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She told Valmont that the little Volanges was without character, clay waiting only for his (deft, detestable) fingers, and that was not entirely a lie. Cécile was ripe in nearly every way the marquise could imagine, from her volubility regarding Danceny to the restlessness at the back of her eyes to the perfection of her lips and bosom. And yet while she was no carbon copy of the marquise’s own youth—an impossible task—there was a spirit, almost a mischief, to her that the marquise thought promising. (Valmont, not being a particularly astute connoisseur of talent, would not know what to do with that, aside from consume it entirely and then discard the husk, but she was not Valmont.)
In truth, with Paris so abominably dull in the long weeks at the end of summer, the marquise had her attention not unpleasantly occupied with Cécile’s absurdities, Cécile’s gasps and giggles, Cécile’s innocence rotting unharvested on the vine. That she remained unplucked enraged the marquise more strongly than she could put into words for either of the girl’s pointless suitors, and when opportunity arose—the opera, little whispered conferences while Madame de Volanges was in another room, an entire afternoon left to Cécile and Danceny to advance their cause—she took it.
It was that evening, after the arranged tête-à-tête that Danceny had bungled so abominably, that the marquise first felt her control slipping. She could only take Cécile’s protestations of skill at deflecting male attention up to a certain point, for while Cécile was quite winsomely headstrong when she put her mind to it, she was a naïf in matters of the body, and she wanted Danceny too much to pretend elsewise for long.
“Please do forgive me if I cannot believe you, my little bird.”
Cécile shifted on the sofa, leaning in toward her, her eyes wide and earnest above the gleaming curve of her mouth. “Oh, madame! When you sound so like Mamma—”
“As well I should.”
“But that is one thing the convent teaches us very well, madame.”
Cécile fluttered her eyelashes, a most ungodly affectation that forced the marquise to sit on the edge of her own thumb to numb the impulse to smile. She sat finishing her wine while Cécile continued.
“I am but a silly girl, I know, but Danceny is a gentleman.”
“And the convent teaches you that gentlemen obey the defenses of a luscious young woman begging him with her body to take her, no matter what her mouth claims?”
Cécile, apparently determined to become a stupid little bird in truth, cocked her head. The marquise buried one fingernail into her palm to distract from the heat this produced in her stomach.
“Of course.” Cécile’s voice was rich, sweet chocolate against the marquise’s ears. One of her curls bobbed free along her neck, and she ran a finger in its wake as the marquise stifled the urge to look away. “Was he not so tonight, as I have told you?”
“Oh, he was most proper, to hear you speak it, my darling.” The marquise slid her glass to the side and reached out for Cécile’s hand, which came hot and sticky to her own cool touch. Another ripple of delight ran down the marquise’s spine, and she let Cécile see the widening of her eyes. “I only hope you do not mistake graciousness for gentlemanly behavior. Gentlemen are all wont to win eventually, of course, and your chevalier is no exception.”
“I can defend myself.”
Cécile’s hand, twisting in the marquise’s grasp, tightened its grip. The marquise rolled Cécile’s fingers in her palm as her other hand cupped Cécile’s hip.
“You do a poor job of defending yourself against me, child.”
Cécile bit down on her bottom lip and closed her eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was nearly sultry.
“You did not say you were a threat, madame.”
“And you think Danceny will ask permission before he rips each politely askew bit of fichu from your breast?” The marquise smiled as Cécile pressed a hand to the swell straining, just under tender lace, above the pale blue of her gown. “And while you are occupied there, you think his other hand is idle?”
Cécile’s face glowed crimson as the marquise moved her free hand to Cécile’s knee.
“You are not the chevalier,” Cécile murmured, dropping both her hands to her sides and leaning further against the backing of the sofa. The tip of her tongue winked between her lips while the marquise sighed. “It’s too hard to play the dutiful maiden against a great lady.”
Those lips were damp indeed beneath the marquise’s, and it was several heartbeats before Cécile, with a gentleness given to handling kittens, separated them. The marquise kept her face stern while her heart leapt beneath her own décolletage. Cécile fluttered her eyelashes again, while the edge of her mouth turned upward.
“It’s so very kind of you, monsieur, but I cannot—while we are yet nothing too serious to one another such kisses would only ruin—that is to say—”
The marquise sat back, biting the edge of her tongue against the low throbbing in her cunt and a ticking at the back of her head, as she resettled her skirts.
“Pretty indeed, mademoiselle.”
Cécile’s smile enveloped the rest of her mouth, and in a moment the artfully inartful seductress was gone, replaced only by a dreamy-headed girl pulling wisps of hair from its setting. Her words set fire to the base of the marquise’s spine.
“I love the first book you had sent, madame—you are a better teacher than any convent.”
Three times in the next several days did the marquise stop herself from sinking into thoughts of her little Volanges, parting her lips for Danceny’s tongue, neck bared to his long fingers. She instead told Madame de Volanges of the letters and received a sobbing missive from Cécile regarding the most terrible luck that had befallen the young lovers, the naked pathos of which raised the hair on the back of the marquise’s neck even as it turned her heart in a most delectable fashion.
