The Chevalier (Châteaux and Shadows) Page 7

  “The rain has stopped, Mademoiselle, and there is some sun. By tomorrow, the roads should be passable, if not exactly good.”

  “I am ready to go. I need to return to the baronesse.” She sighed. Was she reluctant, too?

  Manu sat next to Hélène. “To be honest, I am not eager to go. Versailles is perfect in spring and autumn, but stuffy and smelly in summer. I don’t know why the court is there at this time of year, unless there’s a new fountain?”

  “A new hedge, I believe. And the Swiss Guards are digging a pond to act as a reservoir and improve drainage.” Mademoiselle de Fouet raised her eyebrows.

  “The Guards are? Shouldn’t they be guarding something?” He smirked.

  Mademoiselle de Fouet chuckled. It was an intriguing, low sound which made him think of whispered endearments.

  His gut clenched with desire, but he kept his smirk steady. “I’m trying to imagine the Mousquetaires with shovels instead of swords.”

  Mademoiselle de Fouet smiled—genuinely smiled—and looked very pretty. “They’d get their plumes and their dignity all muddy.”

  Now he laughed. He had thought about becoming a Mousquetaire, as he was like so many of them: a younger son of noble family. If his brother hadn’t offered his property in Poitou to raise horses, he would have gone into the cavalry with an eye to joining the Musketeers. Maybe he could have fought alongside his nephew, Marcel, once the boy was old enough. The thought made him shudder. Marcel was so young and fragile.

  He winced as he thought of other younger sons who had been left no choice but to go to war and sent a silent thanks to the saints and his own father for not requiring him to go into the army or the church. Die or achieve glory. He was going to achieve glory by becoming horse breeder to the king.

  “You look very serious all of a sudden, Manu.” Hélène’s voice recalled him to the drawing room.

  Mademoiselle de Fouet stared, her face a polite mask. It was hard to believe they had just laughed together. He couldn’t think of something witty to say to break the silence. He wished he were as glib as his father and his eldest brother. Hélène spoke quietly of when she and Jean-Louis had seen the royal troupe perform Phèdre the year before, at the Hotel de Bourgogne, and how it had made her cry. “And yet it was not well received. It was quite shocking how the courtiers turned up their noses.”

  Mademoiselle de Fouet shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She cleared her throat. “I am afraid the baronesse was part of Madame de Bouillon’s efforts to discredit Monsieur Racine. I carried many notes to and from her salon.”

  Manu curled his lip in distaste. “Is it a matter of pride, Mademoiselle? To have been part of an effort to ruin a play? And maybe Racine’s career?”

  Mademoiselle de Fouet narrowed her eyes at him. “I carried notes. I did not write them. The baronesse has put distance between her and Madame de Bouillon ever since. She says now she fears de Bouillon’s dislike of the play was more for personal reasons.”

  “Personal reasons?” Hélène could not see the bad in others, which, considering the treachery she had endured at the hands of the aunt and uncle who raised her, was remarkable. And naïve.

  Mademoiselle de Fouet leaned forward to deliver a bit of gossip. Manu was alarmed; the set of her shoulders was the same as his mother’s.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  She barely spared him a glance. “Madame de Bouillon is said to have a tendre for her nephew, much as Phèdre in the play was in love with her stepson.”

  Hélène’s eyes were wide behind her thick glasses. “Oh. That’s sad.”

  Manu jerked to his feet, disgusted. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Hélène. Gossip also had it that Dominique was plotting against the king several years ago. And that Jean-Louis abandoned the battlefield in Franche-Comté because he was a coward and a traitor.”

  “But he left after the fighting, and only because someone was trying to kill Ondine.” Hélène looked scandalized.

  He looked directly into Mademoiselle de Fouet’s eyes. “I have very little tolerance for the vicious sort of gossip my mother spreads.”

  He stared at Mademoiselle de Fouet for several seconds. She narrowed her eyes at him.

  He had started to like her, imagining her to be different from his mother’s friends, but she was as petty and hypocritical as they were. His mind flashed to his mother’s cruelties and sly words as she destroyed reputations. As she made him feel small and stupid. As she said terrible things about all her children.

