by Karleen Koen
* * *
Barbara sat down at the breakfast table, skirts rustling, and unfolded her napkin. Inside the napkin was a rosebud, just unfurling a dark red petal or two. She looked up at Roger, and he smiled, the fines crinkling around his eyes. Last night, she thought. Her breath caught.
"In memory of last night," he said, watching a vein begin to pulse in her white throat. He thought about how it felt to kiss that throat, about how it felt to be inside her, about how she wrapped silky legs and arms around him and whispered his name over and over….He leaned across the table, and ran his thumb over that vein. She shivered and took his hand and held the open palm to her mouth and kissed it.
"I love you," she whispered.
He stood up abruptly, pulled back her chair, and led her from the room, a hand on her elbow.
Thérèse was assisting the chambermaid in making the bed. One look at her mistress's flushed, downcast face, at Lord Devane, and she motioned to the chambermaid to leave the bed unmade. Without a word, she pushed the maid and Hyacinthe and the puppies out the door as if they were wayward geese. As the door closed, Barbara lifted her face, and Roger's mouth was on hers, and she felt as if she were drowning in the sensations created by his mouth and tongue and hands. Each time he made love to her she enjoyed it more, felt more wanton and free.
They lay on the bed and undressed each other, taking time between the untying of a shirt or the unlacing of a gown for passionate, long kisses. He held her face between his hands. "Your face is a heart," he said, kissing her eyes, her nose, her mouth. They were kneeling in front of each other as she watched him untie the front of her corset. It fell open, her small breasts were round and pointed through the thin fabric of her chemise. Roger pushed her back gently, and she watched him pull up her chemise and untie her garters and slowly roll down her stockings. Then he leaned over and began to kiss her legs and thighs, her stomach, between her legs. She hid her face in her arms, ashamed a little. Gently, he pulled her arms away from her face. His eyes were like sapphires; his face was taut with desire; he had never been more beautiful.
"Do not be ashamed of what two people do between them in private and for their own pleasure. Shall I stop?"
"No," she said. "Do not stop."
He smiled at her; she had never wanted him so much in her life. All her sensations seemed to be in the tips of her breasts, between her legs, soft, aching, swollen sensations. His tongue was like a flame, searing her wherever it touched. When he entered her, she was as soft and wet as spring moss. He groaned and closed his eyes and kissed her deeply in her throat. She kissed him back with all the passion and love and expertise she was slowly gathering. She could not have enough of him, and he seemed to feel the same way about her. They strained together, touching, kissing, whispering, they were twined like vines, his mouth on hers, and he was groaning; as she moved her tongue against his the tingling inside her built and peaked. "Ah," she cried, scratching his back as he smiled down at her, "ahhh." She held him fiercely against her beating heart. He made her feel beautiful and desirable. And when she was with him, she was all of those.
Afterward, they lay still together, as if they could not bear to part. He covered her face with soft kisses and stroked her neck, while she arched her neck, as a swan does. She felt lazy and content. He lay with her until she seemed to doze, and then he got up and found his clothes and began to dress, noticing as he did so a volume of Palladio on the table by her bed, the newly translated Four Books of Architecture, with odds and ends of loose papers hanging out. Intrigued, he stopped to riffle through the papers. They were drawings, crude sketches of porticoes and temple fronts and what looked like an open–air villa. It had a temple front portico with classical columns and stairs leading to it. There was an open central hallway from front to back and windows evenly spaced on all sides. There was a small dome on its roof. He smiled to himself.
With one of the papers in his hand, he looked down at her. Her glorious hair was tumbled on the pillows, and she made no effort to hide her nakedness, which touched him, for he knew she was a modest girl, and the extent of her passion for him, her trust and love, was evident by the fact that she no longer covered herself before him.
"I thought you were asleep."
"Stay. Sleep with me."
"Is it not enough that you have made me late for breakfast and for all my morning appointments? Have you no shame, Barbara?"
"No. Not with you. None with you. Stay."
She looked very appealing lying there. But he shook his head.
"Tell me of this," he said, showing her the paper.
She sat up and took the paper from him and blushed when she saw what it was. Without looking at him, she said, "It is a sketch I made."
He had to bend forward to hear her. "A sketch of what, Barbara?"
"A–a summer house. For Bentwoodes. Never mind, Roger. It is just a stupid drawing." She crumpled the paper in her hand.
"La Rocca Pisana is an open–air villa, a summer house high above the Veneo plains. One of Palladio's students designed it. Your drawing reminds me of it."
"Yes, I tried to copy it. I thought a summer house would be a good thing. For the children. We could go there on the hot days and eat and read and do lessons."
