The Chevalier (Châteaux and Shadows) (19 page)

Catherine sat back in shock. “He would never… Would he?”

“Joke.” The baronesse wheezed and signaled for her cup of doctored wine.

“You must never joke about such a thing.” Suspects were tortured for less. A noble at court might avoid the worst of it, but the baron could be exiled, or worse. The Comte de Bures was powerful enough to help his father-in-law, but probably not to save him entirely.

The baronesse cleared her throat. “His joke.”

Catherine looked at her for a long moment. She supposed it was good the baron had made a joke the baronesse repeated.

“Of course, you are at the top of the list, for most people.” The baronesse’s voice was stronger now, and she narrowed her eyes at Catherine.

“I would never. I am grateful for you taking me in. Grateful for you and the circle of my father’s friends who have supported me over the years since his death. I know you aren’t leaving me a fortune, and I don’t expect you to. If you were to die, I don’t know what I would do. I am tired of life at court. Perhaps I’m ready to go and live on my property.” She held her breath. She hadn’t mentioned the possibility to anyone, except Monsieur Emmanuel.

“Your mother’s property?” The baronesse’s voice was harsh. Catherine didn’t know if it was because of strong emotion or her recent ordeal.

“Yes.”

“You’ve never before called it your property, you know.” The baronesse smiled hesitantly.

Catherine looked down at her hands. “I have so many memories of growing up there, before I came to court. My father…everything of his went to his brother. He was disappointed in me because I wasn’t a son.”

The baronesse waved her hand dismissively. “He bragged about you. Maybe it was just trying to get all of us in his circle interested in marrying our sons to you, but he sounded proud of you.”

Catherine stared at her in surprise.

The baronesse shrugged and looked away. “It’s why I gave you the horse. He told everyone what a good rider you were.”

“But why…”

“Why did I never tell you about him? Entertain you with stories about him? Guilt, of course.”

“Guilt?”

“Your father and I…for a few years.”

“You were his mistress?” Catherine stood up and paced the few steps the tiny room allowed. Fury roiled through her.

“We were both unhappy in our marriages. Emmanuel—his father took him away to make him a man, but also out of spite. I was lonely and had lost the last family member I had. Your mother was sickly. I was done having children. The midwife and surgeon who attended me when Emmanuel and his twin were born said to never have more, and my monthly bleeding had stopped.”

“Emmanuel was a twin?” Why had no one ever told her this?

“She died shortly after she was born. She wasn’t even baptized in time. No one expected twins. The baron thought I was lying about him being the father because my belly was so large too soon. It’s what caused the final rift.”

Catherine stared out the large window at the tossing trees and shrubbery. The rain which had threatened all morning had come, along with wind and rolls of thunder.

Emmanuel used to have a twin. It explained even more his affection for his huge horse. It also explained the baron’s misty eyes and pride in his son for raising an abandoned horse.

“When your parents died at that house party, I swore I would never take another lover.”

Catherine gasped and pressed her hand to her mouth. Had the baronesse truly loved her father?

“You were about to marry. Your mother was finally in good health. He broke off with me and reconciled with her, and not just for appearances or friendship. They had been in love at one time.” She sighed, and her wrinkled face looked almost wistful. “I didn’t go to the house party because it would have been awkward for all of us. And then so many there fell sick. They said it was the fish.”

“Yes, I know.” Catherine’s voice was weak.

“It was probably poison, though no one wanted to investigate. Too many powerful people would have been questioned. And only three people died. Not very important people. I think they were afraid there would be panic.”

Catherine’s gut clenched. Not very important people. Only her parents and one other. “Panic like there is now.”

The baronesse nodded and leaned back, paler than before, but her voice got stronger. The healing power of gossip. “But this time, there are those rumors of Black Masses and dead babies and who knows what else. Usually, such things just blow over. Someone poisons her husband or a rival, but no one can prove anything. Rumors float around, and the guilty party brazens it out or sneaks away. But this time, Montespan’s maid is involved in the rumors. And Montespan herself…”

“And you,” Catherine whispered.

