Born of Love Read online

  “Don’t worry, m’mselle,” Jacques smiled, “The little girl is very much alive but, as you said, she has concussion. I don’t think, however, that her head is seriously hurt.”

  “Are you going to bandage it?” Marcia asked.

  The valet shook his head.

  “I never bandage wounds if I can avoid it. I prefer to use the clean air and the sunshine of le Bon Dieu, which heals far better than anything else.”

  Marcia smiled at him.

  “That is what my mother used to say. She was also a great believer in honey.”

  “As I am, m’mselle,” Jacques agreed. “I have here a cream that I make myself from honey. It will heal the cut quicker than anything a doctor could prescribe.”

  He opened the bag he had brought with him and took out a pot.

  Gently he applied the cream to the bruise, which was getting darker every moment, and the broken skin.

  “Now,” he said, “all you have to do is to keep her quiet and not let her be frightened when she wakes up.”

  The Duc, who until now had been silent, moved to the bed.

  “Where is the child’s mother?” he asked. “Surely she will be home soon, if she is working in the field.”

  “She has had to go away, perhaps for the night,” Marcia replied, “but she will return tomorrow morning and I will look after Lisette until then.”

  The Duc looked at her in surprise.

  “You mean you intend to stay here?” he asked. “Would you not prefer to bring the child back to the château?”

  “No, no,” Marcia said quickly. “I am sure that she would be frightened unless, when she regains consciousness, she is at home.”

  “And you are going to stay here with her?” the Duc asked, as if he could hardly believe what he had heard.

  He could not imagine any other woman of his acquaintance staying in a peasant’s cottage to look after a sick child that she had never seen before.

  “Of course I must stay,” Marcia replied. “It is my fault that she is in this condition and – she is such a pretty little girl.”

  “You must do as you see fit,” the Duc agreed, “but I don’t think that you will be at all comfortable.”

  Marcia did not bother to answer him.

  She was holding the child close against her breast.

  Although she was no longer speaking to Lisette, the Duc had the feeling that she was willing her to consciousness.

  “Where is the child’s father?” he asked.

  There was silence, as if it took a little time for his question to penetrate Marcia’s mind.

  “I never thought – to ask Pierre,” she replied.

  The Duc walked out of the bedroom and Jacques put the pot containing the honey down on a table and added some other items to it.

  Pierre was still with the horses, patting and making a fuss of them.

  The Duc went to his side.

  “Where is your father?” he asked.

  “My father’s dead, monsieur,” Pierre answered. “He was killed by a rock fall last winter.”

  “How does your mother manage without him?” the Duc questioned.

  “She takes in washing for some of the people in the village,” Pierre explained, “and makes lace which she sells in the market.”

  The Duc was aware that the local lace was much in demand by the tourists and many ladies found a good use for it.

  “And you don’t think that your mother will be back tonight?”

  Pierre gave a shrug of his shoulders.

  “If Grandpapa’s better she’ll come back tonight, monsieur. If not very early tomorrow morning.”

  Having found out what he wanted to know, the Duc went back to the house.

  Jacques was just coming out of the bedroom.

  The Duc took him into the kitchen and gave him a number of instructions.

  Jacques listened intently to what he had to say before he replied,

  “I will arrange it, monsieur.”

  “Thank you, Jacques,” the Duc said. “Now, while you drive the chaise back to the château, I will attend to Aquilin.”

  “I saw him in the field, monsieur. It’s a good thing he was not hurt.”

  “That is what I thought myself,” the Duc replied.

  Jacques jumped into the chaise and drove off.

  The Duc walked over to Aquilin, who nuzzled against him.

  He tied the reins on his neck, which Marcia had omitted to do and led him to the cottage.

  “Now be a good boy and don’t go too far,” the Duc said.

  He walked to where Pierre was standing at the gate watching him.

  “Keep an eye on my horse,” the Duc ordered. “I would be very upset if I lost him.”

  “I’ll look after him, monsieur,” Pierre offered eagerly.

  “You do that and I will give you something to spend in the village,” the Duc promised.

  He saw the boy’s eyes light up and he guessed that since his father had died his mother was finding it difficult to feed her children and herself on what she earned.

  Marcia looked up in surprise as the Duc came back into the bedroom.

  “You are still here!” she exclaimed. “I heard horses’ hoofs and thought you had gone back to the château.”

  “I am afraid if I return I shall be bombarded with questions as to what has happened,” the Duc replied.

  Marcia gave a little laugh.

  “That is something which is certain to happen. I am – very ashamed of what I have done.”

  “There is no need to be.”

  “I will never forgive myself if I have really hurt – this child,” Marcia went on, “but your valet, Jacques, thinks the injury is not a serious one and her brain has not been – damaged.”

  “I have trusted Jacques with my body and my brain for many years,” the Duc said, “and he has never failed me.”

  He was noticing as he spoke how very tenderly Marcia was looking at Lisette and how lovingly she held her.

