Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (14 page)

A half-amused, half-curious smile fleeted across Philippe’s pale face. The girl’s astonishing beauty had struck him at once, but now that he saw her more closely he was impressed by something more; a sort of intrinsic worth he had not expected to find. However, he did not intend to let her see this, and there was more than a suggestion of mockery about his smile when he asked:

‘In that case I must ask your forgiveness, demoiselle. But would you mind telling me your name? I think I know all the pretty girls in the town, yet I have never seen you before.’

‘Don’t call me demoiselle, sire. I have told you, I am not a demoiselle. And I don’t live in this town. I came here with my uncle to buy cloth –’

‘Where are you from then?’

‘I was born in Paris, but I have been living in Dijon since your friends the Cabochiens hanged my father, who was a goldsmith on the Pont-au-Change.’

The smile faded from Philippe’s face and his lips hardened in a thin line. Placing one leg on the corner of the coffer, he half sat there and began pulling the petals off the flowers beside him.

‘From Armagnac, eh? So that’s why you cause disturbances during processions, is it? People of your sort should realise that they come here at their own risk and peril, my pretty. In truth, seeing that you belong to the party that murdered my beloved father, it seems a strange piece of folly.’

‘I am not an Armagnac,’ cried Catherine, flushed with anger. The Duke’s attitude to her, at once insolent and subtly threatening, was beginning to exasperate her unbearably. It was not as though she had ever felt any sympathy for him … Hoarse with fury she went on:

‘I don’t belong to any party. Your friends hanged my father because I tried to rescue one of your sister’s attendants after she had been trying in vain to make you or your beloved father save him. Don’t you remember? It happened in the Hôtel de Guyenne. Madame Marguerite was down on her knees, in tears, begging for Michel de Montsalvy’s life to be spared.’

‘Enough! Don’t remind me of that incident! It was one of the most terrible moments of my youth. I couldn’t have saved Michel without implicating myself.’

‘You couldn’t save him,’ Catherine snorted, ‘but
I
tried to, and I was nothing more than a little Parisian girl. Because of that, my father was hanged, and my mother and I were forced to flee. We had to leave Paris and go to Dijon, where my Uncle Mathieu is a cloth merchant. That’s where I have lived ever since …’

A silence fell between the two. Catherine, invaded anew by memories of those dark days, felt her heart beating like a drum. Philippe’s sombre face was ominous. He would undoubtedly punish her insolence by having her thrown into his deepest dungeon, and Uncle Mathieu and her family likewise. Nevertheless, had the scaffold itself been stood in the middle of that luxurious room, she would still have repeated every one of the words she had just flung so defiantly at the powerful lord of Burgundy. She even felt a certain quiet satisfaction in having done so. It was a sort of revenge for what had happened in the past …

She took a deep breath, tossed back a lock of hair and asked: ‘What are you going to do with me, sire? My uncle must be suffering great anxiety on my behalf. I am sure he would like to know … even if it should be the worst!’

Philippe shrugged angrily and threw the remains of the rose he had been playing with out of the window. Dropping his nonchalant pose, he took a few steps toward Catherine.

‘What am I going to do with you? Disturbing a procession certainly deserves some sort of punishment, but you are so angry with me already that I hesitate to displease you further. You see … I should like us to be friends in future. And, after all, a young girl is free to defend herself if someone attacks her. As for that man who dared –’

‘Does that mean that that unfortunate man will suffer instead of me? In that case, I suggest you pardon him, as I do. His action does not warrant so much publicity.’

To shake off the embarrassment she felt under the steady gaze of those grey eyes fastened on her face, she turned to the mirror and stared at herself in it, though without really seeing anything. The Duke’s reflection, a whole head taller, appeared beside hers within that golden frame. Suddenly she shivered: two hot hands had seized her by both shoulders.

The mirror reflected two faces that were suddenly equally pale. A strange light burned in the young Duke’s eyes, and his hands trembled slightly as he touched her silky skin. He bent close enough for her to feel his breath warm on her neck, and all the while, in the mirror, his eyes held her violet ones imprisoned.

