Love and the Loathsome Leopard

Chapter One ~ 1889-2

Automatically she put out her hand and, as he took it and she felt his lips on the softness of her skin, a little quiver ran through her.

“Is it possible that you can be more beautiful than the last time I saw you?” the Comte asked in his deep voice. “You are so lovely that I cannot believe you are real and not part of the dream I dreamt all night.”

With an effort Susi took her hand from his.

“It is very – kind of you to – ask me to have – luncheon with you in the – Bois de Boulogne,” she said in a tense little voice, “but I think perhaps it is an – invitation I should have refused.”

The Comte was still, his eyes searching her face.

“What has happened?”

“Nothing – I-I was just thinking – ”

“Somebody has been talking to you,” he carried on. “When I left you last night, you were looking forward to our little expedition as much as I was.”

She did not reply.

Now she was looking away from him and his eyes flickered over her straight little nose and the curve of her lips before he said softly,

“Have you really changed your mind about me? Or are you saying, when it is much, much too late, to be sensible?”

This was the very word Lorraine had used and as Susi started the Comte laughed softly.

“It is as I suspected,” he said. “Lorraine has been giving you a lecture on propriety and, of course, on becoming too involved with me.”

“Lorraine – loves me,” Susi said quickly, feeling that she must defend the Duchesse.

“As I do.”

Susi Sherington drew in her breath. It was impossible not to feel when he spoke in that way that something very strange swept through her body to make every nerve vibrate to the fascination of him.

“Yes, I love you!” the Comte said, “and we both knew what we felt last night. But I told myself it was too soon to put it into words and because, my darling, you are very innocent and unspoilt, I must not rush you.”

Susi’s lips moved, but no words would come from them and the Comte went on,

“Why should we waste our time in pretending and trying to hide what we both know is the truth? I loved you from the very first moment I saw you and I think I am not mistaken in believing that you love me too.”

The soft and caressing way that he spoke made it very difficult to reply and yet with a little cry Susi managed to murmur,

“We – must not – you know – we must – not!”

“Why not?”

“Because – ”

It was impossible for her to finish the sentence.

How could she speak of marriage to him when he had not mentioned it to her?

“Because we come from – different – worlds,” she forced herself to say. “Lorraine says we must only have a – light amusing flirtation.”

“And do you think that is what it is?”

“I-I have never had many flirtations, but I feel that we should – not be talking as if what we – felt was serious.”

The Comte laughed and, when Susi looked surprised, he explained,

“I am laughing, my precious, because you are so ridiculous, so utterly and completely absurd.”

Susi glanced at him, saw the expression in his eyes and looked away again.

“Do you really think that this is a flirtation between two people who have met at a dance and just want to have fun for a few hours, a few days or a few weeks?” the Comte asked.

“That is – what it – has to be.”

“Because Lorraine says so? My dearest dear, can you really control the beat of your heart, the throb in your voice and the expression in your eyes?”

She did not answer and he went on,

“Last night we talked to each other and it did hot really matter what we said because my heart was speaking to your heart of love, real love, Susi. We both knew that it was something very different from what either of us have ever felt before.”

“It was – different for me, but not – for you.”

“Who is to know that except myself?” the Comte asked.

She did not answer and after a long moment he said,

“Look at me, Susi. I want you to look at me.”

Slowly, as if she was afraid to obey him and yet was compelled to do so, she turned her head towards him and he saw her eyes as they looked up at him were very blue, worried and apprehensive.

For a moment they were both very still. Then, almost as if they did not move but melted into each other, his arms went round her and his lips were on hers.

At first his mouth was very gentle, feeling the softness of hers, then he became more possessive, more demanding and instinctively they both drew closer and still closer as their kisses became more passionate.

Only when the world seemed to have stopped breathing and there was nothing in the whole Universe but the strength of his arms and the wonder of his kiss did Susi free herself to hide her face against his neck.

“Je t’adore, ma chérie, I love you!” the Comte asserted, ‘I swear that no kiss I have ever given has been so perfect and so absolutely wonderful!”

His voice was a little hoarse and unsteady.

“Please – please – ” Susi whispered, “don’t make me feel – like this.”

His arms tightened and he smiled.

“Like what, my lovely one? There is no need for you to answer, because I feel the same.”

“It is – not possible,” Susi tried to say.

But even as she spoke, the Comte put his hand under her chin and turned her face up to his.

“You are so beautiful,” he insisted, “so incredibly breathtakingly beautiful, but it is more than that. It is something I have looked for, longed for and begun to believe did not exist until I saw you.”

Then he was kissing her again fiercely and demandingly until she felt the fire on his lips awaken a flame within herself.

It seemed as if her whole body was alight with a fire that burnt its way through them both and came from the very heart of the sun –

*

An hour later, sitting under the trees in a restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne, the Comte pronounced,

“Now we can talk, my darling.”

