that wasn’t unusual. “When, chérie, do I ever do anything dangerous?”
Agnes jollied Sophie along, playing cards with her. At a quarter to ten, she brought up – no doubt on Émile’s instructions – one of the brandy-in-hot milk drinks he favoured as a curative for nervousness. “Honestly, Miss, there is nothing to worry about with the right man, and you love him, don’t you? Well, then. Monsieur Émile did ask me to leave your hair down.”
Perhaps he wanted to do some fearsome, unguessed at sexual act involving her hair? Sophie shuddered.
Émile shifted, glancing at the clock that hung above the blazing fire that was one of the main attractions of the inn. “Of all nights for the boy to be late!”
“You have my sympathies, mon ami. But as I had the good luck to run into him and Katarina says you must needs have special permission to enter chez Kenrick, I thought it best to meet with him as soon as may be. The poor brat seemed nervous enough to change his mind without a good bribe and some encouragement.”
Émile grumbled.
Georges said suddenly, “I recollect me your rage when we came here first, and you told me Madame ignored your proposal. Now, I understand your humiliation.”
Émile stared. “Do not tell me Agnes has done as much?”
“I never thought to see the day when I would propose, leave alone be rejected by some country wench burdened with a baby outside wedlock. Agnes has been distant of late, and would not tell me why. I thought that – though I am skilful – we had been caught out, and she feared I’d given her a belly. I said if so I would be happy to marry her, and she laughed at me!” His nearly black eyes blazed.
Émile’s lips twitched. He took a quick drink of porter before saying solemnly, “That was insulting enough, bien sûr.”
“She said, ‘No, you have taken care of that side of things well enough…Georges, I am sorry, but we must part. You are too much of a rascal, and I have a child to think of’.”
Émile swore in his sympathy. A weedy boy who looked too young for a tavern approached, his eyes searching the room as though he feared that he might see one of the Kenrick’s hanging from the
ceiling.
“Sir.” He bowed awkwardly to Émile.
“Come and have a drink, boy.”
A group of farmers smoking pipes by the fire were staring openly at an aristocrat eccentric enough to drink amongst them. Émile indicated the back room, visible through the bar, fireless and deserted. “We may be better yonder.” He ordered drinks from the bar and waved amiably to the group as they went through to the icy room.
The boy gazed at Émile, eyes wide. “She Changed you.”
Émile was impassive. “Then I must put my faith in ma petite’ Katarina’s weeds.”
“I am glad you took Katarina away, Sir.”
“So, Mon Dieu, am I! Mind, boy, you don’t need to go back, after you have aided us. Know you anything of Kenrick’s goings on?”
“I keep away from it, Sir. But we all know them to be blood suckers – Mistress Kenrick has made the Captain and Arthur Williams into bloodsuckers too. Master Kenrick does wicked things with time. When the house was let, the front hall was always a terror to us, but now, strange things are everywhere. I know the shade of Captain Mackenzie walks there, yet he is alive –”
He broke off as the Landlord came through with the drinks, looking anxious himself. “Sir, beware for your servants. That recruiting sergeant is back, and looking for trouble.”
“Thank you, Monsieur.” Émile turned back to the boy, who was gulping his porter. “I wish for ease of access to the house and Georges tells me you will ask us in.” He took out his pocket book, and the boy, who had bent away from him at his words, moved closer. “Here is an advance.”
The boy had no sooner taken the money, than the door crashed open. Strapping and jovial, his face flushed with success, the recruiting sergeant leaned in it with two of his men smirking behind him. The boy made a nervous movement towards the table, perhaps thinking of climbing underneath.
“So you are Frenchies, eh? I hate all Frenchman. But you can’t be them Jacobins, they wouldn’t allow it.” The Sergeant swore, turning to Georges. “Why don’t you come and fight the bastards like a man?”
“I’d like to fight.” Georges jumped up eagerly as the boy cowered back. “But bien sûr, Monsieur cannot join the common ranks and the boy is too young.”
The Sergeant swore some more in denial. “Too young? You can’t be too young to fight them lot! You come have a drink with us, fellow. What’s your name?” He draped an arm about Georges, urging him towards the still open door.
Émile drew another man confidentially to one side. “My friend is impulsive. What a nice little massue, may I have it?” He plucked the weapon from the man’s pocket. “Run, boy!” he called to the boy, who was already skirting his way round the group to the door.
“Give me that!” The heavily built man lunged at Émile, who picked him up with one arm and tossed him over the bar. The man landed upside down, feet waving. The other man charged. Émile dodged aside and the man sprawled across a table, looking astonished.
Émile and Georges hoisted the hefty Sergeant and ran him out across the yard to plant him head first into the half empty rain barrel with a splash like that of a diving walrus. The boy had gone, and the Landlord and the other customers watched and chuckled.
Émile and Georges were still laughing as they rode through the starlit night out of Llandyrnog. Georges broke off. “There’s a woman out late.”
A woman, who by her brisk walk they guessed to be young, was in the dark lane ahead of them. She turned about, throwing back her shawl.
“You should not be out at this hour alone, ma petite. Where do you live?” Émile asked.
She answered slowly, her Welsh accent strong. “I went for porter for my Nain, Sir. She is ailing. Is but five minutes.”
“For all that you should not be alone, like Red Riding Hood. Alors, Gilles, you are desperate to go to Mistress Sophie, I will see after Mademoiselle.”
