Darkest Longings (8 page)

across the hilltop and gazing down at the unyielding

symmetry of the vines as the wind swept through her hair.

Far below she saw someone waving. She lifted her hat and waved back. ‘Who is it?’ she called out to Francois.

‘Armand,’ he answered, when he was close enough not to

have to shout. ‘Armand St Jacques. He’s the Chefde Caves, and also the vigneron. In other words, Armand runs the place - as his father did and his grandfather before him. Theirs is

the expertise, ours is the name.’

‘Aren’t you involved at all in the winemaking?’

He shook his head. ‘Only in the selling.’

He was looking past her into the middle-distance,

apparently unaware of the way she was searching his face.

She watched him closely for several minutes, fascinated by

the way his gruesome face was almost transformed when he

wasn’t scowling. With those macabre features and that

hideously disfiguring scar he could never be described as

handsome, but when he looked as he did at that moment, his

eyes devoid of rancour and his mouth relaxed in something

close to a smile, there was an air about him that she found

positively intriguing.

‘Tell me,’ she said softly, ‘why did you change your mind

about marriage?’

Instantly the frown returned, and as his eyes bored into

hers she felt herself grow suddenly weak. ‘Change my

mind?’ he echoed.

Quickly she turned away, stunned by her peculiar

reaction, but her voice was perfectly steady as she said, ‘I

thought, at least everyone else seems to think, that you had

vowed never to marry.’

His laugh was bitter. ‘For once the gossip-mongers are

right, if a little exaggerated.’

‘So, why?’

‘I think,’ he said, starting to turn away, ‘that you would

prefer not to know the answer to that.’

‘I think,’ she said, following him, ‘that if I am to marry

you, I had better know the answer.’

‘Then I shall tell you - after I have proposed and you have

accepted.’

‘Are you so sure that I will accept? And do you very much

care, one way or the other?’

At that he stopped and turned to face her. To her dismay,

she found herself caught by those black, impenetrable eyes,

and again she felt that strange response to him sweeping

through her body. ‘Claudine,’ he said coldly, ‘when I feel

that the time is right, I shall ask you to marry me. I shall ask

you because it is the wish of our fathers to unite our families.

Whether you accept my proposal is a decision only you can

make, but I can assure you that I have no personal feelings

on the matter whatsoever.’

‘You rather give me the impression that I would be doing

you the greatest favour if I were to refuse,’ she said, in a tone

that disgusted her by its peevishness.

‘The words are yours,’ he said, ‘not mine.’

She was not a naturally violent person, but in the space of

less than half an hour she had not only kicked him, but was

now shaking with the urge to slap him. ‘I understand now,’

she seethed, ‘why your reputation is so foul. You are not

only rude and insensitive, you are unpardonably offensive.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that you are a truly

despicable man.’

‘So I believe,’ he answered lightly.

For one horrifying moment Claudine thought she was

going to cry - and since she would rather die than give him

the satisfaction of witnessing that, she stormed back into the

forest. She had gone no more than a few yards when, to her

inexpressible humiliation, she slipped in the undergrowth

and bumped several feet down the path on her bottom in the

most undignified - not to mention, painful - manner. It was

the final straw: the tears streamed from her eyes, and at the

same time, as she buried her face in her hands, her body

convulsed with sobs of laughter.

She heard him coming down behind her, and when she

looked up it was to find him standing over her, holding out

her hat. ‘Yours, I believe,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said, wiping the back of her hand over

her cheeks. Then, as she reached out to take the hat she

noticed the damp patch at the bottom of his trousers, and

unable to contain herself, was consumed by another

paroxysm of laughter.

He waited, with an unmistakable air of boredom, for her

to pull herself together, then offered her a hand to help her

to her feet.

‘Tell me,’ she said, as she tried not to notice the way his

hand swallowed hers in its grip, ‘do you have a sense of

humour? The stories they tell about you in Paris suggest you

might.’

‘There are very few things that concern me, Claudine,’ he

said, letting go of her and starting to walk on. ‘And society

gossip is not one of them.’

‘Then, may I venture to ask what does concern you?’

‘No.’

When they had reached the water-garden again,

Claudine stopped at the fountain and sat down. For one

alarming moment she thought Francois was going to walk

on, but he halted a few paces away, keeping his back to her.

‘May I ask how you received the scar on your face?’ she

said.

‘No.’

‘Am I allowed to ask anything at all?’

He turned slowly, but made no move towards her as he

said, ‘Inquisitiveness is not a quality I find attractive.’

‘Do you intend ever to be anything but rude to me?’

‘That depends very much on you.’

Not knowing quite how to answer that, she sat quietly,

hoping he might say more. At last, to break the silence she

asked, ‘Do you know my father well?’

ill..

‘Yes.’

‘Do you like him?’

‘I have a great admiration for him.’

‘Well, couldn’t you at least be civil to his daughter, then?

Especially if she is going to marry you.’

‘If there is to be a marriage between us, Claudine, then it

will be one of convenience only. Beavis is fully aware of

that.’

‘Must it preclude friendship?’

He looked away, but she could tell that her question had

annoyed him. ‘Why does it have to be you who marries,

then,’ she went on angrily, ‘if you hate the idea so much?

You have a brother, couldn’t he have rescued you from this

obviously repugnant state of affairs?’

At that he gave a shout of mirthless laughter, and his eyes

gleamed balefully as he turned to look at her. ‘From the

moment you meet my brother,’ he said, ‘it will be one of the

greatest regrets of your life that he won the toss of the coin.’

