o Belinda’s surprise, her wedding night didn’t occur until the night of her wedding, a week after her meeting with Alexi in the Polo Lounge. They were married in the French embassy in Washington and left immediately after the ceremony to honeymoon at the ambassador’s summer home.

Belinda’s nervousness grew as she stepped from the ambassador’s tub and dried herself with a thick, nutmeg-brown towel. She hadn’t told Alexi about the baby. If she was lucky and the baby small, he might believe the child was his, born prematurely. If he didn’t believe it, then he’d probably divorce her, but the baby would still have his name, and she wouldn’t have to live with the stigma of being an unwed mother. She could go back to California and start all over again, but this time with Alexi’s money.

Every day she saw surprising new evidence of the depth of Alexi’s feelings, not only in the gifts he lavished on her, but in his patience with her silly mistakes as she entered his world. Nothing she did made him angry. The thought brought her comfort.

She gazed at the dress box wrapped in silver paper sitting on the basin. He wanted her to wear what was inside for her wedding night. She hoped it was a peignoir set, black and lacy like something Kim Novak would own.

But when she opened the dress box, she nearly cried with disappointment. The long white cotton garment nestled in the cloud of tissue paper looked more like a child’s nightgown than the peignoir of her fantasies. Although the fabric was sheer and fine, the high neck had the barest edging of lace while a row of pink bows held the bodice modestly closed. As she pulled the garment from its box, something fell at her feet. She leaned over and picked up matching white cotton underpants with little ruffs of lace at the leg openings. She remembered Alexi’s pride and the fact that she wasn’t coming to him as a virgin.

It was past midnight when she entered the elegant jade-green bedroom. The brocade drapes had been drawn, and the polished teak furniture glowed in the warm light filtering through the cream silk lampshades. The room couldn’t have been more different from the wonderfully tawdry interior of the Spanish bungalow at the Garden of Allah. Alexi wore a pale gold dressing gown. With his small eyes and dark, thinning hair, he could only play a villain on screen. But a powerful villain. He gazed at her until the room’s silence grew oppressive. Finally he spoke. “You’re wearing lipstick, chérie?”

“Is something wrong?”

He pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his dressing gown. “Come near the light.” She padded across the carpet on bare feet instead of the high-heeled black satin mules of her imagination. He took her chin in his hand and gently wiped at her mouth with his white linen handkerchief. “No lipstick in the bedroom, mon amour. You are beautiful enough without it.” Stepping back, he slowly raked his eyes over her body and stopped at her scarlet-painted toenails. “Sit on the bed.”

She did as he asked. He rummaged through her cosmetic case until he found a bottle of nail polish remover. He knelt before her and began removing the polish from each of her toes with his handkerchief. When he was done, he lightly bit her instep, then touched it with his tongue. “Are you wearing the panties I gave you?”

Embarrassed, she dropped her eyes to the collar of his dressing gown and nodded.

“Bon. You are my sweet bride, then, come to please me. You are shy, inexperienced, a little frightened perhaps. That is as it should be.”

She was frightened. His soft words, the virginal nightgown…He was treating her as if she were an innocent, but that wouldn’t erase her time with Flynn. The memory of the night Alexi had assaulted her wormed its way into her thoughts. She shook it off. He’d been jealous of Flynn, but now she was his wife, and he would never hurt her.

He rose and held out his hand. “Come to me, chérie. I’ve waited so long to make love to you.”

Alexi eased her onto the bed. When she was lying down, he brushed his mouth over her lips. She told herself to imagine he was Flynn. “Put your arms around me, chérie,” he murmured. “I am your husband now.”

She did as he asked, and as his face drew near, she tried to pretend, but Flynn had seldom kissed her and never with Alexi’s intensity. “You kiss like a child.” Alexi’s lips moved against hers. “Open your mouth for me. Be gracious with your tongue.”

Cautiously she parted her lips. This was Flynn kissing her. Flynn’s mouth covering hers. But the great star’s face refused to take shape.

Her body grew lax and warm. She pulled Alexi closer, her tongue growing bold in his mouth. She moaned softly when he moved away from her. “Open your eyes, Belinda. You must watch me make love to you.” Cool air brushed her skin as he tugged on the bows holding the nightgown together and separated the bodice. “Watch my hands on your breasts, chérie.”

