The Courts of Love - Jean Plaidy [58]
I was right.
He was staring at me in horror. I imagined he was picturing me writhing in Hell fire for which he was now sure I was destined.
“A most disturbing suspicion has come to my mind,” he said.
“I know what it is,” I retorted. “Your spy did his work well.”
“Spy . . .”
“Galeran. He has been very watchful of me.”
“I cannot believe him.” He was almost pleading. “If you tell me it is a lie, I will believe you.”
“If it is that Raymond and I are lovers, it is no lie.”
He looked completely taken aback. He stammered: “The man is your uncle.”
“And so?”
“You and he. This is more than adultery. It is incest as well.”
“Have done,” I said. “Raymond and I love each other. That is something you cannot understand, Louis. I know that full well. But we love each other and I am going to stay in Antioch. For the first time in my life I know contentment. You may be a monk, Louis, but I am no nun. I have done with the old life. I have endured it too long. I want to be free.”
“I am astounded. I could not have believed this of you.”
“Which shows how little you know me.”
“To break your marriage vows . . . and with your uncle!”
“He is a man, Louis, and you and your spy could not understand that. I have endured this life too long. I will no more. You can go, as you plan to, with those poor men who must follow you to their misery and possibly death. But I shall stay here.”
“You cannot do this, Eleanor.”
“I can and I will. It is finished between us, Louis. No more of that reluctant intercourse. You should be rejoicing for I am sure you hated it as much as I did. Just think of it! You can pray all night if you wish and none to reproach you. See the good sense of this. We are not for each other. You want to spend your life in prayer and meditation. I want to live mine. Two such people cannot live together in harmony.”
“It is indeed time we left this Court of sin.”
I laughed. “You were glad enough to come when you were starving and sick. You are ungrateful, Louis. If I were my uncle, I would turn you out at once.”
He was tight-lipped and controlling his rage.
“We shall leave at the earliest possible moment and you will be with us,” he said.
“No,” I cried. “Never.”
And I left him.
I told Raymond of that interview. He said he had guessed Louis would not agree to a divorce.
“I have told him that when he leaves he will go alone.”
“Perhaps in time then . . . Who knows?”
“He could not believe it when I told him, although that snake Galeran has been spying on me for a long time. But now Louis knows.”
“The marriage could be annulled on grounds of adultery.”
“I do not care on what grounds as long as I am free.”
Raymond was thoughtful. I supposed he was worried about the effect this would have on Constance if it became generally known that he was my lover. I imagined that there had been love affairs in his life before. Perhaps Constance—married to one who must surely be the most attractive man in the world—was ready to accept his infidelities and look on them as a necessary evil.
“Louis has said nothing to me of his departure,” said Raymond.
“He is determined to go.”
“We shall have to see what happens.”
“But I shall stay here with you, Raymond.”
“I could endure nothing else,” he said fervently.
A mood of wild recklessness came over me. Raymond had made me realize what I was missing in life and I had no intention of going back to the old ways. I wondered at myself for allowing my youth to have been frittered away with a man like Louis. Time was passing. I must begin to live my life as it must have been intended that I should.
I was longing for Louis to be gone.
There seemed to be tension throughout the palace. It was only natural, said Raymond, that a man like Louis should be completely bewildered to discover that his wife was in love with another man—and that man her uncle. He was as one who did not know which way to turn.
“He will accept the inevitable,” said Raymond. “I think perhaps he wants to get away from a place which has been the scene of his rejection.