  He would deliver Mademoiselle de Fouet to Versailles, make his bow to his mother, and go home to his horses.

  He nodded to the ladies and strode out.

  Chapter Four

  They got halfway to Versailles before the carriage got stuck in the mud.

  Catherine heard a shout, and the coach jolted to an abrupt halt and swayed. She listened as the coachman’s grumble, Monsieur Emmanuel’s precise accents, and a nasal, unrefined man’s voice discussed how to pass on the narrow stretch of road. She peered out the right-side window and saw an enormous ox, placidly ruminating. Sitting back in her seat, she sighed at the delay. Finally, the peasant agreed to back up to a slightly wider section, and the carriage inched forward again.

  Then, just as the ox’s head appeared in her window, there was a huge lurch as one wheel went off the edge of the road, skewing the rear of the coach sideways. The carriage tilted, slamming Catherine against the left door. She saw two footmen fall past the window into the ditch, then scramble away, slipping and sliding in muck. The coachman cried out, “Hang on, petite!” as Marie shrieked.

  Luckily, the coach came to a rest with no further tilting, still at an angle and definitely stuck but at least upright. Catherine climbed as best she could to the right side of the seat and clutched a strap and the window frame, not knowing if her weight would help or harm the balance.

  Men shouted, and the coach rocked and slipped. Catherine couldn’t cross herself, but she closed her eyes and prayed. When she opened them, Monsieur Emmanuel was looking in the window right next to her. He called over his shoulder, “Come hold the door. I’ll lift her out.”

  He barked, “You’re not injured?”

  “Non.” She could do no more than breathe the word. Her hands sweated and her arms shook.

  The coach rocked again, and a guard appeared. The two men hauled the door open, fighting to pull it up. Monsieur Emmanuel leaned in and held her arm tightly. “Just…here…hook your foot over the jamb and climb out as normally as you can.”

  She slipped down the seat when she released the strap with one hand, but Monsieur Emmanuel held her and guided her until he could wrap one powerful arm around her waist. He hauled her onto the small step next to him. She scrabbled for a handhold. Two footmen reached up and helped her stumble to the ground.

  “Is everyone off?” Monsieur Emmanuel called out, as he and his groom clung to the side.

  “Oui, Monsieur.”

  “If it slips, we’ll jump, Jacques.” He called to the peasant farmer who was stopped on the road, scratching his head. “You! Could you help haul us back onto the road?”

  “Oui, I suppose. I don’t know.” The man looked intelligent enough, but was probably hanging back, waiting to be whipped for overturning a sieur’s carriage.

  “Quickly. Charlot, bring the horses over here and lash them on, but not so tightly that if it goes over they’ll be pulled, too.”

  A few minutes elapsed while the men hitched the horses and the peasant’s ox to the front corner and began to pull. The right wheels were on the muddy road, but the left were wedged deep in the muck to one side. After every heave that rocked it up, the coach slipped a little further away. Monsieur Emmanuel called for more men to climb on the right side with him and balance it. Finally, the coach eased up from its precarious perch, and Monsieur Emmanuel laughed in triumph.

  With a loud crack, the coach tilted and jerked and the back half collapsed onto the roadway, sending the men sliding and leaping to safe
ty in the mud.

  Monsieur Emmanuel cursed foully, causing Catherine and Marie to cross themselves. Catherine called out, “Really, Monsieur! Such language!”

  He glared, but muttered an apology and crossed himself, too. “It will be in my next confession, don’t worry, Mademoiselle. But my father’s carriage! I should have brought my own instead of leaving it in Paris.”

  As the coachman and the peasant untied their beasts from the coach, the others gathered around it. Catherine picked her way through the ruts and puddles to take a look.

  “It’s the axle, Mademoiselle.” Marie whispered.

  “Evidemment.”

  The coach’s back end was wedged deep in the mud, the rear wheels at impossible angles. Catherine looked up and down the road. No buildings in sight.

  She went to the peasant, who was hitching his ox to his cart. “Merci, kind sir, for your help.”

