The Indispensable Wife Page 9

  “Aïe, Aurore!” He yanked his arm away and laughed.

  She grabbed his arm. He tried to pull it away again, but she rubbed at the spot she had pinched.

  He pulled the arm away again but this time put it around her shoulders. The day was getting hot, so the heat from his side was almost too much. She blinked in surprise. She could accept a touch from a brother. She could even accept Dom touching her when she was awake, but she still woke weeping several times a night, with helplessness weighing her down. The past few days sleeping next to Dom had been terrifying—she awoke hitting and struggling several times each night—but also exhilarating.

  They rode along companionably. “Can you think of anyone else who would shoot a bolt at Dominique?”

  Henri shook his head. “I tried to find out who had been seen with a crossbow right after it happened, when it was still unclear if Dominique had been badly hurt. It was only a day later when the news came that those bastards had taken your château-fort that we had a direction to look in. There was an unknown man with an arbalète that afternoon near the main stables, some of the guards were shooting targets that day, and a small group of nobles were hunting five miles away, two of them with crossbows. And, of course, a group of nobles was having a longbow competition, including de Bures. Someone could have slipped away for a moment.”

  She leaned away to look at him. He had the faraway look he had always had when working on a problem in his head. He took his arm away, pulled out a piece of paper, scanned it, and turned it over to make some notes on the back, muttering.

  Aurore closed her eyes and shuddered in pain. “Saint-Ange told me that Dom would soon be dead.” What would she have done if he had not survived? She didn’t know if she would have had the strength to burn off her brand or get up from her bed.

  Henri nodded. “Right from the start, we all assumed the attacks were related.”

  He drew a little map of the Versailles hunting lodge where the incident had occurred, explaining where Dominique had been standing, the direction the bolt had been shot from, and the assumed positions of everyone known to have been carrying a crossbow. He finished by saying that most of the witnesses were probably either wrong or lying.

  She shook her head. “But still no suspect.”

  He looked at the paper for a long time and sighed. “Inconclusive. We know it was probably some of their bastard half-brothers. We just cannot find who shot the bolt so we can interrogate him.”

  “Or her,” she joked.

  Henri looked at her and then back at his paper. “Mon Dieu. Or her. You are a decent shot with the crossbow, aren’t you?”

  “I can’t crank it back quickly, and it gets too heavy for me, but I’ve been practicing since I became comtesse and they couldn’t tell me ‘No’ any longer,” she said with pride. Aurore shrugged and confessed. “But I cannot really hit the targets.”

  Henri smirked.

  She frowned, thinking that the only reason she had been able to practice was because Dom had been absent so much at court while she stayed home due to pregnancy, though the precautions that meant she couldn’t travel only added to her misery when, each time, the baby died inside her.

  She sighed. “But were any of their sisters at court? Or a mistress or wife, hoping to gain a title? There are ladies who are much better shots than I.”

  Henri scribbled more notes, then flung down his pencil, which bounced to the floor. “It doubles the possibilities. A woman dressed as a stable lad could disappear without a trace once she changed her clothes. A woman could slip away from the competition just as easily as a man who wasn’t participating.”

  Aurore frowned. “I don’t think we are going to find the person responsible that way. We are going to have to find the viper at the center of the nest.”

  Henri stared at her with an odd smile.

  “Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?” She pouted. “Am I funny to you?”

  He smirked for a moment longer. “You are right. You might act silly at times, but you are so often right that it is possibly not coincidence.”

  She turned away and sighed dramatically. “Stupid big brothers. I don’t know how I survived three of them.”

  Henri laughed out loud at that one. “Because you love us, of course.”

  She chuckled. “Because you love me.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close again. “Of course.”

