And if the Ledoux girls happened to hear her as they sailed by, radiant in their summer muslin, chances are they would merely smirk, perfect little smiles of contempt on their perfect lips.
I didn’t believe the stories, of course. The stories that Francoise, the younger daughter, would meet strangers on the coach to Ribelle and fuck them on the roadside. That she had sucked the parson’s cock in the vestry before service. Or that Margaux, the older daughter, had done…well, anything you could possibly imagine. She was the repository for the town’s filthiest thoughts, its most debased fantasies. I, Bruno Renault, was 18 when I left Villevieux and had known these girls all my life. Not well, of course–their father owned half the town, and my father was just the local inkeeper. I knew them–or thought I knew them–at least well enough to put all the stories down to the vicious gossip of provincial townspeople with too much time on their hands and neither virtue nor beauty of their own.
My father intended that I should apprentice at a merchant house in Marseilles, which I did. My masters were fair, and I enjoyed real freedom of movement after a youth spent stuffed in the backwater of Villevieux. The merchant house did a brisk trade with the East, and I traveled much in the Levant on business. I saw many women in that time and laid with not a few, from Naples to Aleppo; I’m accounted a handsome lad, and with a ready smile and ready money in your pocket, you need not die of desire. Many beauties there were in my travels, but I confess that I frequently thought of the Ledoux girls. There was something both fresh and provoking in them that I did not see in any other women, either in France or elsewhere.
I was 23 when I got the news of my father’s death upon my return to Marseille from a trip to Istanbul. He had been so healthy, so certain in all he did, that I had never really considered that this could happen. But happen it did, and I sadly begged a leave of absence from my masters to see to his affairs at home. This, of course, they kindly consented to, and I returned to Villevieux on the next morning’s coach. I was amused by the knowledge that I would seem very much a stranger, even to my old friends. My skin was burnt brown by the torrid sun of the East, and a certain strange accent had entered my French, picked up during many years on board vessels crewed by sailors from every corner of the earth. Indeed it proved to be so. When I climbed down from the coach in the village square, I was the object of the suspicious gazes of twenty pairs of eyes, many of which belonged to men and women I had known since my birth. I grinned to myself and thought about their surprise when they realized this swarthy stranger was just Bruno returning to settle his father’s affairs. As I lifted my bags down from the top of the carriage, I heard a strangely familiar voice behind me.
“Monsieur Renault! So the prodigal son has returned! I am so sorry to hear about your father’s passing.”
I turned quickly and was not a little shocked by the source of the voice. Margaux Ledoux stood before me, dressed in a filmy blue summer dress, her arm linked through that of a pretty, sharp-faced younger woman that I did not recognize. Margaux herself was just as I remembered her: slim, tall, with long legs and arms, firm small breasts, blonde hair, and eyes a peculiarly dark shade of blue. After blinking at her a moment or two–and, I am afraid, making my admiration of her form more obvious than I might wish–I recovered my wits enough to say, “I thank you for your kind words, Mademoiselle Ledoux. I must say, you look very well; indeed, I might believe that I had never left.”
“I cannot say the same about you; you are much changed, and I dare say it suits you well. And I am much changed as well, you see–I am Madame Delon, now.”
“Ah, so you are married now. Congratulations,” I said, with a slight bow.
“Married and widowed.” Seeing that I was preparing to offer some elaborate condolences, she quickly said, “It is not a subject I like to dwell upon. Please save your kind words.” She looked me up and down and, if her glance had less of coquettish desire than I might have hoped, it had quite a bit of interest. “Papa will want to see you and get the news of the world from you. And your conversation would be such a delightful respite from the usual local blockheads.” She turned to her friend. “Don’t you think, Cerisse?” The smaller woman, a smile playing on her red lips, looked me up and down as well and said that she thought I should do very well indeed. “Well then it is settled. When you have returned home and greeted your sweet mother, you will come to dine at our house this evening.”
“If you are certain I will not be intruding, I would be honored.”
I was to arrive at five to take a turn about the grounds with Margaux and her friend before dinner. They wanted some conversation with me to themselves, they said, before they had to turn me over to the bores at the dinner table. “For I am sure,” she said, “that you are full of adventures.” With those words and a curious smile, she and her friend departed.
I spent the rest of the day busy at the inn, greeting my mother and talking with the servants. My mother called me handsomer than ever; the cook called me dark as a Spaniard and vowed that I had been turned into a heathen. Though I was of course delighted to see my mother, I confess that my mind dwelt much more on my appointment with Margaux than on my conversation with my beloved parent.
I dressed hastily that afternoon, and, in my impatience, arrived at the Ledoux hall somewhat before the appointed time. The butler said that Madame Delon and Mademoiselle Terien were walking the grounds and I might find them if I searched. The house had belonged to a nobleman before the revolution and the grounds were massive, so I thought I might have trouble finding them; as it was a beautiful late-summer evening, though, I was happy enough to enjoy a walk through the garden on my own if that was all I got for my trouble.
After wandering through the garden for some little time, I heard voices quietly echoing from the cool shade of the garden’s artificial grotto and steered my course towards them. I was about to call out when I heard Cerisse saying, in her quick high voice, “You know what I think? I think that monsieur Renault is lying on his bed in his own childhood room at the inn thinking about you. I think that he’s stroking his pretty cock dreaming of you right now.” I could hardly call out after that; the thing would be too ridiculous. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to walk away and pretend I hadn’t heard anything. And yet I did not. In fact, I approached closer, careful to keep to the cover of the hedges that lined the grotto. By some maneuvering, I was eventually able to find a spot to the side of the girls, quite close, where I could both listen and observe with little danger of being observed myself.