Tucker's Inn

by Tucker's Inn (retail) (epub)

  ‘Why did you do it?’ Lisette asked softly.

  Louis threw back his head and groaned.

  ‘Oh Lisette! Because I wanted you, of course. You are the loveliest, most desirable woman I have ever known.’

  ‘And for no other reason?’ Her voice was soft, urgent, full of pleading.

  ‘What other reason could there be?’

  And then, quite suddenly, he knew what she was asking him. She was offering him an excuse – a reason for his unpardonable behaviour. He took it.

  ‘Because I love you,’ he said.

  He had never spoken those words to anyone before, nor thought he could. I love you was a baring of the soul he had thought beyond him. ‘Love’ was not a word in his vocabulary, it was a word for women and fops. Even obsessed with her as he had been, love had not entered his head. Now, as he said it, to please her and to assuage his guilt, he realized with a sense of shock that it was the truth.

  He loved her. Loved her with a fierce, bright, all-consuming love he had never felt for anyone before, and doubtless never would again. And it was so much more than the physical need that had recently consumed him. It was delight in her presence, desolation when she was out of his sight. It was a desire to cherish and protect her, make her happy, keep her safe. And he had betrayed all that with his impetuosity, his disastrous loss of self-control. He bowed his head, his shoulders bent beneath the weight of regret and guilt and self-disgust.

  Lisette touched his cheek, her fingers tracing the line of his jawbone. Startled, he looked up. She was gazing at him intently. There were no longer tears in her eyes, and her mouth had curved into a small satisfied smile.

  ‘You love me?’ she asked softly.

  ‘God help me, I do. And now, fool that I am, I have ruined everything.’

  She leaned over, touching her lips to the line her finger had traced.

  ‘No,’ she whispered, her breath warm against his skin. ‘I am the one who spoiled it. I am a very foolish little girl.’

  The tenor of her voice was almost childish, lending emphasis to her strange choice of words, but Louis did not notice. He was aware only of the first stirring of hope – and renewed desire. She twined her arms round his neck, pressing her face against his, looking at him coquettishly from the corner of her slanting eyes. She moved on to his lap, rucking up her skirts once more as she did so, moving sensuously against him as, against his will, he grew and hardened once more. She nibbled his lips, her teeth sharp as a puppy’s, and tangled her fingers in his hair.

  ‘Shall we begin again?’ she whispered.

  Louis was powerless to resist.

  * * *

  She came to his bed that night, creeping down the corridor when the house was silent and sleeping. Though he was lying awake, his head too full of all that had occurred that day to even drowse, he heard nothing but the click of the door latch, startlingly loud in the stillness, and then the shift of the mattress as she pulled aside the covers and slipped into the great feather bed beside him.

  ‘Lisette?’ he murmured, startled, as she curled her warm body around his. ‘What…?’

  She put her fingers to his lips. ‘Hush! Do you want to waken the whole house?’

  ‘You should not have come to my room!’ he whispered. ‘If your uncle should find you here…’

  ‘He won’t. He has other things on his mind.’ There was bitterness in her tone, but it did not occur to him to wonder what she meant by it. He could think only of lithe arms twisting round his body, long slender legs tangling with his, a mane of soft scented hair spreading across his bare shoulder and tickling his nose. Her shift was finest lawn; when he touched her breasts the buds of her nipples rose erect against it, as clearly defined as if she had been naked.

  She straddled him, moving with a sensuous grace that surprised him, then sliding down and taking him into her mouth. He did not stop to wonder where she had learned such tricks, he was too intoxicated to think for even a moment that her behaviour was more that of a practised courtesan than a sixteen-year-old girl who had, presumably, been a virgin until he had deflowered her today. She was simply Lisette, provocative, enchanting, from a different world and a different culture, elusive as an exotic butterfly, sensuous as a kitten.

  When it was over she nuzzled into his neck, one leg lying carelessly across his.

  ‘You never did tell me about England.’

