Hearts Beguiled (35 page)

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Authors: Penelope Williamson

Tags: #v5.0 scan; HR; Avon Romance; France; French Revolution;

BOOK: Hearts Beguiled
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Late that night, the black berlin pulled up before the duc de Nevers's townhouse in Versailles. At the top of the steps, as he waited for the door to open, the lawyer Louvois looked across to the palace next door—where Louis XVI rested his royal, and probably drunken, head.

Louvois smiled to himself. At this very moment throughout the land, elections were being held to select representatives to a meeting of the Estates-General. It was the first time this parliamentary body would meet in a hundred and seventy-five years, and they were not going to be in a congenial mood. The king hoped to bail France out of bankruptcy by getting permission to tax the privileged orders, the clergy and the nobility. The privileged orders had other things on their minds— notably to wrest as much power as they could from the king. The bourgeoisie, the great and heavily taxed middle class that had wealth but no privileges, wanted to be given what the nobility already had.

And the people? Louvois laughed out loud. The people wanted bread for three sous a loaf.

Soon, my fat old King Louis, he thought, there will be no more highborn lackeys willing or able to hand you your nightshirt and empty the royal chamber pot.

The door opened behind him, and Louvois turned to follow a lowborn lackey up the stairs and into the bedchamber of the duc de Nevers. The duc was lying in bed staring at the portrait of his son. Louvois repressed a sigh and unconsciously touched the scar on his cheek. Must we, he thought, go through all this once again?

Louvois had never quite recovered from the crushing disappointment of last year—when he thought he'd had her, Gabrielle, that haughty little aristocratic bitch, at the very tips of his outstretched fingers only to find she had somehow slipped from his grasp. He had railed at that fool Abel Hachette for giving her a chance to escape, only to have the financier shrug and reply in icy tones that he had provided Louvois with all the information he had. If Louvois could do nothing with it then he, Hachette, could hardly be blamed.

To this day, Louvois still haunted the entrance to the apartments above the Cafe de Foy. He'd had it watched every minute when he couldn't be there. But if she had ever been there in the first place, she certainly never came back.

"... and if the vicomtesse agrees, then I shall be able to see my grandson soon," the duc was saying.

"What did you say?" Louvois exclaimed, realizing too late by the shocked expression on the duc's face that he had shouted the question. He lowered his voice and tried to remain calm. "Did ... did you say you've found your grandson?"

"My dear Louvois, that's what I've been telling you. It seems the bi— my son's wife has remarried. To the vicomte de Saint-Just, son of the great marechal. "

Darkness clouded the edges of Louvois's vision, and he had to blink several times. "Are you telling me that Gabrielle has married the vicomte de Saint-Just? That you know where she is?"

The duc gazed dreamily up at the portrait. "Gabrielle . . . Yes, I remember now. That was her name. Gabrielle. Monsieur le Vicomte says the child is called Dominique. He has blond hair and blue eyes." He frowned. "Is the girl a blond? I don't remember."

"She has golden-red hair," Louvois snapped. "And violet eyes. Haven't you sent anyone yet to arrest her, you—" He stopped himself just in time from calling the duc an old fool. "She's slippery and dangerous as a viper. Dieu, she could be anywhere by now. And could have taken the boy with her," he added, thinking that at least would break through the duc's nostalgic reverie.

The duc did whip his head around to rivet me lawyer with agate-hard eyes. "The woman is to be left alone. Do you understand me, Louvois? Monsieur le Vicomte de Saint-Just has made that very clear. If I have any hope at all of ever seeing my grandson, the boy's mother is to be left in peace."

Louvois saw a shadow of fear flicker across the duc's face. "I understand," he said, and he did.

But he didn't care. It was Gabrielle he wanted, not the boy. The duc's wants didn't interest him in the slightest.

Still, Louvois thought, almost trembling in his excitement, he could afford to be patient now. She wouldn't be running away this time. This time she thought herself safe. He could afford to leave her where she was, thinking herself protected by her powerful, titled husband.

Louvois repressed a shiver at the memory of his one brief encounter with the dangerous man who had turned out to be the vicomte de Saint-Just. No, he would need to play very, very carefully if he was going to safely wrest the bitch from beneath that haughty nose. But he could do it, oh yes, and he knew just exactly how he was going to do it.

