The Heiress (2 page)

‘My dear mother,' Charles said calmly, ‘you are always losing your temper with me. If you don't tonight I shall be quite disappointed. I played cards, I lost the money. I also lost my temper as a result of being dunned. Other nights I usually win, but no one mentions that. Did he also tell you he was going to the King?'

‘He did,' Katharine retorted. ‘That's why we sent for you. Six months ago your father and I swore we'd never pay another gambling loss for you whatever the consequences. But things have changed since then. James, you tell him.'

She turned away and walked to the other end of the room. She was so agitated that she couldn't trust herself. Her son, the child of their consuming love, the result of a passion which had survived the hazards of war, of clan feuds, even of murder itself, and still bound them indivisibly after twenty-seven years; their son, and now their heir to the impounded estates in the Highlands, seemed to be the reincarnation of one of the most evil men that she had ever known, the cruel and pitiless Hugh Macdonald who had killed her own brother and once tried to murder her. Her joy at his birth had changed to loathing when she saw the resemblance in the child she held in her arms. All she had hoped for was a son to reflect the qualities of the man she loved; instead of that the boy was like a changeling. There was no sign of his father's honour, only his uncle's pride; none of James's splendid courage, only the fierce love of fighting for its own sake. In her eyes the boy was callous and defiant and the man had become a heartless profligate.

He gambled, he fought, he seduced without mercy or moral considerations of any kind; at the age of nineteen he had killed three men in duels over women and cards, and one unhappy creature who had allowed herself to be involved with him committed suicide when he told her to go back to the husband who had turned her out.

Thank God, Katharine thought, thank God we have Jeanne. They both loved their daughter, happily married to a gentle, scholarly French nobleman and the mother of three small children. Thank God, she thought again, that we have Jeanne.

‘As your mother said,' Sir James began, ‘we told you last time we would never settle another debt for you. As far as we are concerned, de Charlot could go to the King and you could learn a very salutary lesson in the Bastille for a while. I wouldn't lift a hand to interfere except for just one thing. The English Government have agreed to restore our estates in Scotland. Not to me, unfortunately, they've got long memories; but to you, my son.'

‘Really?' The light eyes gleamed, and then he half closed them as if he were a little bored; it was a trick which had once brought his father's hand down on the side of his head with such force that he sprawled on the floor. He had been a youth then; not even James would dare to strike him now.

‘You mean that I am the heir to Dundrenan and Clandara?'

‘You are, or at least you will be as soon as I accept the terms and surrender my own claims and your mother's. You are the future chief of the Macdonalds of Dundrenan and the closest blood heir of the Frasers of Clandara. You can bring the two clans together and give them the leadership they've lacked for twenty-seven years. That means more to me than your miserable debts; that's why I shan't let de Charlot go to the King and accuse you, and your mother feels the same.'

‘I'm very grateful,' Charles said. ‘I can't see myself as a chief in the Highlands, but if the lands are good and the property … I daresay I'll pay a visit and see what can be done with it.'

‘There's a condition.' Katharine came back and put her arm around her husband. ‘No debt will be paid and no inheritance accepted otherwise, Charles. Refuse, and you can take your debts and your difficulties out of this room and never enter it again.'

‘What is the condition?' Charles asked softly.

His father answered. ‘That you marry your cousin Anne de Bernard, and settle down to a reasonable life. And that a year after the marriage you undertake to live at least six months of every year in the Highlands and have your sons educated and brought up there as befits Macdonalds. Believe me, your mother and I will not allow our peoples to be cheated. Do this, and your debt will be paid by tomorrow. Refuse, and I feel certain that de Charlot and his family will persuade the King to throw you into prison until it is. It's up to you.'

