Autumn shook her head. “I hope,” she said, “you will rule France as well as you kiss, Louis.”
“Your majesty, forgive my intrusion. Your mother is looking for you.” The Marquis d’Auriville bowed low to the king. “I will escort my betrothed back to her family for you.”
The king, who was taller than Autumn by several inches but not yet fully grown, replied, “And you, monseigneur, are . . . ?”
“Jean Sebastian d’Oleron, Marquis d’Auriville, your majesty.” He bowed low again. “I am at your service.”
“You are to marry Lady Autumn?”
“Yes, your majesty.” The marquis smiled.
“When is the wedding day?”
“I have not yet decided,” Autumn spoke up nervously. “I should very much like some of my family to come from England.”
“Mais oui,” the king replied. “Mademoiselle’s mama approves of this match?” he demanded.
“But of course, your majesty. I have not courted Autumn without her mother’s approval. It would not have been proper,” Sebastian said.
“I do not know if I want Mademoiselle Leslie to marry yet,” the boy king told the marquis. “I may desire her company while I am here at Chenonceaux, and afterwards in Paris. Paris is deadly dull.”
“I do not want to go to Paris now,” Autumn said nervously.
“I am certain the king does not mean for you to accompany him, cherie,” the marquis said. “His mama, who is looking for him, will make any arrangement with your mama, I am certain. Is that not so, your majesty?” Sebastian smiled blandly at Louis.
“My mother only desires what makes me happy,” the king replied.
“That is as it should be,” came the answer from the older man. “You are the king. But I think, perhaps, your mother has all she can do to keep you safe until your majesty’s thirteenth birthday in September. Without the good cardinal, who has been banished by your majesty’s enemies, it is difficult for her. There should be no distractions that upset her, eh?” He smiled again at the king.
“When you are married to Mademoiselle Leslie, and I desire her presence, will you bring her to my court, monseigneur?” the king asked.
“Your majesty has but to command,” the marquis answered him.
“Then we will withdraw our objection to your marriage,” Louis responded quite grandly. He took Autumn’s hand up and kissed it. “I must go now and find my maman. Adieu, ma belle Autumn.” Then Louis turned and hurried back down the gallery.
Autumn heaved an almost audible sigh of relief.
Sebastian chuckled. “Now that you have kissed four gentlemen, cherie, are you at last able to say I am the man for you?”
“How dare you tell the king I was your affianced?” she demanded. “I have not said I would marry you!” Her pretty cheeks were flushed.
“But is that not why you dismissed de Belfort and Montroi, cherie?”
“Perhaps I mean to dismiss you as well,” Autumn threatened.
“I think I must kiss you again to bring you to your senses,” he told her mischievously, reaching out to pull her into his arms.
Autumn struggled halfheartedly, beating her little balled-up fists against his dark green velvet doublet. “You are so arrogant!”
“And you, cherie, are so adorable,” he told her. Then his mouth captured hers and, unable to help herself, Autumn slipped her arms about his neck. His lips were warm and smooth. They pressed firmly against hers. She felt as if he were drawing her very life force from her body, but she didn’t care in the least. When his hand made contact with her breast, she pulled away gasping, wide-eyed. “I saw him touch you like this, cherie. Did you like it?”
“Yes!” she whispered back to him breathlessly.
Her honesty aroused him. He felt himself growing hard and groaned. “Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! You have no idea what you do to me, cherie!”
“Yes, I do!” Autumn answered him, her hand slipping beneath his doublet to caress the bulge in his breeches. “I am a virgin, but I am not without certain knowledge, monseigneur.”
He caught up the little hand and kissed the palm passionately. “If I do not take you back to your mother now, cherie, you are going to lose your maidenhead in a bridged gallery spanning the River Cher. I am only a man. I do not want a hurried coupling, however, ma petite. When I claim the prize of your virginity I want your heart to soar and your body to vibrate with the pleasure I can give you. Come!” He pulled her along, back in the direction of the main section of the chateau.
“I have not said I would marry you, Sebastian d’Oleron!” she cried as she almost ran by his side.
“You told the king you would, and so you must!” he replied.