Again excitement gripped him, and he had to hold his breath to keep from laughing out loud. He thought of a certain jewel box, locked within a chest in his apartment. It contained no diamonds or rubies, but something far more precious—his own signed, blank lettre de cachet that he had appropriated years ago against just such an eventuality, that he would have an enemy who needed to be disposed of, quietly, and without a trace.

Chapter 21

H
is dark, sardonic face, half obscured by the black moire" domino, leaned close until their lips almost, but not quite, touched. He ran his finger along the edge of her bodice where the stiff silver lace just covered her nipples. Gabrielle shivered, and her mouth parted as she sucked in her breath.

Max's lips twisted into a satisfied smirk as he pulled away from her to settle back against the leather seat. He turned his head to look out the carriage window. Carnival revelers, roaming the streets of Versailles on foot, pressed against the coach's sides. Some, dressed in grotesque costumes, looked like demons from a particularly colorful hell. Others were nymphs, dressed in gauzy costumes that revealed too much.

"We'll be another five minutes at least, just reaching the palace gates," Max said.

Although she had a perfectly good window on her side of the black japanned coach, Gabrielle leaned across Max's lap to look out his side. As she pressed her palm on his satin-covered thigh to brace her weight, she felt the hard muscle tremble, and she laughed low and soft in the back of her throat. Max was usually the one to start this teasing game of seduction, but she always won it.

Ahead of them, to the gilded gates of the royal residence of Versailles, streamed a glittering cortege of coaches— carved, painted, and pulled by shining, caparisoned horses.

The road was lined with dozens of Swiss Guards bearing torches, and the palace rose up against the purple night sky, looking as if it were on fire with its hundreds of high windows filled with blazing light.

Gabrielle felt the heat of Max's eyes on her, and she turned her shoulders slightly so he could get an even better view of her shockingly deep ddcolletage. His breath caressed her neck, causing her diamond chandelier earrings to sway and tickle her skin. The coach lurched, and she pretended to lose her balance, grasping him between the legs-He groaned aloud and, grabbing her wrist, lifted her off his lap and pushed her back against the seat next to him. He held her in place with his arm pressed across the rising mounds of her breasts and brought his face so close to hers she could have licked the corner of his mouth with her tongue. She wet her own lips instead.

A muscle twitched once in his cheek. His eyes devoured the sight of her in a gown of vaporous silk garlanded with hundreds of tiny pink silk roses, each with a sapphire chip in its center so that she twinkled like a sky full of stars. "I don't think I dare present you to the king wearing that dress, ma mie. It's too seductive by far."

She lowered her lashes demurely. "You needn't worry, Max. The king has always been faithful to his wife."

Behind the black mask, Max's eyes glittered with dangerous lights. "That may be true, but then the queen has never once left her husband's side."

He removed his arm and turned away from her as the coach entered the palace gates into the Cour Royale. The three-sided courtyard shimmered like a bowl of molten gold from the lights that shone from every window and the great flambeaux that lined the palace walls.

Max descended first to give her his arm. Gabrielle put her loo mask—shaped like the head of a bird and covered with white silk feathers and tiny glass beads—in front of her face and stepped down from the coach. She looked up through wide-open doors to a great marble staircase heavily encrusted with gold and filled with people.

"Oh, Max." She sighed softly. "It's so . . ." But there were no words to describe what she saw.

"Welcome," he drawled mockingly in her ear, "to the mournful splendor of Versailles."

The ball was being held in the Galerie des Glaces. One wall of the great long hall was entirely covered with mirrors, and opposite were as many windows that opened onto the sweeping lawns and canals and fountains of the palace grounds. Chinese lanterns cast mysterious shadows into the Grand Canal and caused mist from the fountains tor twinkle like thousands of fireflies. Inside the hundreds of candles in the crystal chandeliers were reflected in the mirrors and win-dowpanes again and again, on into eternity. Shells, garlands, palm fronds, and cupids were gilded, carved, and painted onto every available space that wasn't already glass.

There was no place to sit down. But then, only those with the rank of duchesse or above were allowed to sit in the presence of the queen. And then only on a tabouret—& three-legged stool. It was the princesses of the royal blood who got the chairs with arms.

