Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (43 page)

When she entered Philippe’s room she found it was empty.

The first thing she did on finding herself alone in the room was to run across to the door through which de Roussay had ushered her earlier on. She rattled it frantically, but it was locked. With a sigh of resignation she went back to the fireside. In spite of the leaping fire she shivered in her thin gown. Soon, however, the burning heat enveloped her all over, and this comforted her a little. Five minutes later she felt better, strengthened, and readier to submit to whatever awaited her. Philippe must have been called away suddenly but doubtless would return before long.

As if in echo to her thoughts, she heard the key turning in the lock. The door opened slowly, with a little creak. Catherine gritted her teeth and turned toward it … only to find herself face to face with a chambermaid in white cap and apron, who dropped her a quick curtsey.

‘I have come to turn down the covers,’ she said, looking toward the bed. Catherine paid no more attention to her until the girl suddenly spoke again:

‘Monseigneur the Duke asks madame to take supper and retire to bed without waiting for him. Monseigneur will probably be detained, and he craves madame’s pardon. I will bring the supper in a moment.’

The chambermaid stood by the bed holding back the covers by one corner, as if inviting Catherine to climb in. She decided to accept the unspoken invitation, removed her slippers and slipped between the sheets. It had been an exhausting day, and since this banquet for the magistrates seemed to have brought her an unexpected reprieve, for the time being at least, it seemed foolish not to make the most of it and get a little rest. It was quite dark now outside and the wind was rising. She could hear it moaning in the chimney, and the flames died down briefly.

Catherine burrowed deeper into the heap of silken pillows and suddenly felt much happier. Philippe’s room, a little ironically perhaps, gave her the peace and solitude she needed and would never have found in the two cramped rooms she shared with Ermengarde and the other three ladies-in-waiting. She smiled as she thought of her friend. What must the stout Countess be thinking now? That Catherine had eloped with Arnaud, probably, and was now galloping toward Guise riding pillion behind the knight. The picture this conjured up was so painfully vivid that it all but shattered the courage she had been so laboriously building up during the past few hours. She must not allow herself to think of Arnaud if she wanted to keep calm. Later, perhaps, when the coming ordeal was over. She would then have time to work out what she should do next.

When the young chambermaid returned with a tray on which her supper had been temptingly laid out, Catherine did full justice to the meal. She had not eaten a thing since the previous day. That morning, when she had left her lodgings for the lists, she had been unable to swallow a bite, despite Ermengarde’s scolding and insistence. It just would not stay down. But now her young healthy body cried out for nourishment. She polished off a bowl of soup beaten up with eggs, half a roast chicken, a slice of hare pâté and some sugarplums, all washed down with a goblet of Sancerre wine. Then she pushed aside her tray, which the chambermaid presently took away, and lay back once more among the pillows. She felt much better. When the young girl asked her respectfully if there was anything else she wanted, Catherine asked her anxiously where the Duke was at that moment. She replied that he had just gone into the banqueting hall and that the festivities were about to begin.

‘In that case, draw the curtains and leave me,’ Catherine said. ‘I don’t need anything more.’

The maid pulled the curtains round the bed, dropped another quick curtsey and ran out of the room on tiptoe. From the warm depths of the bed, Catherine tried to rouse herself sufficiently to examine the situation she found herself in and to work out what attitude to adopt toward the Duke when he eventually returned and demanded the payment of what he seemed to regard as a debt. But her weariness and the slightly soporific effect of a good meal, coupled with the warmth and comfort of the bed, were irresistible, and in a moment Catherine was sound asleep.

When she opened her eyes again she found to her astonishment that the curtains round her bed had been drawn back, that it was broad day and that Philippe was in the room but not in the bed beside her. He was stood near one of the windows wearing the dressing-gown of the evening before, writing at a tall, wrought-iron lectern on which several rolls of parchment had been placed. The only sounds in the room were the faint scratching of the long goose quill over the parchment and a distant cock-crow. On hearing Catherine sit up in bed he turned toward her and smiled.

