The Rose Bride (7 page)

She raced out of the rose garden, past the two statues of deer, through the hedge maze and the topiary garden, and pushed open the
chateau’s
front door.

Desirée barred her way.

“She’s here, Mother!” she cried.

Like a shadow moving across the wall, Ombrine appeared on the stairway. She glided slowly like a wolf

“She was out all night again,” Desirée said triumphantly, her eyes glittering as she stepped out of her mother’s way.

“Rose!” came a voice. It was Elise, her long gray braid hanging over her right shoulder of her nightgown, her eyes puffy with sleep. “Child!”

“She is not a child. She is fourteen years old this very day,” Ombrine said. Her eyes became slits as she took in Rose’s disheveled appearance. “We have gone through this, Rose. There is talk in the village of dark doings. Of groups of sorcerers who gather to do unspeakable things. The wife of the crown prince has died and the baby with her. It is said that magicians were involved”

Rose blinked. Oh, the poor princess. And her little baby too?
Hélas
, what a terrible pity.

“I’ve heard talk of magic as well,” Elise put in. “The prince must be so grief-stricken:”

“Alas for him,” Desirée said blithely.

“But we are speaking of Rose,” Ombrine said, glaring at her stepdaughter.

“Madame, m’excusez
, but you know I’m not a sorceress,” Rose said, knowing she must defend herself. “I did nothing to the princess.” In fact, she had lit a candle for Princess Lucienne the very night of her father’s death.

Ombrine raised a hand to silence her. “I may know that, but others don’t. And others talk. Your father would have wanted you to marry well. But we can’t manage that if you continue to shred your reputation by sleeping unprotected in that wretched garden. How many times have I explained this to you?”

“Dozens,” Desirée purred. “She just won’t listen to you, Mother.”

“Tais-toi
, Desirée,” Ombrine snapped. “Will you cease your endless chatter?”

Desirée sputtered, then fell silent.

“I’m sorry,” Rose said, understanding an apology was required and she had to make it sound realistic. “I couldn’t sleep.”

‘Allow me to take her to her room, my lady,” Elise said with a curtsy. “I’ll have her cleaned up and ready for breakfast in no time.”

Elise started down the stairs. Ombrine kept her eyes on Rose as she lifted a staying hand. Elise stopped where she was. Desirée caught her breath and bounced on her heels, as if she’d already guessed what was going to happen next.

‘As I mentioned,” Ombrine said, “Rose is fourteen. She hardly needs a nurse. And as we have no younger children in this family . . .” She let the sentence trail away, unfinished.

Rose’s world collapsed to a tiny circle, and the circle was Elise’s face. Her nurse’s eyes were enormous, her mouth an 0 of shock.

“We . . . in this house, they keep the nurses on,” Elise said in a strangled voice. “I came with Madame Celestine herself, and the understanding was ... I ...” She gripped the banister with white knuckles and stared at Rose.

“Oh, please, Stepmother,” Rose blurted, taking a step forward. “Please, don’t do this. I was wrong to spend the night in the garden and I’ll never do it again. I swear it.”

“She’s an unnecessary expense,” Ombrine insisted.

“No, she’s not!” Rose wailed. “She’s all I have in this world:”

Ombrine pulled in her chin as if she’d been slapped and pressed her bloodred fingernails against her chest.

“My dear, your loyalties are misplaced. Mademoiselle Elise is only a servant. But your stepsister and I are your
family. We
are all you have in this world: She
turned her head slightly over her shoulder, as if she couldn’t quite be bothered to look Elise in the face.

“Start packing,” she ordered her, sweeping back up the stairs.

The shadow she cast on the room below was bitter and cold.

Rose and her nurse said their good-byes in the rose garden, weeping as though each had died. Rose was terrified for the old woman, precisely because she
was
old. If Rose’s parents were alive, they would have kept Elise at the
château
until her dying day. To be thrown out in the twilight of her life—it was a shame and a stain on the house of Marchand.

“I
was
loved,” Rose wept. “You loved me.”

