The French Passion

By Jacqueline Briskin

Writing under the nom de plume Diane du Pont, New York Times–bestselling author Jacqueline Briskin brings to life the fury and intrigue of the French Revolution in a spellbinding, sensual novel of passion, betrayal, and love

Manon d’Epinay is on her way to Paris to wed one of the most powerful nobles in France, an adviser to King Louis. But en route, her coach is attacked by marauding revolutionaries. To save her family, Manon strikes a devil’s bargain with a seductive highwayman that will seal her fate. For revolution is about to tear France apart—and transform her life forever.
 
The French Passion is the vibrant story of three ardent people at a momentous turning point in history: Manon, a daring, impoverished aristocrat caught between two charismatic men, who does what she must to survive; Andre, whose past is cloaked in mystery and who risks his life to protect the woman he loves as he fights to bring justice and equality to his countrymen; and the Comte de Crequi, bound by the age-old laws of nobility and class, whose passions for his country and for Manon run deeper than anyone could have imagined.


 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Apr 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781453293676

Jacqueline Briskin

Jacqueline Briskin (1927–2014) was the New York Times–bestselling author of fourteen historical novels that reflect the tumultuous changes in American society that she witnessed over her lifetime. Complete with dynamic storylines, vibrant characters, and passionate romantic relationships, her novels have sold more than twenty million copies worldwide and have been translated into twenty-six languages. Briskin was born in London, England, the granddaughter of the chief rabbi of Dublin, Ireland. Her family moved to Beverly Hills, California, to escape Adolf Hitler and religious orthodoxy. A few years later, she married her best friend and the love of her life, Bert, whose family was deeply embedded in Hollywood and the movie business. When Briskin’s three children were little more than toddlers, she attended a class at UCLA entitled “The Craft of Fiction.” To her surprise, it was a class about writing fiction rather than reading fiction. And so her career began. Over the next forty years, many of Briskin’s books topped the New York Times bestseller list. Her adoptive home of Los Angeles and her husband’s old stomping ground of Hollywood often play a prominent role in her meticulously researched books.

Book preview

ONE

On the Brink

1785

Chapter One

We never should be on the road, not in the dark, wailed Aunt Thérèse, twining her plump, gloved fingers. We were meant to be at the Hôtel de la Poste two hours ago.

Two hours, I said. By an odd coincidence, Auntie, that’s how long we had to wait for the horse to be shod.

My effort to calm her with a joke didn’t work. Aunt Thérèse went on, her voice trembling. These days there are so many rough people about. Highway robbers.

This was true. One heard of lawlessness, particularly on the Paris-Rheims road. Aunt Thérèse, as if to catch a glimpse of (supposed) highwaymen, peered out the small window of our old coach, and Jean-Pierre and I both turned involuntarily. Several miles back, when we left the smithy, our carriage lanterns had been lit. This smoky light, veiled by hard rain, was all we could see.

The horses floundered into a mudhole. We jounced in unison, Aunt Thérèse fell against me, and Jean-Pierre, who sat opposite, reached out to steady her.

What was that? she panted in terror. What?

Nothing, Auntie, I said. The peasants aren’t doing their road duty, that’s all.

Sometimes robbers dig a pit to slow travelers—or so they say.

Aunt Thérèse, our great-aunt, was very kindhearted. And very old-fashioned. She was forever quoting they and them.

You tell me, Auntie, I asked, what sane criminal would brave this storm to rob so dilapidated a coach?

Manon, she reproved, you mustn’t joke about serious matters always. Soon you’ll be married.

At the word married, I gave a small involuntary shiver.

And my brother, far better at soothing than I, said in his musical tenor, There’ve been dragoons on this road.

Jean-Pierre, that’s exactly what I mean! she cried. They’re patrolling because of the lawlessness! At our last stop they told of a terrible case that happened just the other day. The people, a baron, and his wife and sister, were robbed of everything. The baron was killed. The ladies were—she stopped, glancing at me before she went on in a low voice—they were mistreated.

How much sadder, I said, for the dead Baron than his mistreated ladies.

You’re too young to understand what I’m talking about, Manon. And the dear, stout old spinster, her corsets laced so tight she was breathless, held a hand over her traveling cloak where her heart was. Aunt Thérèse firmly believed that I, living among farm animals all my sixteen years, was innocent of what the male did to the female.

