Hearts Beguiled (19 page)

❧

They were married.

They took the stagecoach to a small village in the province of Lorraine, where a priest could be found who was removed enough from the Nevers's power not to be afraid of it. He married them in the church before God and before the law. And what God has joined, he said, let no man put asunder.

Until that moment Gabrielle had never believed it would really happen. She didn't think Martin had the strength of will to stand up to his father. When she saw that he had, when he placed his mother's sapphire ring on her finger as proof of it, she thought this must make her love him all the more.

That night, in a posting house, they made love for the first time.

Gabrielle sat fully clothed on the bed. Her hands were clenched into fists on her lap and she twisted the sapphire ring around and around her finger. Martin shut the door to their room and came to stand before her.

"Gabrielle . . . what is wrong? Are you sorry now—"

She laughed shakily, thrusting herself to her feet. "Dieu, what do you think? I'm nervous. I've never done this before." She looked up and saw her own fears reflected in his face.

Bright splashes of color appeared on his thin, pale cheeks. "I haven't done it before, either."

"You haven't?" She was surprised. He was eighteen, after all. That wasn't so young. For a man.

"I was going to before tonight," he said. "With a whore. So that I wouldn't make a complete fool of myself. But then it seemed, I don't know . . ." He shrugged. "Pointless. I don't want to make love to anyone but you."

"Well . . ." She stroked his cheek, forcing a smile. "We'll figure it out together. It surely can't be that complicated."

She turned around and lifted her hair off her back, bending her head. For a long moment he did nothing, and Gabrielle's false bravado began to crack. Deep inside herself she was worried she would be a failure at this, that she would displease him. She was married to this man now. Forever. Suddenly she was afraid she knew him not at all.

At last he pressed his lips on the protruding knob of bone at her bowed neck. But only for a moment before she heard him sigh raggedly and step away from her.

She kept her head bent, her back to him, unsure now of what to do. He's even more frightened than I am, she thought. She felt an odd sense of loss, as if she had suddenly discovered that what she thought was a diamond was really paste. She'd had to be so tough and self-reliant, so strong, all her young life. She wanted Martin to be someone she could lean on, who would be strong for her, and a part of her knew already he would never be that man.

But he was her husband, and she loved him, didn't she? I do love Martin, she told herself fiercely, trying to banish the unwelcome feelings of disappointment. I love him. I do, I do, I do . . .

"Martin ..." she said tentatively, still unable to look at him. "I think you begin by undressing me."

She had dressed very formally for her wedding, in a gown with stays built into the bodice and a heavily embroidered stomacher fastened to the front of it. It was stiff and heavy, like an armored breastplate. He laughed nervously, saying it seemed an impossible puzzle to get her out of it as he fumbled with the hooks and laces.

But finally the gown was gone, tossed over the end of the bed. Her petticoats followed, much easier, and the wire pannier hoop that stiffened her skirts. More armor, she thought with an inward smile. She reached down herself and pulled the chemise over her head, letting it fall to the floor from the outstretched tips of her fingers. She stood before him, naked but for her shoes and stockings.

His face became transformed; a strange light flared in his eyes and his breathing quickened. The way he now looked at her made her feel suddenly shy and embarrassed. She tried to cover herself with her hands, and the sapphire stone of the ring he had given her winked like a blue flame against her skin as it caught the candlelight.

"Oh, God." His voice cracked. "You are so beautiful."

He reached out and tentatively stroked one breast. Her skin began to quiver at his touch. The muscles in her belly tightened and she felt a strange ache deep inside her. "They're too small," she said, worried about this major flaw, worried that she would displease him.

"No . . ." He rubbed his palm over her nipple and she felt it tighten, harden, and the strange ache intensified until she had to clench her teeth to keep from moaning aloud. "They're not too small," he said as he cupped both her breasts now in his palms, although now she could barely hear him, for her blood was pumping so hard, pounding in her ears. "They're just right."

Instinctively she looked down and saw that he had hardened as well, for there was a prominent ridge at his groin outlined by his clinging satin breeches. A frisson of excitement, of anticipation, rippled through her.

"Martin ..." She swayed into him.

