"Will you leave all of these, Madame?" Therese asked. So many beautiful gowns, all to be layered in tissue and sprinkled with dried lavender, the trunks to be stored up under the eaves. There were three more large trunks already packed and ready to go, standing by the door of Madame de Vosges's---ah, no, it was now Madame Cotard's---bedchamber.

"I will have little need for ball gowns in the Auvergne," Madame replied, smiling. "I think I shall be glad of my furs, though, when winter comes. It can get very cold at La Belle Fleche."

"Oh, but it sounds so very romantic," Therese sighed, lovingly smoothing the folds of a celadon silk as she placed it in the trunk. "Is it a real castle?"

"It is more like an enormous, drafty old farmhouse, I am afraid," said Madame. "With holes in the roof!" She laughed, "But there is a moat! And a drawbridge!"

Therese giggled. "Forgive me, Madame, but I cannot imagine Monsieur le Colonel as a farmer!"

"Nor can I! And I haven't told him about the mice! Or the holes!"

They were laughing together like a pair of wicked old ladies when Therese looked up to see Colonel Cotard standing in the doorway. She caught her breath a little and felt herself blushing. She couldn’t help it. He was quite the handsomest man she had ever seen, and she had told Claudine, the upstairs girl, that she might have knocked her over with a feather the first time she had seen him, he was so very beautiful, even if he was very old! In his red British officer's uniform, with those tight breeches and his tall, tasseled Hessian boots polished to shine like mirrors, to look at him made her feel quite faint. And if he were ever to look at her the way he was looking at Madame right now, leaning against the door with that lazy smile on his face, his eyes like a pair of hot, black coals, she would simply melt, she knew she would!

Madame was in love with him, it was perfectly plain, and he with her, for why else would he marry her, at her age? Surely she would not be having any more babies. She was still a beautiful woman, though, and Therese imagined that in her young womanhood she must have been every bit as lovely as Mademoiselle Ivoire, who would be the Belle of Paris under the wing of Madame la Duchesse de Montreuil, and who would be certain to make a brilliant match very soon.

"Valentine," the Colonel spoke, and a little shiver ran up Therese's spine at the sound of his voice, so low, and with a little bit of a wolfish growl in it.

"Andre!" Madame replied, as if she was surprised to see him. "What are you doing here?"

He smiled. "This is my house. Or so Marie is always telling me it will be when she is gone. But then, she is also always telling me she has no intention of going."

Madame gave him a frowning look, but Therese, who was watching out of the corners of her eyes while she made herself busy inspecting Madame's opera gloves for spots and tears before winding them in tissue and placing them in the top tray of the final trunk, thought her voice sounded a little breathless when she chided him for his poor jokes.

"Actually, I was thinking of having a nap," he said then.

Therese looked at his face, and then at Madame. Madame was in her negligee, having changed from her wedding dress this morning, for they were only in her room packing, and Therese had still to dress Madame and arrange her hair before la Duchesse's little dinner party this evening. Therese could see a little spot of pink blush spreading across the bare flesh of Madame's bosom, and her chest seemed to rise and fall quickly with her breath. Oh ho! So that was how it was! Well, Therese could not quite believe it, for Madame was not a young girl, but a widow after all, and a mother, and if she, Therese, had been in Madame's slippers, she thought that she should certainly have been to bed with him by now! There were some things, even her mother had said, that were worth the time in Purgatory!

But Therese knew that Madame was still devout, in spite of all the terrible things that had happened in her life. Had she not seen her own father dragged to the guillotine when she was but a young bride of nineteen? She had told Therese of how she had barely escaped with her own life, fleeing with her baby son to join her husband in exile, only to return to France when Capitaine le Comte de Vosges had renounced his title and become an officer of the Army of the Republic. And then he, too, had been killed, and at a battle that need never even have been fought, for the Emperor had already abdicated only days before! So many years of war, and so much pain. Therese felt that Madame deserved this happiness, and if it meant leaving Paris and going to live on some run down farm in the middle of nowhere, then she was happy to go along, or so she thought.

"Therese…" Madame began in an odd little voice.

Therese needed no instruction. She made a little curtsy, and stealing another glance at Monsieur's face, blushed furiously when he returned it with a positively naughty smile as she scooted past him for the door. And there was Gaston, standing there in the hallway, staring stupidly, right in her way!

"Not now!" she hissed, and placing both her hands on his chest, gave him a shove that sent him stumbling backwards as she reached behind her to pull the door closed.

****

He had her in his arms before the girl was out of the room.

"What's wrong with her?" he murmured, kissing her white neck as she arched it in pleasure, like a swan. "Is she afraid of me?"

"She is only a little in love with you, I think," said Valentine, smiling. He was holding her very close, and his hands began to move over her body possessively, pressing into her flesh with greater and greater urgency as he placed more and more kisses all over her face, her neck, her shoulders. He gathered the cheeks of her bottom in his hands and pulled her against his hips.

"Andre!" she exclaimed, laughing, pulling a little away from him, and turning her face down as he tried to kiss her mouth.

"What is it?"

She giggled a little nervously. "Gaston is coming for the trunks!"

"Gaston is not as stupid as he looks," he said, leaning back to look at her face, keeping one arm tightly about her waist, and running a finger under the neckline of her gown. She was so beautiful, and at the sight of her, all the weariness and ill-humor of this morning had vanished, and seven months of expectant desire wanted to wait no longer. He pulled her close again, and brushed his lips across her smooth forehead, breathing the violet scent of her hair, still lustrous and dark, with only a few fine, silver threads here and there. "He'll come back for the trunks later," he said.

"It's the middle of the afternoon!" she protested with a little laugh. Her hands were pressed against his chest, and she felt tense in his arms.

"And hours and hours before we need to be downstairs," he said in a voice that was soft and teasing, and his brown eyes smiled at her. She looked down, and her fingers fiddled with one of his silver buttons.

"Valentine, is something wrong? Are you unwell?" He laughed. "Are you afraid of me?"

Suddenly she burst out in nervous giggles, ducking out of his arms. "Yes!" she cried, laughing. "Oh, dear, how tedious of me, I didn't think I would be so---" she moved away from him to stand behind a chair. "Andre, how you are looking at me!  Oh, it's terrible, I love you, but I am so embarrassed to tell you how long it has been since I have---it's almost as if I have never---"

She covered her mouth with her hand, as if to stop the nervous laughter, and when she took it away, she had stopped smiling, and said, "A very long time, my love. With Thibaut, for many years it was not…well it was not good, I will just say."

She looked up at him, with those lovely grey eyes in that sweet, heart-shaped face that had captivated him forever, and he had not even known it, nearly forty years ago.

"My little virgin bride," he said. "Come here, Valentine."

A few quick steps, and softly, she came into his arms once more, sliding her arms around his back and sighing, "Am I ridiculous?"

"On the contrary," he replied. "This is wonderfully exciting." She gasped as he bent and scooped her up in his arms, carrying her across the room to the enormous tented bed. "I promise I will be very gentle."

"Don't make me start laughing again."

"Oh, I won't."

Go to Part Four