The Indispensable Wife Read online

  “Shall we wait for a reply from Cédric, then?” asked Dominique, rather sharply. “How long should we wait? I wrote to him when we arrived here. We need to act quickly. We have already lost two months. Can you not do anything at all?”

  The others nodded, even Aurore.

  Henri closed his eyes for a moment to fight back tears; he had been crying for two weeks, ever since Paul-Bénédicte announced that their affair was over. He had a lifetime as a third son, not as strong as his brothers or their best friend, Dominique. He was more interested in books and numbers than in swords and shooting. He had too much to hide. “I can send messages to your true friends within the court. I can even go and visit them in secret, as I’m in charge of arranging the king’s horses between Fontainebleau and Vincennes and so am traveling and visiting a great many places at the moment. I am a lowly clerk in an enormous office. There is still considerable chaos since Colbert became the Controller General of Finances last year. I cannot be seen taking sides in anything.”

  “Then why are you here? Go back to your office.” Dominique’s scowl pierced him.

  Henri looked at him for a long time, resentment boiling in his gut, the emotions of the past few weeks—and months—boiling over. He stood and said, in what he hoped were his normal tones, “Aurore, may I speak with you alone for a moment? Messieurs, if you will permit?”

  Dominique, Michel, and Paul-Bénédicte looked at each other with confusion, but they rose, nodded politely, and went out.

  There was a long, awkward silence as he paced to the door to be sure it was closed and then to the window to close the curtains. The already dark room faded to a dirty yellowish brown.

  “Come sit by me, Henri,” said Aurore.

  He sat on the edge of his chair. She placed her hand on his arm and squeezed gently. The memories of their childhood friendship and the secrets and adventures they had shared, in between the arguments, overwhelmed him. He reached for a handkerchief to wipe the tears, but found Aurore already reaching up with a tiny embroidered handkerchief. Her gentle pat on his cheeks weakened him further.

  “What is it, Henri?”

  “It’s…it’s everything.” He put his face in his hands. He was going to talk to her about Dom, but once alone with her, he couldn’t stop the tears.

  She rubbed his back silently as he regained his composure, then dabbed at his face until he waved her off.

  “I will help you, Aurore. The best thing I could do for you is help you escape, maybe to England. No, they have the plague, not to mention King Charles II is still not in complete control after Cromwell ruined everything. Maybe Milan? Or Franche-Comté? I could send you to our brother Jean-Louis on the Spanish border, and he could smuggle you through the lines somehow. Anywhere but here.”

  He finally looked at her face. She was near tears herself. “What about Dominique, then? And his people?”

  “He has never deserved you. Whatever he wants, he takes. He always has. He doesn’t care about anyone. You heard him: ‘I spent too long looking for Aurore,’ as if he should have just given it up much sooner because all that matters is his putain de château.”

  Aurore looked down at her hands. “It is my duty to help him. If I ran away now, he might never have a chance to have an heir. He might get distracted and come after me. He might be killed.” She shuddered. “The people on his lands need him back. We have heard from Cédric of what Poudrain and Saint-Ange are doing and how many people are running away. Even if the king gives the titles and lands to someone else it would be better than with those bastards. I need to do what I can to help him convince the king. Son Altesse has always liked me, and he thought I was good for Mademoiselle de la Baume le Blanc, talking sense to her and cheering her up when she was weepy.”

  “It’s going to get you killed as a traitor, reappearing like this two months later.” Panic constricted his chest.

  She tipped her head to one side and seemed to be really thinking about what to say next. “It might. But someday, Poudrain and Saint-Ange will be toppled, their bastard cabal will be defeated, and my family name will be cleared, and I will be vindicated, n’est-ce pas?” Her smile trembled.

  Henri sighed. “Once they have solidified their hold over the lands and murdered Dominique, they and their friends in the court will buy their way to the title.”

  Aurore sighed. “When did you become such a pessimist? It’s not just this, is it?”