He gathered her into his arms, but gingerly as if he were trying to embrace a cloud, as if he were afraid suddenly of his own strength, afraid that he might hurt her. Unknowingly she rubbed her stomach against his, wanting something, needing something, but not sure what it was.

A kiss . . . She yearned for him to kiss her, and she turned her face up, putting her lips to his.

They had kissed before, but this was different. This time he ground his lips hard against hers and pushed his tongue between her teeth. Surprised, she stiffened, and he started to break the kiss and pull away. "No . . ." she protested, and pressed her palm to the back of his head, holding his mouth within reach of hers.

Tentatively she thrust her own tongue through his lips. The inside of his mouth was soft, slick. This is wonderful, she thought, as the kiss deepened and the sensations of sexual hunger and desire coursed through her. Absolutely wonderful.

Her hands moved restlessly over his arms, his shoulders, across his back, feeling, seeking. She pulled her mouth free of his. "Your coat," she whispered. "I want to touch you. Take off your coat.''

He almost ripped the seams in his hurry to get it off. Laughing, pleased with herself because she was exciting him, she helped him with his shirt, easing it slowly down over his shoulders, her hands tracing the contours of the muscles in his arms. She pressed her lips on his collarbone, ran her palms across his bare chest, his breasts. His nipples, too, were hard.

Her hands drifted lower, toward the straining bulge in his tight breeches. She touched it with the tips of her fingers.

He jerked back, as if her touch was a lick of fire.

She looked up at him, a question on her face. "Martin?"

A funny, strangling sound erupted from his throat. He crushed her hard against him, knocking the breath out of her. He covered her face and throat with kisses while she pushed against him, gasping, trying to suck air into her lungs. He kneaded her breasts roughly with his fingers, hurting her now. In her struggles to get free, to get air, she rubbed her pelvis against the hard bulge between his legs.

Groaning, he fell onto the bed, bringing her down with him, rolling her over onto her back. Frightened now, she pushed against his chest. But he had her pinned down with his shoulder, pressing into her lungs. "Please, Martin," she gasped. "I can't breathe ..."

He didn't seem to hear her. He wrenched at the buttons of his breeches, freeing himself, and heaved a shuddering sigh. She got a brief glimpse of his male member rising up out of the nest of hair between his legs. She felt a confusion of emotions. She was frightened yet drawn to what she saw, both at the same time. She wanted to touch it, to close her hand around its length and feel its hardness, but she didn't dare.

When he pressed his knees against her thighs, trying to spread her legs, she instinctively opened them for him. He jabbed at her several times with his erection, but he kept missing. So he explored her with his fingers until he found her opening. She gasped, almost screaming with the exquisite shock of his fingers pressing into her.

She shuddered and arched her back. "Oh, Martin ..."

"Gabrielle, I want you," he panted harshly against her face. "I have to—"

He thrust into her. She cried out as she felt something tear inside her, and her legs stiffened, scissoring together. He thrust into her once more, harder, and then he went suddenly limp.

He fell in a dead weight on top of her, his breath coming in harsh gasps. Dazed, she lay inert beneath him, and after a moment he rolled off her, sitting up.

She felt a wetness on her thighs. She pushed herself up on her elbows. There was blood between her legs and on the counterpane, and there was a strange, hollow feeling inside of her. She felt an odd and terrible loneliness, and out of nowhere tears rose up to fill her eyes.

Slowly she turned her head and looked at him. She saw shock on his face, and guilt. And then, to her surprise, his shoulders shook and he began to cry.

"I'm sorry," he said, muffling the words as he buried his head in his hands. "Oh, God, Gabrielle, I've hurt you."

"It's . . . it's all right, Martin," she said. And then she actually smiled, for she knew it probably would be all right. She would make it all right.

He shook his head wildly back and forth. "No. I hurt you."

"It's all right."

He took her hand; his own was trembling. When she didn't pull away, he brought her hand to his lips. He stretched out beside her, and after a moment she turned into him so that she was encircled by his arms.

"Oh, God, Gabrielle, I've hurt you." His voice caught. "I love you so much and I've hurt you." He stroked her hair. "Don't be afraid of me. I couldn't bear it if I thought you were afraid of me."

