Before Versailles (41 page)

She came into view, stepped hesitantly into the grotto, looking all around her, not seeing him. He reached out a hand and dragged her into the dark where he kissed her like a savage, letting his mouth travel to her ears, to the long sides of her throat. He fell on his knees, pressed his face into her stomach, groaning. Henriette ran her fingers over his face, over the mask there and then his mouth. He bit her fingers.

“I feel like a deer being chased by hounds, Louis. Your mother was cold to me the entire visit, and the English ambassador called at her insistence—”

Louis raised his head. “He didn’t—”

“He did, and the Duchess de Chevreuse’s priest invited me to confess, and when I replied I had nothing to confess, he said, pride might be foremost, and spoke to me about the wiles of the world. Only the Duchess of Chevreuse was kind to me.”

“Kind to you?”

“Oh yes. She understands and is my friend, our friend, but she counsels discretion. And now my mother is here. Louis, I can’t bear it, the lectures, the gossip! I love you, but perhaps we’re being foolish.”

He felt stunned and held tight to her hands and didn’t reply.

“Everyone is watching us now. And today, well, you made your regard so evident. Everyone saw it and is talking about it tonight, talking about me.”

Louis pulled her to kneeling in front of him, gripped her shoulders. “It’s a sin before God, but it doesn’t feel a sin in my heart. I don’t know if I can give you up!”

“Listen, my sweet majesty, my dear love, I’ve had a thought. It came to me tonight when I was out on the balcony with Guiche. We could flirt with other people, particularly you, make the court, your mother, think you admire many.”

Pride reared its head, under it hurt and confusion. “What are you saying? Is this a way to tell me you don’t care for me anymore?”

“It’s a way for us to have what we want. We’ll see each other in secret just as we’ve been doing, and we’ll remain great friends in public, but you’ll notice others. Only you have to promise me you won’t fall in love with any of them,” and then she laughed that same arch laugh she’d made in the summer pavilion, and he felt himself grow a little remote from her, which was a good thing, because he needed his wits not to grovel at her feet and beg her not to break his heart. He kissed her hard again, put his hand under the bell of her gown, felt the softness of her leg above her gartered stocking, began to move his hand farther. A part of him felt as cold as ice. He almost wanted to hurt her.

“I have to tell you something,” she said. “I’m with child.”

His hand stopped where it was. When he could speak, he said, “I congratulate you.”

“What is it? Are you jealous? It’s wonderful, don’t you see? We may—” she hesitated, then rushed on, “do as we please, and there will be no problems. And now we have another place to tryst. The Duchess of Chevreuse offers her château.” She smiled brilliantly into the dark, but Louis didn’t answer.

That old intriguer, he thought, puts her hands on our love?

“You’re angry? Oh, tell me you’re not angry! It’s for the best, don’t you see?”

Louis brought her hands to his mouth and covered them with kisses to disguise his feelings. He’d thought she’d let him finally take her tonight. He’d thought she was as anxious for their coupling as he. With child? He tried to wrap his mind around those words. And the Duchess de Chevreuse as friend? Too much was happening. It was like being swept along in a raging current. He was having trouble keeping his head above water. “Perhaps your idea is a good one.”

She hugged him. “Oh, it’s the only way, my love! I’m convinced of it!”

“You must tell me who to notice. For me, there is no one but you.” He spoke slowly. Despondency made him thick-witted.

“Madame!” Candles showed Louise, a darker shadow in the shadows of the grotto’s entrance.

Henriette kissed Louis boldly, her tongue flicking and daring. Her hands swept his thighs. “The viscount will help us,” she said. “We have the use of his château at any time. Or the duchess. Good-bye, my darling,” and then she touched him in a way she never had before, a way that left him gasping like a fish flung out of the pond.

“Where’s the Princess de Monaco?” Henriette asked Louise, as they hurried toward the pond to join the others.

“I don’t know, Madame.”

C
ATHERINE SIGHED AND
arched back into the tree while she ground herself into Nicolas. They were like two moths mating, their cloaks surrounding them like wings, their hoods covering their heads.

“Harder,” she said into the well of darkness their hoods made.

Nicolas bit her neck, his hands under the skirts of her gown, on her naked hips, holding her in delicious balance for the pleasure they were enjoying.

“My breasts,” she said, “touch them.”

He couldn’t do that; their intricate geometry would go awry and spoil everything, but the command made him feel as if he were cold steel and he would pierce her in half. The legs around his waist held him tighter, and she groaned and began to bite at his neck.

When she began to scream a little, he covered her mouth with his, and continued to move against her until she shivered and clawed him and said “oh” over and over again. A few final thrusts, and he was done himself. They dropped to the ground, still tangled, their cloaks belling around them, their hoods covering them. He put his hands to the wet all around her thighs. She held onto the edges of his jacket, as if she would drop somewhere if she let go.

