All the Sweet Tomorrows (23 page)

“Did you love the other men you were married to, Skye?” he asked her curiously. “Did they not object to your strong will?”

“I loved three of them,” she said. “Each was a different man, and yet each possessed a great capacity to love. Yes, I loved them, and they loved me. None ever objected to my ways.” Her face was alight with her memories, and he caught his breath in wonder at how incredibly beautiful she was.

Leaning over and taking her hand, he turned it and kissed the palm. Her eyes regarded him seriously. She felt nothing for him, although she knew he was trying, and so she felt that she must try also. There was no other choice. She withdrew her hand from his and, reaching out, touched his cheek. He looked back at her, his glance equally serious and unsmiling.

“I know that the Bible says it is wrong for a man and a woman to show themselves as God created them, but at this moment I wish for nothing more than to see you naked. Will you grant me that wish, Skye?”

Drawing the covers off, she rose from the bed. “I am sure,” she said, “that it is Pastor Lichault who has told you this, Fabron, but I believe he is wrong. The Bible says that we were created in God’s image, and if that be so, how can it be wrong to admire what God hath wrought, what God is?” She turned slowly so he might have a full and complete view of her body.

He almost wept at her beauty; the small perfect breasts, the graceful line of her buttocks and legs, the slender grace of her waist, the long line of her back, her shapely arms. Everything was perfection, but for the marks of his rod on her skin. They would fade, but seeing them, he felt guilty. “You cannot be real,” he said. “The pastor is right! Women are an invention of the Devil! Cover yourself, madame!”

In answer she flung herself upon the bed next to him. “No, Fabron,” she said firmly. She had made up her mind to fight the ignorance and superstition of the Huguenot. She was the duc’s wife now, and she was not going to allow Pastor Lichault either to rule or destroy her marriage. “The Bible tells us that woman was created by God from the rib of Adam, the first man.”

“How do you know this? Who told it to you?”

“No one told me, Fabron. The Bible has been translated into English, and I have seen it, and read it with my own eyes.”

“Your wicked Church forbids that you know what is in the Bible,” was his answer.

“The Church forbids many things, Fabron, and I do not always agree with them.” She smiled a small smile at him. “I told
you that I was not the best of Catholics. The Bible was translated, and I wanted to read what it said. I did.”

“Do you always do what you want, madame?” His black eyes were stern, but the little hint of humor was there in his voice again.

“The choice is not always mine, Fabron, but when it is I usually choose to please myself, yes.” What a strange man he was, Skye thought. He was tortured and guilt-ridden, and he had been cruel to her, yet she felt sorry for him.

Their eyes met, and then he reached out his hand and smoothed it down the curve of her hip. “It is wrong surely to make love in the daylight,” he said low, and she saw he wanted her.

“Has Pastor Lichault said it?” she gently teased, watching him from beneath hooded lids.

“The subject has never come up, Skye. I have never read it was so in the Bible, have you?”

“No, monseigneur, I have not.”

His hand moved to fondle her buttock. “Have you ever before made love in the daylight?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered him. She could see how very roused he was by her body, by their conversation, by the picture in his mind that their talk had aroused. With a sob he was pushing her back against the pillows to fumble with her breasts, all the while murmuring, “Surely such pleasure must be wrong! We should not do this thing. We should not!” Yet he was possessing her quickly, before she was even ready for him, moistening his fingers in his mouth and rubbing them against her cleft, pushing eagerly into her to satisfy his own desires.

Skye closed her eyes, and let him have his way as he sobbed and thrust atop her. At least, she thought relieved, he is capable of functioning without cruelty. In time I will teach him to give me pleasure too if I can but free him from his fears. How odd, she thought. For the first time in my life it is I, and not the man, who is in charge of the lovemaking.

Then with a wild cry the duc collapsed, sated with his lust. Although she was not yet ready to forgive him his brutality she felt strangely sympathetic toward him. He was really quite a sad man, a weak man filled with fears and prejudices. He was susceptible, however, to strength in others, and she was strong. Until now there had only been Pastor Lichault to influence him, but she would overcome that unpleasant creature, for if she did not
she would find life with her new husband a living hell; and she could certainly not bring her children into such an atmosphere.

