Daughters of the Storm (23 page)

Why not? Héloïse thought, when, at the finish of their meal, Louis took her arm to escort her into the gardens of the Palais Royal. I will be so careful. Am I not allowed a little happiness?

They stopped to exchange greetings with an acquaintance of de Choissy's, and a cool voice of reason sounded in her head. The acquaintance moved on, not without an appraising glance thrown in Louis' direction. You must not, said the voice. It is madness. Provide de Choissy with an heir first and then think again.

‘You have gone very quiet,' commented Louis, handing her through the entrance to the gardens.

But Héloïse, unwilling to share her thoughts, said nothing.

It was easy enough to become lost in the Palais Royal. It was a place meant for assignation, and for secrets, and before long Héloïse and Louis found that they were wandering by themselves among the crowd. They stopped to watch a party of jugglers and to drink a glass of indifferent mulled wine, for the night was a little chilly.

Héloïse shrugged her cloak tighter around her and laughed at a particularly stupid antic.

‘I like to see my escorts enjoy themselves,' remarked Louis.

‘Your escorts?' said Héloïse quickly, and then paused. ‘But, of course, your escorts.'

‘Don't look like that, Héloïse,' said Louis, stricken by the expression on her face. ‘My... escorts are not very important.'

‘I have no right to ask such a question,' she said. ‘Forgive me.'

‘Most men have lovers,' he reminded her, ‘and most women.'

‘I know,' she replied, and looked up into his face.

With a sudden movement, Louis pulled her back into the shadows and drew her close. Héloïse was so surprised that she did nothing, except to taste, as she had longed to taste, the firmness of his mouth on hers. It was so very different from de Choissy's. With a little cry, she relaxed against him.

At last, they moved apart.

‘I have wished to do that since I first met you...' He sounded very tender.

‘I'm glad.'

‘Héloïse, I want you.' Louis was not usually so direct. He liked to spin the game out a little further in order to prolong the enjoyment.

‘Why did you not come sooner?'

Louis shrugged. ‘It was not the right time,' he said.

The light was feeble but she searched his face. ‘You know about these things? Of course.'

‘Yes, I do. I can't pretend otherwise. I'm not a monk, Héloïse. That doesn't make this...' he touched her cheek. ‘It doesn't make this less important...'

‘Time wasted,' she said, and shivered.

Louis pressed a finger against her mouth. They stood face to face, locked together in a moment that all lovers recognise.

Louis took up her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist.

‘When? How?'

‘Are you not better at these things?' she replied.

Louis laughed with a catch in his throat.

‘Yes, I am,' he replied. He moved away from her, conscious that prying eyes might spy them. ‘Tomorrow, at four o'clock at the Louvre. Ask for Madame Junot. Everyone knows her. I will arrange it.'

Héloïse nodded, her heart thudding audibly in her ears. ‘Tomorrow, then,' she said slowly, more to herself than to Louis.

*

Héloïse slept badly.

The party had gone on from the Palais Royal to play cards at Madame Duffand's and she had been badly dipped. Usually her uncanny luck and her skill at cards ensured that she never lost too much. But tonight had been different; and it had much to do with the nearness of the blue-suited figure that stood behind her and steadily consumed a bottle of brandy.

Debts Héloïse knew she could pay, for, whatever else de Choissy might be, he had seen to it that Héloïse retained a generous part of her dowry and, moreover, had settled an allowance on her. Matters of honour were less easy to arrange and, lying enshrouded in the quiet of her room, Héloïse was aware that she was about to cross a boundary between innocence and complicity. She thought of the sponge soaked in vinegar that she had obtained from the herbalist which waited for her to use it, the first of many little deceitful acts and one she prayed would be effective. She could not, in all conscience, ever deliberately foist a child of Louis' on to de Choissy.

The dawn arrived, sending the first ray of light of what promised to be an unseasonably warm day through the shutters. Abandoning all pretence of sleep, Héloïse arose, folded back the shutters and sat by the window, her chin cupped in her hands.

The light grew stronger, throwing out a tantalising hint of spring. A ray of sun sneaked into the courtyard below, a warm, white light which was quite different from the harsh summer sun.