“I will not be forced!” she shouted.
He stopped and, facing her, demanded to know, “What must I do to win you, Autumn Rose Leslie? Tell me, and I will do it. May God and His Holy Mother help me, but I love you!”
“I want to be courted properly,” she said in dulcet tones.
“What in the name of all that is holy have I been doing?” he demanded of her, his look perplexed.
“You have been playing boys’ games with de Belfort and Montroi, Sebastian. You have all been attempting to see who could best the other. I have not been involved at all in any of this. Now that I have decided that you are the most interesting of my three suitors, you may court me; and when I have decided that you please me, I will set a wedding date, monseigneur,” Autumn told him sweetly.
“I should have taken you and put a child in your belly,” he said, half-angry. The minx was utterly maddening.
“It would do you no good,” Autumn said. “My father’s mother was in the throes of labor and would not wed her betrothed husband until he returned a piece of her property that her father had foolishly included in the marriage agreement. Had my grandfather Leslie not given in, my father would have been bastard-born. He was wise enough, however, to see the error of his ways. So Papa was born only minutes after the priest had pronounced my grandparents man and wife. We Leslie women do not like being herded like cattle; nor can we be trained like horses or dogs. You had best understand that if you really wish to wed me.”
He had to laugh, and he did. “You will not make me a good French wife, cherie, will you?”
“I shall make you a very good wife, Sebastian.” She smiled wickedly up at him. “If I marry you, cheri.”
“Have you ever been spanked?” he said threateningly.
Autumn turned and pressed herself against his length. “No,” she said softly. “Will you spank me when we are wed?” Her lips were dangerously close and very tempting. “Will you bare my bottom or, if I wear them, leave my silk drawers on, monseigneur?” She rubbed herself against him teasingly. “I have never been spanked,” she cooed.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed her away, and taking her hand again, led her back into the great salon where the king was holding court. He said nothing, and Autumn could not refrain from a tiny giggle.
“We are going to have such grand fun, mon coeur,” she told him.
“Madame,” Sebastian said to Jasmine, “I have brought your daughter back. I found her close to being compromised by our boy king, who even at the age of twelve and a half already has a reputation for his sensual appetites. I had to tell the king we were betrothed. He wanted Autumn to remain here with him, and then go on to Paris. She will tell you the rest.” He looked at Autumn, who was now facing him as she stood next to her mother. “I shall come tomorrow morning and we will ride. Is that to your liking, cherie?”
“Oui, Sebastian,” Autumn said meekly, fluttering her dark lashes at him.
He leaned over and spoke only for her ear. “I am going to begin soaking my hand in brine each day to toughen it up, cherie. You had best prepare yourself for a spanking very soon. Without your drawers.”
“Oui, Sebastian,” she murmured, and he laughed.
The Marquis d’Auriville bowed to Jasmine, then to Madame de Belfort and Madame St. Omer. “Mesdames,”
he said. The three ladles curtsied to him, and he left them.
“What happened with the young king?” Jasmine said to her daughter.
“I would not have expected a boy of that age to be so mature,” Autumn replied, still surprised. “Nothing really happened. I was kissed, and my right breast was fondled. I gently but firmly put the young gentleman in his place. We were speaking quite companionably when d’Auriville decided I needed to be delivered from his majesty. They fenced back and forth verbally, then the king returned to the salon. Why are men like dogs with a bone where a woman is concerned?” Autumn wondered.
“Oh, dear,” Gaby de Belfort fretted nervously. “I hope that the king was not offended by your behavior, or the marquis’s.”
“Do not be a fool, sister,” Antoinette St. Omer said impatiently. “The king is like all boys his age, eager for his first conquest. There is no harm in it. Autumn handled herself quite well, as any sensible, proper young girl would have.”
“He said he had his first woman over a year ago,” Autumn told them.
Madame St. Omer chuckled. “I’m sure he did,” she said. “But that was not a conquest, Autumn. That was a woman provided for his majesty, and probably by the cardinal, who recognized his master’s penchant for all things sensual. By giving the boy respectable whores to amuse himself with, he is kept occupied and out of difficulties. Ah, Mazarin is a clever fellow. They say the queen is secretly married to him.”