‘How much time have?' he asked them. He was adept at hiding his feelings; no flicker of emotion crossed the handsome face; he looked as bored and unconcerned as ever, and they would never know the fierce excitement which was growing in him. Inherit Clandara and Dundrenan. All his life those two names of places he had never seen had held a magic for him which came from the blood in his veins, from centuries of ancient breeding. He was Scots to his marrow, but exiled, rootless, with nothing but names and old traditions to feed upon and give him background in a foreign land. Though he had been born there, Charles had never instinctively accepted France as his home, and he had never known if the interedict on the families of those who had taken part in the last Stuart rebellion would ever be lifted by the Government of England, to let him and those like him see the country of their forefathers. And now it had come. He could go back to the Highlands, walk on the purple moors, feel in his face the cold clean mountain winds of which he'd heard his parents talk so wistfully. He was not condemned for ever to a useless exile, or to the service of France. He was being offered the chance to leave it all, to answer the restless call of his blood for freedom and meaning in the ravaged lands of his own country, among the scattered oppressed peoples of his race. He would have died before he gave his father or his mother the satisfaction of seeing that what they had told him meant anything to him at all. As for their condition … Marry. Marry Anne de Bernard. He could hardly remember her, it was years since they had met. His mind flashed ahead; he would need a wife and a rich one if he were really going back. He would need as much money as he could lay hands on if he were going to restore his lands and people to their old condition.

‘You have no time at all,' his father answered the question. ‘You decide now.'

Charles smiled his mocking smile at both of them.

‘Marry my rich little cousin and inherit eighty thousand acres and two chieftainships—or else go to prison. My dear father and Madame, my mother, I don't see much alternative, do you? I accept your conditions, unconditionally. Now if you'll excuse me I have an appointment and I'm already late.'

‘I can imagine with whom,' Katharine answered. ‘Of all the women at Versailles you have to choose the most vicious and depraved. That will stop too, after you are married.'

He did not answer her, but she saw the mocking defiance in his face, and she could not pretend that it was not a very handsome face. Even if he had been ugly he would still have possessed the same dangerous charm.

‘You will settle the debt?' He addressed his father, and Sir James nodded.

‘By tomorrow, I told you. I am going to ask the King's permission for the marriage; it's only a formality and we'll announce it as soon as we've been down to Charantaise.'

He remembered the splendid Château; he used to go there as a child and stay with his mother's relations, the de Bernards. There used to be a little Marquise, very talkative and overdressed, painted up like a little Parisian whore, with the mincing manners of an age that reflected the King's last great mistress, Madame de Pompadour. The little Marquise, with her passion for scandal and mischief, was dead now, and only her daughter Anne and an old uncle who was her guardian remained. He hadn't seen his cousin since she was a child and all he knew about her was that she was immensely rich. He bowed to his parents.

‘I wish you both good night. Excuse me; I know you wouldn't want me to keep the lady waiting.' As he went out of the room he laughed.

Katharine turned to her husband.

‘James, James, all I can think of is that poor child Anne. How can we marry her to him?… even for the sake of Dundrenan and Clandara—it's twenty-seven years since the Rebellion; how do we know what state the clans are in or if there's anyone left in the glens at all?'

‘The two houses are in ruins but our people are still there,' he answered. ‘They need a leader; they need Anne de Bernard's money to rebuild and replenish the land. She'll fare well enough. How do you know marriage won't change him … it changed me.'

‘My darling,' she said gently, ‘if he were anything like you I'd love him with all my heart and she'd be the luckiest woman in the world to marry him. But there's none of you in him, and none of me either. Only the very worst of both families—that's all I see in him. You are determined on this marriage, aren't you?'

‘Absolutely,' he said quietly. ‘Don't ask me to change my mind because I can't. I'm Scots to my bones in spite of living here. I must do what is best for my people.'

‘So be it, then,' she said. ‘At least I can try and protect her from him when they're married.'

‘When they're married,' James answered slowly, ‘we both can. Come, my darling, I'm going to seek an audience of the King.'

