Vintage by Rosemary Friedman Read Free Book Online Page A

extremely personable – he was quite capable, when the occasion demanded it, of turning on the charm – but, mortal sin or no, it was high time she experienced for herself the pleasures so eagerly awaited by the mares on her father’s stud farm.
    As in the breeding shed, the business, owing to Charles-Louis’ high state of arousal and his impetuosity,was quickly over. Sore and bleeding, with pine-needles stuck to the back of her shirt, and summarily deprived of her virginity, Viola allowed him to help her mount her horse for the ride back to Kilmartin, before, looking extremely pleased with himself, and without a backward glance, he cantered back to Cluzac for breakfast.
    The fact that she had let down the Blessed Virgin did not faze Viola, who was too strong-willed to give credence to everything she was told by the Church. What bothered her slightly was the lack of communication between herself and her seducer. While this deficiency of form might be expected between the sexes in Ireland, she had not anticipated it in France, where, informed by the great love scenes she had witnessed in the cinema (even in their censored form), she had imagined that things would be done differently.
    This did not prevent her repeating the experience, on subsequent morning rides, when Charles-Louis introduced her to a number of permutations on the sex act which were altogether outside the remit of her stallions.
    When, at the end of the summer, she discovered that she was pregnant, and Charles-Louis, panic-stricken, suggested that she take the next boat home, their first real dialogue was opened up.
    ‘Can you see me, Charlie, living in a home for unmarried mothers run by the nuns?’
    Looking at her with her mane of dark hair and her milk-white body, of which he never seemed to tire, asthey lay in the long grass, while the horses grazed nearby, Charles-Louis could not, in all honesty, say yes.
    He was about to open his mouth with a further suggestion when Viola said:
    ‘Anything else is out of the question as you know very well.’
    ‘Qu’est ce que tu comptes faire?’
    ‘What am I going to do? Do you think you’re in Ireland Charlie, a few jars, take a girl to bed, then run like hell? It was you gave me this baby, Charlie; what are you going to do?’
    It was not because he was in love with Viola that Charles-Louis agreed to marry her. Having, as he perceived it, been denied love not only by his mother, Baronne Gertrude, who had left his upbringing to surrogates, but also by his father, Baron Thibault, who was more concerned with the nurturing of his vines, Charles-Louis did not know the meaning of the word love. The reason that he invited Viola to become his bride was because, as his parents never tired of reminding him, it was his responsibility to produce the son and heir who would perpetuate the unbroken line of Barons de Cluzac. The injection of good Irish blood into the attenuated French stock seemed, to all concerned, not such a bad proposition.
    The marriage between Charles-Louis Eugène Bertrand de Cluzac and Viola Katherine Mairead Fitzpatrick was solemnised in the chapel at Cluzac on a beautiful spring day, which had brought out the carpet of bluebells beneath the great trees of the drive. The bride wore a dress of Indian muslin, with a high neck and long sleeves, and an embroidered white cap from which fell a waterfall of Brussels lace which successfully concealed her thickening waistline. She was attended by her sisters, Lucy, Annabel, Shiobhan and Rose. The wedding-breakfast ,masterminded by Baronne Gertrude, who was not displeased with her new daughter-in-law, took place in a marquee which was hung on three sides, in the style of Bérain, with black and white lengths of cloth, which represented wrought-iron work. One side of the marquee was left transparent, which created the effect of an additional room, which looked out on to the park. The celebrations, which went on for several days, were a cross between the