The Chevalier (Châteaux and Shadows) (12 page)

She greeted the young man indulgently and held out her hand. A few of the other young men greeted her, jostling each other for the honor of bending over her hand, flirting. She went pink with pleasure.

“And who are your companions, Grand-mère? I would have introduced myself to the gentleman after the ballet, if I had known you knew him.”

“Oh, you know my dear friend, the Baronesse de la Brosse. This is her youngest son, Emmanuel. He hasn’t been up to court since he was little. His father took him from his Maman.”

It took a moment for Manu to figure out Madame Philinte’s disjointed speech. He scowled at the half-truth. “My father took me to be tutored and trained by my brother-in-law.”

He’d had a governess when he was with his mother, but she was only responsible for getting him to read his prayer book and keeping him presentable in case his mother called for him. When he arrived at the château-fort at the age of thirteen, there were boys of ten who knew more mathematics than he did. He could ride a horse fast but poorly and had no idea of swordplay.

“This is my grandson, the Vicomte d’Oronte. My daughter’s boy, you know. Heir to the Comte de Mans.” Mme Philinte beamed radiantly at the young man. “And this is the baronesse’s companion, Mademoiselle de Fouet. Do you remember when she was my companion? You were rarely up at court that year—two years ago? Maybe three—and always busy with your friends.”

The young noble barely glanced at Mademoiselle de Fouet, not least because Manu had stepped in front of her. He didn’t wish to block her from the conversation, but to protect her from the young gentlemen who stared at her chest and cast significant glances at each other. He stepped out of her path and took her limp hand just for a moment to lead her forward to greet the young men. She barely glanced up at the men as they were introduced to her and Manu one by one. Manu had to force himself to not wrinkle his nose at the overwhelming stench of perfume and armpits.

He recognized a few of them from when he was a child, but he was never going to remember all the names, especially since they all had the same style of curly, blond wig. He thought a few of them might have their own hair styled in big, curly puffs and couldn’t imagine sitting still for someone to curl his hair. He focused on d’Oronte, who lingered when his friends wandered away talking about a card game.

D’Oronte focused on Mademoiselle de Fouet, even though his grandmother was talking at top speed to him and he was answering and smiling and nodding. “Should we stroll, Grand-mère?” the vile seducer said, giving Manu his back as he held his arm out for Mademoiselle de Fouet and his grandmother, leaving Manu to walk behind them alone.

For an hour.

D’Oronte kept directing the conversation back to Mademoiselle de Fouet and leaning his head down to hear her murmured answers. Sometimes Manu listened in. Other times, he practiced his courtly, sweeping walk, mimicking d’Oronte, who seemed to be born to swish and sway. After a long while, Mademoiselle de Fouet looked over her shoulder at him and smiled slightly, so he went to her, but before he could offer his own arm, d’Oronte said, “Oh, I am sorry, de…Cantière, was it? I didn’t realize you were still here.”

“I’ll take Mademoiselle de Fouet back to my mother’s apartments before I retire.”

“To bed early? I’m sure I can see her there if you need to sleep.” D’Oronte smiled—insincerely, in Manu’s opinion—at Mademoiselle de Fouet and his grandmother.

Manu felt like a little boy being shoved off to bed. He answered carefully, “I’m sure it’s up to Mademoiselle de Fouet.”

“I’m used to seeing myself up with just a footman.” Her voice sounded sweet and timid, but when she glanced at Manu, she arched her eyebrows and shook her head slightly.

He didn’t know what she meant, so he didn’t persist in talking, just in walking next to her.

Finally, Madame Philinte declared she was sleepy and asked her grandson to walk her upstairs.

“
Bonne nuit
, Mademoiselle.” D’Oronte swept her a low bow and kissed her hand. He bowed more shallowly to Emmanuel. “Mademoiselle, if you are not busy tomorrow after dinner—”

“We’re going for a ride together,” Manu interrupted. “She has a new mare: a gift from my mother.”

Mademoiselle de Fouet looked at the ground, seemingly demure, but turned her head just enough to glare at him out of view of the others. He smiled at d’Oronte smugly when she murmured she did not want to break her word. D’Oronte pressed her in hopes of walking together in the morning, but she said she was promised to the baronesse.

“Do you like to fence, d’Oronte?” Manu asked.

