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  Author’s Note

  ‘Burgundy has a centre, but no frontiers.’

  This is a classic description of one of the most attractive and elusive areas of Provincial France.

  When I visited Burgundy last summer, I found that in a way it was different from all the other parts of France that I know so well.

  But it was certainly the same in that the food was delicious and no one but the French really understands haute cuisine.

  Nevertheless the ghosts of the great Dukes of the West, their power and influence in war, in art and how it made them a bridge between the Medieval world and the Renaissance can still be felt in every town, in every Church and in the very air of Burgundy.

  Witchcraft is one of the most ancient superstitions and the persecution of so-called ‘witches’ has been a feature of the history of mankind in every country.

  Witchcraft was perhaps begun in the darkness of caves, where the earliest men and women were born.

  In France, as in England, there was a great upsurge of witchcraft in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and, although witches were persecuted, tortured and killed, magic never dies.

  It remains in the world of sorcerers, in the Temples of the magician Priests, permeates the great religions and invades the ancient philosophies.

  Joan of Arc’s ‘voices’ earned her the reputation for using witchcraft and yet today there is not a Church in Burgundy that does not have her statue with many candles lit in front of it.

  There are still witches to be found in quiet country hamlets, but they are usually white witches, who only bring good luck and love to those who seek it.

  Perhaps in Burgundy, more than anywhere else in France, one is aware of some strange magic that seems to hover in the air and work even in the long stretches of the vineyards.

  It was when I was motoring through the valley with the grapes just beginning to form that I looked up and saw a Castle on a hill in the distance with the spire of a Chapel beside it that the story of this book came to my mind.

  Chapter One ~ 1865

  Lady Yursa Holme was humming a little tune to herself as she walked back from the garden towards the house.

  It was a sunny spring day and she was thinking that nothing could be lovelier than the daffodils making a golden carpet under the trees.

  As she turned the corner, she saw the lovely Queen Anne house where the Earls of Holme and Lisgood had lived for the last one hundred and fifty years.

  Outside the front door there was a very smart carriage drawn by two excellent horses.

  She recognised both Jem, the footman, and the old coachman in his tiered coat and cockaded hat sitting on the box.

  This meant, she knew, that her grandmother, the Dowager Lady Helmsdale, to whom she was devoted, was calling on her father.

  Ever since she had been a little girl, all the romance in Yursa’s life had been supplied by her grandmother, who was half-French, telling her stories of the Ducs of Burgundy.

  Instead of the usual children’s Fairytales of Cinderella, Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel, Yursa had been brought up on the exploits of Philip the Bold, John the Fearless and Charles the Rash.

  They were so much part of her imagination that she dreamed about them at night and was sure that when she fell in love it would be with somebody like Philip the Bold.

  During his fifty year reign he had achieved one of the most cultured Courts in Europe.

  The Ducs of Burgundy had not only all fought bravely but had also summoned the most outstanding artists and writers to their Courts.

  They had been revered for their chivalry and kindness to those in need.

  As Yursa hurried towards the house, she was wondering if her grandmother had had any news from France or perhaps she had just come on a purely social visit.

  She stopped to pat the horses and to ask the old coachman, whom she had known since she was a child, if his rheumatism was better and if his son was doing well.

  He was working in one of the great vineyards of Burgundy and was, Yursa knew, deeply interested in the wines that all good Burgundians enjoyed as much as they enjoyed fighting.

  When the old man had finished a long story of all the troubles and illnesses of his family, she slipped into the house, eager to see her grandmother.

  Once in the hall she took off the shoes that she had been wearing.

  So as not to dirty the carpets she put on the satin slippers that were waiting for her under one of the chairs.

  She paused for a moment to tidy her hair in an ancient gold framed mirror.

  Then she hurried towards her father’s study, where she knew that she would find him at this time of the day.

  Her feet made no sound on the thick carpet and, as she put out her hand towards the study door, she realised that it was ajar and she could hear her grandmother’s voice.

  She was just about to walk in when she heard her own name.

  “It would be the marriage I have always envisaged for Yursa,” she could hear her grandmother saying, “but if we don’t hurry to arrange it, we may be too late.”

  Yursa stood still, surprised and a little frightened by what she had just heard.

  “Yursa is not yet eighteen,” she heard her father, the Earl, reply, “and I have already planned that next month I will take her to London, where she will make her curtsey to Queen Victoria.”

  “I know that is what you intend,” the Dowager agreed. “At the same time, as I have just pointed out, we may be too late.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  There was a short pause, as if the Dowager was thinking of how to answer before she replied,

  “I will be frank with you, Edward. I hear that César is obsessed at the moment with a woman whom all his relatives find totally undesirable.”

  “You mean that he might marry her?” the Earl asked in an incredulous tone.

  “There is a possibility of it,” the Dowager answered. “Zelée de Salône is not of noble birth, but on the other hand she is not bourgeois.”

