The Devil in Love (Bantam Series No. 24) Read online

  She found Nurse there and the two women looked at each other in an understanding manner.

  “They have been talking together all afternoon,” Nurse said in a low voice and there was no mistaking of whom she spoke.

  There was a question in Larisa’s eyes and Nurse continued:

  “I think the situation has improved a little. Bernard told me just now that Monsieur Raoul asked his father for a case of the Valmont wine, and Monsieur le Comte said he could have one of the 1874 vintage, which is kept for very special occasions.”

  Larisa knew that Bernard was Monsieur le Comte’s man-servant who was closely in his confidence.

  Everything that went on in the Chateau was replayed to its owner by Bernard, and if he thought things were going better than they had done before, then there must indeed be an improvement.

  “I hope you are right,” Larisa said.

  She wondered as she spoke whether Monsieur le Comte would in fact give in and agree to purchase the vineyard.

  It seemed somehow unlikely in view of the manner in which he had behaved at luncheon.

  At the same time she was certain that Comte Raoul could be very persuasive.

  “If only we could all live in peace,” Nurse said almost beneath her breath.

  Then as she wiped her eyes she added:

  “When Monsieur Raoul came to see me today he said: ‘I wish I was young again, ma Bonne, the same age as Jean-Pierre and have you making all the decisions for me. How easy it would be!’ ”

  As if the memory of what Comte Raoul had said was too much for her, Nurse went from the School Room and Larisa knew it was to hide her tears.

  Larisa ate little of the delicious dishes that the Chef had sent up for her supper.

  She did not feel hungry and felt somehow emotionally involved in the drama that was taking place in the household.

  Even though she told herself that it was none of her business and she was outside everything that happened, she could not help feeling concerned.

  There was also at the back of her mind, although she tried not to think of it, the knowledge that sooner or later Monsieur le Comte would have to know about Jean-Pierre.

  It opened up the question as to whether it would make him kinder to or more vehement against his only son.

  When Larisa had finished her supper and Suzanne had taken away the tray she picked up a book, intending to read. But she found it impossible to concentrate and she must have sat for a long time deep in her thoughts, the book open on her lap.

  There came a knock at the door.

  “Entrez!”

  A footman stood there.

  “Monsieur wishes to speak to you in the Blue Cabinet, M’mselle.”

  “I will come downstairs in a moment,” Larisa answered.

  She went to her bed-room to see that her hair was tidy and to pick up a handkerchief.

  She was wearing a thin muslin gown she had made herself, which had a pattern of small, blue flowers on it and a sash of the same colour which matched her eyes.

  She took a quick glance at her reflection in a long mirror and then went down the stairs.

  She was surprised that Monsieur le Comte had not asked her to come to the Salon where he habitually sat.

  Then as she neared the Blue Cabinet, which was a small room exquisitely decorated in blue and gold to match the Sevres china arranged on inlaid enamelled tables, she realised that the footman had not said it was Monsieur le Comte who wished to see her.

  She therefore half expected that Comte Raoul would be waiting. As she entered the small room a man turned from the window and she saw that she had not been mistaken.

  She stood still just inside the door and did not realised how very young, lovely, and vulnerable she looked.

  Her fair hair was silhouetted against the blue of the walls and her eyes, turned to his, were a little apprehensive with perhaps a shadow of fear in them.

  For a moment Comte Raoul stood looking at her without speaking, and then he said:

  “I want to talk to you. Shall we go outside? It is a warm evening.”

  There was a serious tone in his voice which Larisa had not expected and she acquiesced without replying, moving across the room as he opened the long window a little wider so that they could both step out onto the terrace.

  There was a small foot-bridge spanning the moat on this side of the Chateau and they crossed over it onto a green lawn and proceeded down a path which took them up the side of the formal garden.

  They walked in the shadow of the trees, moving away from the house, and were climbing, Larisa realised, towards the Grecian Temple which stood at the end of the long vista beyond the fountains.

  She had a strange feeling as she moved beside the Comte that there was no need for words.

  It was as if they were talking to each other, and yet he had not spoken since they left the Chateau.

  Finally they came to where below the Temple there was a white statue set against a high yew-hedge and in front of it a seat.

  Comte Raoul stopped, made a gesture with his hand, and Larisa sat down.

  As he seated himself beside her she realised that they looked down at the Chateau and in the diffusion of golden light of the sun, which had just set below the horizon, it looked like an exquisite jewel.

  With its perfect symmetry, its cupola, its stone carvings, and its iridescent windows reflected in the moat, it was difficult to imagine that it was real and not part of a dream.

  Still Comte Raoul did not speak but sat looking at the Chateau until at last Larisa said hesitatingly:

  “Why … do you … not do as your … father … wishes?”

  “Marry again?”

  “Charles II said, ‘England was worth a Mass.’ Is not Valmont worth a … marriage?”

  “Not of my father’s choosing! No—never, never again!”

