Love Strikes a Devil Read online

  Madame Dubus smiled.

  “That is what I thought you would say.”

  They moved into the salon, which was next to the dining room and there was a bottle of champagne in the ice cooler.

  Charisa was not surprised.

  But she thought it odd that anyone should want to drink so early when they were in the country.

  Her father accepted a glass as if he thought that it would be somewhat churlish to refuse.

  She noticed that he sipped only a very little of it, then put it down on a side table, where it would not be noticed.

  Madame Dubus was talking to him in her usual intimate manner.

  Because she suddenly disliked the whole thing, Charisa went up to her bedroom to take off her riding clothes.

  *

  In the afternoon Charisa expected that they would go driving, but Gervais, however, now claimed that it was too hot.

  She therefore left the party and went up to the Picture Gallery.

  She was feeling half-afraid that she would see gaps where some of the pictures had been removed.

  But to her relief, they were all there.

  She reckoned that even Gervais would not dare to sell a treasure that was entailed onto future Marquises.

  She knew that her father had a copy of the inventory of the contents of The Priory.

  She had never bothered to examine it at all closely and anyway she had always thought of everything as being a part of the place and there could never be a suggestion of anything being removed let alone sold.

  She was looking at a particularly fine portrait of the second Marquis by Van Dyck, when she heard someone approaching the Gallery.

  She looked round, hoping that it was her father, but it was Gervais coming towards her.

  When he reached her side, she said, not looking at him,

  “I was just admiring this wonderful portrait by Van Dyck of the Marquis who brought to The Priory so much Louis XVI furniture from Versailles.”

  “I wondered why so many of the things seemed familiar,” Gervais exclaimed.

  Charisa looked at him in astonishment.

  “Surely you have read the history of the Mawdes?” she asked. “There are several different accounts, but much the best is one that was published only fifteen years ago.”

  “I suppose I ought to read it at some time,” Gervais said casually.

  “You ought to read it now, at once.” Charisa stated. “After all you can be very proud of your antecedents. And there is a story attached to almost everything in this house.”

  “I think it is your duty to teach me what I ought to know,” Gervais replied. “How soon, Charisa, are you going to marry me?”

  Too late Charisa remembered that she had told herself that she must be careful never to be alone with him.

  This was what she had wanted to avoid.

  Now it was too late to run away.

  “I am very honoured that you should ask me,” she managed to reply. “At the same time we have only just met each other and I would not think of marrying anyone unless I knew him very well.”

  “You know about my ancestry and I am very well aware how much the family means to you and, of course, The Priory,” Gervais said. “So what are we waiting for?”

  “It is hard to put it into words,” Charisa answered, “but it is – that I should – love you.”

  “I will make you love me,” he asserted. “There will be no difficulty about that and think how much you will enjoy running this house and spending your money to make it finer than it is at the moment.”

  Charisa did not answer.

  Then unexpectedly he put his arms around her.

  “You will love me,” he tried to reassure her, “and we will be very happy.”

  At his touch she felt the same streak of repugnance that had upset her when he had kissed her hand and it swept through her whole body.

  She had turned her face away from him, but before she could struggle free, his lips were on her cheek.

  It was not lightning that now seemed to sweep through her, but the cut of a knife.

  It was so sharp and so painful that she actually gave a little scream of terror.

  She fought against Gervais so violently that it took him by surprise.

  Before he could prevent her, she was free and running down the Gallery.

  It was as if the Devil himself was pursuing her.

  “Charisa! Charisa!” he called out.

  But by this time she was tearing down the corridor that led to the stairs.

  She went up them so quickly that by the time Gervais reached the door of the Gallery, she had disappeared.

  She ran into her bedroom and rapidly locked the door behind her.

  It was then she realised that she was breathless and trembling.

  She sat down on her bed and put her hands on her breasts as she was trying to soothe the tumult in her heart.

  ‘Why does he make me feel like this?’ she asked herself.

  She could not explain the sheer horror Gervais evoked when he touched her or the intensity of it.

  When she had been in London, Charisa had received three proposals of marriage.

  She had refused them all, but she hated to be so unkind.

  She was well aware that in one instance at any rate it was her fortune that had counted more than anything else.

  At the same time there had been a note of sincerity even in that man’s voice.

  She had thought that he was also in love with her as a woman.

  The other two men had been genuinely in love and she had tried to be as gentle as possible with them.

  She told them that what she felt for them was friendship and that she hoped never to lose them.

  But it was not love and for marriage that was essential.

  Where Gervais was concerned, she knew now that she hated him.

  The feeling of repugnance she had when he touched her was so strong that she found it unbearable even to be close to him in the same room.

  ‘There is something wrong – very – wrong,’ she thought to herself.

  Equally she was slightly ashamed at being hysterical about it.

