Ghost Fire

by Wilbur Smith

  Mauvières threw back his head in mock horror. “In her youth, the marquise was a noted coquette. Once, she misread my attitude—which was only good manners—and threw herself at me. I was a model of discretion, but word got out. I fear she has never forgiven me for the embarrassment.”

  He lowered his voice. “I can tell you, I would rather face Prussian cavalry than have to fend off that woman again. Her bosoms alone are like siege guns. Pity the man she trains them on.”

  They both laughed. Mauvières refilled her glass and took a swig from the bottle.

  Constance was uneasy. She wanted to step away, to reassert control, but Mauvières had a magnetism that would not let her move. It reminded her of Gerard Courtney, a charming confidence so sure you could not resist it.

  With an effort, she turned to the picture over the mantelpiece. It showed a dark castle surrounded by storm clouds. “This is very pretty. Do—?”

  “I did not bring you here to discuss art.” Without warning, Mauvières pushed her forward. She dropped her glass and it smashed on the hearthstones. His hand reached around, squeezing her breast so hard she cried out.

  “Monsieur!”

  The full weight of his body pressed her against the wall. He bent over her neck, kissing and biting. He pulled her hair loose—not gently—and wrapped her long tresses around his fingers. “You like that?”

  Constance did not know what to think. Among all the men she had slept with in Paris, she had never encountered anyone like him. He overwhelmed her, an animal urgency that she could not resist.

  She had to regain control. She had to use her strength, touch him in particular places and whisper in his ear all the things she could do to him, as she had with so many men before. To fill his head with promises until he would do anything for her.

  Mauvières backed away a little to unbutton his breeches. Constance turned. She reached out to touch him, but he was not interested. He caught her wrists and held them with one hand, while the other hand tore open the front of her dress and tugged it down to her waist so that the sleeves pinned her arms by her sides.

  This was all wrong. Her body was her power, the one weapon she could wield over men. Mauvières had taken it from her and left her helpless. She wanted to scream.

  And yet she did not resist. After the arch fops and dainty aristocrats she was used to, Mauvières’s passion was like an ocean wave that carried her along in its force. A part of her was frightened by it, but another part longed to succumb, to silence the voice in her mind that was always calculating in the bedroom, counting the profit and loss of every kiss, and simply surrender to the force of his desire.

  He spun her around against the wall. “You want this?”

  She told herself it was only for one night. She told herself that once he had satisfied his desire, he would become more reasonable. She would let him have his way, and in the morning she would tame him, just as she had tamed the others.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He lifted the skirts of her dress. His hands grasped her buttocks and spread them apart. He entered her roughly from behind, thrusting deep and hard. Experienced as she was, Constance winced with the pain.

  There was violence in him. Every thrust slammed her against the wall, as if he wanted to obliterate her. He had the stamina of a bull. Again and again he came into her, until she hardly felt it anymore.

  With a final thrust that almost knocked her unconscious, Mauvières emptied himself into her. He slumped over her for a moment, his head lolling on her shoulder, breathing hard. The smell of sour wine enveloped her.

  He pulled away. Constance shuddered and sank to the floor. Mauvières buttoned his clothes and rang a bell. A servant arrived and cleared away the broken glass, sweeping up around Constance as if she wasn’t there. Constance stared at the wall, clutching her torn dress, and waited for the servant to go.

  Mauvières helped Constance to her feet—surprisingly gently—and led her to a chaise longue. The footman had left two fresh goblets of wine. Mauvières handed her one. Constance drained it in a single gulp. It calmed her nerves, though it could not numb the burning between her legs.

  “Did you enjoy that?” Mauvières asked.

  Constance did not answer. She hurt too much to know what to think.

  Mauvières misread her silence. “Do not play the ravished ingénue with me. You may be blushing, but you are very far from a virgin. If you stammer and cry after a little fun, I may not invite you back.”

  Constance rose. It hurt to walk, but she managed to reach the bottle of wine Mauvières had left on the mantelpiece. She uncorked it, splashed a full measure into her empty glass, and drank it down. Tomorrow, she promised herself. Tomorrow she would tame him. “I would like to come again.”

  Mauvières smiled. “Good. But no one must hear of our little arrangement. It will be our secret.”

  “Of course.”

  The coachman brought her back to the house on the rue de Varenne before dawn. Constance drew the curtains and went to bed, but she could not sleep. Memories of the night crowded her mind. A thousand emotions she could not untangle. Mauvières’s touch was like a burning iron, so intense she could not tell if it was hot or cold. Certainly, he had been brutal with her. But perhaps that was only proof of his passion.

  She refused to admit there was a man she could not bend to her will. She wanted to see him again, if only to prove her power.

  At last, her memories lapsed into dreams—but it seemed she had barely been asleep when a banging at the door woke her. She waited for the maid to answer, until she remembered she had dismissed her.

  With a lurch of horror, she realized this was the day she had to vacate her apartment. In the shocks of the night before, she had forgotten why she needed Mauvières in the first place. Now she had nothing.

