The Chevalier (Châteaux and Shadows) Read online

  “Whip their horses? You’ve decided from an hour in his presence—when he wasn’t even talking to you—that d’Oronte whips his horses?”

  “Of course. There aren’t a lot of gentlemen I trust, and he is exactly the sort of man who doesn’t care whom he hurts. That means his horses. That means the maids in his home. And that means you.”

  “Me? How could he hurt me? He spoke kindly to me and flirted a little. I did not return the favor, really. He was a friendly diversion in an otherwise dull evening. Tomorrow, he will flirt with some other girl, and it won’t matter to me. In a few months, his father will announce his engagement to a rich girl. Or maybe he’ll marry a slightly older lady with a fortune. But no matter what happens, I will know he is a gentleman who is kind to his grandmother and to some unknown young lady.”

  She spun on her heel and marched away. It took Manu a few seconds to catch up, but he grabbed her elbow to stop her. “Stay away from him and all his friends. It will only lead to pain. Not just physical pain, not just heartbreak, but the end of your reputation, the end of all your prospects.”

  Her eyebrows went up; she was going to say something sarcastic. “You’re protecting me? Are you my brother? My father? My cousin?”

  Manu opened his mouth to say that yes, he would act as her brother. But he snapped it shut and shook his head. “I’m not wise in the ways of the court.”

  She sniffed in derision.

  He scowled. “But I’ve spent the last twelve years with men of every class. I wouldn’t sell d’Oronte one of my horses. I wouldn’t sell your future to him, either.”

  “It’s not your future, Emmanuel; it’s mine.” Her voice was as low and lethal as a short knife in a dark alley. “Maybe I don’t care anymore about my reputation. Maybe I’d like to flirt. Maybe I’d like a dalliance before I move to my property in Normandy and live the rest of my life alone.”

  Manu stared. Alone in Normandy? He thought she liked the court.

  She turned her back and marched to the next door, which she yanked open. She shut it softly behind her, showing remarkable restraint.

  He remembered he was going to sleep on his mother’s drawing room floor and went in after her. He locked the door and squinted into the dark room. Her bedroom door flashed slightly as it opened, and he said, “Mademoiselle de Fouet.” Her dark form paused in the doorway, but didn’t reply. “Catherine.” After all, she had just called him Emmanuel, hadn’t she?

  She was just a shadow. He hoped it was her and not a maid. He opened his mouth for a long moment before deciding what to say.

  “I would sell you a horse.”

  A soft sniff, then the shadow went in, and the door clicked shut.

  “Bonne nuit, Mademoiselle,” he whispered, defeated.

  ****

  “Monsieur Emmanuel.”

  Someone was shaking him. Manu rolled over and thumped into something hard. He grunted.

  “Monsieur Emmanuel, wake up.”

  It was a woman. Maid or lady? He opened one eye. Mademoiselle de Fouet. Part maid, part lady, right? He smiled at his own little joke.

  “Your mother’s going to the early mass. You have to go confess before or you won’t be able to take the sacrament.”

  The words seemed like French, but Manu couldn’t figure out why they were directed at him. He stifled a yawn and closed his eyes again.

  A hard shove this time. “Up!”

  He groaned and opened his eyes. “Really. I’ll go later. She’ll never know if I took the sacrament.”

  “You will come with us because she will know.”

  Mademoiselle de Fouet marched away, dodging between the over-abundant furnishings. He watched her body sway under her nightgown.

  Manu wondered what it would be like to wake up next to Catherine. He looked around and wondered idly if his mother bought her chairs and tables from Jean-Louis’s factory. Mademoiselle de Fouet turned back toward him and waved her hands urgently.

  He sat up and arranged his blanket over his lap just as his mother’s bedroom door opened. The maid, Anne, came out and frowned at him. She usually slept in the drawing room but had been relegated to the baronesse’s floor. He wondered if his mother snored. He wanted to say he was leaving Monday and she would have her bit of rug back, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to leave. Not with the Vicomte d’Oronte sniffing around Mademoiselle de Fouet. And he was waiting for Vainqueur and the gray mare he hoped to sell.