“Did anyone see us?” she asked.

“Only those who passed.”

“Lovely,” she answered.

“You like the danger?”

“Don’t you?”

He laughed. “I believe I do. But then again, perhaps not. Your cousin looks as if he’d like to run someone through these days.”

“Péguilin? Don’t worry about him. You’re my secret.”

“I love secrets. I love collecting them even more. Can you make a copy of his majesty’s love notes to Madame?”

“If I wished to.”

His hand found a breast, pushed back the fabric, pinched it cruelly. “Can I make you wish to?”

She reached up and kissed him, then let her tongue lick all around his lips. Her hands were flying here and there, and the next thing he knew, she was standing, hood over her head, a specter, silent and unknown except to herself. More slowly, he stood, not bothering to arrange his clothing. No one could see under the cloak. “Some day, I’d really like to do this in a bed.”

The specter laughed. “It isn’t half as much fun.”

And then she was gone, melting into the dark of the trees of the gardens, among the other courtiers farther away, who’d given them their distance, the courtesy of court, where lovers must take their chances as they could.

I
T WAS LATE
. Cinq Mars stood before Queen Anne, wrapped in shawls like a mummy of that ancient land of Egypt. Outside opened windows, he could hear the sound of laughter and talk. The young court played in the gardens like children. The queen mother looked fatigued and haggard, the way he must look.

“I think he should be moved,” Cinq Mars repeated.

“And my answer is always the same. Where might be safe? Right now, he’s hidden in plain sight. I blame you. Don’t allow him out.”

Cinq Mars shivered. This was part of his duty, to take the criticism from her who never saw the boy. It had been the cardinal who carried a mother’s love for the child, always. Cinq Mars had confessed the escape. And he’d just told her of the unexpected visitors, but not that the boy had been seen. He didn’t know why—or he did. The ruthless cruelty of her. He didn’t want to be ordered to kill the girl. “He musn’t be cooped up like—”

“Do as I say. He isn’t to go out anymore.”

He’ll die, he wanted to shout, but he knew she really desired that. He despised her for it.

“Be gone.”

Cinq Mars bowed and went into another chamber. Her lady-in-waiting, her faithful dog, his dear love, as old and tired now as he was, and for what, whispered to him. “Have you need of anything? More coins?”

“He has need of her seeing him. Do his needs count for anything?”

Madame de Motteville pressed her lips together, held out a bag of coins like a supplicant.

“He’s growing,” Cinq Mars said. “We need to move him, sooner rather than later.”

“I’ll come and see him, soon, I promise.”

They looked at each other, their dramas, their passions, their mistakes all there. Now there were simply the embers of duty, not enough sometimes, but all there was. When did we become old? thought Cinq Mars. His love for her flickered and finally caught fire. He felt its light. He put out his hand to her cheek, and she turned her face into his palm and kissed it.

“Will you—” She didn’t finish, but her eyes told him everything. Gently, carefully, as if she would break, he pulled her into him, breathed the fragrance of her hair, graying now, like his. “I must leave before dawn.”

She took him by the hand and led him to her chamber. They undressed, held one another, no passion between them, not for a while. First, they had to become used to one another again. When they finally made love, it was without the unthinking ease of their younger days; but its slowness had a sweetness all its own.

“I’m too fat,” she said, but he kissed her mouth closed, kissed her eyelids. How tender was the touch of a beloved’s skin. How could he have forgotten this? How did he endure without?

Before dawn, he strode down the king’s road, staying under the shadow of the row of trees that outlined one side. He had a horse tied to a tree far down past the landscape canal. To his right, across the road, a stray gondola or two floated aimlessly. He’d had a maid of honor more than once, in that other court, under that other king, the father of this one. He’d thought the queen the most beautiful woman in the world, fiery and Spanish and dark-eyed. Then he’d met Motteville, and she’d taken the whole of his heart. If it had been to seduce him into their scheme, she had been seduced, too, their love ebbing and flowing with their meetings. With what joy he had looked forward to their trysts, joy a fainter glow now but enough there to warm a man’s heart. His chest felt warm. He had run his hands over her plump flesh this night and worshipped her as best he could. His beloved. What a web deceit made, its strands strangling the innocent and the guilty alike.

Chapter 21

ROM A SECOND-FLOOR COLONNADE
, O
LYMPE WATCHED
Madame hurry across paving stones toward the huge, arched opening that would lead her to another part of the palace. Gone to call on her mother. Rumors were flying about why the queen of England had come to Fontainebleau, rumors that made Olympe wild with jealously and malice. The court had stayed out until nearly dawn, but not the queen’s ladies, never the queen’s ladies. Back in the long, ornately decorated gallery that was the queen’s, she stalked like a tiger toward Maria Teresa, who sat quietly embroidering with her ladies; lawn gowns for the dauphin must have their embroidery by the highest ladies in the land.