who came into their box to get a glimpse of the by-now
famous Van Cleef and Arpels diamond. He accepted their
congratulations graciously, but his attitude towards
Claudine remained cold and aloof.
After the play they all went on for a late supper before
returning to the Bois de Boulogne, and Monique was the
only one to see Francois slip out of the house after
everyone had retired to bed. She knew where he was
going, for she had made a brief call on Elise Pascale herself
that day, and Francois had telephoned while she was there
to tell Elise to expect him.
Monique had no idea at what hour of the morning he
returned, but he was there at breakfast when she joined the
table, as were Louis and Claudine. Often, when Francois
and Claudine were in the same room, Monique would study
them, trying to work out exactly what was going on between
them, but as the date of the wedding drew closer their
relationship became more and more of a mystery to her.
They made a striking couple - Francois so tall, so powerful
and so ugly, Claudine so beautiful, so vibrant and so happy
yet they rarely spoke to one another, and never, simply never touched each other. Yet oddly, whenever they looked at one another they seemed suddenly enclosed in a world of their
own. But perplexing as their relationship was, Monique felt
certain that Claudine didn’t love Francois any more than he
loved her.
As for her own relationship with Claudine, as each day
passed Monique was growing to hate her more. She was no
longer afraid that Claudine would come between Lucien
and Francois; now she only longed to be rid of her so that
her own private hell of jealousy would be at an end. Each
night, as the wedding drew closer, she lay awake reliving the
rejections she had suffered. She wept for her own wedding
- the wedding she had always dreamed of, but which now,
perhaps, would never be. She smarted with the pain of her
loneliness, and ached with the memory of being loved. She
did not know what she had done to turn her lovers away, she
only knew that if there was to be a wedding at Lorvoire, it
should be hers. She deserved it for all the suffering, all the
heartache she had known - not Claudine, who had never
had a moment’s unhappiness in her life.
Had she seen any way to destroy Claudine’s happiness,
Monique would have taken it. She had even toyed with the
idea of telling her about Elise, but Elise herself had warned
against it. There was no knowing how Francois might view
their interference, Elise said, and besides, knowing that he
had a mistress wasn’t in any way guaranteed to make
Claudine change her mind. And so Monique nursed her
hatred in silence. When she was with Claudine she worked
hard to hide her feelings - with such success that even her
own parents believed the two of them had struck up a firm
friendship. The only person she had not managed to
deceive was Claudine herself.
Quite what she was going to do about her future
sister-in-law, Claudine didn’t yet know. She had worked
out for herself what lay at the root of Monique’s enmity, and
though she had no intention of calling off her wedding she
was already wondering what she could do to make it less
painful for Monique. It was a shame, she thought, that she
couldn’t discuss the matter with Francois - but then he told
her something that pushed every other thought from her
mind. He had arranged their honeymoon, which was to be
in Biarritz. Honeymoon. The word alone was enough to
send her nerves galloping into disarray. So too was any
thought of intimacy with Francois, who had not as yet even
attempted to kiss her…
A week after his departure for Marseilles, she was at the
opera, though paying scant attention to what was happening
on stage as she was engaged in a rather gratifying fantasy in
which Francois came bursting into their box, grabbed her by
the hands and dragged her off to a secret place to tell her
how much he loved her. She didn’t get as far as to what her
response might be to such an unlikely occurrence, as some
twenty minutes into the first act she became aware that
someone was watching her. She glanced around the
darkened opera house, but all eyes seemed to be on the
stage. However, the feeling didn’t go away, and when the
lights came up for the interval she looked again to see who it
might be.
‘What is it, cherie?’ Celine asked when she saw the puzzled
frown on her niece’s face.
‘Oh, nothing,’ Claudine answered.
‘Come, have a glass of champagne. And perhaps tonight
we should go straight home after the performance. We’ve an
early start for Touraine tomorrow, and you must be tired
after all this gaiety in Paris.’
‘Claudine, tired!’ Louis exclaimed. ‘How I have longed
for the day!’
They all laughed, but as Claudine turned in her seat she was
again aware of someone watching her, and this time as she
scanned the faces in the adjacent boxes, her attention was
caught by the downward sweep of a fan. Then, to her
amazement, she found herself looking into eyes of the most
beautiful woman she had ever seen. Instantly the smile
dropped from Claudine’s face, for she knew beyond a doubt
that this was the person who’d been studying her. She was
breathtaking. With her heavy, honey-blonde hair, delicate
ivory skin and seductive eyes, she looked like a Greek goddess
reclining in the glow of golden light that fell around her.
Finally, with a barely perceptible nod of her head, the
woman looked away, and collecting herself, Claudine
turned back to her aunt.
‘Tante Celine,’ she whispered. ‘Tell me, do you know
that woman over there? She’s been staring at me ever since
we arrived.’
Celine followed her niece’s gaze, and Claudine felt her
stiffen. ‘Ah no, you’re imagining things, cherie? Celine said.
‘But do you know her?’
Celine glanced quickly at Louis, who gave a brief nod.
‘She’s Elise Pascale,’ Celine said.
The name meant nothing to Claudine. ‘Can we meet
her?’ she wanted to know.
‘I think not, cherie.’
‘But why?’
‘Because she is not quite … how can I put it? She is not
quite…’
‘She is what we in polite circles call a courtesan,’ Louis
supplied.
‘Oh,’ Claudine said, drawing out the word as her eyes
brightened with laughter. She looked back at Elise. ‘How
absolutely fascinating,’ she whispered. ‘I’d still like to meet
her!’