  “I have always thought that César has said that he has no intention of marrying again,” the Earl remarked, “until he finds somebody he is really in love with.”

  The Dowager made an expressive gesture with her hands.

  “Love! What is love?” she asked. “And I am told on good authority that Zelée de Salône is determined to be his wife.”

  “And she too has been married before?”

  “She was married for a short time to a man very much older than herself who died of a heart attack. Since then I understand that she has refused a number of suitors, but none of them, needless to say, were as important as César!”

  “But surely,” the Earl suggested, “he must realise that it would be a grave mistake for him to marry anybody the family disapproves of?”

  Lady Helmsdale sighed.

  “As you well know, César has always been a law unto himself. His father married him off when he was only twenty to the daughter of the Duc de Vallon, which was in every way suitable both from the point of view of breeding and from the fact that the bride had a huge dowry.”

  The Earl did not speak and the Dowager went on,

  “You know what happened. The young couple loathed each other from the moment they had been united in Chartres Cathedral.”

  Her eyes were sad as she went on,

  “After a year of what I have heard César describe as unutterable misery, the poor girl had a brainstorm that resulted in her becoming incurably insane and she died three years later.”

  “Knowing the circumstances, I have always been sorry for César,” the Earl remarked.

  “We all broke our hearts over him,” the Dowager replied, “but there was nothing any of us could do. He travelled ro
und the world and came back a changed man.”

  “What do you mean by that?” the Earl enquired.

  “He had always been a little arrogant, what Duc has ever been anything else? But he had also become cynical and in a way much older than his years.”

  “At the same time, from all I have heard, he enjoyed himself,” the Earl remarked.

  “He certainly caused a number of scandals in Paris and fought several duels,” Lady Helmsdale agreed. “Equally that is expected of a man who came into his title when still very young and who finds himself, in the words of the poet, ‘Monarch of all I survey’.”

  The Earl laughed.

  “That is certainly true where the Ducs de Montvéal are concerned. I have often thought that with that enormous Château perched on top of a hill overlooking the vineyard-filled valley, no man could ask for a more impressive Throne!”

  The Dowager smiled.

  “That is true and, ever since he has lived there, César has behaved like a King or rather an Emperor and what can we poor relations do but slavishly obey him?”

  The Earl laughed again.

  Then he said,

  “I have not seen César since his wife died, but, of course, I hear about him and I cannot imagine that, if he wishes to marry this woman of whom you disapprove, he will allow you or anyone else to interfere.”

  “That is why I do not intend to waste any words,” the Dowager asserted quietly, “but instead to produce – Yursa.”

  “And you are really thinking that he will be interested in her?”

  Lady Helmsdale gave a deep sigh.

  “It’s a gamble, of course it’s a gamble! But it is the only way I can think of to divert him from suffering a matrimonial tragedy for the second time.”

  There was silence.

  Then the Earl said,

  “I will not have Yursa forced to do anything she does not wish. I want above all things that she should be happy, as I was happy with your daughter.”

  “I know that, Edward,” his mother-in-law said softly. “But Yursa is so lovely that I feel she would be wasted on any of the supercilious English aristocrats who, as you and I know, are interested only in hunting, shooting and fishing, and pay little attention to their wives, however beautiful they may be.”

  The Earl threw back his head and laughed.

  “You have always been very frank,” he said, “and I must admit that there is a grain of truth in what you say. However, is a Frenchman so very much more desirable when his compliments are insincere and, while he kisses one woman’s hand, his eyes are roving in search of another?”

  “What I am hoping and praying, Edward,” Lady Helmsdale said seriously, “is that César, who has never seen Yursa, will find her youth, her beauty and her innocence are what he has been searching for in his heart.”

  “Do you think that possible?”

  “No man who is brought up in Burgundy could be anything but romantic,” the Dowager replied, “and I have loved César from the time he was born. There is Montvéal blood in my veins and his.”

  She paused before she continued,

  “His mother, as you know, is my greatest and closest friend and my own mother before her marriage was a Montvéal herself. I know that once he had ideals which may have been lost in the past years, but I am sure that they are not entirely forgotten.”

  “You are an optimist,” the Earl said. “A man who has been hurt and deeply disappointed will not change his spots any more than the leopard.”

  He was silent before he added slowly,

  “If you ask me, César should marry a sophisticated worldly woman who will understand him as no young and inexperienced girl is capable of doing.”

  “You may be right,” Lady Helmsdale conceded, “but anything would be better than César marrying Zelée de Salône. In my opinion, although I have nothing to substantiate it, she is a wicked, basically evil woman and, if he marries her, he will regret it to his dying day!”

  “That must be for him to decide,” the Earl remarked, “and quite frankly I have no wish for Yursa to be mixed up with anything unpleasant, which might shock her.”

  There was a pause and then the Dowager said,

  “All I am asking is that you will allow me to take Yursa to The Château on a visit. I am, as you know, always welcome whenever I wish to go there. I have only to ask César if I may bring somebody with me for him to acquiesce.”