  Chapter Six

  When Dominique handed Aurore up into Henri’s carriage, he had to restrain himself from leaping in with her. How could he know she would be safe? First Michel and now Henri, taking her away from him. Was he really worried about her, or was he jealous? Could he stop her from being injured or kidnapped or killed any better than the others could? As painful as it had been to lie chastely next to Aurore every night since he had found her, and to defend himself from her panicked attacks when she was half asleep, at least he had been next to her, holding her hand. That she shouted his name for help only made him feel guiltier now. Sometimes she woke and curled away from him to cry. She would allow him to hold her, but if she fell asleep with his arms around her, her screams would start again within minutes.

  But with her somewhere on the road with her brother, Dom would once again be too far away to be of any use if anything happened to her. She was the only thing he had left of his life. If something happened to her again, her father and brothers would never forgive him. He wouldn’t deserve their friendship or his lands if he couldn’t even take care of his wife. He should have gone along to see the king’s mistress, even though that lady didn’t like him any more than he liked her.

  He went to Henri’s rooms to ask Paul-Bénédicte if he would stand by him when they retook the château-fort. Henri’s valet scowled as he let Dom in, then asked his permission to complete his packing.

  “I am sorry, Monsieur le Comte,” Paul-Bénédicte said, not sounding sorry at all, “but I am no longer your brother’s valet. I am to be married.”

  “Ah?” Dom stepped back in surprise. He had thought the two were lovers. No one in the de Cantière family ever talked about it, but the baron had long ago stopped looking for a bride for his third son. Dom could think of no way to couch the question without embarrassing both of them. “Congratulations.”

  Paul-Bénédicte bowed his head jerkily in thanks for the good wishes. “Henri—Monsieur de Cantière—doesn’t seem to care, except for the inconvenience. He told me to be gone by the time he came back. I will seek a post with the king’s royal guards, or maybe join the army. I am very well trained”—he bowed again to Dom—“and would be an asset.”

  Dominique nodded. “You would be, especially if you have kept up your training. If you would like, I will write you a letter of recommendation to Jean-Louis, Henri’s brother. He is, after all, a captain in the army.”

  Paul-Bénédicte agreed, so Dominique wrote him a few lines on paper from Henri’s desk and sealed it.

  “But I don’t think I shall join the army.” Paul-Bénédicte shoved the letter carelessly into one of his bags. “I would not like to take my wife to live in a camp, and I would like even less to leave her behind.”

  Dominique did not think that a letter from him would influence the king favorably at the moment and told Paul-Bénédicte so. “But I need to recruit some strong men, men like you who have a stake in the matter, to help recapture my château once I have the king’s permission to act. When I can access my accounts, I will pay…”

  Paul-Bénédicte’s chest swelled with indignation, his cheeks turning red. “I will fight for nothing, seeing how much my family and I owe yours. I would be freeing my own parents, after all.”

  Dom promised him not rewards but as much help as he could give in choosing a new career, which almost mollified him. They parted on good terms, Paul-Bénédicte climbing into a donkey cart and setting off to collect his bride.

  Dom wondered what sort of bride the man had chosen.

  ****

  When Dominique return
ed to the small, dusty inn, he found Cédric awaiting him in the private dining room.

  “Where is my sister?” demanded Cédric before Dominique had even had a chance to greet him. “I found Le Petit and his wife here, but they’ve been evasive.”

  “Henri has taken her for an audience with Mademoiselle de la Baume le Blanc, which might lead to an audience with the king. And I am well, thank you.”

  Cédric kissed both of Dominique’s cheeks with great fervor. “And it is very good to see you, too, in these troubled times. But you can take care of yourself, little boy. I thank le bon Dieu and all the saints that you have found my sister. Aurore is in good health? Michel and Le Petit have taken good care of her?”

  “They have taken care of her. Better than I have done.” Dominique clenched his teeth to hold back the guilt. He hadn’t rescued her.

  Cédric just waved that morose remark away. “Of course not. They have only given in to her whims, I am sure, where you would have brought her home and retaken your château by now instead of wandering around the countryside looking for her.”