Of course it was out of the question, and it was to Celine’s
profound relief that Louis came to the rescue once again by
saying, ‘I would prefer that you didn’t, cherie. I wouldn’t
want her putting ideas into Solange’s head.’
They all burst out laughing, and as the curtain rose for the
second act of Milhaud’s Le PauvreMatelot, the conversation
was, to Celine’s relief, at an end.
Later, as they were leaving the theatre, Claudine scanned
the foyer in the hope of getting a closer look at Elise Pascale.
When she saw her her heart gave a sudden vicious lurch as
she saw an appallingly familiar figure leaving Elise and
coming towards them through the crowd. She’d had no idea Francois was planning to return to Paris that night - nor, it seemed, had anyone else. He had just arrived from
Marseilles, he explained, and had come to meet them in the
hope of joining them for dinner. And so, their plans for an
early night abandoned, they joined another group of friends
and strolled off down the avenue de l’Opera for a lobster
supper at Drouant’s.
The following morning Francois escorted them to the
railway station, where he assured his mother that he would
be home in time for dinner the next day. Lucien, however,
would not be home tomorrow, he told her in response to her
urgent enquiry.
‘But he is coming to the wedding, isn’t he?’ Solange cried,
as Louis gently pushed her onto the train.
As she asked this question at least once a day, Francois
rolled his eyes and said, ‘Yes, Maman, Lucien will be
coming to the wedding if he can.’ And he smiled at her
shriek of delight.
‘And what about you? Will you be coming to the
wedding?’
He turned to find Claudine standing beside him. Her hat cast a light shadow over her eyes, and in her pastel chiffon dress, with the steam billowing around her, she was like an
apparition.
‘A strange question,’ he remarked.
‘A strange engagement,’ she countered.
He looked at her for a long moment, but she was unable
to read his eyes.
‘It’s the first of September today,’ she said. ‘You have ten
days in which to change your mind.’
‘So have you,’ he answered, and her cheeks flooded with
colour at the way she felt suddenly naked beneath the
lascivious smile that curved his thin lips, the eyes that swept
the length of her body.
‘I have no intention of changing my mind,’ she said,
through clenched teeth.
‘A pity,’ he replied, and held the door open for her to
board the train.
The day of the wedding dawned. The evening before,
Claudine had moved into one of the guest rooms in the west
tower of the chateau de Lorvoire - a circular room with
wide, arched windows that overlooked the meadow and
gardens at the front and side of the house. The four-poster
bed was of carved oak, the hangings, like the window
curtains, pale yellow brocade, and the Heriz carpet was a
field of sea-green. There were two Louis XV armoires, and
a Sormani kingwood and marquetry dressing-table on
which Magaly had set out her ivory-backed hairbrushes,
silver-topped bottles and two vases of flowers.
Since she had woken at six o’clock Claudine had been
aware of the day’s excitement. Through the leaded windows
she had watched the caterers arrive, then the florists. Then
there had come designers and hairdressers, an army of extra
staff hired for the day, and a band of musicians. She had
seen Tante Celine’s car draw up outside, and heard the
clatter of horses’ hooves as her father and Lucien returned
from an early morning ride.
There had been several knocks on her door, mainly from
Dissy, who had arrived with her husband, Lord Poppleton,
at the start of the week. But Claudine wasn’t ready to see
anyone yet today - not even her best friend. She was
perched on the edge of the bed, staring into space as she
struggled to make sense of her astonishing reaction to what
she had discovered last night, when she crept upstairs to
take a look at the apartment she would be sharing with
Francois.
The first room she entered had been a pleasant surprise
- an elegant but intimate drawing-room, with fringed
lampshades over brass lamps, candy-striped sofas and
armchairs, and big windows opening onto a terrace that
was only feet away from the trees on the hillside behind the
chateau. But it was when she opened the door to her left
that the extraordinary reaction started. It was a bedroom, a
very beautiful bedroom, with rose-silk-panelled walls,
matching bed linen and carpets, rosewood furniture,
marble fireplace and high, arched French windows. But a
sixth sense was telling her something else about the room.
And then her heart started a strange, unsteady rhythm.
This was her room, she realized; hers alone.
‘What do you think?’
She turned to find Lucien watching her from the sitting
room door, hands in pockets, one shoulder leaning casually
against the doorframe.
‘I’m not sure,’ she answered shortly. ‘I haven’t seen it all
yet.’
He frowned. ‘You seem angry.’
‘Angry? Why should I be angry?’
He shrugged. ‘Shall we take a look around, then?’
She nodded. After all, she was telling herself, it was quite
normal for husband and wife to have separate rooms, wasn’t
it? But why, then, did she feel so disturbed? She took the
hand Lucien held out to her, and allowed him to lead her
across the sitting-room to a room she hadn’t yet entered.
It was, as she had expected, another bedroom. It was
plain, uncluttered and unmistakably masculine - just as the
other had been unmistakably feminine. From the moment
she walked into it Claudine felt she was trespassing, and
would go no further than the foot of the vast oak bed, though
Lucien explored the bathroom and dressing-room, loudly
voicing his approval. She showed him her own suite. At the
far end of it was another door which, when she opened it,
led out onto a narrow landing. Across the landing, Lucien
showed her, was the nursery; and the door at the end of the
corridor opened onto a bridge leading from the chateau into
the forest behind. He and Francois had often used it as an
escape route when they were children.
‘So,’ he declared, as they walked back into the sitting
room, ‘my brother has thought of everything, right down to