They arrived at the Lothaire at such a late hour the next night that Rosalie did not stir from her bed until midmorning. She was lifted out of slumber by the heat of the sunshine that gleamed through the windows of her bedroom, and the muffled sounds of knocking, low voices, and the closing of a door. Sliding into a light robe, Rosalie opened her chamber door and rubbed her eyes as she regarded the scene before her. She was quiet, uncertain of whether or not to interrupt Rand’s thoughts. Unaware of her presence, lie sat at the Sheraton table with his broad, firmly tapered back toward her. He opened a note and scanned it quickly. Then his shoulders sagged slightly, as if in relief. Rosalie tilted her head in sleepy curiosity, for she seldom caught him in an unguarded moment. He whispered something to himself, the words indistinguishable as they were borne to her ears on a warm breeze from the window.
“Rand?” Immediately his head turned, dark amber hair seeming to come alive and then settle back into place as he stared at her. Wariness flashed in his hazel eyes, and then was replaced by a smoky look of rapidly deepening interest. Following his gaze, Rosalie stared down at herself and then hastily jerked her robe around her body, realizing that the pink-hued peaks of her breasts shone through the silk of her nightgown in the brightness of the morning light. In silence she sat down at the table, folding her hands primly in front of her body. Rosalie could not help turning red in consciousness of her reaction to him, for she had found lately that she was spending a great deal of time thinking about the occasions when he had touched her . . . about how warm his skin was, how large and firm his hands were. And when the light shone on his hair, illuminating the golden streaks in the dark amber mass, she wondered what it would be like to let her fingers play through the well-cropped thickness of it, for his hair shone like satin and would surely be a delight to the touch. At first Rosalie had been horrified at her own thoughts, but after having lived with them for weeks, she was becoming accustomed to her own insatiable curiosity about him.
“Bad news?” she asked as his fingers half-crumpled the letter.
“No, not at all.” Although his words were positively spoken, something in Rand’s manner revealed an opposite emotion as he threw a quick glance down at the paper in his hand. “Very good news, courtesy of this morning’s packet ship. I’ve received authorization from the earl to take care of something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”
“Oh?” Her one word was loaded with encouragement for him to continue.
Rand smiled reluctantly at Rosalie’s expectant expression.
“You’re obviously determined to find out everything.” His voice was softer now, curling at the edges with the beginnings of wry amusement.
“I’m interested,” she acknowledged. “Or do you have a monopoly on the enjoyment of good news?” She continued to stare at him in silent entreaty until he relented.
“I’ve wanted to sell off some family property here in France. The d’Angoux estate. Most of the land has been divided and leased to tenant farmers. I want to sell it to them. It’s of little use to the earl, but it’s been a battle to obtain his consent to break up the holdings.”
“Why? If the earl doesn’t need it—”
“Because it belonged to my mother, Helene Marguerite. She was the daughter of the Marquis d’Angoux, the last of the line. The Berkeleys, the earl in particular,
table.
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have certain notions of family obligation
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of
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. Now that my mother is no longer alive, we have no ties to the d’Angouxs, but Grandfather has insisted for years on keeping the d’Angoux estate.” Rand smiled rather grimly. “Since I am the eldest grandson, it’s been dangled in front of me for years.”
“But you don’t want it?”
“I’d rather have a ball and chain manacled to my neck.”
“Oh.” Rosalie frowned as she considered his darkening expression, and decided to pursue another subject. “So . . . you are half-French?” When he nodded, she smiled with a hint of self-satisfaction. “I knew you must be partly French. Your accent is so clear . . .”
“My mother spoke French more often than English.” Rosalie hesitated for several seconds as she contemplated him. How bewildering his manner was—one moment ago he had been amused; now suddenly he was preoccupied and distant. Although it was not unlike him to sometimes jump from mood to mood in the manner of a foraging honeybee, he was unquestionably disturbed about something, and she wondered why the subject of his mother’s estate would have this effect on him.