“But he is in exile,” Autumn noted.
“A temporary thing, I assure you,” her aunt pronounced. “He will most certainly be back when Louis reaches his majority. Now, ma petite, tell me: How does a king kiss?”
“Sister!” Gaby de Belfort was pink with her blushes.
Autumn laughed. “Quite like any other man, but monsieur le marquis,” she said. “Sebastian is by far the best kisser I have ever known. There are four to date, tante. Louis was a bit determined, however, as if he had something to prove to himself.”
“I think,” Jasmine said, “that we had best go home now. We have paid our respects to the king and his mother. It will be dark before we reach Belle Fleurs. I do not like being on the road after dark.” She also did not want this continuing conversation overheard and gossiped about.
“Indeed,” Madame St. Omer agreed. “Let me see where Philippe has gotten to and tell him. Ah, there he is, with Madame Delacroix. She is a widow and has designs on our brother, I am certain. Look how she is flirting with him, the hussy!” She hurried off to fetch her sibling, a determined look in her eye.
“ ’Toinette fears another wife for Philippe would force us back to our little dower houses. She far prefers the grandeur of our beloved Archambault,” Gaby de Belfort said with unusual frankness.
“Philippe will not remarry,” Jasmine said. “He is far too comfortable as a widower, and he has his sisters for company. If he wishes to relieve the usual male itch, I do not doubt there are plenty of ladies willing to accommodate him.”
Gaby chuckled. “Oui, ma cousine, you are most correct,” she said. “I tell my sister that, but she worries that someone like Madame Delacroix will entrap our brother before he realizes what has happened. Philippe, being the gentleman he is, would then follow through, rather than hurt a woman’s feelings. That is why she is so protective of him.”
Adali had gone ahead to see that the coaches were brought forward. They were waiting as Autumn and the two older women exited the chateau. As he helped Madame de Belfort into her carriage, the Comte de Saville and his other sister hurried from Chenonceaux to join her. Adali then climbed into the Belle Fleurs coach with his mistress and Autumn, and without further delay they were off, back onto the river road that parallelled the Cher toward their own homes.
When they arrived back at Belle Fleurs, Autumn instructed Lily to lay out her riding clothes for the morning. “The marquis is coming!” she told her servant. “He is to court me, and then I shall marry him.”
“Don’t know what took you so long to come to that decision,” Lily said pithily. “Any fool could see he’s the man for you, m’lady. The others have been so fearful you would turn him away.”
Autumn chuckled. “I wanted to be courted like an ordinary girl, Lily. Three suitors at one time is too much for any girl. All they did was argue amongst themselves over me, but I was ignored!”
“You’ll not be ignored now,” Lily observed. “That Frenchie you’ve chosen is no laddie, m’lady. His eyes are hot when he looks at you. They say the French are grand lovers.” She giggled.
Autumn swatted Lily lightly. “I don’t think Mama would like to hear you speaking that way, or Toramalli, for that matter. I think you are becoming more knowledgable as your proficiency in the French language increases, Lily. I think you learn more from the footman Marc than you learn from Pere Bernard,” she teased.
Lily had the good grace to blush, and Autumn laughed. “Oh, m’lady, you’re naughty, you are.”
Mother and daughter sat by the fire in the hall that evening. Each was comfortably attired in a quilted velvet dressing gown with fur-lined slippers upon their feet, for the evening was chill. They had toasted bread and cheese over the fire as they had done when Autumn was a child at Glenkirk. They sipped sweet, pale gold wine and ate the last of the winter pears, sliced upon a plate and drizzled with honey.
“I wish we could be like this forever,” Autumn told her mother. “ ’Tis so safe, and we have no cares at all for the moment.”
“You are nineteen and it is past time you grew up,” Jasmine said. “Your father and I overprotected you, for you were our baby.”
“I was never unhappy over it,” Autumn replied with a smile.
“Nay, you were not,” her mother agreed. “Now tell me why this sudden reluctance to grow up, Autumn.? Is it Sebastian? Are you having second thoughts? You know the choice is yours. If you conclude he is not the man for you, I will support your decision.”
