Louisa Rawlings (50 page)

Tintin’s face brightened. “Are you sure?”
 

She nodded. “Of course.”
 

“Well, then. In a week’s time Monsieur de Villeneuve will come with his secretary, Monsieur Colinet, to escort us to his château. When we arrive at Choisy-aux-Loges, Villeneuve’s château, we'll be greeted with all due honor. The very next day the Nuptial Mass will be celebrated.”
 

“A week? Only a week? Mother of heaven, such unseemly haste!”
 

“But more than explicable. The man is eager, perhaps, to restore the good name of the Villeneuves in the king’s eyes. What better way than to settle down, take a wife, show that he has repented his youth? And then, he’s been in exile for years. He feels keenly, I’m sure, the loss of those years, when he might have been surrounded by children and a good wife.” Chrétien kissed her on the forehead. “A fine wife he’ll have in you, daughter.” He smiled. “And clearly the duc is concerned with your opinion of him, and wishes to begin in the best possible way. Come.” He took her by the hand and pulled her down the passageway to her own rooms. Emilie was already there, supervising the unpacking, enjoying the unexpected pleasure of several little maids under her command. Tintin pinched her on the cheek and grinned. “Prettier than ever, or I’m damned! Well, Emilie, have you seen the gifts?”
 

She blushed, her plain features shining. “Oh, monsieur, I couldn’t help but peek.”
 

“Well then, show them to Mademoiselle Rouge.”
 

At Emilie’s direction, the maids lifted a large chest and carried it to the bed.
 

“Gifts?” said Rouge.
 

Tintin nodded in satisfaction. “They arrived the very day after the contract had been signed and Monsieur Colinet had delivered the settlement into my hands. Look, my dear. For you.”
 

Emilie opened the chest and began to pull from it several gowns: a deep red silk mantua, a gown of rose brocade and one of black velvet, and a magnificent court dress of cloth of silver, covered all over with gold bands and splendidly embroidered in gold garlands studded with rubies. Rouge looked on in amazement as Emilie laid each garment across her bed, marveling at the fineness of the workmanship, the elegance of the design. Beaming with pleasure, Emilie handed her a small velvet casket; Rouge opened it and gasped at the jewels within. Diamond eardrops, a string of beautifully matched large pearls of a luminous whiteness, two rings, and half a dozen sparkling rubies set on pins to tuck into her hair. They quite took her breath away. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “I hadn’t expected…!” She sat down heavily in a chair, looking at Tintin with a bemused smile.
 

Emilie set the maids to packing up the gowns again, then turned to Rouge with curiosity. “I know they’re a gift, mademoiselle, but no one seems to know what they’re for!”
 

Tintin shrugged at Rouge. “I didn’t want to say until you returned.”
 

“Well then, Emilie,” said Rouge, feeling more heartened than she had all day. Surely a man who gave gifts such as these wasn’t a monster! “Would you mind leaving Sans-Souci and coming with me to a new château, beyond Orléans?”
 

“But what for?”
 

Rouge smiled. “To be the personal maid to Madame la Duchesse de Villeneuve.”
 

“You?” whispered the girl.
 

“Yes.”
 

Emilie stared, her eyes wide with shock. Hastily she crossed herself. “Oh, mademoiselle! Now may God protect you!”
 

Rouge spent the week in cold dread, only reinforced by Emilie’s dire warnings. The tales of the wicked Villeneuve had been the talk of the kitchens as well as the drawing rooms of Versailles; every vice imaginable had been ascribed to him. And though Rouge tended to think (or
hoped
,
name of God!) that much of it was exaggeration, her fears grew as the days went on. She tried to keep busy, to do those things at Sans-Souci that Tintin would never think to do when she was gone. She told him of the king’s pension, and begged him, for the love of heaven, to keep from falling back to his old ways.
 

“Please, Tintin,” she said. “Don’t gamble. For my sake. Now that you’re free of debt, and you have a good income, and Sans-Souci is what you want it to be. Try to be content.”
 

“Well, for the present,” he said, the old roguish smile on his face. “But perhaps next spring I’ll go to Versailles. And gamble only in moderation,” he added quickly, before she had a chance to lecture him again.
 

“I don’t know why you gamble with the Duc de Bleyle. I don’t like him very much.”
 

“He’s not a bad fellow, though not a good card player. I can always count on winning against him. And his friends can be amusing.”
 

She frowned. She’d almost forgotten. “Tintin, do you know
Val d’Amour
?”
 

“
Val d’Amour?
What is it?”
 

“A place, I think.”
 

He shrugged. “I never heard of it.”
 

She studied his face. She thought she knew him well enough to know if he was telling the truth. And he seemed ignorant of the name. Still, Bleyle was involved, that was sure, and Tintin’s name had been mentioned. No! she thought. If he
was
lying, she didn’t want to know! She was tired of the whole business, tired of being caught up in other people’s lives and intrigues and deceptions. Her own life was a shambles—it was time that Tintin learned to take care of himself!
 

Besides, she thought, upon further reflection, Torcy had a network of spies; whatever the plotters were about, word would get back to Torcy. And perhaps it had merely been talk, the grumblings of discontented men—especially Chartres—who salved their anger by concocting elaborate plans that they never intended to carry out. She sighed. Devil take the lot of them. It was Torcy’s worry.
 

On the afternoon before Villeneuve was to arrive, Rouge announced to Tintin that she wanted to go to church in Montoire. She was filled with a strange melancholy, a foreboding. There would be something comforting about kneeling in the church where she’d prayed with her mother as a child. Who knew if she’d ever see it again? Emilie was of a more practical bent; she thought it would be a good idea to pray for a safe journey and a benevolent husband for her mistress, and asked to accompany Rouge in the coach to Montoire. Tintin escorted them both, riding his horse alongside the carriage. At the last minute Rouge insisted that François come along as well; with no one but Tintin for an example in the next few years, the boy would need all the benedictions he could get!
 

