Intrigued (25 page)
Her head spun, but she kissed him back fiercely, and then with the pointed tip of her tongue she ran over his lips tauntingly. “I have wanted you inside me ever since we met,” she admitted boldly. “You excited me that day in the forest. I was yet a child, and still I had the most erotic thoughts of you that I hid from everyone, even Mama, but I think she suspected. My brothers all warned me to marry only for love, but is this delicious lust really love, Sebastian?”
“It is part of it,
cherie,”
he told her. “Do you know how jealous I was of your two other suitors?” He began to kiss her slowly again, his lips wandering over the soft flesh of her neck and shoulders. “The thought of either of those two popinjays touching you drove me mad!” His teeth sank into her shoulder, but then he licked where he had bitten her. “If you ever look at another man, I will kill you, Autumn!”
cherie,”
he told her. “Do you know how jealous I was of your two other suitors?” He began to kiss her slowly again, his lips wandering over the soft flesh of her neck and shoulders. “The thought of either of those two popinjays touching you drove me mad!” His teeth sank into her shoulder, but then he licked where he had bitten her. “If you ever look at another man, I will kill you, Autumn!”
“I am not
her,”
his bride said, refusing to even acknowledge Elise by name. “I want only you,
mon coeur.
Only you!”
her,”
his bride said, refusing to even acknowledge Elise by name. “I want only you,
mon coeur.
Only you!”
He jumped suddenly from their bed. “We need wine to toast our love,
ma cherie!”
he cried, and hurried into the salon. Returning quickly, he brought with him a decanter and two silver goblets engraved with grape leaves and bunches of grapes. Filling the goblets, he handed her one and said, “To us! To Sebastian and Autumn d’Oleron and their love, which will last forever!” Then, entwining his arm in hers, they drank to seal the toast.
ma cherie!”
he cried, and hurried into the salon. Returning quickly, he brought with him a decanter and two silver goblets engraved with grape leaves and bunches of grapes. Filling the goblets, he handed her one and said, “To us! To Sebastian and Autumn d’Oleron and their love, which will last forever!” Then, entwining his arm in hers, they drank to seal the toast.
“Ummmm, this is delicious!” Autumn exclaimed as the pale golden wine slipped down her throat.
“It is even better tasting this way,” he said, pouring a libation onto her torso and licking it up slowly.
“Merveilleux!”
“Merveilleux!”
“I want to do it!” she told him and, laughing, he lay upon his back as she poured a stream of wine onto his torso and began to lick at it. “Oh, it is good this way!” she enthused, chasing after a thin stream of the wine as it rolled down his frame. She licked his body clean of the vintage, smacking her lips as she did so, but then a movement caught her eye and she drew back with a cry.
His manhood stood straight and tall before her. She had had no time to consider its size before, but now she was faced with the reality of it. Fascinated, she reached out and stroked the blue-veined pillar. It was as hard as marble. Her fingers drew his foreskin down as far as it would go, and she marveled at the shiny ruby head of the beast that had one shadowed eye. She could say nothing.
The marquis pushed her back upon the pillows. He kissed her lips and nuzzled her breasts, lapping at a rivulet of wine between them that had earlier escaped him, now licking her nipples until they stood frozen and hard beneath his tongue. He nudged her knees apart and slowly entered her body a second time. “You, madame la marquise, are mine and mine alone,” his deep voice rumbled in her ear.
“Mine!”
He thrust hard.
“Mine!”
“Mine!”
He thrust hard.
“Mine!”
“And you are mine,
mon coeur,”
Autumn told her husband, and she gave herself up to the pleasure their bodies were engendering.
mon coeur,”
Autumn told her husband, and she gave herself up to the pleasure their bodies were engendering.
In the months that followed it was obvious that the Marquis and Marquise d’Auriville were a love match. Charlie Stuart remarked upon it to his mother, pleased that his sister had found happiness. The English king had finally escaped Cromwell’s men to arrive in France. His adventures—hiding in an oak tree beneath the noses of the Roundheads and riding pillion disguised as a servant—were widely recounted. The main thing was that he was safe, to the relief of the many English nobles who had joined his mother in exile.