In the gloom I caught Jean-Pierre’s eye. My brother winked. It was all I could do not to burst into laughter.

Dear, dear Jean-Pierre. Brother, friend, only kinsman. I would do anything for him. When I was three and he four, our parents had died of the cholera on the same day, and being orphaned made us closer than most brothers and sisters. Jean-Pierre might be the elder, yet always I mothered him. His health was delicate. Often he grew feverish, with coughing spells and head pains, and during these illnesses I stayed in his dark room, nursing him. Because of the head pains he often skipped his lessons, and I would hide him in my bed curtains, protecting him from the almost blind tutor’s cane. To be honest, illness wasn’t the only reason Jean-Pierre left his books. Both of us had inherited the d’Epinay fun-loving streak. Together we would wade in streams and slide down haystacks, ride fat farm horses, race our dogs through the woods. Jean-Pierre would sing. He had a lovely voice and I could listen to him for hours.

In this dim light I could make out the delicate arch of his forehead, the proud angle of his head. He looked, and was, an aristocrat. In olden times we d’Epinays had been wealthy and powerful, but various generations had sold off farms and manor houses to pay for fine clothes, a night of gambling—the d’Epinays, people said, never spared themselves a pleasure. Now, in 1785, Jean-Pierre’s legacy was a mortgaged ramshackle house with a leaking slate roof. And I had the d’Epinay opals, a necklace currently hidden in the secret drawer under the bench below Aunt Thérèse’s voluminous skirts.

Our poverty never disturbed me.

Jean-Pierre, however, often spoke wistfully of a miraculous future when somehow the d’Epinay fortunes would be reversed, and we would again be of France’s great nobility. Our house, our shabby clothes, embittered him. Odd. Usually it was Jean-Pierre who blocked out unpleasantness. He saw the bright side of everything. Even thrashing with the pain of a fever bout, he would say, At least I don’t have to do my rotten lessons! These two things, his hatred of our poverty and his ability to see the good side, were why Jean-Pierre approved of my marriage to the Comte de Créqui.

It might have been Aunt Thérèe who had gathered us, a pair of bewildered, weeping orphans, to her soft vanilla-scented bosom and raised us, but it was the Comte de Créqui who was our guardian.

The Comte de Créqui was one of the great nobles who surrounded King Louis. He hunted with the King, he rode in the King’s coach, he advised the King. The Comte had visited us once, when our parents died, and I remembered him as a tall, black-glittery figure with a snow cloud of a wig.

This May, for my sixteenth birthday celebration, he had visited again. A three-year-old’s sense of height isn’t reliable. The Comte de Créqui’s imposing bulk of chest and shoulder was feebly supported by short, thin legs. Quick raisin-dark eyes were set in the face of a clever monkey. Despite this ugliness, though, he exuded breeding and presence. His black satin frock coat glittered with diamond-paved buttons. His neck moved easily in his high lace-trimmed white stock. He had the almost brutal politeness of a man who knows he can have whatever he wishes—mansions, fine horses, loose women. He was a widower.

My mother’s green silk dress had been cut down to fit me. My hair, so fair as to appear powdered, I’d let fall in silky curls behind my neck. Aunt Thérèse, inspecting me before the dinner, exclaimed over my delicate figure, silver-blond hair, high forehead, white skin, rosy cheeks, the green of my eyes, adding that I should tuck a fichu in my low neckline. Oh, Auntie! I’d cried. Don’t be so old-fashioned!

The Comte de Créqui told amusing tales of Court life. He was an old man, six years older than our father had been. Yet such was the strength of his personality that I found myself responding flirtatiously to his wit. He smiled at me so intently across the smoking candelabrum that before the lamb was carved I was wishing I had tucked that fichu in my low-cut bodice to hide the rounded tops of my breasts. Yet … wasn’t there a faint twinge of pleasure in having this great noble who passed his days and nights with the celebrated beauties of Versailles Palace gaze at me?

That night the Comte announced to Aunt Thérèse he would marry me. Not a proposal. An order. She knew me better than to tell me before his coach pulled out of our muddy yard. I’m high-spirited, impetuous, and—everyone says—too willful for a girl. She knew my answer. No, no, no, I shouted through low, water-stained rooms.