  Manu shooed the maid away. He pulled on his second-best breeches: dull and dark enough for a serious, sober Sunday morning service, yet fine enough for court. He hoped. He would have to come back and change after mass to wear something a little further down on the splendorous scale to go practice swordplay. If, indeed, the young gentlemen practiced swordplay on a Sunday? Then probably wear the same ones, if they weren’t too dirty, to go for a ride. Then back to the serious, sober ones for another mass. And into his best ones for the evening. If he stayed a few more days, he was going to need more splendorous clothing than he had packed before leaving Poitou.

  Thinking about clothing gave him a headache.

  Two hours later, he had confessed and done frantic, full-gallop prayers to atone, then sat through a thankfully short mass with a young priest who had been, if anything, less awake than Manu. Lucas de Granville stood in the row in front of them, earnestly soaking in every word, but with bags under his eyes.

  Manu laid his sober, serious clothing gently in his trunk and hoped it wouldn’t get wrinkled, then took out the narrow case with his weaponry. He bypassed the saber he had worn on the road, the heavy practice broadsword, and even the court sword with its sharp point, in favor of his dulled practice sword with the tip firmly covered with a lump of metal. He pulled it from its scabbard and grimaced at the patina, but there wasn’t time to polish it.

  The baronesse and Mademoiselle de Fouet nodded to him as he followed them out. They split up at the door to the gardens—a different door from any others he had used in the last day—and he went to join the young gentlemen who gathered in an open area behind the Salle d’Armes.

  When he joined them, four gentlemen were facing off in two bouts, with ten or so men standing around yawning and talking about the wine they had drunk the night before. A small group of them was off to one side, occasionally guffawing. Manu was willing to bet none of them had been to mass at sunrise.

  D’Oronte spotted him and said something to his companions before waving him over with a smirk. He introduced Manu around again. No one was wearing a wig, so it was like meeting all new people. At least he was dressed more or less like everyone else, in older clothing. Manu took his coat off and slung it over a banister along with the others. D’Oronte’s friends had padded practice waistcoats on, so he shrugged his on, too, even though it was frayed at the edges and there was a streak of rust on the back. And moths must have been chewing on it in the year or so since he’d last worn it. At least its cut displayed his broad shoulders. If he couldn’t be fashionable, he could at least look strong. A few of the gentlemen looked like they might take his sword fighting prowess seriously until he pulled his old, dull practice sword from its sheath. Then they looked amused.

  “Did you sit on it?” d’Oronte asked with a sneer.

  Manu looked at it more closely and it did seem to have developed a curve since the last time he had taken it out. He bent the end gently back into place and sighted down it, then swished it a few times, satisfied.

  Most of the men had turned back to the bouts in progress. They were placing bets and redeeming bets and chattering idly.

  Emmanuel turned to the young man next to him. “How do we choose whom to face?”

  The man—he couldn’t have been more than twenty—looked Manu over speculatively. “We all more or less know our level. What training have you had?”

  “Seven years with my brother-in-law.” Manu smirked, waiting for the inevitable question.

  The boy shrugged. “Depends on who your brother-in-law is.”

>   “The Comte de Bures.” Though there were certainly other sword masters and other students who could outfight Manu, Dominique himself was the power behind the school, as his father had been before him. He hired the best sword masters he could find, but the day-to-day training was done by men he had trained and sometimes himself.

  Several gentlemen turned at the sound of that magical name. Manu hid his smile. He was surprised he didn’t recognize any of them as also having trained with Dominique. Maybe these were all the older sons whose younger brothers had trained at the château-fort and were now on the front lines somewhere.

  The boy shrugged. “Usually, those who have trained for the military are in the military, not hanging around court. They don’t generally fence for pleasure.”

  Manu felt it like a slap, but bit back a rude response in favor of a nod. “My older brother was a colonel.”

  A slightly older gentleman, probably not over thirty, shoved the boy. “De Cantière, you ninny. The Colonel de Cantière. Hero of Toulouse and Franche-Comté.”

  Manu nodded as if it should be common knowledge. His brother’s military strategy was taught at Dom’s château, but Manu had figured it was because Jean-Louis was Dom’s brother-in-law. Manu had practiced his light answer carefully for years. “My father agreed I wasn’t suited for either army or church, so he bought me some horses and put me out to pasture.”

