Fires of Delight (28 page)

Then, turning onto the Rue de la Cardinal Le Moine, Selena received another unexpected—and very different—jolt. An officious policeman, shouting and waving his arms, stepped directly in the path of Hugo’s new horse, causing it to rear and whinny in fright.

In a minute, after the initial tumult, Selena realized that the officer was holding them up to allow passage on the main thoroughfare of a glittering, high-wheeled coach drawn by six sleek Arabian geldings. This was a coach of imperial class, and she at first thought a member of the French royal family might be riding in it. Then she saw the immediately identifiable red-coated uniform worn by the driver, and similar attire on the four armed men serving as escorts to the coach. British.

The carriage passed directly in front of Hugo’s nickering horse, affording Selena a perfect, if fleeting, view of its occupants. One of them was a youthful, lordly looking man with gentle, intelligent features. His face was turned toward her, but he did not look her way because he was laughing and conversing with the second occupant of the majestic coach. A young girl just on the verge of womanhood, her long, blond, shining hair held in place by silver barrettes.

Lord Sean Bloodwell, diplomat, Selena’s former husband. And Davina, almost grown now, Selena’s adopted daughter.

A whirling admixture of profound emotions came down upon Selena then, to see so close to her two who had shared a part of her life. What had Sean told the girl about Selena? What was the girl’s life like now? Did she remember her mother at all? And if so, what memories did she hold?

It was all Selena could do to keep from calling out, but then the carriage was gone down the broad avenue, perhaps to a state breakfast or some grand reception.

God bless you both
, she thought.

The policeman stepped aside and, with an arrogant gesture, permitted Hugo to proceed.

“The situation here cannot be as bad as Longchamps claims,” Martha Marguerite decided hopefully, “if foreign dignitaries can ride about.”

Selena did not mention the armed escort.

The sign outside the dressmaker’s salon read:

MOLINE

Couturiers to the Royalty

Selena accompanied Martha into the building, which had an impressive facade of Italian marble and, inside, an equally striking, high-ceilinged foyer. Marc Moline’s clientele could wait for their fittings on couches of plush velvet, watching the sparkle of three small but exquisite chandeliers, or partaking of wine, coffee, and sweets proffered constantly by a squad of cool, tight-lipped stewards. Sketches of the latest Moline creations, bound together in book form, were available for perusal while one waited. And after Martha Marguerite had given her name to a steward, Selena pored through one such book, looking for a wedding gown. She had not found one—although she noted several garments designed to leave one breast exposed—when, together, a man and a woman rushed out from the inner rooms of the salon as if in a competition to embrace Martha first.

The woman won.

Zoé Moline had a lush, big-hipped, big-breasted body. She moved decisively like a man. With her strong jawline and bold, commanding eyes, it was clear that she did not normally expend a great deal of time on trivialities.

“Martha, you’ve come home!” she cried in a deep, throaty voice. “Oh, let me have a look at you!”

Zoé stepped back a pace to take this look, and Marc Moline
found his opportunity to embrace Martha as well.
“Dar
ling, dar
ling,”
he said.

Monsieur Moline was quite thin, handsome in a pale sort of way, vaguely dashing in silk cravat and satin cape. In England, he would have been called a fop. He placed an unexpected stress on certain syllables when he spoke and only shrewd, mercenary eyes belied the pleasantly irresolute, comfort-loving man he otherwise seemed to be.

“Mar
tha!
You are
here
. I
hope
you have come for a complete wardrobe. Let us go
back
into my working chambers and I will show you
designs
that will make you
swoon.”

This
was the sort of reception that Martha Marguerite had been waiting for, which flattered her presumed status even as it salved her vanity. In her ecstasy, she almost forgot to introduce Selena, but did so as the four of them entered Moline’s designing and fitting parlors.

Zoé, who had first assumed that Selena was perhaps a companion or even a maidservant, now made a closer inspection. It was very thorough and not at all discreet.

“With the right clothes,” she said, “I think you might turn more than a few heads at court, young lady. Are you married?”

“No, but I—”

“Oh,
very
good.” She turned to Martha. “You
are
going to pay your respects at Versailles?”