  He spoke violently and Larisa realised that his marriage had not only been disastrous but the hurt of it still remained.

  “I am … sorry,” she murmured.

  “For me? I do not want your pity!”

  “Not only for you, but for Valmont,” Larisa said. “It is so beautiful! I feel that it is a house made for … happiness … if only one could find the right … formula for it.”

  There was silence for a moment and then Comte Raoul said:

  “I am frightened!”

  “Frightened?” Larisa asked. “But why?”

  “Something strange and incredible has happened,” he replied, “something I never expected. I cannot for the moment quite believe it.”

  Larisa thought he would go on, but after a pause she asked tentatively:

  “Will you tell … me what is … frightening you?”

  “When we met this morning,” he answered, “and I swore at you because Jean-Pierre startled my horse, what did you think of me?”

  Larisa’s lips parted in a little smile.

  “I thought that you looked … exactly as I had … expected … you to.”

  “You knew who I was?”

  “Yes, of course. No-one else could look ... quite like … that!”

  “Like what?”

  She realised that it would be embarrassing to answer that question. She had thought how dashing and smart he appeared.

  At the same time he did have the appearance of a devil!

  She did not reply and after a moment he said:

  “I can imagine how I appeared. At the same time you recognised me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just as I recognised you.”

  Larisa turned to look at him in perplexity.

  “How can you have done that?” she asked. “You had never heard of me. You had no idea I would be here.”

  “Nevertheless I recognised you,” he insisted, “because I had always known that somewhere in the world there would be someone who looked like you!”

  “I do not think I … understand. Monsieur.”

  “I do not understand it myself,” Comte Raoul replied, “and th
erefore it is almost impossible for me to put into words, but I have always known that you existed somewhere, and when I saw you you were exactly as I expected you to be!”

  Larisa looked at him in astonishment, and now he turned his head to look into her eyes.

  “When I looked down at you, with your arms round Jean-Pierre, I knew I had found what I had always been seeking.”

  There was an expression in his eyes which held her spellbound and she was unable to move.

  “Not quite consciously perhaps,” he went on in a low voice, “but I was continually disappointed, disillusioned, always wanting something I could not express. It was you!”

  It was hard to breathe until with an effort she turned her eyes from his to look at the house below them.

  “I think,” she said, and her voice was uncertain, “that you are only … imagining what you … say you feel.”

  “That is what I have tried to tell myself,” he replied, “but it is not true.”

  There was a little silence and then he said:

  “Perhaps we have met before in a previous life. Perhaps you have occupied secretly a special shrine in my heart. I do not know. I do not understand. I am waiting for you to explain it to me.”

  Larisa remembered how she had spoken to Nicky of reincarnation, and yet now that she was faced with the idea it seemed impossible; just a theory that could never be substantiated.

  “I have … no explanation,” she said after a moment.

  “What had you been told about me?”

  “I met a woman on the train,” Larisa replied, “a dress-maker called Madame Madeleine, who … told me of your … parties.”

  “And she warned you against me?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “I can guess what she said, but now when you see me in my own home what do you think of me?”

  “I am … sorry for … you. At the same time perhaps your … father has … good reason to … dislike the life you … lead.”

  “He has every reason, but he forced it upon me,” Comte Raoul said and there was a bitterness in his voice. “You do not understand that I had no choice except to obey him blindly.”

  Larisa remembered what Nurse had told her about Comte Raoul being forced up the aisle when he was twenty, when he had no wish to marry.

  Because she wanted to make things better, to help the man sitting beside her, she said softly:

  “Could you not persuade your father to let bygones be bygones and start again? The quarrel does not hurt only you. It hurts everyone who lives at Valmont.”

  “I know that,” the Comte said, “and they are my people. Mine because most of the employees on the Estate have lived here for generations. They are as much a part of the family as those who actually have Valmont blood running in their veins.”

  “I can understand your thinking like that,” Larisa said.

  “But all the time my father is cheese-paring where he could expand,” Comte Raoul went on. “I visited our vineyards and farms a little while ago, without his being aware of it, and he is using old-fashioned methods. He will not buy new machinery. He has uneconomical methods of storage. The whole Estate could be improved. We need new houses, more workers.”

  He spoke vehemently. Then his voice died away. “What is the point of even talking about it?” he asked. “The old man will not listen to me.”

  “Nurse thought things were perhaps going … better this evening,” Larisa said. “I was told that Monsieur le Comte, had given you a case of his best wine.”

  “I asked him for a case,” Comte Raoul said, “not only because I thought it would please him, but because I actually wanted to drink the wine that came from my land, from my vines.”

  “And he was pleased?”

  “To my surprise, he offered me the ’74—our best year, of which there is very little left. It is matured and is a wine fit for the most discerning connoisseur.”

  “Surely that is a good sign?” Larisa suggested. “Perhaps after all he will agree to buy the vineyard you want so much.”

