Pam Rosenthal

by The Bookseller's Daughter

  “But we can do that easily enough,” he continued. “We’ll just have my valet bring you to my room every night.”

  He rattled the door, producing a muffled expletive from the other side. “In fact the rogue’s spying on us right now, through the keyhole.

  “Don’t strain your eyes, Baptiste,” he called.

  “And anyway,” he added quickly, “I promise you won’t have to worry about what happens between us. Because, as my father has already rather crudely informed you, I do not take advantage of servants.”

  After all, he assured himself, it was the best way to keep his father and brother away from her. And he certainly did owe her his protection; the nightly charade he’d proposed was nothing more than a simple expedient for maintaining her safety. It had nothing to do with what he might want.

  All right, not quite nothing. All right, so he wanted to see her again. Well, what of it? He’d promised not to touch her. He wouldn’t touch her. They’d simply talk, as they had in Montpellier. Of course, he’d be more polite than he’d been in Montpellier. And he’d call her by name, “Marie-Laure” instead of “Mademoiselle.”

  Marie-Laure. He could taste the deep velvet tone of its final syllable.

  “Well anyway,” he said, “you’re welcome to visit, Marie-Laure, if you also think it’s a good idea.”

  “It probably is. A good idea, I mean,” she stammered.

  She began again slowly. “Yes, Joseph, I think it would be a very good idea—just to be on the safe side. Thank you.” She gave a little nod and smiled gratefully.

  My God, he thought, it’s hot in this stuffy little room.

  But would it be such a good idea, she asked herself, to spend every night in his presence? Especially when he was proving so witty and sympathetic.

  Every ounce of her common sense said no.

  Spend every night behind closed doors with an aristocrat? Have you gone quite mad, Marie-Laure? Her common sense tended to speak in Gilles’s voice.

  But if I don’t, I’ll be at the mercy of two other aristocrats. This in her own firm inner voice. Two rather disgusting aristocrats, her inner voice added.

  And at least this one had promised not to touch me. (No matter how much I might want him to…)

  Her common sense was unconvinced.

  Her inner voice tried a new argument. After all, it’s not a question of what I might want. It’s for my safety. It’s in the service of keeping my job.

  Her common sense shrugged and left her to her own devices.

  Well, she could always change her mind. Later, when she was free of his distracting presence. She’d think it over carefully when he was gone, for surely he’d be leaving in a moment.

  Though in fact he didn’t seem to be making any motion toward opening the door. In fact, he looked rather awkward, as though he didn’t quite know how to end this interview.

  “And so,” he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow night. Sleep well.”

  “Yes,” Marie-Laure answered, “and you too.”

  He didn’t move. Should I thank him again, she wondered. Another curtsy, perhaps? Some additional word or gesture was needed, it seemed, but she had not the slightest notion of what it could be.

  “Don’t forget to latch the door,” he said.

  She shook her head. “No. Well…”

  He opened the door slightly and then shut it again, suddenly looking very young. Quickly and in a low voice, he said, “You were right about Monsieur X, you know. About the story that happened before the book began.”

  What in the world was he talking about?

  It came to her all at once, in a rush of delicious understanding and unrestrained laughter.

  His shoulders stiffened. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know if it’s really as funny as all that.”

  She struggled to hold back her laughter.

  “Perhaps not,” she said, “but it solves one of the two riddles that puzzled me for months. The first riddle, you see, was how a mere book porter could have ordered me about in such an imperious, aristocratic fashion.”

  “And the second?”

  “Why he should have been so excessively interested in Monsieur X.”

  He smiled sheepishly. “An author’s vanity,” he murmured.

  She returned the smile. “You’re a wonderful writer, you know. And I am—or was—one of your most devoted readers.

  “I suppose I’m still a reader in spirit,” she added.

  He nodded. “Of course you are. You’re probably the most astute reader I’ve ever had.”

  “Will you tell me how you came to write the book? And what you’re writing now? And how it felt when—”

  He laughed, putting up a graceful hand to stem the torrent of demands.