D’Oronte curled his lip slightly. “My friends and I often practice in the morning, yes.”

“Would you mind if I joined you? I have been raising horses in Poitou without an able opponent for some years now and could use the practice.” Since he still practiced sometimes alone, Manu was fairly certain he wouldn’t embarrass himself. Maybe.

D’Oronte narrowed his eyes, then finally agreed and told him where and when to meet them the next morning. He made a second, more effusive goodbye to Mademoiselle de Fouet, then left.

Emmanuel directed her indoors, walking fast. She had to trot to keep up, but it wasn’t until they were in a long corridor, empty of everyone but a few sleepy footmen that she yanked on his arm and whispered, “Slow down.”

“Sorry. Just wanted to get far away from d’Oronte before he started crawling up your skirts.”

“Up my skirts?” Her voice rose in outrage. She glanced around and continued more quietly. “I thought he was a kind gentleman.”

“Kind? He’s the sort of gentleman who keeps a tally of the girls he has flirted with and another of those he has bedded. He likely compares notes with his friends.” Manu might not have had much experience at court, but the same sort of man existed at every level of society.

“He was with his grandmother! He flirted, but not in any sort of odious way.” She lifted her skirts and strode up the hall.

She was magnificent. And irritating. “Well, don’t encourage him. Or let yourself be trapped in a dark corner with him.” Manu shuddered at the thought of that bastard touching Mademoiselle de Fouet.

“Maybe he’s looking for a wife.” She spat out the word.

“His father’s choosing a wife for him. She’ll be sixteen at the most. Her father will be titled and she’ll have a generous dowry. In fact, he’s probably been betrothed from birth. He’s not looking for a wife.” Manu was angry and doing his best to not shout and disturb any of the nobles getting ready for bed in the rooms they passed.

Mademoiselle de Fouet slid to a halt. “Are you jealous, Monsieur?”

“Jealous? Of course not! Completely ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. D’Oronte may flirt politely when his grandmother is watching, but he’s not a gentle, nice boy. He and his friends are the types who seduce maids, gamble away fortunes, drink too heavily, and whip their horses.”

“Whip their horses? You’ve decided from an hour in his presence—when he wasn’t even talking to you—that d’Oronte whips his horses?”

“Of course. There aren’t a lot of gentlemen I trust, and he is exactly the sort of man who doesn’t care whom he hurts. That means his horses. That means the maids in his home. And that means you.”

“Me? How could he hurt me? He spoke kindly to me and flirted a little. I did not return the favor, really. He was a friendly diversion in an otherwise dull evening. Tomorrow, he will flirt with some other girl, and it won’t matter to me. In a few months, his father will announce his engagement to a rich girl. Or maybe he’ll marry a slightly older lady with a fortune. But no matter what happens, I will know he is a gentleman who is kind to his grandmother and to some unknown young lady.”

She spun on her heel and marched away. It took Manu a few seconds to catch up, but he grabbed her elbow to stop her. “Stay away from him and all his friends. It will only lead to pain. Not just physical pain, not just heartbreak, but the end of your reputation, the end of all your prospects.”

Her eyebrows went up; she was going to say something sarcastic. “You’re protecting me? Are you my brother? My father? My cousin?”

Manu opened his mouth to say that yes, he would act as her brother. But he snapped it shut and shook his head. “I’m not wise in the ways of the court.”

She sniffed in derision.

He scowled. “But I’ve spent the last twelve years with men of every class. I wouldn’t sell d’Oronte one of my horses. I wouldn’t sell your future to him, either.”

“It’s not your future, Emmanuel; it’s mine.” Her voice was as low and lethal as a short knife in a dark alley. “Maybe I don’t care anymore about my reputation. Maybe I’d like to flirt. Maybe I’d like a dalliance before I move to my property in Normandy and live the rest of my life alone.”

Manu stared. Alone in Normandy? He thought she liked the court.

She turned her back and marched to the next door, which she yanked open. She shut it softly behind her, showing remarkable restraint.

He remembered he was going to sleep on his mother’s drawing room floor and went in after her. He locked the door and squinted into the dark room. Her bedroom door flashed slightly as it opened, and he said, “Mademoiselle de Fouet.” Her dark form paused in the doorway, but didn’t reply. “Catherine.” After all, she had just called him Emmanuel, hadn’t she?

