No Sweeter Heaven: The Pascal Trilogy - Book 2 (36 page)

Lily took a sip of wine, wondering what was going through Marie Marchand’s head at that moment, fairly certain she knew the answer, given the sparkle in her eye and her flirtatious manner. The bawdiness had increased in direct proportion to the consumption of wine, and with stomachs well fed and spirits high, the village was definitely
en fete.

Pascal gave Marie Marchand back to her beaming husband and returned to sit at Lily’s side.

“What was madame whispering in your ear?” Lily asked.

“She was telling me about her corns,” Pascal said. “Poor woman, how she suffers.”

“Why?” Lily asked dryly. “Did you step on one of them?”

Pascal laughed. “Jealous, duchess?”

“Hungry,” she murmured.

Monsieur Thenon from the neighboring village leaned across the table before he had a chance to reply and shook Pascal’s hand enthusiastically, as people had been doing all evening. Pascal replied graciously and fell into conversation, but he claimed Lily’s hand under the table and put it on his lap, beneath his napkin.

She had to struggle to keep a straight face. Pascal was hard as a rock, fully standing. Lily rested her chin on her free hand and gazed at him as he talked with Monsieur Thenon. She couldn’t help herself. She idly squeezed, smiling innocently as Pascal’s thighs stiffened, though he didn’t betray himself by so much as a flicker. Monsieur Thenon went on and on, and Pascal politely answered him. Lily squeezed again, this time a little harder, rubbing up and down at the same time. The veins in Pascal’s neck stood out, and his jaw tightened. He took Lily’s hand and forcefully put it back in her lap, but this time his hand stayed with her.

Lily nearly fainted as his fingers unerringly found her cleft through the double material of her dress and petticoat and began to stroke her. She eased her thighs slightly apart, and he took full advantage, his skilled fingers pressing exactly on the point he knew gave her the most pleasure.

“… Indeed, monsieur, I feel the
Bouillie Bordelaise
was of vital importance in the restoration of the vines…” He moved his finger in a little circle. Lily grew dizzy as a slow hum started at the tips of her toes and raced through her veins to center directly between her legs. If she could have pulled her dress up and spread her legs for him then and there she would have done it.

“No, monsieur,” Pascal said, slowly increasing the pressure, “we really won’t know until the secondary fermentation…” Pascal pushed his entire palm down, his fingers cupping her. Fire leapt deep into Lily’s belly and erupted, obliterating all reason, as she came violently into his hand. She swallowed the cry that rose in her throat, closing her eyes as a tiny sigh escaped her.

“We hope the wine-maker arrives any day,” Pascal said, as if oblivious. “It will be an enormous release—I mean relief … Thank you, monsieur. We are all very pleased.” They shook hands again, and Monsieur Thenon finally left.

“Why, duchess,” Pascal said, turning to her, all innocence. “You’re flushed. Too much wine, perhaps?”

Lily put her forehead into her hands. “I should murder you,” she said. “I really should.”

Pascal laughed softly. “Don’t think I won’t finish the job properly later. But the next time you attempt to bring me off in public, be warned of the consequences.”

“You asked for it,” she said with a mischievous smile.

“So did you. God only knows what Monsieur Thenon thought. I don’t think I was making much sense.” His expression sharpened with interest. “Look, sweetheart, your brother’s just arrived.”

Lily shrugged. “Oh. He waited long enough, didn’t he?” She was still annoyed with Jean-Jacques, even though he had apologized to her in full. She would never again see him as the wonderful brother she’d doted on for all the shining qualities she’d imagined in him. She saw him now in all of his truth, and it wasn’t a particularly admirable one.

“Lily, don’t be so hard on him,” Pascal said. “He’s worked hard to make amends to you. It doesn’t happen overnight. Think back to how you were when you first arrived here.”

“Don’t remind me,” Lily said uncomfortably. Pascal had an annoying way of making his point. Still, she resolved to try to be nicer to her brother.

As Jean-Jacques approached the square, the crowd parted, people bowing and curtsying without enthusiasm. Pascal shook Jean-Jacques’s hand as a gesture of respect before the villagers. “Put them at their ease,” he prompted under his breath. “This is their night.”

Jean-Jacques nodded and cleared his throat. “Ah—do carry on,” he said awkwardly. “Enjoy yourselves—the night is yet young.”

The people took him at his word and went straight back to their revelry.

Eventually Pascal stood up on the bench, clinking on his glass with a knife. It was almost five minutes before people had quieted enough for his voice to be heard.

“It is time for a toast,” he said. “Raise your glasses, messieurs, ‘dames. We drink first to the harvest.”

A great cry went up, and the people drank heartily.

“We drink secondly to you, the people of Saint-Simon, who worked so hard to see the harvest in.”

Another cry went up and another deep drink was taken.

