The Chateau on the Lake (34 page)

‘I’m saddened that the mothers won’t allow me to help their children any more,’ I say, suddenly close to tears.

‘I promise you, better times are coming.’ Jean-Luc takes the books from my arms and puts them on the table. Then he leans towards me and presses his lips against mine.

I freeze. I don’t want this but I have no wish to antagonise him.

He laughs. ‘Still so modest, Madeleine?’ He cups my face in his hands. ‘You have such extraordinarily beautiful violet eyes. They ensnared me from the very first and hold me still in thrall. I cannot blame Etienne for falling in love with you since you would tempt any man,’ he whispers, and kisses my lips again.

I pull back but he’s captured my wrists.

‘Madeleine, I was going to wait for an appropriately romantic moment but I shall wait no longer.’

‘Jean-Luc…’

‘Shhh!’ He touches a finger to my lips. ‘I never thought to put my neck in the matrimonial noose until I met you, Madeleine. You have made my desire to remain free evaporate into thin air. I must have you.’

I’m filled with dismay by his declaration. How could I ever have considered marrying a man who appears to think I wish to entrap him and who proposes in such an unromantic way? I must put an end to this at once. ‘Please, Jean-Luc…’

‘Madeleine, I have such plans for us, far greater than you can imagine!’ He pulls me into his arms and kisses me, his tongue flicking into my mouth.

I shrink away but I’m trapped against the heavy cupboard.

He frowns and pinches my chin between his finger and thumb, forcing me to look at him. Then he smiles. ‘So, you want me to coax you?’

‘Please, release me,’ I say, my voice quavering.

He bends his head and kisses me again.

I try to turn my head away but his hand is in my hair and he holds me fast, his tongue in my mouth again. Repulsion overwhelms me and I struggle to free myself but I’m no match for Jean-Luc’s strength. Panicking, I clamp my teeth together over his tongue and bite down. I taste blood.

‘You little vixen!’ There’s blood on his teeth.

I shudder at the sight of it. ‘Please, Jean-Luc, you’re frightening me!’

‘Madeleine, be calm!’ His grip on my arms grows tighter. ‘My intentions are honourable.’

‘Then release me!’

He lets me go. ‘Tell me that you’ll marry me?’

‘No, I cannot!’

The smile fades. ‘I’m not asking you to be my mistress, I’m proposing marriage. Both Mayor Prudhomme and my mother have given their blessing. I have
chosen
you.’

I shake my head.

‘You refuse me?’

His expression is incredulous and it is in that moment, as I look into his eyes, that I realise he is unhinged. Shock and disbelief ripple over me in an icy wave.

‘You cannot!’ He jams his forearm across my throat, shoving me back against the cupboard again. ‘The daughter of a no-account schoolteacher refuses me,
me
, the estate manager of Château Mirabelle and a member of the Mayor’s Convention? Don’t you understand that I am a person of consequence?’

‘Let me go!’ It’s hard for me to breathe and my eyes are watering from the effort.

His breath hisses between his lips. ‘I see it now. It’s Etienne, isn’t it?’ His face is so close to mine that I feel the fine spray of his saliva on my cheeks. ‘Despite all I’ve told you, you still love him, don’t you?’

His arm is across my windpipe and the breath rasps in my throat.

‘I am taller and stronger than he. I have an education. I have danced attention and favour upon you. Tell me, what does Etienne have that I do not?’

I look wildly towards the door, hoping beyond hope that someone will save me.

‘Is it the château?’ he demands, and bares his teeth in a rictus grin. ‘Of course it is! What girl would not have her head turned by such a place? Well, let me tell you, Madeleine, it won’t be his for long.’ He removes his arm from my neck and air fills my wheezing lungs again.

‘What do you mean?’ I croak.

‘Hah!’ Jean-Luc is triumphant. ‘Soon the château will be mine. It
is
mine by right. And when it’s in my possession, then you will
beg
me to marry you.’

I fold my mouth in an obstinate line.

Fury flares in his eyes and he kisses me again, his teeth grinding painfully against my lips. His hands roam over my breasts and waist while I try to fight him off, but my cries only serve to anger him further.

‘No one will hear you if you scream.’ He bends to nip my throat and I pull his hair. He swats my hands away and tears at the neckline of my dress, ripping the muslin and exposing my breasts, barely covered by my chemise.

Suddenly he pulls back, uttering a muffled curse. ‘What the hell is this?’

I catch my breath as I see he holds the moonstone ring in his hand.

Holding it up to the light, he examines the crest. ‘Where did you get this?’

I refuse to meet his eyes.

Jean-Luc raises his hand and strikes me.

