The Ruins of Lace

by Iris Anthony

  I frowned as I tried to hide my revulsion. “Perhaps she’s to your taste, but she’s not to mine.” I did not care what he did with her. I could hardly demand fidelity in my lover when I could not always service his needs myself. Ignoring him, I addressed myself to her. “There must be some use that you can be put to. What is it that you do?”

  She blinked.

  “Are you dumb as well as daft?”

  “I am not.” Something sparked in her eyes.

  “Then speak on your behalf. If you do not wish to be used by the chevalier of Fontenay”—I inclined my chin toward Remy—“then you must be prepared to offer some other sort of amusement.”

  She looked at Remy as if in horror, face blanched white. “Amusement…?”

  I hoped she was not one of those girls who fainted at the slightest of provocations. “You’re the daughter of a viscount. I could hardly hire you out as a common servant, and my own requirements are adequately met, so what other good can you do me?”

  “I can…I can read. And sing. I’m quite useful in the making of unguents and cures.”

  “My father has a wife for all of those.”

  “Excuse me, my lord. Your father?”

  “It’s to his estate we are returning.” What I would not give to make it mine!

  “I can play the lute, and I can dance.”

  “I don’t dance. At least not with girls.”

  Beside me, Remy snorted.

  I turned to him. “If you cannot be kind, then you must not say anything at all.”

  He gave me a sardonic grin. “I beg your pardon.”

  The girl’s color had rallied, and she was no longer breathing quite so shallowly. “I’ve been trained to marry. To serve as a companion to persons of the noble class.” The look she shot at Remy was filled with poison.

  Bred to marry, trained to be the perfect companion, as all fine ladies should be. Perhaps I could find a use for her.

  •••

  After the passage of four hours within the close confines of the carriage, the fact that the girl had thrust herself upon me began to grate. I did not want her. I had a horror of girls. What I wanted was lace. And I had tried my best to obtain some.

  Journeying the byways of the kingdom to Souboscq had not been my original plan. I counted on the viscount’s money; it financed my gambling, sometimes, for the better part of a year. I would have much preferred to have kept that source of funds unencumbered.

  I started my quest for lace at court.

  Over a month before, the morning after Cardinal St. Florent’s visit, I roused Remy from my bed and made him find a servant to pack up the trunk.

  “Whatever for?”

  “For posterity’s sake. Both mine and yours.”

  Though he scowled and muttered bitterly at having to face the day at such an early hour, he did my bidding. He always did my bidding. I had bought him his title, I had settled his debts, and I kept him in money when I could. I also shared my bed with him.

  I made my excuses to the marquis, which he countered with his tiresome and familiar bluster. “Court? To do what?”

  Collect the funds to buy the lace to guard the fortune he was so set upon denying me. “We’ve been here since your marquise discovered she was breeding. If you will not represent our interests at court, someone must, or you risk returning to find you have no interests left to protect.”

  He opened his mouth in what seemed certain to be a protest, but then he shut it up with a frown.

  How could he protest the truth? When new intrigues at court seemed to be birthed with the rising of the sun each day, it was far better to be present than to risk being implicated in one. These were trying times. The King was embattled with the Spaniards to the west and in the north, and with the Hapsburgs to the east and in the south. With the King’s brother intriguing against him, and the Queen Mother instigating rebellions from her exile in the Spanish Netherlands, it took only a whisper to link one to the wrong side. Indeed, it was difficult to find any right side of late.

  At least the King was favorably disposed toward my father. And the Queen had made Gabrielle a favorite. My stepmother’s blue eyes generally sparked with merriment, and her rosy cheeks betrayed the high spirits that never failed to amuse Her Majesty.

  Though I would pay my respects to the King, I would try my best to keep myself far from the Queen. Her Spanish sensibilities could not allow her to approve of me, and becoming known at her court had the disadvantage of becoming suspect in the eyes of the King.

  Though His Majesty liked my father, I knew my kind weren’t his favorite. He preferred men like Remy, who enthused over hunting and horses. And he was not one to approve of the flaunting of wealth. His only passion seemed to be for working himself into an ill health.

  And taking part in a ballet now and then.

  Taking leave of my father with a bow, I pulled on my gloves, threw out the edges of my cloak, and adjusted the pleats. Then I cocked my hat at just the right angle: the one that cast a shadow over my eyes. When I joined Remy, who had aided in preparing the carriage, bits of straw and manure still clung to his boots. Though I’d bought him the title of chevalier, his breeding had a tendency to betray him at the most unfortunate of times. His father had been equerry to the King, and he could not seem to master his fascination for all things equine.

  I, on the other hand, had difficulty tolerating the beasts. Their stench had ruined a pair of my breeches on more than one occasion. And their hair had the habit of working itself into even the most intimate of garments.

  I pushed aside my cloak to mount the carriage and then straightened it once inside.

  Remy sprawled onto the seat beside me, planting one of his boot-clad feet on the cushioned bench across from us. I removed it with a tap of my walking stick.

