Amour: Historical Romance (Passion and Glory Book 1) (16 page)

Madame de Blaise observed the encounter from the foot of the bed in astonished silence. Nothing could now be left in doubt as to what the vicomtesse’s feelings were for Nicolas. But did his feelings match her own? Did he, in his weakened state, even know that she was there?

“Séro…”

The marquise had her answer.

And so did Sérolène. The way he spoke her name, how she loved the sound—part appellation, part caress, all supplication. No one else in the world called her as he did. He had brought the word into existence for her alone. She rewarded him with another press of her lips upon his.

“I’m here, my dearest Nico.”

Nicolas turned his head, his eyes were pained and feverish. “My darling, you are safe? Then at last my rest shall be tranquil.”

Sérolène raised his hand and pressed it to her lips with complete devotion. “I am safe thanks to you. Thanks only to you, my dearest love. Rest now. I promise I shall stay by your side until you are well.”

Nicolas groaned. Sérolène caressed his face. The tips of her fingers stroked his brow with tenderness. She whispered to him the last verse of the poem she had written. Wanting him to know how deeply she felt for him, and that her feelings were as true as his own.

“From dawn till dusk I wait, my love, my heart wants only you.”

Nicolas managed the briefest of smiles. “Your love and your words breathe life into me, my angel.”

Sérolène held Nicolas with her gaze. He returned it for a brief interval, and then his eyes began to close. He slipped away from the world again, sinking back beneath the veil of oblivion.

Madame de Blaise covered her mouth with her hand. She gathered the vicomtesse around the shoulders, pressing her lips to Sérolène’s temple with a mother’s caring affection.
How well she seems to love my son, and his love appears equal to her own. But how is such an attachment even possible
?

“What was that for, Madame?”

“For what you did for my son.”

Sérolène’s voice was thick with regret and apology. “I’m afraid he’s done ever so much more for me than I have been able to do for him, Madame. It’s partly my fault that he’s lying there.”

“Don’t you dare blame yourself for what’s happened, dear child. You are as sweet as you are guiltless. On this I must insist.”

The marquise’s voice was firm but filled with compassion. Sérolène gazed at the marquise to absorb every fine detail of the marquise’s exquisite countenance. She wanted to retain the image of such noble perfection forever.

“What troubles you, my dear? Why do you look at me so?”

Sérolène lowered her gaze. “Pardon me, Madame…it’s just. Well, I’ve never met anyone so beautiful. Or so kind.”

“Careful now, my sweet young angel, or you’ll cause me to love you as dearly as Nicolas seems to.”

Sérolène embraced the marquise. “I do so hope you will, Madame.”

Madame de Blaise returned the embrace, then drew the curtains of Nicolas’ bed shut. Placing a comforting arm around Sérolène’s waist, she guided the vicomtesse from the room. Anyone observing them in so close a state of resemblance and familiarity, would have assumed them to be mother and daughter.

“Come, let us make our way to the dining room. You must not neglect your own health. I’m sure your
cousine
will be delighted to see you again and to know you are recovering well. Do not fear for Nicolas. Julius will stay with him and the doctors will be back in the morning to examine him again…and you. I’m looking forward to us getting to know each other much better over the coming days, dear child. Much better indeed.”

The news of Nicolas’ extraordinary act of heroism raced through the principal cities of the French Indies. While the chevalier recuperated in the cocoon of his family’s estate, his selfless act of sacrifice was on everyone’s lips, eclipsing even the clamor surrounding his brother’s recent engagement. In one rash, brave moment, Nicolas had covered his name in glory. In every salon, from St. Domingue to Martinique, the case of the Chevalier d’Argentolle was taken up and discussed. Gentlemen debated his merits, ladies enumerated with favor, his gallant attributes. No one seemed to remember the “questionable” circumstances of his heritage, and those who did, didn’t dare to raise such matters now. The fickle wheel of public opinion had turned and Nicolas was enveloped in a shining gilded halo. Even the contrived scandal of his father’s second marriage seemed forgiven, if not wholly forgotten.

The Vaudreuils were the first of the great families to throw their support behind the Montferrauds. Admiral Vaudreuil and his family owed Nicolas a great debt for saving the life of his daughter Charlotte. The Vaudreuils issued a public letter of thanks and privately invited all of the Montferrauds to dine with them as soon as it should be convenient. After more than a decade of stringent enforcement, the siege of social ostracism upon the Marquis and Marquise de Blaise had at last been lifted.

Others soon followed the Vaudreuil’s example. The Comtesse de Talonge came with the Comte d’Argout, the Governor of St. Domingue, to visit Nicolas’ sick bed. The Governor was so charmed by his first meeting with the marquise, that he invited the entire family to the Governor’s Mansion, as soon as Nicolas was well enough to attend. Madame de Talonge also invited the marquise to her salon and spread the word among her intimates that the Marquise de Blaise was a gentle, discerning and most splendid creature. The comtesse also proclaimed the rumors concerning the marquise’s heritage to be wholly false and impossible. An opinion which carried much sway in the influential shadow worlds of the salons.