  “I have to go back to Paris tomorrow,” the Comte said, “but I shall return the following day. I shall still have five days left in which to raise the money to buy the vineyard myself if my father refuses to do so.”

  “Perhaps he really has not got the money.”

  “It would be very easy for him to borrow what he wishes from the Bank,” Comte Raoul answered.

  He turned again from his contemplation of the Chateau to look at her.

  “And now let us talk about you.” he said in a different tone of voice.

  “I think I … must go … back,” Larisa said quickly.

  “You are running away? Are you afraid of me?”

  “I do not know at the … moment,” Larisa replied. “Please do not … frighten me.”

  “I have no wish to do that,” he said. “At the same time I want to tell you how unbelievably lovely you are and how different from every other woman I have known.”

  His eyes were on her face and although she tried not to do so, irresistibly she looked at him and was unable to look away.

  “I know that sounds trite.” he said in a low voice, “but it is true. You are different, and what is happening between us is different.”

  “How can you be sure?” Larisa asked. “Here in the garden … everything seems … unreal. Because it is evening and because …”

  “… because we are together!” the Comte finished softly. “Do you realise where we are sitting, Larisa?”

  He used her Christian name for the first time and while she noticed it she somehow could not protest.

  “The Temple above us,” the Comte went on as she did not speak, “is dedicated to Venus, and the statues grouped around it are all of her in her different guises and under her different names.”

  He smiled and went on:

  “Behind us is Aphrodite. She has always been my favourite ever since I was a small boy. That is why I brought you here tonight, so that we could talk together beneath Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of Love.”

  His voice seemed to linger on the last word. Larisa felt herself thrill. It was like a streak of lightning running through her.

  “I must not … listen to … you,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I promised Mama I would not listen to compliments or believe … anything a Frenchman might say to me.”

  “That was very sensible advice!” the Comte said. “But not where you and I are concerned.”

  “Why?”

  “Because as I have already told you this is different!”

  There was a depth and a warmth in his voice which made Larisa feel as if she vibrated to every word he said.

  It was almost as if he touched her and yet he had not moved.

  After a moment he said:

  “Have you ever been kissed, Larisa?”

  “No … of course not!” she answered quickly.

  “Then it was meant for me to be the first,” he said, “just as it was meant for us to meet and know that we belong to each other.”

  His voice deepened.

  “But because what is between us is different from anything that has happened to me before, or to you, my beautiful little Aphrodite, I am not going to kiss you tonight.”

  His eyes were on her lips.

  Larisa felt a strange sensation sweep through her; something she had never felt or known before; something that was so exciting she felt herself tremble, at the same time so intense that it was almost a pain.

  Abruptly Comte Raoul rose to his feet.

  “Come,” he said. “I will take you back.”

  Larisa rose automatically.

  Just as they had climbed in silence from the Chateau up to the statue of Aphrodite, so they returned without speaking.

  She was vividly conscious of him and she knew that he was thinking of her in some manner she did not understand, compelling her to his will.

  She felt almost as if he drew her into his arms, yet at th
e same time the control he had over himself held her apart for reasons which she could not comprehend.

  They reached the foot-bridge over the moat. The window of the Blue Cabinet was open just as they had left it.

  Now the daylight had gone. There was only the twilight round them and the first stars were coming out overhead in the darkness of the sky.

  Comte Raoul stopped and stood looking at Larisa.

  Her eyes were wide and a little bewildered as she looked up into his.

  “You are all a man could ever dream of and pray for, he said in his deep voice.

  She felt herself quiver at his words and then he added:

  “I am going for a walk in the woods to think about you. I have the feeling that you too will be thinking about me. That is all I ask for the moment—that you should think about me. Do you promise to do so?”

  “I think it would be … difficult … not to,” Larisa replied almost in a whisper.

  “That is all I ask,” he said. “Good night, my lovely goddess. We have found each other—that is the first step.”

  He took her hand as he spoke and for a moment Larisa felt his lips warm and insistent against, her skin.

  Then almost before she could feel herself thrill at his touch he turned away and walked across the lawn into the shadow of the trees.

  When he was out of sight slowly Larisa crossed the stone bridge and entered the Chateau.

  As she went upstairs her whole mind was in a turmoil.

  She could not think. She could not begin to understand what had happened.

  It was so unexpected. Something she had never imagined, and as Comte Raoul had said, so very different from anything she had anticipated.

  How could he be like this, so serious and yet be the same man who had been described as “Monsieur la Diable”?

  It did not make sense unless he was speaking the truth.

  But how could she believe him?

  She remembered what her mother had said to her, how Nicky had warned her, and most of all how Madame Madeleine had said it would be a disaster for her to meet Comte Raoul.

  When she reached her bed-room she sat down to think over what had happened; to try to understand it.

  He had, she supposed, made love to her, and yet it was not what she had expected love-making would be.

  He had paid her compliments and yet they had not been the sort of compliments that she had thought would make her embarrassed or afraid.