  •••

  Unfortunately, I lost the carriage at Madame Sainctot’s the first night back in Paris. It was unavoidable. I’d been dealt a bad hand, and my concentration had been inhibited. At least I hadn’t bet my brass pocket pistol. Losing that would have been the worst of sartorial sins.

  Remy had been playing at a different table on the far side of the room. Above the clink of drinking glasses and the murmur of conversations, I had heard him laugh. There had been a certain timbre to it. And a telltale glimmer in his eye.

  They were the laugh and the glimmer that used to belong to me.

  As I watched him, he flipped the ruffled edge of his sleeve away from his wrist with a graceful twirl and reached out his hand to collect the chips with his long, elegant fingers. And then something on the far side of the room caught his attention.

  I leaned past the Marquis d’Armont, to try to detect who or what it was, but I was not fast enough.

  Damn him!

  He wasn’t offering his charms to anyone in particular. Not yet. And not overtly. He was being subtle. Too subtle for anyone to think of casting glances at me, to begin laughing at me. Not for the first time did I curse my sex and my inability to command it.

  The Duke of Mirebeau’s son winked at me as he laid down his cards. “Don’t worry. I’ll put the carriage to good use for you.”

  “Thank you ever so much.” I tossed my cards into the middle of the table.

  “A fine carriage like that. You might want it back someday.”

  I wanted it back right then, for I didn’t envy a trip through the countryside on horseback.

  “Let’s call your carriage a down payment on that pile of gold you owe me. Your father’s old. He’s bound to die soon. If we can make an arrangement for payment of your debt in full, I might one day consider returning the coach.”

  “You’re a saint.”

  He canted a smile at me.

  “Are you playing this hand, then, Montreau, or would you rather flirt?” The
Marquis d’Armont was beginning to deal.

  “With you?” I gave him what I hoped was a look of disdain. “I think not. I’ve a certain standard to uphold.”

  At a ribald pun on the word “standard” and a gesture too crude to be repeated, the table broke into laughter.

  I slid my card back toward the marquis. “I find I’ve developed a sudden taste for company more refined than you.” I rose from my chair and bowed.

  “And we’ve developed a taste for more of your fabled fortune. Don’t go! Don’t be a villein. You ought to share with those less fortunate. It’s good for the soul.”

  “I have it on good authority, gentlemen, I have no soul worth saving.” I took up my walking stick, tucking it beneath my arm as I toured the room. What was wrong with me? I was here to win a fortune, and I couldn’t even concentrate on my cards.

  •••

  Four short days later, we rode from Paris toward Souboscq, traveling in a rented coach. It was more to remove Remy from the court’s temptations than because I had lost all my money. I had, in fact, retained some of it. Enough to last our journey. But my appetite for the game had disappeared. Though I had once risen to the challenge of cards and dice with the zeal of a warrior, this time I had not even been able to acquit myself as a nobleman.

  I had taken up the habit of visiting the viscount of Souboscq at this time of year. The roads were generally in good repair, the weather was pleasant, and I could stop in at my own crumbling estate at Montreau on the way. If my father didn’t attach so much sentiment to the title, and if it weren’t for the fact it was the only thing he had ever given me, I might have well sold it. It didn’t do to be associated with Poitou and its renegade politics, or its heretic religion.

  As we traveled, we passed field after field shorn of grain.

  God, how I envied the peasants their crops! One good harvest could bring them a small fortune. I had no such luxury. Had I owned a field, I could not have worked it. I could have collected rents from it, but I could not have actually sold any of its fruit, nor could I have lent a hand to their labors. Not if I wanted to retain my nobility. Gambling was the only honorable way to make and dispense fortunes. Though could farming not be considered gambling of a sort? I wondered as we passed by those fields, who offered the better odds: God or man?

  God had been none too kind to me. Much better to trust in the insatiable greed of Cardinal St. Florent. But to turn him to my side, I needed lace.

  If I’d had those cuffs the Lefort girl had spoiled, I would have given them to the cardinal already. That would have solved all my problems. But I didn’t have anything at all, really. My finery was borrowed on my father’s good name, and every livre I had wrung from the viscount of Souboscq had gone to keep me in cards.

  Only now the whole consequence of my father’s death had been placed into question.

  But the cardinal was a creature quite like me. If I offered him something more than what my father could—and how could a length of lace fail to be more?—then he would respond in an entirely predictable way. My failures at gambling and my desperate need for lace are what had led me to Souboscq in Gascogne.

  •••

  Somewhere along the road back to Poitiers, the girl stopped glaring at me and fell asleep. So did Remy. I nudged him awake. “Don’t you know some countess or other in Berry?”

  “The Countess of Bardelles…and the Duchess of Tillay.”

  “The girl needs some presentable clothes and some slippers.”

  “You’re going to keep her, after all, then?”

  I scowled at the desire that lit his eyes. “Not for that.”

  His face fell.

  “If you’re unhappy with me, you only need say so…”

  “No! No, I’m quite content.”

  Was he? Truly?

  “As far as the countess and duchess…I haven’t seen either of the women for some time, and I don’t know if they’ll be amenable to my charms.”