‘Did you sleep well?’

Throwing the quill pen down, he came toward the bed, mounted the two steps leading up to it and stood with one elbow propped against a bedpost looking down at her from his full height. Catherine looked first at the Duke and then at the bed, which was as unruffled and tidy as though she had only just got into it. The expression on her face made Philippe laugh.

‘No, it’s all right, I haven’t touched you. It was early morning by the time the banquet ended and I returned to my room. I found you sleeping so soundly that I hadn’t the heart to wake you – much as I would have liked to. And I don’t enjoy making love to an unconscious partner. But how fresh and lovely you look this morning, sweetheart! Your eyes are shining like sapphires, and your lips …’

Abandoning his nonchalant attitude at the foot of the bed, he sat down beside her and took her very gently in his arms. Then he began kissing her, slowly, almost meditatively, with his eyes half closed. An absurd, incongruous thought flashed across Catherine’s mind. He reminded her of Uncle Mathieu in his cellar at Marsannay when he tasted one of his best wines from the cask. Philippe’s lips were strangely adroit. Quite different from Arnaud’s rather hard, bruising, hungry kiss, Philippe’s was a genuine caress. It was deliberate, controlled and designed for one thing alone: to arouse pleasure in a woman’s body. He touched her softly, so softly, but Catherine felt herself weakening. It was like gliding faster and faster down a slippery slope toward something she could not clearly see as yet. There was nothing she could cling to to stop herself falling … But the delicious, frightening, giddy sensation it gave her had nothing to do with her real emotions. It left her heart untouched. But her body responded eagerly and ardently.

When Philippe laid her down again, his lips still pressed on hers, she gave a little sigh and lay there passively waiting for his next move. But nothing happened. With a groan, Philippe let go of her and stood up again.

‘What a pity it is that I have an appointment now, my sweet! With you here, one forgets everything else so easily!’

Whatever he might have said, however, he seemed perfectly in command of himself. He was smiling, but his grey eyes remained cold. Catherine had the uneasy feeling that he was studying her closely. Without taking his eyes off her, he went back to the lectern, picked up a little bell there and rang it. A page appeared and bowed.

‘Tell Captain de Roussay that I want to see him, and the others I mentioned. ‘Then, when the boy had disappeared with another bow, he returned to Catherine.

‘Pray forgive me for attending to state matters in your presence,’ he said, with a polite smile that did not reach his eyes. ‘I particularly wish to deal with this business while you are here so as to set your fears completely at rest. I hope you will be pleased.’

Before Catherine, who had not understood a word of what he was talking about, could answer, the door opened and three men came in. The first was Jacques de Roussay. But when she saw the other two, Catherine had to bite her lips to stop herself crying out in horror: they were Arnaud and his friend Xaintrailles!

Catherine felt an agonising pain stab through her as sharp as a blow from a dagger. She felt her strength ebbing away. The blood left her face and hands and rushed tumultuously to her heart, which seemed to have stopped beating. She now saw clearly the trap Philippe had prepared for her to determine whether or not she had been telling the truth when she had claimed that it was nothing but a childhood friendship that bound her to Montsalvy. Sat in this bed in the bright sunshine, clad in a diaphanous garment that clung suggestively to her body, with Philippe beside her in a dressing-gown, she was caught as surely as if she had been nailed to the pillory. How could Arnaud any longer doubt that she was the Duke’s mistress? All she could see of him was his set profile. He was not looking at her, but as he had come in she had intercepted his glance, and it had been one of withering contempt.

Catherine suffered as she had never suffered before. Desperately she sought something to cling to, some sort of help in her present plight. She felt Philippe’s sharp eyes watching her and had to make a superhuman effort to hide her distress and keep back the tears that threatened to betray her. She longed to leap out of the bed and run toward Arnaud and explain that it was all a hateful pretence, that the scene had been deliberately rigged for his benefit alone, and that she was still intact, still his and his only.