  “Yes, yes, of course. But gently, one question at a time. I’ll tell you everything. Beginning tomorrow night.

  “And thank you for the compliments.”

  Swiftly, he turned on his heel, ran down the corridor, and disappeared around a corner.

  She watched the empty air that had stirred in his wake, before shrugging, latching the door, and quickly removing her clothes.

  And so it would be quite all right to visit him, she decided. It would be a literary matter and not a personal one. After all, a bookseller—and someday she would be a bookseller again—ought to know everything she could about her authors.

  But for now, how nice it was to have the bed to herself this once. And so, stretching her limbs as far over the mattress as they’d reach, she fell into a sound, happy sleep.

  Chapter Seven

  She would have to get through a very long day, however, before the night’s visit.

  It would be a day of jokes and teasing; the story of last night’s bedroom farce had spread like a forest fire whipped along by the summer mistral. If she’d been confused by the night’s events, Marie-Laure thought, she seemed to be the only person who had. Everybody else in the chateau seemed to know exactly what had transpired. And everybody wanted to talk about it.

  The servants’ breakfast coffee was particularly strong and plentiful this morning. It had made them giddy and loquacious, animated by wild hilarity over the Duc’s insulting remarks to the Comte Monsieur Hubert.

  It wasn’t surprising that they’d love any story where the Gorgon got the worst of it, but Marie-Laure was nonetheless disconcerted to find that she was the story’s heroine, and that everybody “knew” the Vicomte was her lover. They were pleasant and funny about it, though—all except for the Duc’s valet, Jacques, whose advances she’d once repelled, and Arsène, who maintained his usual prudish rectitude.

  “Got to keep your strength up.” Nudging each other and grinning, they’d handed thick slices of bread and butter down the table to her. “A master who’s been plying his trade in bed all night—it’s the only trade their breed ever learns—can sleep all the following day. But a servant has to work, same as always.”

  Or—today, anyway—even harder than always. For it would be a day of unrelenting labor in preparation for the banquet.

  “Well, you’re young enough to miss a little sleep,” Nicolas told her, as he chased everybody off to work, “so I’m sure I won’t have to worry about you dozing over the pots and pans. But I don’t want to see you sighing and dreaming about the handsome gentleman when you should be working.”

  She shook her head. She wouldn’t correct their misapprehensions: the more convinced everyone was that Joseph had claimed her services, the safer she was from his father and brother. She smiled and blushed, which seemed to be all that was expected of her.

  But when Bertrande slipped into the scullery to hand her some dried herbs in a small folded paper, Marie-Laure had to restrain herself from giggling.

  “You make a tea with it,” Bertrande told her. “Drink it every day; it’ll keep you from becoming pregnant.

  “Well,” she added sheepishly, catching the skeptical gleam in Marie-Laure’s eye, “it’s better than not trying anything, because I doubt t
hat he cares to bother…”

  Marie-Laure thanked her and brewed the tea. In this case, she thought, although never before or again, the herbs were going to be one hundred percent effective.

  “How was she, Joseph?”

  Suppressing a shudder, Joseph struggled to find an acceptable response to his brother’s question.

  He supposed Hubert was trying to be sporting about it. If only, Joseph thought, his brother’s mouth weren’t so wet—he found it distracting, the way it glistened in the midday sunlight.

  He’d already spent an hour this morning with Amélie, assuring her that his dalliance with a servant was nothing out of the ordinary. It happened, he’d told her, in all the best—all the oldest—of aristocratic families. Yes, it was regrettable, he’d sighed, but what could one expect from a hot-blooded, weak-willed young noble like himself?

  Of course, he’d murmured, were it not for his duty to his brother, he might indulge in a more sophisticated pleasure—with a more elegant lady. But surely, Madame—he’d leaned across her on the sofa, his legs elegantly disposed beneath him, his nose practically in her bosom again—surely, she understood the loyalties an ancient family conferred upon one.