  Marcia had taken off her riding boots when she sat on the bed and now she was propped up against the pillows.

  She was looking exceedingly lovely as she bent her golden head over the unconscious child.

  The Duc sat down in a chair and watched her.

  Because he was silent, Marcia looked up at him enquiringly.

  “I think you are very fond of children,” he commented quietly.

  “I love them,” Marcia answered, “and, because I was an only child, I longed to have brothers and sisters I could play with.”

  She looked down at Lisette again before she went on,

  “It has, of course, been wonderful to be with Papa, although he always treated me as if I was his son rather than his daughter. But I want my daughter, if I have one, to play with dolls and to think of them, as I wanted to do, as if they were her children.”

  She was speaking in a dreamlike voice as if to herself.

  “If you feel like that,” the Duc said, “why do you not get married and have children of your own?”

  “That is what I would like to do when I find a husband who would care for them as much as I do,” Marcia replied.

  The Duc thought this over.

  Then he said,

  “What you are saying is that the men who have proposed to you, and I gather there have been a great number, would not in your opinion have made good fathers.”

  “They might have done,” Marcia admitted, “but they gave no indication of it. And how could I bring children into the world who might be neglected or feel that they were unwanted?”

  She was still speaking in a low soft voice.

  The Duc realised that it was not only because she thought it might disturb the unconscious child.

  It was also because for the moment she had forgotten who he was.

  Or that he was being rather impertinent in asking her such questions.

  He thought, however, that what she was saying was very revealing.

  Because he was very astute he
had learned what nobody else had, the secret of Marcia’s aversion to an arranged marriage or any marriage that was not one of love.

  As if she was suddenly aware of what he was thinking, she looked up at him.

  “You will not tell anybody what I have just said to you?”

  “You can trust me,” the Duc replied, “and, if it interests you, I can tell you that I too was very lonely when I was a child.”

  “It is different for boys,” she said as if she did not want to be sympathetic.

  The Duc shook his head.

  “I think all children need the same things, companionship and, of course, love.”

  “I cannot believe that your mother did not love you,” Marcia remarked.

  “She loved me and so did my father,” the Duc replied, “but I still told myself stories in which I had another boy of my own age who I could climb trees with, hide from my nurses and Tutors, and who, of course, race me on my pony whenever I went riding.”

  Marcia gave a little laugh.

  “I wanted that too and I felt it unfair that Papa always won because he was on a much larger horse than I was.”

  “I often thought,” the Duc went on as if he was looking back into the past, “that the village children, who nearly all came from large families, were happier than I was playing alone in the huge nurseries of the château with every expensive toy that had ever been invented.”

  “Now you are making me feel sorry for you,” Marcia said, “and I want to feel sorry for Lisette because I have hurt her and also because she must be a lonely child as Pierre is so much older than she is.”

  “I have a half-sister, but she was twelve years older than me,” the Duc remarked.

  “Then obviously the best thing you can do is to have a large family of your own. Make certain that you have them close together, twins if possible, so that they will never feel lonely.”

  As she spoke she remembered, and she had forgotten it until now, what her father had told her.

  If he was right in what he had said, there was every possibility that the Duc would marry no one and the nurseries at the château would remain empty.

  Without thinking that he might not know of Sardos’s intentions, she said quickly,

  “You must be careful – very careful! Otherwise there will be no more Ducs de Roux and certainly no children to slide down the banisters and play hide and seek in those exciting corridors.”

  “What are you talking about?” the Duc asked.

  “I-I am sorry – I should not have mentioned it,” Marcia replied. “It was – stupid of me – but I thought that Madame la Comtesse must have warned you.”

  “Warned me? About what?” he enquired.

  “About – your nephew.”

  “Is there anything new about him that I have not heard?”

  “I-I don’t know – but Papa told me something this morning.”

  “Tell me what your father told you.”

  Marcia looked up at the Duc with a worried expression in her eyes.

  “It was – tactless of me to mention it – please forget what I just said.”

  “You cannot expect me not to be curious.”

  She gave a sigh.

  “It will come much better from the Comtesse than from me, but – she thinks that your nephew intends to – murder you!”

  The Duc stared at her.

  “Murder me?” he exclaimed. “But that is ridiculous!”

  “Apparently Sardos has told his creditors that when you – died, which you were likely to do in the – near future, his mother would inherit – everything you – possess.”

  There was silence.

  Because she was shy, Marcia did not look up at the Duc.

  She bent over Lisette, her head bowed so that he could see only the top of it.

  “What you have just said about his mother is true,” the Duc said after what seemed a long silence, “I was not aware that Sardos would scheme to use it to his advantage.”

  “It would be very much to his advantage,” Marcia answered, “if he could dispose of you in some way. Oh, please – please – be careful! You cannot let somebody – like him take your place. I am quite certain that all the people on the estate – including Pierre and Lisette’s mother – would suffer if he did.”