But she could not let her head droop and the tears flow, as they kept threatening to do. She squeezed and constricted her throat till it ached. At the slightest indication of the pain she was enduring, Philippe would unleash his anger against the young knight. And who could tell how far he might go in his jealous rage, this Prince whom people everywhere were beginning to call the Great Duke of the Western World? Death for Arnaud, and for Xaintrailles too, in all likelihood. But Catherine herself would doubtless be deprived of the supreme happiness of being allowed to die with them. She stayed quite still, rigid with misery, her hands locked under her knees, outwardly calm but inwardly imploring heaven to let it all be over soon, soon …

The silence that had seemed such an eternity to her had in fact lasted only a few seconds. Then Philippe’s voice was heard. He sounded pleasant, cheerful, carefree almost. He was no doubt reassured by the lack of reaction shown by the three actors he had assembled for this scene.

‘You are owed an apology, gentlemen, and I have sent for you in order to make it to you myself, in all sincerity. It appears that Messire de Luxembourg allowed himself to be carried away by a somewhat over-zealous solicitude for our Crown. He forgot that you were my guests and, as such, sacrosanct. Have the kindness to forgive me for the uncomfortable night you must have spent. Your horses are saddled and ready, and you are free to go.’

Breaking off at this point, he turned toward the lectern and took from it the parchment on which he had been writing earlier. He then handed it to Xaintrailles.

‘This safe conduct will enable you to reach Guise in complete safety. As for you, messire …’ Here he turned toward Arnaud, at the same time taking the helmet with the fleur-de-lys crest out of a chest and holding it out to him. ‘As for you, I have great pleasure in returning to you this helmet that you wore so valiantly and gloriously. God’s truth, messire, I deeply regret that you are so loyally attached to my cousin Charles, for I should like to have made your fortune.’

‘It is already made, Monseigneur,’ Arnaud replied coldly, ‘and entirely dedicated to the service of my Lord, the King of France. But I am nonetheless grateful to Your Excellency for your kind words. I hope too that you will have the goodness to overlook certain rather … blunt remarks I may have made in the past.’

He bowed, politely enough, but stiff with arrogance, while Xaintrailles in his turn thanked the Duke. The latter addressed a few more amiable words to them and then gave them permission to withdraw. They both bowed once more and were making for the door when Philippe stopped them again.

‘You should also thank my charming friend here,’ he remarked, waving toward her as she sat in the bed. ‘It is to Dame Catherine that you owe your freedom, since it was she who came rushing here last night in a state of great distress to tell me what had befallen you. I believe you know each other already …’

This time she was forced to look at them. Her doubting, frightened eyes glanced at Arnaud, but she felt so heartbroken that she preferred to focus on Xaintrailles. The latter was looking her over with a mocking smile on his lips and an appreciative and expert eye that gave full credit to her beauty but also contained a good measure of insolence.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Arnaud without looking at her. His face was so closed that it made one think of a wall without a door or window in it. Catherine had never felt him so remote from her. He said nothing more, and it was Xaintrailles who thanked ‘Dame Catherine’ on their behalf. She heard herself answer graciously, and felt her lips go through the motions of smiling …

The two knights went out, and the young woman fell back miserably against the pillows. The dreadful scene was over, and not a moment too soon. She was at the end of her tether. And yet the play was not quite over. Philippe turned toward her, bent over the bed and covered her two icy hands with kisses.

‘Are you pleased? Have I done what you wanted?’

‘Just what I wanted, Monseigneur,’ she said in a faint voice. ‘You have been … very magnanimous.’

‘On the contrary, it is you who are magnanimous. For you do forgive me for having suspected you yesterday, don’t you? When you came here to plead for those two men, and especially when Luxembourg told me he found you in their pavilion, I was wildly jealous, jealous as I have never been before.’

‘And now,’ Catherine asked with a wan smile, ‘are you reassured?’