  He lifted his hat and nodded. “Only sorry I couldn’t save it.” His voice was tight and whiny, still expecting punishment.

  “Is there an inn nearby where we can rent horses? And someone to fix the axle?”

  “Oui, Madame,” the peasant said. “But it’s nearly a league back the way you came.”

  “Is there something in the other direction?” They were so close to Versailles. She had no desire to backtrack.

  “It’s more than a league, Madame, and with the king passing yesterday, I don’t know about horses. All the nobility’s been through since the rain stopped. That’s why the road’s so churned up.”

  “We’ll take half the guard, Mademoiselle. You ride with me. We only have two leagues to go.” Monsieur Emmanuel spoke brusquely.

  “Ride with you?” Catherine echoed.

  He frowned at her before saying, “If it’s a problem, Mademoiselle, you can ride in the cart with the baggage when it catches up. Or wait for the coach to be repaired. I’ll ride on as soon as I make the arrangements.”

  He turned his back on her to direct the peasant to take their trunks and the footmen to an inn. She had to bite her tongue to keep from taking over the discussion; they didn’t need her. She was baggage instead of the companion who saw to details. They wouldn’t even have the carriage along if it weren’t for her. She wasn’t sure if it was a relief or a disappointment to not be needed for anything. Mostly a relief, because Monsieur Emmanuel was doing a good job of taking care of things.

  The closer they got to Versailles, the more she was tired of the pretense and the gossip. Monsieur Emmanuel’s stiff, angry reaction to her gossip the day before had shocked her. She had only meant to explain the claque against Phèdre to Madame de Cantière, not to spread malice.

  For just a moment, Catherine wanted to tell Emmanuel she had no desire to rejoin the court. She could stay the night in the inn and organize passage to her property in Normandy. Perhaps he would accompany her there, help with the decisions and details, keep her safe. Her trunks with the baronesse could be brought on later. She wasn’t quite sure what she would do once in Normandy, though. The land was rented out, the crops wouldn’t be in for a few more months, and the house was in disrepair. Her mother and grandmother used to have friends in the district; someone would take her in while she had the house fixed.

  Monsieur Emmanuel’s voice broke into her thoughts. “We can see if the next inn has a suitable horse and a sidesaddle.”

  “I don’t have a riding habit.” Catherine was loath to arrive at court in any way that would excite notice. “Or a riding mask to keep the sun off.” And she hadn’t ridden in years.

  “Then the safest way is for you to ride behind me with your hat pulled down firmly. Marie will ride with one of the other men.” He turned to the maid. “You do not get ill on horseback, I hope, Marie?”

  The girl insisted she never had when she rode pillion with her uncle or father.

  Monsieur Emmanuel turned back to Catherine. “You can trust me. The gelding I’m riding today is calm and reliable, if a bit old. Jean-Louis says he did not flinch under cannon fire.” When Catherine didn’t answer immediately, he frowned more deeply. “I’m a good horseman, Mademoiselle.”

  “Of course you are,” she answered, her eyebrows arching. “I was hoping we wouldn’t face any cannon fire today.”

  He grinned in surprise, making her heart beat faster, but he turned away to go over some details just as she smiled back. Then they were mounting up—him on the horse holding out a hand, and a guard giving her a leg up.

  “Of course,” he said over his shoulder when she had mostly avoided brushing her already dirty skirt on his muddy boot and found a fairly comfortable spot on the horse blanket behind his saddle, “I will only have a change of shirt and cravat with me and won’t be able to be seen by anyone but my mother until my trunks arrive this evening.”

  “The baronesse should have all my court things with her. I’ll get tidied up and slip right back in. No one will even notice I was gone.”

  She shivered slightly at how little anyone would miss her if she never came back. She felt the urge again to run to Normandy. Maybe she would tell Monsieur Emmanuel to keep riding and take her home. Someone else could have her frocks.

  She sighed and leaned her head against Monsieur Emmanuel’s back, which flipped the other side of her hat up so the sun shone in her eyes. He smelled like sweat and horse again. She remembered how it had felt to have him pull her out of the coach. His arm around her had made her feel safe, and not just because she wouldn’t fall. The sweat and horse smell was not so offensive, after all. She slid her arm around him, her pulse accelerating with the hard muscle she could feel and the way his body flexed as he kept them both steady.