  Having tidied her hair, she forced herself to go downstairs to find her father and, as she expected, he was still being monopolised by Madame Dubus.

  She therefore challenged the Comte to a game of backgammon and he was only too pleased to play with her.

  When later Gervais came back into the salon, there was a look in his eyes that Charisa did not understand.

  When she had refused other men, they had looked at her pleadingly and they obviously hoped that she would change her mind.

  But she had the uncomfortable feeling that there was something hard and cruel in Gervais’s expression.

  She felt that he was determined to have his own way and to save herself she would have to fight.

  ‘The sooner we leave The Priory, the better,’ she thought.

  She decided that she must speak to her father about it.

  Unfortunately she did not have the chance before they went upstairs to dress for dinner.

  She learnt only just before they did so that a number of other guests had been invited.

  There was nobody exciting, just members of the Mawde family who Gervais was making a tremendous fuss over.

  He seemed to beguile them in a way that gave them confidence in him an, of course, he asked for their help.

  He obviously was trying to make them believe that he was the most charming and pleasant Head of the Family it was possible for them to have.

  When the ladies left the gentlemen, one of Gervais’s aunts said to Charisa,

  “I am very upset, dear child, to learn how impoverished poor dear Gervais is.”

  “Did he tell you that?” Charisa asked.

  “Yes, he did,” the aunt replied, “but you do understand, my dear, that if he cannot afford to make me the allowance I have always had, I don’t know how I shall be able to manage.”

>   Charisa knew that it was traditional, as in most great families, for the Marquis to control most of the family money.

  He gave allowances to most of his relatives, especially those who were widowed or unmarried.

  And she knew that it was one of the reasons the last Marquis had relied so tremendously on her father.

  She could not help feeling that this would be another weighty argument Gervais would use to compel her to marry him.

  However, she could not bear to see the old aunt so upset and so she put her hand over hers as she said,

  “Don’t worry. I will talk to Papa and see if he can make Gervais understand the position better than he does at the moment.”

  It made her angry to think that Gervais was spending so much on wine and champagne.

  He was also doubtless paying the fares for his friends from Paris as well.

  He would entertain them royally while threatening to cut down the not very large allowances his relatives had been receiving.

  When she counted them up, she realised despairingly that there were about twenty elderly men and women who were dependent on him.

  They would suffer acutely if he told them that they could no longer expect the allowances that they had received year after year from his uncle.

  ‘I must talk to Papa,’ she determined.

  But it seemed impossible to get him alone.

  Finally, when the dinner party broke up and the guests were leaving, she went upstairs.

  She knew that she had to think out exactly what she should say to her father.

  Yet she had the strange feeling that the Abbot was still telling her to keep silent.

  Why he should do so, she still had no idea.

  Before she climbed into bed she pulled back the curtains over the window to gaze up at the stars.

  “Help me! Help me!” she whispered.

  She was not certain whether she was praying to the Abbot or to her mother.

  She left the curtains undrawn as the moonlight was so very lovely and soothing as it illuminated the room.

  Once in bed she looked up again at the stars.

  As they shone like the Star of Bethlehem, she prayed for the troubles that seemed to be encroaching on her one by one.

  *

  Charisa had fallen asleep and was dreaming when she heard a voice say,

  “Charisa!”

  It was part of her dream and yet it came again.

  “Charisa – wake up!”

  She opened her eyes and saw a man’s head silhouetted against the moonlight.

  Sleepily, she thought that it must be her father.

  Then the voice said,

  “Don’t be frightened, Charisa. It is Vincent!”

  Still half-asleep, she muttered,

  “Vincent – is – dead.”

  As she spoke, she opened her eyes.

  The man was now sitting on her bed looking down at her and he replied,

  “No, Charisa, I am alive.”

  For a moment she could only stare.

  Then she gave a cry.

  “Vincent! Is it – really – you?”

  “It is me and I am indeed alive!”

  Charisa sat up.

  Then she flung her arms around Vincent’s neck and hugged him as she had done as a child.

  “Vincent! Vincent! Can it – really be – true?”

  His arms went round her and he held her close.

  “It is true,” he answered. “And Charisa, I need your help. I need it desperately!”

  Charisa’s cheek was against his.

  “They – said you were – dead. Oh, Vincent, why did – they think you were – dead?”

  “That is what I am going to explain to you,” he replied.

  He held her a little away from him and saw the tears running down her cheeks.

  They were tears of happiness because he was there and alive.

  Vincent took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her eyes very gently.

  “When I saw you were in this room,” he said, “it was just what I wanted. I was wondering how I could get in touch with you.”

  “H-how did you – how did you – get in?” Charisa asked.

  Then before he could answer she gave an exclamation.

  “You came – through the – secret passages!”

  “Yes, of course.”

