No Sweeter Heaven: The Pascal Trilogy - Book 2 (38 page)

“Yes, I am aware of that. Where were you born, Monsieur LaMartine?” Lily’s mother delicately spooned lemon pudding into her mouth. Lily would have liked to spoon it all over her mother’s face.

“I’ve already been interrogated by your husband,” Pascal said, meeting her gaze steadily. “Need we repeat it?”

Yes,
Lily thought.
Pascal is definitely irritated.

Her mother didn’t blink. “I am not privy to my husband’s conversations,” she said. “But as Elizabeth is my only daughter, surely you must realize that I am curious about the man she has married?”

“I beg your pardon,” Pascal said, not looking the least bit repentant. “I thought Lily had told you about me. I was born in Montreuil into a very ordinary family, your grace.” He released a little breath, and from that Lily could tell just how annoyed he really was and how hard he was trying to control his temper.

“Oh?” she said. “Were they from Montreuil, then?”

“My father was. He’d met my mother in Paris three years before, and they were married in Montreuil a respectable fourteen months before my birth.”

“Monsieur LaMartine, I did not mean to imply…” the duchess said, at least having the grace to look embarrassed.

Lily wanted to strangle her.

“We moved to Paris in the summer of 1810, when I was a year old,” Pascal said, ignoring her protest. “My parents died nine years later. Being without other family, I was adopted. There’s nothing more to say.”

Her mother fell silent for a moment and Lily wondered what was going through her mind.
Common, common, common,
no doubt.

But instead she smiled. “Oh, what a pity. I thought that perhaps you might have been related to some people I once knew,” she said. “They lived here in Saint-Simon. I’ve been puzzling over the name all afternoon—I knew I’d remembered it from somewhere.”

Pascal nodded. “I’ve been told there was a Henri LaMartine who worked here as steward. You’re not the first person to ask.”

“No, I suppose not. It does seem an incredible coincidence, though, doesn’t it? I didn’t know Henri very well. His wife was more of a friend; she was secretary to my sister-in-law, Christine. They left during the epidemic.”

“Typhoid is very difficult to control once it takes hold,” Pascal said. “They were wise to leave, considering what happened here.”

“Yes,” the duchess agreed sadly. “It was tragic, losing our family as we did. My husband and I were fortunate to be living in Paris then.” She shivered with memory. “Jean-Jacques was only a year old—he might easily have gone the way of the others. We were careful to wait until the epidemic had run its course before coming down to take over Serge’s affairs.”

“It must have been a difficult task with the steward’s having left,” Pascal observed.

“It was nearly impossible,” the duchess replied. “Henri was the only one who knew the inside workings of the estate, and Anne had managed the domestic side. We were all at sixes and sevens.”

Pascal carefully placed his spoon on the side of his plate. “Did you say Anne?”

“Yes, she was delightful,” the duchess replied. “I enjoyed her particularly because she was British, and I often felt so alone among the French. Anne was such good company. We’d talk the hours away when my husband, Hubert, brought me down to visit.”

“Would you describe these two people for me?” he asked. “I begin to wonder if I didn’t know them.”

Lily shot him a look of alarm. She knew that note in his voice, although she hadn’t heard it since the day they’d been married and had that miserable fight in the carriage, when she accused him of all sorts of terrible things. His face looked as strained and white as it had then.

“Well, let’s see,” her mother said. “It’s been so long since I’ve thought of them. Henri was fairly nondescript, although pleasant enough and certainly intelligent. He was slight in build, I remember that, with thinning brown hair. But Anne, she was such a pretty thing…” She looked away, thinking. “Small. Everything about her was small. She had dark hair and a round face and the prettiest blue eyes—”

“And a mole near the left side of her chin?” Pascal asked.

“Yes! Yes, that’s right. A mole near the left side of her chin! You
did
know her.”

“Yes. I knew her. Anne LaMartine was my mother. If you’ll excuse me, your grace, I need some air.”