  The knocking had not stopped. She wrapped herself in a gown and opened the door. As she had feared, her landlady was waiting, a note in her hand. Before she could speak, Constance began, “I am sorry, madame. But, please, give me just one more week. My prospects are improving. I am certain I can find the money I owe you soon.”

  The landlady looked at her in astonishment. “But that is what I came to tell you. Your debts have been cleared and your rent is paid for the next six months. A coachman brought the money this morning.”

  Fear turned to wonder on Constance’s face. A widow herself, the landlady pitied the young woman. She was a good tenant, and she had not wanted to be rid of her. “It seems your prospects have already improved, madame. You have a kind friend.”

  •••

  Constance congratulated herself. She had survived again. When disaster and ruin had loomed, she had found a way out. She lacked for nothing. Mauvières showered her with gifts: new clothes, books, seats at the theater, though never jewels or anything she could convert into money of her own. It did not matter. She was welcome in all the great houses again, a regular guest at lunches and soirées. But she was always at home before midnight, sitting by the window and listening for the sound of the coach.

  She saw Mauvières often. In public, he was as charming as ever: handsome, vivacious, always the center of attention. He had a sharp and subtle wit, ever ready with a quip or a riposte. He was merciless in ridiculing the pretensions of his companions, though in such oblique ways that they frequently found themselves laughing along with the joke. Only later, if at all, did they realize the vicious edge in his humor.

  But in the bedroom, he was a different man. Constance had come of age in India and refined her skills in Paris. She had thought she had nothing to learn about how to pleasure a man. But none of it worked on Mauvières. At first, she thought it was her fault, and she tried every trick and innovation she had ever heard of to please him. He remained unimpressed: indeed, her attentions only seemed to make him angrier. Eventually, she realized he did not care what she did. He would not be tamed. He wanted to dominate her, to debase her. All he demanded of her was submission.

  They did not r
eveal their affair. Mauvières said it was for her own good. “Your reputation would be ruined, my dear, if people found out. It would be the end of us.” In company, he paid her little attention. Sometimes he could be deliberately cruel. “Only to throw them off the scent,” he would tell her afterward. “Those infernal gossips are like bloodhounds. One sniff of weakness, and they will tear you to pieces.”

  Constance was not so sure. She noticed the way people looked at her. She hardly saw her old friends anymore, and she wondered if they were avoiding her. Even the marquise rarely replied to her letters. What if they were all laughing at her? Was she another of Mauvières’s victims who had not yet realized that the joke was on her?

  But what could she do?

  •••

  The first time he hit her was in the bedroom. He had always liked rough coupling, and she had taken to wearing long-sleeved, high-necked dresses to hide the bites and scratches left by their lovemaking. So when he hit her in the face, she assumed he had got carried away. It left her with a bruise around her mouth and she could not go out for a week. She pretended she was ill.

  The second time, there was no doubting his intention. They were in his dining room taking breakfast—she was less fastidious about returning home now—when he said casually, “Who was that man you were speaking to on the Pont Neuf yesterday afternoon?”

  Constance looked surprised. “Which man?”

  “In the blue striped coat.”

  “That was the Chevalier de Montfort.”

  “You were very familiar with him. At one point, I saw you laughing quite uncontrollably.”

  “He had told a joke. I was being polite.”

  “I saw you touch his arm.”

  “Perhaps.” She frowned. “It can only have been for a moment. I’m surprised you noticed. You barely paid me any attention.”

  His chair fell back with a crash as he sprang out of it. In two strides, he was standing over her.

  “I see everything,” he hissed. “Do you think you can flirt and simper without me knowing? Do you think you can make a mockery of me?”

  “I only—”

  He hit her so hard the blow knocked her out of her chair. She fell to the floor, landing on her arm with such force she thought she must have broken it. Mauvières came around and kicked her in the ribs. She screamed and curled into a ball, waiting for the next blow.

  It didn’t come. Mauvières stood over her, breathing hard, his body twitching with the effort of self-control. That was the most frightening thing of all. He wanted to hit her again.

  “Go to your room,” he ordered. His voice shook with the effort. “I was going to take you hunting today, but you have ruined my plans. If I cannot trust you in company, you will stay here until you learn better manners.”

  She fled to her room. She heard the key turn in the lock from outside.

  A week later, a chest appeared in her room in the mansion with all of her belongings from her apartments. “There was no point in paying your rent when you were never there,” Mauvières explained carelessly. “This is your home now.”

  •••

  She rarely left the house. One day, the marquise came to see her. She arrived unannounced, while Mauvières was in town: otherwise, she would certainly have been turned away. The servants tried to deter her. It was only when Constance heard her voice in the hall, and came to see, that the servants gave up pretending she was not at home.

  Constance and the marquise went for a walk in the garden. It had been raining, and the overgrown foliage dripped on the unkempt paths.

  “How did you know to find me here?” Constance asked.

  The marquise eyed her with something close to contempt. “All Paris knows you are Colonel de Mauvières’s mistress.”

  Constance flinched at the word. “No one has said anything to me.”

  “Of course not. They play along with the charade because it amuses them to see you so oblivious, so eager to pretend.”