  She wiped the remaining tears from her eyes with her fingers.

  “Tell me what has happened.”

  Then she gave another cry.

  “Oh, Vincent – then you are – the real – Marquis and – Gervais is making such a – mess of everything.”

  “I thought he would,” Vincent said grimly. “But before I tell you the whole story, Charisa, and I have a great deal to say – could you possibly find me something to eat?”

  Charisa stared at him.

  “You are – hungry?”

  “I ran out of money and have had nothing to eat since yesterday.”

  Charisa gave a gasp of horror.

  “I will go and fetch you something,” she said. “In the meantime – ”

  She reached out towards the table beside her bed.

  At The Priory Mrs. Bush always put a bottle of fresh water beside every guest’s bed. And there was also a small tin containing biscuits in case they felt hungry in the night.

  Charisa handed the tin to Vincent.

  Without saying anything, he opened it and started to eat the biscuits, not greedily, but as if he savoured every mouthful.

  “I will go and find you some food,” she said.

  “For God’s sake don’t let anybody realise I am here,” he then told her firmly.

  “Why not?”

  “That is what I am going to explain to you.”

  Charisa jumped out of bed and crossed the room.

  Her negligee was lying on a chair.

  For a moment her body in the thin nightgown was silhouetted against the moonlight and Vincent realised that, while he had been thinking of her as the child he had left behind, she was now very much a woman.

  As Charisa buttoned up her negligee, she said,

  “I will not be long. No one will come in, but if you feel afraid that they might – then lock the door.”

  “If it is anyone but you,” Vincent replied, “I will go back into the secret passage.”

  She smiled at him before she went from the room.

  She was now feeling as if her head was in a whirl.

  How was it possible that Vincent was alive and why was he in hiding?

  She was so curious that she could hardly bear to go downstairs and leave him.

  At the same time in the glimpse she had of him in the moonlight he looked very different from how she remembered him.

  He was wearing a shirt that was open at the neck.

  Even in her quick glance he seemed to be almost in rags.

  He wore no coat and she thought that she saw a bare knee was protruding through his trousers.

  ‘What has happened? Why is he in such a state?’ she asked herself.

  Then she knew she must concentrate on finding him something to eat.

  Like a ghost she moved barefoot over the soft carpet to the far end of the corridor and then she went down a small staircase that she knew would lead her to the kitchens.

  Everybody was asleep.

  There was, however, one dangerous moment when she had to pass the pantry as one of the footmen always slept by the safe that contained all the silver.

  As she neared it, moving slowly just in case anyone was about, Charisa could hear him snoring.

  Reassured, she went down the flagged passage that led her straight to the kitchens.

  They were very large and old and they had been built so that food could be cooked for at least fifty monks several times a day.

  Everything here was very quiet.

  Although the flagstones, which had been scrubbed clean, were cold beneath Charisa’s feet, she moved on.

  She made her way to w
here the larders were beyond the kitchens.

  There had always been huge open bowls in there holding milk that was turning to cream.

  The larders were lower than ground level so that they were cool in all weathers

  And there were large slabs where the food stood.

  They were made of marble that had been put there centuries ago.

  The windows were uncurtained and in the moonlight it was easy for Charisa to find what she sought.

  She found her way to where the serving plates were kept. They were near the door beside which were also the carving knives and forks.

  Picking up a plate she went first to where she could see that there were the remains of a salmon and it was obviously what had been served at dinner.

  Thinking quickly she knew that it would be a mistake to take much of any one dish.

  Mrs. Jones had been the cook at The Priory ever since she could remember. She had a keen eye and might easily accuse one of the kitchen staff of helping themselves.

  Charisa cut a medium slice of the salmon.

  She then took two slices of ox tongue that she remembered seeing on the sideboard at breakfast time as well as two slices of home-cured ham.

  A joint of meat that she suspected had been served for supper in the servants’ hall provided several more slices.

  She felt sure that what she had taken would not be missed.

  On another slab there was a bowl of mixed salad and what was left of the sauce that went with it.

  By this time the plate that she was carrying was nearly full.

  She went towards the door, stopping only to pick up half a cottage loaf.

  It had been baked early that morning and she added a large pat of butter. This had been made at The Priory and the Marquis’s crest had been stamped on it.

  Cautiously, because she was taking no chances, Charisa opened the door of the larder.

  Everything was silent as she started to walk back over the cold flagstones.

  She had nearly reached the dining room when she heard the footman still snoring in the pantry.

  It was then she thought that there might be something left of the wines that had been passed round at dinner.

  There had been champagne, which they had also drunk in the salon.

  There had been what she knew was an excellent and expensive white wine and a vintage claret.

  She was aware that during the late Marquis’s illness and earlier, when he was not well, the cellars had not been replenished.