The Courtesan (24 page)

“Oui, m-mademoiselle.” Although Wolf shrank farther away from her, he tipped up his sharp chin in defiance.

Gabrielle regarded him for a long moment, her face softening. She leaned over and she brushed a kiss against his cheek.

Straightening away from the boy, she looked up at Remy and cast him a tremulous smile that lodged deep in his heart. Then she turned and hurried away down the corridor without another glance back.

As soon as she had vanished from sight, Wolf peeled himself shakily away from the wall. Yanking at his neckline, the boy stole an anxious peek inside his shirt. Despite the leaden feeling bearing down upon him, Remy’s lips quirked in a half-smile.

“What’s the matter, boy? Have you acquired an extra nipple?”

“N-no.” The boy smoothed his shirt back into place. “Although I still fear that lady is indeed a powerful witch. But by my faith, she is a most bewildering one.”

“You don’t need to tell me that,” Remy responded dryly. He had struggled, saved, and plotted for three years to be able to return to his king. The long anticipated meeting was now arranged. Navarre was waiting for him.

But instead of rushing to Navarre’s side, he lingered, gazing after Gabrielle, longing to call her back. He should have given Wolf’s amulet a try. He clearly needed some protection from the enchantment Gabrielle wove over him, to banish her from his heart. Except that Remy feared there was no magic in the world strong enough to do that.

Gabrielle’s footsteps echoed down the shadowy halls of the Louvre, the great palace settling into silence. The ball long over, the king and courtiers had retreated to their own apartments, even most of the servants retired for the night. Here and there, Gabrielle could hear a door creak, the sound of a whisper, a giggle, that told her that intrigues were afoot of a more amorous nature than the one she had just arranged.

Gabrielle could not help congratulating herself on how she had managed the secret meeting between Remy and Navarre. Although it was an odd thing for her to regard with satisfaction considering she might well have put her own future at risk.

“I must be completely mad to have helped him,” Gabrielle told herself ruefully. But how could she have done otherwise? She would have hazarded her own ambitions a dozen times over to keep Remy from harm. And besides, she doubted he would succeed in his mission. Not according to Nostradamus’s prophecy.

Yet Gabrielle could not help remembering how little her mother had believed in prophecies. What if Remy succeeded in getting Navarre to escape, the both of them disappearing back into the mountains of their border country? Gabrielle was disconcerted to realize she would not regret the loss of the king so much as she would Remy.

“Confound the man,” she murmured. Every time Remy crossed her path, he tangled her emotions into a hopeless snarl, longing, wariness, joy, and despair. He made her feel vulnerable again, the last thing she could afford to be in this court crawling with jackals ready to pounce on any sign of weakness.

Unfortunately one of them was waiting for her near the door where she meant to make her own escape out into the gardens. Signore Verducci melted out of the shadows.

“Good evening, Signorina Cheney.”

Gabrielle drew up sharp at the sight of Catherine’s favorite spy. The torchlight played over his gaunt features lost behind the straggling gray beard, the flickering light making him appear more cadaverous than ever.

He sketched her a stiff bow. “You are here very late, my lady. Some new conquest perhaps among the king’s gentlemen?”

Recovered from her initial alarm, Gabrielle cast him an icy look. “That is hardly any of your concern.”

“Perhaps not, but I fear it is of great concern to the queen.”

Gabrielle had prepared to make a dignified sweep past Verducci, but she froze, her heart skipping a beat. “The—the queen?”

“Si.” The dour little man was rarely given to smiling, but his eyes lit with a certain malicious satisfaction. “It really is most fortunate that you have not yet returned to your own home. It just so happens Her Majesty would like a word with you.”

Remy stood before the bank of windows in the king’s bedchamber, as tense as a soldier on parade, his hands locked behind his back. He had never been at ease in the grandeur of the Louvre and was even less so in the apartments of his king. Remy had spent so much time plotting and working toward this reunion with his king, he had never planned exactly how he would go about persuading Navarre to escape from Paris. Gabrielle had afforded Remy this golden opportunity and he found himself unaccountably tongue-tied.

Even in the middle of explaining to Navarre how he had survived the massacre, Remy stumbled to silence, his gaze drawn once more to the moonlit night beyond the windowpanes, as though he half-expected to see a fairy-like creature making her regal way across the grounds. He wondered if Gabrielle had left the palace yet, hoping that she had and was safely back at her own town house.

Remy wished that he could have escorted her. A foolish wish, he knew. Gabrielle would neither have desired or needed him to do so. She was obviously well able to look out for herself, but Remy couldn’t help remembering how small and fragile she had appeared as she vanished down the dark corridor of the Louvre.

“Captain Remy?” Navarre’s voice wrenched Remy’s thoughts back to the king.

As Remy tore his gaze from the windows, one of Navarre’s thick brows arched upward in questioning fashion.

“You were telling me how you and this remarkable young man who saved you arrived on the shores of Ireland,” the king prompted. “Then what happened?”

“Why, nothing else of note, sire. There is really little more to tell.”

Navarre’s mouth quirked. “You always were a man of few words, Captain.”

And one that Remy knew the king had always found rather dull. Henry had preferred the company of reckless youngbloods like himself who enjoyed carousing and hunting, whether it was deer, wild boar, or women. Remy feared he had had a tendency to quietly remind Navarre he had more pressing matters to attend.