Louise de Vitale was a very beautiful woman even in a Court where beautiful women were in abundance and pretty women too numerous to be counted. At twenty-three she was a widow; her husband, the Baron de Vitale, was already an old man when she married him, and, having lived a life of excess, his constitution did not survive the strain of being married to his young and lovely wife for more than two years. When he died he left everything in his possession to the woman whom he described as the most perfect
compagnon de nuit
any man could wish for. By the time she was twenty Louise was rich, well connected and very bored with living in the country on her husband's estates and carrying on intrigues with the husbands of her neighbours. She had exhausted them all during her year's mourning and she left her estates in the hands of a bailiff and set out for Versailles. Almost at once she attracted the attention of the Duc de Richelieu; it was not only advisable but a pleasure for Louise to become his mistress. He was attractive and charming and he enjoyed intrigue as much as she did. Also he was an intimate of the King's new mistress, the Comtesse Dubarry, and that opened the door to many things.

In a Court where everyone powdered, two women were conspicuous for wearing their hair naturally. One was the Royal mistress, whose hair was a ravishing golden-red, as fine as silk, and the other the Baroness de Vitale, whose beautiful hair was so dark that in some lights it seemed touched with blue. With this sable hair, her complexion was as pale and smooth as milk, and the skin on her body was of the same texture and colour as her face. Her eyes were very large and black with heavily painted lids above them, and a mouth which was full and red. She was beautiful and she dressed superbly, and she had been Charles Macdonald's mistress for over a year. He was the first man to whom she had ever been faithful, and while she waited for him that night she was so restless that she walked up and down like an animal in a cage. She had a maid who had been in her service since she married, a sharp-eyed little Breton who shared all her secrets.

‘Don't worry, Madame. Monsieur Charles will come.'

‘What time is it?' Louise demanded. ‘He's never as late as this!'

That was another oddity, Marie thought, taking out her watch. He often kept the Baroness waiting, whereas all the other gentlemen had been sitting outside her door an hour before. Marie did not like Charles Macdonald. He was a foreigner for all that he was born and bred in France; there was an arrogance about him, a brutality which she had seen in his quarrels with her mistress, that was definitely not French. Once he had come to the Baroness's apartments drunk, and when she reproached him he struck her and dragged her into the bedroom and locked the door. When he left the next morning her mistress was more abjectly in love with him than ever. Marie had a lover of her own; he worked as a footman for the Duchesse de Gramont and together they were saving every sou to get married and open a small shop in Paris.

‘It is nearly eleven o'clock, Madame. Perhaps he isn't coming this time?'

‘He would have sent a note, some word,' her mistress said. ‘He'll come, he's been detained by something, that's all it is.' Louise went to the glass on the wall and examined herself in it. Charles was the only man she had ever met who made her unsure of her beauty; she stared at herself anxiously. Her dress was pale yellow and made of the soft thin silk which the Dubarry had brought into fashion; worn without panniers it clung to the body and it showed every line of her beautiful figure; her breasts were almost exposed; only a gauze fichu covered them. She was one of those rare women who looked as beautiful in
déshabillé
as she did in the most magnificent ball gown. Charles sometimes said that she was beautiful, but he had never said he loved her.

From the beginning of their relationship, when they met at a card party given by the Duc d'Aiguillon, who was at that time Dubarry's lover and political protector, Louise decided that it was useless to expect him to behave like other men. She had begun the intrigue because he was attractive and at first he had paid her no attention. The moment he took her in his arms he established an absolute mastery of her; in bewilderment she submitted to a sexual domination she had never imagined could exist. Its power over her was such that as she waited for him she was trembling.

‘Madame,' Marie whispered, ‘I hear him coming!' Louise heard his voice, talking and laughing to another man as they walked down the corridor, and then the other set of steps went on, and the door opened and he came towards her.

‘Charles!'

She ran to him and for a moment he held her off, mocking her eagerness. Then he pulled her in and kissed her. After a moment he looked up at the maid.