  “You must promise me,” the Earl replied, “that if I allow you to do this, you will not try to persuade Yursa to accept the Duc unless you are certain that there is some chance of her finding happiness with him.”

  “You are insulting me,” the Dowager protested. “I love César, but I also love my granddaughter. I would never harm Yursa in any way.”

  She looked blindly across the room before she added in a different tone,

  “I have a feeling that she might be the salvation of a man who deserves better than to be tied to a woman who, as far as I am concerned, might be the spawn of the Devil himself!”

  The Earl was startled.

  “What makes you say that?” he asked.

  The Dowager made an expressive gesture with her hands.

  “I suppose, because my mother came from Burgundy, I have an acute perception. Anyway my instinct tells me in a way that I cannot express in words that I must take Yursa to The Château.”

  The Earl shrugged his shoulders.

  “Since you put it in that way, I can only give my consent. At the same time I trust you to do nothing that might endanger Yursa’s future happiness.”

  “On that I give you my sacred promise!” Lady Helmsdale said. “And now tell me how you are and what has been happening while I have been in France.”

  Yursa realised that the conversation concerning her was at an end.

  She had been standing listening at the door as if turned to stone, but now she went on tiptoe back the way she had come.

  When she had almost reached the hall, she turned and retraced her steps.

  Running quickly down the passage, hoping that her footsteps could be heard in the study, she called out before she reached the door,

  “Grandmama! I know you are here.”

  She burst into the room and ran towards her grandmother who was sitting on the sofa.

  The Dowager held out her arms.

  “Yursa, my dear child!” she said. “How lovely to see you.”

  “I have been wondering why you have not been to see us since you returned from France,” Yursa said. “Did you have a lovely time in Paris and buy some enchanting new gowns?”

  “I hope you will approve of them,” her grandmother replied, “and I have brought quite a number for you, my dearest.”

  “Oh, Grandmama, how delightful! Papa has promised me some new ones to wear when we go to London, but I know that nothing could be as smart as what is obtainable in Paris!”

  “You shall judge for yourself,” the Dowager said.

  She paused as she scrutinised her granddaughter, thinking as she did so that she was even lovelier than she remembered.

  It would in fact have been difficult for anyone who met her, unless he was blind, not to think that Yursa had stepped out of a fairy story.

  Her small oval face was dominated by two huge eyes which, instead of being blue, to match her father’s, as might have been expected, were a strange mixture of grey with a touch of gold.

  When, however, she was worried or unhappy there was a purple tinge to them.

  They were eyes that were certainly very different from those of other girls of her age.

  Similarly her translucent skin, which was as white as the petals of a magnolia, was enhanced by the unusual lights in her hair.

  It was gold, the deep gold of the hair in the pictures painted by Botticelli.

  There was nothing insipid or dull about Yursa’s hair, in fact it seemed almost to sparkle and be part of the entrancing beauty of her smile.

  It was a beauty, Lady Helmsdale thought, tha
t could never be transmitted onto canvas because it was so vividly alive that there was nothing static about it.

  Her whole being glowed with every movement she made, with every word she spoke and with every flutter of her eyelashes which were darker than her hair.

  She was beautiful, and it was an arresting beauty, a beauty that would hold and captivate a man so that he would find it hard to look away.

  The Dowager put her hand over Yursa’s.

  “I have just been talking to your father, dearest child, and he has agreed that you should come with me to France for a few weeks before he takes you to London.”

  “Oh, Grandmama, how exciting!” Yursa exclaimed. “Will we be going to Paris?”

  “Perhaps later to buy you even more gowns. But first I want you to see The Chateau that has always been very close to my heart since I was a young girl and where your mother stayed when she was your age.”

  “You mean The Château de Montvéal?” Yursa exclaimed. “Oh, Grandmama, how wonderful! I would rather go there than anywhere else in the world.”

  “That is what I hoped you would say,” the Dowager smiled, “and, as I want to leave in three days’ time, you must start packing at once.”

  Yursa clasped her hands together and looked at her father.

  “I have agreed to this expedition,” he said as if she had asked the question, “but, if when you arrive there you are disappointed, your grandmother has promised to bring you home immediately.”

  “Why should I be disappointed?” Yursa enquired, but her father did not answer.

  She knew later that night, when they sat talking together after dinner that he was worried.

  When they left the dining room, they went into the large drawing room where everything reminded the Earl of her mother.

  “My dearest,” he said to Yursa, “I want your happiness more than I want anything in the world.”

  “I know that, Papa, and you have always been very kind to me, and particularly since we lost Mama.”

  “I miss your mother more than I can say,” the Earl admitted, “but I am fortunate that I have my daughter and, of course, my two sons.”

  There was a glint in his eye as he spoke about John and William.

  They were both with their Regiments and he was excessively proud of them.