Before Versailles (31 page)

Tears rolled down Philippe’s face. The lantern’s light was bright enough to reveal too much.

“You are becoming a great prince,” Guy said, keeping his eyes away from all that was plain on Philippe’s face, keeping his focus on gaining the little island, on isolation, on somehow repairing what he’d destroyed, on bolstering Philippe in this new show of courage against Louis’s will. Wine would help. They’d drink wine and talk and plan, like old times. They’d drink wine until Philippe didn’t hurt anymore.

“You never touch me now,” said Philippe.

“It isn’t proper now.”

Philippe looked out over the water, to the suspended garden with its majestic surround of water, to the handsome palace lit by lantern light, to the gondolas from which shouts of laughter and jesting insults could be heard. “I don’t know if I can give up everything,” he said.

They had reached the little island, but Guy pushed the pole against turf, and the gondola slid backward into the water rather than landing. It floated in place. Guy sat down, maneuvered open a bottle of wine, handed it to Philippe, opened one for himself, clinked their bottles together.

“To friendship,” he said, and drank a long swallow.

Philippe considered the word, all it meant, and all it didn’t. The lump in his throat was larger. Would wine move past it?

Silent, they drank and watched the races. Louis lost to Vivonne but won two others. Péguilin fell overboard, swam to shore, and was being petted by tipsy maids of honor. Vivonne jumped into water waist deep and began to shout he was drowning. Guy threw his empty bottle overboard. Philippe did the same.

“Open another for us,” Guy said, “while I pole over to the suspended garden. I see La Grande Mademoiselle with your darling Chevalier de Lorraine. What a bore she was tonight, going on and on about her father, as if he had possessed an honorable bone in his body.”

“He was brother to a king, and it’s a hard life. He did the best he could,” Philippe said.

“Let’s scale the sides like pirates and threaten her virginity unless she drinks a bottle with us, see if the grape can make her unbend.”

“She unbends.”

“Does she? Well, I’m going to have to ascertain that for myself. As tall as she is, she must have beautiful legs. You need to reconcile with Madame tonight. Completely.” Guy didn’t look at Philippe, just pushed the pole up and down in the water as he steered the gondola toward the suspended garden.

“Must I? That will take more wine, my friend.”

“We have it.”

L
OUIS DROPPED A
blood-red leather portfolio into Colbert’s lap. “He apologized for past sins. He asked for my forgiveness. He says these records will be closer to the truth.”

Colbert stared down at the portfolio.

“So I asked him for one million.”

“Excuse me, sire?”

“One million. That will keep him occupied for a time. What are you looking so glum about? Because of his new facts and figures? He has maneuvered around us, but only for the moment.” Louis rubbed at his eyes. His usual vigor had deserted him. I’m tired, he thought. I won’t be able to bear it if she decides against loving me. I’ll lie down on the ground like a dog and howl. D’Artagnan thought he’d found the writer of the Mazarinades: his cousin, La Grande. It was possible. She’d fired a cannon at him. Another cousin, Condé, a famed warrior whom Louis had worshipped as a boy, had marched away to the side of the Spanish during that long war. His family was capable of every treason, large and small. He would never have family interconnected with the governing of the kingdom again. He might forgive, but he did not forget. Hold your friends close and your enemies closer, so said his beloved cardinal. I’m watching her, D’Artagnan said.

“Your majesty is fatigued,” Colbert said.

H
ENRIETTE COULDN’T SLEEP
. She made one of her serving women brush her hair, but the brushing didn’t help. She sent the woman away and paced up and down her bedchamber, wishing she hadn’t allowed her ladies to leave her. Then she saw a note, slipped under her door, and she opened it.

I love you. I don’t wish to retreat in the face of opposition, but I am yours to command. What is that command? Did you wish me to turn my heart from yours? Impossible. You command obedience of everything but my heart, which remains—always—yours
.