The Governor’s appearance, and Madame de Talonge’s intriguing, sparked a groundswell of similar visitations which soon became a deluge. Each day, the courtyard at the Montferraud estate was filled with the parked carriages of well-wishers. Many new introductions and friends were made. No one cared that they had only come when the social weather had been at its fairest. Everyone was charmed and indulgent and conveniently forgetful. The heated feelings of the past, the disparaging voices and opinions—it all seemed so quaint and foolish now.

Nicolas was still too ill to receive visitors, but that didn’t deter them from coming. Once it became a fad to go to the Blaise estate, it mattered only that one had made the trip. Most who made the pilgrimage were received with courtesy, given refreshment and then sent back on their way, never having come anywhere near the chevalier’s bed. The most fortunate—those whose prior claims of friendship granted them a greater degree of access to the private rooms of the château, were sometimes rewarded with a brief escorted trip to the hero’s sickroom to look in upon him, usually as he slept.

To aid in his convalescence, the chevalier had been moved from his private bedroom to a larger suite of rooms, with several attached anterooms and parlors to accommodate all those responsible for his care. The outer suite of rooms was as far as most were allowed entry. These chambers were occupied at most hours by at least one physician and several nurses. The inner rooms and Nicolas’ own chamber were the exclusive preserve of the doctors, the family, Sérolène and her cousine Julienne. But it was the vicomtesse, often joined by the marquise, who could be found most often at Nicolas’ side, whatever his state of wakefulness.

Those who gained entrance to the chevalier’s suite might have speculated upon the identity of the fair nurse, taller than most men, who so often kept close company with the wounded man, but the identity of the raven haired rose was a closely held secret that none in the household would divulge. Introductions were not offered. Inquiries discrete and otherwise were not responded to beyond the bland admission that the lady was a cousine to the future Madame de Marbéville and on very close terms with the chevalier.

Well-heeled curiosity seekers were not the only ones to visit the sick bed. The Baron de Salvagnac had also come in person, the day after Julienne arrived, to express his thanks to the Montferrauds for a daughter and a niece delivered safely from danger. The baronne however, feigned illness and refused to accompany her husband. Even worse, she chastised him for going. But the baron was a man of finance. He knew a debt when it had been incurred, and he went anyway. The baron missed meeting the marquise, who was absent during his visit, but was pleased to find his niece recovering well from her ordeal and looking more radiant than he’d ever seen her. Though at first he had not recognized her.

The alteration to Sérolène’s appearance effected by the marquise’s gowns and the attentions of Madame de Blaise’s own hair dressers and attendants had quite transformed the vicomtesse. The Baron de Salvagnac’s last vision of his niece had occurred as Sérolène had begun her fateful excursion to the Cap. In his mind’s eye, she was still the gangly, awkward and bookish young nestling he’d often indulged more as the son he’d never been able to produce, rather than a fragile doll to be pampered and coddled as his daughters were. Unlike his own children, Sérolène had always been too clever, too willful, and too exuberant to accept the standard lot of restrictions and blinders every girl had cause to experience. Sérolène had wanted to learn to ride and to swim. The baron had allowed the first request and denied the second, but only because his own daughters had complained at being excluded from the privilege. He had also encouraged his niece’s intellectual precociousness, allowing her free access to his library, and even teaching her math, how to calculate sums and how to read financial ledgers. He had always considered his niece much more clever than attractive—the kind of girl one saw in a crowd, but never really remembered, remarkable only for her height and awkward manner. But when he’d been led by his future son-in-law to Nicolas’ rooms and had seen his niece at table playing cards, wearing an elegant gown, her hair done up and her appearance enhanced by make-up and rouge, he had wondered at first glance, who the striking young lady was. As he stood gawking by the doorway, Sérolène had raised her head from her game and seen him. He knew then with certainty who she was. His mouth had gaped open in astonishment.

Never one to be shy in showing her affections for those she loved, Sérolène had bounded over at once to plant kisses on each of the baron’s ruddy cheeks. The baron realized then, that his pride in his niece’s intellect had blinded him to her many other qualities. Like cherry blossoms in the spring, she seemed to have bloomed overnight, and he found himself wholly unprepared for the stunning degree of her unveiling.

As the baron was in the midst of paying his compliments to his niece on how well she looked, he recalled his wife’s instructions to fetch the vicomtesse back with him when he returned to his own estate. When he mentioned this wish to Sérolène, however, she had pleaded with him to allow her to remain and fulfill her bedside promise to Nicolas, reminding her uncle of the obligation she and all her family owed to the chevalier.

Of course the baron didn’t know, couldn’t know, the depth of feeling at the core of Sérolène’s desire to stay where she was. How could the baron have imagined his niece already loved Nicolas with a desperation beyond reason and in her heart of hearts, hoped never to be parted from the chevalier? The baron had his own reservations, engendered in greater part by how utterly alluring his niece had suddenly become, but these qualms were eased by Julienne, who knew her cousine better than anyone and promised to be a good chaperone.