“I still love you, sweeting,” Elise said hoarsely. She looped a tendril of hair behind Rose’s ear. “Don’t fret on my account, ma
petite
. I’ll be all right.”

“Don’t lie to make me feel better,” Rose protested. “I can’t bear this. Oh, gods, I hate her!” She burst into fresh tears.

“I’m well liked in the village,” Elise said, gathering her into her arms again. “Someone will take me in.”

“I’ll write you every day,” Rose promised. “I’ll send you letters whenever I can. And I’ll ask Ombrine to send me to market with the cook, so I can see you.”

“Such a good girl.” Elise cupped Rose’s chin. “Don’t send letters. It will anger her. And don’t ask to go to the village. If you can manage it, let her think it’s her idea to send you. You see how she is.”

Rose’s hands shook as she wrapped them around Elise’s.

“But she doesn’t see how you are and there’s her loss. Her world is narrow and dark, like a mountain pass. But yours is a beautiful garden.”

But the garden was cut back for the winter. The only roses that grew were the purple ones. The rest were sticks and withered leaves.

“It will be a beautiful garden in the spring,” Rose said.

“It is beautiful now,” Elise insisted. She leaned into the purple roses and breathed in their scent. Rose knew Elise had never heard the roses speak. Nor had anyone else. They whispered only to the daughter of Celestine. Ombrine was unaware that the purple roses even existed. She knew that Celestine had planted the garden and so she had no desire whatsoever to set foot in it.

“I did this to you.” Rose’s voice broke. “By being willful and disobedient.”

“Non, non, non, ma Rose,”
Elise said, smoothing away the lines in Rose’s forehead. “She would have done it anyway. Don’t add this weight to the burden you carry.”

“It’s so wrong!” Rose looked around. She found a stick on the ground and broke it in two. Then she threw the pieces down and stomped on them. Elise watched quietly.

“Then remember that it’s wrong,” Elise said. “And when you’re a great lady, act with mercy and justice:”

Rose sank to the ground and buried her face in her hands. “I shall never be a great lady. Nothing will go right ever again.”

Elise stroked her hair. “Your mother said much the same thing when she was your age,” she said.

Rose raised her tearstained face. “She did?”

Elise nodded. “She had trials and tribulations of her own. They kept her heart very soft. And that, I believe, is why she was able to love you so very, very much. Those who feel deeply, love deeply.”

“I would rather be a block of ice,” Rose insisted. “I’m done with feeling. Beyond you, I’ll never love another human being.”

“I doubt that very much:’ Elise trailed her fingers down the side of Rose’s face and drew her back up to her feet. “Oh, how I wish I could watch you fall in love.”

“I shall never fall in love,” Rose muttered. “Ever.”

Elise smiled very sadly. Then she took a breath. “Rose, there is something I have kept to myself. Something I have not dared to speak of. There are some new plants in the herb garden. I’ve never seen their like before. I don’t know what they’re for.”

Rose understood at once. “I have never eaten from her hand,” Rose reminded her.

“I—I won’t be here to protect you any longer,” Elise continued. Her voice faltered. “I have begged the goddess to guard you. I’ve offered my life in exchange for yours.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Perhaps this is her answer, sending me away.”

“The lady of the moon is our guardian, our
patroness,” Rose insisted, horrified. “She would never make such a bargain.”

“She does not bargain. She answers prayers,” Elise replied. “Perhaps we don’t always realize what we have asked for.”

“You cant go:” Rose gripped her arms around her nurse and buried her face in her bosom. “You can’t.”

But Elise went. And then, the
château
priest. Next, the cook and the seamstresses and the upstairs maid. Down to the scullery and the stable boy, Ombrine rid herself of Laurent’s people. Rose stopped asking why.

She found the strange plants in the garden and learned their scent—bitter and cold. Poisonous. Of a night, she heard Ombrine and Desirée singing a mournful dirge over and over and over. They whispered together. They had secrets that sent roots deep into the
château
, like the invader herbs. Secrets that grew and choked out any hope Rose had of becoming a true family.