Said pathos was, in the flesh, the end of the marquise’s ability to wait for either Danceny or Valmont. Cécile in tears, howling softly about a return to convent life against the marquise’s skirts—so like a wild version of her mother, would either bother to know it!—was ripeness too heavy to leave untouched, and when she followed the marquise upstairs, hiccuping behind her shining wet eyes, her hair hanging free over her shoulders, the marquise let her fingers linger in Cécile’s laces.
“My poor dear.” She could feel Cécile’s trembling through both stays and chemise, and her own voice was dangerously bright, racing alongside the chase that was burning so quickly and so easily. “There, there.”
Her words were maternal, pointlessly comforting, as her touch lingered against the bits of chemise exposed while she slid Cécile’s loosened stays to the floor.
“Little love, he will return.”
Cécile turned to bury her face against the marquise’s bosom, her lips hot with tears, her hair spilling across the marquise’s arm. She was wordless as she cried anew within the circle of the marquise’s arms, and the marquise murmured and stroked, soft and slow along Cécile’s scalp and down her neck and shoulders, pulling them free of the chemise to allow golden strands to cling to Cécile’s mesmerizingly white skin. The weight of her was exquisite, wet and warm and tender, and the marquise’s heart was ablaze with some ferocious desire to both shape and taste the half-fledged girl before her.
“I want so,” Cécile whispered, barely audible through her own gasping, and the warmth behind her words was admirably earnest, a perfect pietà of resignation where so very many might be drawn to melodrama. She looked up, eyes round and unblinking, and the marquise swallowed a burst of saliva at the back of her mouth. “Please.”
Cécile moved slowly, certainly with enough time to be diverted elsewhere. The marquise took the offered lips with a great deal of steadiness, curling her hand around the back of Cécile’s head as she deepened the kiss.
“My little one, you cannot.”
Twice as coquettish as intended, though entirely unheeded by Cécile nonetheless, who put two slippery fingers to the edge of the marquise’s breast above her gown, producing goose pimples. Cécile not being a gentleman—not, of course, being any sort of man at all—the marquise did not bother to resist a second time.
“Do it,” Cécile said, her eyes still streaming, as one finger slid down to the marquise’s nipple, nearly causing the marquise to startle. “Please, without him I’m—”
Cécile’s hips were remarkably cool under the marquise’s touch as she lifted the hem of the chemise, and Cécile sighed, her lips parting in a wet and miserable smile, as the marquise bared her to the waist, revealing the white linen lines of her stockings. Cécile was untamed beneath, riots of hair running well beyond their girlish measure, and for a moment the marquise had a flash of her own self before her again, stripped on her wedding morning for her maid’s attention and razor. She had then been almost unbearably curious, and the headiness that ran through her now, as Cécile murmured further provocations, was much the same.
“Hush, mademoiselle.” She left the touch of mistress in her voice as she tickled the top of one stocking, dipping briefly beneath the linen while Cécile shuddered, and slid her finger up the inside of Cécile’s slim thigh. “All will be well.”
Cécile moaned as the marquise’s finger brushed a curl, seeking the moisture behind it. Her slick was as warm as her shuddering breath against the marquise’s neck, and when the marquise pressed a finger inside, Cécile’s cry deepened.
“I can offer you very little,” the marquise murmured, crooking her thumb toward Cécile’s nub. She felt herself smiling—as a predator? as a foolish man claiming his bit prize?—as Cécile pressed their lips together again, tongue clumsily forcing itself into the marquise’s mouth and swiping against her teeth before she gently separated them again and put her second hand around Cécile’s breast under the chemise. “And yet you will learn, to every woman’s sorrow, it is better than that of any gentleman.”
Cécile’s nipple thickened at once beneath her touch, as did her nub, and it was the work of very few minutes to bring the girl to her climax. The marquise watched the tangles of hair twisting around both their bodies, the flush spreading from Cécile’s breasts to her cunt, and the stuttering of her hips, and as Cécile gave way, the heat of her body weight across the marquise’s lap sent little echoing flickers through the marquise’s own loins.
“Exquisite,” the marquise said, as Cécile buried her tear-stained face back against her breast, her lips raising not unpleasant prickles across the marquise’s chest. “You will entrance him more than he knows.”
“I can do nothing from within the convent.” Cécile’s voice was quiet and strangely calm. “But if I am touched by you, madame, and by no man, that seems better than I deserve.”
The marquise’s scalp tingled, that moment with Cécile almost happy in her arms and a moment weeks later with two letters spread across her desk. Gone was the mischief she had once detected behind Cécile’s smiles, the potential of a certain sly insouciance and a preternatural grace with tears. What was left was Valmont’s dull brat, another whining slattern husk whom no amount of instruction could make anything more than a victim.
She could not blame the vicomte; if the girl could not keep her head in the most crucial of tests, when it was most necessary—in the land of men and not merely the parlor dalliances they left to their women—it did not matter how seductively she cried or how cleverly she dissembled. There was no point in cultivating an unhardy plant, however sweet its aroma, and Valmont was welcome to whatever weeds he desired.
She shivered—the room was cool for October—as she reached for her ink, though her hand was steady as she began her replies.