  Henri shook his head and stared down at his hands. “It is this, but it is so many other things. There is a constant struggle in the Finances office since Fouquet’s ouster. I am being watched even more closely by my enemies because of your problems, but they already have other things against me and might even know… I just have to make sure they never get proof.” Aurore looked confused, and he tried to smile. “You know what a good friend Paul-Bénédicte has always been to me? He is talking now of seeking a position with the king’s guards.”

  “Is he? Then I must see if I can help him. I know how much you will miss him, though,” she said.

  “It’s not that simple. He wants to marry a girl who has been the maid to a courtesan. We have been going together to the courtesan’s apartments…” Henri covered his eyes as he thought of the debaucheries they had enjoyed there, and he cleared his throat. He wouldn’t tell his little sister any of that.

  She tilted her head again and looked directly into his eyes. “I thought he was your… I mean, that the two of you were…”

  Henri closed his eyes and grunted. How did she know that? “He is. I mean, he was. We’ve been…lovers for seven years. When we were fifteen, when I returned from the monastery, our close friendship, the way I shared my books with him and taught him mathematics, well, all that became more. We had little flings with women, the better to hide it, but we were always together. We’ve been sleeping in the same bed for years. A few weeks ago, I realized I needed a public relationship with a woman to sink the latest rumors.”

  She was looking away from him. He touched her arm, needing her warmth.

  “Don’t tell me the details, Henri.” She blushed bright red. “I try to not think about it.”

  “Lady Hunt suspects, yet she is kind enough now, but if Paul-Bénédicte really takes away her maid, and if I don’t use all my influence at court to advance her career, and if…” He took a deep breath. He was losing control. “I would lose my position. I could end up in prison or exile. But right now nothing matters because Paul-Bénédicte won’t sleep in my bed. He says he doesn’t love me anymore. He says that we are now men and must act like it. That what we did was irresponsible and suited only for boys. We should both get married and stop living wildly and sinfully. As if wedding a courtesan and taking her to dig in the dirt as a peasant will make him a man.”

  “He could be one of Dominique’s guards, once we retake the manor,” said Aurore absently.

  Henri looked at her, really stared. She didn’t seem to have understood. “I just told you that I am a homosexual. Like the king’s brother, but without royal protection. That I practice le vice italien. I am in love with a man who is jilting me.”

  She pouted. “Do you want me to be shocked? I am very sad for you, that your lover is leaving you. I always liked Paul-Bénédicte. He was a very good wife to you, and I am astonished he would go.”

  Henri chuckled, even though more tears rolled down his cheeks. “He was a good wife to me.”

  Aurore dabbed at his tears again, her tiny handkerchief already chilled and damp against his skin. “He was better to you than I ever was to Dominique. And now you are hurt in the same way that Dominique has hurt me. Dominique always comes back to me because we are married in the eyes of God and because he needs an heir. I always let him come back because I have to.”

  “Because you love him,” Henri pointed out, indignant at her shading of the truth.

  “That, too, but if he weren’t my husband, I would never take him back. He has broken my heart too many times.” Her lively face darkened into a s
cowl.

  “Many married couples are permanently estranged.” He knew she was thinking of their parents by her grimace. “Some never have children and the titles pass on to brothers or cousins. Come with me, Aurore. We will both go into exile and leave this awful mess behind. We can go to… I don’t know. Where can we go?”

  Aurore shook her head. “You know we can’t. We have to face it. If we get… When we get the manor back, Dominique can hire you as a steward or as his…his financial adviser. Papa will be angry because it is not as nice a position as you have with Colbert, but Dom will keep you safe.”

  Henri wanted so desperately to point out that they were going to lose, all of them, but he just closed his eyes and put his head in his hands. When had he become such a pessimist? Probably when the château-fort had fallen. More likely, when Paul-Bénédicte said their affair had been a whim of two silly boys.

  “It is probably pointless, but I will help you however I can, Aurore. I will help Dominique. I have wanted to die for a month now, so what does it matter if I am tortured to death for treason, or if I let myself starve to death, or climb to the top of Notre-Dame and throw myself off?” He was shouting by the end of his sentence.