As Héloïse watched, the walls of the house turned from dull yellow into pure gold, and yielded up the secrets of their plasterwork and carved doorways. Except for a sleepy maid who stumbled out of the stable block in order to draw water for the household, no one stirred, and the scent of dust, mixed with the perfume of the lilac that bloomed against the south wall, filtered sweet and heavy past the watching Héloïse. .

Paris woke into life. Wheels grinding on the cobbles, the carts lumbered in from the country loaded with vegetables, walnuts, oil, dried beans and fresh white cheeses wrapped in vine leaves. Wooden sabots clumped on the cobbles. Occasionally someone shouted a warning. There were frequent exchanges of greetings, a sound of hooves and horses neighing.

Upstairs in the Hôtel de Choissy, the footsteps clumped over the uncarpeted floors as the servants went about their early-morning tasks. Soon the smell of chocolate and fresh bread wafted through the house and Héloïse's stomach growled in anticipation. She sighed with pleasure at the peaceful scene, and remained thus for a long time.

At half-past three a de Choissy coach picked its way across the Pont Royal and swung east alongside the huge Louvre buildings. The streets were dense with afternoon traffic – coaches and carts – and on the way she had noticed a surprising number of soldiers. Héloïse wondered if the gossip at the Tuileries was correct and if war, long predicted by those who pretended to be in the know, was imminent.

At the Louvre she alighted and gave detailed instructions to the coachman. She waited for the coach to move on before picking up her skirts and making her way towards one of the doors in the vast façade. She had sometimes paid a call on one of her friends who lived in one of the apartments that honeycombed the building, but she had never before come alone on an assignation such as this. Again, she looked over her shoulder for she wanted to be sure that no gossip would be relayed back to the Rue de l'Université.

One or two passers-by threw a curious look at her veiled figure. Today, she had chosen to wear a pink sprigged muslin and Léonard had swept her hair into deliciously contrived curls on top of which was angled a daring hat trimmed with heron plumes. Sweeping in full, soft folds to her feet and tied with a striped silk sash into a huge bow, her dress hung with just the right degree of artfulness, managing both to conceal and reveal her figure. A beribboned cane completed her outfit. Knowing that she looked both expensive and elegant helped to steady Héloïse's nerves, but not enough to quieten the fluttering of her stomach or to prevent her hands going cold inside her kid gloves.

Madame Junot was easily found and Héloïse trod behind her up a carved staircase and into a well-furnished room at one end of which stood a bed hung with fresh white cotton. Madame Junot took a smiling departure and Héloïse almost followed her back down the stairs, so revolted was she with the woman's knowing look.

Averting her eyes from the bed, she sat down to wait. The minutes ticked from a fine enamelled clock that stood on an equally fine Boule table. Obviously, Madame Junot had taste. But, then as she had heard, madames who let out their houses often did.

The chair was comfortable and the room pleasantly cool. Héloïse sighed and passed her hand over her forehead where the beginnings of a headache were making themselves felt. She sank lower into her seat, untied her veil, took off her hat and tossed it on to the table beside her. Her eyelids drooped. The clock ticked on with its soothing beat. Imperceptibly, the world darkened and Héloïse sank into an exhausted doze and then into sleep.

She was roused by the touch of unfamiliar hands lifting her up and placing her gently on the bed. The same hands removed the fichu from her neck. Héloïse sighed and stirred, imagining that she was still deep in her dreams of drowsy darkness. The hands busied themselves with the laces of her dress. Her shoes were removed and her white silk stockings peeled away. Somehow, she was lying in her chemise and... then... air was bathing her naked body from head to toe.

Héloïse's eyes opened. It was not a dream. Louis was gazing down on her with the tender expression which she had grown to love. ‘Sleep head.' Turning away, he divested himself of his uniform. Still not sure if she was waking or dreaming, she sank . Louis' hands began to move across her body and when he kissed her, Héloïse knew for sure that she was awake.

‘Mignonne,'
Louis whispered. ‘Open your eyes, there is nothing to be ashamed of.'

She allowed him to wrap her in his arms and turned her face to meet his kiss. But when he put out an arm to caress one of her thighs, she flinched.

