The Chevalier (Châteaux and Shadows) (13 page)

Manu looked at it more closely and it did seem to have developed a curve since the last time he had taken it out. He bent the end gently back into place and sighted down it, then swished it a few times, satisfied.

Most of the men had turned back to the bouts in progress. They were placing bets and redeeming bets and chattering idly.

Emmanuel turned to the young man next to him. “How do we choose whom to face?”

The man—he couldn’t have been more than twenty—looked Manu over speculatively. “We all more or less know our level. What training have you had?”

“Seven years with my brother-in-law.” Manu smirked, waiting for the inevitable question.

The boy shrugged. “Depends on who your brother-in-law is.”

“The Comte de Bures.” Though there were certainly other sword masters and other students who could outfight Manu, Dominique himself was the power behind the school, as his father had been before him. He hired the best sword masters he could find, but the day-to-day training was done by men he had trained and sometimes himself.

Several gentlemen turned at the sound of that magical name. Manu hid his smile. He was surprised he didn’t recognize any of them as also having trained with Dominique. Maybe these were all the older sons whose younger brothers had trained at the château-fort and were now on the front lines somewhere.

The boy shrugged. “Usually, those who have trained for the military are in the military, not hanging around court. They don’t generally fence for pleasure.”

Manu felt it like a slap, but bit back a rude response in favor of a nod. “My older brother was a colonel.”

A slightly older gentleman, probably not over thirty, shoved the boy. “De Cantière, you ninny. The Colonel de Cantière. Hero of Toulouse and Franche-Comté.”

Manu nodded as if it should be common knowledge. His brother’s military strategy was taught at Dom’s château, but Manu had figured it was because Jean-Louis was Dom’s brother-in-law. Manu had practiced his light answer carefully for years. “My father agreed I wasn’t suited for either army or church, so he bought me some horses and put me out to pasture.”

A few snorts and chuckles from the men around him. D’Oronte was looking him over, eyes narrowed and a faint curl to his lip. Manu met his eyes and decided to pretend incompetence. Perhaps d’Oronte would try to teach him a lesson and Manu could surprise him. “I am out of practice.”
With a fencing foil.

“I’ll go easy on you.” D’Oronte smirked at him.

Manu rolled his shoulders and swished his blade to loosen his arm. A twinge told him he might have pulled something in his bicep the day before when hauling Mademoiselle de Fouet from the tipping carriage.

Which made him think of Mademoiselle de Fouet’s interest in the bastard warming up across from him. Suddenly his arm didn’t matter. He took a deep breath and blanked his mind as one of the other gentlemen waved them over, gave a standard patter about rules, and told them to back up and wait for the handkerchief to drop.

When it did, Manu took a few steps forward, but watched d’Oronte instead of attacking. D’Oronte moved to the center of the area marked out for them and smirked. Stupid smirk. He waved his sword, beckoning him closer, and Manu snarled in irritation—he wasn’t holding back as a coward, just assessing. He took another step forward and threw the first strike, which d’Oronte blocked easily, with a little flip of his wrist.

Manu shifted back a little and gestured d’Oronte forward, taunting him in turn. The man’s eyes narrowed, and then his gaze flicked to Manu’s left ear, followed immediately by a strike toward Manu’s left shoulder. He blocked almost without thinking, stepping to the right. He immediately threw his own attack, toward d’Oronte’s exposed right side, but the man brought his sword back and up as he swung around.

“Bien,” grunted Manu. “Italian?”

D’Oronte shrugged and backed up, standing straight and swishing his sword. “My latest sword master fights in the Italian style.”

Manu dodged forward, swinging from low to high and back again, and d’Oronte stumbled back two steps, fending him off with a look of surprise.

Manu grinned like a feral dog. “I favor the Germanic.”

Then another swinging attack, with a swirl that d’Oronte blocked easily. Manu pretended nonchalance. “The French always seems so obvious.”

D’Oronte narrowed his eyes, and the contest was truly underway.

Neither scored a touch, but a few minutes in, Manu caught his covered sword tip on the other man’s ballooning sleeve just long enough for d’Oronte to come far too close to stabbing Manu’s shoulder.