"I'm not afraid of you," she said. Although her body felt pummeled and she ached between her legs, she wasn't afraid of him. Her maman had warned her the first time could be painful and awkward. "He's such a babe," Marie-Rose had said. "If he's had any experience at all, it's been with the wrong sort of woman. You must teach him to be gentle, ma petite."

"I'll never touch you again," Martin vowed fervently, and Gabrielle knew that he honestly believed in that moment that he wouldn't. But she also knew that in time his need would overcome his guilt and he would take her again, as was his right, for he was her husband. And she remembered how wonderful it had felt at the beginning, when he had touched her breasts and kissed her.

She brought his hand to her breast. "Touch me now, Martin. Gently."

❧

He died in the spring.

The doctor said it was a flux of the blood. The surgeon was summoned to bleed and purge him. The doctor prescribed a quinine treatment, but the treatment was expensive. Marie-Rose, looking at Gabrielle's white, pinched face, said she would take her ruby earrings to the jewelers on the Rue . Venddme to see what price she could get for them.

They had no money. No one, certainly not Martin, had fully anticipated the extent of the duc de Nevers's wrath. They lived with Marie-Rose in the hotel on the Rue de Gre-nelle, but no one came any longer to the salon, and the dunning shopkeepers were no longer so easily put off. The bourgeois businessman who owned the house delivered an eviction notice. The furniture, the china and crystal, the paintings began to disappear, first in dribbles and then in a steady stream, to the creditors and the pawnshops.

The servants and lackeys had been the first to go. "Rats deserting a sinking ship," Marie-Rose had said with a sneer. It was the same sneer Sebastien had often given to the man who patrolled the deck with his bullwhip.

The duc de Nevers entered petitions with the church in Rome and with the courts in Paris to have the marriage dissolved. But the Vatican and the courts were slow, and Martin died first.

Gabrielle sat in the twilight shadows afterward, holding his hand long after his flesh had cooled. Her face was white, her lips bloodless, her eyes gritty and dry. She hurt too deeply to cry.

She ignored the knock on the door. The house was empty; her mother had gone to sell the last of her jewelry to buy the quinine which was no longer needed. She didn't hear the step on the stairs until the man entered the room.

It was Louvois.

He stared at the boy's body, and though he couldn't possibly have expected Martin's death, no emotion, not even surprise, showed on his face. Gabrielle stood up, instinctively putting herself between Louvois and the bed.

Louvois's protruding eyes fastened on hers. He blinked, then stepped around her.

He stared at the body for a moment. Then striking a tin-derbox, he lit the single candle in a brass holder on a stand near the bed. He held the candle up to Martin's face, pried open one eyelid. He held his palm to Martin's lips, then set the candle back on the bedstand and turned to face her.

"He's dead," Louvois said.

Gabrielle flung her head up. "The duc should be pleased," she said, not bothering to hide her bitterness. "It seems a higher order than his has seen fit to end his son's marriage."

Louvois raised his brows and bowed mockingly. "Please accept my condolences over your sudden bereavement, but I've not yet told you why I've come." His eyes sparkled with malice behind the magnifying lenses. "I have distressing news for you . . . further distressing news. Your mother—"

Gabrielle wondered how she could stand it. She felt her knees begin to buckle and grasped the bedpost. Louvois didn't move, although he watched her carefully.

"Your mother," he went on, "was struck and killed by a cabriolet this afternoon while crossing the Rue Vend6me. She had just sold some jewelry, did you know?" His eyes flickered to the bed, then back to her. "Your mother's body is now in the hands of the police. There is some question as to whether the jewelry was in fact stolen goods in the first place—"

Gabrielle covered her ears with her hands. "Leave me alone. Go away," she gasped.

Louvois grasped her wrists, yanking her hands down. Then his eye caught sight of the ring on her finger and he jerked her wrist back up, pulling her hand beneath the light cast by the candle on the bedstand. "This ring belongs to the duchesse—"

Gabrielle jerked her hand free, her fist clenching tightly. "Get out of here."

