‘Nothing. According to old Marie Grunot, he was sent away for his own safety, no one knows where, a couple of years before Madame Guillotine claimed his parents. But to be honest, Marie wasn’t the most reliable of witnesses. Her husband, the Duke’s valet, went to the guillotine along with the Duke and she was never the same again.’
‘None the less I would be interested in speaking to her, out of curiosity you understand,’ Jean-Luc said guardedly.
‘Not possible, I’m afraid. She passed away last winter. Now, if there’s nothing further, time is getting on, and my dinner...’
‘What was the husband’s name?’ Jean-Luc asked sharply.
‘Henri Grunot.’
Sophia shot Jean-Luc a startled glance but he shook his head imperceptibly.
‘And the boy, do you know what age he was when he was sent away?’
The man puffed out his cheeks. ‘Two? Three? Four, maybe? No, couldn’t have been four, because the Duke and Duchess were taken in March of 1794, I know that because we were all appointed three months later, when the lawyer had the proof that they were both dead. He’d be—what, thirty years old now, the lad, if he’d survived.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because he was born in June 1788. It’s recorded in the family bible. We keep it downstairs. Our gardener is very fond of a good pray at the end of the working day.’
* * *
‘So my memory was not playing tricks on me?’ Sophia asked. ‘Henri Grunot, the valet, was indeed one of the signatories to the marriage certificate. Which proves it is authentic.’
Jean-Luc poured himself a glass of cognac, handing Sophia her preferred madeira, before sitting down beside her on the sofa. ‘We always suspected it was. Now we also know that one of the witnesses is dead, but we still have no idea of the identity of the other.’
It was late afternoon. The sun cast shadows through the tall windows of the salon. Sophia took a small sip of her wine. It was honey-sweet, and as she had come to expect from Jean-Luc, a first-rate vintage. ‘June 1788 is the date recorded for the birth of the Duke’s son, and you were born in May of the same year.’
‘Coincidence, nothing more. It’s not even the same month.’
‘That doesn’t necessarily prove anything,’ Sophia said carefully, for he had been in a strange mood since they left the Montendre residence, on edge, impatient, dismissive. ‘The date recorded in the bible is that of the birth of the boy. Quite often what we call our birthday is actually the day we were christened or baptised. So it could be...’
‘What?’ He jumped to his feet, swallowing the cognac in one draught. ‘You saw the list of names, not one of them refers to a Jean-Luc Bauduin.’
‘No, but...’
‘I know what you’re going to say. Cognac is in the same part of the country as Bordeaux, but what of it? There are any number of towns near Bordeaux, no doubt full of numerous men my age, who could just as easily pass for the abandoned son of a long-dead duke.’
‘Though it was you Juliette claimed,’ Sophia said tentatively. ‘It is Jean-Luc Bauduin from Cognac who was named in the de Cressy family legend.’
‘Legend, or a fable she has invented.’
‘I don’t believe she is a fraud, and I don’t believe you think so either.’
‘I don’t know what to think any more.’ Jean-Luc sighed, stretching his legs out in front of him. ‘You were right, we are not just chasing one wild goose but a whole flock. I don’t want to have to go to Bordeaux, but I can’t think what else to do. You’ve been to Bordeaux before, I think you said?’
‘I’ve passed through it.’
‘It’s a beautiful city. Not as beautiful as Paris, but lovely. You will like it.’
‘I?’
‘You don’t think I’d go on my own, ma belle? We are only just reunited. I could not bear to tear myself away from you again so soon.’
‘But we are due to host our soirée in three days’ time.’
‘And we shall. I’m not suggesting we leave immediately. You have put a great deal of effort into organising our soirée. I am, strangely, looking forward to it. I was thinking that tomorrow morning would be a good time to visit the market. You can see what there is, taste and try, as we say, and then send Madame Lambert off to do the shopping on the day with complete confidence.’
‘If I wished our chef to tender his resignation. Sourcing ingredients is his province,’ Sophia said, laughing, relieved to see his mood lifting. ‘I can easily go to the market myself, Jean-Luc. You are not particularly interested in what food we serve.’