The baron was a good man, and he also wished to do the honorable thing. He was already inclined to agree to Sérolène’s request. Julienne alone suspected more than an outward transformation was taking place with her
cousine
. She sensed there was more behind Sérolène’s new deportment and confidence than just make-up and a new hair style. Away from her mother’s domineering presence, Julienne hoped she might be able to persuade the vicomtesse to reveal more of her true feelings.

So at the end of his call, the baron had returned home alone. Only Madame de Salvagnac found this outcome to be less than satisfactory. She wrote to Madame de Talonge, her confidante, to express her concerns, but even that once stalwart flank had already been turned.

The Comtesse de Talonge was well on her way to fulfilling her promise of redemption. She was now a somewhat frequent visitor to the estate and appeared to be getting on very well with the marquise. She often brought other ladies with her when she came to pay a call, introducing them to the society of Madame de Blaise and helping the marquise to launch a salon of her own. Both Sérolène and Julienne were delighted to see the comtesse, interpreting her appearance as a sign from the baronne, of tacit support for the new status quo.

The comtesse was always the model of charm and sociability whenever she appeared. She was full of smiles, warmth and pleasantries, which she bestowed upon everyone with as earnest an air as could be mustered or feigned. She kissed the cheeks and the hands of the marquise, embraced her too, professed newfound devotion and pledged her own friendship in so genuine a manner that even the marquis at last accepted the fact, if not the complete sincerity of the reconciliation. The comtesse swayed her friends to behave in a similar manner, and so in the end, everyone was reconciled. There was nothing else to be done, of course. Adoration of the marquise had become the fashionable thing, and nothing was more important to a Frenchman than being in fashion. Still it surprised Madame de Blaise to discover that so great a turnabout in social fortunes could arrive with such casual ease and unexpected swiftness, as if the stigma so long attached to her name and person had never even existed.

More surprises were yet in store. As the days passed, the carriages still came, joined by curiosity-seekers on foot and on horseback. There were too many now for the family to receive them. The marquis was forced to close his gates to all visitors, save the few who held a legitimate claim upon his friendship. Still the curious came in droves, standing outside the walls of the château, hoping for even a glimpse of the man of the hour. The current state of affairs should have felt like a triumph, especially to the marquise, who had been excluded for so long from the willing company of her peers. But each day toward evening, when the dust clouds of hypocrisy were thinned by the departure of the crowds, the marquise was left to gaze down on the slowly mending body of her son and question whether the approval of so many charlatans was worth so great a sacrifice.

The work of Madame de Talonge proved so effective, that the few remaining voices against Madame de Blaise soon fell completely silent. Even the
Chapeaux Blancs
refused to trespass on the subject, for fear of being shouted down or losing whatever clout they still retained. It was time to lay low, and lay low they did. Did anyone bother to remark upon the irony, that what time, tolerance, charity, and dignity had not been able to overcome, a singular act of valiant élan had accomplished almost overnight? Of course not.

Now, when the Marquise de Blaise went out, hats were doffed and backs were no longer turned. On the streets of Cap-Français and Port au Prince, her presence was enough to draw applause and even occasional hurrahs from well-wishers. No one was more surprised than the marquise at the dramatic turnaround of events, and none could have accepted the arrival of such a surprising reversal of fortune with more grace or humility. Though she had done nothing herself, she was considered great for bearing so noble a son. Social invitations began to pour in. In no time at all, there were more requests for the presence of the Montferrauds at Monsieur so and so’s and Madame whatever’s than could possibly be accepted. The marquise was more than surprised, but the marquis understood the crux of the lesson his youngest son had taught—that there is nothing more appealing to a Frenchman than an act of gallant, daring sacrifice. He also realized that the pleasant afterglow of the chevalier’s celebrity might be much briefer than anyone could imagine at the moment, and it was wise to make the best use of it while possible.

The surface of the marquis’ broad mahogany desk was piled high with correspondence. But forgiving the legions of slanderers and hypocrites whose correspondence now curried favor with him, proved more difficult in practice than he imagined.

The marquis’ expression took on the outlines of a scowl. “Why the very nerve of the scoundrel to ask us to tea.”

On the left of the desk were letters of congratulation he would give to his secretary to respond to. On the right were invitations to engagements awaiting his consideration and approval. He sat back in his chair, tucking his hands into the pockets of his banyan gown
[vi]
, reflecting on the ignoble pretense of civility each response required of him, in order that no one’s feelings should be injured in the
grand reconciliation
—his mocking term to describe the current fad of his wife’s social rehabilitation.

“I suppose now we must smile and pretend all the old grudges have been overlooked or forgotten.”

The marquise’s deep green eyes peered over the edge of the book whose prose she had now abandoned for the greater pleasure of reading her husband’s mood. By nature, her temperament was gentle and accommodating. She had an easier time of engaging in the task of purposeful forgetfulness than the marquis, even though the long injury done to her name and reputation had arguably been far greater than any harm her husband had suffered.