“Then behave yourself, Georges, with an innocent.”
“You ain’t the only one knows how to be gallant. Au revoir…Will you trust me enough to come up on my horse, girl? We must take care with Nain’s porter. You see, I speak some Welsh already? Until yesterday I courted a Welsh girl.”
“Remember what I said about behaving, Georges!” Émile rode off.
“Ain’t you afraid to bring a strange man here, ma petite Mair?” Georges asked as the girl set the jug of porter down on the earthen floor of the barn. It was icy cold even amongst the hay.
She merely smiled. He saw her teeth – so often in poor condition amongst working girls – were white and healthy, if a little too long; strangely, one beyond the canines was half grown. Then her hazel eyes had locked his, and they held a secret so important that nothing else mattered.
As she kissed and sucked his neck lasciviously before sinking in her teeth, he was only displeased because it distracted him from understanding this secret.
Chapter Thirteen
Sophie lay wriggling her toes in fear on top of the bed, shuddering in her new nightdress despite the blazing fire Agnes had made up. She was remembering snippets of confidential talk between Harriet and her friends: ‘She cried and he slapped her face…’
When The Enemy finally came into view, it was a relief, as in some old soldier’s story.
Émile invaded via their adjoining dressing rooms, candlestick in hand, wearing his crimson robe. He set the candlestick down on the mantelpiece, and came to sit on the bed and smile at her. “Viens ici –” he paused, as though confused, and then he went on smiling, “Sophie, you look as lovely with your hair down as you did in Paris. And your sweet feet! I have never seen your toes before and I fall in love with them at once.”
She had sat up to greet him with open arms, but now she lost her nerve and scuttled under the bedclothes. She peeped out as he pulled off his robe.
So that is how a man looks when he is aroused! It is both alarming and a little ridiculous. He does have nice muscles; I will explore those when I am less shy.
He got into the bed and reached for her (his nails were still blunt). “There is no need to hide like a squirrel, my lovely girl. I do love you and we are made for each other.”
“I love you too, Émile, but…”
“You are nervous. Alors, so am I, because you are a virgin and I do not want to shock or hurt you.”
That made it easier. They kissed and then he guided her hand down. It put her in mind of an awful book she once came across in the housekeeper’s bedroom in Chester which told how ‘Z’ put the hand of ‘X’ on his penis and she ‘Stimulated his organ to a purple, swelling passion’.
Now, Sophie put that information to good use.
In that pornography, X then went on to use her lips, at which point Sophie had dropped the book. Did people do such things? Surely not the married couples she knew, who as often as not called each other ‘Madam’ and ‘Sir’ over the breakfast table? Now, she resolved she would do that shocking thing herself soon. She was too shy tonight.
He managed to remove her nightdress, murmuring to her the while as to a frightened animal, which she supposed she was. He kissed and fondled her and she began at last to melt and to caress him in turn. Even in the dim light of the candles, she could see the scars on his back, still not completely healed. She thought she felt them too.
“You have the most beautiful derrière imaginable. I must kiss it, and perhaps, another part of you, if Madame will permit such appalling freedoms.”
When he came to enter her, it did hurt. She whimpered. Instead of slapping her face, he paused. “Does it hurt you too much? Shall I stop?”
He was being so nice she resolved to be stoic. “It doesn’t hurt too much; don’t stop.” She chewed her fingers a little.
Then it stopped hurting and became pleasurable, in fact, perfect; shivers of pleasure started to run through her, then gradually her insides began to contract and to spasm and she began to squeal ridiculously, like a demented mouse, which might have been embarrassing had he not been groaning himself.
/> Then it was over and they were lying tangled together, their breath rasping as she realised that all her fears had been absurd.
“But that was so nice!” She realised ‘nice’ was a weak word for what she had felt.
He opened his own eyes. “You are so natural, so perfect. You see it was not so terrible after all. Earlier, ma pauvre petite, you looked as though you feared I might take a bite out of you. I assure you, I have no such urges so far.”
She wished he hadn’t made that joke about biting, but she put it out of mind to tell him how she had been in love with his freckles across the bridge of his nose since she they first met a dozen years since.
“Lucky enough for me; I hate the ugly things.”
She thought those freckles seemed lighter as she gazed on them now, but perhaps it was the flickering candlelight.
They were still tangled together when they fell asleep, hours later.
It was light when Sophie wakened to distant but furious blowing and snorting sounds. “Whatever is that?!”
Émile, holding her and gazing down into her face with a look of delight, laughed. “One of your idiotic donkeys, bien sûr.” He kissed her nose. “So you are finally mine! I can scarce credit I could be so lucky. I have been gloating over you these fifteen minutes, and kissing your face gently enough not to waken you, but that creature is less considerate. You look so beautiful in the morning with your hair about your shoulders like a mermaid that I can scarce believe you real.”
Sophie glowed at his words and kissed his nose in turn. She sat up, pushing her hair back, and smiling at her fears of last night about Monsieur’s wanting her to leave it loose. “My love, it was so sweet in you to give me the donkeys, the piano and all those other presents…I wonder what time it is?”
“Alors, Agnes has tact enough not to bring your chocolate this morning until you ring. Sophie, my sweet girl, regarding time, I have something to confess to you…”
She knew at once what it must be. She stared at the canopy of the bed, as if looking for the swirling lights that came before the living pictures.
That Scoundrel Émile Dubois Page 20