For many days Skye and Fabron remained alone together within her chambers. They spoke at length and as she listened she learned much about her new husband. There had never, she decided, been any real love in his life, and he was suffering greatly from its lack. The only person who had ever given him honest affection, it seemed, was Edmond, his nephew. His mother, a distant cousin of France’s queen mother, Catherine de Medici, had been a cold and correct woman who, having borne her two children, left them to the casual care of others. His father had been a stern man of high principles and lusty appetites who had never once made an affectionate gesture toward either of his sons, being far too busy running the duchy—and pursuing the ladies, which he did equally well.

The only person who had ever offered Fabron warmth and affection was the castle priest, Père Henri, and perhaps from this had come his desire to join the Church, to emulate the man whom he most admired. His father, of course, would not hear of it, and Fabron de Beaumont had grown bitter. Père Henri had understood both parties, and had tried to mediate between father and son. If it was God’s will that Fabron de Beaumont be a priest he would have been born the younger son, Père Henri insisted, hoping to satisfy both men, but this argument wore thin and grew more suspect with each miscarriage of Fabron de Beaumont’s wives and their deaths. Then his father died, and there was no escape from his responsibilities. His younger brother was dead, injured in a tournament, and his only legitimate male relation was his dwarf nephew. He was forced to take another wife.

While Fabron awaited his bride Pastor Lichault had begun to work his evil upon the easily susceptible duc. Yes, the cleric had agreed with the guilt-ridden man, the past was indeed God’s judgment upon him for not having followed his conscience, but now God was sending him a new wife. It was time for a fresh start. A new wife, a new faith. The pastor spoke with authority and quoted the Bible with apparent knowledge. Desperate to succeed with this new wife where he had failed with his others, the duc was swayed from the faith of his fathers, and with the zeal of all converts he embraced his new faith with passion.

Now his beautiful new wife had introduced a strong element of doubt into his mind. She was all the things that the pastor had said a woman shouldn’t be; she was totally different from any
woman he had ever known; and yet after almost three weeks of marriage to Skye he believed that for the first time in his life he might be falling in love. Skye! It was an outrageous name, but he was already used to it and liked it. She had been named after the island from which her mother had come, Skye had told him. Strange, it suited her. She was not a Marie or a Jeanne or a Renée.

She was beautiful, and willful; and gentle and independent; and tender and intelligent. She was, in fact, all the things he had never before even considered in a wife except perhaps beautiful. She had yet to refuse him her body, although his two previous wives had always been seeking excuses to avoid their wifely duties, and then when he had finished with them they had moved quickly away from him. Skye always snuggled next to him, or held him within her own arms. He found he liked that in particular, pillowing his head upon her soft breasts, breathing the marvelous rose fragrance of her. She was cleaner and sweeter than any woman he had ever known.

One night she said to him as he lay sated with pleasure, “Do you know, Fabron, that you have never kissed me?”

He was startled, for he had never been one for
that
kind of closeness. Nonetheless he suddenly wanted to please her, to give back some of the kindness she was bestowing upon him despite their wretched beginning; a beginning he winced at when he remembered it. “Would it please you if I kissed you, Skye?” he asked her anxiously.

“Yes,” she said softly, “it would please me greatly,
mon mari.
”

Raising himself upon one elbow, he bent his head down and touched his lips gently to hers, drawing away as quickly as though he had been burned. With a soft laugh Skye drew his head back down with her hands, and pressed her mouth to his ardently. Fabron de Beaumont felt a delicious weakness race through his veins, felt his flaccid manhood tingle and stir to life again.

“That
, monseigneur,” she said as she released her hold on him and drew her mouth from his, “that is a kiss. Not altogether an unpleasant thing, is it?”

“Are you mocking me, madame?” he demanded, but his dark eyes belied the sternness of his tone.

