The Heiress Read Free Page B

and pretty women too numerous to be counted. At twenty-three she was a widow; her husband, the Baron de Vitale, was already an old man when she married him, and, having lived a life of excess, his constitution did not survive the strain of being married to his young and lovely wife for more than two years. When he died he left everything in his possession to the woman whom he described as the most perfect compagnon de nuit any man could wish for. By the time she was twenty Louise was rich, well connected and very bored with living in the country on her husband’s estates and carrying on intrigues with the husbands of her neighbours. She had exhausted them all during her year’s mourning and she left her estates in the hands of a bailiff and set out for Versailles. Almost at once she attracted the attention of the Duc de Richelieu; it was not only advisable but a pleasure for Louise to become his mistress. He was attractive and charming and he enjoyed intrigue as much as she did. Also he was an intimate of the King’s new mistress, the Comtesse Dubarry, and that opened the door to many things.
    In a Court where everyone powdered, two women were conspicuous for wearing their hair naturally. One was the Royal mistress, whose hair was a ravishing golden-red, as fine as silk, and the other the Baroness de Vitale, whose beautiful hair was so dark that in some lights it seemed touched with blue. With this sable hair, her complexion was as pale and smooth as milk, and the skin on her body was of the same texture and colour as her face. Her eyes were very large and black with heavily painted lids above them, and a mouth which was full and red. She was beautiful and she dressed superbly, and she had been Charles Macdonald’s mistress for over a year. He was the first man to whom she had ever been faithful, and while she waited for him that night she was so restless that she walked up and down like an animal in a cage. She had a maid who had been in her service since she married, a sharp-eyed little Breton who shared all her secrets.
    â€˜Don’t worry, Madame. Monsieur Charles will come.’
    â€˜What time is it?’ Louise demanded. ‘He’s never as late as this!’
    That was another oddity, Marie thought, taking out her watch. He often kept the Baroness waiting, whereas all the other gentlemen had been sitting outside her door an hour before. Marie did not like Charles Macdonald. He was a foreigner for all that he was born and bred in France; there was an arrogance about him, a brutality which she had seen in his quarrels with her mistress, that was definitely not French. Once he had come to the Baroness’s apartments drunk, and when she reproached him he struck her and dragged her into the bedroom and locked the door. When he left the next morning her mistress was more abjectly in love with him than ever. Marie had a lover of her own; he worked as a footman for the Duchesse de Gramont and together they were saving every sou to get married and open a small shop in Paris.
    â€˜It is nearly eleven o’clock, Madame. Perhaps he isn’t coming this time?’
    â€˜He would have sent a note, some word,’ her mistress said. ‘He’ll come, he’s been detained by something, that’s all it is.’ Louise went to the glass on the wall and examined herself in it. Charles was the only man she had ever met who made her unsure of her beauty; she stared at herself anxiously. Her dress was pale yellow and made of the soft thin silk which the Dubarry had brought into fashion; worn without panniers it clung to the body and it showed every line of her beautiful figure; her breasts were almost exposed; only a gauze fichu covered them. She was one of those rare women who looked as beautiful in déshabillé as she did in the most magnificent ball gown. Charles sometimes said that she was beautiful, but he had never said he loved her.
    From the beginning of their relationship,