D’Oronte advanced, a murderous look in his eye, bolstered by how close he had come to a touch. He seemed to be favoring the Germanic style too, trying to overwhelm Manu with strength and speed instead of finesse. Emmanuel recognized frustration when he saw it: a desire to never be bested in any way. The same desire made a young man prey on maids and whip horses and flirt with penniless companions who could lose everything all too easily. Manu’s step backwards as he blocked and parried sent d’Oronte off-balance. He finally shoved the man away and jabbed at his chest to clear the space between them, forcing him to stagger backwards out of reach. D’Oronte immediately pushed forward again, but Manu advanced again, swinging fast and hard.

As soon as they paused to breathe, their referee called a halt to the bout. They saluted each other.

Manu might have lost if it had been a real fight. Though he was breathing hard, he was more like a horse after a canter and not after a long, hard gallop. He wanted to go again, to bring d’Oronte to his knees. He wiped his face with his plain, pale brown linen handkerchief. The day was already hot, the sun creeping into the courtyard where they were practicing. He was hungry, but not starved. He had been taught since he was thirteen to survey the surroundings as well as his own body to be sure each was prepared for the other. He smirked as he remembered the older boys’ sniggers about willing women and surveying bodies.

Manu shrugged away thoughts of willing women; for the last week, those thoughts had led to Mademoiselle de Fouet. He turned to d’Oronte. “Shall we go again tomorrow? We seem to be evenly matched.”

D’Oronte had lost his smirk and was fuming. “We should. I promise to touch tomorrow, Monsieur de Cantière.”

“Touch or be touched, Monsieur le Vicomte.”

The other man smiled thinly and turned to his friends.

“Do you have time for another bout, Monsieur?” It was the young man who had never heard the de Cantière name.

“I believe I do,” Manu said, pulling out his watch and considering how long he had until dinner. “Are you evenly matched with d’Oronte?”

“Oh, no.” The boy blushed as men right around them chuckled. “I was hoping you would show me the Germanic style?”

Manu smiled. “My brother-in-law likes to call it that. It’s based on the sort of hacking moves you use with a broadsword. The last Comte de Bures, the current one’s father, apparently considered the Prussians and the broadsword medieval.”

Manu smiled at the laughs around him. The boy looked confused. D’Oronte still had his back turned, talking to his friends, but the others seemed to like Emmanuel. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did.

Chapter Six

Catherine sat quietly at the baronesse’s side, hands idle. She had repaired a torn hem for her patroness and darned some stockings for herself and was bored. Several of the baronesse’s friends exchanged gossip, mostly about Louis XIV’s on-again, off-again official mistress, Athénaïs de Montespan, who was back at Versailles for the first time since her brief period of disgrace.

There was fierce speculation about Montespan’s companion, Mademoiselle des Oeillets, now retired to the country with the daughter she claimed was the king’s. In the baronesse’s salon, they discussed the rumors of her carrying poisons and potions to and from witches in Paris. The part about Black Masses was definitely speculation, in Catherine’s opinion.

No one asked her opinion.

Mostly, Catherine was waiting for Monsieur Emmanuel to come back from fencing. The baronesse’s maid, Anne, slipped into the room with her usual glare and a plate of cakes, so Catherine gestured to the empty plate on a low table between two of the other ladies. Anne rolled her eyes and huffed. She often complained to the baronesse that Catherine was bossing her around. The baronesse told them to work it out, which, to Catherine’s eyes, was as good as saying she was a servant, too.

Catherine hadn’t slept well the night before. She’d woken up many times with Monsieur Emmanuel’s words in her ear:
I would sell you a horse
. It was hardly a declaration of passion or love or even friendship, but it showed her…what? He trusted her? At least he didn’t seem to think she was a servant on a level with Anne.

She wondered if he were really leaving Monday. She hoped he would, because she needed to reclaim the calm and invisibility she was known for. Monsieur Emmanuel somehow ignited her temper and her blushes without even trying. She used to think he was a bad son to the baronesse, but the baronesse’s coldness toward her entire family in her husband’s home had given Catherine her first qualms as to the guilty party. Maybe Catherine was harsh with Emmanuel because she felt guilty about her complicity with the baronesse, who treated her better than she did her own children.

