by Pippa Roscoe
Ever since that first gala almost ten years before, the intrusive press, the headlines of the ‘haunted Montcour’ taking precedence, he had vowed not to return. But in doing so, had he shut himself off from what the charity had achieved? Seeing the hundreds of people, if not more, that the charity was helping...it was as if his family had reached out to so many people in need and worked to help them when and however they needed it. It soothed an ache he’d thought buried too deep to reach.
He was about to turn to Maria when Margery appeared at their side.
‘There is still a little time before dinner and Mr Keant thought you might like to see a private viewing of the exhibition the museum has put on display for the gala? They have been incredibly generous with their chosen pieces.’
‘Can we?’ Maria asked, hopefully. The excitement in her eyes shone as purely as ever and he couldn’t refuse her in this.
‘Lead the way,’ he said, gesturing to Margery.
Once they were through the throng of guests, the quiet of the hallways felt oddly deafening, punctuated by the tapping of his companions’ heels on the smooth stone flooring. Through dimly lit corridors they made their way towards a series of rooms closed off for the gala’s exhibition.
‘If you have any questions about the artists, please don’t hesitate to ask,’ Margery stated before unclipping the thick red twist of rope across the entrance to the first room. She hung back as Matthieu and Maria made their way into the surprisingly large space.
White walls gave way to incredible splashes of colour as the large paintings hung strategically on the walls led the viewer through and around the space, not chronologically or by subject matter from what he could tell, but more by shape or colour.
The quiet settled a kind of peace about them that washed over him, easing away what suddenly felt like years of tension. Maria walked between the paintings, searching for something he couldn’t quite identify. He smiled, realising that she didn’t waste time hanging back with undue reverence afforded to an artist based solely on fame, but instead drew up close to certain canvasses as if trying to work out how, rather than why, it was done.
While she studied the paintings, he seemed incapable of not studying her. Her reaction, delight, the slight scrunch of her nose when she found something distasteful, the way her eyes and body lit up with joy when she discovered a masterpiece she’d never thought to see in person. He marvelled again, not only at her beauty, but at his own ability to stay away from her these last few weeks.
They moved from room to room, Margery hanging back discreetly giving them a false feeling of isolation. But Matthieu rarely took his eyes from Maria, which was why it took him a moment to see it for himself. The painting. The one he’d never seen until now.
Maria was almost overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the collection curated by the museum for the charity gala. Monet, Klee, Caillebotte, Duchamp, Renoir, Rothko, Freud—it was as if they’d gathered the greatest artists of the last two centuries. Everything from rural scenes, portraits, to sculpture and her eyes, heart and mind feasted on it. She felt overwhelmed by the beauty of these pieces, inspired to draw, to delve into her moulds, to melt down the materials to their base states and morph them into something even half as beautiful as what currently surrounded her.
They had come to the last room in the small, but exquisite exhibition and, although there was a huge Hockney taking up almost the entire length of one wall, she couldn’t help but be drawn to a much smaller canvas, which depicted a couple and a young boy, all facing each other and laughing together. It wasn’t the usual stiff, formal portrait, like others she had passed in the previous rooms. This was the kind that made you smile instantly, the artist somehow managing to include the viewer in a private joke, whilst also making them a voyeur to a family so engrossed in each other they were unaware of being watched. She frowned a little at the father, something about him snagged in her mind, and her gaze flicked to the small white placard, taking in the name of the artist and the family.
She felt as if she had been drenched in water from an ice bucket and couldn’t have prevented her gasp of shock if she’d tried. Her hand flew to her mouth, trying a little too late to bring it back as her eyes flew back to take in the details of Matthieu’s mother and father...and the young boy he had once been.
A wave of overwhelming sadness and grief covered her as she marvelled at the way the artist had managed to capture the love shining from Matthieu’s father’s eyes as he gazed at his wife and child. The way his mother only had eyes for young Matthieu, but still had her hand on his father’s arm as if their connection was and would always be inviolate. But it was the joy that rocked her. The joy they had in each other...a joy that would be cut short within a year of the painting.
For a moment she didn’t dare turn, didn’t dare look at him. Matthieu was behind her and even through the distance between them she felt it. The shock, the grief, the anger, the pain... She soaked it up like a sponge, consuming it and letting that too wash over her.
An electronic sound of a picture being taken followed only moments behind the blinding flash and Maria flinched at both. Her eyes took a second to adjust, even though she had turned her face in the direction of the photographer only feet away.
Within seconds, several flashes stuttered into the room and Matthieu had stalked past her to thrust the man up against a white wall, their dark-suited figures stark in contrast. Angry incomprehensible words echoed within the empty gallery, security guards rushing in to drag the men apart.
Matthieu pulled away from the guard, speaking so quickly, Maria could barely translate. Not that she needed to. His tone was indication enough. From behind him, the photographer was pointing and yelling at her husband and, without sparing the man another glace, Matthieu turned on his heel and stalked from the room.