The baronesse smiled thinly. “No one would notice if a nasty old lady died. I have been losing friends of my own age for years. Some die, and some are too old and weak to be at court.”

Catherine nodded. “I’ll keep you safe as best I can. The baron has hired some Swiss Guards and brought in a new maid to bring you your food. Marie will help you as much as she can. Since she’s so young and only just joined your household, she can’t be blamed for anything. I will taste your food for you, if you wish.”

The baronesse shook her head vehemently and reached for her wine again. “You were poisoned once already by eating or drinking something in my room at the baron’s house, weren’t you?”

Catherine sat again. She had been poisoned, hadn’t she? It hadn’t been the grippe, in la Brosse. “But you’ve been having these spells for a year.”

The baronesse nodded. “It’s why you are at the top of the list of suspects, Mademoiselle.”

Catherine covered her face with her shaking hands. She had expected a knock at the door the night before. “It could be the cook at the Paris house, maybe with help of someone here.”

The baronesse shrugged again. “I don’t think it’s you or the cook. It’s most likely Anne. She brings me wine and water and serves the meals, doesn’t she? So not only am I angry about how weak I have become, but I’m angry she might have done this to me.”

“You should tell the guards. Tell the baron. Or your sons.”

The baronesse nodded. “It’s possible she’s being paid or influenced by one of my family.”

“None of them would…”

The baronesse waved her hand to interrupt. “Think about it. I am going to sleep some more. Help me with the chamber pot.”

Catherine was saddened that the baronesse needed help, but the lady’s legs were weak, and the asafetida was strong. She hid her disgust and dismay as best she could as she supported her patroness.

Once back on the bed, the baronesse pointed at the door. “Send in the nice young guard with the smile and the shoulders.”

Catherine had hardly noticed the guards on her way in.

“He’s Swiss, of course. His accent is charming, and he’s the nicest young man to smile at me for many years.”

Catherine didn’t think she should laugh, so she went back out into the drawing room and asked the guard to speak to the baronesse.

As he went to the bedchamber, Marie, the young maid from the country, came in.

“Have they cleared you, Marie?” Catherine frowned at the girl.

“Cleared me?” The girl’s eyes were huge with fear.

“Decided you are not a suspect.”

“Oh! Well, no one thinks it’s me, no. Other than seeing her from a distance a few times, I’ve never spoken to her or even handled her food. I mean, other than when she was in the country and I was helping in the kitchens, but even then I didn’t bring her tea or anything.” Her voice squeaked in panic.

“You should speak to the baron about staying as the baronesse’s maid for the time being.”

The girl took a step back. A shiver of excitement and fear ran up her. The girl was so transparent. “You think it’s Anne? She’s not very nice, but I would never imagine it of her.”

“I have no opinion of it, Marie. I do know so many of us are under suspicion that anyone who is not will be asked to feed and care for the baronesse. That means you.”

“Oh!”

“Unless you are ready to go back to the country?”

“I couldn’t leave without the family.” But the girl looked wistful. She probably missed her parents.

“I think the baron will take Maman with him, if she will go.” It was Emmanuel, just coming through the door. Monsieur Emmanuel.

Catherine lost her voice in relief.

He asked some questions about his mother’s health, then insisted on going in to ask her the same questions.

He hardly glanced at Catherine. She shrank back into her invisible role of companion and went into her own room to sit in her small, hard chair and dream of what it would be like if Emmanuel couldn’t take his eyes off her.

****

Manu sat next to his mother, though he would rather have been pacing. No, he would rather have been riding a half-broken colt—one of the most stubborn ones, preferably—over the fields of Poitou.

The guard looked him over menacingly and left the door to the drawing room open. If he were the villain, he would still be able to smother the baronesse without much noise. He shivered and wished the guard would stay inside her room at all times.

“Maman?” he whispered. She looked half asleep.

“Emmanuel.” Her voice was weak, but her hard gaze focused on him.

He clasped his hands between his knees and looked at them.

She cleared her throat. “I cannot decide which of my children I have most grievously wronged. It might be you.”