  “No!” He was knocked back as Aurore launched herself into him, sitting on his lap and wrapping her arms around his chest. “You must seize control of yourself. I wanted to die when I lost the baby—when I lost each of them, but especially the one that was almost old enough to be born. I wanted to die when Dominique cheated, but I survived.”

  “Is it bravery or cowardice that keeps us from suicide?” Henri said bitterly.

  “Bravery.” She sighed. “I hope.”

  “Cowardice. God is already angry with me. I would surely burn aux enfers.”

  “Bravery, because you can see the way through the troubles and build a new life. Someday you will find a new lover, someone who loves you. Forever.”

  He shook his head where it rested against her shoulder. “Never again.”

  Henri was thinking finally of something other than his own problems. “Aurore, you haven’t told me where you have been for two months.”

  She shook her head, but he stared at her until finally she sighed and moved to her own chair. By the end of her story of being held hostage, raped, miscarrying, and—pour l’amour de Dieu—branded, Henri was pacing, fury rising in him.

  “I will kill them for you, ma soeur. Anyone who helped them. It might be my last act if, as you suspect, they have half-brothers and sisters who plotted against Dominique. But it will be worth it,” said Henri.

  She smiled at him. Incredible that she could still smile. “You will have to get in line behind Dominique and Michel. You do know that Michel is our brother, don’t you?”

  Henri nodded. “Father wrote me.”

  “He has stayed with me for two months and protected me as I traveled with a troupe of musicians. He had to leave his wife and mother, but when I said I wouldn’t go to a nunnery, he came with me on the road,” said Aurore.

  “We should convince Papa to legitimize him,” said Henri, surprising himself by saying it.

  Aurore raised her eyebrows. “What happened to ‘Too many brothers and not enough land’?”

  He smiled sheepishly, realizing these were the first thoughts he had had in days that didn’t center on horses or his broken heart.

  There was a knock at the door, and Henri went to it and peeked out, only to be brushed aside by Dominique and Michel. Both were commanding and virile, even in their peasant disguises. Henri shook his head at his thoughts. Dominique was only interested in women, with a strong preference for Aurore, based on the way he was looking at her. Michel had never liked him much.

  But his next lover would be like them.

  A boy can dream.

  Chapter Five

  The next day, a little boy arrived at the inn with a note from Henri.

  L.dlBlB to process alone, not in L.’s carriage. Henri.

  Aurore puzzled over it for a minute before guessing that Henri was likely saying her friend, the king’s official mistress, Louise de la Baume le Blanc, was travelling alone from Fontainebleau to Paris. Her advanced pregnancy probably made her even more odious to the queen, who as yet had birthed only one child who had survived, and to the king because she would want to stop every hour to relieve herself. The king routinely rode with his wife and favored mistresses on long trips to avoid being locked in with courtiers who would ask him for favors. Louise had complained to Aurore before that the king wanted to ride for eight or ten hours straight and would get angry if anyone wished to stop the carriage for any reason.

  Aurore frowned, however, as she handed the note to Dominique and Michel. “She has lost influence. When the king is happy with her, he insists that she ride with him.”

  “Do you really think you can gain favor with the king by petitioning him through Mademoiselle de la Baume le Blanc?” asked Michel.

  “It might hurt our chances further,” said Dominique. “Her star has been waning for some time now. If, unlike the others, this child survives, she might regain some…”

  “What? This child?” interrupted Aurore, feeling panicked. “What about her little Philippe?”

  Dominique grimaced, his eyes full of pity, and she realized that Louise’s baby must have died as all his brothers had.

  “Oh, ma pauvre Louise.” She turned away from the men and wrapped her arms around the phantom pain in her womb, thinking of the babies she had lost, none of whom had even been born alive, and knowing that her friend’s suffering was much greater.

  She vaguely heard a thump as the door closed. They had all gone out and left her alone. As usual.

  She jumped when she felt hands on her shoulders. Was it Michel?