Aunt Thérèse panted after me, saying that this house was mortgaged, and we owned nothing except the hand-me-down clothes we wore. A poor, dowryless girl should be overjoyed by such a great match.

Never! I cried, locking myself in my room, flinging myself on my bed, whispering never, never. Call me a romantic, but I wanted a love match. I sobbed through two days.

It was Jean-Pierre who brought me around. The next few weeks he spoke of the Comte de Créqui’s good points. He was amusing. He was immensely powerful. Créqui was an ancient and honorable name, and the Comte, close to King Louis, was welcome in every great mansion in France. Think Manon, you’ll be a Comtesse, Jean-Pierre said with his lilting charm. When you’re presented to the Court, you’ll outshine every lady, including Queen Marie Antoinette. You’ll give elegant card parties and dances. At your midnight buffets you’ll serve the best wines and pheasant pastries. And as for me, I’ll woo and win a beautiful heiress and we d’Epinays will again be respected.

I never could resist Jean-Pierre’s enthusiasm.

One hot August afternoon that smelled of ripening pears, I wrote a formal acceptance letter to the Comte de Créqui. To be honest, it was more the thought of Jean-Pierre’s hoped-for marriage to an heiress than my own that prompted my acceptance. As I said, I’m a romantic, and I wanted to marry for love. Foolish, yes. In this modern day and age, as everyone knows, a girl looks for love anyplace but in marriage.

But what other choice did I have?

Now, jolting through the stormy night, every mashing turn of the wheels bringing me closer to Paris and the Comte de Créqui, I felt my stomach grow tighter and tighter with apprehension. I dreaded spending the rest of my life under those cynical raisin-dark eyes.

Jean-Pierre, to soothe Aunt Thérèse, was humming old children’s tunes. Frère Jacques …

I forgot the rainy night, forgot my approaching marriage. Lulled by the jolting and by my brother’s singing, I drowsed.

I jerked awake.

It took me a moment to realize the eternal rumble of wheels had stopped and we were no longer jolting. Outside, loud over the rain, were men’s shouts. My heart began to pound. Aunt Thérèse had fallen toward me, her weight pressing me against the coach wall. She breathed in gasping moans.

The door burst open. Wind and rain swept in the men’s voices. Yet this silhouette wasn’t human. It was a monster drawn from the dripping depths of the woods, a great amorphous blackness with one distinguishable feature: a dull gleam, like a claw.

Aunt Thérèse crossed herself. Instinctively, I put a protective arm about her soft, quivering shoulders.

Wh—what are you? Jean-Pierre asked, his tone for once unmusical, quavering to a boyish falsetto. What do you want?

No answer.

The old coach shuddered and trembled as the creature hauled itself aboard.

Chapter Two

It wasn’t a monster but a man. A tall man wrapped in a tiered cape, which gave him his odd, unearthly outline. The gleaming claw was the muzzle of a pistol. Terrifying enough, but at least human. I let out a small sigh of relief.

From outside a loud peasant voice bawled, What’s we got?

And another peasant out there called, Is it more of them fine folk, on the way to Versailles Palace?

By the dim light of carriage lamps, I got the impression of a wolf pack, gleaming eyes and teeth, outside the coach.

The man inside spoke. A fair young gentleman, he called in educated tones. Bending, he thrust his head toward Aunt Thérèse. She gasped louder. I squeezed her shoulder. An old lady.

He turned, peering at me. Even in my terror, I noted every detail of his rain-wet face. He had a small scar just above his bold hawk nose. His full lips were well formed, his eyes deep set and dark, his bared head dripping with locks of black hair. But to describe his features is meaningless. It was his expression that entrapped me. Brooding, intense, yet oddly kind.

In that heartbeat as we gazed at each other, I thought: He’s a poet.

Another woman, he called.

Looks like a pretty little pullet to me, one of the men shouted.

There was a burst of laughter and crude remarks.

Throw her out!

Let’s pluck her feathers.

And then someone shouted, Take care of the cockerel first.

I began to shiver, remembering Aunt Thérèse’s words. The Baron was killed.… What if they killed Jean-Pierre? Oh my God, I thought, my mind dizzy with fear. Death comes in an instant and is as long as eternity. My brother … And below the dizziness I felt my brain clench like a fist. I knew without doubt I would do anything, anything, to save Jean-Pierre.