“Of course.”

Martha studied Selena some more, as if a plan were forming in her mind. “Hmm,” she mused, but that was all at the time.

Marc proceeded to show Martha and Selena sketches of his most recent work, which Selena had to admit was exquisite.

“I’ll take two of each,” said Martha. “No, three. You choose the colors, monsieur. I trust your taste implicitly. And do the same for my friend, Selena. She needs a trousseau.”

“Oh, is that right?” asked Zoé. “Who is the man?”

“Jean Beaumain.”

“I’m afraid I…that I do not know of him.”

“He’s a fine man. For Selena,” said Martha, somewhat apologetically.

“A
comte?”
asked Zoé.

“No,” replied Selena.

“A
vicomte
then?”

“No, he’s—” Selena did not care for this kind of ranking with its air of privilege and class. She was just about to say, “Jean Beaumain is an outlaw and a privateer,” but Martha, thinking of her own reputation more than of Selena’s comfiture, stepped into the breech.

“Monsieur Beaumain is a tremendously wealthy entrepreneur, don’t you know?”

Zoé didn’t know, but she accepted wealth as a sufficient criterion for a prospective bridegroom. Things might have been worse. Nevertheless, as Marc brought out his tape and began to measure Martha and Selena, Zoé persisted in her questioning, as if a plan she seemed to have involved Selena quite directly.

“Your French is raw; I know that,” Zoé said bluntly. “There is an accent behind it. What?”

“Scots,” answered Selena. Monsieur Marc was lingering over her bust measurement. He winked at her conspiratorially.

“Indeed,” nodded Zoé. “Scots indeed. I have met several of your countrymen at court over the years. In fact—I’m not certain of this; it is only a rumor—Marie Antoinette has recently taken a Scot or an Irish or a Brit—beg pardon, Selena, but they’re all the same to me—as her newest lover.”

“Oh, please!” implored Martha, standing there in her corset and awaiting Monsieur Marc’s sure fingers, “Please tell me the news at court. I have been dying to know. The rest of the country is in a shambles, but how fine the court must be still!”

By news, of course, Martha meant gossip. Zoé was full of it, and Selena did not denounce herself too harshly for the attention with which she listened.

“Well, of course you’ll recall,” Madame Moline began, “that the King, upon his marriage to the Austrian woman, proved quite incapable of being a man to her. Thus, in the early years of their marriage, she took her pleasures with others.”

“Some of the men at court are
very
depraved,” commented Marc happily.

“Naturally,” Zoé continued, “the news got out among the public. Marie Antoinette was disliked anyway, being a foreigner, and the financial excesses at Versailles, combined with her illicit loves, left her with an unsavory reputation she has not been able to shake until this day!

“Surgeons, however, were able to correct His Majesty’s…
ah…inability. They had a son, Louis, born in…what was it?”

“Seventeen eighty-one,” said Marc, still ignoring Martha but doing a very careful job on his measurement of Selena’s waist and hips. “But he died last year.”

“There is a second son and a daughter, though,” said Zoé. “The children seem to have calmed the Queen somewhat, but naturally it is
de rigeur
to have at least a few lovers.”

Here she gave Selena a searching look again, and this time, given her previous conversation, its meaning was more obvious. Zoé saw a certain advantage for herself in Selena’s beauty, and it had something to do with life at court.

“…at least a few lovers,” Zoé laughed, “so affairs proceed apace. Martha, do you recall the Comtesse de la Motte?”

“Jeanne? Why of course I do. She is the Queen’s best friend.”

“She was. There has been a terrible scandal. More than anything else, it has fired the people with fury over excesses at Versailles. You see, there exists a fabulous diamond necklace, worth one million, six hundred thousand livres. The
comtesse
wanted it for herself, but she did not have the money. She knew, though, that a certain Cardinal Rohan was out of favor at court and wished to be readmitted to the royal circle. She approached him, telling him that Marie Antoinette wanted the necklace for herself, and that if only he, Rohan, procured it for her, he would once again be accepted.