All of this information came via a letter to the not-so-royal Stuart from his friend, Lord Carstairs. Charlie knew he would have to join his royal cousin sooner or later, and open his purse to help support the king. The royal Stuart was quite impoverished upon his arrival in Rouen, where he had come ashore. At first he had been taken for a tramp. Even his old tutor, Dr. Earle, failed to recognize him, so gaunt and thin had the king grown in the six weeks since Worcester, while he had been on the run from Cromwell and his men. The young king was depressed, but despite all that had happened his spirit had not been broken. He tried hard, Lord Carstairs wrote, to be cheerful, but the situation was so grim that it kept returning to haunt him.
He could not speak of those who had aided him in those very long six weeks. Most were still in England. King Charles thought it a poor form of gratitude to endanger them. His friend, the Earl of Derby, who had been with him when he had escaped through the north gate at Worcester and had last been seen at Whiteladies, a safe house, had been caught and executed. Now the king found himself forced to accept the charity of his mother, who was accepting the charity of the archbishop, Gondi. It was a difficult situation. The French-born English queen was so poor that she made an account of what it cost to feed her son each time he ate at her table. By the time the French government had decided on what they could afford to give their own king’s cousin, he owed it all to his mother, and found himself even poorer than she.
“At least our assets are available to us,” the Duke of Lundy reminded his mother.
“Only because we are wise enough to do business with the Kiras and do not hold their faith againt them,” Jasmine said sharply. “Your royal relations, Charlie, never considered the possibility that they might be driven from England. Why did not King Charles the First make provision for his wife and children when she fled? The queen has been gone from England several years now. Louis was not in control when she came, and he has still not gained a firm grip on France. He will, of course, but what will happen between now and then is a moot point. What is our king to do now? How will he regain his throne and his kingdom? He has left it all to Master Cromwell and his Roundheads.”
“The people love him, Mama,” the duke replied.
“Perhaps,” she said, “but he did not understand them, else he would not have come down from the north at the head of a kilt-wearing, pipe-skirling army. It is to be hoped he knows better now,” Jasmine concluded dryly.
Her son laughed and nodded. “He does. When royal Charles returns, it will be to England. He’ll not go to Scotland again if he can avoid it. It was very bad, Mama. Bigots are the same the world over. Each time the king’s forces met with some kind of defeat the Covenanters would blame the king because he did not accept their form of worship in his heart of hearts. Everything was God’s judgment upon the king for his intransigence to their ways, but it was the Scots government that was intransigent. My cousin worked hard at compromise. I do not blame my brother Patrick for refusing to have any part in it all.” The duke sighed. “He misses his father greatly.”
“As do I,” Jasmine reminded Charlie.
“Mama, I do beg your pardon,” the duke said quickly and, taking her hands in his, kissed them.
She pulled away and caressed his cheek. “Oh, Charlie, I know you meant no harm. It is just that I am still angry at your father for getting himself killed. He had no right running off to Dunbar. I will never understand why his sense of duty and honor caused him to do such a foolish thing. I suppose he did not expect to be killed.” She touched his cheek again. “Do not let yourself be killed,” she warned him. Then she said, “If this conflict is not quickly resolved, I shall send for your children. They should not be raised in the wilds of Glenkirk by your brother and his rough-spoken wife. They will be totally unfit for proper society if we leave them there. Besides, they will really be safer in France. Master Cromwell has a long reach. If he should eventually learn where your children are hidden, he will come after them so he may use them against you. Bess’s parents were cowed by me when her father came to demand the children’s whereabouts, but I am no longer in England. The earl could now go to his Puritan friends for what he believes is justice. Having looked to Henry and found nothing, he may look to Patrick next. I think perhaps the sooner we bring the children to France the better.”
“In the spring,” Charlie said. “It is too late in the season for them to make a crossing from Scotland safely. Besides, Bess’s father has no power now, and it will be awhile before he remembers my brother, the Duke of Glenkirk. And, Mama, let us not forget the weather in Scotland.”