“And thirdly, we drink to your duke, who made the harvest possible.”

There was a lukewarm response, but the people drank anyway. Jean-Jacques had the grace to look embarrassed.

“Now, if you will all indulge me,” he said, looking down at Lily, “I would like to make a final toast to my wife, who has given me unending help and encouragement. I’m a lucky man. Come here, Lily.”

He reached down and pulled her up next to him on the bench. “To Lily!” he said, raising his glass high, then turned to her and drew her into his arms. He kissed her lightly, to the delight and roars of approbation from the villagers. “I love you, duchess,” he whispered, drawing her closer. “God, I love you.” He kissed her again, this time thoroughly, without reservation.

It nearly brought the village down, that kiss. The music started up again, and almost everyone took to the streets, dancing with complete abandon.

Pascal lifted his head. His eyes smiled into Lily’s, then swept over the crowd in satisfaction. Father Chabot was dancing with Madame Dupont, looking like an aged cherub. Charles and Emelie Claubert were in a corner, behaving like newlyweds. There was an air of fecundity, of renewal, in the village tonight. Monsieur Jamard sat at the end of one of the tables, watching Pascal. Their eyes met, and Monsieur Jamard inclined his head in silent acknowledgment.

Lily leaned back against Pascal, and he wrapped his arms around her waist. “Look at them,” he said against her cheek. “Those are happy people.” His arms tightened around her. “Good God,” he said softly.

“What?” she asked, twisting to look up at him. “What, Pascal?” She followed the direction of his gaze and froze in disbelief.

Standing off to one side of the square just in front of the church, her face lit by the torches, was Coffey. And behind her, a woman Lily had not seen for fifteen years.

Her mother.

“How
did—” Pascal cut himself off. “Never mind. Who is the woman with Miss McCofferty, Lily? She looks as if she’s just seen a ghost.” He glanced down at her.

“That,” Lily replied sharply, “is the Duchess of Montcrieff. In a way she has seen a ghost—her daughter.”

The happy glow she’d had only a moment earlier had faded, replaced by a panicked expression. Pascal had long before discovered that Lily’s mother was a forbidden subject, although he knew more about Lily’s feelings than she realized. Probing had its uses.

He jumped off the bench and took Lily by the waist, lifting her down. “What do you want to do, sweetheart?” he asked, stroking her back. “Do you want me to take you over to her?”

“No,” she said, her voice as stiff as her body. “I want to speak to Jean-Jacques. He must be responsible for this.” Lily walked over to where her brother sat and leaned toward him, speaking in English. “Jean-Jacques, I have a little surprise for you.”

“A surprise?” Jean-Jacques said with pleasure, looking up at her, unsuspecting. “What?”

Lily straightened. “Our mother. You remember our mother, don’t you? Well, she’s here.”

He started. “What?” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.

“Our mother is here,” Lily repeated. “Standing by the church steps.” She put her hands on her hips. “What do you know about this?” she demanded.

He blinked, looking just as alarmed as Lily. “But what’s she doing here? She’s never left the convent before, has she? Are you sure? You haven’t seen her since you were a small child.”

“I’m sure,” Lily hissed. “She’s with Coffey, and I’m not likely to forget my own mother’s face. She’s obviously here for a reason. I want to know what that reason is.”

He stood up and took a quick look. “Holy Mother Mary,” he whispered. “You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right, you idiot. And since she has Coffey with her, she must be looking for me. There’s only one way she could possibly know that I’m here. From you.” Lily glared at him.

“Well,” Jean-Jacques said slowly, “I did reply to a letter she wrote me when I first returned, regarding you … I’d forgotten all about it.” He rubbed his narrow chin, looking guilty as could be. “She wanted to know if I’d heard anything from you or knew where you were. Coffey had told her about some trouble or other. I assumed she was referring to your marriage.”

“So you told her all about it, I suppose? You told her everything and painted it in the worst light possible, didn’t you, bringing her right down on my head.”

“I told her what I thought to be the truth,” he replied defensively.

“The
truth
? What would you know of the truth? You never bothered to find out—you just assumed!”

Jean-Jacques flushed. “I told you I was sorry about that. Are you going to hold a grudge for the rest of your life? I don’t know what your problem is, Lily. Why are you making such a fuss over a simple visit, anyway?”

“Why?”
Lily repeated, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “My mother walked out the door when I was eight years old, and I haven’t seen her or heard a word from her since. I’d say that was reason enough.”

“Well, it’s not my fault,” Jean-Jacques hissed, his nose only two inches from Lily’s. “It was
your
father who drove her away, not mine. And she walked out on me too, you know.”

“You were sixteen when she left—you didn’t need a mother.”

“You don’t suddenly stop needing a mother,” he said furiously. “I have just as much reason to be angry as you. She left me in the hands of your blasted father!”