‘But I am particularly interested in pleasing you, and I think that the way to your heart might well be through your stomach. I’m going to test that theory at the market, I warn you.’
‘Oh, if you intend to feed me oysters and snails and foie gras, then my heart will melt like a perfectly ripe camembert,’ she teased.
‘Will it?’ Jean-Luc touched her cheek. ‘I have an insatiable appetite for camembert.’
There was something in his eyes that made her catch her breath, but she was spared the necessity of a response by a discreet tap on the door. A message had come from the halle aux vins, the footman informed Jean-Luc. A problem with a shipment required his urgent attention.
‘I’m sorry, I’m going to have to leave you,’ he said, after reading the note.
‘May I come with you?’ Sophia asked impulsively.
‘It’s likely to take some time to resolve.’
‘I’m your wife,’ she said, tucking her hand into his arm. ‘My place is by your side.’
Chapter Nine
Sophia awoke as the dawn light filtered in through the windows. Bleary-eyed, she sat up, realising as she did so that she was wearing her petticoats and shift, not her nightgown, that she was lying on a leather sofa under her cloak and Jean-Luc’s greatcoat, and she was not in her bedchamber but her husband’s office in the halle aux vins.
Jean-Luc got up from the chair behind his desk to perch beside her. His chin was dark with stubble, his hair tousled, his shirt open at the neck to reveal a dusting of rough dark hairs on his chest. ‘Good morning. Dare I ask if you slept well?’
‘I am ashamed to say that I did, though I take it you did not?’
‘Which is a polite way, I think, of telling me that I look a sight.’
‘You look boyishly dishevelled,’ she said, smiling shyly. ‘It suits you.’
He smoothed his hand over her tumble of hair, pulling out a stray pin. ‘Your crumpled, barely awake appearance is strangely appealing too.’
‘With my hair on end, and my face creased? Thank you.’
He laughed softly, leaning towards her, sliding his arm around her waist. ‘Sophia, you are adorable whatever the circumstances. Will you grant your husband a good morning kiss?’
She was not primped and prepared, yet there was no mistaking the heat in his eyes. And she could admit to herself, couldn’t she, that she liked this unkempt version of her husband very much. She twined her arms around his neck. ‘Good morning,’ she said, and kissed him.
He tasted vaguely of the wine he had been sampling the night before, and of toothpowder too. He must keep a supply here, she thought hazily. He must be accustomed to spending the night on this sofa, where she had slept. He returned her kiss slowly, his fingers combing through her hair, freeing it from the remainder of her pins, and she slid her hand under the loose neck of his shirt, feeling the heat of his skin against her palm for the first time. Their kisses deepened, their tongues touched. She lay back on the couch, pulling him with her, for the first time wanting to close the space he maintained between them, sliding her hands down his back to pull him against her. Their kisses were languorous. Early morning kisses, slumberous, yet rousing every one of her senses.
She tugged his shirt free from his breeches, running her hand
up his back, relishing the way his muscles tensed under her touch. More kisses, deeper kisses. He cupped her breast, circling her nipple through the thin cambric of her chemise. She shuddered with delight.
‘More?’ he asked, his lids heavy, his eyes dark with passion, and she nodded. ‘More, please.’
He undid the ribbons to loosen the neckline of her chemise. He kissed her breasts, his mouth tasting every inch of her flesh, kissing as if there was no rush at all, which was both delicious and agonising. When his mouth covered her nipple, sucking, licking, she had to stifle a cry of delight. Her back arched, and she felt the ridge of his arousal, hard against her thigh, and it almost catapulted her out of her blissful bubble, but she screwed shut her eyes and refused to let the past spoil the present, shaking her head to forestall his question, pulling him back on to her, pressing her mouth fervently to his, and losing herself once more in their kisses.
Her nipples were tight, sweetly aching, with his ministrations. Her hands roamed more freely over his back, then, as he angled himself on to his side to lie beside her, on to the contours of his chest. She could feel his heart beating steadily, could feel the rough hair, then the flat, hardness of his nipples, and the sharp intake of his breath as she smoothed her hands over them. It was all so new, and all the more delightful for that.
