64 The Castle Made for Love Read online

  “I believe that there is a voice for all of us, like the voices of Joan of Arc, that inspires us to seek perfection and to reach for the superhuman, the Divine.”

  Yola looked at him in surprise as he went on,

  “It’s so easy to believe that this cannot and will not happen in ordinary everyday life. Yet, however much we may deny it, the yearning is there and so is the voice that speaks not in our ears but to what the Church calls our souls.”

  Yola drew in her breath.

  It was so strange that he should be talking about Joan of Arc, the Saint to whom she had always prayed, the Saint who belonged to the Loire valley and was a part of her childhood because of the tapestry in the private Chapel at The Castle.

  “I see that you understand,” the Marquis said with a faint smile. “And that is why, my darling, you will know what I mean when I tell you that now a voice within me is saying that you are mine as God intended you to be when you were first born.”

  It seemed impossible that he should be saying such things and yet, holding tightly to his hand, Yola felt as if every word struck a response within both her heart and her soul.

  It was how she had always wanted a man to think and to feel about her and everything she had ever read and everything she had studied with her father had made her believe that real love was as the Marquis described it.

  This was the love she wanted so desperately and believed it would be impossible to find with the man her grandmother and her father had chosen for her as a husband.

  “I love – you!” she said simply, her eyes shining with a dazzling light.

  “My sweet! My darling!” the Marquis breathed hoarsely, then drew her to her feet and took her in his arms.

  He held her closely against him and, as gently as last night, his lips sought hers.

  He kissed her as if she was something infinitely precious and almost sacred.

  Then, as he felt the softness of her mouth, the yielding of her body and the thrills that ran through her, his kiss became more demanding, more intense.

  The room where they were ceased to exist and Yola felt as if they were standing in the sunshine on the terrace at home, with The Castle behind them and the blossoms in the valley making the whole place a Fairyland of beauty and love.

  This was what she had longed for, this was what she had wanted – love. The real love which did not count the cost of sacrifice and which demanded nothing but its own perfection.

  The Marquis gave a sigh that seemed to relieve some tension within himself. Then he drew Yola onto a sofa at the side of the room, still holding her closely in his arms.

  “We have to make plans, my darling,” he said. “Plans for the future.”

  “What sort of plans?” Yola murmured.

  She felt as if waves of happiness were moving within her, so that it was hard to think of anything but the closeness of the Marquis, the touch of his lips and the strength of his arms.

  “I cannot have you leave me,” the Marquis said. “I want you with me both by day and by night, my precious one.”

  “That is – what I want – too.”

  He kissed her forehead, then her eyes, one after another, and lastly her mouth.

  “Tell me again that you love me,” he asked. “I want to be sure that anything so perfect, so beautiful, is really mine.”

  “I love you,” Yola said obediently. “I love you so much that it is hard to think of – anything else. I just want to keep repeating that I – love you and hear you say that you – love me.”

  “I adore you. I worship you!”

  “Forever?”

  He smiled.

  “That is what we all ask of life, but where you and I are concerned, my sweet, I believe our love will last forever and a day.”

  “That is what I want you to – say,” Yola cried. “Oh? Leo, it is all so – strange and so – exciting, because – ”

  She was about to say, ‘because I am not Yola Lefleur but Marie Teresa de Beauharnais.’

  Then, as she drew in her breath to make the revelation, the Marquis said,

  “The reason I took you home early today when we might have spent another few hours together is that I wanted to look at a house I thought would please you.”

  “A – house?” Yola questioned.

  “I have found somewhere where we can be together,” the Marquis answered. “I am jealous even of the time you spend with Aimée and if you will agree you can leave tomorrow.”

  Yola was very still. She felt suddenly as if an icy hand was squeezing her heart, squeezing away her happiness.

  “I don’t – know exactly – what you – mean.”

  “It’s quite simple,” he answered. “I have found an adorable little house standing in its own garden on the very edge of the Bois de Boulogne. I thought you could go there tomorrow.”

  He smiled and added,

  “Then when we have time we will leave Paris and go away somewhere together, somewhere very quiet, my precious, where we can get to know each other.”

  “Wh-what are you – asking me?” Yola faltered.

  “I think the right term for it,” the Marquis said with a twist of his lips, “is that I am offering you my protection, but what I am really giving you, my sweetheart, is my love, my heart and everything I possess.”

  Yola felt as if the room had suddenly gone dark. Then in a voice that hardly seemed to be her own she said,

  “Are you – asking me to be your – mistress?”

  “Do you think that I would share you with anyone else?” the Marquis asked. “Of course I am asking you to belong to me alone.”

  He smiled as he went on?

  “I cannot deck you, my darling, in jewels such as are worn by La Païva nor can I give you a dozen carriages, each one different to match your gowns like Madame Musard, but I think the love we have for each other will compensate you for many things that unfortunately I cannot afford.”

