Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection)

by Jennifer Blake

  He spoke again. “Where are you staying while in London?”

  “Just a hotel,” she said, without giving the name. “We will be here only a few days more before moving on to see other sections of Britain. Afterward, we cross the channel to France.”

  “Paris, of course.”

  She nodded her agreement. The quiet, made murmurous by the rain, which fell more gently now, stretched between them. She sent him a quick glance from under her lashes, but he seemed to be absorbed in some thought that made him frown. She swallowed. In stifled tones, she said, “My husband will be expecting me at the hotel. I should return as soon as possible.”

  “I will find a hackney for you when the rain stops.”

  “That would be very kind.”

  “No,” he said, “only necessary, though I would prefer that it was not.”

  There was an odd, hollow finality in his voice. Still, he did not move for long moments. Nor did she. They stood gazing at each other instead with wide eyes and faces pale with strain.

  Beyond the pavilion, the rain had begun to slacken. As the clouds moved on and the day grew brighter, the light took on an unearthly green cast, as if the misty atmosphere was made of atomized emeralds. Somewhere a bird called, a note of piercing supplication held achingly long. There was no answer.

  He put her in a carriage a short time later. Violet gave him her address since it was necessary for him to call it up to the hackney driver. He stepped back then with a formal bow, perfectly correct, entirely respectful, though the gaze that held hers was dark gray with reluctance. Violet inclined her head in reply and lifted a gloved hand in farewell. As the carriage drew away she looked back to see him standing straight and still, staring after her.

  Gilbert was not at the hotel after all when Violet returned. She was grateful for that small mercy. It allowed her time to change out of her damp velvet and silk with the help of a hotel maid, then send the costume to be dried and brushed in the hope of saving it. It also gave her a respite in which to ring for the tea she needed to banish the chill inside her, time to regain her composure while she drank it.

  She was sitting in her blue wool dressing gown before a small coal fire in her bedroom fireplace when her husband returned. She set aside her cup in order to pour out tea for him. He came forward to press his lips to her forehead before turning his back to the fire and reaching for the refreshment she offered. He smelled of stale linen and smoke from the cheroots he knew she disliked. Unaccountably, her hand shook as she passed the cup over, so that it rattled in its saucer.

  “Any success with the cabinetmaker?” she asked in haste to cover that moment of awkwardness.

  “Very little. Most of the chests and sideboards being manufactured in England these days are designed for cramped little chambers like this hotel room. I cannot seem to make them understand that something on a more grand scale is required for the higher ceilings and wider rooms of our Louisiana climate. They think in terms of low, closed spaces to combat cold rather than tall and open ones to escape heat.”

  “I would have thought that with the present interest in India, which has the same warm climate—”

  “Ah, the English. They expect India to accommodate itself to their ways — which means their furnishings — rather than the other way around.”

  “But the beautiful screens and fabrics of the Eastern empires, not to mention porcelain ware and brass-inlaid tables, seem to be in fashion.”

  “Mere decoration, not furniture,” he said dismissively. “I am thinking of looking for older pieces such as might have come from the large manor houses in the countryside. They should have a more workable scale.”

  “An excellent idea,” she murmured since she knew it was what he expected.

  He sipped his tea before he went on. “But it might be better to give up here and cross to France at once. With this war on, there is such confusion and congestion at the ports from the military supplies bound for troops in Turkey and the Black Sea that there could be serious problems in shipping furniture back to Louisiana. The general opinion seems to be that it can only get worse.”

  Her husband, Violet knew, was not displeased to be in Europe during this contretemps in the Crimea. He took a keen interest in the furor pitting the leaders of Great Britain, France, Austria, and Prussia against Czar Nicholas I of Russia, who was attempting to control the fate of Turkey, the country known as the “sick man of Europe.” Each morning without fail, Gilbert went out for a newspaper in which to read the latest telegraphic reports on the war activities. The last news had been the disembarkation of British and French troops at the Black Sea port of Varna, sent to protect Constantinople from Russian attack.

  “You think there will actually be fighting?” she asked.

  “The English people seem to be caught up in the war spirit. It looks as if Aberdeen and his cabinet must order an invasion of the Crimea before summer to satisfy the public outcry, if for no other reason.”

  “An attack on the Russian naval base at Sevastopol?”

  “Precisely.” His answer was clipped short.

  It annoyed Gilbert when she displayed too much understanding of subjects he considered to be in the male province. Violet knew it, still she persevered. “As England and France are allies, would we not have much the same problems shipping furniture from French ports?”

  “Napoléon the Third is not so committed to depressing Russian pretensions in Turkey, therefore the French preparations for war are not as far advanced. There should be no great difficulty so long as we don’t linger here.”

  Violet tilted her head. “I have no objection, of course; still, there is so much we planned to see, Bath and Brighton, the Lake District — not to mention Scotland and Wales.”

  “We can always return, perhaps late in the year, when war activities will slack off as the armies go into winter quarters. As for Bath, we can make a small detour in that direction. I believe that an opportunity for you to drink the water is of sufficient importance for the concession.”