  She’d come around easily enough: in fact, it had been rather too easy to make her to stop pouting, especially after he’d promised to enchant and delight the guests at tonight’s banquet. He’d been glad to be summoned to the chess game with his father, where there’d been some challenge to losing the game and still keeping it interesting.

  And now he was expected to hunt rabbits with his brother.

  The field was overrun with the creatures. The dogs seemed to enjoy sniffing them out, and Hubert loved shooting at them. Two manservants carried the guns and a growing bag of little furred bodies.

  Feigning total concentration on his marksmanship, Joseph raised his musket to his shoulder, took aim, and squeezed the trigger. Perfect. Just close enough to be a convincing miss.

  Another silly private game, he supposed, but he didn’t feel like killing innocent creatures today. Hubert caught a big one, and the dogs set off happily to fetch its carcass.

  Hubert gave a satisfied nod and turned back to their conversation.

  “And last night’s prey?” he asked. “Was she eager? She looked like a hot, enthusiastic little thing. Or did you have to force her, make her scream?”

  If his mouth gets any wetter, Joseph thought, he’ll be drooling along with the dogs.

  “They pretend they don’t like it, you know.” Hubert was clearly proud to share this information. “Especially when you push them down and force them to…”

  The end of the sentence was almost lost in a torrent of giggles, while the servants pretended to busy themselves with dogs and equipment.

  Joseph felt as though he were back in school. But he should have known to prepare a story, he thought. Like many gentlemen, Hubert was still an overgrown schoolboy; half the pleasure of an amatory triumph was in the telling, the other half in the listening.

  What made it worse was that these sniggering conversations inevitably took place with servants at one’s elbow, like pieces of furniture. Most of his fellow aristocrats were unconscious of the implicit cruelty but the cleverer of them liked to exploit it. The Baron Roque, for example, was famous for enlivening his dinner parties with tales of gross debauchery and then—during the cheese course—announcing that the woman whose lovemaking he’d described in such detail was the daughter or wife of one of the footmen in attendance.

  Hubert was growing impatient.

  Joseph sighed. “She was…delicious.”

  “And?”

  “And”—he glanced at a tip of velvety rabbit ear poking out of the bag one of the servants carried—“very…innocent.” He thought of the present King’s grandfather, Louis XV who’d kept a private brothel, stocked with young women he’d hunt like game animals through field and forest. The Deer Park, it had been called. Those were the days, his father liked to say.

  Hubert chortled. “She probably begged you to break her in. How many times did you have her?”

  How to put an end to this vileness? He breathed deeply, as though beginning a juicy confidence. Hubert grinned in anticipation.

  “Baptiste is bringing her to my room tonight.”

  Hubert was nearly panting.

  “And so, Monsieur le Comte”—Joseph bowed suddenly and gracefully from the waist—“I’m sure you’ll excuse me if I don’t squander my powers in chatter, which sometimes, you know, diverts a gentleman’s energy from the act itself.”

  The servant carrying the rabbits broke into a coughing fit to cover his sputtering laughter, while the one with the muskets maintained a look of fierce reserve. It took Joseph a minute to place the second attendant—ah yes, Arsène from last night’s dinner, dark-haired today without his powdered footman’s wig.

  Well done, Arsène. It must take some force of will not to snicker at us.

  But where had he seen him before? Montpellier, perhaps? No, that was ridiculous: booksellers didn’t employ footmen.

  He turned back to his brother.

  “Or don’t you find that talk can be the enemy of virility, Monsieur le Comte?” he added softly.

  Hubert shrugged as though he hadn’t understood the innuendo, but his red-rimmed eyes were icy.

  “Of course, Joseph. Save your powers, your famous charm. We haven’t formally inquired yet, but rumor has it all the young ladies we’ve invited to dinner tonight have pretty good dowries attached.”

  “And if I’m not inclined to search for a wife just now?”

  “Oh, but you are. You’re pining, you’re dying, you’re desperate for a wife.”

