Hearts Beguiled (2 page)

❧

The signboard above the inn proclaimed it to be The Brass Pot and showed a fat pot roasting over a fire. At one time the pot had been gilded gold, but the paint had long ago chipped away, so now it was a tarnished muddy brown. The sign hung from a rusty chain, creaking in the wind.

As Gabrielle pushed open the door, a small bell fastened above the lintel tinkled with false merriness.

Madame Falour, who had been halfheartedly wiping the worst of the smudges off the glasses in the taproom, waddled into the hall. She was a large woman with a plump, mushy figure, like an overripe pear. Her face bore the ravages of smallpox, and she wore a cheap, old-fashioned wig made of horsehair that was too small for her large head.

She placed her hands on her ample hips and glared at Gabrielle. "Well, if it isn't Madame High and Mighty, and it's back you've come, is it? I thought you'd scampered off."

For a moment Gabrielle felt tears fill her eyes. She couldn't understand the reason for Madame Falour's hatred. She had hardly exchanged a dozen words with the old woman in the months she had been here. She hadn't really cared before, but now . . . It's only because I'm tired, she thought. So tired.

"I told you this morning I would be back," Gabrielle said, forcing a strength she didn't feel into her voice.

The old woman sniffed. "And I told you, madame"—she sneered the appellation, implying that it was unearned— "you'll either come up with the ready or I'll toss you out the door on your haughty backside. Pregnant or not. This is an inn I'm running here, not an almshouse."

Gabrielle opened her purse.

At the sight of it, Madame Falour shoved her bulk forward. "You owe me for three weeks," she said, thrusting out a grimy palm. "Forty livres."

Gabrielle removed one of the louis and put it in the old woman's hand.

Madame's eyes gleamed at the sight of the gold coin, but she left her hand out. "You owe me more."

Gabrielle sighed, pretending to hesitate. Then she took out the second coin and gave it to the old woman. She made sure madame could see the purse was now empty before she pulled the strings shut.

"That settles the reckoning," Gabrielle said.

Madame grunted.

"And then some," Gabrielle added.

"Well . . ."

"Yes." Gabrielle stared the old woman down, forcing her to look away. "And I should like some hot broth brought up to my room."

Madame Falour gaped at this girl who dared to issue orders like a duchesse and then push past without so much as a by-your-leave—as if she had just bought the place with her two louis d'or.

"If you want hot broth, Madame High and Mighty," she shouted to Gabrielle's stiff back as it moved up the stairs, "you can bloody well get it yourself!"

Gabrielle didn't answer. She didn't even pause.

Her room was five flights up, under the slopping mansard roof. At one end of it, by the tiny window, the ceiling was so low she couldn't stand straight up. During the first month she lived there, Gabrielle had walked around with a permanent bruise across her forehead. Now she remembered to duck her head.

The room had no fireplace, but heat from the room below rose up between the cracks in the floor, and before long Gabrielle felt warmed enough to remove her sodden manteau. She draped it to dry over the ladder back of the room's only chair, then lit the stub of a tallow candle stuck into a bracket in the wall.

She arched her back, trying to stretch out the pain along with the stiffness, but the dull ache remained. Groaning, she lay down on the narrow, lumpy bed. Her monstrous stomach rose up before her eyes, like a mountain. She made a face at it.

She realized she was sweating. The ache in her back was suddenly very bad. She sucked in a deep breath just as the inner muscles of her stomach contracted in an involuntary spasm. A few seconds later the spasm was gone, and with it the pain. Gabrielle sighed aloud with relief. And then she realized what it must mean.

Oh, God, no, she thought. Not yet. . . and she was suddenly very much afraid. Even more afraid than before, when Louvois's lackeys had chased her through the streets and almost caught her.

She bit her lip hard to stifle a cry as a fresh cramp seized her. Oh, God . . . She had wanted this child, Martin's child. She had risked everything for this child. But now, God help her, she was so afraid.

She didn't want to die.

❧

An hour later Madame Falour laboriously climbed the five flights of stairs to Gabrielle's room, carrying a steaming bowl of beef broth and muttering to herself about hoity-toity misses who put on the airs of duchesses, and called themselves ma-dame and claimed to be widowed, when anyone who believed that tale would also buy a piece of the True Cross from the souvenir stand at the foot of Notre Dame, because if that babe wasn't born to be a bastard, then ...

She set the tray down on the floor in the hall and raised one small plump finger to scratch on the door when she heard the muffled cries and harsh panting of a woman in labor.