“Perhaps a little,” she replied. “Laughter goes with love,
mon mari.
”

“You lack respect for me, madame,” he said, “and I must
claim a forfeit for this absence of decorum.” Then he was kissing her, sweeping her into his arms, his lips seeking her sweetness with a gentle strength that quite surprised her. For the first time since their marriage a tiny tingle of desire stirred within Skye. Perhaps, she thought, there is hope for us after all.

He held her lightly against him, and she knew that he gained tremendous pleasure from the proximity of her body, the warmth and the silkiness of her smooth perfumed flesh. “Do you like it when I caress you?” he asked her hesitantly.

“Yes,” she whispered to him.

“Do you like it when I kiss and caress your lovely breasts?”

“Yes,
mon mari
, I like it very much,” was her soft answer.

“I want you to like it,” he said in what Skye thought was a shy voice. “I want you to like it when I make love to you.”

“Oh, Fabron,” Skye said, touched and pleased that she was beginning to get through to him. “When you are gentle and tender with me I, too, find pleasure. Should we both not find pleasure in each other?”

“Pastor Lichault says—”

Her hand stopped his mouth. “What does a priest, a priest of
any
faith, know of passion between a man and his wife, Fabron? I believe that God gave a man his wife not only for companionship and the procreation of his children, but for pleasure as well. I believe that God gave woman her husband for the same reasons. Love me, and I will love you in return. Where is the wrong in that,
mon mari?
”

Kissing her hand, he removed it from his lips, and said, “You make it all seem so simple, Skye.”

“It is simple, Fabron. Love me, and I will love you back.”

He made love to her then, made love to her as he had not made love to her before. He was tender and considerate. He sought to please her for the first time, and was surprised to find that her pleasure excited him greatly. When she attained the top of the mountain he realized that all the other times she had only pretended in order to please him. It was then he knew that he loved this beautiful woman who, despite his bestial treatment of her that first night, had sought to make their marriage work. “
Je t’aime
, Skye,” he murmured in her ear, and she held him close, knowing now that they had a chance to succeed in their marriage.

Their idyll was soon over, however. The next morning they sat at a small table that Daisy set up each day in the window of the
bedchamber, eating their simple meal of sweet ripe peaches, fresh bread warm from the oven, salt brie, and watered wine. The long windows stood open, and along the stone balustrade blood-red roses grew over the pink stone. Above them the sky was a cloudless blue, below the sea was a sunlit blue-green. A small black and yellow songbird that had taken to visiting them perched himself amid the roses and sang a song before fluttering to their table to eat crumbs from Skye’s hand. Husband and wife smiled at each other.

“How can you do that?” he asked her, intrigued as he always was by her ability to charm the bird.

“The bird knows that it has nothing to fear from me,” she said softly. “If you love a wild creature it senses your love.”

“More than likely it is witchcraft!” thundered a voice from the center of the room. Startled, the bird fled.

“M’lady, monseigneur, I tried to keep
him
out, but
he
pushed me aside,” Daisy said indignantly. It was said in French, but Daisy quickly switched to English. “Beware, m’lady! The old devil’s been fuming for days over the duc’s neglect of him.”

“You presume upon my friendship for you, Pastor, that you would intrude upon the privacy of myself and my duchesse,” Fabron de Beaumont said sternly.

Pastor Lichault strode to the table. Skye wrinkled her nose. Did the man never bathe? He smelled as if he slept with the goats. “I come for the good of your immortal soul, Fabron, my son! Since the night I joined you under God’s holy law with this woman you have not come to me. You have neglected your spiritual duties, and God is displeased! He will take his vengeance, and this woman will abort your seed as did your other wives. Down upon your knees, both of you! Beg God’s forgiveness before it is too late!”

The duc looked suddenly uncertain and frightened; Skye was furious and she leapt to her feet. “You wicked man!” she shouted at the pastor. “It is you who should fall upon your knees and beg God’s forgiveness for your distorted, terrible teachings!”

“Whore!” The pastor pointed a bony fìnger at Skye. “Look at her, Fabron, my son! Look how she flaunts her body like a common harlot of Babylon!” His eyes fastened upon her breasts, and he unconsciously licked his lips. Skye was wearing the sheer, rose-colored silk gown she had refused to wear the night of her wedding to the duc.