Chapter 52

Counterpoint: Armand

I left Suzette lying in the expanse of my massive four poster bed, shrugging into my silk robe as I stepped onto the balcony of my townhouse. The lights of Paris twinkled under my view as I lit a cigar, and sucked the sweet smoke into my lungs. Leaning upon the stone banister, I blew a lazy ring from my mouth, my eyes scanning the street below.

My body was relaxed and sated after several hours of vigorous sex with the voluptuous redhead sprawled nude across my sheets, deep in her dreams from her own release.

But beneath my languor ran a deep restlessness, a sense of urgency that time was running short. I needed to find her and be done with this, once and for all.

I needed to find Genevieve.

Hot anger pulsed through my veins at the ridiculousness of not having found her yet. I was finally close to locating her, but the time wasted on looking for her enraged me. For nearly six months now I'd searched for her in my free time, checking every fucking modiste in Paris, looking for the bitch. Putting out the word amongst colleagues and friends to look for her. They all believed that I was a concerned husband, pining away for his foolish, flighty wife, his heart broken. Idiots.

The one thing I did know was that she had not left Paris. It would have been impossible. She'd walked away from our divorce with nothing but a trunk of clothing and a handful of small possessions. The only possible way she could have left the city would have been to sell her own body on the streets. And I knew my precious wife was too good to ever debase herself in such a way. Though, the thought of her on her back for her supper, rutting with all manner of pigs filled me with an unholy pleasure. But Genevieve had an aversion to all things sexual. I'd made damned sure of that.

My fingers clenched about the cigar and I relaxed them forcefully. If it hadn't been for her sudden need to "be free," I wouldn't be shouldering the burdens that I now bore. Damn her to hell, I would have already had my circumstances straightened out, my debts paid, and my habits well funded. But no! My bitch of a wife had to go visit some lawyer and end our marriage. Fifteen years. Fifteen years! She'd never wanted for anything! The finest gowns, necklaces, bracelets, ear bobs of the most expensive jewels, two homes filled with anything that caught her fancy.

I had believed that I had found the perfect wife in Genevieve Devereaux. Attractive and pleasing to the eye, titled, wealthy, a perfect hostess, impeccable breeding, submissive, easily controlled. Under my hand she'd been obediant and malleable, doing exactly as I pleased. I'd found her more sexually gratifying than any other woman I'd had. My appetite had been immensely sated by the hurt that would glaze over her eyes when I'd pound into her body. Her cries of pain had aroused me more than any slut's moans ever could. I had felt powerful, immortal, inside of her. Invincible when she had begged me for mercy. For the entire fifteen years of our marriage it had been unnecessary to visit the pleasure houses I'd frequented as a bachelor to hear the pleas of a unwilling woman.

But my satisfaction from abusing her had served another purpose.

It had kept her in fear of any possible consequences should she choose to be unfaithful to our vows. By keeping her under my fists, she had never entertained the idea of a lover. Even the passing comment of a colleague that had given her a compliment could raise a look of terror so acute in her eyes that I had struggled to not to burst out laughing. It had often been difficult to keep a straight face when I'd accused her of infidelity. The widening of her eyes, the flutter of her pulse at the base of her throat, the pleading, appeasing words had amused me greatly! She had known that if she had dared lay on her back for another man, I would've crushed her in an instant. I'd suceeded very well at turning her into a cowering mouse, afraid of her own shadow, which was exactly as I wanted her.

I had vowed that my wife would never make a fool out of me as my mother had done my father.

Even now, several years after their death in a carriage accident, I could still bitterly recall the many lovers my whore of a mother had paraded in front of my father. All the nights she'd disappear after dinner, only to trot outside to a waiting carriage, gowned and cloaked and wearing diamonds that my father had not purchased for her. She would be gone all night, returning only at the first light of dawn from a evening spent in another man's bed. Half of my father's colleagues had bedded his wife. And everyone that moved in our circle had known it.

I had hated the slut. From the beginning, her indiscretions had made me the brunt of countless taunts amongst my peers. Whose father had bedded my mother had been a running joke, and I'd bloodied noses and had had my own bloodied throughout my adolescence. My legitimacy had been questioned, speculated on, then dismissed as I had taken on my father's exact likeness in my late youth. But the title of "whoreson" had not been forgotten so easily.