‘The peasant deserves to die a hundred times over for having dared to do what I cannot do myself … much as I would like to. You are too beautiful! I am afraid I might find it hard to find peace away from you … When were you supposed to leave this town?’

‘As soon as the procession had ended. Our baggage was ready and the mules waiting.’

‘Then leave as you had planned. Leave this very evening, and by tomorrow morning let there be as many leagues as possible between yourselves and Bruges. A safe conduct will open the town gates for you and assure your free passage along the roads. We will meet again in Dijon, to which I am returning shortly.’

Embarrassed and also vaguely disturbed by the hands that still held her, Catherine felt a strange emotion swell within her breast. Philippe’s voice was at once brusque and warm, imperious and tender. She tried to fight against this fascination he was beginning to exert over her.

‘Meet in Dijon? Sire! What can the high and mighty Duke of Burgundy do with a cloth merchant’s niece except ruin her reputation?’ she asked, with a hint of insolence that stirred Philippe’s blood. His hands left her shoulders and tangled themselves in her silky mane of hair. Then he stooped and buried his face in it.

‘Don’t play the coquette,’ he murmured in a voice that grew hoarse. ‘You are very well aware of the effect you have on me, and you are taking pitiless advantage of it. A prince’s love does not necessarily bring dishonour. You know that I would do almost anything to gain you for myself. You would not be the daughter of Eve if you did not recognise desire in a man’s eyes.’

‘Sire!’ she protested.

She tried to push him away, but he held her too tightly. Carried away by an overmastering desire, he stooped and kissed her on the nape, in that soft hollow where the neck is shaded by hair. Catherine trembled violently and gave a cry of protest: ‘For pity’s sake, sire! Don’t make me have to slap your face too! I’ve had enough for one day!’

He let her go at once and moved a few steps away. His face was flushed, his grey eyes were clouded and his hands still trembled. Then, suddenly, he burst out laughing:

‘Forgive me! Fate must have willed that every man today should be consumed by your beauty – a little too ardently. I am afraid I lost my head. I am beginning to understand that oaf of a furrier. It is partly your fault …’

As he spoke, he crossed over to an ebony chest and took from it a long, hooded brown velvet coat, lined throughout in priceless sables. He threw it rapidly round the girl’s shoulders. She almost disappeared in the folds of the sumptuous garment. It covered the lovely shoulders and temptingly-bared bosom that were proving too much for Philippe’s self-control. All that was visible was the lovely head with its crown of golden hair. He gazed at her a moment longer in a sort of despair.

‘You look more beautiful still! You had better go. Quickly, before the devil tempts me again. But don’t forget that I shall find you again …’

He pushed her toward the hidden door, which opened without Catherine seeing how. She saw a gleam of armour through the half-open door.

‘Wait,’ Philippe murmured.

He left the room alone, returning a few minutes later with a sealed parchment, which he handed to Catherine.

‘The safe conduct. Go quickly … and if you think of me only half as much as I shall be thinking of you, I shall count myself happy.’

‘I shall think of you, sire,’ she said, smiling. ‘But does your Excellency realise that you are still addressing me as “
tu
”?’

Philippe laughed again, a young, spontaneous, carefree laugh.

‘I can’t help it! Something inside me makes me address you as “
tu
” … Maybe because one day I hope to have the right to.’

With one hand on the door, he kept her back a moment longer. His free arm drew her to him with tender violence, and before the girl could stop him, he stooped and kissed her half-open lips. Then he let her go.

‘I wanted to so much!’ he said by way of apology. ‘Now go.’

His hand brushed the dark velvet, expressive of the regret he felt at letting her go. She was halfway through the door to join the guard who was to escort her back to her uncle when he stopped her once more.

‘Just a moment!’

Then, with a contrite smile:

‘I don’t even know your name.’