Madame stood, her finger poised in midair, undecided. She ought to send for the midwife, but she was thinking of the empty purse. If the damned girl died, the midwife would stick her with the bill. She thought of tending to the girl herself, and immediately discarded the idea. If the damned girl died and she was involved, she'd have the police descending on her, asking all sorts of prying questions, the way they had done when the body of that candlemaker had been found cut up and dumped in her midden last year.

No, the girl was going to have to fend for herself. If Madame High and Mighty hadn't eaten of the forbidden fruit, then she wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place, now would she?

The old woman started down the stairs, then turned back for the tray. It wasn't decent to let good food go to waste.

Behind the door came a harsh, strangled cry.

"Martin! Oh, God, Martin. Help me."

Madame Falour sniffed and shook her head. "He won't help you now, girl. There's nobody going to help you now."

And so it was that Gabrielle de Vauclair de Nevers brought her child into the world alone. Arms shaking with exhaustion, eyes blurred with tears of pain and joy, she clutched his tiny, squawking, and bloody body to her breast.

The rain had gone with the night, and the sun was just coming up on a new morning. Her son was but minutes old. In three days, Gabrielle de Vauclair de Nevers would be seventeen.

1787

S
imon Prion stood in the garden of the Palais Royal and looked at the front of his shop. The sign, with its three golden balls, shone brightly in the summer sun. He nodded with satisfaction and then, because he was so happy, he laughed out loud.

He hadn't realized how lonely he had been all those years, those years before the miracle had occurred and he had found the girl again. With her he had acquired Agnes—whom he could probably live without if he thought about it—and the little boy, Dominique—whom he could not live without at all.

We are a family, he thought with another nod of satisfaction. She and I, Agnes and the boy. Yes, a family.

Because of the heat, the door to the shop was propped open with a brass stopper. Simon paused on the threshold to look inside, and his face softened.

She sat behind the counter on a tall stool with her feet hooked around its legs, polishing a set of silver teaspoons. A curtain of red-gold hair obscured her profile. Turning, she looked up, and when she saw who it was, she smiled.

"Gabrielle," he said.

"How does the new sign look?" she asked him.

"Magnificent!" he exclaimed, striding inside. "That painter did a good job for a change." He grinned at her. "I think he was trying to make an impression on you."

"Hunh. We'll see how impressed I am when we get the bill."

A head of tousled blond curls poked out from among the rack of coats, grinning up at them.

Simon winked at Gabrielle. "I see that little mouse is back among my coats again. I'll have to fetch a broom and chase it out."

There was a loud squeal and a giggle, and the head disappeared. Then a small boy came hurtling out of the coats and threw himself at Simon's legs.

"Dominique," Gabrielle said sharply, "how many times must I ask you not to run in the shop?"

Simon scooped the boy into his arms. "Don't scold him. You're too strict with him."

"Someone must be. The way you and Agnes spoil him, he's—"

Gabrielle broke off as a young girl banged through the door, her thin arms loaded with bundles of food. Her head was uncovered, and her ash-brown hair stuck out in short, wispy tufts around her head. She had a small upper lip that was always partly lifted, giving her face a look of perpetual surprise.

"By Saint Winifred's pocket!" she exclaimed, huffing for breath. "That bloody ass of a baker is asking ten sous for a loaf of bread!"

Gabrielle sighed, but she couldn't help smiling. "Agnes, don't curse."

Until a year ago Agnes had been a child whore and pickpocket. But that was before Gabrielle had saved her, or she had saved Gabrielle; they still argued over who exactly had saved whom. Since then, Agnes had been able to give up most of the trappings of her former life, but not the cursing.

"I wasn't cursing," Agnes said automatically. "Ten sous! I told that bastard just where he could put his loaves of bread." Dumping the packages on the counter next to Gabrielle, she made a rude gesture with her fist.

Simon set Dominique back on his feet, and the little boy ran up to Agnes to tug on her skirts.

"Agnes, explain to Maman how I'm not spoiled—"

"Of course you aren't, petit ange," the girl said, pressing a piece of dark, sticky cake into the little boy's hand. "Look, I've brought you some gingerbread. And some for myself," she added, laughing and popping a piece into her own mouth. Agnes had the ability to act simultaneously both thirty and three. She was in fact fifteen and quite small, though lately Gabrielle noticed the girl had begun to develop curves in places that turned men's heads.

"Look, Maman!" Dominique said, showing his mother the treat.