  ‘No, but I promised to show it to you.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘As soon as you want. I’ll speak to my father about it, and…’

  ‘I don’t know if Uncle Armand would allow it,’ she said. ‘He might not think it proper for a young lady to travel alone.’

  Louis almost laughed aloud. Here she was in bed with him, doing things he had scarcely dreamed of, and she talked of what might be considered improper!

  ‘I think it might be permissible, though, if I was going to be your wife,’ she said, and he was quite oblivious to the calculation in her tone.

  ‘My wife?’ he repeated, startled.

  ‘Mm. I think, Louis, that you should ask me to marry you. Especially now…’ She trailed a fingernail across his stomach.

  His heart was pounding against his ribs. This was all happening too fast. It felt unreal. And yet…

  There was nothing, Louis knew, that he wanted more. He could not bear the thought of leaving Lisette in France; if the only way to keep her with him was to marry her, so be it.

  ‘Will you marry me, Lisette?’ he asked.

  She pressed her lips to his throat, purring like a little cat. ‘Oh Louis, yes!’

  II

  He expected opposition, encountered none. His father beamed with pleasure; it was, after all, what he had hoped for from the outset. Armand du Bois gave his blessing readily. Jeanne Fletcher shed tears of joy when her son returned home with the news that she was to have not only a daughter-in-law but a compatriot in her household. The only sour note was injected by Gavin.

  ‘You are a fool, Louis,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘That is a harsh judgement, since you have not even set eyes on Lisette,’ Louis responded.

  ‘What she looks like has nothing to do with it. There’s not a woman in the whole of Christendom that would talk me into marriage. Where’s the sense in being shackled to just one, who will doubtless turn into a shrew, when there’s a whole garden of rosebuds for the picking?’

  ‘Because she is the only one I want,’ Louis said.

  Gavin laughed. ‘For now, maybe. You’ll change your tune before long, just mark my words. And you’ll live to regret wedding her in such haste. Like I said, brother, you’re a fool – and it’s this Lisette who’s made you one.’

  Louis turned away. He did not want to quarrel with his brother, though that was all too easy. They were chalk and cheese – he had no time for Gavin’s feckless ways, and Gavin was scornful of his industry. As small boys they had fought on countless occasions, rolling over and over in the dirt until their clothes were muddied and torn and their bodies battered and bruised. Now it was verbal conflict only, but no less virulent for that. And he did not want his happiness marred by Gavin’s spiteful interference.

  He had thought the marriage would take place in France, but since Lisette had no mother or close female relative to help her with the preparations, it was decided that it would instead be at Belvedere.

  Lisette arrived, accompanied by a lady’s maid, and Jeanne took her under her wing, arranging for the finest seamstress in Plymouth to come down with patterns and fabric samples for the wedding dress, and planning what would be the grandest reception ever held in the district.

  Louis had looked forward eagerly to her arrival; every day without her had seemed like a lifetime. But their reunion was not quite what he had hoped for. There was a distance about her, a remoteness, that disappointed him when he greeted her, and as the days went by, caused him a certain uneasiness.

  Perhaps, he thought, the journey had upset her. Certainly she had admitted to being d
readfully seasick on the crossing. But the maladie de mer usually passed quickly once the rocking of the boat ceased. Perhaps she was homesick, then. But she had been so eager to come to England, and for good, and had not voiced a single regret for leaving France. In fact, it had almost been as if she had wished to escape…

  The thought, when it came to him, was a most unwelcome one. Could it be that Lisette had some other motive than love in wishing to be wed to him – boredom with her life at the chateau, perhaps, so that marriage and England had seemed an adventure to her, a means of escape? Did she now look back with longing to the chateau which had felt like a prison when she had lived there, and see only a haven she had lost for ever?

  Louis decided he must ask her. Though the thought that she might have changed her mind was an unbearable one, he could not force her to go through with this if she was now unhappy about it. He loved her too much.

