Lion of Languedoc by Margaret Pemberton Page B

admiration. The Duke de Malbré’s lips twitched at the sight of his elegant young friend being spoken to in such a way by a peasant girl. His son, Raphael, was staring with blatant admiration.
    There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek, the hem of her gown was thick with dust, yet she was the most ravishing creature he had ever seen. Green eyes slanted tantalisingly upwards, bright with anger. Olive skin gleamed flawlessly, and for the first time in his life Raphael de Malbré decided that the women of Versailles were fools. Why strive with creams and lotions for a face as white as death when there was beauty such as this in nature?
    Her lips were full and soft, cherry-red. Her nose was straight, her face heart-shaped, and her hair … Dear Lord! Raphael de Malbré gazed mesmerised. Never in his life had he seen hair like it. All of a sudden he was looking forward to more than a few weeks hawking and hunting with his friend. With village girls like this in Chatonnay his visit was going to be a memorable one.
    â€˜Armand is with Ninette, and who else is there?’ Marietta was saying fiercely, fighting back tears of humiliation as she saw the amused expression on the exquisitely dressed occupant of the carriage and the all-too familiar look in the younger man’s eyes. She might as well be naked the way he was looking at her, and as for Léon … He looked as if he could quite happily-choke her to death.
    â€˜How dare you behave like a peasant!’ he hissed through clenched teeth. ‘You’ve shamed me in front of my guests, made your position at Chatonnay impossible …’
    A goat, taking advantage of the stationary carriage, jumped nimbly beneath Marietta’s arm and on to the ground.
    â€˜Now see what you’ve done,’ Marietta cried, jumping down from the cart. ‘Do you know how long it took me to get these stupid animals into the cart in the first place?’ Breathlessly she raced after it, picking up her skirts to run the faster.
    â€˜Hell’s light!’ Léon seized his riding crop and leapt from Saracen’s back, running after her.
    â€˜Do you realise what a spectacle you’re making of us?’ Eyes that were once honey-gold were black as the Devil’s as he seized the goat’s hind legs while Marietta held frantically on to the front ones. The goat squirmed, depositing a large amount of straw and stale dung on to Léon’s immaculate black velvet.
    â€˜God’s grace!’
    She thought he was going to strike her as she hauled the goat from his grasp, and he brushed angrily at the offending dirt.
    The sight of Léon, sophisticate of Versailles and warrior of the battlefield, struggling with an unkempt village girl and protesting goat was too much for the de Malbrés. The Duke was wiping his eyes with a lace kerchief, while Raphael’s laughter was loud enough to be heard both in Montpellier and Chatonnay at the same time.
    Léon struggled to speak, failed, clenched his fists and swung on his heel, leaving Marietta to struggle with the still writhing goat as he mounted Saracen, his shoulders rigid with anger.
    Raphael de Malbré, still laughing uproariously, blew her a kiss from the window of the carriage as she sat, the goat in her lap, her skirts high around her knees.
    â€˜Not even a pair of shoes on her feet!’ Léon said explosively to his mother when the de Malbrés had been settled in their rooms. ‘Driving the mule and cart like the commonest peasant, and with one hundred and fifty goats in the back!’
    â€˜Twelve,’ his mother said, biting her lip to prevent herself from laughing.
    â€˜Twelve, twenty, one hundred, what difference does it make? How am I going to introduce her to the de Malbrés now?’
    â€˜As a kind-hearted girl willing to ride in the heat to Montpellier for goats to provide milk for the peasants who live on our land and cannot afford goats of their