Chapter Five
Alain slowly opened his eyes to find the light of a new day washing over him from the half-open draperies.
That light, pinkish-gold, seemed to change everything after the tumult and unexpected magic of the night before.
He rolled over to find Sandrine, but she wasn’t there.
A bit of paper on her pillow said, ‘Went to sketch. Good morning, my husband!’
He smiled to see that scrawled note. Husband.
He remembered every wondrous moment, the silken feel of her skin under his touch, the little moans she had made, the tumble of her hair over his arm.
He remembered everything. He’d never thought his wedding night could be so—so perfect.
So filled with heat and light. That it could change everything in only a few moments.
His world was shaken up, turned inside out, made bright and magical.
He slowly sat up amid the wrinkled sheets, shaking back the tangle of curls from his brow. Sandrine was nowhere to be seen, but her rosy perfume lingered in the air, in the bedclothes heaped around him. He stretched his delightfully aching limbs and smiled.
Maybe he was just over-dramatising matters.
It was good, yes, pleasurable. Very. But deep down, he knew something enormous had happened.
He hadn’t expected to desire Sandrine so much; he hadn’t even planned to make love to her, only to talk to her, tell her his plans, tell her the truth.
But one look, one touch, and he was lost.
He did have to tell her, his wife, about his past. About Danielle, about his confusion.
She deserved that. She deserved to know that he would always help her, would make sure she could pursue her art, pursue whatever she wanted from life.
He longed to tell her everything. She was the most understanding person he’d ever met, the best listener. He…
He liked her. As well as desiring her, he liked her, he wanted to hear her thoughts, valued her advice. Most extraordinary.
He clambered out of bed and quickly dressed in breeches and loose shirt, trying to smooth his tangled hair. There was a knock at the door, a discreet little cough.
‘Yes, what is it?’ he called impatiently.
‘I am very sorry indeed, monsieur, to wake you at this—sort of moment,’ the butler called. ‘But there is a caller. She says it is most urgent indeed. She is in the small sitting room.’
A caller? Curious, fearful something might have happened to one of his sisters and it was an emergency, he answered, ‘I shall be there in a moment.’ He hastily donned the rest of his clothes, and hurried downstairs, hoping it could be taken care of before Sandrine returned from her sketching.
To his shock, it was Danielle who waited for him there. Danielle, pacing the length of the room, her hands twisted together.
‘Danielle?’ he said, closing the door behind him. A tangle of emotions flooded through him: fear, curiosity, hope. Mostly a strange sense that she suddenly belonged to the past, that she should not be here in the present, the future. ‘What is amiss? Is it your grandfather?’
‘Non, nothing like that,’ she cried. She rushed to him, reached for his hand, but he slid away from her. ‘I had to see you, mon cher. After your wedding, seeing what was really happening…’
‘Happening?’ he said.
‘You marrying. Moving on in your life—without me.’
Alain was baffled. He studied her carefully, saw the gleam of desperation in her eyes, the tight line of her lips. What could have happened? Their lives had long been set, and any hope they might have had was gone. He found he could not even mourn it now. ‘You, too, are betrothed. To Lord Darby.’
‘Because I must be! How else can I live? But I thought of something last night. A plan.’
‘Plan?’
‘How we can be together! Our spouses surely have interests they want to pursue in life. Why should not we? Why can we not be together in secret? It would hurt no one!’
Alain felt a cold wave of shame that he, too, had considered just such a thing.
But he knew now, after the night with Sandrine, that could not be.
Life was different now. It had to be. But he still felt tenderness for Danielle, for what he’d felt for her, what they’d been to one another. He took her hands between his.
‘We must move ahead with our lives, Danielle, you know we must,’ he said gently. ‘You will always be my friend…’
‘Friend?’ she cried. She suddenly went up on her tiptoes and flung her arms around his neck, holding so tightly he could not let go, move away.
Her lips pressed to his, warm, soft, caressing, seeking.
For an instant, a mere flash, he felt himself respond, felt himself reach for her.
Until he remembered Sandrine—and reached up to gently unwind her arms.