They had driven in his chaise saying hardly a word to each other, but Susi knew that her whole body was tinglingly aware of him.

Now at the small table in the restaurant she was aware that his personality vibrating from him made it impossible to escape his magnetism.

‘He is so handsome, so overwhelmingly masculine,’ she mused and blushed at her very thoughts.

His eyes were watching her and, because through shyness she could not meet them, she busied herself with taking off her long white gloves. As she did so, she saw the sunshine glittering on the gold of her Wedding ring and felt as if the very brightness of it reproached her.

Although, after a year of mourning for her husband, Susi had laid aside the mauve and grey gowns that she had worn for the last three months, something sensitive in her nature had hesitated at immediately reverting to bright colours.

Instead today everything she wore was white, her chiffon gown trimmed with a heavy Valenciennes lace that also covered the crown of her hat and decorated the white chiffon sunshade she carried.

With her fair hair, her blue eyes and her pink-and-white skin, it made her look very young and, the Comte thought, untouched.

He corrected himself and changed the word to ‘unawakened’. He knew that it would be the most exciting thing that he had ever done to awaken to an awareness of love, this enchanting creature, who had done something very strange to his heart from the moment they had met.

“Now,” he said aloud, “you can tell me all the unkind and untrue things Lorraine has told you about me.”

“They were not unkind,” Susi countered quickly. “She was only worrying about me because, as you know already, I am very – out of place in Paris.”

The Comte smiled.

“If you believe that,” he said, “then you have never looked in your mirror!”

Before Susi could speak he added,

“Yet I agree that in a way you are out of place, not because you are unsophisticated as you are thinking, but because you are so different from the women we met last night at dinner and all the friends who Lorraine fills her hours with and finds amusing.”

“Why – am I different?” Susi enquired.

“Because, my darling,” the Comte replied, “you are someone out of a Fairytale, a Sleeping Beauty, unawakened and waiting for a kiss to bring you to life.”

He saw the colour creep up over her face as he spoke of a kiss and thought it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

“If you blush like that,” he asserted, “I shall take you away this moment among the trees and kiss you until neither of us can breathe or think of anything except each other.”

For a moment Susi could not take her eyes from his.

Then she glanced around her saying in a frightened little voice,

“P-please – you must not say such – things to me here – not when there are people listening – and watching us.”

“They are all very intent on themselves,” the Comte replied, “and we have to talk about ourselves, Susi, as you well know.”

“Then we must talk – sensibly!” she persisted firmly, “and I think that Lorraine would be – shocked that after we have known each other for such a short time you should call me by my – Christian name.”

The Comte chuckled.

“It’s impossible for us to explain to Lorraine or anybody else that we have known each other since the beginning of time and all through the years we have been journeying towards each other until finally Fate has allowed us to meet.”

“Do you – really believe that?”

Her eyes were like a child’s listening to a Fairy story and the Comte said,

“I swear to you that I believe it because it is true. I have been looking for you all my life and, if you imagine that now I have found you I will ever let you go, you are very much mistaken!”

“B-but – we have to – ” Susi tried to say, “I mean – ”

Once again it was difficult to put what she was thinking into words and the Comte put his hand over hers as it lay on the table.

As he felt her quiver at his touch, he said,

“You must know that we will be married as soon as it is possible!”

Susi’s eyes widened.

“M-married?” she whispered.

Then she took her hand away from his and said in a very different voice,

“You must – forget you – said that.”

“Why?”

“Because there is – something I must tell you.”

“I am listening.”

It seemed for a moment as if the words would not come. Then at last, not looking at him but blindly across the restaurant, Susi began,

“My husband – was a very – rich man as I expect – Lorraine has told you. I was – married when I was very young – and he was very much – older than me.”

There was a note in her tone that told the Comte what the discrepancy in their ages had meant, but he did not interrupt and Susi went on,

“My family – who were not well off – were delighted that anyone so – important and so – wealthy as Lord Sherington should have wished to – marry me. He was very kind and – generous to them – as he was to me – but when he died last year his – will was somewhat different from what – everyone had expected.”

Now Susi clenched her hands together in her lap and for a moment it seemed as if it was impossible for her to go on.

Then with an effort she said,

“My husband – left me a very large income – but if I remarried I was only to have an allowance of one hundred pounds a year!”

Her voice died away and Susi wished that she could get up and leave before the Comte spoke.

She dared not look at him.

She could not bear to see that the expression on his face had changed, that the love that he had said was so real had gone and in its place there was something else, something she dreaded.

She had the feeling, because he was so understanding and sympathetic where women were concerned, that he would continue to compliment her, to flirt with her and he would try not to let her feel embarrassed by what she had told him.