Louis raised himself on one elbow and gazed into her face. Héloïse lifted her hand and touched his face in apology.

‘What has he done to you?' he demanded. ‘Tell me and I'll make him pay.'

‘Nothing that you cannot heal,' she replied.

Surely I am going to die, she thought a little while later. I never dreamed it could be like this.

Later still, when they lay entwined, the sweat cooling their bodies, Louis spoke.

‘I should not be here. The king has declared war on Austria.'

Héloïse dragged herself back to the present.

‘Poor France.'

Louis kissed a strand of her hair that had fallen across his face.

‘This is serious. It might mean the end of the king.'

‘Exile or imprisonment?' Héloïse asked dreamily.

‘Either.'

Héloïse sat up, and Louis drank in the sight of her bare body. Alabaster skin, he thought, delicate shoulders... she is so slight, so delicate.

‘I cannot think of anything serious at this particular moment,' she said, ‘except that war might take you from me.'

He drew her down to him, almost tongue-tied by an emotion that he had rarely felt before. He had come to this tryst much in the spirit he had come to others – curious, stirred and not a little smitten – but the things that had so recently passed between them had shown Louis that this time it was different. So different that he could not help feeling that one short afternoon had changed him.

It was not so much Héloïse's beauty and fragility, although both of those things roused in him a deep protectiveness, or even the passion with which she eventually greeted his. It was something other, a mysterious ingredient, a sense of completeness that touched him profoundly. What was it exactly? But Louis had no words to describe what now lay over his spirit.

Another hour drifted away and the room sounded to their quiet whispers and absorbed their cries of pleasure. All thoughts of de Choissy had fled from Héloïse. She knew only that this was right and perfect, a golden surrender snatched from the humiliation of her marriage.

Finally... finally... Louis drew away.

‘I must go.'

Héloïse disengaged herself from his arms. Louis sat up and swung his legs over the bed. Héloïse smiled to herself as she watched him dress, the smile – so often kept a secret - of a woman who rejoices in the intimacy of her love: the careful appraisal of the beloved body, the delighted acknowledgement of a tiny flaw, the never-to-be-forgotten closeness of watching something so ordinary, and so precious, as your lover dressing.

Louis bent over and kissed her eyelids. Héloïse lay back on the disarray of sheets, her dark hair offering a lovely contrast to their whiteness.

‘We will meet again soon?' he asked, and she was quick to notice the question in his voice and could not resist the opportunity to tease him.

‘Perhaps,' she said languidly, and was enormously pleased to see the frown that sprang across his forehead.

‘Perhaps?' He was brusque, offended... hurt? ‘Only perhaps?'

For her answer, she reached for his hand and kissed his fingers one by one.

‘Need you ask?' she said, and watched the frown clear as if by magic from his face.

He kissed her. ‘I will send word,' he said. ‘Trust me.'

Then he was gone. Héloïse stretched like a cat in the sun and slid out of bed to wash, aglow with happiness.

*

De Choissy was absent for longer than he had originally planned. Three weeks went by with no news except for a hasty missive in which he regretted his enforced absence and promised to return forthwith.

‘You don't regret it at all,
ma mie,'
observed Sophie shrewdly when Héloïse read out the letter one morning after breakfast. ‘Be honest.'

Héloïse giggled. ‘How right you are, dearest Sophie. Every day that my very dear husband is away is another day of freedom.'

She blushed to think just how free they had been. Louis and she had met as often as their duties allowed, and each time Héloïse had returned deeper and deeper in love – wrapped in happiness so fierce that she was sure anyone who cared to could read her secret. Any thoughts of the price she might have to pay were discarded. Any notion of the future blotted out by the elation of the present.

Sophie sat down beside Héloïse on the sofa and cupped her cousin's face between her hands.

‘You know,' she said reflectively, ‘you have changed these past few weeks. You seem... well, more at peace.'

Héloïse tried to avoid Sophie's loving scrutiny. She ached to confide in Sophie, but the caution she had learned in her childhood when secrecy had been her only weapon against prying eyes of a large household was too engrained.