I had fantasized a thousand times of my father beating my mother to a bloody pulp, until she was so hideous that no other man would ever want her again. But in regards to their marriage, she had had the upper hand and had never let him forget it. Her own father was a duke and socially of far higher status then my own had been. Her inheritance was dependent upon her happiness under my father's hand, her sire an indulgent man who saw her as a precious, precious princess. He controlled her monthly stipend, an enormous amount. If she was not happy then the allotment would be cut off. My father had dared not strike her for fear of losing that allowance, instead taking his aggression out on the quivering chambermaids. It was he, who in seeing my own hatred of the traitorous bitch, had introduced me to bordellos on the darker streets of Paris, which for a high price, could provide a man with a unwilling young whore to beat and use as he wished.

In those darkened rooms, having my way with a protesting woman, I'd vowed to myself that my own wife would be ruled with an iron fist. She would understand well that she would never cuckold me.

At the age of twenty-five I'd met Genevieve, an attractive young woman of noble blood and all had fallen nicely into place for our marriage to be arranged. I'd endulged her with tender treatment until our wedding night, where I'd made certain that she knew her place. She was mine and I had taught her that betraying me would only bring her agony.

Throughout our marriage, I'd invented various reasons and ways to punish her. Just a glance from another man in her direction had been a perfect excuse to further enforce her fear of the consequences of infidelity. And those glances had occured frequently. Genevieve had possessed a dignified sort of beauty that made a man look once, then twice. She'd moved with grace, her long form unconciously alluring. There'd been more than one occasion that I'd looked at her and realized that she would be nothing short of beautiful in the throes of passion, and it was those times that I'd treated her the harshest.

She had never given a hint of what went on behind closed doors. In society, she was affectionate toward me, a doting perfect wife. A fitting trophy on my arm.

After so long, I'd hurt her simply because it gave me immense sexual gratification, powerful releases that shook me to my core. Now that the bitch was gone, I'd had to once again frequent the bordellos that I'd patronzied as a young man. None of my mistresses were deserving of such treatment; I had a mutual understanding with them: pleasure for protection and luxuries. Suzette, who was the epitome of a beautifully mannered woman in public and an absolute, starving wanton in my bed, was by far my favorite. After this fucking mess that Genn had left me in was resolved, I planned on making her my Comtess. We suspected that my child was already ripening in her womb; the heir that Genevieve had never seen fit to give me.

I took a long draw off the fine cigar and blew a wispy trail of smoke into the frigid night air. Only one thing now kept me from marrying Suzette. And that one thing was my errant wife and the dire straits she'd left me in.

My estate was all but gone. My funds, except for just enough to keep up outward appearances, were depleted completely. During the course of my marriage, I'd spent Genevieve's dowry and a great deal of my own wealth upon gaming hells and horse races, making wagers, some very successful, some disastrous. But my business ventures were imminently profitable, and I had had a constant flow of money into my accounts. With the generous amount I'd made every year, it had been simple to furnish my habits of expensive mistresses, the finest liquor and cigars available, team after team of the highest quality horseflesh to draw my carriages and carry my wife and I on our hunts with other nobility.

But only weeks before Genevieve sought her divorce, two of my largest dealings had fallen through, the shipping companies gone bankrupt, and I had been left with nothing coming into my coffers. And suddenly I had owed everybody. Not even Genn had known.

With some quick thinking, I had made out various slips of debt to peers and gaming hell owners, assuring them that a massive dealing was coming through for me, and I had a few other investments I needed to make, but once my ship came in, I would pay them back with interest. It was a transaction often done by men of my status, a trade of sorts, often with key information for the right stocks to invest in given as well. It was a bold act to take, but one that I had had full confidence in. I had a goldmine on its way to me, and I only had a brief time before it would be delivered up.

An elderly aunt, an obscenely rich woman had settled her entire estate upon me, her only nephew, with no grandchildren to speak of. She had been at death's door, only weeks from dying. With her demise would come more money than my own inheritance had ever contained. The old bat could not have been more fortuitous in her choice of time of death if she'd tried. Her passing would save me from ruin and debtor's prison.

Then Genevieve had left, and I'd been enraged that she would humiliate me in so public a fashion, bringing shame on my family name and on my person. I'd promised myself that I'd kill her as soon as I found her.