  He pulled Yola a little closer to him as he said,

  “I believe you when you say you love me, for, ma belle, it would be impossible for you to lie to me. That is why I know that while I am not a millionaire and can only keep you in comfort instead of luxury, what is really important is that we will be happy.”

  He kissed her forehead as he went on,

  “There is so much I have to teach you, my lovely one. I have awakened my Sleeping Beauty, but she is still not fully aroused and to make sure that she is will be the most wonderful thing I have ever done in my life.”

  Yola felt numb.

  She told herself that it was just as she should have expected.

  Yet somehow it was impossible not to feel shocked and even horrified that all he was prepared to offer her was what he would offer the type of woman whom Madame Renazé and Aimée despised.

  Because she could not find words to answer him or to explain that what he suggested was impossible, she disentangled herself from his arms and, rising to her feet, said,

  “I think – I must – go home. I have – rather a – headache.”

  “We spent too much time at the Exhibition,” the Marquis said as he too rose. “But tomorrow after you are rested we will go to see the house I inspected this afternoon. I know it will please you and, when we shut the door behind us, we will shut out the world and be alone, you and I, with our love.”

  Yola did not reply and for the first time it must have crossed his mind that her response to what he had suggested had not been enthusiastic.

  He stood looking at her and after a moment he asked,

  “What is wrong? Why are you not as pleased as I thought you would be?”

  Yola did not reply.

  “Why do you say nothing? Why do you look like that?”

  He waited for her answer and, when it did not come, he stepped forward to say,

  “You are not playing with me? If you are – if you have lied about your love for me – I think I will kill you!”

  He put his arms round her and pulled her roughly against
him to turn her face up to his.

  “Are you lying?” he asked.

  Before she could reply, his mouth was on hers and he was kissing her demandingly, passionately, in a very different way from how he had kissed her before.

  She felt the fire on his lips and saw it flare into his eyes.

  But, because he had taken her by surprise, Yola was for the moment only conscious of the hardness of his kiss and that he was hurting her.

  Then instinctively she sensed that she had aroused a very different emotion in him from anything she had known before.

  She tried to struggle, but it was impossible.

  His mouth held her captive and he picked her up in his arms and carried her through the curtains that were drawn across one part of the room.

  She had not realised before that on the other side was a low couch and, as the Marquis almost threw her down on it, Yola gave a little cry.

  “You are mine! You cannot escape me!” he asserted harshly.

  He was kissing her again, with angry and almost brutal kisses that burned the softness of her skin.

  “No – no – no – ” she tried to cry out.

  He kissed her cheeks, her neck and again her mouth and she could feel his hands touching her body.

  Quite suddenly she was afraid – desperately, terribly afraid of what he might do.

  She struggled like an animal in a trap, she twisted her mouth free of his and, as she did so, she managed to shout,

  “No – Leo! No! No! No! You are – frightening me! Please – Leo – please.”

  It was the cry of a child and it stopped the Marquis as no other plea would have done.

  He looked down at her. She saw his expression of suspicion and desire and knew by the way he was breathing that she had aroused, excited and angered him.

  “P-please – let me – go.”

  The words were almost strangled in her throat, but he heard them and saw the pleading and fear in her face.

  Slowly he rose from the couch and hesitatingly Yola raised herself on the cushions he had thrown her against.

  As she did so, the Marquis turned and walked back into the part of the room where they had dined.

  There was some champagne left in the bottle that stood in the ice bucket and he poured himself a glass and drank it off at one gulp.

  Yola smoothed down her gown, aware even as she did so that she felt shaken and bruised and that her hands were trembling.

  Then, moving very slowly, her eyes dark and apprehensive in her white face, she walked towards the Marquis.

  “I will take you home,” he said and he did not look at her.

  He crossed the room to pick up her wrap from the chair it had been laid on.

  He opened the door and she preceded him down the stairs.

  They waited for a few minutes while the doorman called for the Marquis’s carriage and then Yola stepped into it.

  Only as they drove away did she say hesitatingly,

  “I-I am – sorry – I did not – mean to – upset you.”

  “I am sorry too,” the Marquis replied. “I forgot how unsophisticated you are.”

  He smiled as if he mocked himself before he said,

  “Shall we forget what happened tonight and remember only how happy we were beside the cascade in the Bois de Boulogne?”

  “Please – let’s do – that.”

  There was a throb in her voice as if she was not far from tears. The Marquis put his arm round her and drew her very gently against him.

  “It’s all right, my sweet,” he said. “Everything was my fault and I will not frighten you again.”

  She put her head against his shoulder, but he stared straight ahead as if he was thinking.

  After a moment Yola asked,

  “You – are not – angry with – me?”

  “I am angry with myself,” the Marquis answered, “but I am also somewhat bewildered.”

  Yola waited and after a moment he said,

  “There is so much I don’t understand. Why are you staying with Aimée, why are you dressed as you are and what are you expecting to find in Paris?”

