The Awakening, Zuleika and the Barbarian (2 page)

Paris—1821

"You will leave this house immediately,
madame
, taking nothing with you but the clothes on your back," Lord William Abbott said to his stepmother. "After all, you brought nothing to my father but your insatiable greed for his possessions, you damnable French whore!"

Lady Marguerite Abbott stared shocked at the man before her. Finally she spoke. "You are wrong, William, and you know you are wrong. Your father and I loved one another. We sought to make you a part of our family, but you would not have it."

"You made my father leave me.
Leave England,"
Lord Abbott accused her.

"Your father brought me home to France because he believed your jealousy of our children could only be relieved if we were not living at Abbottsford. If we left it to you, even before it was legally yours, Charles felt that perhaps you would feel more secure as his heir. Our children could not change that. After what happened to Henry . . . " Her voice trailed off.

"Too bad you couldn't prove that I killed the little brat," William Abbott mocked her. "But you couldn't, could you?" He laughed meanly. "Don't you ever wonder how I did it?"

Lady Abbott grew pale. She knew that if there'd been a weapon at hand—
any weapon
—she would have used it on him. He had killed her infant son. She knew it. Charles had known it, but there had been no way to prove the heinous crime. After that, she had been frightened living at Abbottsford, especially when she became
enceinte
with Emilie. "This is my house," she said, attempting to turn the subject away from her murdered infant son.

"No, it isn't," Lord Abbott replied. "When my father died, everything he possessed came to me under the law,
madame."

"Your father had a will," Marguerite said.

Reaching into his coat's inside pocket, Lord Abbott drew out a thin document. "Do you mean
this
, madame?" He smiled nastily as he unfolded the parchment. "Let me see now, what it says. Ahh, yes. Here is the part that will be of interest to you.
I bequeath my home in the village of Vertterre to my beloved wife, Marguerite Abbott, née de Thierry; and order that my estate pay her a stipend of two thousand pounds annually for her support, and that of our daughter, Emilie. To my daughter, Emilie, I leave a dowry of one thousand pounds."
Lord Abbott tore the document into several pieces, slowly, and quite deliberately fed them to the fire in the hearth. "I expect this is the only copy," he noted. "Now, it would appear that under the laws of both France and England I am my father's only legitimate heir,
madame."

Marguerite Abbott was no fool. "There is always the widow's mite under the law, William," she told him.

"But by the time you have found the means to obtain and pay for a lawyer,
madame
, I shall be safely back in England. Whatever my dear sire has possessed here in France will belong to other owners,
or
I will have taken with me. You will have a very difficult time unraveling the muddle I make. How will you support yourself and your brat while you do?" He laughed. "Of course I can take Emilie off of your hands, if you wish,
madame
. I know an Arab prince in London who is quite fond of small girls. He would pay a fortune for a little blue-eyed blond maid. It might even reimburse me for the monies my father expended on you,
madame
. How old is my half-sister now? Six? Such a delicious age, is it not? The prince will see that Emilie lacks for nothing, in exchange, of course, for certain liberties." He laughed.

"You are vile!" Lady Abbott said angrily. "That you would even suggest such a thing but bespeaks your monstrous nature, William! Do you not feel the least modicum of guilt in falsely disinheriting your sister and me? I was your father's wife for ten years. Your own mother, God bless her, was not married to Charles for so long."

"Why should I feel guilt?" he demanded of her. "My father was much too old to remarry when you enticed him, and then seduced him into marrying you. He was forty-four to your seventeen! I was a year your senior! Do you know how foolish you made him look? An old man panting, and drooling after a chit, just out of the schoolroom, damnit!"

Marguerite shook her head sadly. "You never understood, did you, William? You father and I loved one another. The years between us meant nothing. They were meaningless. Please, I beg you, if you choose not to honor your father's wishes, keep your monies, but do not take my home from me. Emilie and I must have a place to live. All of our memories are here. Your father is even buried in the village churchyard, William. Take whatever else you wish, but leave us this house," she pleaded with him.

"The house is sold," he told her coldly. "The new owners will arrive tomorrow to take possession of it."

"But my things!" she cried.

"You have nothing,
madame,"
he insisted. "The house was sold furnished. I have turned the servants off. The new owners may want to hire some of them back, but I do not intend paying further wages."

"Your father—" she began.

Lord William Abbott slammed his fist onto a table by his side.
"My father!
I am sick unto death of hearing your praises for and laments about my father,
madame!
What did he have that I do not, pray? I have been told my entire life that I am his mirror image, yet you never noticed me that season in London.
No!
You only noticed Charles Abbott, but not William.
Why?
I will tell you why. It is the plain truth that he had the money, and I did not. You never saw either of us. You only saw what my father could give you. You did not see that I wanted you. You only saw my father's wealth." William Abbott's face was beet red with his anger, and his frustration.

"That isn't so, and you are horrible to say so!" Lady Abbott cried, astounded by his revelation. "Loving your father had nothing to do with his wealth, or his features, William. I loved him because he was loving, and kind, and gentle, and amusing; but how could you understand that? Your whole life has been driven by your self-interest!"

"Was he a good lover,
madame?
Was my father able to make you scream with pleasure? Or did you please him with the whore's tricks you learned from your aunt?"

"You are disgusting," she returned coldly.

"He must have stuck it to you at least twice for you bore him two brats. Or did you have a lover? Or perhaps a series of lovers to sate your appetites?"

"I do not have to stand here and listen to your revolting speeches," Marguerite Abbott said, the tears beginning to come. "I loved your father, and I was faithful to him always, William. Let any say it otherwise, and they will lie!" She turned from him to go.