  A few snorts and chuckles from the men around him. D’Oronte was looking him over, eyes narrowed and a faint curl to his lip. Manu met his eyes and decided to pretend incompetence. Perhaps d’Oronte would try to teach him a lesson and Manu could surprise him. “I am out of practice.” With a fencing foil.

  “I’ll go easy on you.” D’Oronte smirked at him.

  Manu rolled his shoulders and swished his blade to loosen his arm. A twinge told him he might have pulled something in his bicep the day before when hauling Mademoiselle de Fouet from the tipping carriage.

  Which made him think of Mademoiselle de Fouet’s interest in the bastard warming up across from him. Suddenly his arm didn’t matter. He took a deep breath and blanked his mind as one of the other gentlemen waved them over, gave a standard patter about rules, and told them to back up and wait for the handkerchief to drop.

  When it did, Manu took a few steps forward, but watched d’Oronte instead of attacking. D’Oronte moved to the center of the area marked out for them and smirked. Stupid smirk. He waved his sword, beckoning him closer, and Manu snarled in irritation—he wasn’t holding back as a coward, just assessing. He took another step forward and threw the first strike, which d’Oronte blocked easily, with a little flip of his wrist.

  Manu shifted back a little and gestured d’Oronte forward, taunting him in turn. The man’s eyes narrowed, and then his gaze flicked to Manu’s left ear, followed immediately by a strike toward Manu’s left shoulder. He blocked almost without thinking, stepping to the right. He immediately threw his own attack, toward d’Oronte’s exposed right side, but the man brought his sword back and up as he swung around.

  “Bien,” grunted Manu. “Italian?”

  D’Oronte shrugged and backed up, standing straight and swishing his sword. “My latest sword master fights in the Italian style.”

  Manu dodged forward, swinging from low to high and back again, and d’Oronte stumbled back two steps, fending him off with a look of surprise.

  Manu grinned like a feral dog. “I favor the Germanic.”

  Then another swinging attack, with a swirl that d’Oronte blocked easily. Manu pretended nonchalance. “The French always seems so obvious.”

  D’Oronte narrowed his eyes, and the contest was truly underway.

  Neither scored a touch, but a few minutes in, Manu caught his covered sword tip on the other man’s ballooning sleeve just long enough for d’Oronte to come far too close to stabbing Manu’s shoulder.

  D’Oronte advanced, a murderous look in his eye, bolstered by how close he had come to a touch. He seemed to be favoring the Germanic style too, trying to overwhelm Manu with strength and speed instead of finesse. Emmanuel recognized frustration when he saw it: a desire to never be bested in any way. The same desire made a young man prey on maids and whip horses and flirt with penniless companions who could lose everything all too easily. Manu’s step backwards as he blocked and parried sent d’Oronte off-balance. He finally shoved the man away and jabbed at his chest to clear the space between them, forcing him to stagger backwards out of reach. D’Oronte immediately pushed forward again, but Manu advanced again, swinging fast and hard.

  As soon as they paused to breathe, their referee called a halt to the bout. They saluted each other.

  Manu might have lost if it had been a real fight. Though he was breathing hard, he was more like a horse after a canter and not after a long, hard gallop. He wanted to go again, to bring d’Oronte to his knees. He wiped his face with his plain, pale brown linen handkerchief. The day was already hot, the sun creeping into the courtyard where they were practicing. He was hungry, but not starved. He had been taught since he was thirteen to survey the surroundings as well as his own body to be sure each was prepared for the other. He smirked as he remembered the older boys’ sniggers about willing women and surveying bodies.

  Manu shrugged away thoughts of willing women; for the last week, those thoughts had led to Mademoiselle de Fouet. He turned to d’Oronte. “Shall we go again tomorrow? We seem to be evenly matched.”

  D’Oronte had lost his smirk and was fuming. “We should. I promise to touch tomorrow, Monsieur de Cantière.”

  “Touch or be touched, Monsieur le Vicomte.”

  The other man smiled thinly and turned to his friends.

  “Do you have time for another bout, Monsieur?” It was the young man who had never heard the de Cantière name.