  ****

  Emmanuel stank, and he knew it. Under the midday sun, a drop of sweat trickled down his side, tickling his ribs. Humidity and stink rose from the road and fields and trees. He wanted to remove some layers. Maybe his coat, which while rough, rustic, and not very clean, was all that differentiated him from the peasant who had caused their accident. The heat and humidity made his chest tight.

  Part of his trouble breathing was the strength with which Mademoiselle de Fouet held his waist. She wasn’t holding on too tightly, but he was overly conscious of her arms around his waist and her body pressed against his back, her breasts, specifically, with only a light corset and wispy linen separating her from him. And every now and then she would lean her head against him and sigh.

  He was glad he had his coat on, no matter how hot he got, since his breeches fit uncomfortably. If he didn’t focus on the road and the surroundings and the other men, he would think of lying in a bed with her arms wrapped around him, sighing in contentment.

  He was still angry with her gossip the night before. He could enjoy her touch and still be wary. Though having slept on his anger, he was starting to think he had overreacted. Perhaps away from the court and from his mother and her cabal, Mademoiselle de Fouet would be perfect. He smiled again at her comment about cannon fire. Of course, his mother could be witty, as well. He sighed.

  He called for a halt at the inn a league on from where they had crashed. He told the innkeeper their troubles and gave the name of the peasant who had helped them and who would be coming with their trunks. They’d been lucky in their chance-met acquaintance, the innkeeper said, since he had the strongest ox in the country. Manu didn’t tell him that if they hadn’t met the peasant on the narrow, muddy stretch of road, they wouldn’t have slipped off the edge of it. He should have insisted the peasant back up even further instead of telling the coachman to take the risk. Manu’s gut twisted. He had failed, and his father would be angry.

  Manu paid for stabling, rooms for the guards and coachman who were coming along behind them in the ox cart, and a deposit to the turner and blacksmith for the axle. Mademoiselle de Fouet set her clothing to rights and paid for dinner for everyone while he was busy.

  “Non, Mademoiselle.” He knew he was protesting to the air. “I’ll take care of everything.”

  She sat up straigh
t, regal in her muddied traveling clothes. “You would not have had the coach if you had not had me along. The least I can do is provide dinner.”

  He wasn’t angry that she was along, after all. He wished he had insisted on bringing his own smaller, lighter coach, even though Papa had sent a note asking him to deliver the coach to Versailles. Manu could have had the coachman bring the big coach along later. Manu hoped to be gone before his father arrived at court anyway, though they might cross on the road, as Versailles was closer to la Brosse than Paris. No, he would have to wait for Vainqueur to arrive with his father and rest before heading back. Since the gray mare had come this far, he hoped to sell her, which might take a few days.

  In any case, it was a fool’s errand to chase his mother. She was probably testing his loyalty. Or trying to make him angry. If she had been at his father’s house for just another day, he would already be halfway back to Poitou. If he weren’t accompanying Mademoiselle de Fouet, he would have turned back in Paris rather than passing through Versailles. If he had known she meant to go to Versailles, he would have gone directly there instead of to Paris.

  He sighed. Mademoiselle de Fouet patted his hand. “We’ll see your mother soon, Monsieur Emmanuel.”

  He looked at her hand resting on his, wanting to grasp it. “I sighed because I miss my horses, Mademoiselle.”

  To his surprise, she smiled and patted his hand again before pulling back to her side of the small table they shared. There were two large parties of nobles in the private rooms, apparently. Their servants filled most of the inn’s dining room. Some of the maids and footmen wore satin and wigs and yet were side by side with dusty grooms and armed guards, laughing and talking.

  “Are those pale pink coats the Comte de Tonnerre’s livery?” Mademoiselle de Fouet narrowed her eyes at a group of servants at a nearby table.

  Manu glanced at the men in shiny pink with great fountains of lace at their wrists and throats and felt shabby. “I’m not likely to recognize liveries. I think my father has his men in yellow.”