Pascal rested his hands on Lily’s tense shoulders. “If the two of you would stop arguing,” he said reasonably, “maybe we could find out why your mother has come. Someone ought to welcome her, don’t you think?”

Lily scowled. “I don’t want to speak to her. Why should I?”

“Lily,” he said gently, “it seems obvious that she cares about you, or she wouldn’t have written to your brother and she wouldn’t be here now. I can’t imagine it’s easy for her, coming back out into the world. Trust me, I know.”

With a stubborn set to her chin, Lily glared at him.

“Your mother’s been in a convent for what—fifteen years, now?” he continued. “It must be doubly difficult, returning to a place where she was so unhappy.”

“How do you know she was unhappy?” Lily asked tightly.

“Because both Monsieur Jamard and Michel Chabot have told me. Having to face the two of you must be terrifying. You’re already at each other’s throats. What are you going to do to her—tear her limb from limb?”

They both scowled at him, and Pascal shook his head. It was as if all the influences of their childhood had reasserted themselves at the first reminder. “Fine,” he said. “The two of you can stay here squabbling, but I’m going to greet your mother and Miss McCofferty. They can’t be left standing there on their own.”

“No,” Lily said reluctantly, looking up at him. “That wouldn’t be right, Pascal. I’ll come with you. I suppose I should at least acknowledge my mother. Not that I like it,” she added belligerently.

“No one said you had to like it, duchess.” Pascal dropped a kiss on her head. “I’m proud of you—I know this is very difficult. Jean-Jacques?”

“Naturally I will come,” he said, drawing himself up. “I am the duke, after all.”

Pascal nodded. “As the duke you can clear a path, which would be useful in this crowd.”

Flushed with annoyance, Jean-Jacques strode toward the church.

Pascal tucked his hand under Lily’s elbow. “I’ll be right here beside you.” He hoped it would be enough. He sensed Lily’s fragility and it troubled him.

Lily didn’t know what to say or do. She was overjoyed to see Coffey, of course, but her mother? They were strangers.

What did you say to someone who had left her children without a backward look?
Good evening, Mama. How delightful to see you again.
Lily thought not.

She met Coffey’s concerned gaze and quickly looked away. Coffey had betrayed her. Coffey
knew
how she felt about her mother, yet with Jean-Jacques’s help she had brought her straight to Lily.

What was it about her that caused people to abandon her? What terrible thing had she done to make her mother leave her, her father hand her away without a thought to her happiness, her brother push her aside in disgust? Lily swallowed against the hot, painful knot in her throat, watching Jean-Jacques kiss his mother’s cheeks as if he were perfectly happy to see her.

Liar,
she thought viciously.
You ‘re a liar on top of everything else, Jean-Jacques.
Her entire body trembled with inarticulate rage.

Her mother turned to her, and Lily noticed new streaks of gray in her auburn hair, lines on her face that Lily didn’t remember. But her eyes were the same, and so was the smile that had so often soothed and reassured Lily as a child but now made her heart hurt. Fifteen years hadn’t done a thing to numb the pain that knifed through her, nor had the sharpness of rejection dulled with time. And yet she had a terrible, treacherous desire to throw herself into her mother’s arms and weep a child’s tears, to beg for an explanation. Lily hardened with a fresh rush of anger.

“Mama,” she said, dropping a curtsy. “This is a surprise.”

“Lily,” her mother said uncertainly. “How—how wonderful to see you … you have no idea.”

“No, I don’t suppose I have,” Lily said coldly. “How could I?”

Her mother’s eyes pinched at the corner. “You couldn’t, of course. I have so much to tell you, but not now, Lily. Let me just take pleasure in seeing you again. Coffey wrote, of course, describing you, but it is nothing like seeing you with my own eyes. You have turned into a beautiful woman.”

Lily ignored the compliment. “I gather Jean-Jacques wrote and told you I am married,” she said tersely. “That must be why you’re here?”

The duchess’s face clouded and she glanced at Pascal, then immediately looked away as if the sight of him was too distressing for her to bear. “Yes … it is. Lily—I do not know what to say. Perhaps we could speak privately?”

“I think not, Mama. May I present my husband, Pascal LaMartine?”

“Monsieur LaMartine,” the duchess said coldly. She did not offer him her hand, nor do more than cast him another curt glance.

“I hope the news of our marriage didn’t come as too much of a shock, your grace.” Pascal’s tone was gracious despite the insult.

“Life is never what one expects,” she said.

Pascal inclined his head. “Never.” He turned to Coffey. “Miss McCofferty. I hadn’t thought to see you again. It is a pleasure.”

Coffey regarded him with heavy suspicion. “I would wonder about that, Monsieur LaMartine, considering the circumstances of our last meeting. I also find it odd that you have suddenly learned to speak English.”