Gabrielle smiled at her son and shook her head. "Oh, Agnes, I wish you hadn't. Now he'll have no appetite for dinner.

"Dinner!" Simon suddenly exclaimed. "Good God, I promised the vicomte de Saint-Romain I would pick up that engraving today before dinner."

Gabrielle pushed back the stool, standing up. She pulled her smock over her head and tossed it on the counter, men smoothed the skirt of her cheap gray dimity dress. "I'll get it for you now. Where does he live?"

"No!" he exclaimed so loudly his voice echoed in the small shop.

They all looked at him in stunned silence. "Why not?" Gabrielle finally asked.

"Why not? Why not?" Dominique parroted, before shoving the entire piece of gingerbread into his mouth.

"Because ... it wouldn't be, uh, right."

"Why not?" Agnes asked.

Simon blushed and began to mumble. "Because of the nature . . . The engraving is by Arentino, you understand, otherwise I wouldn't. . . It's quite valuable really, but it's a trifle ... odd."

"So?" Gabrielle prompted.

Simon sighed, his blush deepening. "The title of it is . . . Fornication."

"Fornication!" Agnes hooted. "Oh-ho, Monsieur Simon, are you buying dirty pictures now?"

Simon drew himself up to his full height. "It happens to be a very important work of art even if it is a trifle, er . . ."

Agnes hooted again.

"Never mind, Simon," Gabrielle said, laughing. "I'm hardly an innocent. But if it makes you feel better, I promise not to look at it." She laughed again. "Too closely." She stooped to kiss Dominique's bulging cheeks. "Be good, man petit. I'll be back in a bit."

"The vicomte de Saint-Romain," Simon called out with an uneasy frown. "He lives above the cafe de Foy. And I've already paid for it, so don't let him tell you differently."

As Gabrielle left, she heard Dominique's piping voice exclaim, "Agnes, what is a fordicashun?" She repressed a shudder at the thought of the numerous ribald definitions that could emerge from Agnes's mouth.

The sun beat down hot on the garden paths. Gabrielle thought about going back for a bonnet, then decided against it. Simon was probably already having second thoughts about sending her to the libertine vicomte to fetch his naughty engraving. He was only trying to protect her, she knew, but the things she needed protecting from he didn't even know existed.

She had never told Simon about any of it, about what had brought her into his shop to pawn a ring that cold November afternoon—the day Dominique had been born. She supposed he could probably guess at all that she had lived through in the long months afterward, until that day a year ago when fate in the form of a child whore called Agnes had brought her across Simon Prion's path again.

He had told everyone she was a relative by marriage, the widow of a fictitious nephew who was supposed to have been a wigmaker's apprentice at Versailles. He even encouraged her to use the name of Prion—"to quiet the gossips," he had said. In the beginning she had expected he would want her to sleep with him, but he had never so much as touched her. Then one night he had gotten slightly drunk on wine and confessed that, though he'd never really been interested in marriage, he had always wanted a daughter, and now that she had come into his life he wanted to believe he had his daughter at last. Gabrielle had listened to him with tear-filled eyes and an absurdly big lump in her throat, but even then she hadn't dared tell him about her past, not about Martin or Monsieur le Duc, and especially not about the hateful Louvois. Not even her real name. All Simon knew was that one cold and empty day four years ago she had come into his shop and pawned a ring. One cold and empty November day . . .

But now it was summer and the Palais Royal was a carnival of activity. Brightly dressed courtesans strolled along the paths, flaunting their charms before gawk-eyed provincials, who would be fleeced of their money before the night was through. A pair of political orators stood on benches and tried to outshout each other, while a mountebank hawking a cure for the English pox managed to drown out them both. A prosperous bourgeois, taking his dog for a walk, paused to buy licorice water from a stall set up beneath the leafy shade of a chestnut tree.

Gabrielle strolled past the wooden and stone arcades. Several years before, the duc d'Orleans—the king's cousin and one of the richest men in France—had thought of a way to make even more money by turning three of the wings of his palace into galleries of shops and rented apartments. Now the Palais Royal was a pleasure trove of casinos and brothels, restaurants and cafes, bookstalls, bathhouses, and, of course, pawnshops.

A barker who stood in front of a gaming club called out to Gabrielle, teasing, asking if she wanted to try her luck. She laughed and blew him a kiss.

At the Cafe de Foy she stopped a' waiter bearing a tray loaded with cups of mocha and asked him where she could find the vicomte de Saint-Romain.