“You are loved,”
the roses promised her.

“I’m not,” Rose wept, kneeling before the statue of Artemis. “My mother, my father, and my only friend have been taken from me. Everyone who knew my parents is gone. That
monster
sleeps in my mother’s bed. How can I be loved, if such things happen to me?”

“You are loved,”
the roses insisted.

“Rose!”

It was Desirée. Rose grimaced and wiped away
her tears. Her fingertips came back muddy.
When
would she learn to stay clean?

“Rose!” Desirée called again. Her voice was shrill. “Disaster!”

“What now?” Rose muttered.

She got to her feet and trudged out of the garden. She found Desirée twisting and turning in the hedge maze; the older girl had never been able to figure the way. Rose came up behind her as Desirée fluttered her arms like a trapped bird, screaming her name.

“Here I am,” Rose said.

Desirée whirled around and Rose took a startled step backward. Desirée’s eyes were wild. She barely looked human. Her face was mottled with weeping.

“Laurent’s ships,” Desirée said. “Gone! Sunk! We are ruined!”

With a banshee wail, Desirée leaped at her stepsister and grabbed her by the wrist. Then she dragged Rose through the maze toward the
château
, shrieking with each wrong turn, unable or unwilling to allow Rose to calm her down enough to lead her out. It was as if she had gone mad.

“Let me help,” Rose insisted.

Somehow they arrived at the front door of the
château
, and Desirée burst inside. Rose tumbled over the threshold behind her.

A divan had been set in the center of the foyer, and Ombrine lay on it with the back of her left hand pressed over her eyes. A sheaf of papers fluttered from her right hand as a weathered man in dusty
riding clothes turned and looked at the two girls.

His eyes met hers and Rose saw deep pity there. Frightened, she looked down at the papers. The man bent and picked them up.

Rose reached out her hand for them and, in that moment, Ombrine sat up. Her undressed hair hung in tangles around her shoulders, and it was shot through with gray. She looked as wild-eyed as Desirée.

“Those are mine,” she hissed. She grabbed the papers from the man and pressed them against her chest. She glared at Rose. “Your father. Your stupid father! The ships went down!”

“Stepmother, I don’t understand,” Rose said. She looked from Ombrine to the man. He, at least, seemed possessed of his wits.

He said,
“Mademoiselle
, I’m a messenger. Your lady mother has had a shock. It seems her late husband’s business enterprises have sustained a blow.”

“A
blow!”
Ombrine shrieked at the man. “Get out of here! Leave at once!”

“I’ve not been paid,” the man said calmly.

“Why should you be, with the news you bring?” Ombrine screamed. “Get out!”

He stretched out his hand and said, “If you please,
madame
. Fair news or foul, I am only the messenger:”

“Then steal from a widow and her orphans and be damned!” Ombrine reached into the sleeve of her gown and flung a gold coin at him. It slapped him on the cheek. He caught it in his palm and gave her a curt bow.

As he headed for the door, he said to Rose in a low voice, “Have a care,
mademoiselle.”

Then he walked out the open door.

Ombrine leaped from the divan and slammed the door shut so hard the doorjamb rattled. She threw herself against the door and said, “We are ruined. Utterly.” Then she sank to the floor.

“Stepmother,” Rose said, taking one uncertain step toward the distraught woman.

“Don’t touch me!” Ombrine screamed. “He has taken his fortune to his grave and you put him there! You miserable, loathsome girl! How I hate you!”

“I didn’t,” Rose whispered, but no one heard her words.

Including Rose herself.

With the deaths of Celestine and Laurent and the loss of the Marchand fortune, the shadow across the
château
lengthened, darkened. Who knew what might have happened if Laurent hadn’t driven away Reginer, his firstborn and heir? Perhaps the sensitive artist would have been able to enlighten his father’s heart. If Reginer could have loosened Laurent’s grip on the things of this world, maybe Laurent would have spent more time with Celestine and Rose. Then Celestine might never have uttered the prayer to Artemis that set tragedy in motion.