Before Versailles (57 page)

“I’ve missed you so.” Henriette grabbed his hands. “It’s wrong of me, but I hate that which takes you away, your kingdom, your duties. There, I’ve said it. Punish me with twenty kisses.”

“I’m wrong to love you.”

Frozen, Henriette didn’t reply.

He rushed on. “It’s weighing on my conscience and oppressing me. You are my sister in the eyes of the church. My confessor tells me so, all the holy men I consult. You are my brother’s wife, and I must love you as a sister.”

“You don’t love me anymore?”

Louis took her hands and kissed them front and back. “I am in agony over this, over the hurt I’ve brought. I wouldn’t blame you if you never forgave me, but I do beg forgiveness most humbly. I am king of France, and so I must set an example to my people, to my court. There is no one like you. You’re the brightest ornament here. I adore you. I always will, but I may love you only as a sister. Forgive me!”

And somehow he opened the carriage door and bounded out of it, was atop his horse and had galloped away before she could speak. Catherine and Henriette listened to the fading sound of his horse’s hooves on the gravel.

“The queen mother,” Catherine said. “This is her work.”

Henriette crumpled into a little heap, and Catherine moved across the space between them so that Henriette’s head could lie in her lap.

“He still loves you,” she said, stroking curls. “How could he not? It’s his conscience. Let him lie with his worthiness for a while. It’s a lonely bed. He’ll be back.”

This hurts, thought Henriette. This hurts so much.

L
OUIS TOSSED THE
reins of his horse to a servant and walked through the dark gardens until he had reached the grotto.

“Leave me,” he told his musketeer. He went into the grotto, and finding a corner, he sat down on the floor and leaned his head against the cool tile and stone walls. The only sounds were of the trickling water nearby, of the wind sighing in the trees. He closed his eyes, and guilt came with its hammer and tongs. He let it say every ugly word. He was a boor, a flirt, an unfaithful, lying, sneaking bastard, that last, perhaps, in more ways than one. She was lovely and kind and dear, and he did love her, just not the way he’d thought, and he’d really hurt her in not knowing sooner. His confessor said that God had transmuted lust into purity, that now he loved in the way a brother should, that he had been tempted and tested, and that he had triumphed, but he hadn’t asked for his love to change. It simply had.

And he’d hurt his brother, been happy to do so. God, he thought, when some of the pummeling had slowed, and he could wearily crack open his eyes. He stared out into the dark. How did one live life without hurting others? That’s what the saints, the church, preached over and over again. How did one do it?

He left the grotto, stole into his palace like a thief, and walked down silent hallways. In the chamber of books, he stood motionless, his thoughts stalking ahead of him to the viscount. He sold one of his offices to give you the million. He is no longer attorney general of the Paris Parlement, so Colbert had whispered at some point during this long night. In the web and tangle that was precedent and right, it meant trying Nicolas in court would be easier. Now the viscount no longer had the right to be tried by his peers, members of a
parlement
that had rebelled into open warfare only a few years ago. Was the viscount so arrogant that he threw away his best safeguards? Was he so certain of his place, his weapons on his island? Was one of the cards in his deck the knowledge that Louis might not be the son of a king? The confidence selling the office showed made Louis shudder. He went to his cabinet, pulled down its heavy square, found the
lettres de cachet
against Madame de Motteville and her daughter, brought them to a candle and lit each, holding the paper carefully until it had charred enough to burn his fingers. He wouldn’t arrest Madame de Motteville or her daughter. It had been a hollow threat. Did that make him a hollow king?

The boy was out of sight, but not out of mind. He knew who the boy’s father had been, but who was his own? And when would D’Artagnan return?

Chapter 28

HE
M
ARSHALL DE
G
RAMONT IS HERE,” ONE OF HIS SECRETARIES
told Louis.

Louis took a deep breath. He wasn’t looking forward to this interview. “Send him in.”

He stood out of respect for the man entering this chamber, a marshall of France, one of the kingdom’s officers of the crown, serving at the king’s discretion. Sons did not inherit this honor. It was singular and usually lifelong. The marshall, lean and commanding, bowed. His loyalty to the crown had never wavered. He’d commanded armies and given funds. He was an intrepid warrior.