  Since her arrival they had been alone together very little, for it seemed that Jeanne had appointed herself chaperone as well as marriage arranger, and in some respects Louis was glad of it. He had made up his mind there must be no more love-making until they were man and wife, but he was not sure whether he could trust himself to keep his vow when simply looking at Lisette aroused his body and inflamed his senses. But he had to speak with her in private, and soon, for the arrangements were rolling along apace and dragging bride and groom along in their wake.

  His chance came one afternoon when his father and Gavin were both out on business and his mother entertaining visitors in her drawing room. When they had first arrived, Lisette had gone to the drawing room so that Jeanne could make the introductions, but a little while later she must have made her excuses, for looking out of the window he saw her in the rose garden, alone.

  He put aside the books he had been working on and went outside. It was a beautiful June afternoon, the warm sun drawing heady perfume from the heavy blooms that covered the rose bushes, but Louis scarcely noticed. He saw only Lisette, sitting forlornly on the small rustic bench in the arbour. She glanced up as he approached, and his heart sank as he saw that her eyes were bright with tears.

  ‘Chérie?’ he said huskily. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Louis!’ She looked away for a moment, blinking hard, and when she turned her face towards him once more she was smiling, a brittle, forced smile. ‘What could be wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but something is.’

  She laughed shortly. ‘Just because I don’t care to sit in the parlour drinking tea with your Mama’s tedious friends…’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s more than that, and it’s not just this afternoon. You are unhappy about something, Lisette. Is it that you have decided you don’t want to marry me after all?’

  There. It was said.

  For a moment she sat motionless, her green eyes very far away. He waited, heart in mouth. Then: ‘Whatever makes you say such a thing, Louis?’

  ‘Because… you are different. And I can’t help wondering if perhaps you have had a change of heart.’

  ‘Have you?’ she asked, her eyes very sharp suddenly.

  ‘No, of course not! I want nothing more than that you should be my wife! But…’

  She drew a deep breath. ‘And that is what I want too. Only does it have to be such a grand affair? Why can’t we just run off somewhere and be wed in secret?’

  The great rush of relief he felt to know she was not going to jilt him was quickly followed by confusion.

  ‘But I thought every girl dreamed of being a bride.’

  ‘Of being stared at like a heifer going to market, you mean! And I can’t bear all these fittings, and discussions about arrangements. Oh, couldn’t we go to the priest, just you and me, and…?’

  ‘Oh Lisette!’ There was nothing that would suit him better but his father and mother – his mother, especially – would never forgive them, he knew, if they were cheated out of this great occasion. ‘I really think we are going to have to do things properly, for others, if not for ourselves.’

  ‘Oh!’ She pursed her lips. ‘Well, I knew you’d say that.’

  ‘It’s not what I’d choose either,’ he tried to console her. She ignored him.

  ‘There’s another thing, too. I don’t like the way your brother looks at me.’

  ‘Gavin? Oh, take no notice of Gavin! He doesn’t agree with me being wed…’ He broke off, realizing from the look on her face that he had misunderstood her meaning. ‘He’s jealous, I expect,’ he added lamely. ‘Gavin has an eye for the fair sex. And you are a very beautiful girl. You must be quite used to men admiring you.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean I have to like it,’ she said, and again he was puzzled. Lisette seemed to blossom when she attracted admiring looks; he had rather thought she enjoyed the attention she attracted, and maybe a little more than she should.

  ‘He looks at my maid, too,’ she went on, ‘and it will go further than looking soon, if I’m not much mistaken.’

  ‘That wouldn’t surprise me,’ Louis conceded. ‘Mariette wouldn’t be the first servant to take Gavin’s eye. But if it’s upsetting you, I’ll speak to him about it. Not that I think he’ll take much notice of me. Gavin does as he pleases, I am afraid, and he certainly has no great respect for me.’

  ‘Well, I hope he doesn’t ruin her, that’s all. I should hate to be without Mariette.’ She was silent for a moment, then she sighed, reached out and took his hand. ‘Oh, I suppose I shall just have to endure this grand wedding,’ she said resignedly. ‘At least then I shall be respectable, shall I not?’