“Becoming a wife is an important step,” Autumn said slowly.
Jasmine stroked her daughter’s mahogany-colored hair with a gentle hand as the girl sat by her knee, looking up at her mother. “Do not think so hard on being a wife. Think of falling totally in love with the marquis, of what it will be like to be his lover. These things come first, Autumn. Only afterwards, when you have decided that you cannot be without him, that you want to spend your life with him and have his children, only then do you think of being a wife.”
“But what exactly is that kind of love, Mama? How will I know it when I find it? I feel so foolish having to ask you such a question. I saw the love that existed between you and Papa. Yet I am not quite certain of just what it is, or what it feels like.” She sighed deeply. “What if I think Sebastian is the man for me and afterwards discover that he isn’t? I shall be trapped, Mama!”
“I cannot really explain what true love is, Autumn. All I can tell you is that you will know it when you find it. I did. Your sisters did, and you will too. Are you afraid of the marquis?”
“Nay,” Autumn replied. “I actually like him, but he does infuriate me with his arrogance!”
Jasmine laughed. “He is in love with you and fears losing you,” she explained. “So he puts on a masque of masculine superiority, which I will agree can be most infuriating. All men do it. Even your father. Why do you think I ran away from him when the king ordered our marriage? He was so overbearing and dismissive of my wishes. He was James Leslie, the Earl of Glenkirk. He was doing his duty as the king’s loyal servant. I was outraged! Did he love me? Or was he merely marrying me because the king had ordered it? Did he want me? Or was his desire to have the guardianship of my not-so-royal Stuart greater than his desire for me? He never said. All he said was that I was to choose the day and he would be there. It was hardly flattering.”
Autumn giggled. “What was the scandal you caused that is always alluded to but never spoken of by the family?” she asked. “The one that involved both you and Papa.”
“I am aware of what you mean,”
Jasmine said, and then she laughed softly. “I suppose you are old enough to know. Shortly after I came to England from India, and was living with my de Marisco grandparents, Uncle Robin gave his famed Twelfth Night revel. Your father, who was his friend, was staying at Lynwood House. My stepsister, Sybilla, had decided she wanted to be the next Countess of Glenkirk, but Jemmie could not see Sibby for the trees. That night he and I, who were both widowed, decided we were in need of a little comforting. We were discovered together in his bed. When he did not immediately offer marriage, my stepfather demanded it. Before Jemmie might answer, I said I would not wed him. That was the end of the matter for me. My grandparents immediately arranged my marriage with Rowan Lindley. I, unaware that Jemmie had fallen in love with me, was quite happily wed. Consequently, when the king ordered our marriage several years later, after Rowan had been killed, I did not know how Jemmie Leslie felt. But I wanted to be loved because I had been loved by three wonderful men, and I knew that marriage without love would be bleak in comparison with my former liaisons.”
“So you came to love Papa?” Autumn asked.
“I think I had loved him all along, since that impetuous intrigue,” Jasmine responded. “I had put those feelings aside, for I had decided that they would go nowhere. How wrong I was!”
“But that still doesn’t answer my questions about love,” Autumn told her mother.
“No one can answer those questions, ma fille. All I can tell you is that you will know love when you find it. There are no other assurances, Autumn. You must believe that, and trust me in this.” Jasmine patted her daughter’s shoulder comfortingly. “Now, my darling girl, go upstairs, and get some sleep. I will wager that the marquis will be here quite early to ride with you. Now that he has the entire field to himself, he will want to sweep you off your feet and into his bed as quickly as he can.”
Autumn rose to her feet and leaned over to kiss her mother. “Good night, Mama,” she said, and departed the hall for her bedchamber. While Lily was able to pull out her trundle and fall into a quick, deep sleep, Autumn lay awake. What was love, she had asked her mother, hoping for a clear and definitive answer, yet Jasmine had been unable to give her that answer. Was it that sensation she had felt when her eyes had first met those of Sebastian d’Oleron’s, across a forest brook? She had told her mother she wasn’t afraid of him, but she was afraid of the confused, unfamiliar feelings he aroused in her.
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