Darkest Longings (87 page)

love with you in the end, but what a Godsend for me! He

tried not to, though, didn’t he? He tried everything in his

power not to succumb, but finally even he couldn’t resist

you. Who would have thought it? That Francois the

Invincible could actually fall prey to his own heart. But then,

how could any of us resist you - those tempting eyes, that

succulent mouth, and that exquisitely hungry body? Hah!

what a prize that was, knowing that I, Halunke, the man

Francois feared above all others, was all the time copulating

with his wife - and with his permission! He even asked me to

protect you, how I laughed at that. He never suspected me

once. But you did, didn’t you? In the end. You worked it out.

But Francois, he believed Helber when Helber told him

that Lucien was Halunke. Did he ever tell you the price he

paid for that information?’

Again, Armand snorted with laughter. ‘Such a pity that

after you two are dead I am forced to kill Francois too. I

wanted him to see his brother hang for a murder he didn’t

commit. A murder I set him up for. But an even greater pity

is that he won’t know what it is to live without you, to know

what it is to suffer the way he’s made me suffer. That he

won’t…’

Suddenly, Armand’s eyes shot to the arch. It was only the

breeze rustling a piece of litter across the wasteland outside,

but it had broken his concentration, and Claudine seized

her chance to speak, to bring him back to the present.

‘Armand, please,’ she begged. ‘Louis - he’s just a child.

Please let him go.’

‘Papa,’ Louis sobbed. ‘I want my Papa.’

Claudine gasped as Armand slapped him across the face

-but as she sprang towards them Armand jammed the gun

into Louis’ neck.

‘All the unarmed combat in the world won’t save you

now,’ he snarled, kicking her back against the bales, ‘so

don’t even try it.’

Claudine looked helplessly at her son as tears rolled down

his cheeks and little sobs choked from his throat. She had

never in all her life felt so desperate or so impotent. ‘Papa

will come, cheri,’ she said, trying to force some comfort

through the anguish in her voice. ‘He will be here soon.’

‘Yes, he will be here,’ Armand jeered. ‘Von Liebermann

will send him. This is a set-up, Madame la Comtesse - or

didn’t you realize that?’

‘Armand, tell me what he’s done,’ Claudine pleaded.

‘Tell me, and perhaps we can …’ She stopped as his

stranger’s eyes shot back to hers.

‘Nothing,’ he snarled. ‘He’s done nothing. It’s what I’ve done because of him.’ The light suddenly dimmed in his eyes and he looked down at Louis, fixing on the point where

the gun met his jaw.

Claudine watched him, seeing his concentration slip

again as he became engulfed in his thoughts. She started to

edge towards him, sliding her feet under her, trying to

position herself to dive straight for the gun. But then he

turned back, and though his eyes were unfocused she didn’t

dare to make another move. ‘What did you do?’ she asked,

sinking hopelessly back against the hay.

When at last he spoke, his voice trembled. It was as

though each word he uttered came from the core of a wound

so deep, a pain so profound, that she couldn’t begin to

comprehend it. ‘I killed my son,’ he said. ‘I murdered my

own son.’

For a long time she simply looked at him, and he stared

back, watching the shock register on her face, until finally

his own stiffened with contempt. She whispered, ‘But I

thought…”

‘I know what you thought,’ he snapped. ‘It was what

everyone thought. He was a weak child, his health gave out, that’s what everyone thought. But he died because I put a pillow over his face and smothered him.’

Claudine squeezed her eyes tight shut. ‘Why?’ she

gasped, forcing herself to think rationally. ‘You must have

had a reason,’

‘Oh yes, I had a reason. I did it because he wasn’t my son

at all. He was your husband’s son. The son of Francois de

Lorvoire.’

Outside, birds were chattering in the trees, the river

bubbled and gushed, and in the distance, the town hall clock

was chiming the midday hour. Claudine’s head had started

to throb. She looked around for something to hold onto, but

the dizziness was coming over her in such paralysing waves

that she was afraid to move.

Seeing her reaction, Armand gave a dry, caustic laugh.

‘That’s what I thought,’ he sneered, ‘because that’s what

she told me. But he wasn’t. He was my son. I was his father,

but I only found that out when it was too late.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she cried. ‘What are you talking

about?’ Oh, Francois! If only he would come and deliver her

from this nightmare! Then Armand started to speak again,

and she bit her lips to stop herself screaming as his voice

washed over her in gentle, familiar waves. It was a voice as

sweet as honey, a voice she knew and had once loved.

‘I’ll go back to the day it all really began,’ he said, ‘to the

day Hortense de Bourchain died.’

Claudine lifted her head and looked into his face. He was

gazing absently at the floor, a strange smile on his lips and a

frown creasing his forehead. ‘Hortense?’ she breathed, now

more confused than ever.

He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘He killed her

because she loved him, but you know that, don’t you? You

know how she wanted to die rather than live without him so

he put her out of her misery.’ Suddenly his head snapped

up and the savagery had returned to his eyes. ‘Tell me,

Claudine, what is it about him? What is it that makes women

half-demented with love for him? I want to know why you’ve

loved him ever since you came to Lorvoire. We both know

how he treated you, the contempt, the abuse you suffered in

those early days. Yet you loved him. Oh, you tried not to, you

even managed to convince yourself you detested him, but I

knew. I always knew. Even when we were making love, I

knew you were thinking of him, wishing I was him. So tell

me, Claudine, how is it that Francois de Lorvoire can

command love as though he were God Almighty Himself?’

‘He can’t,’ Claudine answered, echoing his anger.

