Hearts Beguiled

by Penelope Williamson

  He laid her gentry on the rose silk counterpane. The light from the candle on the bedstand highlighted her face. Illness and deprivation emphasized her boldly sculptured features. She was more beautiful than ever, still the most lovely thing he had ever seen.

  He knelt beside the bed and brought her hand to his lips. Unexpectedly, hot tears stung his eyes, and he squeezed them shut, fighting them down. Life had taught him to smother his feelings, and he wasn't about to let himself cry over her. Even in death he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing how badly her leaving had hurt him. Time had not tempered the pain, or the hate. But looking into her dead face, he could at least admit that mixed with the hate were all the love and longing and need that had drawn him to her in the first place. Losing her again, this second time, seemed almost unbearable.

  Leaning over, he started to press his mouth to her lips for a brief and final kiss when something broke inside him. He smothered his face in her neck, and his shoulders hunched over as a silent sob shuddered through him, and then another. And then they were no longer silent—but the harsh, tearing sobs of a man who never wept.

  "Why, Gabrielle?" he cried. "Oh, my God, Gabrielle, Gabrielle ... I loved you!"

  Loved her and believed in her. Believed in himself for the first time in his life. She had given him the world and then walked away, leaving the world shattered at his feet. And he would go through it all again, all the pain, the suffering, even go through this, for those few glorious hours they had shared together.

  He brushed her cold, still lips with his. "I love you, Gabrielle," he said softly. Then he laid his head on her breast . . . and heard her heart beat.

  He sprang up so fast he knocked over the bedstand, almost causing a fire. He stamped out the flames with his boot, then slowly backed up until he was standing flat against the far wall. He stared at her in stunned disbelief, his chest heaving, his breath sounding harsh in his ears.

  Then he lunged for the bell rope.

  The doctor pulled the thick woolen blanket over Gabrielle's chest, tucking it under her chin. "The humors have retired to the center of her body."

  Max wiped the sweat that dripped down his face with his sleeve. A huge fire blazed in the hearth, and the room was stifling hot. "Humors? What the hell does that mean?"

  The doctor glanced up at him. There was a supercilious smile on his face, and Max, who was feeling helpless and hating it, clenched his fists to keep from punching that smile out the back of the man's head.

  "It means, monsieur, that she has a fever. She must be given an infusion of centaury and purged with a Seidlitz powder. Naturally, she must be bled."

  "Bled! Christ, she hasn't blood to spare!"

  "Monsieur le Vicomte, I trained for three years at Paris University. Are you presuming to tell me I don't know what I'm doing?"

  Max's lids slid shut and a cold smile thinned his lips. "If she dies, I will bury you with her."

  Disconcerted, the doctor stared at Max. Then, shrugging, he said, "You are distraught," and beckoned to the surgeon who stood waiting discreetly just inside the door. It would be the surgeon who would perform the vulgar labor of handling the lancet for bleeding.

  The surgeon removed Gabrielle's arm from beneath the covers. It looked so thin and white, Max couldn't imagine how it was going to produce any blood. The surgeon placed a shallow brass bowl beneath the bend in her elbow and, taking a small, pointed knife, slit through skin and flesh and into the vein. Within seconds, blood welled out of the cut and began to drip into the bowl.

  And Max—who had thought he had seen enough of life's horrors to inure him to anything—had to flee the room.

  The valet Guitton found him pacing the hall a few minutes later. "Monseigneur, I've taken the liberty of having a light repast prepared. It awaits you in your antechamber."

  Max pushed a trembling hand through his hair. "Thank you, Guitton, but I'd choke if I tried to eat anything. Where's my father? I would have thought all this commotion would have wakened him long ago."

  "But, monseigneur, I thought you knew. The marechal has gone to Rambouillet for the month. To hunt with the king."

  Max gave a sharp laugh. "The old bastard! I thought he was dying. What revived him? I bet it was a wench."

  Guitton didn't even blink. But then it was impossible, Max had learned after fruitless years of trying, to shock or disconcert his father's valet.

  "Monsieur le Comte was hearty enough when he left here last week, monseigneur," Guitton said. He hesitated, clearing his throat. "Monseigneur . . . ?"