Pascal smiled. “I’d like to say I’m a fast learner, but I confess that I’ve been speaking English all my life.”

“But I thought—oh, this is all most peculiar, not what I expected, not at all,” Coffey said fretfully.

“I couldn’t agree more,” the duchess said, turning to glare at her son. “I come to France to help my daughter out of a disastrous marriage forced upon her, and what do I find? I find Elizabeth kissing this man—
kissing
him—in front of the entire village of Saint-Simon, and you, Jean-Jacques, looking on as if such behavior was perfectly appropriate. Have both of you lost your minds?”

It seemed to Lily as if every absurdity possible had come together in this one statement. She began to laugh, and once she’d started, she couldn’t stop.

“You—you don’t understand anything at all!” she said, tears of hilarity streaming down her cheeks, tears that suddenly weren’t rooted in hilarity at all, but in a deep, subterranean pain that threatened to overwhelm her. “You don’t understand anything,” she repeated, her voice strangled.

Pascal gathered her close, steadied her against his chest, his hand cupping her head, soothing her, protecting her. “I think this conversation should be continued in the morning,” he said. “Jean-Jacques, why don’t you take your mother and Miss McCofferty to the chateau now? I’m sure it’s been a tiring day for them. I’ll bring Lily up tomorrow.”

Lily only vaguely remembered the next half hour. Pascal was obliged to say his farewells, and she remained by his side, smiling and shaking hands and saying the right things. But she felt as if Pascal were her only fixed point of reference, as if she were walking through a dream.

She remembered climbing the hill to the cottage, and Pascal undressing her as if she were a child, putting her into bed, enfolding her cold body with his own, warming her.

He didn’t speak, and she was grateful. She felt as if there were wads of cotton stuffed in each ear, blocking out sound. She didn’t want to hear, or to think, or to feel, for if she did, she knew she’d shatter.

Lily drifted off to sleep, wrapped in the safety of Pascal’s arms, her head tucked against his chest. Sometime during the night she awakened, dimly aware that Pascal had slipped inside her.

“Oh …” she whispered. He was very still, and she felt him as much in her heart as she did in her body.

He kissed her softly, his mouth warm and relaxed on hers, demanding nothing, giving everything. One of his hands slid up to cup her breast, not to excite, only to cherish. “Lily,” he said, the word a mere breath against hers. “Lily, sweetheart, she’s here because she loves you.”

“No.” Lily’s breath caught on a sudden sob, wrenched from her soul.

“Yes.” He moved gently inside her as he stroked the hair off her face. “Think, Lily. Should we have a child together, created by love, born from it and into it, do you think we’d be able to stop loving that child? Ever?”

Lily swallowed her tears.

“I saw it in your mother’s eyes tonight. She hasn’t stopped loving you. You need to discover the truth of what happened. As God is my witness, that woman didn’t walk away from you. She was forced away.” He brushed his lips against hers.

Lily’s brow knotted in pain, and he kissed that too. His hips rocked, stroking, soothing, the most tender of caresses, the deepest of touches.

“Don’t leave me, Pascal.”

“Never, beloved. Never.”

The tight knot in her chest began to ease, and as it slowly dissolved, an overwhelming peace washed through her. She knew it came from Pascal, as if with each sweet stroke he gave her his very being and held her own just as close.

Lily sobbed and shuddered, holding him inside herself as deeply as she could, keeping him there as if she could really make them one. He came with her in silent pulses, as simple and perfect in their joining as God had made them.

The butler directed Lily to the library. She had promised Pascal that she would at least try to listen to her mother, but she wasn’t sure it was a promise she could keep. Her heart hurt, as if her chest were squeezing on a bruise. She put her hand on the knob and slowly turned it, feeling that she was opening not just a door but Pandora’s box. She could only pray that she’d find a little piece of hope at the bottom. It seemed highly unlikely.

Her mother sat on the sofa talking with Jean-Jacques, who lounged by the window. Coffey was primly arranged in an armchair near the cold fireplace, her hands resting on the handle of her cane. They’d been discussing her—she knew by the guilty expression on Coffey’s face as she walked in.

“Good morning, Mama,” she started to say, but Jean-Jacques cut her off, a picture of outrage.

“Lily, why didn’t you tell me about LaMartine molesting you in that monastery? The man’s a damned pervert!”

Lily gave him a biting look, in no mood to deal with her brother. She was almost as angry with him as she was with her mother. “Haven’t you learned anything about jumping to conclusions?” she said curtly. “Pascal didn’t do anything to me in the monastery other than use his medical skills. Why don’t
you
use your
head?”

“But Lily,” Coffey said, bewildered. “You insisted … you swore to the abbot that Mr. LaMartine assaulted you, child. Now you are saying it was not so?”

Lily shrugged. “I made a mistake.”

“I think you had better explain,” her mother said. “Coffey was certain about what happened.”