“You were fond of your mother?” she asked daringly. Rand shrugged. “I don’t remember much about her.” “She passed away when you were very young?” “I wasn’t that young.” He sighed and absently
dropped the note onto the floor. “She didn’t have much to do with Colin and me. She and my father, Robert, lived in London while we were raised in Warwick by a staff of servants.” One side of his mouth lifted in selfmocking humor. “Colin and I ran wild in the country, barely fit to be seen by anyone in polite society.”
“So that’s where you learned your manners,” Rosalie said gravely. Rand glanced upward with quick suspicion, and then he smiled lazily as he realized that she was teasing him.
Rosalie was so entranced by his slow smile, the sunlit twinkle in his hazel eyes, that her breath caught in her throat. If given the option, she would have sat there all day merely looking at him with a new sense of feminine appreciation. It was an effort for her to continue the conversation.
“And your mother, she liked to be in London more than with you?” she asked. The concept was not an unusual one, but Rosalie felt that it was unnatural for a woman not to want to be with her children. It was more common among the upper classes to have their offspring raised by servants and strangers than the lower classes.
“It was better with her there,” Rand assured her, and then the sketching of humor left his face. “For that matter, it was better with my father in London as well.
But he moved to Warwick permanently when I was in my early teens.”
“He wanted to be with—”
“He had gout. Severe gout. He was in agony most of the time, in so much pain that a mere sheet over his leg would make him howl. Understandably, that made him unfit to stay in London. He became a drunkard because of it.”
“Is that why you don’t drink often?” Rosalie asked, wondering why his face was becoming shuttered as she delved further into the subject. “I’ve never seen you take anything but a sip of wine—”
“Do you know what I find interesting?” Rand parried, his eyes looking more green than usual in the morning light. “You’re unusually direct for a woman. I’ve never met one that dares to look a man straight in the face quite like you do.” In his experience, a gaze of uncompromising straightforwardness came only from whores who eyed a man with brassy promise or from little girls who had not yet learned the artifice of flirtation.
Rosalie’s cheeks colored and her glance flickered away to focus on the window. “I know. It’s unladylike.” “Yes, it is.” It was impossible to discern whether he approved or disapproved of her directness. “Why are you trying to change the subject?” she
persisted.
Their eyes met in challenge, hers questioning, his unfathomable.
Suddenly Rosalie felt like a bumbling detective who had stumbled onto a significant clue. Something was important about her question; there was something he was reluctant for her to know about. It became immediately imperative for her to discover what it was.
“It’s nothing you would care to hear about,” Rand said dismissively.
“You care so much about my opinion of you?” Rosalie inquired, her soft words taunting. She knew that he rarely, if ever, explained himself or his actions to anyone, but perhaps she could gain what she sought if she provoked him enough.
“You expect a Brummellian tale,” Rand said with a grim smile. “All I have to offer is a mundane recollection of childhood, sordid enough in its own way. No, I don’t think you would be interested.”
“Sordid backgrounds come by the baker’s dozen, anywhere you’d care to look.”
As Rand heard the hint of challenge in her tone, he suddenly felt the inexplicable need to shock her, to peel away the covering from his wounds and witness her disgust.
“You wonder why I never drink?” he asked, his tone light and honed, like the blade of a steel knife. “I used to. Quite a lot. Like a swine at a trough, as the earl so tactfully puts it. When I was younger, my father was told by a quack that red wine would cure his gout and prevent the affliction in someone who hadn’t developed it yet. He needed little encouragement to develop an already established habit of drinking constantly. And then Father affected a sudden concern for me, although I suspect he was mainly looking for some activity to ease his boredom. The gout would come and go, and when the pain had eased, he would become restless. I remember the first night it happened . . . he cornered me in the library with a wine bottle in his hand.” Rand looked down at his hands and unclenched them as he continued. “I took a swallow to placate him, and found to my immediate discomfort that he intended to pour half the bottle down my throat. I struggled, but he was a large man. Being of smaller stature, I wasn’t in much of a position to disagree with him. The same thing happened daily, as long as his gout wasn’t with him. I used to thank God when his pain would start again. Colin was next in line, but most of the time he managed to hide as I was getting my share of Father’s . . . attention.” Rosalie flinched at the way he spoke, his voice self-mocking, his face blunted with a mixture of emotions too complex to untangle. The awful, wrenching pity of it trickled steadily through her veins. “Your mother,” she asked in a voice as raspy as aging leaves, “did she know?”