The gallery was so crowded that Gabrielle could only stand in one place anyway and turn in a circle. The skirts on the gowns of the women were so widely panniered that they tipped and rang against each other like bells. Their frizzed and powdered hair was elaborately dressed and topped with plumes, and they looked in danger of catching on fire from the dripping chandeliers. One woman sailed past Gabrielle's nose wearing a headdress comprised of a wooden ship, including sails and a flag on top of the mainmast.

It was supposed to be a fancy dress ball in celebration of the carnival—a final day of revelry before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the dull season of Lent. Some of the revelers wore only dominos and loo masks, but others were dressed in complete costume. The queen's coterie, which were huddled jealously around the royal couple at one end of the hall by the fire, were dressed alike as fantasy milkmaids and shepherdesses. They had daringly hitched their skirts high above their silk-clad ankles and pulled their satin overskirts up into poufs on their hips.

Max took Gabrielle's arm and began to lead her down the length of the hall. She tried to drag her pearl-embroidered slippers across the glossy, parqueted floor to slow him down.

Max stopped and lowered his head to speak softly into her ear. "I thought you wanted to be presented to the king."

"I've changed my mind."

She had turned her head to look at him. The candlelight overhead was reflected in the glass beads and feathers of her mask, and her face shimmered as if it had been gilded with gold dust. She had left her glorious golden-red hair unpowdered, and it blazed like the copper headdress of some ancient goddess. Beside her, Max thought, every other woman in the gallery paled into insignificance.

He didn't know it but the smile he gave her was full of an aching, tender love. She didn't see it because his domino cast a dark shadow across the lower half of his face.

He ran his palm up her arm, stroking her as he would calm an excited horse. "Don't be nervous, ma mie. You are by far the most beautiful woman in the entire palace."

"Thank you for the compliment, monsieur, but what does that have to do with anything?"

He laughed. "Why, Gabrielle, surely you've learned by now. Even a king will forgive a beautiful woman anything ..." His voice trailed off. It seemed that every conversation they started tonight was destined to remind them both of all the hurt and anger that still lay between them.

Gabrielle gazed up into her husband s face. The lower curve of his mask emphasized his perfect, taut cheekbones. He looked magnificent in a suit of silver cloth embroidered with gold metal thread. Ruffles of the finest lace fell over his hands, and a diamond sparkled in the thick lace that cascaded from his throat.

"Tell me again what I'm supposed to do," she said, wanting to get back onto a neutral subject, wanting more than anything to savor the simple pleasure of just looking at him, of being the woman at his side.

He shrugged. "Just be yourself," he said unhelpfully.

She knew what to do anyway. Marie-Rose had once paid fifty livres she could ill afford to have a dancing master teach Gabrielle all the various bows and curtsies decreed by court etiquette. There was one kind of curtsy for the king and queen, another for princes and princesses of the blood, one for dues and duchesses, and still another for lesser mortals. As Max once again began to lead her down the hall toward the king, Gabrielle frantically went over all the procedures in her mind.

Graceful and at ease in any situation as usual, Max made his obeisance and spoke for a moment to the king, then stepped back and drew Gabrielle forward by the hand. "Your royal highness, may I present my wife, the Vicomtesse Gabrielle de Vauclair de Nevers de Saint-Just."

Keeping her eyes respectfully downcast, Gabrielle lowered her loo mask and sank into so deep a curtsy that her knees cracked like a cannon shot. She was sure the sound had been heard throughout the entire hall, and the flush on her cheeks deepened. Then to her horror she noticed that the king of France was wearing one blue shoe on his very big right foot and a clashing turquoise shoe on his left, and she was possessed of a wild desire to laugh. She held her breath, bit her cheek, and ground her palms into the sapphires on her dress.

Her eyes began to tear and her ears roared from the lack of air, but she thought she heard from a long way away a voice saying, "My dear vicomtesse, please rise so that we may look at you."

Slowly she straightened, praying that her legs wouldn't collapse beneath her. By now she was so starved for air she had to draw in such a heaving breath her bosom quivered. Her eyes were moist and her lips were parted as she raised her head to look at her king, and the fawning courtiers who surrounded him sighed collectively. "How enchanting!" she heard one exclaim.