She slipped it into a special, hidden drawer in the table her brother had given her. You may need, Minette—her brother called her Minette, his adoring Minette, and she was—you may need a place of privacy, and her brother’s dark eyes had glinted, and he had showed her the small raised griffin, which when touched, made the drawer open. Charles was fourteen years older than her, king of England now, a miracle everyone except her had ceased expecting. Last year had been a year of miracles, hadn’t it? Her brother’s restoration and hers. Who could have guessed the glorious young king of France would fall in love with her? She picked up a hand mirror to look at the face that had captured a king’s heart.

There was a knock, and Catherine came in, walking in that special, long-legged way of hers, the expression on her face pleased.

“Monsieur is on his way,” she said, and she went to Henriette’s dressing table, rummaging through the silver boxes and jars there. She selected a rouge color, dipped her fingers in it, ran it across Henriette’s cheeks in even motions, then pulled the neck of her nightgown down, rouged the nipples of her breasts with quick strokes that tickled and shocked.

“Whatever are you doing?”

Catherine didn’t answer, was opening wine she’d brought, wine that she gave to Henriette and which Henriette obediently drank, even as Catherine was at the bed, plumping pillows, making the bed an inviting nest of linen and lace-trimmed coverings, then she was striding toward the door again. “Leave no doubts in his mind,” she said.

In the withdrawing chamber, Catherine heard sounds and stepped quickly to hide beside a huge armoire. Leaning against Guy, Philippe staggered in. Guy had to open the bedchamber doors and push Philippe through them. Closing them again, Guy leaned his head against the wood in a weary gesture.

“Are you praying?” Catherine stepped out from the armoire. “What possessed you to betray her?”

“Jealousy. I didn’t want his majesty to have her. I’ve done what I could. I’ve told Monsieur I love her and that in my passion I allowed myself to say things of which there was no proof.”

“You told him you loved her?”

Guy opened his eyes. “He’s proud I should love her. It proves to him that he is right to love her, too.”

How handsome my brother is, thought Catherine. And how dangerous.

She put her arm in his, and together they walked out of the withdrawing chamber.

A
T THE SIGHT
of Philippe, who was drunker than she’d ever seen him, Henriette began to cry. She sat where she was on her dressing stool and laid her head on her hands on the dressing table and wept.

Philippe found his own eyes filling. Their first quarrel. In all their months together, they’d done nothing but laugh. He lurched forward, stood over her, staring down at her chestnut curls, her white, white neck and shoulders. His hand went out, to touch her head, to comfort her, but he leaned too far forward and fell on the floor. It didn’t hurt him, but it did surprise him.

“What vileness there is outside these rooms,” Henriette said after he had lain there a while.

She needs to help me up, thought Philippe. I don’t think I can manage by myself.

“I was so proud to accept your proposal of marriage, so proud to be allied with you. You were the only one who was kind to me all those long years. I can’t bear your anger,” Henriette said.

“I could have married anyone. I chose you,” he tried to say, but none of the words came out of his mouth coherently.

All his life, his mother and his brother had wished him to be different, to be as they were. So he might be, with this enchanting girl whose face was swollen with tears from his jealousy. Remember your princely duties, his priest had told him. Trust in the Lord thy God. Beware the things of this world. She would bear the sons who would carry on his seed, his lineage, his house. She graced his life. All his friends thought him fortunate. Guy loved her. Louis admired her, perhaps more—Stop, he told himself. Don’t allow suspicion. He was not king, but he was brother to a king, for once a fit brother. Guy didn’t love him the way he once had, and it broke Philippe’s true heart, but this was enough. To be with her was enough. He closed his eyes. In another moment a snore erupted.

Henriette placed a pillow under his head, then covered him with one of her coverlets. She nestled in the bed, blew out the candle, and turned on her side, exhausted. They’d muddled through. There was no open break with Philippe, and she didn’t have to acquiesce to him tonight, thank the Holy Mother. Lying was easier than she had imagined. She wasn’t quite certain what to make of that.

Chapter 15

HE QUEEN MOTHER WAS AS GOOD AS HER WORD
. B
EFORE TWO
full days had passed, Madame was being swept out of Fontainebleau and off to visit the elderly duchess who was a dear friend to the queen mother.