Pain reverberates through my skull. Stunned, I shake my head to clear the buzzing in my ears and a trickle of blood runs from my nose and drips on to my chemise.

‘This is the Limours signet ring.’ Jean-Luc raises his fist. ‘I’ll ask you again, where did you get this?’

I flinch away from him. ‘It was my father’s,’ I whisper.

Jean-Luc’s face blanches and he drops the ring as if it were a burning coal. ‘
Your father?
Your father is the lost heir, the one who stole the ring and ran away?’

Reluctantly, I nod, closing my hand over it.

‘The story was that he went to England.’

I lower my eyes so that he cannot see the fear in them.

‘Madeleine? By God, I see it all now. You’re one of those arrogant aristocrats.’ Jean-Luc shakes his head as if to clear his thoughts. ‘And I remember that I heard you defending the British to the children, right here in this schoolroom! You didn’t grow up in Lyon, did you? I wondered if there was something about the way you speak that didn’t ring true… You and Etienne are both spying for the British, aren’t you?’ He shakes me so hard my teeth rattle.

I hold my head up high. ‘I’m not a spy and my father was the most honourable of men.’

The shock of the second blow, when it comes, sends me spinning into merciful darkness.

My head is throbbing insistently, my throat hurts. I’m lying on the floor.

A shadow falls across me. ‘So, you’re awake,’ says Jean-Luc. He pulls forward a chair and straddles it, arms folded on the backrest. He sighs heavily. ‘Why did you have to make it all so difficult, Madeleine?’

My mouth is dry and my heart is thudding as I pull myself into a sitting position and lean against the wall. I’m filled with disbelief at this turn of events. ‘I’m not a spy, Jean-Luc.’

He stands up abruptly and strides over to the window. ‘I thought you’d jump at the chance of marriage to me. Even Maman approved of my choice of a wife.’

Something is worrying me. ‘What did you mean when you said the château is yours by right?’

Jean-Luc chews his bottom lip. ‘I hadn’t thought ever to tell anyone the truth but it’s been painful keeping it all to myself for so long.’

‘Tell me!’ I whisper, humouring him.

He begins to pace the floor. ‘On my fifth birthday Maman took me to the library to see the old comte. He bent down and said, “And what have you to say for yourself, young Viard?”

‘I looked around the library and asked, “Have you read all these books?” The comte laughed and said he hadn’t but perhaps I would like to? I said that I would. A few months later I joined his sons for their lessons.’

I glance at the door, wondering if I can make a run for it.

‘Some might say I was lucky to be given an education but they never had to bear the slights and insults that I did, a servant’s child raised above his position. Our tutors thrashed me for small misdemeanours, whilst Laurent and Etienne were rarely punished.’ He turns away. ‘I didn’t fit in anywhere,’ he says, his voice bitter, ‘being neither a gentleman nor a peasant. And Laurent, three years older than myself, made me miserable by continually taunting me with my lowly beginnings.’

I can almost find it in my heart to feel sorry for him. ‘That must have been hard for you.’

‘Don’t interrupt!’

His voice is so harsh that I dare not speak again. I judge the distance to the door at the other end of the schoolroom but calculate I would never reach it before Jean-Luc caught me. Despair makes me shiver.

‘By the time I was twelve years old the comte had elevated my mother from parlour maid to housekeeper and my father was overseer in the vineyard.’

Jean-Luc’s gaze rests on me for a moment but I sense that he doesn’t see me.

‘It was one day when I was twelve and after my father had whipped me for some imagined misdemeanour that everything changed. I crept away to lick my wounds but later, as I returned to our apartment, I heard Maman scream.’ Jean-Luc stops and stares at his feet.

‘What happened?’ I ask. I must keep him talking and persuade him to release me.

Jean-Luc starts as if I’ve awoken him from his reverie. ‘I rushed into the sitting room to find my father raping Maman.’

I gasp. ‘No child should witness such a terrible thing.’

‘It
was
terrible,’ he says. ‘I grabbed the poker and hit him with it. Knocked him out cold. Maman was sobbing and as I bathed her bruises she told me the whole story. Thirteen years before, the comte, Etienne’s father that is, had seduced her. When she realised she was pregnant she threatened to tell the comtesse unless he looked after her. His answer was to marry her off to Marcel Viard.’

My head aches and I struggle to think clearly. Then shock renders me speechless for a moment as I realise the implications of Jean-Luc’s statement. ‘So you are Etienne’s half-brother?’ I picture them both together but there is no obvious family likeness. ‘Did no one suspect the truth?’

‘Since the comte was not usually a philanderer,’ says Jean-Luc, ‘perhaps no one suspected.’