With his departure, the chain holding her still lifted and she practically ran after Matthieu, chasing the sounds of his fast footsteps as he left the exhibition. She passed Margery, barely registering the woman’s distress, leaving her behind, and followed as Matthieu left the building through a discreet doorway and made his way out into the gardens of the museum, her heels plunging into the thick grass making her steps harder, as if even the ground were trying to hold her back from reaching him in that moment.
In very little time they reached a small helicopter and while the pilot frantically readied the aircraft, Matthieu held the door back to her with barely leashed emotion that had gripped his entire body in such a way that she dared not speak.
She climbed into the helicopter, quickly assuring herself that it was safe to fly at this stage of her pregnancy, and slid over to the far side to make room for Matthieu. But instead of joining her, he closed the door and slipped into the seat next to the now ready pilot.
Maria could have moved back into the middle but she didn’t. Instead, she stayed in the far corner, clinging to the edge of the seat as the helicopter jerked up from the ground before sweeping up into the night sky.
Everything around her was dark, the mood, the light, the landscape beneath her. Shadows and little dots of lights punctured the thick, midnight blanket that had enveloped her, but did nothing to soothe the guilt that wracked her from head to toe. That the photographer had caught Matthieu at such a vulnerable moment, such an exposed, raw, heartbreaking moment... It had been the first time she had seen even a glimpse of the extent of her husband’s pain.
Maria hadn’t known her mother. She had died bringing her into this world, and Maria had inherited only memories from her brother and father to guide her in shaping an impression of the woman who had given birth to her. Maria’s pain was more like that of a phantom limb, itching and aching in a way that was absent, rather than real. Yes, she had felt loss and anger and frustration, but in a slightly removed way, as if never really quite sure what she was missing.
But for Matthieu it was different. So very different.
It felt as if they had been flying for both an age and no time at all. Maria was pulled from her thoughts as the helicopter dropped gently on the helipad at the back of the estate in Lucerne she vaguely remembered seeing from one of her walks.
Although everything in her wanted to fling back the door and flee into the night, she wasn’t sure of the safety protocol and only then did she realise she’d had her first flight in a helicopter, so lost had she been in her thoughts. Thoughts of him, thoughts of her.
The door slid back and Matthieu’s shadowed, brooding form beckoned her forth. She picked up her skirts and hunched within the low interior, stepped out and followed his retreating form. As she followed him through the darkness, with the sounds of the helicopter’s engine receding behind her, she heard the ping of Matthieu’s phone. Once, twice. A brief pause between a third and fourth. But he ignored it in the same way that he was ignoring her.
And suddenly she was angry. Angry that he could not even bring himself to look at her, let alone speak to her. The closer and closer they got to the estate, the more furious she became, feeling a little as if she was being brought back to a prison.
A prison where her husband barely tolerated her presence. There were times in her childhood when she’d felt extreme loneliness—while her father, stepmother and brother argued about money behind closed doors, ‘adult’ business that didn’t involve her. Decisions being made about their future, her future, ones she had no say in. She had once promised herself not to ever be in that position again. And the one time she had chosen something for herself, the one time she had followed her instincts, the consequences had seen her right back behind another set of closed doors, under the control of her husband.
He led them back into the house through the door from the garden and stalked into the open-plan kitchen and living room, but this time when Matthieu turned towards his office, the doorway she never breached, she couldn’t take it any more. She knew he was angry, furious even, but she would not live in silence, she would not allow herself to avoid this any longer.
‘Ask me why I went to the gala tonight,’ she called out to him.
He halted, his hand outstretched towards the door handle. She could tell he was warring within himself, to push on forwards into the room he would close himself off in, or to turn and give into her demand. She only exhaled as she saw the tense outline of his shoulders turn and she finally locked eyes with her husband.
‘Why did you go to the gala tonight, Maria?’ His tone was droll and mechanical. Purposely so and it made her mad. Seething frustration and anger that she just couldn’t get through to him. Couldn’t get past the barriers he had built between them.
‘I went because Mrs Montcour had been invited to a gala and I wanted to see her.’
He frowned. ‘You’re not making sense.’
She practically growled out loud, only just managing to resist the urge to stamp her foot. ‘I went because I didn’t know who I was as your wife. Maria Rohan de Luen? Yes, I was actually just getting to know her before this. She was just beginning to find her freedom. Just beginning to make her own decisions and choices,’ she said, desperate to explain, to reach him, to make a connection. ‘But Maria Montcour? She’s new to me. I went to the gala because I wanted to see who she was, to see if she was different perhaps, more confident...more powerful even? And maybe, just maybe, going to a gala organised by a charity founded by my husband, whether he was present or not, would help me see a little more about who he is, what makes him tick, other than that he has a penchant for concrete!’ She hadn’t meant to shout, but that was where her little speech had ended. Her shouting at him. She didn’t think she’d ever shouted at anyone before in her life.
For a moment, she thought that her words had no effect. None at all. He might as well have been made of the concrete he’d made his house from. His phone pinged another few times, cutting through the silence between them.
‘Well, you certainly got to see that. And so did the press,’ he growled. ‘Did you not think?’ he demanded, spinning around to turn on her. ‘About how tonight was everything I had wanted to avoid for nearly ten years? I tried to warn you about the press, about what vultures they are and how they would do anything to get even just a glimpse of the beast and the innocent now tied to him.’