“She knew. She didn’t take it upon herself to say anything. As I said, she preferred not to become too involved with us. She refused to leave London except for her occasional trips to her family chateau in France.” “Your grandparents—”
“Only suspected. They lived on the Severn, at Berkeley Castle. Not at Warwick.”
“How long did he . . . how long did this last?” Rand smiled, his expression tainted with the poison of memories that were never far from the surface. “Until I stopped resisting. And then . . . then I began to drink without hesitation. I drank freely. I wandered
through the next two or three years in a sodden haze. You can imagine the types of situations I was in and out of. Then in eighty-nine, the first year of the French revolution, my mother died at Chateau d’Angoux in childbirth, taking the baby with her. My father might have mourned her more deeply had the child she carried been his.”
“And you?” Rosalie questioned softly. No wonder, she thought with compassion, no wonder that his eyes were sometimes so bleak. No wonder he had cut such a reckless swath through London. Some memories left no quarter for anything but the need to escape. “I drank myself into a two-day stupor as all the
relatives gathered together at Warwick for the funeral. When I woke up, I was with my grandparents on the way to the castle. They attributed my . . . problem to the liberal amount of French blood in my veins. As soon as I dried out I was sent to school, while Colin stayed with the earl. A year later my father was gone.” Rand sent her a look filled with self-disgust. “I was born to follow in such a lofty tradition. I’m sure you agree I’ve shown the potential of living up to it.”
They were silent for a few minutes. In an effort to subdue the compassionate ache in her chest, Rosalie breathed in and out in a regular pattern. Frozen to her chair, she sifted rapidly through ideas of what to say to him. She didn’t know how to respond, how to act. The realization pounded through her head that he had trusted her enough to have confided in her, and the knowledge made her exultant and afraid. Rand, she cried silently, how can I help you? They both waited in the tense stillness for someone to make the first move. Gradually Rosalie came to the conclusion that any offering of sympathy on her part would be disastrous. He was a proud man, and in this moment he could be humiliated. In her confusion and concern, it didn’t occur to Rosalie that now was the perfect moment for revenge, that one cutting remark could scar him deeply. “I can understand a little of why you would be glad to get rid of the d’Angoux estates,” she said carefully. “It will be good to cast off reminders.” She had the impression that there was much that he had kept back from her, but Rosalie did not want to risk anything more by prying. Slowly Rand raised his head, and she saw the trace of relief in his gaze at her matter-offactness, her lack of pity.
“I’d like to leave today and get it over with.” “Of course,” Rosalie agreed instantly, her voice
betraying none of her inner turmoil.
“You’ll be safe here for a few days while I make some arrangements.”
“I’ll be perfectly content.” Take me with you, she wanted to beg, and she bit her lip to keep the plea unheard.
Rand took a deep breath and stood up from the table, drawing his shoulders back to stretch them. “Do you want me to order coffee or chocolate for
you?”
“No. Please go on ahead. I have some things to do.” Smiling slightly, Rosalie waved him out of the suite, toying with the end of her long braid. When she was certain he was gone, she went into her bedchamber, releasing the emotion that had been trapped so tightly in her chest. Her heart was trembling with anguish, her cheeks becoming wet even before she closed the door behind her. As soon as the latch clicked, a sob broke from deep inside. How can you weep for him? she berated herself, wiping the tears from her face with one hand, sitting on the edge of the canopied bed. She tried to remember all he had done to her. Rand would not allow himself to feel the same for her or anyone else; she wondered if he had the capacity for tears. Furthermore, he would be repelled by her sympathy. But still the unwanted tenderness seeped through her veins like a drug, diffusing gently, softening the thick barriers by which she had sought to hold him away from her.
The farewell they exchanged was a hasty thing. They mouthed conventional words and exchanged brief, unconcerned smiles, and as the coach left the inn Rosalie felt immediate dejection. I feel like a sea wife, she thought morosely. I bid him hello and good-bye, without knowing him . . . and he leaves so easily. But why shouldn’t he? I am not his wife, she reminded herself, not even a mistress. I have no right to feel empty, no claim to force him to keep me.