  His charms. They were quite considerable, and they had always worked on me. I reached over to adjust the lie of his cravat, rearranging its ribbons. “Do only what you must.”

  A several days’ stay in Berry yielded a stylish wardrobe. From the Countess of Bardelles we acquired a gorgeous basque and gown in blue Turkey velvet, decorated with gilt spangles. It was given to us with slippers to match. Two days later, from the Duchess of Tillay, we received a lovely green satin gown with its sleeves pinned back to reveal a gold-embroidered lining.

  Remy tossed the satin beside me onto the bed we were sharing. It gleamed like a living thing atop the counterpane of gold-embroidered, claret-colored damask.

  I resisted the urge to stroke the gown’s length, though I knew from damnable experience how the silk would feel against my legs. How the skirts would rustle when I walked. And how elegant the slippers would look on my feet. I rolled over onto an elbow and poked at them with my book instead. “And how did you manage these?”

  “I told the duchess you required them.”

  I raised a brow. “Indeed.”

  “Do not blame me if she received the impression it was you who would be wearing them.”

  I shrugged, though I wanted to shudder. I’d had enough of such games as a boy to ever want to don a gown again. Least that is what I told myself. My mother had wanted a girl, and it had fallen upon my shoulders to ease her disappointment. The day my father first recognized me as his son was the last day he had ever looked upon me with any sort of pride.

  It had taken the longest time to get over caring.

  •••

  The skirts were too long, and the sleeves, meant to sit just off the shoulder, were cut too broadly for the girl. They kept sliding down her arms. But they were an improvement upon her provincial attire, nonetheless. Once I coaxed a maid to dress her hair, she looked fit for the royal court itself. With her hair cut in a stylish fringe and the sides pulled back to expose her ringlets, she looked every bit the noble companion I wanted her to be. As the carriage passed into Orléanais and wound its way to my father’s estate, I made my wishes known to her.

  “We will arrive this day at the Château of Eronville, the seat of the marquis.”

  She nodded, though she looked upon me still with great suspicion.

  “My stepmother is breeding. The babe is soon to be born. Until your father can obtain my lace, you will serve as the marquise’s companion. She can be quite pleasant…” When she wasn’t trying to disinherit me. “I’m sure you’ll find the company diverting.”

  As the girl sat back against the cushions, some of the tension seemed to leave her shoulders.

  “You’ll find if you please me, there will be no reason to have to please the chevalier of Fontenay.” I could not control Remy’s vices or his fascination with women, but if, from time to time, I had let him indulge in such vagaries, then he had remained a more or less faithful companion. As long as he had kept his dalliances from my sight, I had not worried overmuch about them. But now, I could not stop thinking of our time in Paris. And I could not rid myself of the feeling he was mine no longer.

  The girl’s eyes blinked wide as the color drained from her face. Her gaze bounced from Remy to me. “You mistake me, my lord, for the common sort.”

  “No. You mistake me for the honorable sort. I assure you my intentions range somewhat farther than your obvious good breeding allows.”

  “You…you threaten me?”

  “Not if you play the role you’ve been given. I’m merely offering you some advice. Respect my wishes, and there will be no need for any unpleasantness.”

  Remy took himself into the stables when we reached my father’s château. The girl descended the carriage on my arm. The marquis soon appeared at our arrival, my stepmother toddling out behind him.

  The marquis was so astonished at the girl�
�s appearance he not only forgot to chastise me for taking—and losing—the carriage, but he also failed even to note the girl’s name. He leaned close as ever he’d come to me as we walked together into the château. “Who did you say she was?”

  “The viscount of Souboscq’s daughter.”

  “Daughter! Then she’s not yet married?” He put a hand to my arm, which stopped our progress. When I turned to look at him, I was met with a doleful and despairing expression. “I thought I had made my position plain. I have given you too many chances already, Julien, and you have failed me with them all. It’s too late. I cannot undo what has been done. I’ve already consulted with Cardinal St. Florent about the annulment.”

  He thought my interest lay in the girl? “Do not worry yourself. I simply stopped in at Souboscq after I visited Montreau. I knew your wife was bereft of company, having secluded herself from court. I did not see why two such solitary souls should not find solace in each other. If the girl serves no other use than as an amusing companion to the marquise, then I shall find myself satisfied with my decision.”

  The marquis was looking at me as if he suspected me of something. “There is much joy to be found in marriage…even if it is too late for me to change my plans.”

  He was deceiving himself. I had no doubt but that my stepmother would soon make him just as wretched as my own mother had.

  My stepmother, however, nursed no reservations about the girl’s sudden appearance. She clapped her hands. “How kind you are, Julien! How generous you are to think of me.” She held out a hand toward the girl. “You and I shall be the best of friends!”

  Chapter 14

  Alexandre Lefort

  Château of Souboscq

  The province of Gascogne, France

  “Are you listening, fiston?”

  Fiston. My father had called me fiston. Roused from my thoughts, I did not know where I would find myself: back in the forests of Béarn with my father or in the Château of Souboscq with the viscount. “Pardon me, Cousin.” If ever clarity of thought and purpose were needed, this was the time. But…