By Honor Bound (16 page)

Chapter Fifteen

“It is time, Majesty.”

The king looked up with bleary eyes at the three men surrounding him, the most powerful ministers of his cabinet. Was it Chancellor de Maupeou who had spoken? The finance minister perhaps, Terray? Or had it been D’Aiguillon?

“Did you say something, Emmanuel?” Louis turned slowly in the foreign minister’s direction.

The three men exchanged glances as the king emptied his goblet and a footman instantly refilled it.

“It was I who spoke, Majesty,” Terray repeated. “The gala … you recall. All the guests have arrived. They merely await Your Royal Highness.”

“Let them wait. This is the third one this week. Am I not allowed a little time to myself?”

Meaningful looks were traded among the trio once again. D’Aiguillon cleared his throat.

“But this one is special, Majesty. It’s the one you designated as the official New Year’s celebration.”

“Ah, yes.” The king lifted the goblet to his lips and then set it on a low, handsomely painted table. “We gather tonight in the Hall of Mirrors. People say it’s the most beautiful room in the palace.”

“And indeed it is, Majesty,” Terray quickly said.

“Yet barely a hundred years ago it was just a gallery connecting the King’s Apartments with the Queen’s,” Louis continued as if he had not heard his minister. “And until only a few years ago who were you, the three of you?”

The king retrieved his goblet and emptied it. He waved away the footman with the crystal decanter and let his gaze rest on first one minister, then another. He enjoyed their expressions of discomfiture.

“Who were you, after all, until my mistress persuaded me that you would be invaluable to me in helping to shape the nation’s policies? You all owe your positions to a former prostitute. You know that, don’t you? Do you want to know something else?”

All three men shuffled, but no one spoke.

“The Court refers to you as the three yellow men.” Louis chuckled deep in his chest. “You do have rather bilious complexions. I don’t know what the comtesse sees in you. Particularly you, D’Aiguillon.”

The duke could not hold the king’s gaze. The other two ministers looked away, as if to disassociate themselves from him. It was common knowledge he was no stranger in the comtesse’s bed. But it was also highly unusual to refer to such matters so forthrightly. The king was in a strange and unpredictable mood, and it made the Duc D’Aiguillon extremely apprehensive. Once again the duke cleared his throat as if in preparation to speak, but Louis raised a hand to silence him.

“Denials bore me.” He picked up his goblet, studied its empty depths, and quirked a single brow.

The footman moved with alacrity.

The king raised his glass. “To the relief of boredom,” he said to no one in particular and drained his glass. He set it sharply on the table and rose unsteadily to his feet.

His ministers moved swiftly to his side.

“I doubt Your Majesty will be bored this evening,” Terray said in a currying tone as the men moved toward the door. “The Hall is positively resplendent. Your Majesty’s choice was an excellent one.”

Chancellor de Maupeou, who had thus far remained silent, smiled thinly and touched the king’s sleeve. “Do not forget, Majesty, that tonight is the night you asked that pretty young woman to dance for you.”

Louis halted, swaying slightly, and furrowed his brow in thought.

“The girl with the dogs,” de Maupeou prompted. “The pretty little thing with the unusual eyes.”

“Unusual eyes,” Louis repeated. “Yes. Yes, I do remember. Of course.”

The three men sighed almost in unison as the king smiled.

“Perhaps the evening will not be as wasted as I feared,” Louis mumbled as if to himself. “Yes, I remember …”

A thousand candles blazed the length of the long hall. They burned from a dozen chandeliers suspended from a vaulted ceiling, its painted segments depicting events from Louis XIV’s illustrious reign. They shone from smaller chandeliers perched atop freestanding gilded sculptures of cherubs and classical figures. Dozens of them stood across from each other in long, golden lines, stretching the distance of the elongated chamber. Between each gilded figure on one side of the room stood tall, arched mirrors, reflecting and multiplying the flickering lights. Opposing each mirror across the parquet floor stood a tall, arched window. Beyond the segmented glass panes, snowflakes swirled and danced in and out of the projected candlelight.

At one end of the vast and stunning room, a chamber orchestra patiently awaited its cue. The low babble of a hundred voices wove in and out of the susurration of silk and satin skirts. Crystal beads, gold and silver, glittered on velvet coats of every hue. Precious jewels at ears and throats sparkled with lights from their own inner fires. Laughter and champagne bubbled on pink-tinted lips.

The royal family mingled with the most favored courtiers, the Court’s elite. Having few friends yet among the Court denizens, Antoinette was content to hover at her husband’s side. They moved through the crowd together, nodding and smiling, Louis dropping a few well-chosen words here and there. The princess saw her favorite brother-in-law, Provence, with his homely but adoring wife. The king’s sisters were nowhere to be seen, but Antoinette was not surprised. They shunned any function which du Barry might attend.

The dauphine cast a quick glance about her, but did not see the comtesse. Could it be, in light of the latest palace rumor, that she would not attend the night’s celebration? A familiar unpleasantness returned to the pit of Antoinette’s stomach.

Poor Honneure. The dauphine felt every bit of her fear and distress. It was a terrible situation.