Pushing aside Aunt Thérèse’s soft weight, I sat up. Monsieur, I said, surprised at the coldness I’d mustered, we have nothing of value, but choose what you wish, then we must be on our way.

You’re not in any position to give orders, mademoiselle, said the highwayman, equally cold.

Don’t talk to my sister! Jean-Pierre snapped.

Jean-Pierre, I said, "he’s right. We are his prisoners."

Out of the darkness came a shout. Give us both hens, old and young, we ain’t fussy. And get to work on that young rooster.

My shivering increased. My voice stayed level. I said, Use your pistol on me before him.

Said the highwayman, Just keep silent!

At this Jean-Pierre raised his arm toward me. A sudden movement. The highwayman, startled, hit out with his pistol. As the blow landed, the highwayman’s mouth opened, as if in surprise. I could have sworn he meant my brother no harm. But accident or no, blood was gushing from Jean-Pierre’s left eyebrow down the side of his cheek.

I dropped to my knees on the floorboard between the benches, cuddling his head in my arms. Nothing mattered except that small, angry wound.

I’m all right, he mumbled shakily.

Don’t say one thing more, I whispered in his ear. Please, Jean-Pierre, don’t be brave. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. Nothing is worth that. And inwardly I made the prayer that I always made when Jean-Pierre was ill. Please, God, let my brother be all right, Mary, Mother of God, let my brother be all right.

From the rain came laughing and jeering approval of Jean-Pierre’s wound.

A cut, that’s all, said the highwayman to me in a low voice. He’ll have a headache, no more. Do as I say, and I give you this oath. Tomorrow all three of you will be alive. His voice was deep with sincerity.

I raised my head. Even in that drenched cloak, his wet dark hair escaping its club, his fingers dangling a pistol, there was a sincerity to him, a brooding honesty. He compelled me.

And our coachman, too? I asked. The coachman was Old Lucien, cowherd to our three milch cows.

Why would we harm him? He’s one of the people.

And then I understood why he, educated, a gentleman, had aligned himself with those creatures outside. He was a revolutionary. Even in our remote village we’d heard of well-bred men who gave their sympathy to the peasants.

Jean-Pierre’s wound flowed, and he’d turned pale. Reaching under my cloak, fumbling with the broach that held my fichu, I pulled out the linen scarf. I pressed fabric to the wound. Blood soaked through. I refolded the triangle and applied it again.

After a minute Jean-Pierre raised his hand, holding the bloodied linen himself. I helped him back to a sitting position.

You could hang for this, I said.

People around here are starving, the highwayman replied. The gallows is a far more merciful end. Now, get outside.

Outside?

With the wolf pack?

It was as if he’d punched me in the stomach. I could hear myself gasp. Beyond this coach was darkness. Nightmare country.

Let us stay out of the rain, I said, and again my voice surprised me. Not a quaver. Give us that much.

The highwayman examined me. The light was dim, and I couldn’t tell whether, plumbing my fear, he pitied me, or if he simply were keeping his promise that we would remain alive. Did it matter? He was calling out, They’re coming down. Don’t touch them. The man’s tamed. And the girl is for me.

There was an urgency in his voice. Something stirred deep within me, an excitement at the pit of my stomach. Then it was gone. And a chill went down my spine as I understood the terms by which we would be spared. I must give myself to him. I had made a bargain with him and all that was binding in my life—honor, religion, family, pride in name, rebelled against the bargain.

Grumbles rose above the sough of wet branches.

She’s mine, the highwayman repeated.

A crude peasant voice shouted, "Must be even tastier up close, the little pullet. This be the first time you picked a woman."

Then don’t begrudge me. He bent to me, saying in a low voice, There’s trees for shelter.

I managed to pull Aunt Thérèse, quivering and moaning, to her feet. Jean-Pierre climbed unsteadily out. The dark crowd pulled back. There were no carriage steps, and it was a long way down. Jean-Pierre, still pressing my fichu to his wound, raised his free hand for me. Between us, we managed to get Aunt Thérèse to the muddy ground.

As we led her through cold, prickling rain to the protection of a great oak, men crowded about us. They exuded the smell of dirty wet clothing and unwashed bodies. It came as a shock to me that there were only five, one a gnarled old man, another a scrawny little boy. All were wrapped in ill-fitting capes that surely had been stolen. They carried an assortment of pistols and muskets. Jean-Pierre had taught me to shoot. I guessed from their awkward cradling of the weapons that none of these peasants had ever fired a shot.