  Was that it, then? She thought that he had ruined her, and she had no choice but to marry him?

  ‘You are not with child, are you?’ He could scarcely bring himself to ask it, but he knew he must.

  She laughed suddenly, becoming once again the enchanting girl he had fallen in love with.

  ‘Of course not! Oh Louis, I tell myself every day how lucky I am that you love me and I am to be your wife. No one ever cared for me as you do. They want me, yes, as Gavin does, but they are not kind to me. They don’t love me as you do.’

  She pulled him down on to the bower seat, twining her arms about him.

  ‘You won’t discard me when you grow tired of me, will you? Please promise me you won’t do that!’

  ‘Never.’ He held her, kissed her, keeping a tight rein on his mounting desire to do more, far more.

  She was an enigma. An entrancing puzzle, with moods like quicksilver, and really he did not know her at all. But she did not want to renege on her promise. In a few weeks’ time she would be his wife. Nothing else really mattered at all.

  * * *

  They were married in the Catholic church in Dartmouth, the same church where Jeanne went every Sunday and Holy Day for Mass.

  Armand du Bois travelled from France to give Lisette away, and with him came the young girl who now lived at the chateau. She was to be Lisette’s only attendant, clad in a gown of blue watered silk that had been made for her in France especially for the occasion, since she could not attend for fittings in England. Lisette was cool with her, considering they were cousins, Louis thought, but then, truth to tell, Lisette was cool with all members of her own sex, and men, too, unless it pleased her to be otherwise. But he was not going to dwell on that today.

  Lisette looked utterly beautiful – a vision in pewter-grey watered silk. She had decided to forego the more traditional white because she thought it would not go so well with her colouring – or that, at least, was what she said. Louis had paused to wonder if the reason might be because she felt she would be betraying the symbolism – white was for a virgin, and she and he both knew that was something she was not. But whatever her reasons, the choice was stunning, enhancing the whiteness of her skin, complementing the red-gold of her hair. The design, too, was voluptuous – the silk moved sensuously with every movement of her body, and the matt surface of the silk caught the light of the church candles, giving sudden unexpected depths and hig
hlights.

  And Lisette was radiant too, sparkling, and if there was a brittleness to that sparkle, it was still bright as the hoar frost on a sharp winter morning. She made her vows in a firm, clear voice that could be heard in every corner of the church, her green eyes never leaving Louis for a moment.

  When they emerged from the church to a shower of rose petals and congratulations, his heart was soaring, the pride swelling within him. Lisette was his wife now. He was the luckiest man alive. And he would make her happy. Whatever demons within her were the cause of her troubled moods, he would exorcise them with his love. All their lives lay before them. On his wedding day, at least, Louis had no presentiment of the torments to come.

  * * *

  They had been married just a few short weeks when Lisette told him she was expecting a child. Louis was both surprised and delighted.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, Louis, I am sure. But oh…’ Her small face was serious, there was no joy in her eyes. He was consumed with concern for her.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, chérie. You’ll have the best doctor in Devon to attend you, I’ll make sure of that.’

  Her chin came up proudly. ‘Oh, I’m not afraid!’

  ‘Of course you are. It’s only natural.’

  ‘I am not afraid!’ she returned fiercely.

  He frowned. ‘What is it then?’

  She bunched her fists in the folds of her gown; tears sparkled on her dark lashes.

  ‘I don’t want to have a baby! Not yet! I’ll grow fat and ugly and you won’t want me any more.’

  He put his arms around her. ‘That is nonsense, chérie! I’d never think you ugly, especially when you are carrying our child. And I certainly won’t stop wanting you.’

  She bit her lip. ‘Not even if…’

  ‘What?’

  She pulled away, turning her back on him. ‘Nothing. I don’t want this child, Louis. Don’t you know anyone who can help me?’