He sat up straight but still couldn’t speak. He had felt it for so long he couldn’t deny it, even to make his gravely ill mother feel better.

“It might be Aurore. I should have done better with a daughter. A girl should be quiet and obedient. Witty and intelligent, but not flighty. She was so much like your father, and I could hardly stand the sight of your father. She was four, I think, when he seduced my companion. Maybe three, because I only found out when she fell pregnant. Or she seduced him. I was very much deceived by her.”

Manu still didn’t know what to say. The silence stretched out for so long he thought his mother had fallen asleep. When he glanced at her again, though, she was looking out the window at the stormy sky, her rheumy blue eyes narrowed.

“I envied them all. Or I envied your father for being able to walk into a room and pick up a baby and have his small children clamor to sit on his lap. I never much liked babies and small children. Too noisy and smelly and undignified. But when they got old enough for me to appreciate, I had already lost my chance.”

Manu thought of his loneliness as a child. The gentle nursemaids who were fired. The harsh ones who lasted only slightly longer. Watching other boys through the windows and not being allowed to play with them.

“I think the person I wronged the most was Dominique de Bures. I knew he would never do anything treasonous. His father stayed out of the Fronde because he knew it would not work and felt it was treason. Because his wife had some royal blood, he saw the boy king as a cousin, though I’m sure Louis never thought of him as such.”

Manu nodded. “Papa told me about the link. I never knew before.”

She ignored him. “But I was so angry. I was more worried about saving my own reputation than about trying to improve Aurore’s. I had always seen my role—my tiny role—in the family as the one who stayed at court while everyone else came and went. If the king wanted our family at court, then I would be there.”

“And you loved the court.”
More than you loved me.

“Of course. I was witty enough to hold my own. And my friends like me. I get the respect here I don’t get from the baron and my children.”

“But why did you keep me with you, if you didn’t like babies?”

She fell silent again, and when Manu looked up, she was frowning at him. “I told your father I would have one child who loved me. He said I wasn’t a good mother, or even a good person. I was still pregnant then. I knew you were his, but I was so large with twins he thought…he said that I could take the bastard and live at court and he would never see either of us. When you were born and I recovered enough to see you, he came in with you tucked in his shirt, weeping over the dead girl. You were so small and couldn’t stay warm, even wrapped in blankets. He would hand you off to a nursemaid once an hour, then carry you in his shirt again. He felt guilty enough about his accusations to give you up once you were sure to survive. He said he would keep an eye on me to make sure you had everything. Even if I hadn’t kept silent when Aurore and Dom were attacked, he would have taken you from me eventually. I didn’t know what to do with you when you grew. You were so defiant.”

She took a sip of her wine and grimaced. “I didn’t understand how much you wanted a horse. I wanted you to know how to ride and fence and hunt and everything so you could be as accomplished as the king, of course. It was only after your father took you back that Monsieur de Fouet told me he had given you permission to take out his horse whenever you wanted. I didn’t know you loved riding so much.”

Manu stood and walked to the window. A bolt of lightning flashed over the gardens and thunder clapped overhead, with an echoing rumble in the pit of his stomach. “You shut me away with nursemaids. I was bored and lonely. I felt guilty because you said I owed everything to you.”

She sighed. Not the exasperated sigh that typically accompanied their conversations but a sad one. “I should have left you with your father, Manu. I should have been kinder to all of you when you were small instead of so impatient. I meant to raise you to prove I was a good mother after all and deserved love. I failed.” A tear rolled down her nose and she dabbed at it angrily.

Manu turned his back, unable to watch his mother cry. “You didn’t fail, Maman.” When he looked over his shoulder, she was scowling into her wine cup. “I can’t answer for the others, but they are loyal. Aurore and Cédric are beside themselves with worry. Their spouses, too.”

Manu brushed away the guilt that still rode him at the way he had left Aurore to fend for herself against an attacker when he was thirteen. He hadn’t known the attacker was lying in wait. Aurore had never once blamed him for leaving her side, though his brothers and father had. He had sworn to never let his loyalty waver. But as his loyalty to his mother was tested, he had chosen instead to live far from all of them and raise horses.