Ghost Fire by Wilbur Smith

Author:Wilbur Smith [Smith, Wilbur]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Action & Adventure, Africa, Fiction, Historical
Amazon: B07NWNDGPC
Publisher: Zaffre
Published: 2019-09-04T23:00:00+00:00

The Paris gossips lingered on the fringes of the ballroom, among the marble columns that lined the dance floor. Once, these women would have been out in full view, dancing and flirting and toying with men’s hearts, but that was a young girl’s sport. Now, they wore so much powder on their faces that the exertions of dancing would have ruined their complexions. They sat on the sidelines and watched the dancers over the tops of their fans and hands of cards.

One dancer, in particular, was the subject of their interest—of many conversations, in fact, all over the room. She had long fair hair elaborately braided, wide green eyes and a breathtaking figure that drew jealous looks from the other women—and covetous stares from men. The bodice of her dress was cut so low that her every move risked embarrassment, yet she spun and danced with rare abandon—as if she were alone in her boudoir, not being judged by a hundred pairs of eyes.

“Who is she?” demanded the first gossip. She was the Marquise de Sologne, an elderly woman whose affairs had been legendary in her youth. She prided herself on knowing all of the eligible young women in Paris. A word from her, and a woman might find the door of every respectable salon closed to her without knowing why. And yet the girl on the dance floor was unknown to her.

“She is Madame Constance de Courtenay,” said her friend, eager to show off this crumb of knowledge. “Recently arrived from India.”

“Does her husband know she is here?” said the marquise, to widespread laughter.

“She is widowed.” The friend lowered her voice, forcing her companions to lean in closer. In their circle, rumor was gold. She wanted full credit for this nugget.

“It is a most romantic tale. She is an Englishwoman, from India. She was at the fall of Calcutta, and was captured. The nawab, who is a kind of king in India, threw her into his dungeons. Who knows what indignities he may have inflicted upon her there?”

The women around the table shivered as they imagined it. All had vivid ideas of the debauchery of the Orient.

“Mercifully, she was rescued. Her husband was a captain with our army in India, a gentleman named Capitaine de Courtenay. He released her from the nawab’s dungeon. Naturally, she fell in love with her gallant savior. She married him. But no sooner had she obtained this happiness than tragedy struck again. Her husband fell overboard on the voyage home and drowned. She embarked as a bride and landed a widow.”

The women considered this momentous trove of information.

“She does not look unduly burdened by her loss,” said the marquise, archly. On the floor, Constance was dancing a particularly energetic gavotte. “That poor young man can hardly keep up.”

“That poor young man is worth ten thousand livres a year,” noted one of her companions.

There was a sigh of understanding. Exotic she might be, this Indian-born Englishwoman who had arrived in Paris, but her motives were as familiar as the bells of Notre-Dame.

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