“I shall never forget the weather in Scotland,” Jasmine said pithily.
“It is late autumn now, and winter will shortly set in at Glenkirk. You know it is impossible to reach it once the rains and snows start,” Charlie recalled.
“I shall hope for a hard winter. Then, come the spring, I shall have my grandchildren with me,” Jasmine said.
“You are just discovering how bored you are now that Autumn has wed her marquis,” he teased her. “You want more children to raise.”
“We had best go and see your sister before you leave for Paris,” his mother remarked.
“I shall not go until after Twelfth Night,” he promised. “I have sent the king a purse to tide him over and promised to join him in January,” Charlie told his mother. “Until then I shall remain with you, Mama.” He kissed her cheek. “I think this is the first time in all my life I have ever had you to myself.”
“That,” she told him with a small smile, “is something Henry Stuart would have said,” and she patted his arm fondly.
“You loved him.”
“I loved them all,” Jasmine replied with a laugh. Then she grew more somber. “But they were all taken from me except for my Jemmie. We lived a long and good life together. I hope I will some day forgive him for leaving me when I begged him not to do so. Autumn needed him.”
“You did well by my little sister,” Charlie reminded her. “She is madly in love with her husband, and even more so since she has discovered the joys of the marriage bed,” he chuckled.
“Do not be indelicate,” his mother scolded him.
“And since when, Mama, did you find passion
indelicate?”
he asked her with a grin.
indelicate?”
he asked her with a grin.
“What is indelicate?” Autumn demanded as she entered her mother’s hall.
“Bonjour,
Mama, and Charlie. I have come to visit for two days.”
“Bonjour,
Mama, and Charlie. I have come to visit for two days.”
“Where is Sebastian?” her mother said.
“Oh,” Autumn said with a wave of her hand, “ ’tis all very mysterious. Yesterday we had a visitor, a gentleman named Monsieur d’Albert. This morning Sebastian said he must go off with this fellow, and that I might come for two days to visit you if I wished. I think it had something to do with some new vine that has been propa . . . I don’t remember the word my husband used, but you know how he is about his vineyards, Mama. Lily is opening up my bedchamber. Is that all right, Mama?”
“Of course,
ma petite,”
Jasmine replied, and then, “Do you know where Sebastian was going? Was it Tours, perhaps?”
ma petite,”
Jasmine replied, and then, “Do you know where Sebastian was going? Was it Tours, perhaps?”
“I have no idea,” Autumn responded. “Why would he go to Tours?”
“You will remember his daughter and former mistress reside there,” her mother reminded her.
Autumn laughed heartily. “Believe me, Mama, my husband has no need of another woman. I am, after all, your daughter. Nay, it really did have something to do with grapes, I am certain. Monsieur d’Albert had the look of an upper servant sent by his master.”
“I was just gloating that had never had Mama to myself before,” Charlie said mischievously.
“Well, you shall have to share her, big brother,” Autumn responded. “At least for the next two days. Will you be here for Christmas? You and Mama must come to Chermont!”
When Autumn returned home late in the afternoon several days later she discovered her husband, Monsieur d’Albert, and another quite distinguished gentleman, whom Sebastian introduced to her as Monsieur Robert Clary, a long-lost cousin who had been traveling for so long in the east, Sebastian had believed him dead.
“You are welcome to Chermont, Monsieur Clary,” Autumn said.
“Merci,
madame la marquise,” came the reply in a very cultured voice with just the faintest accent.
madame la marquise,” came the reply in a very cultured voice with just the faintest accent.
“Who is he really?” Autumn asked her husband as they lay abed that night.
He caressed a plump breast and kissed her mouth. “Who is who,
ma cherie?”
he replied.
ma cherie?”
he replied.
Autumn pulled away from him. “I am not a fool, Sebastian,” she said. “Monsieur Clary, if that is indeed his name, is no more your cousin than I am. His conversation at table tonight was too inciteful of current affairs for a man gone from France for twenty years. Who is he?”
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