She opened her eyes to the burning intensity of his gaze, the searing eyes that could pierce flesh and bone to uncover even the smallest seed of deception. Panic mixed with her excitement. She tried to pull the nightgown back together.

He chuckled, the sound deep and low in his throat, and she realized he’d mistaken her fear for shyness. Before she could stop him, he peeled the nightgown over her hips. She lay on the bed, clad only in the lace-trimmed cotton underpants. He grasped her arms and placed them at her sides. “Let me look.” His hands moved to her breasts, handling them gently, tracing light, feathery circles until her nipples hardened into tiny bells. He touched each tip. “I’m going to suckle you,” he whispered.

Waves of heat shot through her as his head dipped. He drew her nipple into his mouth, sculpting it with his tongue and then drawing on it as if he were taking his nourishment. Excitement spread through her body like a betrayal, burning hotter and fiercer as he began stroking the insides of her thighs. His fingers moved beneath the lacy leg band of the panties just as Billy Greenway’s had done so many lifetimes ago, and then slid inside her with a practiced touch so different from the awkward fumbles of her past.

“You’re tight,” he whispered, withdrawing from her. He pulled the underpants down over her hips, separated her legs, and began doing something to her with his mouth that was so forbidden, so thrilling, she couldn’t believe it was happening. At first she fought against it, but her resistance was no match for his skill. He took control of her body, and she surrendered to him. She cried out as he brought her to an orgasm so exquisite she felt as if she were shattering into a thousand pieces.

After it was over, he lay beside her. What he had done was dirty, and she couldn’t bear to look at him.

“That has never happened to you before, has it?” She heard the satisfaction in his voice and turned her back to him. “What a dear little prude you are, ashamed of yourself for enjoying something so natural.” He leaned over to kiss her, but she turned her head away. Nothing would make her kiss a mouth that had been where his had.

He laughed, imprisoned her head between his palms, and brought his lips to hers. “See how sweet you are.” Only then did he desert her long enough to open his dressing gown and let it fall to the floor. His body was lean and swarthy, covered in dark hair, and fully aroused. “Now I will explore you for my pleasure,” he said.

He touched every part of her, leaving the mark of Alexi Savagar behind and once again setting her afire with desire. When he finally entered her, she wrapped her legs around him and dug her fingers into his buttocks and silently begged him to go faster. Just before his orgasm, he muttered thickly in her ear, “You are mine, Belinda. I am going to give you the world.”

In the morning there was a smear of blood on the sheet from a long, thin scratch he’d made on her hip.

Paris was everything Belinda had imagined, and Alexi took her to all the places tourists adore. At the top of the Eiffel Tower exactly an hour before sunset, he kissed her until she thought her body would float. They sailed a toy boat in the bassin at the Luxembourg Gardens and wandered through Versailles in a thunderstorm. In the Louvre he found a deserted corner where he felt her breasts to see if they were as plump as those of the Renaissance Madonnas. He showed her the Seine at dawn near the Pont St.-Michel when the newborn sun struck the windows of the old buildings and set the city on fire. They visited Montmartre at night, and the wicked, smoky cafés of Pigalle, where he titillated her with whispered sex talk that left her breathless. They dined on trout and truffles in the Bois de Boulogne beneath chandeliers that hung from the chestnut trees, and they sipped Château Lafite in a café where tulips bloomed in the window. As each day passed, Alexi’s step grew lighter and his laugh easier until he almost seemed like a boy again.

At night, he sealed them away in the great bedroom of his gray stone mansion on the Rue de la Bienfaisance and took her again and again until her body ceased to exist separate from his. She began to resent the demands of the job that stole him away from her each morning. Mornings left her with too much time to think about the baby she was carrying. Flynn’s baby. The baby Alexi didn’t know existed.

Life on the Rue de la Bienfaisance without Alexi was nearly unbearable. She hadn’t been prepared for the grandeur of the gray stone mansion with its salons and apartments and dining room that could seat fifty. At first she’d been giddy at the idea of living amid so much splendor, but the huge house quickly oppressed her. She felt small and defenseless as she stood on the red and green veined marble in the oval foyer and surveyed the gruesome tapestries of martyrdom and crucifixion hanging on the walls. In the main salon, allegorical figures clad in capes and armor battled giant serpents on the ceiling. Friezes stretched over the heavily draped windows; pilasters flanked them. And all of it was ruled by Alexi’s mother, Solange Savagar.