  Cédric was wrong; Aurore had needed time to heal. She had needed those two months to begin to miss him instead of being frightened of him. Not that she was recovered completely. She was still angry. Somehow he knew that she was angry, though all he saw was fear.

  Maybe, if he had insisted, he, Cédric, and the baron could have petitioned the king and retaken the château before going to find Aurore. It would have made more sense, but he had gone along with the baron and Cédric on their plan and let them do the talking while he searched. And as he searched, his need for his wife had grown every day. Each night without her had felt like a failure.

  To his brother-in-law and oldest friend, though, he said, “I only hope that the delay will not make me look guiltier in the eyes of the king.”

  “As to that…” Cédric patted the front of his coat, then pulled out a small bundle of letters. “I have been working ceaselessly in your interests. Well, except when doing any one of a hundred other things, of course.”

  Dom chuckled as he knew Cédric wanted him to.

  “Father has too, of course. Maman seems to have kept quiet, which is the best any of us could hope for. At first, she was telling everyone that you should seek an annulment, and if you didn’t, maybe Aurore should.”

  “Yes, that’s what she said. You wrote that the baron argued with her in front of half the court,” he said.

  “It was ugly. I don’t think she realized she was helping your cause by slandering you. Terrible manners, but our friends at court think you and Aurore are standing by each other. You are, aren’t you?”

  “Of course. Aurore is my wife in my eyes and in the eyes of God,” said Dominique, rather firmly and a bit too loudly.

  Cédric stared at him for a few seconds and then smiled slightly. Always smiling. Dom wished he had the skill to smile and ease peoples’ moods like Cédric and Aurore had. “I have called in favors from friends and allies of all sorts. We have asked for favors from several people to whom we now owe something—or you do. Hardly anyone thinks you could be involved in any sort of sedition, though there are a few of your father’s old friends, some closet Frondiste rebels, who hinted they would like to curtail the king’s power, but we rather quickly told them we were not interested in that sort of help.”

  Dominique took the bundle of letters from Cédric and untied the black ribbon holding them. Cédric went out to find the innkeeper, leaving him in peace to scan them.

  When Cédric came back a few minutes later, Dom had arrived at the last letter, the one from Aurore’s brother, Jean-Louis, who was still in the east, on leave from the army, recovering from a broken leg. He announced that he would take more leave and come to Paris to await orders.

  Cédric smiled wryly when Dom looked up.

  “I suppose you or one of these gentlemen could have got me in to see the king,” said Dominique. “I am worried about Aurore, but it sounds as though others have already been bending le bon roi’s ear.”

  “It won’t look very bold or even chivalric of you to have her speak for you, though it will confirm that she and our family stand behind you,” said Cédric. “And we might have been able to get you to the king, but some of his advisers have been remarkably difficult about giving our petitions to His Highness. I’m not even sure that anyone we have in our camp has been able to bend the king’s ear.”

  “Do you think it was a tactical error, then?” asked Dom. “Sending Aurore to de la Baume le Blanc?”

  Cédric shrugged. “It is hard to say. I don’t think so. She has always been a friend to the king’s mistress, and it is about time the lady paid her back for her loyalty. The king himself has appreciated Aurore’s intervention with his mistress, helping cheer her up. De la Baume le Blanc won’t see it that way, though. She has gone from a cow-eyed little beauty to a cow-eyed little businesswoman.”

  Dom nodded. “She doesn’t give favors so much as sell them.”

  “She won’t come out of her affair with the king with any chance at marriage. She is saving up in case the king doesn’t grant her any more lands or titles. She also has not yet given him a child who survived.”

  Dom winced. He and Aurore had no surviving children. He had no heir except for an elderly distant cousin. The king might, indeed, decide to settle the lands on some noble who had done him favors if Dom couldn’t prove that he wasn’t involved in treason and that the usurpers had taken his château illegally. The treason allegations were so outlandish that it was like fighting smoke. He preferred a true battle, face to face.