All noise abruptly ceased, and all eyes turned to the head of the room. A footman in gilded livery announced the arrival of King Louis XV, sovereign of all France. Gentlemen bowed; ladies curtsied. The king, cheeks flushed and eyes reddened, took his place in an elaborately carved gilt and velvet chair. One of the ministers attending him gave a discreet signal, and the music commenced. Antoinette turned away.

He was her husband’s grandfather and her king. But he was also a dissipated old man. His vices were legendary. He hardly made any pretense of running the country anymore, but seemed intent instead on distracting himself from the one thing he had in common with his neglected subjects—mortality. His life had become an endless round of parties and merriment and sexual peccadilloes. His mistress, when she was not busy having her sycophants appointed to positions of power, spent her time inventing new ways to rekindle the king’s waning interest. And still he cast his greedy and roving eye about for younger and more tender flesh.

“Is something wrong, Antoinette?”

She felt her heart squeeze as Louis covered the hand she had linked through his arm. She looked up at him with as much of a smile as she was able to muster.

“Nothing is wrong, my dear husband. I … I’m merely a little tired, and the dancing hasn’t even begun yet.”

“The dancing.” Louis grunted and absently patted the back of his wife’s hand. “The only dancing anyone cares about tonight is the dance your servant will be doing for the king.”

“Oh, Louis.” Antoinette looked up at her husband with a plea in her wide blue eyes. “Please tell me this isn’t going to end as I fear.”

“If your fear is for the girl’s virtue, then your fear is not misplaced. And there is nothing you, nor I, nor anyone can do.”

Antoinette shut her eyes. She had tried to tell herself and assure Honneure that it was simply a dance, a diversion for the king. When it was over and she had gone her way, he would forget about her.

But it was not to be. It had been naive of her to think otherwise.

“What … what will happen, Louis?” Antoinette whispered. “What will become of her?”

“She will be ordered to the lodge in the deer park, no doubt,” he replied, disapproval rampant in his tone. “She will become just another one of many.”

“But what about the man who loves her? What about her
life
?”

The question was never answered, and a warning glance from her husband precluded any others. Curious ears were beginning to turn in their direction.

And the signal had been given for the formal dancing to commence.

Earlier the wind had been fitful, but now it roared in earnest. The walls of the great stone stable seemed to shudder as another icy blast tore at its very foundations. Inside the vast building, however, the heat was almost stifling. The royal horses were as pampered as their masters and mistresses, and no expense was spared to keep them safe from winter’s rigors. It was almost more than Philippe could bear.

His endlessly pacing in the barn aisle in front of the Lipizzans’ stalls had raised his already overheated body temperature. Sweat prickled in his armpits and at the small of his back. But it was the least of Philippe’s worries.

Tonight was the night. Even now, this moment, she might be dancing before the king. Even now, fate might be conspiring against them.

For, despite his words, Philippe had no illusions about the seriousness of the situation. The king did not idly amuse himself. He was interested in Honneure. And if he wanted her, he would have her.

In spite of the stable’s warmth, a chill raised the hairs on the backs of Philippe’s arms. And something deeper, darker, far more sinister gnawed at his insides. He raised his hands to his temples and rubbed the flesh there as if aiding the circulation might help to restore memory. What was it Honneure had told him?

It was so long ago. They had been children still, she twelve, perhaps, and he fourteen. They had become fast friends by then, confidants. And she had shared something with him on a day very much like this one.

It had been cold, with blowing snow. Their parents had been elsewhere in the château. He and Honneure had been sitting in the kitchen at the old, scarred table in front of the hearth. Tears had come to her eyes. It had been an important date, an anniversary of some kind … The date of her mother’s death! He remembered now.

Without realizing it, Philippe had halted his pacing. He stood stock-still in the middle of the aisle. But he still pressed his fingers, hard, to his temples.

He had tried to comfort her. When she had leaned her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands, he had rubbed her back and murmured words of comfort. But she had been inconsolable. Reliving the day of her mother’s death, Honneure had also relived her fear and grief and terrible, terrible sense of loss.

“All of a sudden I had nothing. Nothing,” she had cried. The depth of her sorrow had torn at his soul.

“You have your memories,” he had replied in a weak attempt to console her.

Honneure had looked up at him then, eyes wide and wet, full of remembered horror … and something else.

“I have more than memories, Philippe,” she had whispered in an odd voice. “She
did
leave me something. She left me with a mystery I will never be able to solve.”

How intrigued he had been! How anxious to hear her tale and solve the enigma and be a hero in her eyes. But her mother’s dying words had left him as cold and baffled as they had left Honneure herself.

“The king,” she had cried.

And “Never tell … never tell!”

Never tell
what
? And what about the king?

“
Les cerfs … dans le parc … les cerfs
.”

The deer … in the park … the deer.

Totally incomprehensible. Then.

Philippe’s arms dropped, limp, to his sides. His entire body convulsed with a shudder although sweat streamed from his temples.

Deer in the park … the hunting lodge,
Le Parc aux Cerfs.
The king’s private brothel.

Philippe moaned, completely unaware the agonized sound had come from his lips.

“Poor lost Honneure,” the woman had breathed at her last. “My lost Honneure?” or “My lost
honneur
?”

Had she lost her honor to the king in his brothel? Did she reclaim it with the birth of her illegitimate daughter and the bestowing of the name?

Philippe licked dry lips with a drier tongue.

Was the King of France Honneure’s father?