But a month after the divorce was final, I'd discovered that murdering her, as gratifying as that thought was, would not be in my immediate future.

My aunt had drawn up a new will and had had a copy delivered to my townhouse. It had stated, in clear concise words, that in order for the inheritance to be received, I had to be married with no viable divorce on the record books.

The old bitch had known that Genevieve had left me! She'd always disdained my choice of bride, claiming that she was not good enough for the Bouvieux name. In truth, she'd had some whey-faced chit already hand picked for me, but I'd passed over her insipid connection, choosing to marry the Devereaux girl instead. It had been her way of punishing me from beyond the grave for the insult I'd done my family by marrying such a flightly creature who had dared to bring the first divorce into our blood, ever.

The will stated that after three months from her death, if my divorce was still not ruled invalid, the entire estate would be settled upon the church. She'd had the gall to live another two months after Genevieve's flight, during which time I searched for my former wife and consistiently came up empty handed. There was now only one month left in which to have my divorce annulled. One month in which to find Genevieve, have her delcared insane at the time of the proceedings, which would not be difficult, as the right price could pay off any doctor, re-marry her, claim the inheritance, then be rid of her for good.

Once I was a widower, I could marry Suzette, pay off my debts, receive my heir, and settle down to the life I had known before. Comfortable, with every luxury available, a powerful standing in society with no pitfalls, and free of the troublesome bitch that had cost me months of ease.

I was closing in on her. I could feel it.

For several days now, I'd been receiving word from friends that they had seen a tall, willowly, dark haired woman bearing a striking resemblance to Genevieve on the streets of Paris and frequenting the Opera Populaire. I'd gone to the opera house myself, Francois with me, to look for her and put out a word that I was anxiously and hopefully searching for her. That poker spined bitch I'd met in the Grand Foyer had been lying. Genevieve was there, living under the roof of the newly redone Opera.

The theatre had been severly burned because of the crash of the massive chandelier during a performance that Suzette and I had witnessed over a year ago. After the scandal of the singer- the unsuitable woman my colleague Phillipe de Chagny's younger brother had married- and a deucedly ugly bastard that Suzette had purred over throughout the shortlived play before he was unmasked, the opera had had to rehire a good deal of its help. Including a new seamstress.

I would have to be certain it was Genevieve before pursuing her. The matter had to be handled carefully. If anyone learned of my financial straits, my ongoing business ventures I funded would withdraw from my support, my debts would be called in, and my place in society ruined.

But the perfect opportunity to learn if it was indeed Genevieve had reared its head only days ago. A former accountant of mine that I'd been forced to turn off had come to me in the hopes that I could give him a good reference at the Opera Populaire as their new assistant accountant, the former one going into retirement. The man was a good natured individual, trusting of others, including myself, to a fault. Raised in a good Scottish family, Duncan McInery was an easygoing, affable gentleman of my age, handsome in a open, charming way. And most fortuitous of all, my wife had never had the pleasure of meeting him. He considered himself in my debt for my pulling some strings at the Opera with a couple of current patrons and getting him on the staff. It would be easy to wheedle information from him.

He would start his new position next week.

If I found that the new seamstress at the Opera Populiare was indeed my wife, I knew the perfect time to accost her and get her away to tie up my loose ends.

In my study, in a pile of correspondance, sat an engraved invitation for the annual Bal Masque at the Opera. It was time I went about ordering a costume.

"Mmm, Armand, my love," came a low, silken purr from behind me. "Come back to bed."

I turned, a satisfied smile on my face, and stubbed out my cigar. Suzette stood nude inside the room, her hair a fiery halo about her piquant, angelic face. I strode toward her, shutting the doors behind me and untying my robe, letting it fall to the floor. I hauled her to me and pushed her onto the bed, driving up inside her powerfully. She cried out in delight.

As I worked toward my release, I inwardly smiled. If all went as I planned, I'd have dear Genevieve under me one last time, as a new bride, before I would be rid of her.

For good.

I've all but finished AEoT now and I'll be publishing it with Amazon in the fall. The published version will be based on the book and very different from the one I'm posting here, but I will continue working on both edits. I have no internet at home, but I work for the library, so I will work on this on breaks and off days. I'll give ample warning before it's published on the off chance I have to take it down from this site. Thank you. :)