Louisa Rawlings (56 page)

He kissed her again. “I’d risk everything for the woman who says she loves me.”
 

“I always did. But why did you come?”
 

He frowned. “Your father’s debts. You never told me of them before.”
 

“I was so ashamed. And it was hopeless. There was no way they could be paid without a good marriage.”
 

“And what you said about prison…?”

“There were those who…were prepared to use Tintin’s debts against him. I was desperate. How could I tell you? When you proposed, offered me your money…how could I tell you that the earnings of a humble miller were useless to me?” She looked in terror toward the door. “Please, Pierre. For the love of God. Go!”
 

“And that’s why you were with Arsène that first night.”
 

“He was rich. He wanted to marry me.”
 

“And Saint-Esprit?” His face was hard.
 

“I’d known him for years. I didn’t realize how foolish, how desperate I’d become until I saw what he did to you.” She buried her face in her hands. “And then Villeneuve came with his offer. And I didn’t care anymore. Without you, it didn’t matter.”
 

“Dammit, you could have told me! From the first! I would have understood! The debts, the threat of prison, everything!”
 

“No. I couldn’t. It was more than the debts. There was someone who…had me in his thrall because of the debt.”
 

“Arsène?” he growled.
 

“No.” She shook her head. “No. Don’t ask me.” Not even now, she thought, when Torcy could still take his revenge on Tintin if she spoke of him. “It doesn’t matter now. But I had to keep silent. I couldn’t even tell you of the threat.” She clutched at his arm. “Only go now! I’m so afraid!”
 

“Not yet.” He gathered her into his embrace. “Tell me again that you love me.”
 

“Oh, please! You’ll be found!”
 

“Do you love me?”
 

“Yes. Yes. Yes, I love you.” She tried to push him to the door. “We’ll find a way to meet again. But go now!” There was a knock on the door. She stiffened in panic, the blood draining from her face. “Dear Madonna! Go. Hide! The bedchamber…I saw another door. It must lead to the passageway…”

His arms held her fast. “Say it once more,” he said urgently.
 

“Oh, Pierre, you know I love you,” she cried. The knock sounded again. She shivered and tried to break from his embrace. To hide him. Save him.
 

His green eyes were filled with sadness. “And I love you, Rouge. Remember that.” Still holding her, he turned to the door. “Enter,” he said in a firm voice.
 

Madame Benichou bustled into the room. She carried a small tray with a silver ewer and two crystal goblets, which she set on a side table. “I thought you’d like a little Rossolis, monsieur,” she said.
 

“Thank you, Madame Benichou. That was kind of you.” He waited until the housekeeper had left the room, then he looked at Rouge, his mouth twisting in an uncertain smile.
 

She stumbled backward out of his arms and stared at him. Her face felt cold and clammy, and a trembling had begun deep within her.
“Monsieur?”
she whispered.
 

He shrugged in apology, then bowed before her. “Monsieur Charles Hugues Pierre-Jean de Beuvron, Duc de Villeneuve. And your husband.”
 

She gasped, one hand going to her mouth, and crumpled to the floor.
 

She woke to find herself in his arms, being set gently into an armchair. He poured a bit of Rossolis into a glass and held it to her lips, supporting her with one strong arm about her shoulders. She sipped slowly, her strength returning as the warm cordial revived her. She studied his face. He was a stranger. “Villeneuve?” she said at last. Her voice was a soft croak in her throat. “You?”
 

He knelt before her and held her hand. “Forgive me. I planned to tell you myself, before Madame Benichou came in.”
 

“You?” she said again, struggling to understand. He nodded; he was unwilling to meet her glance. “The vile, wicked Villeneuve?” she went on, probing a wound that only brought her grief.
 

He rose to his feet and turned away, his shoulders sagging. “I had hoped you wouldn’t have heard the stories.”
 

“Are they true?”
 

“I don’t know what you’ve heard.” He turned back to her. His eyes were troubled. “That I was a rakehell, a libertine?”
 

“Yes,” she whispered, sick at heart. Her dear Pierre?
 