A stunned silence fell over the dining room, the only sound the echo of Pascal’s quick footsteps on the stone floor of the entrance hall as he left. Lily’s first impulse was to jump up and run after him, but she reconsidered, thinking that he might need a few minutes to himself. He’d obviously had a bad shock.

Besides, she might be able to do more good by discovering what she could about the LaMartines from her mother, since nothing at the moment made any sense.

“Mama,” she asked, “did Anne LaMartine have any children when you knew her?”

“No. No, she didn’t,” her mother said, looking as bewildered as Lily felt. “I suppose she might have been pregnant when she left.”

“Yes, perhaps,” Lily said. “But that doesn’t explain why Pascal’s parents told him a completely different story … or maybe it does. When was the epidemic? Thirty years ago, I know, but when, exactly?”

“It was the spring of 1809,” her mother replied.

“And Pascal was born on the ninth of June, that year. I know, because he turned thirty this summer. So she
must
have been with child when she left,” Lily said thoughtfully, “and if it wasn’t with Henri LaMartine’s child, there’s only one other man who comes to mind.”

The duchess soundlessly shook her head.

Jean-Jacques sat at his end of the table, his mouth hanging half open. “What the devil are you talking about?” he said. “What makes you think the child wasn’t LaMartine’s?”

Lily looked at her brother in disgust, thinking his brains were not all that they might be. Pascal had certainly grasped the essential point quickly enough. “You described Henri LaMartine, Mama. Pascal doesn’t look the least like him, does he?”

“No,” the duchess said faintly. “Not at all.”

“But the sixth duke, Mama? Serge, I mean? Does he resemble him?”

“I—I cannot say. Serge was tall like your husband. And his hair was dark.” She grew more pale and disturbed by the moment.

“My God, Lily,” Jean-Jacques said in disbelief, “do you honestly think there’s some truth to the rumors?”

“I don’t know, but I intend to find out for Pascal’s peace of mind.”

“Lily …” her mother said imploringly, “don’t you think it’s best left alone? What good will it do to dredge up the past now?”

“It’s no fun to have your life suddenly ripped apart, Mama, to have believed one thing for so long and then to discover that none of it was true. I know. I’ve just been through it.”

“I’m very sorry about that,” her mother said tightly. “But in this case, there’s no proof of anything, is there, except that the LaMartines told your husband that they had been elsewhere before he was born. It might have been for any reason.”

“Nevertheless, I’m determined to get to the bottom of the matter. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find Pascal.”

She went straight out into the night, wondering where he might have gone. She didn’t have to look far. She spotted him leaning against the château’s fortified west wall, his forehead against his arms, his chest heaving for air.

“Pascal?” she said tentatively. “Pascal?”

He turned, and she saw that his face was covered in cold sweat. “Lily,” he said hoarsely, passing his arm over his mouth. He was trembling, and she realized that he’d been sick.

“I’m here,” she said, putting her arms around him. “I’m here.”

“They lied to me,” he said, his voice filled with anguish. “They lied to me.”

“Yes,” she said straightforwardly, releasing him and looking him in the eye. “I think they must have been protecting you from the truth.”

“Oh, God. There’s only one possible explanation.” He slid down to the grass, resting his head on his knees, his hands clenched on the back of his neck.

“Yes,” she said again. “The villagers were right. You are Serge’s child.”

“Bastard,” he said, spitting out the word with disgust.

“Bastard, then. And I don’t care. You’re my Pascal, no matter who fathered you, and I love you.”

He looked up, his expression bleak. “Well, it’s a damned good thing, since I can’t change things back to the way they were. You’re stuck with me—with this whole blasted mess.”

“It isn’t a mess,” she said in what she hoped was a reassuring voice. “We still don’t really know anything. It might be one enormous coincidence.”

“My whole damned life has been one enormous coincidence,” Pascal said bitterly. “Now I find out that it’s also been one enormous lie. God, if there’s one thing I can’t stomach, it’s lies and the people who tell them. My own parents, Lily—why? Why couldn’t they have told me the truth?” Tears sparkled in his eyes and he angrily wiped at them.

“I’m sure they had their reasons,” she said.