The tension she now recognised was building steadily low inside her. She was hot. Restless. Wanting, but not wanting to think, afraid to act, anxious that Jean-Luc would misinterpret, that he would not know what she wanted, though how could he, when she herself did not?
‘Hush,’ he said, kissing her mouth again, gentler this time. ‘Stop thinking.’
‘I’m trying.’
He laughed softly. ‘Stop trying.’ He kissed her again, his tongue running along the inside of her lower lip, his hands on the swell of her hip, feathering, stroking, soothing and arousing, easing his body from hers, making enough room on the sofa to lay her on to her back. ‘The slightest indication,’ he whispered, ‘and I promise I will stop.’
‘Yes. No. Not yet.’ Her body was a mass of contrary urges. Every one of her muscles felt taut. Frisson after frisson of sensation shivered through her as he stroked her breasts, her flank, and his fingers feathered under her petticoats, on to the soft flesh of her thighs. She mustn’t think about it, but she couldn’t help it, anticipating the rough intrusion.
But it was different. Whatever he was doing caused a coiling sensation to build inside her. And now his tongue, in her mouth, sliding and stroking in the same delightful, delicious rhythm, so that she finally forgot, lost herself in the spiralling pleasure he was giving her. Lost herself so completely that when her climax came it was like falling off a cliff and tumbling towards the ground, only it was not terrifying but freeing, a release. Finally, she understood as she bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from crying out. That was it, a primal visceral release.
Though it did not last long. As the last wave ebbed away, Sophia opened her eyes, aware of her obligation to return what had been given. It was not the same as before, she told herself as she ran her hand over the length of his erection, and it was not, there was no need to disguise her distaste because she felt none. Though she still couldn’t prevent herself thinking of it as a task which must be executed as quickly as possible. She briskly undid the fastenings of his breeches and was sliding her hand inside when he caught her wrist.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Don’t you want me to?’
‘I would, very much, if you wished to, but you clearly don’t.’
‘I do.’ Her fingertips brushed the silky skin of his shaft. She discovered that she had not lied, though Jean-Luc didn’t believe her. Or perhaps she’d misread his meaning. ‘Would you prefer...?’
He caught his breath before gently but firmly removing her hand. ‘What I’d prefer, Sophia, indeed what I insist on, is that you do nothing out of a misplaced sense of obligation.’
He sat up, pulling her cloak up over her exposed breasts. She had no idea what to think. Suddenly on the verge of tears, she sank down under the cloak, turning her face away. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘What on earth are you sorry for?’
She had expected him to be angry, but his voice was gentle, his tone genuinely perplexed. ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what you want.’
He sighed. He wrapped his arms around her, dropping his chin on to her head. ‘All I wanted was to please you.’
‘You did.’
She felt the shudder of his laughter against her back. ‘I know, ma belle.’ He kissed her hair. ‘And when you are ready, then we will share our pleasure, but I don’t think you are ready yet.’
‘I want to be,’ she whispered.
He tensed against her. ‘What is stopping you, Sophia, what is holding you back?’
Though his back was to her, she could sense his focused attention. She had never tried to articulate her feelings. There had been pain some times, but experience had taught her how to avoid it. She had never believed her protector would harm her, not deliberately. ‘Not fear of pain,’ she said, her voice so low that she couldn’t even be sure that he heard it, ‘but of being violated.’ The word shocked her, but it was the right word, she knew it as soon as she said it. ‘Violated,’ she said again. ‘Though it was never against my will, it always felt as if it was.’
Jean-Luc swore viciously. His arms tightened painfully around her. He swore again. ‘I had no idea.’
And he still had none. A tear trickled down her cheek. She had never allowed herself to pity her situation, knowing that it would be impossible to carry on if she did, and knowing that she had no choice but to continue.
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’
‘No!’ She turned around, burrowing her face in his neck, clutching him tightly to her. ‘It’s over now, it’s all in the past.’ She knew it for a lie. The sordid details would stand between them for ever. Her only consolation was that he would never know. It was not too much to ask, surely. She pressed her mouth to his chest. ‘I do want you, Jean-Luc.’