Throughout her life she had seen the fat, hook-nosed face of Louis XVI embossed on silver coins. In person he appeared much less imposing. Indirectly this man had caused her much misery, but she realized now he had no idea who she was. He, too, was merely a marionette of the duc de Nevers, jerked around by strings much as she had been.

He smiled at her with kindly blue eyes that had just a touch of sadness in their depths. "Madame la Vicomtesse, we are pleased to be able to have this word with you," he said in a thin, reedy voice that rose in an undignified squeak at the end. "We wish to have your esteemed husband as our royal astronomer. We beg of you to release him from your side for just the few hours a week that he will need to perform for his king and country this small service."

The king's announcement created a stir among the surrounding courtiers. The nobles of France depended on lucrative pensions such as this to maintain their expensive positions, and the office of royal astronomer was quite a plum. Gabrielle cast a frantic look at Max. Did he want this post or not? It was impossible to tell by the expression on his face.

"We are overwhelmed with the honor your royal highness, has chosen to bestow upon us," she equivocated, curtsying again, and she thought she caught a flash of a smile in Max's eyes.

"Splendid!" the king exclaimed, his voice squeaking loudly. "You must tell me of your experiments with balloons, Monsieur le Vicomte. And you must allow me to show you my laboratory sometime."

"I would be honored, sire," Max replied, flashing his charming smile. The king was also known to enjoy the plebeian hobbies of making locks and blacks mi thing, much to the annoyance of his wife.

Until now Queen Marie Antoinette had chosen to ignore Gabrielle's presence, but at Louis's mention of his laboratory, she turned her head sharply. Her eyes rested for a moment on Gabrielle, who got a glimpse of ash-blond hair and a long face with a high brow and a pendulous lower lip.

The look Marie Antoinette gave her husband was openly contemptuous. "My lord, now is not the time to speak of such things." She slipped her arm through the king's and began to turn him away. "Look, here is the comtesse de Polignac. She's pining because you've chosen to ignore her all night."

With obvious reluctance the king obediently turned to greet the honey-blond-haired woman. Thus summarily dismissed, Gabrielle kicked back her train and made a perfect backward curtsy without cracking a single joint.

As she glided down the gallery on Max's arm, he reached over and squeezed her hand. "You did splendidly, ma mie," he said, giving her a devilish smile. "Next time, however, we'll have to remember to oil your knees."

She tilted back her head to laugh, so relieved the ordeal was over she felt almost giddy. "It seems you're now the court astronomer, Monsieur le Vicomte. You must discover a new star and name it after the king."

"That particular pension pays fifty thousand livres a year," Max said dryly. He flicked one of her diamond chandelier earrings with his finger. "I'll need the money if I'm to keep you decked out in baubles such as these."

She tried to scowl at him, but her lower lip gave her away by trembling. Glancing up, she caught a look of such naked hunger in his eyes that her knees felt weak. With his black mask he resembled more than ever a devil on the prowl.

She turned her head sharply away. "Oh, Max, look," she said, her voice shaking slightly. "There's someone with a glass of burgundy and a plate of cakes. Where do you think he got them? I'm starving."

But Max's eyes were still fastened on his wife's flushed face. "Let's go home," he said gruffly.

"Home! But we only just got here."

He slipped his arm around her waist and lowered his head so that he could project his silken voice to her, and her alone. "Since I first saw you in that dress, Gabrielle, I've thought of nothing else but taking it off you. Very, very slowly. I'm going to take my time with you tonight, ma mie. I'm going to make love to you again and again until you beg for—"

"Why, if it isn't le beau Max," said a voice dripping with honey. "I thought you had gone to your chateau in Morvan."

Gabrielle felt Max stiffen, and she raised her loo mask to shield her eyes, turning to look into the beautiful face of a woman with silver-blond hair and icy blue eyes. The woman clung to the arm of a dashing, mustachioed officer of the Garde de Corps, but the look she gave Max was one of invitation and promise. And yearning.

The woman's eyes flickered to Gabrielle and she bared her teeth in a smile. "You must be Max's little shopgirl of a wife."

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