He ran his hand through his hair. “It was true.”
 

She closed her eyes. The pain was too much to bear. “And Madame de Levreux?”
 

“Let me tell you the whole story,” he said. “I don’t look for absolution. Just your understanding. Will you let me, Rouge?”
 

She opened her eyes to see him gazing intently down at her. She had never known him to appear so vulnerable. She nodded. “Yes.”
 

“I told you once, I think, that I’d been a soldier. I thought it the noblest profession in the world, as a boy. All bravery and honor. And I had a tutor who filled my head with the glory of serving my country. The result of this was that, at sixteen, I persuaded my father to advance my career. I was presented at Versailles before the king, who was pleased to honor my father’s petition, and placed me in a company of his musketeers as part of the obligatory training. At seventeen, I was assigned to a company of infantry cadets, and garrisoned on the frontier to learn to be an officer. I had never fought in battle. I had never seen war. I only knew the
gloire
of being a soldier.” He sighed. “At eighteen, I became colonel of an infantry regiment in my own name. Though he didn’t approve, my father bought the regiment at my insistence. I had a small inheritance as well, from my mother’s will. It wasn’t large, but it was enough to keep me in plumes and the trappings of war.” He laughed bitterly. “The splendid Chevalier de Villeneuve!”
 

He crossed to the table and poured himself a glass of Rossolis, downing it at a gulp. “Then we went to war. My first campaign was in Germany. The Palatinate. It wasn’t enough that we won battles—Worms, Mainz, Heidelberg, Mannheim. Upon orders from the king’s minister, Louvois, we sacked Heidelberg and most of the Vieux-Rhin region. I myself helped put the torches to the elector’s castle at Heidelberg. But we had opened the doors to savagery. After that, there was no controlling the common soldiers, even if we’d been ordered to do so. Murder, rape, thievery, burnings. All for the glory of France. I fought in all the campaigns. Saw all the great victories—Mons in ’ninety-one, Namur the following year. Then Steinkirk. I saw the horrible slaughter, and the looting and pillaging that followed, whether we were the victors or fled in retreat.”
 

“Oh, Pierre. Alas!”
 

“For almost six years I saw killing and death,” he said tiredly. “I knew no other life. And each time, between campaigns, I’d return to Versailles a little madder, a little more filled with horror. We lived for the moment, my fellow officers and I. Each
amour
was a dangerous adventure that might be our last. And the court was dazzling to a man who’d known nothing save war. And the women were willing.” His eyes were clouded with unhappiness. “It was true, what you heard. I was young, and selfish, and thoughtless. I wanted all of life’s sweet pleasures before I died. As so many of my men had died.”
 

“But I can understand that,” she said softly.
 

He laughed sharply. “Can you? I can’t. For when we began to hear rumors that Louis, grieving for the misery the war had brought his people, was talking of suing for peace, what did I do? Did I rejoice and return to Choisy-aux-Loges? No. I wondered if I’d ever be fit for peace. So I went back to Versailles and courted death in a thousand ways. The gambling, the drinking, the duels.” His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “Do you know how it’s done, when dueling is forbidden? You arrange to have your carriage jostle that of your enemy; the ‘spontaneous’ quarrel that follows always seems to lead to the drawing of swords.” He glared at her, his eyes holding an angry challenge. “Have I sickened you yet? Do you regret your Pierre?”
 

Tears sparkled in her eyes. Tears of pity. Of love. “No,” she murmured.
 

“But there’s more. We were two companions, that summer of ’ninety-five. Wild and reckless as we roamed Paris and Versailles. Carousing for half the night. Seeking danger in every liaison. Somehow the woman was sweeter if one could imagine a jealous husband lurking outside the bed hangings.”
 

“Madame de Levreux?”
 

He sighed. “Yes. I was in love with Madeleine. Or thought I was. We both were. We courted her and snared her, willing to believe all her seductive promises, her tempting smiles. Her husband was insanely jealous. It only added to the aura of excitement about her. The lies and deceptions, so we might meet. The adventure of betraying her husband. There was nothing, however vile, that we wouldn’t have done for her. And she had led me to believe…had told others…that
I
was the one she favored. And then one night we were drunk—my friend Robert and I—and staggering through the gardens of Versailles. And I challenged him to walk along the edges of the fountains.”
 