Afterward, standing before St. Gilles waiting for the coachman to bring the carriage around, Rouge scanned the view across the Loir valley, seeing the graceful willows that bent their branches to the river. They had begun to turn yellow. Summer was over. Her bright days were gone, and only
le bon Dieu
knew what the future would bring.
 

Tintin saw them into the coach and then leaned in at the window. “I’ll not go home with you. I have business here in Montoire.”
 

Rouge snorted. “Business? Pish tush! ’Tis a woman,
n’est-ce pas
?”
 

He smiled sheepishly. “Such a charming thing. I saw her in the rue St. Denis. Her uncle is a secondhand dealer, and keeps a shop there.”
 

“Tintin, how can you? It will be such a long day tomorrow, with the duc arriving. And the start of our journey for Choisy-aux-Loges.”
 

His eyes twinkled. “All the more reason to seek refreshment before such a busy day!” He signaled to the coachman to move on. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.
 

Rouge leaned out of the window. “What of François?” she called.
 

“He’ll be safe with me.”
 

“Ciel,”
she muttered to Emilie. “I dread to leave the boy with him!” She sighed. “Ah, well. Let’s hope that they don’t come home too late.”
 

She spent a quiet evening in her room, more fearful of the morrow than she cared to admit. If half the things they said about Villeneuve were true—his drunken revels, his lechery, his excesses—it would take all her arts as a woman to tame him. And how could it be done? Clearly, other women (Madame de Levreux?) had tried. And failed.
 

She laughed ruefully, filled with a sudden memory. The gypsy had promised a surprise in her future. And a husband. She prayed—with little hope—that it
be so.
 

There was one more thing she had to do. She sat at her desk and wrote to Arsène. He’d be expecting to hear from her now. Save for Tintin, it might have been a different letter. She told him, as gently as she could, that she could not marry him. She had not been free to pledge herself at Versailles. Her father had already contracted a matrimonial union on her behalf. By the time the letter reached him, she’d already be married. She considered briefly telling him Villeneuve’s name, then thought better of it. He’d learn of it soon enough from the gossips in Versailles. And perhaps by that time he’d be reconciled to her loss. She ended the letter with a plea for forgiveness. She begged him to remember her with kindness.
 

She went to bed with a heavy heart, and was awakened at dawn by noises in the courtyard beneath her window. Throwing open the casement, she peered outside. Below her was François on Tintin’s horse; behind him an ox and cart. He held the animal’s rope halter in one hand, by which means he guided it. But it was what Rouge saw in the cart that made her breath catch. Tintin. On his back, in a woman’s arms. His face was twisted in pain, his clothes were soiled, and one leg seemed to be wrapped in bandages.
 

Rouge threw on her dressing gown and raced down the stairs and out to the courtyard. Chrétien grimaced, then tried to smile at her. “Tintin, what have you done now?” she cried.
 

The woman in the cart, supporting Tintin against her bosom, looked at Rouge. She was strong-featured and quite handsome, a buxom figure in dark linen garments, with a dignity about her that struck Rouge at once. For all the simplicity of her bourgeois garb, her white muslin cap was edged with the most exquisite lace. “Is this fool of a man your father, mademoiselle?” she asked with a frown.
 

“Alas, yes. Is he badly hurt?”
 

The woman shook her head. “’Tis only his leg that’s broken. It should have been his pate.”
 

Tintin groaned. “I didn’t ask you to come with me, madame. I could have done very well without your scolding on the way!”
 

“And how was I to get my ox and cart back?”
 

“Name of heaven,” said Rouge. “What happened?”
 

Tintin opened his mouth to speak, but the woman interrupted. “I am Madame Graves. I’m a lace seller in Montoire. ’Tis my misfortune that my shop adjoins that of a certain secondhand dealer.”
 

“Oh, no,” said Rouge.
 

“Yes. And this secondhand dealer has a niece.”
 

Despite his pain, Tintin chuckled. “And a pretty young thing she is.”
 

Madame Graves glared at him. “And young enough to be your daughter! Have you no shame, monsieur?”
 

Rouge signaled to the servants who had come running from the château one by one. “Fetch a litter to carry monsieur to his room.” She sighed. “And what happened, Tintin? Did the girl’s uncle choose to show his displeasure by tossing you down the stairs?”
 

“No, I…”

“’Tis far worse than that, mademoiselle,” said Madame Graves crisply. “As I understand, your father found his way to the girl’s room by way of an unguarded door.”
 

Tintin laughed at his own cleverness and tapped a finger alongside his nose. “Indeed.”
 

“It was only later, when he wished to leave, that he discovered the girl’s uncle had returned home. Thinking himself a lad of twenty, no doubt, your father sought to leave the girl’s room by way of the window, and from there across the rooftops to freedom. Across the
rooftops
,
mademoiselle! To make a long story short, a tile was loose, your father was less than agile, he slipped and fell. And landed in my onion patch.”
 

“Oh, Tintin.”
 

Chrétien stirred in Madame Graves’s arms and made a face. “Don’t scold me, Rouge. My leg hurts.”
 

“You’ll get no sympathy from me! What did the uncle do?”
 

Madame Graves clicked her tongue. “He thought the old rogue was coming from
my
house! Well, it will give them all some gossip for a few days! As to your father’s leg, mademoiselle, I found a clever barber who set it,
and now I’ve brought the old fool home. If you want to send for a surgeon to bleed him, by all means do so. Though I never set much store by bleeding myself.”
 

Rouge put her hands on her hips and scowled at her father. “And where was François while all this was going on? Have you corrupted him thoroughly yet?”