  “I believe I do,” Manu said, pulling out his watch and considering how long he had until dinner. “Are you evenly matched with d’Oronte?”

  “Oh, no.” The boy blushed as men right around them chuckled. “I was hoping you would show me the Germanic style?”

  Manu smiled. “My brother-in-law likes to call it that. It’s based on the sort of hacking moves you use with a broadsword. The last Comte de Bures, the current one’s father, apparently considered the Prussians and the broadsword medieval.”

  Manu smiled at the laughs around him. The boy looked confused. D’Oronte still had his back turned, talking to his friends, but the others seemed to like Emmanuel. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did.

  Chapter Six

  Catherine sat quietly at the baronesse’s side, hands idle. She had repaired a torn hem for her patroness and darned some stockings for herself and was bored. Several of the baronesse’s friends exchanged gossip, mostly about Louis XIV’s on-again, off-again official mistress, Athénaïs de Montespan, who was back at Versailles for the first time since her brief period of disgrace.

  There was fierce speculation about Montespan’s companion, Mademoiselle des Oeillets, now retired to the country with the daughter she claimed was the king’s. In the baronesse’s salon, they discussed the rumors of her carrying poisons and potions to and from witches in Paris. The part about Black Masses was definitely speculation, in Catherine’s opinion.

  No one asked her opinion.

  Mostly, Catherine was waiting for Monsieur Emmanuel to come back from fencing. The baronesse’s maid, Anne, slipped into the room with her usual glare and a plate of cakes, so Catherine gestured to the empty plate on a low table between two of the other ladies. Anne rolled her eyes and huffed. She often complained to the baronesse that Catherine was bossing her around. The baronesse told them to work it out, which, to Catherine’s eyes, was as good as saying she was a servant, too.

  Catherine hadn’t slept well the night before. She’d woken up many times with Monsieur Emmanuel’s words in her ear: I would sell you a horse. It was hardly a declaration of passion or love or even friendship, but it showed her…what? He trusted her? At least he didn’t seem to think sh
e was a servant on a level with Anne.

  She wondered if he were really leaving Monday. She hoped he would, because she needed to reclaim the calm and invisibility she was known for. Monsieur Emmanuel somehow ignited her temper and her blushes without even trying. She used to think he was a bad son to the baronesse, but the baronesse’s coldness toward her entire family in her husband’s home had given Catherine her first qualms as to the guilty party. Maybe Catherine was harsh with Emmanuel because she felt guilty about her complicity with the baronesse, who treated her better than she did her own children.

  But did she really feel loyalty? The baronesse had fed and clothed her for two years, but in return Catherine had sunk even further into her role as the invisible, efficient companion. So invisible that she never expressed an opinion that was not also the baronesse’s, no matter how ugly and bitter.

  Catherine looked at her future and saw it as more of the same, up until she would finally feel she had enough money to retire to Normandy. How much money was enough? How many years was it going to take? How much worse would the house get in the time it took to save enough to repair it and enough to live on? She had spoken in anger the night before, throwing her desire for a dalliance in Emmanuel’s face.

  Emmanuel? Monsieur Emmanuel, she silently corrected.

  She had left him thinking she was eager to bed d’Oronte, though her intention was to tell Emmanuel she wanted him. Monsieur Emmanuel had acted like a nosy, interfering brother, not a lover. Catherine had never had a brother.

  She sighed. No one noticed.

  Lucas de Granville, the baronesse’s friend’s godson, smiled at her from across the group. Now there was a man who was like a friendly, though distant, brother. She had thought a few times that he was on the verge of asking her to marry him, but he had even less wealth than she. She had also thought a few times that he was on the verge of joining the priesthood. He was a bit preachy at times but had always been kind. She had been kind to him, too, maneuvering the cabal to leave him alone more than once when his godfather, the Comte d’Yquelon, had compared him unfavorably with his own son. Catherine wasn’t positive, but d’Yquelon’s son was rumored to live a double life, only giving lip-service to the sort of piety his father espoused. Of course, most of de Granville’s family was debauched, too. Nobility didn’t always mean wealth, uprightness, or even good sense.