  Because she knew that she could not answer his questions, not at the moment at any rate, Yola turned her face against his shoulder and was very near to tears.

  The Marquis held her a little closer.

  “You are tired,” he said and his voice was tender. “Go to bed and tomorrow we will talk things over quietly, you and I, and find an answer to everything. I am sure really it is all quite simple.”

  Yola did not answer and he kissed her hair.

  “I love you!” he breathed. “That is something there can be no argument about.”

  It was not a long journey to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré and, as the carriage drove into the courtyard, the Marquis said,

  “Don’t worry about anything, my darling. Tomorrow all the difficulties and problems will seem less worrying and may have vanished completely.”

  He kissed her hair again and went on,

  “I will take you driving and then we will have luncheon somewhere quietly where we can talk. There is a little restaurant at the side of the Seine where you can watch the barges going up and down the river.”

  “I would – like – that,” Yola managed to say.

  “Then that is where we will go,” the Marquis said. “Promise me you will go to sleep and not think about anything except our love.”

  “I-I will – try.”

  He took both her hands and kissed them one after another.

  “I love you,” he said. “Go to sleep remembering those three words and all they mean. You hold my heart in your hands, my precious one.”

  The footman opened the door of the carriage, they climbed out, the Marquis murmured goodnight and Yola went into the house without looking back.

  “Has Madame returned?” she asked, knowing that Aimée was going out to dinner.

  “Yes, m’mselle, Madame is alone in the salon.”

  Yola ran across the hall and opened the door.

  Aimée must have just come in, because she was standing at the window, pulling off the long black gloves she had worn.

  She turned round as Yola entered and gave a little exclamation.

  “What has happened?”

  Yola walked slowly across the room to sit down on a sofa. She drew a deep breath before she replied,

  “The Marquis has – asked me to become his – mistress!”

  Aimée moved to her side.

  “And it has upset you?”

  She saw the answer in Yola’s expression and added,

  “My dear child, what else did you expect?”

  “I-I thought that he loved me as – I love him!”

  Aimée sat down beside her.

  “You love him?”

  “With all my heart!” Yola answered. “He is everything I dreamt of and believed I would find in the man I should marry.”

  “He is the man you will marry,” Aimée remarked softly.

  Yola gave a gesture of despair.

  “Do you really think I would marry him knowing that he loves me only enough to want me as his mistress?”

  Aimée was silent for a moment.

  Then she said almost sharply,

  “Listen to me, Yola.”

  In response Yola raised her eyes.

  “Now listen and try to understand,” Aimée said. “The Marquis comes from an aristocratic noble family and his ancestors served the Kings of France for generations.”

  She paused before she said clearly and distinctly,

  “Marriage for him has nothing to do with love.”

  “B-but – if he – loves me – ?” Yola faltered.

  “He loves you as a woman and I thought when I saw him this morning before he took you to the Exhibition that he was different and that it was love that had changed him.”

  “If he – really loved me as Yola – Lefleur, he would – ask me to – m-marry him.”

  “It would be impossible fo
r him to do so,” Aimée said positively.

  “Why?” Yola enquired.

  “Because everything he has been brought up to believe in, everything that is ingrained in him as a part of his blood, of his pride and of his family, would prevent him from making someone of no consequence and not of equal rank his wife and the mother of his children.”

  “Then he does not – love me!” Yola said. “After all – the Duc wishes to marry you!”

  “That is very different.”

  “I see no difference.”

  “Then let me explain,” Aimée answered. “The Duc wishes to marry me as his second wife, but I know that however much we mean to each other, and we do mean everything in the world, he would never envisage me in that position unless he already had an heir to the title.”

  Yola looked surprised and Aimée explained,

  “He has three children with his wife. Two of them are boys. She went mad, as sometimes happens, having her third child.”

  “You are really telling me that the Duc would put his family before – you?”

  “But, of course, he would! It is traditional, built on the unwritten laws that have been followed and obeyed by the French aristocracy for centuries.”

  Yola was silent and then said in a whisper,

  “Do you – think the Marquis intends to – keep me as his mistress while he goes to The Castle next month to propose – marriage to – Marie Teresa de Beauharnais?”

  Aimée rose to her feet to walk to the mantelpiece.

  “This may seem hard for you to understand, Yola, but I don’t think for a moment that the Marquis would consider he was doing anything unusual, reprehensible or wrong.”

  “It appals me even to think of it!”

  “That is because you are in love and because you have put yourself entirely of your own choice in this impossible situation.”

  Aimée looked at Yola before she added,

  “It’s unfair to judge the Marquis when you are deceiving him by disguising yourself as a demi-mondaine, a woman who he would never expect for a moment would want marriage or imagine that he would suggest it.”

  “I am shocked!” Yola declared defiantly.

  “It did not shock your father to take a chère amie when he was married to your mother.”

  “My mother made him desperately unhappy by her behaviour,” Yola retorted.