  Max stopped pacing and turned to stare at the valet's thin, sharp-featured, and politely blank face. Never before in his memory had Max seen the inimitable Guitton at a loss for words. "Yes?"

  The valet took a deep breath. "The child ... he is asking after you. He seems to be under the sad misapprehension that you are his father."

  For a long time Max said nothing. Then his lips twisted into one of his bitter, mocking smiles. "I'm the boy's stepfather. The woman lying in there bleeding into a cup is his mother. My wife."

  He headed for the kitchens, leaving Guitton standing at the top of the stairs. If he had looked back, Max would have had the satisfaction of seeing a look of pure astonishment on the va-let's face.

  "Sacre bleu!" Guitton exclaimed beneath his breath. "A wife! The comte will burst his spleen when he hears of this." Then he smiled as he thought of what the others belowstairs would say when he told them of the irrepressible Monsieur Max's latest escapade.

  Max found Dominique sitting on a tall stool before the kitchen table. A chocolate mustache coated his upper lip and he clutched the half-empty cup tight between his hands. A plate wiped clean even of crumbs sat before him. A serving girl, looking sleepy-eyed and disheveled and annoyed at having been roused from her bed, hovered by the fire. Max dismissed her and pulled up a chair beside the boy.

  Dominique stared back at Max with solemn, frightened eyes. He swallowed hard. "W-where is Maman?"

  "The doctor's with her. She's sleeping."

  "But will she wake up?"

  "Yes," Max said, hoping God wouldn't make him out to be a liar.

  The relief on the face of Gabrielle's son was patently visible. He pumped his legs against the stool and squirmed a bit. "What was heaven like?"

  "I wasn't—" Max stopped himself. He forced out a smile. "It was boring. Too many angels and not enough devils . . .

  Dominique? What were you and your maman doing out on that road at night and in the middle of a snow storm?"

  "We were going to grand-mire's. She's a duchesse and she lives in a grand chateau. Like this one, I 'spect. But we got lost."

  "Your grandmother is a duchesse?" asked Max, thinking the boy was confused, or perhaps indulging in a bit of make-believe. "What's her name?"

  Dominique took a long swallow from his cup, then wiped his wet mouth with the back of his hand, smearing the chocolate across his cheek. "Don't know."

  Max decided to try a different tack. "Do you remember the day you left Paris?"

  Dominique screwed up his face. "I guess."

  "Why did you leave? Was it to go visit your grand-mere?''

  Dominique shook his head vigorously. "We had to go to Beaune to take care of Madame Balue. I didn't like her. She smelled bad. And she cried a lot. I don't cry because I'm Marxian's little man."

  Beaune, Max thought. It was miles from here. And leagues away from Paris. "Did Madame Balue die? Is that why you left Beaune?"

  A haunted look darkened the boy's eyes. "No, we had to run away. Because of the bad man. Can I have some more chocolate?"

  Beating down his impatience, Max got up and went to the fire where the pot of cocoa and milk sat on a trivet.

  He refilled Dominique's cup. "What bad man?" he asked carefully, feeling like a toothdrawer yanking on a stubborn molar.

  "He tried to hurt Maman. But I gutted him."

  "God in heaven ..." Max slowly sat down, the pot of chocolate forgotten in his hand. He remember
ed the rusty kitchen knife he had seen strapped to Gabrielle's waist when he had stripped her and bathed her with hot water and wrapped her in blankets warmed before the fire, trying to bring life back into those stiff, frozen limbs, wondering how she had survived those hours in that snow-filled ditch, wondering how she had come to be there in the first place, wondering so many things . . .

  The cup clattered onto the table and rolled against Max's hand. Startled, he looked up. Gabrielle's son had fallen asleep, his head pillowed on his folded arms. His blond hair lay in the spilled chocolate, getting sticky.

  ❧

  The faces haunted her dreams.

  Once Agnes came, her hair covered by a huge mobcap and her mouth scowling in anger. "You promised you wouldn't go too far," Agnes said. "Instead, you went all the way to Beaune."

  "But it was Louvois," Gabrielle tried to explain. "I had to go where Louvois couldn't find me."