A poor, sorry little band.

My pity dispersed as they clambered over the coach, opening our wooden trunks, gleefully holding up feminine undergarments, Aunt Thérèse’s large ones, my beribboned ones.

Seeing Old Lucien tied to a nearby elm, I ran through the rain to him.

Old Lucien. Did they hurt you?

I be fine.

My gloved fingers struggled with wet ropes.

No! Stop! His toothless mouth sputtered.

But the knots are working loose.

Untying me’ll anger them. Mademoiselle Manon, you always be rushing into hazard! You mustn’t anger them. They be rough ’uns. His voice lowered to a mumble. Don’t let ’em near you. They wants bad women, not the likes of you.

The leader said they would kill all of us … if … My voice trailed away. I couldn’t give words to the terrifying and shameful bargain I had agreed to.

Killing don’t be the worst that can happen to a young girl. Get you back to Madame Thérèse. She be the one to explain it.

I mopped the old man’s dirt-smeared face with the lining of my cape, touched to tears. Tonight, when his life—all our lives—were at stake, he feared most for my so-called honor.

He was correct about Aunt Thérèse making explanations. She’d been huddling against the broad tree trunk. As I returned, she pulled herself erect.

Manon, she said, you shouldn’t have run off like that, alone. You must always keep near Jean-Pierre and me. For three long seconds she was silent. Raindrops gathered on leaves, plopping onto mud. That man, the young brigand … you mustn’t let him touch you.

I’ll kill him! cried Jean-Pierre.

Jean-Pierre! My voice rose in alarm. Promise me you’ll try no such thing.

You’re my sister.

Even in the dimness I could see the angry set of his delicate eyebrows. I could see the blood soaking through my fichu. They killed the Baron.

"Promise you won’t. Jean-Pierre, promise! Please."

How can I let you be dishonored?

At this Aunt Thérèse said, If you are, the Comte de Créqui won’t have you.

That’s the one silver lining in this whole ugly cloud. A chance not to be the Comtesse de Créqui. I held my hand over my lips to stifle the laughter that bubbled hysterically in my throat.

Aunt Thérèse’s plump face creased up like a worried child’s. Manon, Manon. If the Comte doesn’t marry you, what will we do? We are destitute, and now we don’t even have our clothes—

She was interrupted by a sudden shout from the carriage.

They had found our secret drawer. A filthy claw held up the opal necklace that had been in the family for over two hundred years. The great polished gems caught the feeble light, gleaming. My spirit deserted me and I had to fight back tears. To me that necklace symbolized past generations of the d’Epinay family, those gleaming white opals represented the bleached bones of my ancestors, bones entombed under chapels that now belonged to others. A gnarled fist shook the necklace.

Damn, damn them. Jean-Pierre’s voice shook. May they rot in hell for eternity.

Someone had undone our money pouch. Hoots of disappointment. Five paltry francs! Then the men in turn jumped down until only the highwayman remained inside. The old man splashed noisily to us, his arthritic hand grasping my arm. Now, pretty little pullet, our business be done, and he be ready for his reward.

Old Lucien’s thin shout came through rainy darkness. Stay away from my young lady!

Manon, Aunt Thérèse quavered, don’t go.

I ached to throw my arms around her, ached to cling to her. But I could see the proud yet desolate angle of Jean-Pierre’s head. They killed the Baron.… Cold determination grew inside my skull.

I must do whatever the highwayman ordered. I must not put up a fight. I must rely on his promise that my brother as well as Aunt Thérèse, Old Lucien, and I would be alive tomorrow. His promise was all I had.

They were crowding around to escort me to my fate, lustily shouting how they would pleasure me, the young boy’s treble echoing every obscenity.

Terrified yet determined, I stepped ahead of them, picking my way swiftly around shadowed puddles to the looming, box-shaped old carriage.

Chapter Three

As I opened the door, the taper by the rear window flickered and the highwayman shifted, as if to rise, then checked himself, remaining seated on the bench, his muddied black knee boots planted on splinters of our secret drawer. He had thrown off his cape and his loose white shirt gleamed.

My thighs weak with fear, I sat opposite him. Rain drummed on the roof, he pulled the leather curtains shut, and we were cut off from the world, alone.