  Cédric winced at his expression. He, after all, had four boys already. “Sorry. But she is losing favor. She’s probably desperate.”

  Dom nodded, wondering if Aurore was desperate, too. “I am restless; de la Baume le Blanc has always been a little jealous of Aurore. Without ready gold or lands, she might not be swayed by mere friendship.”

  Dom and Cédric sat and considered that prospect gloomily.

  “Well, it won’t hurt to try. Aurore is affecting and persuasive,” said Cédric.

  Dom nodded. She was much better at persuasion than he. He always told the truth, even if no one else wanted to hear it. “The soonest we can expect her back will be tomorrow evening. Maybe you could go to court tomorrow? The king should be at Vincennes by the middle of the afternoon.”

  Cédric looked at him, sizing him up. “You’ve lost a little breadth through your shoulders on the left side. I could loan you some proper clothing, but it will be large on you. My valet will see that it fits well enough.”

  Dom smirked at him. “I’ve lost a little through the shoulders, which means only that I am as thin and weak as you.”

  ****

  Henri verified that the enormous stables on the outskirts of Paris were ready for the last change of horses for the king. Aurore stayed in the carriage with the curtains nearly drawn. The coachman had already asked Henri some pointed questions and was sure to carry the vague answers back to the Finance Ministry. Aurore told her brother that it might help scotch the rumors about his vice italien. His mouth hung open for a moment and he shook his head, but he didn’t argue.

  They had another two hours to go before the next inn, where she would try to join Louise de la Baume le Blanc’s entourage that night. Henri spent most of the time flipping through a pile of papers and then putting that pile away and taking another one out.

  Aurore had linen handkerchiefs and embroidery thread that she had sent Marie-France out to buy. Setting stitches in a handkerchief as the carriage bounced and dropped without warning every few seconds was a challenge. She found Henri looking at her work. His distracted expression changed to a little smile. “Why do you not read or write?”

  She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “I can do both. I’m not illiterate, you know.”

  His smile went crooked and teasing. “I didn’t say that. Just why do you not improve your mind instead of stitching little flowers on things?”
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  “The motion of the carriage makes me feel ill if I look down trying to focus on the print in a book. My handwriting is illegible if I try to write when moving. The flowers are pretty and it gives me time to think.” She tied a knot in some purple thread and snipped it off, perhaps more aggressively than necessary.

  “I should have loaned you my books when we were younger. You’ve wasted your mind on flowers and clothing and…”

  “Wasted?” The anger stirred in her gut. “I have run Dominique’s households, two of them, three if we count the entourage at court, for five years. I should count that entourage, because it is the hardest to manage, with rooms and stabling and being sure that everyone acts with perfect propriety and Mathilde makes friends with the very best ladies and so on, especially since she married Michel, who many said was beneath her. I manage budgets and clothing and supervise rents and crops when Dominique is absent. I have overseen meals and gardens, hired new maids, fired incompetent footmen, and been sought out for approval of planting and guards. When I am pregnant, I do most of this from a chaise longue, unable to exert myself. If I choose to relax my mind with something beautiful instead of reading Descartes, then I hope you can understand that.”

  Henri looked dismayed.

  “Maybe some ladies spend their day lying around looking lovely, but I do not,” she said softly as she jabbed her needle vindictively into the fabric.

  Henri nodded. “I am sorry.”

  “You would say that Cédric and Dominique work hard managing their estates and negotiating their way through court politics.” She knew she was being querulous but couldn’t help defending herself. This was Henri, who had always picked fights with her.

  “I guess I don’t see ladies and their politics.” He shrugged.

  “Will you come with me when I meet Louise? You will see, I hope, a display of politics.”

  “I thought it was to be a display of friendship.” He smirked.

  “Louise and I are friends in the broadest sense of the term. I have never asked her for favors, in spite of her influence with the king. I wanted to keep the friendship pure. I don’t have many friends, you know,” she said. “Not good ones.”