"Bitch!"
he snarled, and reaching for her, he yanked her back against him. "Before we are through,
madame
, and I throw you back into the gutter from where you came, you will give me what you gave my father! I will fuck you until you beg for mercy, whore! You will come to know what a real man is!" His hand ripped at her bodice. There was spittle on his lips, and his eyes were wild with his lust for her.

Marguerite struggled within his grip. An anger such as she had never before felt rose up in her breast.
This man!
This evil creature who looked so like her beloved Charles would not have her. She felt a strength such as she had never known pour into her. With a shriek she clawed at his face, her nails raking down his cheeks, drawing blood. Her knee came up as hard as she could bring it into his privates, and his ensuing howl brought a satisfied smile to her face, especially as his grip upon her loosened and she was able to pull away.

"Cochon!
You are a pig, William, and you will never have me!
Ever!"
Then she laughed bitterly. "You are surprised that I know how to defend my honor, eh? Well, the nuns who raised me taught me, you monster! Even at my English school we were taught such little tricks." There was no pity in her eyes as she looked at her tormentor, now bent over with his pain. "You have taken everything from me that you could, William. But you will have neither my honor, my child, nor my memories. Those belong to me, and they are worth far more than any of the monies you have stolen." She turned and left him, still writhing with his pain, in the lovely salon she had decorated so beautifully when she had first come to Vertterre.

In the foyer of the house her maid, Clarice, and Clarice's husband, the undercoachman, were waiting for her. Wordlessly Clarice wrapped a cloak about her mistress, tsking at the torn bodice. She shepherded Marguerite out the door of the house, helping her into a small coach.

"He will not miss it," Clarice said matter-of-factly. "It was in the back of the barn, and he probably never even saw it." She climbed in behind her mistress, and pulled the door shut.

"The horses," Lady Abbott said.

"If he wants 'em, he can come after them, but he won't. He will not want to appear publicly to be a bully. He had done his worst. Now he will scurry back to his England," Clarice said sensibly as the coach drew away from the house.

Marguerite looked sadly at what had been her happy home for the last six years, and the tears slipped down her cheeks. There was nothing to be done. Now she had to decide how she was going to survive, as well as protect her small daughter, Emilie, at school in Paris. "Where are we going?" she asked her maid.

"Why, to Madame Renée's, of course," Clarice answered her mistress.

Of course, Marguerite thought. Where else would she go at a time like this but to her aunt's establishment in Paris? She sat back and closed her eyes. Renée had always said that when one door closed, another opened. Her aunt was a pragmatist. She always had been. But it was this very quality that had saved both of their lives during the Terror. Naturally Marguerite didn't remember the Revolution, having been an infant, but Renée had told her everything. She had been very frank about how she had whored for the prison governor in order to save their lives, although she could not save the lives of Marguerite's parents. She had whored when she had finally been released from the Île de Cité prison in order to pay off her niece's fees at the convent of St. Anne. But, Renée pointed out, she had never walked the streets seeking clients.

Governor de la Pont had been generous to his young mistress. Renée had carefully hoarded his largesse to her. She had gained the freedom of the old whore who had shared her imprisonment, and learned all she could from the woman about her trade. Celine had served Renée faithfully until her death. When she had left prison, Renée had enough monies to purchase a small house in the Île de Cité district. There were two rooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs. Together she and Celine had cleaned it and found furnishings for it. And then Renée had gone into business, entertaining her former lover and the gentlemen he brought to her home. She was an elegant and cultured hostess with a quick wit and a generous nature.

Renée de Thierry's reputation began to spread. Soon the second bedchamber in her house had a resident, a young intelligent country girl to whom Renée taught manners, skills in music, how to make small talk, and how to always please a gentleman.
Chez Renée
began to host important and famous gentlemen. Renée bought a larger house, this one overlooking the River Seine. It was rumored that the Emperor Napoleon came to visit Madame Renée regularly.

Chez Renée
did not accept callers in the month of August, or on Christmas Day or Easter. In August, Madame disappeared from Paris, but no one knew where she went except Marguerite, who was with her aunt then. While Marguerite had lived in France as a child, they had gone to a seaside village in Brittany where her aunt watched the little girl as she played on the sand by the sea; and where they walked together down verdant country lanes in early evening before the peach-gold light faded. At the end of the summer that Marguerite turned six, she did not go back to Paris with her aunt. Instead her aunt took her aboard a sailing yacht owned by one of Renée's old friends, an English duke. There the child bid her aunt farewell, and was taken to school in England.

In England, Marguerite spent her holidays with the duke and his large family. He would be her legal guardian, it was explained, as long as she was in England. The following August her Aunt Renée arrived from France to take her to Cornwall. It was there they vacationed each summer after that until Marguerite was married in a seaside village quite similar to the one in Brittany. And as much as Renée wanted her niece to regain the social position that the revolution in France had cost their family, she would not give her permission for Marguerite's marriage to Lord Abbott until he had been made fully aware of the entire truth of their situation.

Lord Abbott had nodded gravely when Renée de Thierry had finished her recital. Then he said, "You say that Marguerite is legally born. She is the daughter of Jules and Marie-Agnes, Comte and Comtesse de Thierry. That she was ensconced within the Convent of St. Anne in Paris at the age of three months when her parents were executed; that she visited your house in Paris two days each year until she was six, when you sent her to England. Here she has been in school, her guardians being the Duke and Duchess of Sedgwick, under whom she made her debut. That while she is aware of your, um, enterprise, she has never had any part in it. Is that correct,
madame?"
Lord Abbott had eyes the color of sherry, and a quiet way about him. He never raised his voice.