She had no right to feel as though she belonged by his side.
Chateau d’Angoux was the former home of Helene Marguerite d’Angoux, although Rand would readily have argued that the term “home” had little to do with such a structure. It had ruled the landscape with stern simplicity for four centuries, built on the ruins of a castle that had challenged many an invader as far back as the tenth century. Careful efforts to soften the harsh gray of its countenance had been made. The lush ground had been allowed to produce flowers and vines of ivy that clung protectively to the edges of the bare, cone-topped towers, and small streams lined with trees wound in a seemingly artless pattern around the chateau. The gardens were splendorous, filled with rose beds that connected in intricate figures and thickets of brilliant blossoms. Yet the building still gave the appearance of a warrior waiting patiently for the battle. A small staff of servants had been retained to look after the chateau, and Rand alerted them to his presence before he prowled in the house and around the grounds. The panicked alarm that the master had come to stay was whispered rapidly from ear to ear, and from time to time Rand heard various scufflings of feet as they sought to prepare for him. Chateau d’Angoux had been beautifully kept. Still, merely being in the place where his mother had been born, courted, and married left a sour taste in his mouth, and he could not appreciate the beauty so lavishly presented.
He walked up the marble staircase, trailing his fingertips curiously along the gilded-bronze railing. The Renaissance tapestries of wine-red, ocher, black, green, and blue were of such immense proportions that Rand felt dwarfed by them. Having been here once before, he had a sudden flashback of how it had felt to look at them with the eyes of a child, and the result added to his unease. Then in one of the upstairs rooms he discovered a portrait hung precisely between two heavily framed mirrors. From the canvas Helene d’Angoux stared out into the room with an aristocratic tilt to her head, her golden hair soft and gleaming, her eyes glowing a cool, unearthly shade of green. Her lips were thin and finely drawn, stretched in a smile so soft that it looked as if the artist had caught only the premonition of humor in her expression. The house was filled with her presence, and as he strove to ignore a sense of smoldering airlessness, vague snatches of memory assailed him.
Closing his eyes, Rand could almost smell the violet scent he had always associated with her. His recollections were those of a boy—Helene, a beautiful, elusive creature, a woman full-grown with the soul of a deceitful child. She had possessed a spirit of mercury, enchanting one moment and poisonous the next. No matter how fierce his efforts to win her affection, she never stayed, she touched but never embraced, she gave enough to make what she withheld more painful.
Rand opened his eyes once more, and as he stared at her face, it was the same as always. She smiled but did not speak, she looked at him and seemed to recognize the darkness that seethed inside of him. She was dead, and yet her spirit filled the house like an invisible web, catching at him, binding until he could not move. Chateau d’Angoux had been her sanctuary—she had come back here periodically to hide from the consequences of the mischief she had wrought—and for that reason alone Rand disliked the place.
He swerved his gaze away from her and flinched as he felt the protections he’d built around himself tear like old parchment. In all those years between her death and now, he thought he had succeeded in destroying the fruitless need of love. It was still there, stronger than before.
Wryly he thought that those who enjoyed life had somehow managed to circumvent the workings of the heart. What had happened to the man he had been only a month ago? He remembered how orderly, superficial, and amusing life had been. He had once been forced to seek out feelings when the pattern of his days became too dull: he would find a new woman, spend the night gambling, roam around the city with his companions. It had been an empty life, one which had left him unable to recognize innocence when he had seen it. But somehow, unwittingly he had stumbled onto his
salvation the moment he had encountered a hapless housemaid in a London alley. Rosalie . . . who had survived the careless crush of his touch and the trial of being forcibly transplanted. He thought of her at the little country inn and wondered how she fared without him.
“Rose,” he sighed, doggedly trying to ignore a persistent yearning as he turned from the portrait.
“Reveling in my absence, no doubt. Enjoy it. for I won’t leave you again.”
