Born of Love Page 3

  He rode on and then started to climb from the flat ground of the valley up towards his château.

  As he drew nearer still to it, he could see the sparkle of the water from the fountains iridescent in the sunshine.

  The beauty of his home had never ceased to enthral him.

  He often went to Paris and had travelled in other parts of the world, but he always knew when he came home to the Dordogne that was where he belonged.

  Below the flight of steps that led up to the huge porticoed front door a groom was waiting.

  As he dismounted, the Duc said,

  “Aquilin went very well today.”

  The groom smiled as if the Duc had paid him a particular compliment and led the horse away to the stables.

  The Duc walked slowly up the steps and into the Great Hall.

  There were four footmen in attendance and he gave them his hat, his whip and his gloves before the Major Domo declared,

  “Monsieur le Comte de Thiviers is in the petit salon, monsieur.”

  For a moment there was an expression of irritation in the Duc’s eyes.

  He was not expecting his nephew, who was the son of his half-sister.

  She was many years older than himself, being the only child of his father’s first marriage.

  He had a suspicion as to why he had suddenly arrived at the château.

  However, there was nothing he could do about it and he walked slowly towards the door to the petit salon.

  He knew that he would find his nephew, Sardos, waiting alone for him.

  A footman opened the door and, as the Duc walked in, he saw that he was right.

  Sardos de Thiviers was alone, standing at the window with his back to the room.

  He turned round quickly as he heard the Duc enter and before his uncle could speak, greeted him,

  “Good morning. You may be surprised to see me, but I wanted to talk to you.”

  “It is certainly a surprise,” the Duc replied. “Last time I heard of you, you were in Paris, and, I understand, having an extremely amusing time.”

  There was a note of criticism in the Duc’s voice and an emphasis on the word ‘amusing’ that his nephew did not miss.

  Sardos de Thiviers was a good-looking young man. His dark black hair was brushed back from his rather low forehead and he was dressed in the very height of fashion.

  He was on the surface very prepossessing.

  The Duc’s perceptive eye, however, noticed the dark lines of debauchery beneath his eyes that should not have been there at his age.

  His thin lips could set in a hard line that was in strange contrast to the honeyed words with which he usually spoke.

  Walking towards the fireplace, which, as it was summer, was filled with flowers, the Duc stood with his back to it saying,

  “I can guess why you have come to see me, Sardos. And my answer is the same as the last time you approached me. This cannot go on.”

  “I thought you might say that, Uncle Armond,” the Comte answered. “But I have to tell you that I am in an extremely uncomfortable position which, unless it is rectified, will cause an unpleasant scandal.”

  The Duc stiffened and there was a harsh note in his voice as he asked sharply,

  “What is it this time?”

  Sardos de Thiviers sat down in one of the armchairs.

  “It was really not my fault, Uncle Armond,” he began. “I did try to make some economies after you helped me last time, but I became involved with a man who swindled me out of a great deal of money and, as he is now bankrupt, there is no chance of my having it returned.”

  The Duc thought that he had heard this story before, but aloud he said,

  “On what else have you spent the quite considerable sums that you received on your father’s death, besides the enormous amount of francs I gave you the last time you came here?”

  The Comte did not answer and after a moment the Duc said,

  “I imagine that most of it has gone on women! Women, you must know by this time, exert the power of a magnet on any man’s pocket and quite frankly you are not rich enough to afford them.”

  “That is not fair,” Sardos de Thiviers complained.

  “You have had your fun, Uncle Armond, and there is surely no reason why I should not have mine.”

  “I certainly had my fun, as you call it,” the Duc replied, “but I could afford it better than you can. You have now gone too far.”

  “I don’t know why you should say that,” Sardos said angrily. “I am young and I want to enjoy life before I settle down as my mother urges me on that boring little estate in Normandy where there is nothing to do and hardly a woman in sight who does not have one foot in the grave.”

  Just for a second there was a twinkle in the Duc’s eyes as if he was amused.

  Then he said,

  “You have never tried to improve your estate, which after all is yours, and you have bled your mother of everything she possesses.”

  Sardos jumped up from the chair.

  “Accusations, recriminations! Do I ever hear anything else?”

  “You bring it on yourself,” the Duc replied severely. “You have spent an astronomical amount in the last few years. As I told you the last time I helped you, this cannot go on. You are not the only relative who is dependent on me.”

  “I know that,” Sardos retorted. “But you are as rich as Croesus and, while they all batten on you, why should I be the exception to be left out in the cold?”

  The Duc frowned.

  “Hardly in the cold, Sardos. I was looking at the list only yesterday of the allowances I have made to my relations over the past three years and you may be interested to know that you head it by a very large amount.”

  “I am your only nephew. And my mother is your only sister. Surely my claim is better than that of all those aunts and cousins who all cry ‘poverty, poverty’ the moment they see you.”