  “Of course they would,” the Duc answered, “but I had no idea that he was desperate enough to be prepared to murder me!”

  “It is only – an idea,” Marcia said quickly. “No one can be certain of it, except that the Comtesse has been in touch with some friends in Paris who say that he is deliberately making it known that his mother will benefit by your death.”

  “Which is something that must certainly be avoided at all costs,” the Duc said grimly.

  He rose from the chair he was sitting in, walked to the door and left the room.

  Marcia looked after him with an anxious expression in her eyes.

  ‘Perhaps I should not have told him,’ she thought, ‘but he will have to know sooner or later that he must take better care of – himself.’

  It was then she remembered having seen Sardos with a companion riding not far from where they were at this moment.

  They might have been doing nothing wrong and were just out for a ride.

  But she thought that if she was the Duc she would be suspicious of everything Sardos did and everywhere he went.

  Suddenly she found herself praying that the Duc would be safe and no one would harm him.

  She felt that, if he was murdered, it would be like some great oak falling to the ground or the château crumbling into pieces.

  *

  The Duc, as it happened, was standing at the front door looking out onto the valley.

  Was it really possible, he asked himself, that his nephew would murder him because he needed more money for his wild extravagances?

  He told himself that the idea was absurd.

  He refused to be intimidated, even in his thoughts, by somebody so despicable.

  But he could not bear to think of all his work on the vines, all the innovations he had introduced, being squandered on drink and immoral women.

  ‘I suppose,’ he thought finally, ‘I shall have to give Sardos some more money, although, God knows, I might as well throw it down the drain!’

  He was still standing at the door when Jacques arrived back.

  He was driving a cart drawn by only one horse and moving very quickly.

  When the Duc saw him coming across the rough ground, he smiled as he knew that he could trust Jacques to carry out his instructions to the very letter.

  Jacques stopped the cart at the gate and beckoned to Pierre.

  The boy was still standing near to Aquilin.

  “Come and help me,” the valet said. “I have a lot of things to carry into your mother’s kitchen.”

  Curious as to what they could be, Pierre was delighted to help him.

  The Duc went back into the bedroom.

  “Jacques has returned,” he said to Marcia. “As you are determined to stay here, he has brought you some night attire so that you will be more comfortable.”

  “How kind of you to think of it,” she replied. “After your valet had gone, I was in fact wishing that I could take off my riding skirt, as it is rather hot.”

  “That is what I suggest you do now,” the Duc said, “so I will fetch what Jacques has brought.”

  He went out to the cart, picked up a small suitcase and took it into the bedroom.

  Marcia had already got off the bed and put Lisette very carefully down with her head on the pillow.

  She was standing on the floor and bending over the little girl as the Duc entered.

  As he watched her, he thought that she might have posed for a great Master’s portrait of The Virgin and Child.

  “Here is your suitcase,” he said, “and I am certain, knowing Jacques, that nothing has been forgotten.”

  “Please thank him for me,” Marcia answered, “and I am so grateful to be able to c
hange into something cooler.”

  The Duc went away, closing the door behind him.

  Marcia slipped off her riding skirt and the clothes she wore under it.

  When she opened the suitcase, she found that Jacques had brought her one of her pretty nightgowns and a negligée. It was of white satin trimmed with little bows of sky blue velvet.

  She had brought it because it was so pretty, but she had certainly not expected to wear it in a peasant’s cottage.

  Jacques had also included her hairbrush, comb and a travelling mirror, which was much more convenient than the very small mirror attached to a wooden frame on the dressing table.

  Marcia loosened her hair and brushed it until it seemed to come to life with the electricity in it and it fell over her shoulders nearly to her waist.

  She shut her suitcase having found a pair of heelless slippers.

  It amused her to find that Jacques had also put in the book she had been reading, which had been on her bedside table. It would help to pass an hour or two, she thought, until she could fall asleep.

  There was a knock on the door.

  She thought that it must be Pierre, but, when she called out ‘entrez’, it was the Duc who was standing there.

  “I thought you had – gone,” she said.

  “On the contrary,” he replied, “I am waiting for you to have dinner with me.”

  Marcia stared at him.

  “Dinner?”

  “It would hardly be hospitable if, as your host, I left you here with nothing to eat.”

  “I thought that there might be something in the kitchen,” Marcia replied.

  “It would be very little,” the Duc said, “and Jacques has brought what he thought we would both enjoy.”

  Marcia laughed.

  “I don’t believe it! What will they think at the château when you don’t appear at dinner?”

  “I have told Jacques to say that I am dining with friends and that you have gone to their house for help because Aquilin had cast a shoe and, while the blacksmith is re-shoeing the horse, you are dining there too.”

  “How can you make up such a lot of lies?” Marcia asked.

  But she was laughing.

  ‘“Needs must when the Devil drives!”’ the Duc replied. “Now come into the parlour and let me tell you, in case you are worried, that Pierre is eating like a horse at the kitchen table! If you don’t hurry there will be nothing left for us.”