Master: An Erotic Novel of the Count of Monte Cristo (39 page)

While Mercédès dreaded the imminent meeting with Monte Cristo, she knew that Maximilien pined for it. It was only his vow to his friend that kept him alive. Despite the fact that Monte Cristo had failed to save Valentine, Maximilien continued to love and respect him because of what he’d done for his family in the past by saving Morrel and Company from disaster and his father from suicide. The young man had told Mercédès he would never forget that, and even now he truly cared for Monte Cristo.

When the boat scraped over the jutting rocks, Jacopo anchored it and, as he had before, helped Mercédès through the water onto the shore. Maximilien followed eagerly, his strides long, if not jerky from the sudden change from sea to land. “Where is he?” he asked, glaring up at the low rocky cliff above them. “Where is Monte Cristo?”

This time Jacopo did not obstruct the view of the visitors; instead, he led the way, smiling and silent, through a rough passage of boulders cut by wind and sea, and down around a corner. They found themselves facing a well-hidden door made of rocks, and when it opened, Jacopo gestured for them to enter.

Maximilien recalled his manners and bowed Mercédès into the opening, but she slowed and slid her hand around his arm for comfort—though she wasn’t quite certain whose comfort she meant it to be.

Inside, down a slanting passageway, they walked, and finally found themselves in the same chamber, with heavy hangings on the wall and a long table of food, where she had seen Sinbad.

Monte Cristo was there, waiting.

Despite her best efforts to remain untouched, her stomach plummeted, and her eyes feasted on him—so tall and commanding, dressed as though he were about to be inducted into the
Académie Française
. His hair was a bit shorter, combed back elegantly from his high forehead and arching black brows. His face was clean-shaven and smooth. He swept her up in his gaze immediately, and she felt it score over her as if to ascertain that she was as he’d left her.

She was not. But she wouldn’t let him know how she grieved. It had been hard enough to lose Edmond Dantès once . . . but to lose him again to his thirst for vengeance felt like more than she could bear.

“I trust you had a comfortable voyage,” he said, breaking his attention from Mercédès and turning to Maximilien. “I am so gratified that you’ve come.” He moved forward to pull the younger man into an embrace in a manner so unlike the Count of Monte Cristo that Mercédès gaped.

Maximilien returned the affection, it was clear, despite the fact that sorrow still pulled at his expression. “There is no other face—save one—that I would want to see before I expire,” he said, looking at the count.

“Please sit,” Monte Cristo invited, and Mercédès was certain she saw a glitter of tears in his eyes, but she hardened her heart to his emotion. It was too late. “May I provide you with refreshment?”

Mercédès looked at the table, heavy with exotic fruits and bread and cheeses, but she refrained from partaking.

“Monte Cristo, I am here. I’ve come, as you asked, and now I ask that you let me do that which I must . . . that I have wanted to do since I saw the marble face of my beloved Valentine. Please . . . let me join her.”

“You shall do as you wish,” the count replied, again his gaze sketching over to Mercédès. “But first, I must ask you. . . . How do you feel?”

“But, of course, you know how I feel!” burst forth Maximilien. “I feel the deepest, harshest, unrelenting grief and unhappiness that one can ever imagine. That I’ll never find sunshine again. That my lungs will never take another breath. That my heart cannot stand to beat any longer. I wish only to end it all.” Tears streamed down his cheeks, and Mercédès, having had enough of whatever it was Monte Cristo was playing, leaped to her feet.

“Edmond, stop it!” she cried, tears threatening her own eyes. “Whatever game you play, you need do it no longer. We’re here, as you have asked—it is clear Maximilien is at his very end. . . . Why do you prolong it any further? You do him, and yourself, no service.”

Monte Cristo’s eyes had flashed to hers when she called him by name, and his lips moved in a humorless smile. “So I am Edmond again,” he said. “Is it futile for me to hope this means your love for him might yet be resurrected?”

“It is more futile than to hope that Valentine Villefort might walk into this room,” Mercédès raged.

And at that, the most astonishing thing happened. The count’s face lost some of the granitelike hardness that never seemed to ease from his countenance, and his brief smile became more genuine. “As you wish, madam.”

And at that moment, the heavy tapestry depicting the Blessed Mother holding her staff and a small globe moved aside to reveal the slender figure of a young woman.

It took a moment for Maximilien to comprehend what his eyes saw, a split second before he lunged toward her, crying her name and gathering her into his arms, laughing against her head and streaming tears over her face.

Mercédès turned to look at Monte Cristo, her own mouth open, her eyes bulging, and a hint of softness lightening her heart. He was watching the reunion of the young lovers, and there was indeed a gleam of tears in his eyes.

When he turned to look at her, one of the tears spilled over and made a single, tiny trickle down his cheek.

“Edmond,” she said, hardly aware that she’d used his name again, “I don’t understand.”

“I knew who planned to poison Mademoiselle Valentine— it was her stepmother, Villefort’s second wife—who had done so to all of the other unfortunates who died in their household. She wanted her own son, not Valentine, to inherit Villefort’s wealth, and so she was to make certain of it—after ensuring that Valentine’s grandparents expired and left their money to her first.”

By now, Valentine and Maximilien, who, entwined on a cushioned chair, had not a breath of space between them, were listening as Monte Cristo told his tale. “I spoke to Valentine in secret that night you came to me, Maximilien, and I kept watch over her bed and the water in the glass next to it. When her stepmother came and replaced the liquid with poison, I retrieved it and gave Valentine a different medication—one that would put her into a deep sleep and slow her heart so much that it would appear she was dead.”

“He told me to trust him, and not to be frightened, and so I did,” said Valentine, beaming at the count in a way that made Mercédès soften even more. “He promised that all would be well, and that Maximilien and I would be reunited forever— after he was certain my father wouldn’t find me.” She looked at her lover again. “And so the Count of Monte Cristo has saved two lives—two that would have ended in death if he had not intervened.”

“But . . . ,” Maximilien began, but whatever he was about to say was swallowed by such a joyous smile that Mercédès felt her own joy twinge deep inside.

“Why did you not tell him?” asked Mercédès, beginning to understand that things had changed. “Why did you allow him to live in agony for four weeks?”

Monte Cristo—Edmond—looked steadily at her. His eyes were sad and old. “I have learned that the only way to understand, to fully know, happiness—regardless of one’s lot or place in life—is to experience fathomless sorrow. Complete loss of hope. Incomparable devastation and grief. Only then can one see what happiness is, and find it, no matter where or how one lives. For there is no real happiness or unhappiness—only comparison between the two.”

Their eyes met and held, and she felt the last bit of bonds loosening inside her.

“Mercédès,” he said, moving toward her, falling on his knees at her feet, “I have felt that incomparable sorrow and fathomless grief. I’ve spent the last ten years living and breathing the fury of revenge with anger and hatred to fuel me . . . but I’ve learned. . . . You taught me.” His voice broke. He swallowed and took her hands, looking down at them. “It was you who made me realize that I was wrong to be so vengeful—though it took me some time to stop fighting it. Can you forgive me, Mercédès? For it all?”

Looking down at his sleek, dark head, she reached forward and pulled his face up to hers. Covering his lips in a kiss of forgiveness, she closed her eyes.

Edmond Dantès had returned.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Colette Gale
is the pseudonym of a historical novelist. She lives in the Midwest with her family.