‘I believe you, Sophia.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘But there is absolutely no rush.’
* * *
It was still very early when they left the halle aux vins, though the wharves on the Quai St Bernard were already busy with barges, stevedores working in an ordered chain to unload the casks and barrels. At Sophia’s request, they abandoned the carriage and strolled along the quays, past the Île Saint-Louis, where the washerwomen were at work on the banks of the Seine, and on to the Île de la Cité, crossing in front of the majestic cathedral of Nôtre Dame. Once on the Right Bank, the streets became more crowded. Craftsmen and traders carried bundles, pushed carts. Horses pulled drays groaning with produce, heading for the huge food market at Les Halles where the crowds became a seething mass.
It was a place where the senses were assaulted, not always in a pleasant manner, though the laborious process of transferring skeletons from the nearby, notorious cemetery of Saints-Innocents to the catacombs, under cover of darkness had, thankfully, finally been completed. The Fontaine du Palmier had also delivered a much-needed fresh water supply to the nearby Place du Châtelet, thanks to Napoleon. But Sophia, Jean-Luc noted with amusement, seemed to relish rather than recoil at the sensory onslaught, her face alight with interest, her arm tucked safely into his, dragging him from one stall to the next with an eagerness that was both endearing and, disconcertingly, arousing. Though that was more likely the residual effect of their early-morning lovemaking.
They were standing at an oyster stall now, and Sophia was discussing the various grades of the shellfish knowledgably, the stall holder quite beguiled, as he offered her a selection of different oysters from Normandy and Brittany in the north, Marennes-Oléron in Aquitaine, and Arcachon near Bordeaux.
There was an unknowing voluptuousness in the way she tipped the shell
s back to swallow the briny molluscs, accentuating the clean line of her jaw, the length of her neck. The stall holder watched transfixed, colour tinging his swarthy cheeks. ‘If she were my wife, monsieur, I would have no need for oysters,’ he told Jean-Luc with a leering wink, as he handed over the careful selection Sophia wished to take back for the chef’s delectation. And Jean-Luc, instead of being offended, permitted himself a smug smile.
They proceeded from stall to stall, with Sophia charming and sampling, the basket he had purchased for her slowly filling with cheeses, sweetmeats, savoury pies, delicate strawberries and juicy raspberries. She seemed utterly at home here among the jostling crowds, exchanging banter with the stall holders, male and female, examining the cages of rabbits and chickens with the experienced eye of a cook, rather than the sentimental one of a lady. He knew, from the dinners which she ordered for him, that she had not been teasing him about her love of food, but it was clear now, that it was a passion, and one she was indulging without restraint.
He remembered the way she had stroked the soft leather of her gloves at the theatre. The way she had luxuriated in the rich silks and damasks of the clothes they had discovered in the attic at the Montendre palace. She was a sensual creature at heart. Yet she struggled to lose herself in that most intimate of sensual experiences.
Violated. Jean-Luc swore vehemently. What kind of man had her husband been to make his wife feel so defiled! The man had not forced her, she claimed, but he struggled to understand why, if this was the case, she felt as if he had. Had his appetites been perverse? To imagine Sophia enduring—mon Dieu, no, he would not imagine, he could not bear it. No wonder that she wanted to forget, his beautiful wife.
His wife. Watching her dipping a crust of bread into a dish of Provençal olive oil, he decided that he liked being married. He had enjoyed introducing her to his place of business yesterday, her fascination with his trade, the unfeigned interest in every aspect of it, and her equally unfeigned admiration of his success had flattered his pride. There was a purpose to all his hard work, if it made her happy, if it kept her in comfort, a purpose that had been lacking since his parents died. He had not expected his faux-wife to have any real part in his life, but Sophia had fitted seamlessly into it, and it made him realise that there had been a gap he’d not even been aware of. He hadn’t been lonely, but he would be, when she was gone.
From Courtesan to Convenient Wife Page 13