‘Catherine, sire, Catherine Legoix,’ she said, dropping so low a curtsey that her face was level with Philippe’s knees. He stooped to raise her up once more, but she eluded him with smiling agility and followed the man-at-arms, whose metal shoes rang hollowly on the marble floor. She did not once turn to look back at the Duke, who watched her depart with a sigh.

It was the first time Philippe of Burgundy had allowed a woman he desired to pass through his hands unscathed, especially one who had been closeted alone with him for so long. But Catherine did not realise this. Her head was in a whirl and, despite the little scene she had just enacted, she felt weary. She would have liked to have climbed into bed and stretch out between cool sheets. She felt no more warmth toward Philippe now than she had earlier on when the guards had first escorted her to the palace, but the short time she had spent with him had made a disturbing impression on her. His kiss and his expert hands had between them stirred the deepest fibres of her being and awakened a mysterious longing that, once it had passed, left her feeling weak and a little ashamed, as if she had done something wrong.

At the end of the great staircase she found Jacques de Roussay waiting. His searching gaze added to her embarrassment. She felt suddenly as though Philippe’s hands and lips must have left invisible marks on her skin. Instinctively she pulled the sumptuous coat higher round her shoulders and drew the hood down over her forehead. The Captain’s eyes fastened on her lips so insistently that she pursed them up and, throwing her head back defiantly, stepped toward the stairs. He followed her without a word.

Only when they had reached the archway at the entrance did he decide to speak.

‘I am under orders to escort you back to the Flowering Mulberry,’ he said in a colourless voice, ‘and then to see that you leave Bruges without hindrance.’

From beneath her hood, Catherine flashed him such a dazzling smile that the young man blushed to the roots of his hair.

‘What an honour! I suppose you aren’t under orders to accompany us as far as Dijon too?’

‘Alas, no –’ he began; then, suddenly changing his tone, he cried joyfully, ‘Are you going to Dijon? Is that where you live?’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘Oh, in that case I shall see you again. I am from Burgundy too. From the heart of Burgundy,’ he added with such ingenuous pride that she smiled. It seemed as though this fellow wanted to get to know her better too. Catherine wondered silently if, by the time she left Flanders, she would not have a rendezvous with the whole ducal army … This thought put her in such a good humour that she was singing as she entered the inn.

Mathieu Gautherin had collapsed in a chimney-corner, where he continued to weep and quaff numerous flagons of beer, under the innkeeper’s wary eye. Catherine’s radiant appearance took him completely by surprise. He was expecting archers, black-robed judges, the executioner in person perhaps, and here was his niece, laughing gaily, dressed like a princess in a coat the value of which was not lost on the merchant’s experienced eye. One of the duke’s officers, dressed up like a herald, followed the supposed prisoner like a proud little dog.

Everyone in Burgundy knew of the Duke’s susceptibility to feminine beauty. Catherine’s triumphal entry gave Mathieu Gautherin much food for thought. It looked as though the Duke and his niece had made peace. It remained to be seen just how far this peacemaking had gone. As he shook his dozing valets awake and ordered them to finish loading up the mules, he promised himself to keep his eyes open. He was one of those respectable citizens to whom a bastard, whether royal or not, was in no way a gift from heaven.

Against her uncle’s advice, Catherine refused to put her superb coat in one
of the travelling chests. She had replaced her torn dress by a plain white one, made of a fine lightweight cloth woven by the women of Valenciennes. Her hair, which had been carefully plaited, was concealed by a coil of fine Flemish linen, one flap of which went under her chin and closely framed her face. On top of it all, though, she had replaced the famous velvet coat.

‘If we meet any robbers,’ Uncle Mathieu grumbled, still not altogether recovered from his ordeal, ‘they will take you for a noblewoman and we shall be held to ransom …’

But Catherine was so delighted with her magnificent coat that she refused to hear of parting from it. ‘It would get spoilt, squashed into a chest,’ she pointed out. ‘Besides, I shan’t be allowed to wear it in Dijon. Maman would never hear of it, if only because it might offend the Dame de Chancey or the Dowager of Châteauvillain, who haven’t got one like it. So I may as well make the most of it …’