But did she really feel loyalty? The baronesse had fed and clothed her for two years, but in return Catherine had sunk even further into her role as the invisible, efficient companion. So invisible that she never expressed an opinion that was not also the baronesse’s, no matter how ugly and bitter.

Catherine looked at her future and saw it as more of the same, up until she would finally feel she had enough money to retire to Normandy. How much money was enough? How many years was it going to take? How much worse would the house get in the time it took to save enough to repair it and enough to live on? She had spoken in anger the night before, throwing her desire for a dalliance in Emmanuel’s face.

Emmanuel? Monsieur Emmanuel, she silently corrected.

She had left him thinking she was eager to bed d’Oronte, though her intention was to tell Emmanuel she wanted
him
. Monsieur Emmanuel had acted like a nosy, interfering brother, not a lover. Catherine had never had a brother.

She sighed. No one noticed.

Lucas de Granville, the baronesse’s friend’s godson, smiled at her from across the group. Now there was a man who was like a friendly, though distant, brother. She had thought a few times that he was on the verge of asking her to marry him, but he had even less wealth than she. She had also thought a few times that he was on the verge of joining the priesthood. He was a bit preachy at times but had always been kind. She had been kind to him, too, maneuvering the cabal to leave him alone more than once when his godfather, the Comte d’Yquelon, had compared him unfavorably with his own son. Catherine wasn’t positive, but d’Yquelon’s son was rumored to live a double life, only giving lip-service to the sort of piety his father espoused. Of course, most of de Granville’s family was debauched, too. Nobility didn’t always mean wealth, uprightness, or even good sense.

The apartment door opened on Monsieur Emmanuel, driving all thoughts of de Granville from her head. His dusty brown coat hung on his shoulders, a long, narrow box tucked under his arm. He bowed to the ladies and gentlemen and mopped his brow with his cuff. His arrival did what hers never did: stopped conversation.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Emmanuel! Get cleaned up. It is nearly time for dinner.” His mother’s anger masked her impatience, Catherine knew, but felt a twinge of mortification for her patroness anyway.

He looked down at his dusty, suede breeches and rough boots. “I’m going to wear this to ride this afternoon.”

His mother grew even colder. “Dinner, Emmanuel.”

He lowered his head like a child, which was exactly how his mother had spoken to him. But she glimpsed his face as he lifted his head again. He was clenching his jaw, containing harsh words, not responding to his mother’s rudeness. She caught his eye and nodded slightly, approving of the way he didn’t argue.

“Were you fencing with my grandson this morning, Monsieur Emmanuel?” Madame Philinte looked thrilled to see him, which was better than the snide, amused expressions on the other faces.

He pulled his eyes away from Catherine’s. “Yes, I was, Madame. He is an excellent fighter, though he favors the Italian style, which I find too hesitant.”

“Oh, he is! He’s rather the best fencer among the young men, I believe. At least it’s what he told me. What do you think?”

Anger and amusement merged in Monsieur Emmanuel’s face, and he struggled to hide both. Catherine was sure she was the only one who could read his expression. She smiled encouragingly when his eyes darted to her.

“He is quite good, Madame. I can learn much from him about the Italian style, I am sure.”

Catherine almost giggled. Would it kill him to compliment d’Oronte?

Monsieur Emmanuel’s gaze cut to her again. She blinked her eyes slowly and looked up at him through her lashes. He tilted his head and frowned a question.

He bowed to the group again and looked around. “Where’s my trunk?”

“I had the maids drag it into the closet.” The baronesse waved vaguely toward the end of the room.

Catherine watched as he swung his coat from his shoulders and edged along the wall, easing past the baronesse’s friends, to the closet. Such broad shoulders. Such strong legs.

He glanced back from the door and caught her eye. He shook his head in exasperation.

****

He had totally forgotten to walk the right way, hadn’t he? And he was covered in dirt, disreputably dressed, and unsure of what the Vicomte d’Oronte was up to. It didn’t look good. In fact, it looked like he was going to make things harder on Manu through his influence with the young noblemen. But when Mademoiselle de Fouet had looked up at him flirtatiously, he had for a moment thought she might desire him. She was probably mocking him. He had floundered around for something nice to say about d’Oronte to his grandmother because Madame Philinte had always been kind. Then he’d stumped across the room like a peasant.