  “Not at all. I came to visit our father, and I’ll be off again as soon as…it’s all over.”

  “Merde.” Hubert missed a shot. He handed his musket to Arsène to reload. And when he spoke, after a pause, it was in a soft but authoritative voice.

  “I’m not as stupid as I look,” he said. “And Amélie, whatever else she might be, is damned intelligent, almost as intelligent as her bourgeois father’s lawyers. She’s as heartless, too, and as intent on getting what she wants. You made a mistake, Joseph, getting on her bad side.”

  Joseph shrugged. She’d seemed easy enough to get around this morning.

  Hubert reached into a capacious pocket and drew out a pair of documents.

  “You can have them. I’ve had copies made for you. But I’ll keep the originals, with the official seals on them.”

  The first document enumerated the money he’d spent paying off Joseph’s creditors and bribing those angry husbands.

  “The specifics don’t matter—I’m sure you don’t remember, never even attended to the petty costs of your adventures. But what does matter is the total amount of money you owe me. This is a bill, Joseph, due six months after our father’s death, whenever that may be.”

  Joseph scanned the second document while Hubert brought down two more rabbits. They were little ones, babies really, he noted, some part of him registering their pathetic smallness in the dogs’ maws while the cold legal words took shape in his mind. The baby rabbits had doubtless been driven frantic by the loss of their mother’s protection. He felt his cheeks grow hot as he struggled to keep his voice soft and even.

  “So if I don’t pay you I could go to prison?”

  “Shows a concern on my part, don’t you think, for the general morality? The King’s agents congratulated me on my public-spiritedness. I’m doing my bit for France by trying to teach Monsieur X some decent behavior. You’ve had a good time all these years, Joseph, but you’re going to be profitably married, just like the rest of us.

  “And yes, I do need the money. Odd, how once you get money you find that you need more of it. But you’ll learn. Even with your reputation, your looks and bloodlines ought to buy somebody as good as Amélie anyway.”

  Joseph felt a chill seep through his bones despite the merciless midday sunshine.

  “You can�
��t,” he muttered. But he knew all too well that Hubert could. Joseph wouldn’t be the first young nobleman locked away for the supposed public welfare with the King’s seal on the lettre de cachet his family had secured. He thought of the Comte de Mirabeau—eight years in and out of prison at the whim of a hateful father. And if the Marquis de Sade’s mother-in-law continued to have her way, that gentleman would live out the rest of his life in the Bastille.

  He struggled to concentrate on what his brother was saying. “It was good of you to make this visit,” Hubert continued. “Not a day went by last winter when the old Duc didn’t regale Amélie and me with pronouncements of how overjoyed he was about the imminent return of his favorite son.

  “Too bad the lawyers took so long with their subtleties of phrasing or you might have been able to return sooner. But I couldn’t help but enjoy the old coot’s frustrations when I’d tell him he’d have to wait a bit longer.”

  Couldn’t help but enjoy it. Yes, I can imagine.

  “Is he really as ill as your letters said?” Joseph asked.

  Hubert threw him an aggrieved look. “Would I lie about a matter of such import? Speak to his doctors yourself if you wish. Of course, if you absolutely can’t bear the idea of marrying, you could probably get away right now—cross the border back to the shabby adventurer’s life you were living. But you won’t.”

  He’s right, I won’t. I’ve committed myself to staying with our father through the course of his illness.

  “You needn’t hurry to find a fiancée, after all,” Hubert continued. “Our inquiries to the marriage brokers have been most perfunctory as yet. Personally I’m delighted to have you here—saves me from having to listen to the old goat’s stupid rants at dinner and tea. After he dies, of course, we’ll need your quick cooperation.”

  Joseph aimed, fired several shots in quick succession, and watched the dogs retrieve the limp little bodies.

  “Good work, little brother. You’re a quick study. And no doubt you’ll plug the little kitchen slut just as efficiently tonight.”

  Would this afternoon never end?