She was just a shadow. He hoped it was her and not a maid. He opened his mouth for a long moment before deciding what to say.

“I would sell you a horse.”

A soft sniff, then the shadow went in, and the door clicked shut.

“Bonne nuit, Mademoiselle,” he whispered, defeated.

****

“Monsieur Emmanuel.”

Someone was shaking him. Manu rolled over and thumped into something hard. He grunted.

“Monsieur Emmanuel, wake up.”

It was a woman. Maid or lady? He opened one eye. Mademoiselle de Fouet. Part maid, part lady, right? He smiled at his own little joke.

“Your mother’s going to the early mass. You have to go confess before or you won’t be able to take the sacrament.”

The words seemed like French, but Manu couldn’t figure out why they were directed at him. He stifled a yawn and closed his eyes again.

A hard shove this time. “Up!”

He groaned and opened his eyes. “Really. I’ll go later. She’ll never know if I took the sacrament.”

“You will come with us because she will know.”

Mademoiselle de Fouet marched away, dodging between the over-abundant furnishings. He watched her body sway under her nightgown.

Manu wondered what it would be like to wake up next to Catherine. He looked around and wondered idly if his mother bought her chairs and tables from Jean-Louis’s factory. Mademoiselle de Fouet turned back toward him and waved her hands urgently.

He sat up and arranged his blanket over his lap just as his mother’s bedroom door opened. The maid, Anne, came out and frowned at him. She usually slept in the drawing room but had been relegated to the baronesse’s floor. He wondered if his mother snored. He wanted to say he was leaving Monday and she would have her bit of rug back, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to leave. Not with the Vicomte d’Oronte sniffing around Mademoiselle de Fouet. And he was waiting for Vainqueur and the gray mare he hoped to sell.

Manu shooed the maid away. He pulled on his second-best breeches: dull and dark enough for a serious, sober Sunday morning service, yet fine enough for court. He hoped. He would have to come back and change after mass to wear something a little further down on the splendorous scale to go practice swordplay. If, indeed, the young gentlemen practiced swordplay on a Sunday? Then probably wear the same ones, if they weren’t too dirty, to go for a ride. Then back to the serious, sober ones for another mass. And into his best ones for the evening. If he stayed a few more days, he was going to need more splendorous clothing than he had packed before leaving Poitou.

Thinking about clothing gave him a headache.

Two hours later, he had confessed and done frantic, full-gallop prayers to atone, then sat through a thankfully short mass with a young priest who had been, if anything, less awake than Manu. Lucas de Granville stood in the row in front of them, earnestly soaking in every word, but with bags under his eyes.

Manu laid his sober, serious clothing gently in his trunk and hoped it wouldn’t get wrinkled, then took out the narrow case with his weaponry. He bypassed the saber he had worn on the road, the heavy practice broadsword, and even the court sword with its sharp point, in favor of his dulled practice sword with the tip firmly covered with a lump of metal. He pulled it from its scabbard and grimaced at the patina, but there wasn’t time to polish it.

The baronesse and Mademoiselle de Fouet nodded to him as he followed them out. They split up at the door to the gardens—a different door from any others he had used in the last day—and he went to join the young gentlemen who gathered in an open area behind the Salle d’Armes.

When he joined them, four gentlemen were facing off in two bouts, with ten or so men standing around yawning and talking about the wine they had drunk the night before. A small group of them was off to one side, occasionally guffawing. Manu was willing to bet none of them had been to mass at sunrise.

D’Oronte spotted him and said something to his companions before waving him over with a smirk. He introduced Manu around again. No one was wearing a wig, so it was like meeting all new people. At least he was dressed more or less like everyone else, in older clothing. Manu took his coat off and slung it over a banister along with the others. D’Oronte’s friends had padded practice waistcoats on, so he shrugged his on, too, even though it was frayed at the edges and there was a streak of rust on the back. And moths must have been chewing on it in the year or so since he’d last worn it. At least its cut displayed his broad shoulders. If he couldn’t be fashionable, he could at least look strong. A few of the gentlemen looked like they might take his sword fighting prowess seriously until he pulled his old, dull practice sword from its sheath. Then they looked amused.

“Did you sit on it?” d’Oronte asked with a sneer.