  Agnes didn't want to listen. She went away and Simon came. "What happened to the ring? How could you let someone steal it when you know how much it means to me?"

  Tears filled Gabrielle's eyes. "That was all a mistake. He didn't steal it; Dominique had it in his pocket. And then I left it in Beaune. I had to leave everything in Beaune."

  But she wasn't talking to Simon after all; it was Madame Balue, who looked at her with bruised eyes and held out her arms. "See the scars. I wanted to be a nun, but instead I bleed, I bleed for Jesus Christ." And then Madame Balue was taken away by the surgeon, who lifted his lancet and slashed and Gabrielle screamed because she felt the pain as if it were her own. Somewhere far away she heard a voice shouting in anger. "That's enough! Christ, do you want to kill her?" And the dreams faded into a heavy, still blackness.

  She liked the blackness. It was peaceful, not angry like the faces. But Dominique wouldn't let her stay in the warm, gentle blackness. He kept calling to her and so she had to leave because he was sick and cold and needed her to take him to the duchesse de Nevers, who would love him and dress him in satin.

  But the faces waited for her on the road.

  Baptiste Balue, whose eye rolled demonically in his head, smiled and said, "You asked for it, my dear. I wouldn't have tried to give it to you, if you hadn't asked for it."

  And Louvois, who smiled, too, so that the scar, raw and bleeding, puckered his face. "I will use him," Louvois said. "I will use your love for him to destroy you."

  And then he was there, leaning over her, his eyes narrowed in anger, his mouth drawn taut, not smiling at all.

  "No!" she cried, turning her head away. "Oh, Max, Max. Why did you do it?"

  His fingers dug into her shoulders, hurting her and pulling her up, out of the dream. "Damn you, Gabrielle! Why did you leave me?"

  "I love you!" she cried. She wanted to take his face between her hands and kiss away his anger. But when she reached for him, he faded away and the blackness returned. The blessed, welcoming blackness.

  ❧

  She opened her eyes to a strange and luxurious room. Its walls were all gold and white, with hangings of turquiose-and rose-colored silk. She lay in a bed of white cotton softness, and beneath her hands was a bedspread of pink watered silk. On her body was the finest nightgown she had ever seen.

  She turned her head. A strange girl in a starched, lace-trimmed mobcap leaned over her. She had a pert, tumed-up nose, and there was a bright smile on her heart-shaped lips.

  "Where am I?" Gabrielle said. Or thought she said, for what came out of her mouth was barely a croak.

  "Oh, madame! Are you awake at last?"

  Gabrielle swallowed. Her throat was sore and she was very thirsty. It took her several tries to get the words out of her mouth, and even then her voice squeaked like a rusty hinge. "Is this ... is this the Chateau de Nevers?"

  The girl covered her mouth with her hand to smother a laugh. "Oh, heavens no, madame. Nevers is way over in the next province. I must go tell Monsieur le Vicomte that you've awakened. He's been half mad with worry. I fear he'd begun to despair you would ever recover from your fever." She giggled. "He kicked Monsieur le Docteur down the steps!"

  Gabrielle tried to focus on what the girl was saying, but it was too difficult and her head hurt too much. "Thirsty ..." she whispered.

  A strong hand cradled her neck, lifting her head. "Here, madame, drink this. It's an egg beaten in boiling water with cinnamon and sugar. It will soothe your throat and keep the cough down."

  Gabrielle painfully swallowed the draft. Her eyes drifted closed. The light was too bright; it made her head pound. What had happened to the gentle blackness? She felt the girl move away from her.

  Her eyes flew open. "No!" she cried out hoarsely, and thought to hold the girl back, shocked to discover she was too weak even to lift her arm. "Dominique! Where's my son?"

  The girl had paused at the door. She laughed. "Tiens! Don't worry your head over that one. The petit coquin is riding old Marthe round and round the paddock. Monsieur le Vicomte put him up on that old nag's back two weeks ago and I swear he's not been off since!"

  Two weeks? No, that wasn't possible. She needed to see to Dominique. It had been over a day since they'd eaten. And it had started to snow. They were still a long distance from the Chateau de Nevers. They still had to walk all the way to the next province, and he would die if she didn't get him out of the ditch.