  “I would point out,” the Duc replied, “that they are very grateful for what they receive and it ensures that they live in no more than reasonable comfort. Naturally they cannot throw money about in the way that you do on the prostitutes of Paris, who are notorious for their extravagance.”

  “No one of course knows that better than you, Uncle Armond,” Sardos de Thiviers said rudely.

  But, as he saw the expression on the Duc’s face, his tone changed.

  “Please, Uncle Armond, please help me. I am in a dreadful mess and am being threatened by my creditors. I cannot stave them off any longer.”

  The Duc did not answer.

  He was thinking that he had heard this plea so often.

  The words his nephew used were almost identical to those he had heard the time before and the time before that.

  “I promise,” Sardos went on, “I promise on everything I hold sacred that I will not get into such debt again. But help me, please, help me. This is the cry of a drowning man.”

  There was something over-dramatic and over-theatrical in the way he spoke that the Duc disliked.

  Once again he remembered that his nephew had said the same thing in this same room the last time he had come to the château.

  The Duc glanced at the clock.

  “I see,” he said, “that it is time for déjeuner. I therefore suggest we postpone this conversation until later in the day. I presume that you will be staying here and I suggest that you sit down with my secretary and make a list of everything you owe, stating in each case the sum and who it is due to. Then we will discuss it and I will decide whether or not I will help you.”

  As he finished speaking, he walked towards the door and, before his nephew could reply, had left the room.

  Alone Sardos clenched his fists and stamped his feet.

  ‘Curse him, curse him,’ he said to himself. ‘Why the hell cannot he give me the money and let me get on with it?’

  He knew as he spoke that he hated his uncle.

  He wished that he could reverse their positions and be able to tell the Duc h
ow much he disliked everything to do with the family.

  Then he told himself that his only hope was somehow to persuade the Duc to finance him.

  If that meant he would have to eat humble pie and kiss his boots, then that was what he would do.

  At the same time he could feel his hatred of his own position sweeping over him like a tidal wave.

  He had always been jealous of the importance of his mother’s family.

  While his father had undoubtedly been an aristocrat, he could not compete with the magnificence and distinction of the Duc de Roux.

  The estate Sardos despised was in fact quite a pleasant one with distinct possibilities.

  The ancient château had been in the Thiviers family for several generations. It was, however, in a quiet and unfashionable part of Normandy.

  From the moment Sardos had grown up, his one idea had been to go away and to enjoy himself in Paris.

  A dashing young man was always welcome in the fast Parisian Society that was not accepted by members of the Ancien Régime.

  Sardos was in his own way a success.

  He was young and ardent, so women gave him their favours even though he could not pay as heavy a price as older and less attractive men.

  Sardos longed to be important.

  Even if it was only among the women his mother found unacceptable and the men who would never have been invited to the Château de Roux.

  It all proved very expensive.

  When he could extract no more from his neglected land and dilapidated home, he was forced to approach the Duc.

  ‘I hate him! I hate him!’ Sardos told himself.

  However, knowing that luncheon would be ready, he walked down the passage towards the Salon d’Or.

  It was where he knew the Duc and all the guests who were staying in the château would have assembled before the meal was announced.

  There was quite a collection of relatives who made every possible excuse to stay at the château and nowhere else in France would they have been so comfortable.

  Nor would the food have been so good, the wines so superb and their host so charming.

  It infuriated Sardos that, while he hated his uncle, the rest of the family adored him as if he was a King if not a God.

  They surrounded him now with, he thought, the expression of fawning spaniels on their faces.

  They were listening to the Duc as if he had just dropped down from MountOlympus.

  As he entered the salon, the Duc announced,

  “We have another guest whom I think you were not expecting to see and here he is.”

  Most of them naturally turned round and then exclaimed,

  “Sardos! What a surprise!”

  They were nearly all aunts and cousins.

  The men, who were either husbands of his relatives or contemporaries of the Duc, looked at him, he thought, with contempt.

  ‘I hate them too,’ he told himself.

  Outwardly he was smiling with the charm he could switch on when it suited him.

  It made the elderly of his female relatives invariably speak of him as ‘a delightful boy’.

  He paid the older women compliments and he flirted with those who were younger.

  By the time they went into the dining room everyone seemed to be in a good humour.

  It was only the Duke who was watching Sardos somewhat carefully.

  He was aware that he would try to extract money from some of his older relatives if there was a possibility of their having any to spare.

  The food in the Great Banqueting Hall, which could hold fifty or sixty guests with ease, was excellent.

  The Duc was an epicure as well as a connoisseur and he expected perfection in everything that concerned him.

  Because in France everyone talked across the table as well as to their partners on either side, the conversation sparkled.

  Sardos found himself being as witty and as entertaining as he could be in Paris and the women there were skilled in drawing out a man to make him feel at his best.

