The Andelot estate
Saint Petersburg, Russia – six years later
Thérèse set an exasperated hand against her bosom.
This reunion was getting out of hand.
“Hawksford! Why the hell are you on the table?” Caldwell yelled from across the room. He gestured at all the children gathered around gaping up at him. “Is this the example you wish to set for our children? Russia is already full of idiots. There is no need to add to it.”
Konstantin grabbed up a napkin, bundled it and whipped it at Caldwell’s head. “The only idiot I see is the one insulting us Russians!”
Leona and Caroline burst into laughter and tried to usher the children away from the chaos.
Maybelle and Clementine tsked in unison, adjusting their expensive furs from their earlier walk in the snow.
“Now, now, hear me out.” Hawksford held up a glass of wine high into the air and started pacing on the table from where he towered. “Given that I can finally see everyone from up here,” he drawled, “I wish to make a toast to the Duchess of Andelot who ensured each and every one of us enrolled in life’s greatest lesson. And that is: Women always get the last word.”
Thérèse rolled her eyes and tightened her hold on Gérard’s arm.
Gérard leaned in and said into her ear, “Remind me to never invite any of these people over again.”
Thérèse nudged him. “We only get to see them every two years. We will survive. We always do.”
Hawksford’s wife, Charlotte heaved out an exasperated breath, bustling over to the table. “Given I get the last word, the least you can do is get off the table.”
Brayton casually walked up to the table and jumped onto it with a thud. He wagged his hands over to the group of children gathering with giggles. “Three at a time. No more than that. And no running. Or the tablecloth will outwit you.”
Running up to the table, Banfield hoisted up one of the girls and set her onto the table.
Gérard puffed out a breath and held up a quick hand, stepping forward. “That table is two hundred years old. Might we show it some respect and…refrain?”
Everyone paused.
Hawksford quickly finished his wine and jumped off the table. He pointed up at Brayton. “You are setting a very bad example for these children.”
Maybelle sidled in next to Thérèse. “Grand-mére?”
“Oui?” Thérèse asked.
Maybelle leaned in closer and asked from behind a hand, “Have you seen Edmund?”
Thérèse paused. She glanced around the crowded dining hall, realizing she had not seen the Duke of Rutherford in some time. “Non. Where did he go?”
Maybelle sighed. “I have no idea. There are too many people in this house.”
Gérard veered back toward them. “Rutherford is still in the library reading to four children who are not even his own. They have not let the poor man get past the first page due to all the questions.”
Maybelle burst into laughter. “I will save him. He is not very good at controlling children. He has a tendency to give into everything they want. Pardon me.” She gathered her gown and hurried out of sight.
Taking her hand, Gérard gestured toward the corridor outside the dining hall. “Might we?”
“Mais oui.”
They stepped out into the candlelit corridor, hand in hand and strode toward the long row of glass windows facing out into snowy night.
Pausing before the glass, Gérard leaned toward it and used the heat of his breath to cloud the glass. He glanced at her and with a finger, he wrote, No more students.
She burst into laughter and shoved him.
He grinned and then kissed her, their hands smearing the words off the glass.
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OTHER BOOKS IS THE SCHOOL OF GALLANTRY SERIES
Mistress of Pleasure, Book 1
Lord of Pleasure, Book 2
Lady of Pleasure, Book 3
Night of Pleasure, Book 4
Master of Pleasure, Book 5
Romancing Lady Stone, Book 6
The Duke of Andelot, Book 7
My dearest Reader,
The amount of research that went into this book was staggering, but I will confess I loved every single moment of it! I was incredibly fortunate to have done most of the research in France itself. I figured history books and the internet could only make me grasp so much.
Imagine my surprise to find how very little physical evidence actually remains of the French Revolution. Between riots and the tearing down of statues and buildings in the name of change and Napoleon (and those after him) redesigning the city, there were only a few glimmers of what Paris might have actually been like back in 1792. Even the Bastille, which is well known in history as being the first heart beat of the revolution, was taken down by the people, stone by stone, leaving nothing behind. Those stones were reused for other buildings or were kept as mementos by people. So I basically had to re-imagine everything and did so through historical sketches and various pictures that I held up while standing where buildings and events had once been.
Aside from visiting the Conciergerie, which was used as a prison during the revolution and still hosts a good number of artifacts from that time, digging through old archives is what ultimately gave me the glimpse I was looking for. While I had known quite a bit about Marquis de Sade, as I had studied his writing back in college, I was astounded to find just how involved he had been in the greatest political change to ever seize France. Setting aside his twisted taste for certain sexual tendencies that made the world shudder and his mother-in-law hunt him down on a regular basis to ensure he stayed in prison, when the Bastille was stormed, it marked the ultimate freedom Sade had been waiting for.
Although he was no longer in the Bastille when it had been taken by the people, the royal decree that kept Sade a prisoner without trial due to his mother-in-law having a stronghold with the king, was struck down the moment Paris was taken by the new rise of power. Sade was incredibly clever in handling the fact that he was a titled man and simply denounced his name and played along with the masses.
While we have a tendency to think of Sade as being a sadistic, pornographic son of a bitch who raped women, when it came to his dealings with the public and politics, he proved to be a lot more democratic and merciful than most of the men in power during that time. Which, of course, got me to thinking about the sort of man he really was. The very same mother-in-law who had ensured he stayed behind bars without trial was ironically placed before him and the bench to be guillotined. Surprisingly, he voted against her death. So how sadistic was he really? I decided to shove him between the pages of my book and give the bastard a chance.
In the end, the purpose of this book was to capture the grit and the angst of the time. So many people suffered and most of them were innocent to the charges. While France still celebrates the events that created the country it is today, the brutal reality is that thousands of people were butchered on the streets and in prison without ever seeing trial. The freedom people thought they were getting was a farce, because the hunt went well beyond Catholic priests and the elite known as royalty. Most of the people were actually everyday people like us. It was the Salem Witch Trials on crack. Everyone was guilty until they were dead.
That said, this book is dedicated to those whose innocent voices were silenced by the revolution. They are the people we will never know about. It is their stories and their trials that captured my mind and my heart. Thank you for reading this book and allowing me to travel back in time.
With love,
Delilah Marvelle
The Duke of Andelot Page 32