Solange was tall and thin, with dyed black hair cut close to her head, a large nose, and papery wrinkles. Each morning at ten o’clock she dressed in one of an endless number of white wool suits designed for her by Norell before the war, slipped on her rubies, and took her place on a Louis Quinze chair at the center of the main salon, where she began her daily rule over the house and its inhabitants. The possibility that Belinda, the unforgivably young American who had somehow managed to bewitch her son, would take Solange’s place was unthinkable. The mansion on the Rue de la Bienfaisance was Solange’s domain alone.

Alexi made it clear that his mother was to be respected, but Solange made companionship impossible. She refused to speak English except to criticize, and she took delight in laying out each gaucherie Belinda committed for Alexi’s later inspection. Every evening at seven o’clock they gathered in the main salon, where Solange would sip white vermouth and smoke one lipstick-tipped Gauloise after another while she chattered at her son in staccato French.

Alexi kissed away Belinda’s complaints. “My mother is a bitter old woman who has lost much. This house is all the kingdom she has left.” His kisses strayed to her breasts. “Humor her, chérie. For my sake.”

And then, abruptly, everything changed.

One night in mid April, six weeks after their wedding, she decided to surprise Alexi by modeling a transparent black negligee she’d bought that afternoon. As she pirouetted next to the bed, his face grew pale and he stalked from the room. She waited in the dark, angry with herself for not realizing how much he’d hate seeing her in anything but the simple white gowns he selected. The hours dragged by and he didn’t return. By morning, she’d exhausted herself with her tears.

The next night she went to her mother-in-law. “Alexi has disappeared. I want to know where he is.”

An ancient ruby on Solange’s twisted finger winked like an evil eye. “My son tells me only what he wishes me to know.”

He returned two weeks later. Belinda stood on the marble staircase in a Balmain dress that was too tight at the waist and watched him hand his briefcase to the butler. He seemed to have aged ten years. When he saw her, his mouth curled in the cynical twist she hadn’t witnessed since they’d first met. “My dear wife. You look beautiful as always.”

The next few days confused her. He treated her with deference in public, but in private he tormented her with his lovemaking. He abandoned tenderness for conquest and kept her poised on the brink of fulfillment for so long that her pleasure crossed the boundary into pain. During the last week of April, he announced that they were going on a trip but wouldn’t tell her where.

He drove the 1933 Hispano-Suiza from his antique car collection with utter concentration. She was glad to be spared the effort of making conversation. Out the window, the land near Paris gradually gave way to the bare, chalky hillsides of Champagne. She couldn’t make herself relax. She was nearly four months pregnant, and the effort of deceiving him was sapping her strength. She pretended to have menstrual periods that never came, secretly adjusted the buttons on the waists of her new skirts, and plotted to keep her naked body away from the light. She did everything she could to postpone the time when she’d be forced to tell him about the baby.

As the vineyards turned lavender in the lengthening afternoon shadows, they reached Burgundy. Their inn had a red-tiled roof and charming pots of geraniums in the windows, but she was too tired to enjoy the simple, well-cooked meal that was set before them.

The next day Alexi drove her out into the Burgundian countryside. They ate a silent picnic lunch on a hilltop covered with wildflowers, dining on a potée filled with fresh chervil, tarragon, and chives that Alexi had purchased in the neighboring village. They ate it with bread crusted in poppy seeds, a runny Saint Nectaire cheese, and a raw young country wine. Belinda picked at her food, then tied her cardigan around her shoulders and walked along the hilltop to escape Alexi’s oppressive silence.

“Enjoying the view, my sweet?” She hadn’t heard him come up behind her, and she jumped as he put his hands on her shoulders.

“It’s pretty.”

“Are you enjoying being with your husband?”

She curled her fingers over the knot she’d made in the sweater. “I always enjoy being with you.”

“Especially in bed, n’est-ce pas?” He didn’t wait for her answer but pointed out a vineyard and told her which grapes it produced. He began to seem like the Alexi who had shown her the sights of Paris, and she gradually relaxed.

“Over there, chérie. Do you see that collection of gray stone buildings? That is the Couvent de l’Annonciation. The nuns there run one of the best schools in France.”

Belinda was more interested in the vineyards.