  “Yes, of course,” Violet said, though her voice was compressed.

  “But what of your morning, chère?” her husband went on. “You found the toweling?”

  She told him of her purchase, including a description of her near accident and the small garden where she had found shelter. She did not mention the man who had been with her. Gilbert was a sensitive man, one who understood, sometimes, more than was said. He was also capable of extreme jealousy. She preferred not to be forced to explain the events that had occurred in detail.

  She found herself studying Gilbert as he stood before her. After nearly seven years of marriage, she still felt she hardly knew him. He was a rather remote person, one not easily given to confidences.

  A part of the problem, she suspected, was the difference in their ages; Gilbert was some twenty years her senior. She sometimes thought he saw her as a child, someone who must be guided and directed in all things, protected from outside influences.

  Gilbert Fossier was a wealthy man, owner of both sugar and cotton plantations, warehouses and steamboats, and a large block of land in the Vieux Carré of New Orleans. He had married as a young man, but his first wife had died from yellow fever in one of the many recurrent epidemics. He had devoted his energies to building his fortune, until he had seen Violet on her debut during a ball at the opera house. He had spoken to her father for permission to address her that same night.

  Violet had not been opposed to the match. Though only seventeen, she was not frivolous. She had thought Gilbert distinguished, with his substantial form and jet-black hair that was dusted with silver at the temples. She had been flattered that a man of such power and wealth should choose her; she had been taught the value of such things from childhood. He had seemed wise and kind, assured and controlled compared with the clumsy, hotheaded young men her own age. She had accepted his betrothal bracelet with ready compliance and even a certain satisfaction.

  But then had come her wedding night, and she
had discovered that Gilbert was not controlled at all, that the mere sight of her in her nightgown could make him tremble. So great was his desire for her, and so fearful was he that he would fail to attain it, that he had pushed her down on the bed and taken her with painful, fumbling haste.

  This performance would become more pleasurable for her in time, or so her mother told her. It had not. The few times she had thought she could feel the first stirring of response to her husband’s passion, her tentative movements had driven him into such a frenzy that the exercise had been over before it well began. Her husband knew and regretted it, she thought, but could seem to do nothing to change matters. The result was that she had ceased to try to feel anything. She endured the brief mountings and was happy when she was left alone in her own bedchamber to sleep.

  Regardless, she did not doubt that Gilbert loved her. His was an intense, possessive adoration that could make him rave for hours if she smiled at a man as he was introduced to her, or else bring him to kneel at her feet begging for reassurance if one happened to look at her twice as she passed by.

  He was kind and generous, but could be dictatorial. He was wise, but would brook no challenge to his knowledge. His self-assurance was certainly a part of him, but could become obstinacy if his authority was questioned. He had gained weight since their marriage, becoming rather thicker around the waist, while his hair had grown more gray and was sparser on top. His eyes, the light brown with splotches of green around the pupils known as hazel, had sunk further under his hooded lids, while their expression had become more cynical.

  He was watching her now with heavy-lidded interest that might have been tainted with suspicion. She felt her heart jar against the side of her chest as she sought refuge from that look by concentrating on her teacup.

  She had mistaken his expression.

  He reached to take her tea from her, placing the cup and saucer on the mantel before he caught her hand and drew her to her feet beside him. “How intriguing it is to see you in your dressing gown in the middle of the afternoon, chère. I had thought you might be feeling unwell. I am delighted that it isn’t so.”

  Violet’s eyes widened as he touched the curve of her breast under the wool. “But Gilbert,” she said in haste, “Hermine may decide to leave her bed and return to duty at any moment.”

  “She won’t enter without permission.”

  “She’ll think it strange if she finds us behind a locked door.”

  “What does it matter? Besides, she must know that this is one purpose of our journey, to have greater opportunity to get you with child.”

  It could not be denied. Hermine, a woman of lusty appetites, would no doubt approve wholeheartedly. She thought her mistress’s nature was too cool, felt this was the reason she had not conceived.

  The maid was also anxious for Violet to have a child because it would add to her consequence. It was already great enough as the maid to the wife of the master, but it would add that much more luster to her position if Violet also became the mother to the heir of the Fossier fortune. After so many barren years, Hermine’s hopes had begun to lag, until plans were made for the European sojourn. She was sure that a course of the waters at Bath, or at Wiesbaden in Germany, would assure the outcome that was nightly in her prayers. If not, there was always Lourdes as a last resort. Hermine had great faith in water and shrines, particularly if Gilbert did his part. The last, she told Violet without even the hint of a smile, was essential.

  Violet herself was just as anxious to have a child. It would give her someone to love, a warm, sweet, tiny being who would love her in return without conditions. Caring for it would fill the emptiness of her days, and perhaps give her reason to avoid Gilbert’s visits in the night.

  Her husband led Violet away from the fire and over the Brussels carpet strewn with cabbage roses to the heavy bed of rosewood with its brown-gold silk hangings. He unfastened her dressing gown and slowly stripped it from her, leaving her underwear. As she mounted the low steps and settled on the mattress, he quickly removed his coat and trousers and half boots, tore loose his cravat, and shrugged from his waistcoat and shirt. Still wearing his underdrawers, he bounded up beside her.