Rosalie had never dreamed that time could drag so slowly. She did not know why or how everything had changed. All that was obvious to her was that each minute of solitude had once been a treasure. Now she bade the minutes fly, her heart full of impatience, her mind in need of something more stimulating than ink and paper or serene landscapes. The guest list at the inn changed at a laconic pace, and when the colonial girls and their parents left, there were no more prospects of even mildly entertaining conversation. The Lothaire was as quiet as the green, slumbering fields nearby. Safe? Rosalie fumed occasionally, remembering what Rand had said to her. She couldn’t have been safer if he had hidden her in a monastery.
She read over the few books he had brought to France—a few volumes of Shakespeare, some political analyses, an album of poems inscribed in a female hand. It was obvious from the inscription on the inside of the morocco cover that the snatches of sonnets and Byronic verse had been collected for Rand by a former mistress. At some point the giver’s name had been blotted out, whether by accident or intention it was not clear.
One day passed, two days, three days . . . It could not be much longer, could it? She pored over the French newspapers, which came out only three times a week, unlike the English ones, which were printed in daily editions. Taking pity on her boredom, the innkeeper’s wife, Madame Queneau, took Rosalie out on her daily excursion to the marketplace. Shopping began quite early in the morning, and they took a break from purchasing vegetables, ripe fruit, eggs, and meat in order to have breakfast at nine o’clock. As they sat in an open-air cafe and ate pain au chocolat, chocolate-filled
bread dusted with sugar, they watched the activities of the inhabitants of Havre. The retail stores, which had opened at six in the morning, were beginning to swarm with customers. The streets were filled with peasantdriven carts, housewives, and housemaids, all engaging in the sharp, fluid bickering of buying and selling. There was even a fortune-teller on the street corner, doing profitable business as a result of the current popularity of Spiritualism.
“You would like to have your fortune told?” Madame Queneau inquired in friendly curiosity, noticing Rosalie’s eyes on the woman. Rosalie laughed and shook her head. Since Madame Queneau could not speak English well, they carried on a conversation entirely in French. For a few minutes it almost seemed to Rosalie that she was speaking to Amille, so familiar were the wise eyes of the older woman and the perfectly intoned language. “No . . . I do not have the money, and even if I did, I don’t believe she knows my future.”
“How can one be certain?” Madame Queneau asked prosaically, her delightfully round face wearing a whimsical expression.
“Because men . . . and women . . . choose their own fate.” Rosalie smiled a little sadly. “Because I have made choices that have changed the direction of my entire life from what it was supposed to be. It was not my original destiny to be here in France, madame, nor to be with . . .” As Rosalie’s voice trailed away to nothing, Madame Queneau’s delicately set wrinkles deepened in curiosity, then lightened in sudden understanding.
“No matter what brought you together, I do not believe monsieur regrets it.”
“I don’t know what he feels,” Rosalie admitted. “It is not easy to read him.”
“This I agree with,” Madame Queneau said, taking a deep sip of cafe au lait. “He does not play the fashionable man.”
It was in style for the French bucks to imitate Byron, to sigh constantly with passion and disappointment, to go about with long hair, pale skin, to hint of longings and of weary souls. Rosalie almost smiled at the thought of Rand compared with them. He had no patience for such affectations.
“Madame . . . I would be frank if it pleases you—” “Certainement! I enjoy frankness most of the time.” “You have not remarked upon my relationship with
Monsieur de Berkeley. Do you think very badly of me for the kind of woman I appear to be?”
“Mais, non!” Madame Queneau appeared to be surprised. “Not at all. In France, the aristocrats like him cannot find love in anything besides the kind of arrangement you two have.”
“But even knowing he won’t marry me—” “Here, young men have manages de covenance all the time. After the first year, the husband and wife spend little or no time together. They have different friends,
different activities, sometimes different homes. No, your kind of love is respected by most, and cherished, for the human needs are met not in the exchanging of rings, but of hearts.”
Rosalie absorbed the statement in silence, and then she could not resist a question.
“But what of morality?”
“Morality . . .” Madame Queneau mused out loud.”I make a pact with morality, mademoiselle: I never take it
to bed with me.”
What she said made sense. But, Rosalie wondered unhappily, is that all I’ll ever be able to expect of love? Am I destined to be the third in a triangle, kept by a man, hated by his wife, sneered at by his friends? She wanted her own husband, her own life . . . but what kind of man would settle for a ruined housemaid?