“And he drowned. Your friend.”
 

He groaned. “You heard that story as well.”
 

“I think I must have heard them all,” she said gently.
 

“Robert fell into the water. I was so blind from drink I thought at first it was a joke, and wandered away, laughing. And then”—he brushed his hand across his eyes—“by the time I returned, it was too late.”
 

“It was an accident.”
 

“Dammit, I might have saved him!” he burst out. He paced the small room, fighting to regain his composure. “He was my friend,” he said more calmly. “I grieved for him. So I went to Madeleine for comfort. Oh, God! Comfort! I couldn’t believe my eyes. She was in a wild frenzy. She’d torn her clothes, pulled her hair, scratched at her own flesh. She shrieked and cursed me for letting him die. It was hours before I managed to learn the whole story from her. She and Robert had been lovers from the first. They had used me for a stalking-horse. If Monsieur de Levreux had learned of his wife’s infidelities, he should have thought that I was the man. Madeleine had seen to it. Even her servants would have sworn that I was the man.”
 

“Name of God, why?”
 

“Because I was a better swordsman than Robert. If I killed Monsieur de Levreux in a duel, well and good. And even if I were killed by her husband, she’d still have Robert.”
 

“But that’s monstrous!”
 

“Is it? Wasn’t I a party to it? I’d allowed him to die, however much it was an accident. And I’d allowed her to deceive me.” His lip curled in disgust. “A willing dupe to her coquette’s games. And though she’d betrayed me, had I not enjoyed betraying her husband? After a week, out of grief for Robert, she killed herself. Did they tell you her final act of vengeance against me? For Robert’s death? The scarf she used. The silk scarf. It was mine, with my crest on it. An innocent suitor, blinded by love, I’d given it to her for a favor.” He drew a ragged breath. “And then, afterward, they found out she had been carrying a child.”
 

“Yours?”
 

“No. Even though—to my shame—there may be a few children of Versailles matrons who resemble the Villeneuves, Madeleine never granted me the last favors. She promised eternally, but never succumbed. It must have been Robert’s child. All the court knew that Monsieur de Levreux was impotent.”
 

“Then you weren’t responsible for what happened to Madame de Levreux.” Somehow it was a comfort to hold that thought.
 

“If you mean that I wasn’t directly responsible, no. I didn’t spurn her, drive her to suicide by my rebuff, as the gossips would have it. But most of Versailles thought I did. And thought that I’d sired the child. The king and Madame de Maintenon were of the same mind. And in my shame at the life I’d been living—filled with lies and debauchery—I took the burden of guilt upon myself. Perhaps I wished to atone for my evil ways. A sop for my conscience.”
 

“But they said you’d been banished to Italy.”
 

“Yes. My father was a good man. He’d tolerated my excesses for years. But he was outraged. He insisted I duel with Levreux and allow him satisfaction. Poor Levreux. He couldn’t even kill me properly. I recovered in a month. So I resigned from the army and went to Italy on my father’s orders.” He sighed. “But in Italy it was the same. I had my title, the income from my mother…”
 

“But you didn’t stay in Italy?”
 

“No. Nothing had changed in Italy. I was still the Chevalier de Villeneuve. With credit, and a reputation. The gaming halls were open to me, and low companions sought me out. I was soon back to whoring and gambling and dueling, until my soul was sickened. I thought of entering a monastery to find peace, but I was the last of the Villeneuve line. I begged my father at last to allow me to come home and seek repentance. He was a wise man, as well as a good one. I was to come back to France incognito, and learn to live in the world as a man. An empty belly, he said, would bestow humility. I was not to use my income, but live or die by the sweat of my brow. And so, with ten sols in my pocket, I set out to find tranquility. I toiled in the fields as a day laborer, and starved when the harvest was bad. Then I came to Selommes and learned my trade from the miller. When he lost his sight, I took over the lease.”