‘It must have been a very unhappy situation for you and your mother.’ A new escape plan has occurred to me. The tower door is a few paces away and the key is kept on the architrave above.

‘Everything changed from that day,’ says Jean-Luc. ‘Once I knew that I was the comte’s son I couldn’t rest. Laurent and Etienne had everything to look forward to but all I could hope for was to be some kind of superior servant, like Maman.’

‘That must have been galling for you.’

‘It was.’ He begins to pace up and down again. ‘Then, when I was sixteen, Laurent and I decided to row to the island. I can picture him now, looking at me with that supercilious smile of his and saying, “Row faster, serf!”’ Jean-Luc narrows his eyes at the memory. ‘All the hidden hatred I felt for his patronising ways boiled up in me.’

I’m almost afraid to ask. ‘What happened then?’

‘It was over in minutes. I hit him with an oar, pushed him in the water and held him under while he drowned.’

I catch my breath at the casual way he tells me this and all at once I’m very afraid again.

‘It was easy to explain a boating accident,’ says Jean-Luc. ‘Laurent had been drinking his father’s wine and was fooling about. He banged his head on the side of the boat as he fell into the lake. I said I dived in to save him but it was too late.’

‘I still don’t understand.’

‘So that made me the comte’s eldest son,’ says Jean-Luc. ‘I worked hard at my studies and learned to be a gentleman. I was always charming and good-natured. I soon realised that the role of estate manager was an important one and would give me an element of control so I started to visit old Monsieur Auger in the estate office and make myself indispensable. When he retired I asked the comte to allow me to take over the position.’ Jean-Luc smiles. ‘And very lucrative it has been for me. Especially since Etienne had never been very clever at book-keeping.’

Outraged, I bite my lip.

‘The next part of my plan didn’t go so well.’ He frowns. ‘I decided, in view of my success, that I had become a son the comte should be proud of. So, since I was now his eldest child, I asked him to make me his heir.’

‘And what did he say?’

Jean-Luc’s expression is full of anguish as he remembers. ‘He laughed at me.’

All at once I know what he’s going to tell me and a cold shiver runs down my spine.

‘I couldn’t have him mocking me so…’

‘There was a carriage accident?’ I say.

‘Clever girl!’ Jean-Luc looks at me approvingly. ‘The comte had recently bought himself a new curricle. A pretty thing, canary yellow with shiny black trim, the very latest design. It was simple for me to find out where he was to take it on its first excursion and to wait in the bushes until it passed by. A crow-scarer did the trick. The horses bolted and the curricle tipped over in the ford.’

I try not to picture the poor comtesse trapped under the coach in the water. ‘What about Isabelle?’

‘The marriage wasn’t much of a success. I befriended her with a view to becoming her lover. It was imperative she didn’t produce a legitimate heir and I planned her disgrace very carefully.’

‘And
did
she fall into your arms?’ I hold my breath.

‘No,’ he snaps. ‘Condescending little bitch! She was attracted to me and we flirted a great deal so I had high hopes. One day I took her to the island for a picnic, hoping to seduce her with strawberries and champagne. She laughed when she realised my intentions and told me that she was already carrying Etienne’s child.’ Jean-Luc fixes me with a basilisk stare. ‘Well, I couldn’t allow the child to be born, could I?’

It’s almost too much to comprehend but, despite the horror of his revelations, I have to ask. ‘Did she die?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he says, in a light, conversational tone. ‘Etienne had extended the west side of the vineyard that spring. Maman had the clever idea of burying her where the earth was already freshly turned.’

‘Your
mother
helped you?’

‘She always intended that I should take up my rightful place at Château Mirabelle.’ He smiles. ‘It amused me that Etienne took such pains to nurture the new plants and how well his care was rewarded. You may have noticed that the vines grow especially thick there?’

I close my eyes but the tears still seep out. Poor Isabelle! And poor Etienne, his life blighted by scandal and still tortured by the mystery of what had happened to his wife and unborn child.

‘Maman soon spread the word about a mysterious horseman seen leaving the château on the day Isabelle disappeared,’ says Jean-Luc. ‘As long as she couldn’t be found, Etienne wouldn’t be able to marry again and produce a legitimate heir. And since he and Isabelle argued so often, others assumed he killed her in a fit of rage. It was really rather clever of us, wasn’t it?’

‘Devilishly clever.’

‘And now the Revolution will complete my work for me. Once I expose Etienne as a spy, that will be the end of him and the château will be confiscated by the state.’

Terror bubbles in my chest. ‘But then you couldn’t inherit this property.’ I’m willing him to walk to the other side of the schoolroom, to give me a chance of reaching the door to the tower.