“Some of the finest families in Europe send their children to the nuns to be educated,” he went on. “The sisters even take babies, although the male children are sent to the brothers near Langres when they are five.”

Belinda was shocked. “Why would a rich family send away its babies?”

“It is necessary if the daughter is unmarried and a proper husband cannot be found. The sisters keep the babies until a discreet adoption can take place.”

The talk of babies was making her nervous, and she tried to change the subject, but Alexi wasn’t ready to be distracted. “The sisters take good care of them,” he said. “They’re not abandoned to spend their days in cribs. They have the best food and attention.”

“I can’t imagine a mother turning over her baby to someone else’s care.” She untied her sweater and slipped it on. “Let’s go. I’m getting cold.”

“You can’t imagine it because you still think like the bourgeoisie,” he said without moving. “You will have to think differently now that you are my wife. Now that you are a Savagar.”

Her hands closed involuntarily over her abdomen, and she turned slowly. “I don’t understand. Why are you telling me this?”

“So you know what will happen to your bastard child. As soon as it’s born, it will go to the sisters at the Couvent de l’Annonciation to be raised.”

“You know,” she whispered.

“Of course I know.”

The sun drained from the day as all her nightmares sprang to life.

“Your belly is swollen,” he said, his voice laden with contempt, “and the veins of your breasts show through your skin. The night I looked at you standing in our bedroom in that black nightgown…It was as if someone had ripped the blinders from my eyes. How long did you think you could deceive me?”

“No!” Suddenly it was all more than she could bear, and she did what she’d sworn she never would. “No! The baby’s not a bastard! It’s your baby! It’s your—”

He slapped her hard across the face. “Do not humiliate yourself with lies that you know I will never believe!” She tried to pull away from him, but he held her tight. “How you must have been laughing at me that day at the Polo Lounge. You trapped me into marriage just as if I were a schoolboy. You made a fool of me!”

She began to cry. “I know I should have told you. But you wouldn’t have helped me, and I didn’t know what else to do. I’ll go away. After our divorce. You’ll never have to see me again.”

“Our divorce? Oh no, ma petite. There will be no divorce. Did you not understand what I was telling you about the Couvent de l’Annonciation? Did you not understand that you are the one who has been trapped?”

Fear gripped her as she remembered what he’d said. “No! I’ll never let you take away my baby.” Her baby. Flynn’s baby! She had to make her dreams come true. She’d start her life again in California. She and a little boy, as handsome as his father, or a little girl, more beautiful than any child born.

The expression on his face turned fierce, and all the foolish dream castles she’d built crumbled. “There will be no divorce,” he said. “If you try to run away, you will never have a sou from me. You are not good at surviving without other people’s money, are you, Belinda?”

“You can’t take my baby away!”

“I can do anything I want.” His voice grew deadly quiet. “You do not know French law, my dear. Your bastard child will be legally mine. In this country, the father has complete authority over his children. And, I warn you, if you ever tell anyone of your foolishness, I will ruin you. Do you understand me? You will be left with nothing.”

“Alexi, don’t do this to me,” she whimpered.

But he was already walking away from her.

They drove silently back to Paris. As Alexi pulled the Hispano-Suiza through the gate and into the drive, Belinda looked up at the house she had grown to hate. It loomed over her, like a great, gray tombstone. She fumbled blindly for the door handle and jumped from the car.

Alexi was at her side almost immediately. “Enter the house with dignity, Belinda, for your own sake.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Why did you marry me?”

He gazed at her, the seconds ticking away like lost promises. His mouth tightened with bitterness. “Because I loved you.”

She stared at him, and a lock of hair whipped her cheek. “I’ll hate you forever for this.” She pulled away and ran blindly down the drive toward the Rue de la Bienfaisance, her misery stark against the sunny beauty of the spring afternoon.

She fled into the leafy shadows near the gate where the old chestnut trees hung heavy with white blossoms. Petals dripped onto the pavement and lay in great snowy drifts at the curb. As she turned onto the street, a gust of wind from a passing car swept up the fallen petals from the sidewalk and enveloped her in a cloud of white. Alexi stood unmoving and watched. Belinda, captured for one heartbreaking beat of time in a swirling cloud of chestnut blossoms.

It was a moment he would remember for the rest of his life. Belinda in blossoms—silly and shallow, agonizingly young. Heartbroken.