He was twenty, no more. As he gazed at me, the tension around his full, well-formed lips softened, and he looked younger, like the boys who danced with me and stole kisses on fête days. A momentary warmth spilled through me, an echo of that earlier excitement in the pit of my stomach, then a rain-muted shout of lechery pierced our solitude, reminding me that I was about to be taken with as little dignity as our undergarments had been exhibited. I was an object. Booty. I clasped my cold, shaking fingers in my lap.

This is the first time, isn’t it? he asked.

There was a sympathy in his tone that made me want to blurt out my fears, beg to be spared. However, my impulsive pride acted against me. I found myself mustering the coldest expression I could, straightening my spine, lifting my chin.

Of course it is, I replied, ice in my voice. We’re on our way to Paris where I’m to be married.

To someone you love?

Respect, I said in that same cold, level tone. He’s financial adviser to King Louis.

"What a corrupt regime! A girl trading her youth and loveliness for wealth. Is she your grandmother?"

My mother’s aunt. We’re orphans, my brother and I.

Then your brother’s the one who’s selling you.

He spoke scornfully. This roused me from my terror, banished my false hauteur. He might be my captor—but nobody, nobody could speak ill of Jean-Pierre.

Jean-Pierre’s helpless in the matter! I snapped. I have no dowry, and the Comte is our guardian!

If I were your brother, I’d find some way, do anything to prevent the marriage. And as for this—he glanced around the dimness at strewn, rejected loot—I’d have been killed before letting you in here.

I refused to hear any more uncalled-for insults to my brother. You offered me our lives in exchange for my body, I said, my voice filled with icy rage. Shall we get on with our bargain?

So that’s the way you want it, he said. The carriage shook as he moved to my side.

My mouth went dry with terror.

For all my knowledge of what animals did, I had no true idea of what a man did to a woman. Aunt Thérèse never had explained—maybe she, kindly old spinster that she was, didn’t properly know. I had absorbed the information that the act for a woman was painful, caused pregnancy, and unless sanctified by marriage vows was the deepest of shames. As Old Lucien had pointed out, a woman should die rather than submit. And, as Aunt Thérèse had pointed out, premature submission ruined chances of matrimony. To have such consequences, the carnal act must indeed be monstrous.

Inwardly, I had vowed not to fight. Still, I could put off the horrible moment. Gulping twice, I said, I just don’t want to discuss my brother. You can understand, surely. You’re a gentleman.

He flinched as if I’d jabbed a raw nerve.

My father was high born, he replied, and I’d never heard such contempt as he packed into that one brief, honorable sentence. And, as you said, you’re selling yourself. So do your job.

I shuddered with fear. Then I thought of Jean-Pierre’s mouthlike wound, of Aunt Thérèse, her neck athrob with terror, of Old Lucien tied to a tree. I reached for the top one of the steel buttons that went down my cape. The holes damp, my fingers nerveless, I had to take off my gloves to work the large buttons loose. It took me a long time. I pushed back the cape, the hood fell away, and my hair, silken and very pale, spilled over my shoulders. Without the fichu my breasts were bared to just above the nipples, the pink merino wool of my bodice cutting into the delicately rounded curves.

Candle flame touched the highwayman’s face into dark planes. As he gazed at me, his expression changed to musing, as if he were trying to recall a line of poetry.

My emotions began to whirl until I could neither think nor remember clearly. I still feared sexual initiation. I still held dear honor, religion, family. My brother’s bleeding forehead was ordering me to submit. Yet … it was stronger than that. Once I’d fallen into the river Aube and the springtime rapids had tumbled and carried me, and this was how I felt now, vitally alive, heart pounding with fear and excitement, my body racing along with forces beyond my strength to control.

The handsome young brigand shook his head, as if he, too, were trapped in the same currents.

Then, abruptly, his arms went around me, drawing me into an embrace that was hard against my drowning weakness. His warm lips pressed down on mine. None of the fête-day kisses bore the least resemblance to this. Nothing ever had been like this. He bent my neck back against his forearm, kissing me with increasing intensity until I was near fainting. My arms went around him, my lips opened, and his tongue penetrated my mouth.

My promise to him had freed me of the normal constraints of society. The thud of my heart loud in my ears, I felt as must a bird soaring, as a silvery trout diving in a clear pool. In this stranger’s hard arms I was utterly in my element. His fingers traced the curves above my bodice and the pleasure was so exquisite that I gasped aloud.