"Did you know that poor Monsieur Martin wrote to his father the duc last week?" Louvois said, smiling. "A very touching letter. The boy was weakening, I think. He would not have stayed with you much longer."

Gabrielle thought she might be sick, and she was suddenly very cold. She set her teeth together to keep them from chattering.

"He wrote his father that you are with child. Is this true?"

Gabrielle swallowed. "I . . . yes."

Louvois looked back to the body of the boy on the bed, and pressed his lips tightly together. "This changes things," he said.

Gabrielle put her hands to her mouth. She thought she would probably start screaming soon and when she did she would not be able to stop.

She had them buried together.

She wanted to watch while the gravediggers filled in theholes. The cure` had thought it a macabre request, but he had allowed it. The poor child had lost a husband and a mother both on the same day. He had never seen such terrible grief before. It was all the more terrible for being so inward, so silent.

Gabrielle stood beside the open graves. The shovels scraped against the gravelly earth, and the clods of dirt made clunking noises as they landed on the wooden caskets. It was a beautiful spring day. The breeze was a warm caress on the skin, the azure sky cloudless and infinite.

A black berlin pulled up alongside the wrought-iron fence of the cemetery. The postilions and grooms wore black and gold livery. The carriage door was opened, the steps were lowered, and a small, bespectacled man got out.

She didn't acknowledge him, even when he came to stand right next to her, so close the sleeve of his coat brushed against her arm.

"He was always sickly as a child," Louvois said, looking at the graves. "Although we hoped he had outgrown it in the last few years."

"I hate you," she said.

"I know." His eyes glimmered brightly behind his spectacles, as if he enjoyed hearing her admit it. "I've come to tell you what will be."

Gabrielle turned and walked away from the graves, away from him, down a flagstone path toward the cemetery gates.

He caught up with her. "M on seigneur le Duc has dropped his petitions to end your marriage."

"How forgiving of him.''

"He wants his grandchild."

"I'll see him in hell first."

Two of the postilions, she saw, had abandoned the carriage and were passing through the cemetery gate, coming slowly down the path.

She turned her back on them and went to sit on a rickety wooden bench beneath a tree. Louvois sat beside her. The lackeys stopped, hovering in the distance by the gate.

Louvois turned sideways so he could watch her face. "After the boy is born—"

"It could be a girl."

"The duc has decreed that it will be a boy." He said it wryly, smiling. Then his face abruptly hardened. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a thick piece of paper embossed with a seal. "Do you know what this is?"

She knew. It was a lettre de cachet.

"It has your name on it, Gabrielle. Signed by the king."

Her eyes flickered over to the lackeys and her lips curled into a sneer. "You require a lot of help, monsieur, to arrest one insignificant woman."

For a moment Louvois's control slipped. "You won't be arrested as long as you cooperate." Then his voice softened. "Think, Gabrielle. It is spring now, but the child is due when—in November? Would you want to whelp your bastard on a prison's stone floor in winter? Do you think either of you would survive?"

Gabrielle nudged a chipped piece of stone with her shoe. Idly she bent over and picked it up, running her fingers over its sharp edges. She thought of the lackeys lingering by the gate, but she didn't look at them again.

"What must I do?" she said, and Louvois smiled, for he heard resignation in her voice.

"You will come with me now."

"No."

"You will spend your confinement with the duchesse at the Chateau de Nevers," Louvois went on, relentless. "Naturally, you will never marry again. The king has forbidden it. Instead, once the child is born you will be given a dowry, a substantial dowry, and placed in a convent. It won't be so bad, not as bad as you think. Surely not as bad as the Bastille and an early death. You could be an abbess someday if you worked at it. You've got the ambition and you're tough enough to do it."

"No."

"You will have no contact with the child. When he is old enough, he will be told you died. You will never see or even speak of him again."

"No."

"Gabrielle, Gabrielle," he said softly, like a lover. "This is no longer a question of choice. This is what will be."

"No!" she screamed, slashing at his face with the jagged piece of stone, slashing until his scream joined hers, shattering the silence of the cemetery, slashing until the startled lackeys started toward her.

And then she ran.