‘He can create love, he can manipulate it and destroy it. I

know, because I’ve seen him do it. He destroyed my wife’s

love for me and made her love him. He possessed her. Like

a demon, he consumed her from within and turned her into

a monster. Until she met him she was content, fulfilled,

happy. She loved life, she loved me. Then she met him, and

everything changed. She started to despise me because I

wasn’t strong like him, I wasn’t brilliant like him, not an

aristocrat like him. She ridiculed me because I cared about

her and loved her when all she wanted was him. She adored

him, there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him. Can you

explain that to me, Claudine? Can you explain how a woman

can turn her life inside out, yearning for a man who hardly

knows she exists?’

Claudine looked down at Louis’ pale, frightened face. ‘I

didn’t know Jacqueline,’ she answered. ‘So no, I can’t

explain it.’

‘She said I was jealous of him,’ Armand went on. ‘She

taunted me day and night with it, comparing me with him.

She drove me half out of my mind. But I loved her, I

couldn’t stop loving her. And I began to hate him. I hated

him more and more, until I wanted to kill him. Then she

became pregnant and I thought then that maybe things

would change, that at last she would stop torturing herself

with wanting him. But if anything it became worse. She was

obsessed with him. On any pretext she would go to the

chateau, just to look at him. Then she would come back

and tell me how she had felt when she’d seen him, what

she had wanted to do to him. She fantasized about him all

the time.

‘Then Hortense started to come to Lorvoire. At first

Jacqueline was beside herself with jealousy. It was all I could

do to restrain her from going to the chateau and causing a

scene. Then she locked herself in the bedroom and refused

to come out. She stayed there for almost a week, until one

morning she came downstairs, put her arms round me and

cried as though her heart would break. She begged me to

forgive her and swore she would never try to see Francois

again. Of course I forgave her, and I thanked God that she

was at last back to her normal self. She was calmer, easier to

live with, and she never went to the chateau at all.

‘It was some time before I realized she had stopped

eating. I thought, in my ignorance, that the pregnancy was

making her weak. In the end she became so ill that I was

afraid she would die, or lose the baby, or … I don’t know

what I thought. I never knew in those days. All I knew was

that my life had become a nightmare, and that Francois de

Lorvoire was the cause.

‘Then one night Jacqueline and I had a terrible fight. It

was about Francois, of course, though it was the first time

his name had been mentioned for weeks. I could see she was

no closer to getting over him than she’d ever been. We both

said some terrible things that night, things I shall never

forget. Finally she worked me up to such a pitch that I had to

leave the house. I went to the wine caves to escape. That was

how I came to see what happened between Francois and

Hortense. Another woman driven half out of her mind for

wanting Francois de Lorvoire. What is it about him?’ he

groaned. ‘Why do you all love him so much?’

‘Did Francois ever know how Jacqueline felt about him?’

Claudine asked gently.

‘Even if he did, what would he have cared for a woman

like her? What does he care for anyone?’

‘Go on,’ she said. ‘What happened after you saw

Hortense and Francois?’

He bowed his head for a moment. Then taking a breath,

he looked at her again. ‘When Louis finally let me go, having

sworn me to secrecy about what had happened, I went home

and told Jacqueline everything I had seen. I knew Francois

hadn’t killed Hortense intentionally, but I told Jacqueline

he had. I asked her how it felt to be in love with a murderer. I

asked her if she felt the same way now, knowing that he

could kill a woman just for wanting him? And do you know

what she said?’

Claudine was very still, her face drawn with pity.

‘She said, how could she stop loving him when he was the

father of her baby? And how did I feel now, to know that

every day I looked upon my child I would know it wasn’t

really mine? That I was so inadequate that…” He broke off,

pushing his fingers hard into the sockets of his eyes. ‘She

even described the way he made love to her, the way he

made her feel, she went on and on and on until I finally lost

control and hit her. She laughed. So I hit her again. She fell

down the stairs, and when I got to her she was still laughing.

She was hysterical - and delirious with joy, because

Hortense de Bourchain was out of his life.

‘She gave birth two weeks later, and with every contraction,

every push and every breath she called his name. She

screamed at the top of her voice that she was giving birth to

his child - that I should never forget that it was his child.

‘When the baby was born, after Doctor Lebrun had

severed the cord, she told me she wanted to call the baby

after his father. I didn’t argue, I couldn’t. There was no fight

left in me. My mother sent me out. I walked around for

hours, trying to tell myself she had been lying, that the child

was mine, but I couldn’t make myself believe it. I knew,

because I’d always known, what power Francois had over

women. He had no morals, no scruples, he wouldn’t have

thought twice about fornicating with my wife.’

Again Armand rubbed a hand over his eyes, and for a

moment Claudine thought he was crying. But then Louis,

seeing his chance, tried to break free - and when Armand

grabbed him back she saw that his eyes were as dry as the

dust at his feet.

‘When I got back to the house, Father Pointeau was

there,’ he went on, ‘Jacqueline was already dead. She had

haemorrhaged just after I’d left. The last words she said to

me were, “I want to call his son Francois.”

‘I lived with it for a year, but as the child’s features began

to form, all I could see was Francois. I know now that it was

Jacqueline he resembled, his dark complexion, his black

hair, his deep brown eyes, they were all hers, but at the time

all I could see was Francois. What was more, Francois

visited us a lot that year and the child took to him - more

than he did to me. I would watch Francois swinging him up

on his shoulders, and the child would laugh in a way he

never laughed for me.

‘Then one day, as I was returning from the vineyards, I saw

Francois carry him from the house and put him on a pony. He

couldn’t walk, he wasn’t strong enough, he’d been sickly since