At this sound of my own passion, a flicker of reason came back to my reeling mind.

I pushed at his muscular shoulders, a feeble protest not against him but against my own rapture.

But he was pressing me onto the leather, pinioning both my hands in one of his, bracing himself with one knee on the floorboards, his other leg flung over my thighs as he unlaced my bodice. The masculine odors of his body, his forceful strength, acted as a yet wilder aphrodisiac. He bent to kiss the throbbing swell of my nipples. There was no rain, no musty carriage, no cold leather, nothing in the world except pleasure, the rapturous fear, the imperative that my body be joined to his.

He pulled up my skirts and petticoats, untying the ribbon of my nether garment. My trembling thighs were bared, and he undid his breeches. He lowered himself onto me. For an instinctive moment I bucked like an unbroken colt, then he pressed into me.

The pain was sharpest pleasure.

I opened my eyes. His thick, dark lashes moved up, I gazed into his gray eyes, and in some way I cannot explain, I understood all there was to know of him, that he was decent, sensitive, faintly embittered, yet incapable of cruelty or evil; I had a mysterious sense he was joined to me in soul as well as body.

He moved inside me. Though it was no longer pain, I blinked, and he bit small kisses around my mouth, and my passion grew until I thought I would surely die if he didn’t move within me, there was only the sweet savage need for him to drive deeper and faster and suddenly my nails dug into the muscles of his back and I was clutching at him, holding onto him because he was the only stability in the universe and I was falling into some dark eternal pleasure, falling with oh such unimaginable delight, and all around swirled his breathing and my voice cried out, Love oh love love.

We lay entangled, glowing, and he reached for a quilt taken from our trunks, wrapping it around us.

I’m lower than the low, he said. Despicable.

To deny this, I held him closer. I was unable to speak or to think beyond this moment of happiness.

Never, never did I intend to force you. I’ve never taken any woman by force. I tried to stop myself, but ever since I stepped into this coach, I’ve wanted you. No. More. When I saw you I had a peculiar sense this was fated between us. I couldn’t help myself.

I had shared his sense of destiny, I remembered.

Saying it was out of my control sounds like an excuse for the wrong I’ve done you. I’m wholly to blame. His voice went yet lower. But as you undid your cape, the end seemed already written in some great book outside of time and the world.

He is a poet, I thought, touching his shoulder with my lips.

He went on, I never would have harmed your brother more. So you see, I duped you.

"I was terrified. And I had ordered myself not to fight. But—"

But I raped you, he interrupted bitterly.

I … no … I wanted you, too … it was very sweet.… The admission came out with a hesitant shyness rare for me.

Truly?

I nodded.

He stroked back my hair, tender. Darling.

How are you called?

André.

André what?

It’s best if you don’t know. And you?

Manon.

Manon, you’re too beautiful and brave and fine to be sold to some old man.

André.… A surge of warmth caught his name in my throat and I repeated it. André, you shouldn’t be part of that rabble out there.

I belong with them.

How so?

You care about the old coachman, André said. You bargained to save him as well as your own family. Why?

Old Lucien’s been with us all our lives. He used to squirt milk from cow’s udders into our mouths. How could I let him die?

I can’t let them starve.

Are they your serfs?

I have no serfs. Nor any land with peasants.

Yet with them you’ve robbed and killed.

We’ve never killed anyone. And as for robbery—you might say we’re getting back a small part of what their landlords have stolen from them.

I had seen this credo in illegal pamphlets. Aunt Thérèse was too old-fashioned to read anything revolutionary. Jean-Pierre smiled at the crude printing. As for myself, I never could condemn or praise people in groups. What I mean is, I loved Old Lucien yet hated Cosette, the squat, ill-tempered kitchen wench. I was very fond of our neighbor, sweet and wispy Baronne du Parc, yet despised her fat, lecherous-eyed Baron.

As you passed through the countryside, André was saying, did you notice the fields?

As darkness fell, Aunt Thérèse had pointed to wheat bowing rotten under rain. The peasants here, she’d said, are too lazy to reap their crops on time.

Aunt Thérèse thought the local peasants shiftless.

André’s deep-set gray eyes were haunted.