The waiter thought a moment, then pointed above his head. "Two floors up, I think. In the apartment facing the gar-

The stairway stank of stale perfume. As she passed an open door, Gabrielle heard a woman's laughter and the rattle of a dice box.

She scratched politely on the door of the apartment facing the gardens. There was no answer. She scratched louder.

"Damnation!" swore a low-timbered voice. "Go away."

Gabrielle hesitated, then pounded rudely on the door with her fist.

"Christ."

She heard footsteps; the door flew open. "What do you want? I'm— Sweet heavenly Jesus! Who are you?"

Gabrielle looked up . . . and the world stopped.

"Uh," she said, unaware that her mouth had fallen open as they stared at each other. Her breath had left her in a rush, as if someone had thumped her hard in the back, knocking the air from her lungs.

He was tall. It was the first thing she noticed about him, for she had to tilt her head up to see his face. It was a stunningly handsome face, though hard, with a cruel-looking mouth and hooded gray eyes. He had a thin patrician nose, and his skin was pulled smooth and taut over high cheekbones. His dark brown hair was unpowdered and held back by a narrow riband.

"What do you want?" he said again, softer this time. His voice was low, caressing. Heavy, long-lashed lids lowered over his eyes until they were almost shut.

Gabrielle's throat felt dry, her chest tight. She sucked in a gasping breath and swallowed. "Monsieur Prion sent me."

"Did he? How generous of him."

"Yes, monsieur," she answered, flushing at the sexual innuendo, though at least she was breathing normally again. They were all alike, she thought with an odd twinge of disappointment that was mixed with relief; these bored aristocrats with nothing to do and nothing to think about but gratifying the appendage that hung between their legs. Why should she expect this libertine vicomte with his pornographic engraving to be any different?

She tried to take a step sideways, across the threshold, but he continued to block the doorway, staring at her with an arrogant insolence that set her pride on edge.

Pride prompted her to smile at him, a friendly smile that held a promise she had no intention of fulfilling. She had used that smile before, in her old life, and she knew its power.

He smiled back at her, mockingly.

"Do come in," he said, and opened the door wide.

Gabrielle walked into the room and looked around her. For the second time in the space of a minute she gasped in surprise.

It was a laboratory. Bottles, alembics, and beakers—some empty and some filled with mysterious liquids—stood on every flat surface. A microscope sat on a table among a pile of books; a huge telescope pointed out the window toward the sky. Although it was the middle of the day, dozens of candles blazed, reflecting brightly in the many glass containers and in the mirrors that lined the walls.

But the most astonishing thing stood in the middle of the room. It looked to be a miniature montgolfier—a balloon. It was two feet in diameter, made of thin linen or silk, and it floated above a metal canister that hissed a blue flame. As she watched it, the balloon seemed to swell in size.

"Why?" he said.

Gabrielle started, whipping around. He was standing very close to her, too close for her comfortably to meet his eyes, and so she looked down. His white linen shirt was unfastened at the neck, and sweat sheened on the smooth, brown skin of his broad chest. Her eyes traveled downward over a trim waist and hips to tight knee breeches that revealed every muscle and sinew. She thought he was probably very beautiful naked.

Startling herself this time, Gabrielle flung her head up to meet a pair of gray eyes that glinted with a knowing mockery. Blushing, she looked away. She couldn't imagine what had possessed her to think such a thing. Dieu, she was getting to be as bad as Agnes, Who couldn't look at a man without cataloging his attributes for the bedroom.

"Why?" he said again, patiently.

"Why what? Oh, you mean why am I here."

Amusement flickered across his face, softening its harshness. "Yes, that's what I mean. You are going to tell me, I hope. Eventually?"

Her eyes flitted back and forth uneasily between the vicomte and the swelling balloon. It was definitely getting larger. In the few seconds she'd been here it seemed to have doubled in size. "I've, uh, I've come for Fornication," she said unthinkingly, her mind distracted by the man's imposing presence as much as by the growing balloon.

"Forni—" He laughed suddenly, warm and husky. "God bless Monsieur Prion, whoever he is. I must admit I've never been propositioned quite so boldly before," he said, slow and soft. "I find I rather like it." He slipped an arm around her waist and started to pull her against him.

Caught off balance, Gabrielle stumbled and had to clutch his sleeves to keep from falling. The muscles of his arms clenched beneath her hands as he pulled her closer. He molded her against the length of him, tight enough for her to feel the corded ridges of his chest, his flat stomach; tight enough to feel . . . everything—even through the bulky padding of her skirt and petticoat.