  “But you must help me, madame. He keeps me a virtual prisoner. He beats me.” She pulled up the sleeve of her dress, revealing the livid bruise where Mauvières had almost broken her arm. “I fear one day he will kill me.”

  The marquise gave a chill laugh. “He will not kill you. He has a crueler fate in mind. When he is bored with you, he will find the most public and humiliating way to expose your affair. You will be finished.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  The marquise shrugged. “Does cruelty need a reason? I told you he was dangerous. You should have taken my advice.” She did not add that it had cost her a hundred livres in a lost wager, which she had already paid.

  “What can I do?”

  “We are women, my dear. The weaker sex. A man may make a hundred conquests without rebuke, but if we drop our guard just once we are finished.”

  She saw the despair in Constance’s eyes, but she had seen young women ruined before, and doubtless she would see it again. She could not pity Constance any more than she pitied the opponent who had lost her fortune at the card table. It was a rule of all games that somebody had to lose.

  They walked on in silence.

  “You must go,” Constance said at last. “If he returns and finds you here, he will be very cross with me.”

  Her voice was so empty, so filled with fear and desolation, that even the marquise felt her heart slip a little. She tried to find some crumb of comfort to offer the girl. “The only way to defeat a man is with another man,” she said. And, because she could not help herself, she continued, “But I do not think you will find one.”

  Constance was terrified that the servants would tell their master about the marquise’s visit. She knew he would beat her if he found out. But the servants knew he would punish them too, for letting the guest in, so they said nothing.

  When Mauvières returned that evening, he was in a playful mood. He had brought a present for Constance. She unwrapped it in her bedroom.

  It was a dress. Scarlet, with the bodice cut so low it might as well not have been there. She caught her breath.

  “Try it on,” Mauvières said, lounging on the bed.

  She stripped to her stays, feeling his eyes raking over her. She tried not to look at the mess of bruises and cuts that the mirror reflected back at her. It took three maids to pinch, prod and squeeze her into the dress.

  When she glimpsed herself in the mirror, she almost burst into tears. The effect was stunning, the message unmistakable. Even the prostitutes in the back alleys around the Opéra would have blanched at such a dress. She looked a perfect Jezebel.

  “Don’t you like it?” His tone was sharp and dangerous.

  “It is the most beautiful dress I have ever worn,” Constance said, with a shudder. “But why—?”

  “There is to be a ball next week at the Palais Royal. All society will be there. You will accompany me. I wish you to wear this dress.”

  Words the marquise had said echoed in her mind, stony and final. When he is bored with you, he will find the most public and humiliating way to expose your affair. To arrive at the ball with a man who was not her husband, dressed as a shameful harlot: Paris would speak of nothing else for months. Constance would be cut off, treated like the whore she had become.

  Mauvières saw her despair and smiled. “Do you have another engagement?”

  “Of course not.” She had become better at lying and smiling those past few months, desperate to avoid giving him any excuse to hit her.

  “Good. Now turn round.”

  •••

  The ballroom of the Palais Royal was smoky from the thousands of candles. Their flames shone on a glittering array of magnificence: gold braid, gold thread, gold buttons and gold medals. If the war for the world could have been decided with brilliance in the ballrooms of Europe, France would have won already.

  Constance and Mauvières arrived late. He wanted everyone to be there to witness her presentation, and Constance had obliged by taking an age with her toilette. She had gr
own so irritable with her maids that they were glad to be sent away from her boudoir. Mauvières was waiting for her in the coach when she came down. It was not a cold night, but she wore a long cloak that reached to her ankles, giving no hint of what was beneath.

  In the entrance hall of the ballroom, Mauvières threw his hat and coat to a footman. He had been drinking all afternoon and was in an ebullient mood. “Will you not remove your cloak, my dear?”

  “I am not ready,” she answered. “I will wait until we are in the ballroom.”

  She skipped through, before she had been announced. The air inside was hot and close from so many bodies and candles. She could feel every eye in the room turning to her. The crowd parted to let her through.

  Mauvières trailed behind her. When she reached the middle of the room, under the great chandelier, he said loudly, “You look warm, my dear. Let me take your cloak.”

  Constance turned. She forced her most charming smile that she had practiced in front of the mirror and tried to calm the shaking in her bones. There would be no way back after this. “Of course.”

  Her trembling hands fumbled with the buttons. Mauvières tried to hide his impatience. From above, tiny drops of wax dripped from the chandelier like snow.

  She shrugged off the cloak and let it drop to the floor.

  Mauvières stared at Constance with undisguised fury. “What’s this?” he spluttered.

  She gave a little twirl, so that the skirts flared around her. “Do you like it?”

  She was not wearing the red harlot’s dress he had given her. It was a different gown, long-sleeved and high-necked to hide the bruises he had inflicted. A patch of lace over the bodice was the only decoration. Constance had sewn it herself, late at night when Mauvières and the servants had gone to bed.

  Every inch of fabric—the cloth, the lace, the buttons and the chemise beneath—was pure, virginal white.

  Constance curtsied to Mauvières. “Would you care to dance, monsieur?”