  Only when the meal was over and most of the guests had returned to the Salon d’Or did the Duc disappear.

  He had some correspondence to attend to and he wanted to think about the problem of Sardos before he spoke to him again.

  He did not go to the petit salon where he often sat but to the library.

  He thought that Sardos would not follow him there.

  He had a desk in the library that he used for his more formal affairs.

  Also for the history of the Roux family that he was compiling when he had time.

  The Family Tree was, in fact, laid out on the desk.

  The Duc had been following it down through the ages and as he sat down he saw at the bottom of it his own name.

  Beside it there was the name of his wife, a wife who had married him and died the same year.

  Although it had happened over nine years ago, the Duc knew that he would never forget.

  It had been an appalling disaster.

  The Duc’s father had, as was usual in aristocratic families, decided when his only son, Armond, was quite young whom he should marry.

  It had seemed to him a most admirable idea because his estate and that of the Marquis de Lascaux marched side by side.

  To join them would make the two families, already the most significant in the Dordogne, even stronger than they were already.

  The Marquis’s daughter, the Duc’s father saw with satisfaction, was extremely pretty.

  Although he had seen very little of her, he was quite certain that she would prove to be the right wife for his son as soon as he was twenty-one.

  It was usual in France for the heirs to grand titles to be married as young as possible and it was in the best tradition of their ancestors.

  Armond grew up into an extremely attractive young man.

  He was a brilliant equestrian and excelled as a swordsman and he won a great many distinctions both at school and at University.

  There was not a family in France that would not have been thrilled to be united with the Duc de Roux and he could have picked and chosen a daughter-in-law from any of them.

  However, the Duc had made up his mind and given his word.

  There was no question that Armond should marry anyone but she, who was literally ‘the girl next door’.

  The young people saw very little of each other because Armond was sowing his wild oats in Paris.

  Also he was already racing a few horses of his own besides being tremendously interested in those belonging to his father.

  He shot and was outstanding at hunting wild boar.

  He was invited to stay in almost every country in Europe by young aristocrats of his own age who found him a delightful companion.

  The marriage took place with all the pomp and ceremony that could be imagined.

  An Archbishop and two Bishops took part in the service and His Holiness the Pope sent a special message to the bride and bridegroom from the Vatican.

  The presents that the young couple received filled three rooms in the Marquis’s château.

  Armond looked amazingly handsome and his bride was beautiful.

  Older women wiped away a tear as they drove away on their honeymoon and the showers of rose petals threatened to fill their carriage.

  *

  It was after they had been alone together for two weeks that Armond faced the truth.

  His wife, so lovely to look at, was mad.

  She was either vain, surly and almost silent or else she was screaming hysterically and quite unapproachable.

  He was sensible enough to realise that he had been caught in a trap.

  His wife’s parents had been so anxious to be allied with his family and they had therefore deliberately never let anyone have the least inkling of the truth.

  He realised when it was too late that he had practically never been alone with Cecilia.

  When they were together, he had always been suspicious that there was someone listening at the do
or.

  He knew now that it was not because Cecilia’s parents had been afraid that he might frighten her but that she might frighten him!

  He took her back to her home and he forced his father and the Marquis to face the truth.

  Cecilia was taken to what was called a hospital.

  It was, in fact, an asylum and she died before she had been there a year, which was for everyone concerned a merciful release.

  But it left Armond with a horror of marriage, which made him swear that never again would he be trapped.

  Never again would he allow anyone to arrange his life for him.

  What actually happened was that Armond de Roux grew up and became a man.

  He was only twenty-one and had been to all intents and purposes completely under his father’s thumb. Not reluctantly or resentfully for he genuinely loved and admired his father.

  He thought that the old Duc did know what was best for him.

  Now he told himself that he would be his own master and that no one should ever again interfere in his way of life.

  Of course it made him autocratic and what his family thought was extremely obstinate.

  But what it really was, was a strong overwhelming determination to do what he wanted and not to be guided or pressured by anyone.

  Of course, like all men, he tried to wipe away from his mind the horror of what had happened.

  Naturally he went to the one Capital in the world that catered for a man who had been disillusioned.

  Paris welcomed him with open arms.

  He spent a brief period of time with the more alluring courtesans.

  But soon he discovered the beautiful and more exotic married women of his own class.

  They were only too ready to enjoy an affaire de coeur with the most handsome and exciting young man they had ever met.

  To begin with he sought the favours of women older than himself.

  It was an education in the art of love, which the French excel at.

  It was an education for any young and ardent Romeo.

  Then gradually as he grew older he became more fastidious and more difficult to please.

  He found women of his own age but never those who were young or unsophisticated.

  It was as if the ghost of Cecilia, her white veil trailing over her lovely face with its vacant eyes, haunted him.