  Tears spilled unheeded from Gabrielle's eyes. "Please . . ." she begged the girl. "You must bring him to me."

  "But of course, madame," the girl said, misunderstanding. "I am to fetch Monsieur Max the moment you awaken."

  Gabrielle thought she must somehow have slipped back into one of her dreams. Exhaustion washed over her and she closed her eyes. It felt as if the bed were tied onto the tail of a kite, being whipped and flung around the room by the wind. "No ..." She turned her head from side to side. "Not Max . . ."

  She heard the girl's voice echoing to her as if from a deep well. "Oh, please forgive my impertinence, Madame la Vicomtesse. I was so used to thinking of monsieur your husband as Monsieur Max, I forget sometimes that he is now the vicomte. I will bring him to you now, if you please, madame . . ."

  "No ..." Gabrielle felt herself slipping into sleep again and she tried to fight it, but she was so tired ... so tired . . .

  When next she opened her eyes, it was to the sound of footsteps approaching the bed and, though she faced away from the door toward the wall, she felt her heartbeat stop and then start up again. She knew, oh, God, she knew it was he, for hadn't she always been able to tell when he entered a room, even without looking? The world glowed when he was near, and her heart took wings. It did so now, still, even after everything he had done and she had done and all that had somehow been done to them.

  She sucked in a deep, painful breath and slowly turned her head ... to look up into a pair of sooty gray eyes.

  "So you've decided to live after all," he said in that silky voice of his that could weave songs around her heart.

  It had been a year, over a year, and nothing had changed. She loved him still. She battled back tears and wanted to look away, but she couldn't. Her eyes and heart drank in the sight of his beloved face after so many days and months apart.

  He looked stunningly handsome in an English hunting coat with a high collar and tight leather breeches tucked neatly into tall riding boots. The plain white linen neckcloth knotted at his throat set off his dark skin and hair. She wasn't surprised to find him here at what had almost been her deathbed, for wasn't he part of her destiny? Hadn't he been put on earth for her to love?

  And to hate. "What have you done with my son?" she demanded in her pain-roughened voice.

  The closed expression on his face didn't alter except for a slight flaring of his nostrils. "Your son, madame? I've clothed him and fed him and taught him how to sit a horse—the same as any other father would do."

  She shut her eyes, summoning her strength. She tried to push up on her elbows, but she was too weak. She fell back, her head bouncing against the pi
llow. "I don't believe you."

  He went to the door and flung it open.

  "Maman!" Dominique came hurtling into the room, although he slowed as he approached the bed, remembering just in time that his maman had been very, very sick and needed lots of rest and quiet. "Guess what?" he said, trying hard to whisper and not succeeding very well. "Papa is teaching me how to ride a horse! And soon I can go hunting with him—he said so! We'll shoot some rabbits and then you won't have to steal them anymore."

  A huge smile lit her child's face. It was still thin, but his cheeks bore the bloom of health. His blond hair had been brushed until it shone and tied back with a riband, and he looked the picture of a little gentleman in navy-blue velvet breeches and a matching coat with silver buttons. There were even silver buckles on his shoes. Tears flooded Gabrielle's eyes and overflowed to run down her face, dampening the pillow.

  Dominique's smile slid off his face, and a worried frown creased his brow. "Don't cry, Maman. Monsieur le Docteur won't hurt you anymore. Papa punched him in the nose and kicked him down the stairs."

  Laughter bubbled from Gabrielle's raw throat. She felt weightless with a strange happiness. But when she unconsciously turned to share the happiness with Max, she found that he had gone.

  Chapter 17

  "Drink it!"

  "Ugh!" Gabrielle wrinkled her nose and twisted her head to the side. "It smells like cow's piss."

  "Drink it or I'll force it down your throat."

  "You wouldn't dare!"

  Max grabbed Gabrielle by the jaws, pulling her mouth apart. He held the steaming cup to her lips. "Now. Are you going to drink?"

  She blinked and tried to nod her head. Max tilted the cup and the liquid, which also tasted like cow's piss, poured down her throat. She swallowed reflexively and tried not to gag.