Maria’s heart broke just a little at his words. Was that truly how he saw them?
‘The moment you stepped out on the red carpet the entire world knew that you were married to me and pregnant with my child.’
‘I’ll concede that perhaps I hadn’t quite thought it through.’
‘We don’t have the luxury of not thinking it through. Not now.’
‘Matthieu, the press were always going to find out,’ she said gently but persistently.
‘At a time of our choosing. Not one that would impact upon the charity!’
‘Matthieu—’ Yet another ping emitted from his phone, cutting through her words. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, what is wrong with your phone?’ she demanded.
‘Do you really have no idea?’ he returned, seemingly incredulous. ‘Here,’ he said, sweeping a thumb across his phone before passing it to her. ‘Take a look.’
As she held the phone in her hand, scrolling down through page after page of social media headlines about the beast showing his colours, the beast wedding an innocent, the beast’s secret violence, some questioning if Maria was safe, the more ridiculous pondering whether she had been kidnapped, her fingers began to shake. Yes, there were a few positive ones, about how Matthieu Montcour had found his happy-ever-after, about the resounding success of the charity gala’s event, the joy at the future heir to the Montcour dynasty, but her thumb stalled over the last image captured on his phone. The image of Matthieu standing behind Maria, her hand over her mouth in shock, the glistening of tears in her eyes as they both took in the painting of Matthieu and his parents. And the violation of that moment devastated her because in all her attempts of finding herself, she had brought the wolf directly to Matthieu’s door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MATTHIEU WAS FURIOUS. With the press, with Maria, with himself. For the first time in his life he couldn’t blame someone else. He was the one who had truly lived up to his reputation as a beast the moment he had pushed the photographer up against the wall. It was his actions, his loss of control that had furthered the obscene attention-grabbing headlines.
Before the gala he had set his phone to notify him of any social media posts relating to him or Maria. And the phone gripped tight in Maria’s slightly shaking hands was still pinging away.
Because he had lost control. Because that damn photographer had caught them, caught him, with his defences down and it had allowed all the anger and the violence out.
He closed his eyes, but the family portrait his father had commissioned months before the night of the fire was imprinted on his mind. He conceded that the artistry was perfect. Because the hours that must have gone into creating such a masterpiece had truly caught the truth of his family. The joy and love shining from their eyes, made so much more invaluable by the events that followed, had been too much. Too much and not enough. He’d barely remembered it being done because he rarely allowed memories of before to pass beyond the steel door he’d shut upon them once he’d left hospital. Because if he hadn’t, he truly wasn’t sure he’d have survived.
And now that he had seen it, now that memories were beginning to seep through the small gap that had been opened just a few hours ago, Matthieu slammed the vault door shut, hoping that it would be enough, hoping that he’d done so in time.
‘Matthieu—’
‘I warned you. I warned you what would happen but you went anyway!’ He hated that he was shouting. Hated that he was still trying to wrestle his control back into place.
‘I didn’t... I’m sorry.’
‘Your apology means nothing,’ he bit out
cruelly. ‘I need you to understand. Understand that this is what it is like for me. Understand that this is what it is like to be married to me and what it is and will be like for you and for our child. That always the paparazzi will be stalking us, following our every move. Our every moment. They always have, ever since...’
He flinched the moment she laid a hand on his arm, trying to turn him to face her, and it took everything in him not to shake it off. Because she did need to understand. He needed to make her. That the world would never tire of the tragedy that was his past, never tire of the beast that was his present.
‘After the funerals, I missed most of the press furore. Malcolm and the hospital managed to keep it away from me then. So I wasn’t prepared for what happened. But I need you to be.’
‘What happened, Matthieu?’
Matthieu blew out a breath. Resenting that he was about to open this wound for her, but knowing that it was better than the deeper hurt. Better than the hurt that he’d just locked behind the steel trap in his mind. ‘Do you know how I first earned my reputation as a beast? The scars were one thing, but I was seventeen the first time they coined that phrase.’ He turned then, because he needed her to see.
She was staring up at him, so small, so perfect, so fragile.
‘Malcolm had wanted me to have something of a normal life,’ he explained. A cynical huff of laughter escaped his lungs and bled hurt into the air between them. ‘By seventeen I was finally well enough to attend school, but it was difficult. I’d been amongst adults, nurses, doctors, and private teachers for six years by that point. I had very little experience of being around people my age. Teenagers who had already formed friend groups and cliques. So I kept to myself. Head down, studied. Because of my private education I was put ahead a year and was already an oddity, and the scars? They proved more of a curiosity amongst the students than I had ever imagined. When one of the prettiest girls in the school asked me to help her with her studies, I...’ He spared barely a sigh for the naïve young boy he’d been then. ‘I had thought she might be different. When I realised that she was flirting with me, I was astounded, eager...desperate even.’ He closed his eyes against the memories of those naïve fumblings, the sting of anger towards Clara never having gone away. Instead, turning into a lesson he revisited whenever he felt weak.