  “Aurore,” said Dominique.

  She turned to him, still looking down, and he pulled her close to his chest, pinning her crossed arms between them. She leaned her forehead against his shoulder, and he stroked the back of her neck. She sighed and relaxed against him.

  “Mon âme,” he said. “It has been a very long time since we last stood like this.”

  She nodded slightly. “Not since the first baby I lost, I think.”

  He pulled her closer, and she slipped her arms around his waist, easing her hands under the leather coat he wore over a rough linen shirt.

  “That long?” he asked.

  She remembered only his coldness and distance each time a baby died, and how they slept in separate rooms and lived separate lives. They hardly spoke during the day, but he would visit her bed at night—the bright spot of each day often being in total darkness. Then the gossip about his affairs and the horrible, crushing feeling of failure overwhelmed her, and she shivered.

  “That long,” she whispered, afraid that if she spoke louder, her voice would squeak.

  His hand rubbed circles on her back, and she felt him pull away slightly. His voice then came from right by her ear. “Is it my fault?”

  She didn’t move. She wanted to push away and shout that it was his fault for cheating and for his coldness. She wanted also to say that it was her fault for losing the babies. She finally shook her head slightly. “It’s no one’s fault or it’s everyone’s fault. I don’t know.”

  She felt his chin resting on her head and the strength of the muscles in his back as they both held on tighter.

  “We were children when we married,” he said softly.

  “I was almost sixteen. You were twenty,” she said.

  “I was arrogant and unsure of myself,” he said.

  “You were strong and capable, and I was so in love with you that though the betrothal contracts said we would wait until I was sixteen, I begged my father. I had been in love with you for so long,” she said.

  She felt him shake his head. “The contract was signed between our fathers when you were twelve and I was seventeen. I was in love with…ah…someone when my father told me I would marry you. I was angry and disgusted. Cédric’s little sister, practically
a sister to me, too, and just a little girl.”

  She felt as though she had been hit hard in the chest. She finally sucked in a breath and said in a raspy voice, “You’ve never told me that before.”

  His arms loosened slightly. And she felt his head twitch to the side, stretching the muscles in his neck as he always did when thinking. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  She shoved away from him, struggling out of his arms. “And now you do want to hurt me?”

  “No!” he said.

  “You think I cannot be hurt anymore?” Her voice rose in anger.

  “Of course not. I wanted to…” He took a deep breath.

  He looked away. Of course he wouldn’t tell her. She stayed very still, though she wanted more than anything to storm out. Or begin to talk about nothing, just to hide the pain.

  “I want to be honest with you. I want you to know everything about me. I have been stupid for years and years, pretending as if you were not important. But now I want to confess everything. I want you to know me. I want you to…”

  His voice cracked, and she looked sharply at him and saw tears on his cheeks.

  “I was so frightened for you. Someone shot a crossbow bolt at me but missed killing me, by the grace of God. Then I heard that the château-fort had been taken and knew you were there, so I escaped when I could ride. All I could think of was saving you. I was frantic when I found you gone from your father’s house. Cédric told me what he knew of what happened to you. I felt guilty, too. I had left you there to fend for yourself. I felt as if…” He took a deep breath but didn’t go on.

  “You left me years ago. Maybe you were never with me.” She pursed her lips to keep from shouting or sobbing.

  Dominique dropped his head. “I was fond of you. I lusted for you. I have lusted for you ever since you were fifteen and we were both at Cédric’s wedding. You wore a pretty gown. Laughing, dancing, and singing. For the first time I saw you as a woman and as my future wife instead of as a little sister.”

  “Your father hadn’t been dead very long. You were lonely.”

  “Yes. But I had been lonely for a long time. I wanted a family. I wanted you to laugh and sing for me. I…” He paused again and closed his eyes. “I wanted a lady who would always be mine. Someone who…who would never betray me, never leave me. You were magical to me. Once I had you, I would be happy forever, never be sad or lonely. It was going to be a miracle.”