By the pale glow of the candlelight, Remy studied the king, searching hopefully for some new sign of maturity in him. After all, Henry was now what? Three and twenty and he’d been through enough harrowing experiences to age any man, the murder of his mother, the massacre of his subjects, the constant peril to his own life.

Yet on the surface Navarre appeared much as he’d ever been, a wiry athletic young man, his full dark beard framing a face noted for its prominent nose and full sensual lips. He still carried himself with that careless attitude that had ever been the despair and worry of his mother, although he could adopt a regal enough manner when he chose. When he had commanded his pages and Wolf to retire to the antechamber, even the impudent Martin had been awed into obeying without hesitation.

With the servants gone, Navarre moved to pour a glass of wine for himself and Remy. Crossing the room, he fetched the goblet to Remy with a genial smile. Any awkwardness between them, Remy realized, was entirely on his part and not the king’s.

Perhaps it was owing to his guilt at having survived the massacre when so many other good and brave men had fallen. Perhaps it was his consciousness of having failed to protect his king and spirit him safely out of Paris that grim night. But as Remy accepted the glass from Navarre, he knew there was a far more basic cause for his tension. The shadow of a woman lay between Remy and his king.

Remy wondered if he had failed to appear this evening, if even now Gabrielle would be tumbled in the sheets of that massive bed that formed the centerpiece of this chamber. The image of her lying naked in Navarre’s arms ate like lye at his soul and Remy had to fight hard to thrust the picture from his mind.

It only made it worse that Navarre was completely unaware of the conflict raging inside of Remy. There was no constraint in Navarre’s bluff features as he grinned at Remy. “Damn my eyes, Captain, but you’ve no notion how it gladdens me to have my brave Scourge returned from the grave. So many loyal and trusted friends I lost that terrible night. My poet Rochefoucauld, my good old Admiral Coligny . . .”

Navarre’s smile dimmed as he took a sip of his wine. He lifted his head almost immediately, his face lighting with sudden hope. “But if you survived, is it possible any of the others did? What about those officers who were so frequently in your company? Tavers and—and—”

The king snapped his fingers in effort of memory. “What was his name? That huge burly fellow with the quick wit and ready laugh?”

“Devereaux,” Remy said softly. After a painful beat, he added, “No, Dev—the captain died trying to protect his family.”

“The captain’s young wife and the boy he named after you. They too were destroyed?”

Remy nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Navarre’s mouth thinned into a hard line. Suddenly he looked far older and wearier than his twenty-three years. Raising his glass to Remy’s, he said, “Let us drink then, to—to the memory of absent friends.”

“Absent friends,” Remy repeated. It was the bitterest draft he had ever swallowed. He took little more than a mouthful before setting his glass down.

Navarre all but drained his cup. For a long moment, he stared pensively at the dregs. But the king had never been the sort of man to surrender to melancholy for long. He rallied, giving Remy a hearty clap on the shoulder. “Delighted as I am to see you again, Captain, it is not wise for us to linger reminiscing about the past. So tell me how I may serve you.”

Remy blinked. “Serve me?”

Navarre strode across the chamber to refill his wineglass, his smile taking on a more cynical edge. “Certainly. When one requests a private audience with a king, it is usually because one wants something. You are the bravest soldier our country has ever known. You have no small claim on me. I would be only too delighted to grant you any reward in my power.”

Remy drew himself up proudly. “I fear you have been here in Paris too long, Sire. You mistake me for one of these fawning courtiers snuffling round Your Highness’s boots for favors.”

Navarre waved his hand in a placating gesture. “Oh, don’t get your hackles up, Captain. It is merely the way of the world, that is all.”

“It is not my way, Sire,” Remy grated. “I seek no rewards. I never have. Only to be of service to you and my country.”

Cradling his wineglass, Navarre sank down on his bed, propping his back against a mound of feather pillows. His lips curled into an expression of self-mockery.

“You may have failed to notice, Captain. But I no longer command an army for you to serve in. If you are seeking a military post, you’d do best to return to seek employ with the duc de Montmorency. He has assumed the leadership of the Huguenot cause.”

Remy could not help frowning slightly at the young man lounging upon the bed. “I am sure the duc de Montmorency is a capable man, Sire. But it is your presence that both the Huguenots and your kingdom require. You must return home, my liege.”

Navarre lowered his eyes as he sipped his wine, his expression becoming more guarded. “To even speak to me of returning to Navarre is dangerous, Captain. My mother-in-law most firmly wishes that I remain with the French court.”

Remy could not choke back his sense of outrage. “Since when does the king of Navarre give way to the wishes of some infernal Italian witch?”

“Since that witch displayed her power in a way neither of us is likely to forget.” Navarre fortified himself with a swallow of wine. “Besides, my captivity is not that bad.”

“Not that bad!” Remy exclaimed.

“The court is not without its diversions. Spending a night in the arms of a beautiful woman can even make the prospect of attending mass in the morning endurable.” Navarre toyed with the rim of his wineglass, avoiding Remy’s eyes. “I suppose you have heard. I am a Catholic now.”

“Yes, I have heard,” Remy replied grimly, remembering his outrage when the tidings had reached him that his king had been forced by the de Medici witch to abandon his faith or else join his subjects in the grave.

A look chased across Navarre’s countenance, part shame, part almost angry defiance. “Frankly, I never could see what difference it makes whether one chooses to worship God while fingering a chain of ave beads or reading from the Book of Common Prayer. Certainly not enough difference to be willing to kill or die over.”