‘Once Etienne has been despatched, Mayor Prudhomme will listen favourably to my request to buy Château Mirabelle for a reasonable price. I’ve saved the funds from my careful manipulation of the accounts.’

‘I thought you were in favour of the Revolution?’

Jean-Luc smiles. ‘Only in so far as it furthers my own aims. And don’t forget, half the blood that flows in my veins is noble.’

My fingers twitch with the urge to slap the complacent expression off his face. ‘The villagers will never accept you in Etienne’s place.’

‘Oh, I think they will,’ says Jean-Luc calmly. ‘They’re already angry and discontented. While Etienne has been away, I’ve discreetly let it be known that he has no intention of sharing the profits from the next vintage with the workers, as he promised.’

‘You lying, misbegotten toad! You know that’s not true! Look how hard he’s worked…’

‘Shut up!’ Jean-Luc slaps my cheek and I gasp as my head jerks back. ‘I thought I’d arranged Etienne’s downfall when Prudhomme came to inspect the kitchens. Maman had given Madame Thibault a push in the right direction by letting her know where she could buy black-market flour, but it came to naught. It took me a while to realise how Etienne got out of that one. And you helped him, didn’t you?’ He grasps my shoulders and gives me a shake.

I will not look at him.

‘So that brings me back to what to do with you,’ he says. ‘I think you’ll rest very comfortably under the vines next to Isabelle, don’t you? But there’s still the little problem of Sophie and her brat. Once you’ve disappeared, I really can’t allow her to tell people that you were with me this morning, can I?’

‘Leave Sophie out of this!’

‘Too late for that, I’m afraid. I could hand you both over to the mayor and tell him you’re spies, but now I’ve told you how I brought the noble d’Aubery family to an end, I’m not prepared to risk you blabbing about it. No, I shall make it look as if you both ran away. And now it’s time to set my plan in action.’

‘What plan?’ My teeth are chattering together with fear but I must find out what he has in mind.

‘The peasants are increasingly resentful of Etienne. Maman and I did an excellent job of drip-feeding poisonous thoughts into their simple minds while you were both away. They’re like a keg of gunpowder just waiting for a lighted taper.’

‘What could you say that would make the villagers distrust him? He’s always been such a good master.’ I’m burning with outrage.

‘It was a challenge,’ says Jean-Luc, nodding in agreement, ‘but Etienne used to travel regularly to London and now the villagers and servants are convinced he must be a spy. Combined with the knowledge that he intends to cheat them out of the profits from the wine, when he arrives here they’ll either hang him or turn him over to the mayor.’

Jean-Luc walks to the window and I take the opportunity to draw my knees up, ready to push myself to my feet and run.

‘It’s nearly time for the party,’ he says, taking out his pocket watch and glancing at it. ‘It will take place in the dining room of the
château
, not the
chai
. The wine will flow freely, judiciously laced with brandy. Once the peasants are in their cups the petty grievances will rise to the surface and I shall be there to encourage them. It’s so wrong that Etienne lives alone in a huge palace, eating off silver plates, with silk at the windows and gilded furniture, while the peasants struggle to survive in their mean little hovels, don’t you think?’

‘You seem to have it all worked out.’ I cannot prevent the hatred I feel for him from showing in my eyes.

He scowls. ‘I wanted you at my side as my chatelaine. I intended us to build a new dynasty together but you’ve proved yourself unworthy of me.’ He turns to close and bolt the shutters.

Heart in my mouth, I grab the opportunity. I spring to my feet, tiptoe to the tower door and stretch up to fumble for the key on the architrave.

Behind me the shutter bolts grate home.

The key is in my hand! Fumbling, I shove it into the keyhole with trembling fingers.

The casements squeak as Jean-Luc pulls them shut… and then he bellows in rage.

The tower door swings open and I snatch the key from the lock.

Jean-Luc’s footsteps pound across the room.

I slip through the doorway into the small, dark space, slam the door behind me and turn the key.

Blows rain down upon the other side.

Eyes tightly shut, I lean against it, gasping at each thump, terrified he’ll break the door down. Then there is silence, except for the sound of Jean-Luc’s heavy breathing.

‘Madeleine!’

Knuckles pressed against my mouth, I say nothing.

‘Very well,’ he snaps. ‘But it will be the worse for you when I return, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

A moment later I hear the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor, which then thumps against the door. ‘Don’t forget, I’m coming back for you later!’ His voice is muffled now and I remain frozen in fear, listening to his footsteps fading away. Then there is the sound of the schoolroom door slamming behind him.

I’m trapped as securely as if I were in a dungeon and panic grips me. I scream and beat on the door until my hands are bruised. At last I sink to the ground with my arms folded over my face. My throat is raw and my cheeks sodden with tears.