“Thank you for coming so promptly. I’m afraid that today I give with one hand and take with the other, sir.” Louis handed the marshall a letter closed with heavy wax seals. “I have an important favor to ask of your son-in-law and his father, the Prince de Monaco, a favor no one, not even you, must know of.”

“I will send my son with this at once.”

Louis cleared his throat. “That is not possible. I must deliver news unworthy of the love and respect I bear your family. Your son has insulted Monsieur.”

The marshall’s head jerked back a moment, and Louis watched him summon his resources to hear what Louis would say. This was a man of enormous pride and honor. It was one of the reasons Louis trusted him, his fidelity to conducting his life in an honorable way. He handed the man a paper describing Guy’s conduct and waited as the older man read the words there.

The marshall refolded the rectangle of paper when he’d finished reading. There was only the sound the paper made as its stiff edges met one another, then he said, “I am desolate that a member of my family should behave so.”

“As am I.”

“An apology will be forthcoming, your majesty.”

“I am not owed an apology. My brother, a child of France, is.”

The marshall held both letters out to Louis, who took only the one describing Guy’s conduct.

“I will resign from my office this afternoon—” the marshall began.

“Never,” said Louis. “I depend on you. I always will. For your son—perhaps an absence from court for a time?”

The marshall looked down at the sealed letter in his hand, the red of the wax dried out solidly where the heavy metal of the seal had pushed melted wax upward. “Since you allow me the honor of continuing to serve you, I would deliver this to the Prince de Monaco myself.”

“That would please me. It is of vital importance to me.”

The Marshall de Gramont bowed himself from the chamber, his face stiff, his eyes lowered.

“F
ATHER
!”

Guy stood up and at once bowed, and Catherine dropped into a deep curtsy.

The marshall stepped forward and slapped Guy across the face as Catherine gasped.

“You were unspeakably disrespectful to Monsieur!”

His father’s hand a red imprint on his face, Guy replied, “It is impossible to disrespect Monsieur, sir. There is nothing to respect.”

“He is a child of France, and you are to accord him the courtesy that goes with that position, which will begin with an immediate apology to him. It is not a request.”

Guy looked around the park in which he and his sister stood, a desperate expression crossing his face as bonds of duty tightened themselves. He was his own man in all ways but this. “I will apologize, to please you.”

“Your reasons for doing what is honorable impress me not at all. You are to leave Fontainebleau and go to Paris and remain there until I say otherwise. Today.”

Catherine and Guy stared at their father with dismay. It was as if he had banished Guy to a remote island where there was no food and water or people. They revered their father as the head of their family, and both were slightly afraid of him, yet both loved him as they did no one else in the world.

“What your mother and I have heard even in Paris about your conduct toward the maids of honor is scandalous. You dishonor them, also. I send you away for your own sake,” the marshall said. “In spite of the fact I see nothing of myself in you, you are my son, and I won’t have you ruined.” He regarded this child of his, passionate, handsome, proud, whom life had graced with all things.

Guy held out his hand. “Father—”

The marshall turned, didn’t look back as he walked away. His authority was such that Guy would obey. He knew it, and Guy knew it, but Catherine ran after her father.

“Father, please,” she begged. “Wait, listen to me—”

The marshall didn’t pause, so she was forced to trot beside him. Without looking at her, he said, “In my pocket is a letter from his majesty to your father-in-law and to your husband. I can only trust that your conduct is not described, Catherine. There would be nothing you’ve done that would make his majesty ask for your removal from court, is there?”

Catherine stopped where she was, pressed her hands to her mouth, didn’t answer.

The marshall saw her involuntary gestures. “I am singularly blessed in my children. I have risked my honor to tell you this, to prepare you if you need to make amends with your husband.” He put out his hand, as if he would touch her face, but he stopped himself. “Ah, Catherine,” he said, “you were always my heart, a wild and foolish heart. I pray you haven’t made too much inconvenience for yourself.”

She knelt before him, and he gave her his hand, and she kissed its knuckles before he resumed his march toward the palace.

His majesty had written a letter to the Prince de Monaco, thought Catherine, her mind flying in every direction to remember if her conduct had been that indiscreet. Would her husband recall her? She’d die if he did, absolutely die.