  Obedient to his will, Violet lay still while he slipped the tiny buttons of her camisole from their holes and spread the edges wide. She felt his hot lips at her breasts, suckling, nibbling with hurtful, stinging persistence. As she made a slight sound of protest he jerked the tape of her own underdrawers free and slid them down her hips.

  Quickly, he covered her, letting his male member protrude through the slit in his underdrawers as he thrust between her legs for his entry. She moved to accommodate him to spare herself pain. His quick and jerky movements above her made the bed creak in its frame and set the bed ropes to jouncing and the curtains to swaying. Then, almost before he had begun, Gilbert put down his head and clamped his mouth over hers while he pushed himself into her to the greatest depth with a hard shove of his hips.

  Violet could not breathe, could not move for his weight. In discomfort and the grip of despair, she saw, suddenly, in her mind’s eye, the face of Allain Massari. Tears came then, rising up from some well of desolation inside her that she had not known existed. They crowded under her eyelids, seeking release. As she made a silent cry of his name, heard it echoing in her mind, the moisture burned its way out and seeped slowly into her hair.

  The following morning there was a spray of lilac on the breakfast tray that was delivered by the hotel maid and left outside the door of the bedchamber. Hermine brought the tray to Violet where she lay in bed, then moved away to pull back the draperies over the windows.

  Gilbert, an early riser, had already gone out for his newspaper and morning walk. He would breakfast elsewhere, since he had fallen in with the English habit of hearty fare for the morning meal and their hotel could supply no more than a simple repast.

  Violet sat up and surveyed the warm rolls and butter with coffee that was her morning habit. She would have preferred café au lait, but it appeared such a thing was not to be had in London, and so she contented herself with pouring extra cream into the weak brew.

  She was stirring the cream into her cup when the lilac blooms aroused her curiosity. Putting down the spoon, she picked up the spray of flowers. It was softly lavender and still damp with dew, and the scent that rose from the hundreds of tiny, individual blossoms was as clean and sweet as the first breath of spring. She lifted the spray to her face to fill her lungs with the fragrance while a small smile of pleasure curved her lips.

  It was only then that she saw the note that had been tucked under the lilac.

  It was unlike Gilbert to be sentimental. She picked up the piece of paper with something like embarrassment, holding it a moment before she quickly broke the small, almost indecipherable seal.

  The note was not from Gilbert.

  There was no signature and no message beyond a few lines of poetry written in strong, black script.

  Love’s language may be talked with these;

  To work out choicest sentences.

  No blossoms can be meeter;

  And, such being used in Eastern bowers,

  Young maids may wonder if the flowers

  Or meanings be the sweeter.

  She knew the poet, the lady author who had written the Sonnets from the Portuguese, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

  She also knew the meaning hinted at in the poem.

  Searching the tray with care, she found the wax seal she had broken. Gathering the bits, she carefully fitted them together again. Yes. The insignia of the cravat pin she had noticed yesterday, the one worn by Allain Massari. He had impressed its design, one of a phoenix within a coronet of laurel leaves, into the wax as a seal.

  Yes.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly, then caught her bottom lip between her teeth. He had remembered her hotel, had discovered the room she shared with Gilbert. He must have been somewhere outside the door only moments before, perhap
s persuading the hotel maid to allow him to leave his token on the breakfast tray.

  Oh, yes, she understood.

  A spray of lilac.

  In the language of the flowers so beloved by Shakespeare in his time and favored more recently by the Romantics, lilac had special meaning.

  It stood for First Emotion of Love.

  5

  FOUR DAYS LATER VIOLET followed the porters carrying her trunks and boxes down the last flight of the hotel stairs and into the lobby. Gilbert had instructed her to wait inside while he supervised the loading of their baggage into the dray that would take it to the railway station, and also located the carriage he had ordered for their own transport.

  “You are certain we left nothing behind, Hermine?” Violet said to her maid who trailed behind her.

  “Yes, mam’zelle,” Hermine said, her round, dark face patient. “I looked with great care.”

  “You packed my nightgown that was left in the dressing room?”

  “Yes, mam’zelle. And I have the case with your scents and lotions and pomatums and also the box with your jewelry. Be calm; we have everything.”

  The voice of the maid was soothing and also a little weary. Violet felt a pang of remorse. Hermine was feeling better, but still had a hacking cough from her chill; it was unfair to fret her. Violet’s jitters over packing and leaving the hotel this morning were unusual. She was ordinarily more composed about the business of travel.

  She had not been herself for several days. For one thing, her monthly courses were upon her and she was not happy with this proof that she had failed yet again to conceive. Also, Gilbert had refused to put off leaving because of her indisposition, saying the tickets had already been bought, and besides, riding in a railway car could be no more fatiguing than sitting in a hotel room. He seemed to have little comprehension of the potential difficulties and embarrassments in attending to her needs in the cramped toilet facilities provided on trains.