She frowned. ‘The toss of the coin?’

He merely smiled, but this time there was something so

pernicious in the smile that though he was standing several

feet away, she felt herself shrink back.

‘Earlier,’ she said, ‘I thought you hated me. But I was

wrong. You despise me, don’t you?’

‘Does it matter what my feelings are for you?’

‘If I’m to marry you, then of course it does!’ she cried.

His eyes were suddenly harder than ever as the thick

brows pulled together and the wide nostrils of his beaked

nose flared. ‘If you care about such trivialities, perhaps you

should return to England before your disappointment

becomes an embarrassment to us both,” Vie said, and sliding

his hands into his pockets, he turned and walked back to the

house.

Claudine was still sitting at the fountain when Celine came

to find her half an hour later. In that time she had managed

to overcome the worst of her fury, but her sense of outrage

was still so strong that she had not yet dared to go back into

the house. She was stunned by the effect he had on her was

still having. It was almost as if he had molested her, as if

his monstrous presence had actually invaded her - though

their only physical contact had been when he touched her

hand. She was confused and hurt, she wanted to repay him

for the way he had insulted her. But she wanted more than

that; much more.

She started as her aunt’s shadow fell across the water; for

one dreadful moment she thought he had returned. But

when she saw Celine’s anxious face looking down at her, she

got to her feet, smiling brightly and holding out her hands.

‘Sitting here all alone, cherie?’ Celine asked uncertainly as

she took her hands. ‘Where is Francois?’

‘Didn’t he rejoin the party?’

Celine shook her head, and Claudine smiled as she

remembered that of course he would have had to change his

clothes.

‘How was your… ? How did… ? Celine laughed, ‘I

don’t know how to put it,’ she said.

‘How was our first meeting?’ Claudine suggested, helpfully.

‘It was … eventful.’

‘But what do you think of him?’

‘I imagine, the same as he thinks of me.’

Celine’s face brightened as she let go of Claudine’s hands

and embraced her. ‘Oh, thank heavens, cherie. So you will

put all this nonsense behind you now and return to

London?’

‘Oh, Tame Celine,’ Claudine laughed, ‘to think that you

have such little faith in my charms!’ She pushed her aunt

away, but keeping her hands on her shoulders, she said,

‘You are presuming, are you not, that he found me … how

shall I put it? Not to his taste?’

Celine’s eyes rounded. ‘You mean, I am wrong? You

mean that he has… ?’ She blinked. ‘Has he asked you to marry him?’

‘Not yet, but he will.’

‘And you are going to accept?’

‘Of course.’

Celine took a step back from her niece, and stared at her.

‘Claudine,’ she said, ‘what has happened to you? You are

not yourself. Your eyes, they are so cold. What has he done

to you? Oh to think that I could have allowed this to happen,

what would your poor mother say if she could see you now?’

‘Please don’t distress yourself,’ Claudine smiled.

‘Francois has done nothing to me, except perhaps to open

my eyes to the reality of what our marriage will be like. And

maybe it would help you to know that I want this marriage

now with all my heart.’

‘Your heart? Mon Dieu!’ You have fallen in love with him!’

Laughing, Claudine slipped an arm around her aunt’s

shoulders and started to lead her back to the house. ‘You are

jumping to conclusions, Tante Celine,’ she said. ‘I mentioned

nothing about love.’

And after that she refused to discuss him any further, for

in truth she had no idea why she was still so determined to

marry Francois when she found him so utterly abhorrent,

and when every shred of common sense she possessed was

screaming at her to leave Touraine and never return.

In the days that followed her first encounter with Francois,

Claudine became aware that the boundaries of her world

were beginning to draw in. It was as though anywhere

beyond Lorvoire and Montvisse had become so far distant

as no longer to matter: the focus of her life was here, these

few acres of French countryside - and the man she was

unshakably determined to marry.

It surprised her a little to find that she harboured no

desire to return to the glamorous, carefree life she had

pursued in London, and there were moments, as she

roamed about the gardens of Montvisse, or gazed at herself

in the mirror while Magaly fought with her wilful hair, when

she found herself as intimidated and perplexed by her

determination to marry him as she was by Francois himself.

The emotion she experienced every time she thought of him

was always enough to restore the unparalleled sense of

purpose he had left her with - and yet, whenever she

thought seriously about her future she felt as though she was

being sucked into an ever-changing mirage, in which that

saturnine, almost sinister presence dominated and eclipsed

her. But despite the confusion, she was determined to see

the marriage through, and there was nothing in her outward

manner to indicate either the resentment she bore Francois,

or the self-loathing she felt whenever she recalled her

behaviour that day in the water-garden. On the contrary,

she gave every appearance of being happier than Celine

could remember, which, given Claudine’s intrinsic joy in

life, was quite something to witness.

In the middle of the week Claudine’s Lagonda arrived

from England. To see her niece hover round Pierre for a full

two hours while he checked the car over, to see her take a

cloth herself to make sure every inch of the chrome

glistened like new, Celine found fatiguing enough, but

when, with a whoop of delight, Claudine dragged her into

the car and zoomed off down the drive, her hair flying in the

wind and a cloud of dust billowing behind them, she was so

agitated by fear that she thought she might never recover.

It was the first and last time Celine ever graced the

Lagonda with her presence, but fortunately Magaly, who

had not a fainthearted bone in her body, enjoyed nothing

more than an afternoon spin in the country with her mistress especially when that country was her own beloved France so Claudine was not deprived of company during the frequent excursions she took to distract herself from