“Now the cardinal did not have that kind of money, but he was desperate—to be out of favor is almost to be dead—so he approached the jewelers with a promise to buy. He never actually took possession of the necklace, but he reneged on the first payment, which angered the jeweler, who went with his complaint to the Queen, who of course didn’t know anything about it.”

Zoé was laughing now; she thought it all very funny.

“What happened?” asked Selena.

Zoé was choking with glee so Marc, who had finally begun to measure Martha, finished the tale.

“The cardinal,” he said, “was disgraced and sent to a monastery to live out the rest of his days. Comtesse de la Motte was sentenced to flogging, branding, and life imprisonment, but she managed to escape to England, where she has published memoirs very unflattering to the Queen. Marie Antoinette herself, although
innocent in this particular affair, has succeeded in further discrediting the monarchy, thus throwing more faggots on the revolutionary fires.”

“What do you think will happen in France now?” Selena asked.

“Nothing.” Marc shrugged. Finished with Martha, he draped the tape around his thin neck. “Things will go on as always.”

Martha cast Selena a look that said, I
told you so!

But Selena knew these three—Marc and Zoé and Martha—were whistling in the wind. She knew what it was like to want and not to have, to feel the fury of desperation and gut-hungry need, to be scorned and hunted by those who presumed to be the aristocrats of earth.

She knew that things would not “go on as always” because she had seen the eyes of Pierre Sorbante.

After a long morning’s work, the Molines provided their customers with a fine, gay lunch of champagne and lobster salad. They were all friends. Money was not mentioned once.

“Our seamstresses will begin work immediately,” Zoé declared expansively. “You two will be the new Queens at court. And,” she added, glancing at Selena, “perhaps the King may look favorably upon a new delight.”

“He has always been pleased with your choices before,” said Marc proudly.

This woman procures for the King!
Selena realized.

Martha looked mightily pleased, as if a child of hers had just been admitted to study at the Sorbonne.

Selena said nothing. She did not intend to whore for anyone, King or no, but she had an embryonic scheme of her own. Zoé had mentioned a Scot at court. It was chancy and tenuous of course, but perhaps—just perhaps—he might give her news of events in her homeland.

He might be a first step in her dream of reacquiring Coldstream Castle.

“By the way, Selena,” oozed Monsieur Marc, as he helped her up into Hugo’s buggy, “that little cross is a canny piece of work.”

Selena thought that he meant the craftsmanship and thanked him for the compliment.

“No, you mistake my meaning,” he protested. “I refer to the words thereon.
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
. That is the revolutionary
motto. It may well be that your little cross will serve as protection.

“And,” he added in a whisper, “watch out for our friend, Martha Marguerite. She is dangerously overadorned. The people are starving and mad. One of her rings alone would feed a family for a year. So just you be careful, eh?”

“You may now convey us homeward,” decreed Martha Marguerite, settling into the buggyseat. Hugo and Sebastian glanced at her with narrowed eyes—they did not like her tone—but shrugged and did as they were told. Selena, after all, was paying them good money.

As the coach moved through the city, Martha chattered away happily, exclaiming again and again over the fine clothes she had just selected. She also, now and then, made disparaging references to Vergil Longchamps, but the visit to the Molines had quite effectively restored her sense of personage, and she was oblivious to the streets through which the buggy passed, and to the people in those streets.

Selena was not. With each minute there were more people about, as if a crowd were forming and moving toward the center of some forthcoming human storm. Selena herself sensed too late that the street down which they drove had become an angry maelstrom.

“I think we’re in trouble,” said Hugo, over his shoulder as, turning a corner, he found their way blocked. They were in the Rue St. Stephen, a narrow old avenue of stores and little shops. Normally, it would have been crowded with people seeking whatever goods were available—and not many goods were in these hard times—but today it was jammed. For a split second, half-standing in the coach, Selena thought provisions had finally reached the city, and that citizens were here to buy, but then when she heard the crash and tinkle of breaking glass, the real meaning of this mob became apparent. A riot had begun and hundreds of Parisians, out of control, were crashing into shops to loot and plunder. Such fury, once unleashed, is well-nigh unstoppable; it does not wane until excess spends itself, the level of
violence mounting higher and higher until the very emotions which fuel the outbreak are exhausted.