“How can you be so damned calm about this? You’re behaving as if it’s a perfectly normal course of events, that everyone’s parents lie to them about something as essential as their birth.”

“What do you want me to do? Rant and rage? It’s enough to have one of us badly upset. As I said before, we don’t know the truth yet.”

“Don’t we? There are a number of points that I find confusing—my father’s name was Paul, for God’s sake, not Henri, and he was
not
the sort of man who would have taken well to being cuckolded.” He clenched his fists on his knees. “Further, I never thought my mother was the sort of woman to make a cuckold of him. Apparently I was wrong.”

Anger, confusion, deep pain, they all marked his face. Lily dropped to her knees and took his hand between both of hers, desperately wanting to comfort him, knowing there was little comfort she could offer. “Maybe it was just one of those things that happened, a terrible mistake, instantly regretted,” she said.

“It doesn’t make any damned sense! Even if it is true that I’m Serge’s bastard, why would my parents have kept their past such a secret? No one in Paris would have thought me anything but Paul LaMartine’s son. There was never an inkling of anything else, so why the lies?”

“I don’t know that either,” she said. “Maybe they didn’t mention Saint-Simon because they didn’t want you to come here and guess the truth.”

“Well, I’m here,” he said, his eyes blazing. “And as far as I’m concerned, that’s the biggest damned coincidence of all.”

Lily bit her lip. It was all her fault that this had happened. If she hadn’t gone after him, he never would have come to Saint-Simon. But she didn’t think he needed to know that just then. He was upset enough.

“Let’s go home,” she said gently. “There’s no point sitting here worrying over something we can’t do anything about.”

“This isn’t going to go away, Lily.”

“No,” she said, putting his hand on her cheek. “But do you remember what you said to Father Chabot the night he first told you about the rumor?”

He shook his head.

“You said that you didn’t care who people thought your father was, as long as they accepted you. Well, they have accepted you. That won’t change, will it? They already think you’re the duke’s bastard. What difference will this make to anyone but yourself?”

Pascal wearily pushed a hand through his hair, then nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”

“You also said you had finally found the sameness you’d been looking for all of your life, here in Saint-Simon. You’ve had an affinity for the land and the people ever since you set foot on this soil. Maybe you are where you truly belong, and for good reason.”

Pascal managed a faint smile. “Thank you, sweetheart, for trying to cheer me up. I can’t talk about this anymore, not tonight.” He gently brushed her cheek with his knuckles. “I do thank God I have you, though, or I don’t know where I’d be.” He stood and helped her up, folding her hand into his.

“Let’s go home, duchess.”

Pascal didn’t sleep that night. He couldn’t even toss and turn. His muscles were too tense, and his brain wouldn’t stop working. There were too many disturbing things running through it, too many questions and inconsistencies that couldn’t be answered.

He had become a man with virtually no past to cling to, a man who didn’t even know who had fathered him. Pascal stared at the ceiling, anger burning in his chest. What heritage would he pass down to his children? That of LaMartine? Or was it going to be the legacy of a bastard?

He clenched his teeth and turned his head to the side, looking at Lily. She was so beautiful asleep, so peaceful. He’d made desperate love to her earlier, taking her fiercely, as if he could bury himself, his pain, his confusion in her. She accepted him, responding just as fiercely as she wrapped her legs around his hips and led him to oblivion until there was nothing but the pounding of their hearts, his groans mingling with her cries.

Generous Lily, who said it didn’t matter. But it did, God, it did. It mattered so much it was tearing him into small, raw, ugly pieces. Lily had a right to know whose blood ran in his veins—
he
had a right to know.

Pascal watched dawn break, gradually easing darkness into light. He wished to God that his life might be illuminated as easily as the world was every morning. When it came to it, he wished God would stop holding out a hand in offering and then snatching it back again. Pascal felt as if he was always being tested. What would God expect next? The sacrifice of his firstborn son?

He decided it was time to take matters into his own hands. He knew that Wednesday was Michel Chabot’s morning to clean the church plate, and he always began early.