Not shiftless, he said. Their lord takes pride in entertaining the hunt. King Louis and the Court arrive from Versailles, sounding their hunting horns, their horses prancing, dogs on the run, liveried servants abustle. A magnificent sight. He paused angrily. Except to the peasants.

André—

Last year and this, game has been scarce. So by the lord’s decree there’s been no harvest that boar and deer may forage in the crops. Normally, the peasants get half of what they produce. Everyone in the nearby village has starved, except for a few young girls who drifted into cheap cribs—them and my friends. The five men outside. He paused. Manon, is there any greater depravity than to fatten game while humans starve?

I shook my head. The outrage I’d sensed in him was directed at the regime.

"So then you are a … revolutionary?" My hesitation came from not wishing to hear his answer. Revolutionaries were hounded.

If you mean would I give my life to bring justice and equality to France, yes.

The rain was muted now, an enveloping hush. And suddenly I was aware that danger or not, I wanted to be with André, to go with him, to share his tribulations, starve with him, if necessary climb the gallows scaffold with him.

I love him, I thought.

It was as natural as that. No doubts, no questions.

I love you, I said, and heard the certainty that came from a deep knowledge within my heart. André, never feel guilt for what we’ve done. I love you.

I held my breath, praying he would tell me that he loved me. Instead, kissing my forehead, he shifted his weight from me.

Bereft of his warmth, I rearranged my clothing. I’ll never see him again, I thought. Never again, never. I wrapped my clammy cape around me, desolate.

Go down the road three miles, he said. You’ll be at the inn. The Hôtel de la Poste.

Then, I said over the lump in my throat, you’re taking the carriage?

He didn’t meet my eyes. No. But we need your horses. Manon, I’m sorry. We must have horses to keep ahead of the dragoons.

Jean-Pierre had mentioned this road was patrolled.

Alarmed, I cried, They’re just farm animals! Very slow. André, you must start!

He gazed at me as if imprinting me on his memory, then he was handing me something wrapped in linen. A gift, he said.

Thank you, I replied, numb, pushing the cloth into my pocket.

He opened the door. Cold rain swept in. He climbed down, lifting me. Don’t look back, he said quietly.

I couldn’t, for the rain had become a kind of swirling cloud. After three steps mist engulfed me.

Old Lucien, untied, waited under the oak with Aunt Thérèse and Jean-Pierre. The invisible chains of convention again shackled me, and I was too ashamed to look any of them in the eye. Wet, bedraggled, we stumbled through penetrating rain and darkness. Aunt Thérèse sobbed continuously, Jean-Pierre was silent, every once in a while Old Lucien would mumble something about bad ’uns. A faraway wolf howled. Aunt Thérèse burst out, The Comte de Créqui must never learn of this. Manon, Jean-Pierre, do you hear?

Mud pulled at my low shoes. Soon my left heel was a throbbing blister. I love him, I thought, I love a stranger called André, and I’ll never see him again. A stranger is the one I love. With each painful footstep the words formed a different combination.

It was after midnight when, finally, we reached the Hôtel de la Poste. The landlord helped me off with my sopping cape. As he hung it to dry in front of the fire, linen fell from the pocket.

Onto the slate hearth clattered the d’Epinay opals. Here was the proof of love I’d hungered for. Yet with these gems André could have bought fast horses, he could be safely away.

Picking up the necklace, clasping it between my breasts, I began to weep.

What is it? Aunt Thérèse asked. Manon?

I shouldn’t … I sobbed, unable to complete my sentence. I shouldn’t

Reviews for The French Passion

[molliewatts · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It is France, 1785, mere months before the start of the Revolution. Sixteen-year-old Manon d'Epinay is on her way to marry the very rich and very powerful Comte de Crequi when she and her family are set upon by revolutioners. Their leader, Andre, is young and handsome, seemingly gentle and kind but rogue enough to rob Manon of her virginity right there in the carriage. She doesn't seem to mind, but once they reach the Comte he shrewdly guesses what happened and, instead of becoming his wife, Manon becomes his mistress. Pampered and spoiled and even finding herself growing quite fond of her master, Manon still thinks of Andre. This book has a lot of history and some bodice-ripping. I enjoyed the characters and the twists and turns of the story. You get to see the French Revolution from both ends of the spectrum, from the very rich to the very poor, for Manon sees it all and it is really quite interesting.