‘I love you,’ she said. ‘And I know you love me, you always have. We can still be together…’
And that was when he heard it. The soft opening of a door, a gasp, and running footsteps. The ruin of something before it could even begin.
An Hour Earlier
Sandrine couldn’t stand still for a moment longer.
She slipped from the warmth of her bed, the glorious beauty of her sleeping husband, and tiptoed into the sitting room next door, where their luggage waited to travel with them on their honeymoon, her fingers itching for her drawing pencils.
She stretched up to push back the window curtains, revelling in the unaccustomed soreness in her legs and arms, so delicious.
She let in the rosy, warm early morning light, letting its promise wash over her as that wonderful new day began.
Her first day as a married woman! She felt silly for doubting things at all.
She smiled to think of it, to think of the man she’d left sleeping in her bed.
Their bed. Before, she’d been so nervous about what might happen in those ‘marital duties’ her mother had whispered about.
She’d known the technical process of what happened, and it seemed so very odd.
Improbable. But no one said how fun it was!
How good it felt, after that first tiny sharpness. How delicious it was. How right.
Or maybe she’d been fortunate. She’d found herself an exceptional husband.
And indeed he was. She hugged herself and twirled around in sheer delight, thinking of how beautiful he was, how powerful, how gentle as he guided her into pleasure. His face as he lost himself in what was happening between them, the rough sound of his whispers.
When she’d woken so early, just as the sky was turning pale grey at the edges and the stars blinked and faded, she knew she wouldn’t go back to sleep.
She couldn’t wake him, as he slept so peacefully beside her, her ancient god looking so young in his dreams. The house was still quiet, the perfect time for a bit of drawing.
Her sketchbooks were packed in one of the many valises and trunks ready to leave that day. She turned from the sunrise and dug around for her precious papers and pencils.
When she found them, she turned to the sketches she’d begun of Alain.
How hard she’d worked to capture the essence of him, the elusive self he hid behind his charming smiles and careless manners.
How she longed to capture every, every detail!
The way his hair curled just so at his temple, the arc of his jaw.
Now she considered all the new details she’d discovered while she studied him in his slumber.
The softness of his lower lip, the line of his cheekbone, the shadows where his beard was growing at his jaw.
The little frown that came and went as he dreamed, the power of his bare shoulder against the embroidered edge of the sheet. How beautiful it all was. How enticing. And she would have years and years of life as his wife to study every bit of him.
She flipped to a new page and started a new image, one just for her, of her husband asleep.
Some time later the pencil suddenly broke off at the tip, and she muttered as she saw it was the last in that packet.
She reached for another bag, hoping the fresh supplies she’d bought at the art supply shop were there, but then she remembered she’d left the bag in the library downstairs.
She quickly found her slippers, and slipped out of the room and down the stairs.
The house was not as empty and silent as she’d hoped. Voices, low, intense, echoed from the library. Something cold and hard formed in the pit of her stomach, and she knew, knew, she should turn away. Yet she could not. Some force carried her forward.
She eased the door open a crack, and saw Alain with Danielle Aurac, their arms around each other. ‘I know you love me, you always have,’ Danielle said. ‘We can still be together!’
Sandrine slowly shut the door and backed away.
Fool, fool, she told herself. She should have known that all this was too good to be real, to be anything but a dream.
She ran back upstairs. So warm only moments before, so aglow with possibility, with hope, suddenly she was sure she was turning to ice.
Her skin, her fingers, her mind, all frozen in place.
She was just a fool. She’d thought herself so lucky, her future so bright and hopeful, and all the while the man she’d thought she was falling in love with, the man she was to share her life with, loved another.
Loved a beautiful, confident, elegant woman he was kept from by duty.
She, Sandrine, was the duty, and she was helpless to change it, helpless to steer her own life. What could she do now?
If only she could go back to the moment she’d woken up next to Alain, so happy, so hopeful. If only she could go back to before the sunrise, to stay in bed beside Alain, to be who she was then.
But she knew she couldn’t wish that now. It was always better to know what was real than to live in cloudy dreams.