Pascal walked into the vestry just as Father Chabot was pouring himself a cup of coffee before starting the chore.

“Michel. Good morning.”

Father Chabot looked around in surprise. “Pascal—what are you doing in my quarters at this hour?” His eyes twinkled. “Have you nothing better to do, now that the harvest is in?” He cleared a place for him at the table. “May I give you some coffee?”

“No, thank you. I’m here to ask you if this bastard rumor might be true,” Pascal said concisely, nearly causing Father Chabot to spill coffee all over himself.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “There’s some fairly compelling evidence that has come to my attention.”

“You think I can help?” Father Chabot said, rubbing a hand over his scalp.

“Yes,” Pascal said. “I do. I’ve learned that my parents lived here before the epidemic, Henri LaMartine and his wife, Anne. You mentioned my father once when we first met, although he later went by the name of Paul.”

“I see,” Father Chabot said quite calmly, now that he’d recovered from his surprise.

“You see?” Pascal said impatiently. “I wish to hell I did! My parents made it very clear to me that they’d met in Paris in 1805 and married in Montreuil in 1808, where they continued to live until 1810. Yet I have it on the best authority that they were here in Saint-Simon until the spring of 1809.”

“Yes, that is true, and they most certainly did not marry in Montreuil. They were married here in Saint-Simon in this very church. I performed the ceremony. That was—let me see, it was in the autumn of 1805.”

Pascal stared at him. “Good God,” he said softly. “This gets stranger by the moment.”

“Yes,” Father Chabot said, “it is interesting, isn’t it? I can see that such a discovery would come as a shock.”

Pascal smiled tightly. “Yes, you could say that. But why would they have gone to such elaborate lengths to keep the truth from me?”

Father Chabot picked up the chalice and began to polish it in careful circles. “I can’t say.”

Pascal slapped his hands down on the table in frustration. “You can’t say, or you won’t say? My mother was a devout Catholic, Michel. She would have made her confession to you. Surely you must know who my father is.”

Father Chabot looked up and met his gaze evenly. “You of all people should know that I cannot break the sanctity of the confessional. Not even for you.”

Pascal colored. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ask you to do that. But the only explanation I can think of is that my mother became pregnant by Serge de Saint-Simon, and she and my—she and LaMartine left to protect her reputation—or to protect me.”

“I
think it would be
safe
to say that they both cared very much about protecting you.” Father Chabot put the Communion cup down.
“They
were good people, Henri and Anne. They raised you well in the years that they had.”

Pascal raked his hand through his hair. “All right. I can see I’m not going to get another word out of you, but I think you’ve told me everything I need to know. Michel, if you married them … may I at least see the church records?”

“Certainly.” Father Chabot pulled a key from his pocket and went to the cupboard where he kept the books. He found the one for the year 1805 and opened it to October, then set it down on the table, pointing at the pertinent line.

Pascal bent over and read:
Anne Elizabeth, nee Storme, married Henri Paul LaMartine, October 5, 1805.
Both of their signatures were there and also those of Michel Chabot and two witnesses.

He let out a long breath. Proof positive. “Well,” he said, closing the book and handing it back to Father Chabot, “that clears up one mystery, anyway. Henri LaMartine’s second name was Paul.”

“As I remember, that was what Anne called him,” Father Chabot agreed, locking the register away again. “She said it sounded more English to her ear.”

Pascal rubbed the back of his neck. “I suppose that’s it, then. I’d better get to work. Thank you for telling me what you could.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more,” Father Chabot said.

“We can’t have you explaining to God why you broke your vows over the small matter of a bastard child,” Pascal said stiffly.

“I never said that,” Father Chabot admonished.

“No,” Pascal replied with a shrug. “In the end, you really didn’t have to.”

He went out the same way he’d come in, but more despondent than ever for finally knowing the truth.

Father Chabot’s morning was not spent in the usual happy contemplations that came when he polished the church plate, but rather in troubled thought. He’d known all along, of course, that Anne and Henri LaMartine had not told Pascal the truth about his parentage. He dearly wished he could sit the man down and explain it all to him, but that was out of the question.