"The children?"
Barbara took a deep breath. "I hope we have children, and I also hope my brothers and sisters will come and live with us. I miss them so, Roger. Perhaps they could come soon?" She saw the look on his face and hurried on. "Others do it. Marie–Victorie has two of her nieces living with her."
"Marie–Victorie is not newly married."
She looked down at her hands, one of which held the crumpled drawing. It was too early to have asked.
He took the drawing from her, and kissed her hand. "Later," he said. "Perhaps later."
She looked up at him, yearning. "Stay."
He pulled away and chucked her under the chin. "If I were ten years younger…sleep for a while, darling. I will tell Thérèse to send breakfast up to you later."
At the door, he turned. "La Malcontenta," he said.
"What?'
"One of Palladio's finest villas. When we are in Italy I will show it to you."
She lay back against the pillow. Darling. He had called her darling. He had made love to her late last night, and then this morning. If he were ten years younger…she fantasized about a younger Roger, a Roger who would not leave her bed, but who would stay in it all day and make love to her over and over and over. She smiled to herself. She would have liked to have known that Roger, but it was enough that this one seemed to be caring for her more and more. She was going to win. She was. His feeling for her was like the trees in the gardens outside. When she had first seen them, they were nothing but bare brown branches for winter; now that spring was coming, those branches were tipped with tiny buds of green. Soon, the tips would multiply and unfurl, and the branches would be covered with rich, vibrant green leaves, the rich green of spring and summer—of youth and love. Roger was going to love her. They were going to have many children in a beautiful home. With a summer house. Where she would oversee Anne and Charlotte's lessons. La Malcontenta. He was going to show it to her….
* * *
Roger stared at himself as he stood in front of his mirror. Justin tied his cravat and brushed his coat, acting as if it were the most natural thing in the world for his master, who was a fastidious man and who never left his rooms unless he was dressed perfectly, to reappear before ten thirty in the morning with his shirt half tied and his coat and wig and stockings off to be dressed again.
I am a fool, Roger thought. There can be no bigger fool than an old man with a young wife. She is going to kill me. He was tired. He had drunk heavily last night, but still found that he desired Barbara, and so he had gone to her apartments and wakened her from sleep and made love to her. And then this morning, he desired her yet again. Her youth, her response to his lovemaking, her growing passion, were as intoxicating to him as champagne. He too
k her, expecting lust to lessen with familiarity, and found that he only wanted her more. There had been no other woman but her in a month or more. But he was not as young as he used to be; he was going to have to pace himself. At this moment, he felt like death; he would have to nap this afternoon or go to bed early this evening. Like an aged man, with a young wife. The oldest of jests….
Why did she continue to interest him? He watched with both amusement and dawning respect her fledgling attempts to become fashionable. She had him acting as if he were a young stallion; and now he had just seen her crude drawings and been suddenly aware that under that child's face was a budding woman, with taste and a mind. He would build her just such a villa, but it would not be open–air. It would house his art.
And she had a will. Yes, Alice's will. She wanted her family to live with her. And he did not. But he felt certain that she would not forget.
She needs a child, he thought. A child to occupy her, and to give me rest. Unexpectedly, tenderness welled within him, and tears came to his eyes. He motioned Justin away and stared hard at himself, seeing every line, every wrinkle, every flaw. Seeing his age. And his possible folly. What did he feel for her? He desired her greatly, but she was young and adoring and new to him. Beyond that…she amused him, she infuriated him, she touched him. And he wanted children from her. Something stirred in him. Hope…He smiled at himself, baring his teeth like a savage. The most handsome of savages. It was too ironic, too amusing even for the Fates. To fall in love with his own wife. (Justin, secretly watching, gave a sentimental sigh.) Give it time. Take what comes and be satisfied with it…Jesus Christ, he would be the happiest man in the world if Barbara should have a child.
* * *
Thérèse tiptoed into the bedroom to see about her mistress. She was still asleep. Thérèse drew the curtains around the bed so that no light should disturb her. With all the lovemaking between Lord and Lady Devane, she should become pregnant soon. A child. She picked up Barbara's stockings and chemise and petticoat and gown from the floor and folded them. She went to the windows and looked out into the gardens. Hyacinthe was playing with the puppies. The Holy Mother bless him. She did not know what she would have done without him this last week.
He had run errands for her ceaselessly. The bleeding had not stopped; it was like her flux, except it made her more tired. Hyacinthe ran up and down the stairs for her, so that she could rest. She had buried the bloody sheet in a corner of the garden under a lilac tree and said prayers over it. She lit a candle each morning in church, praying to the Holy Mother and her gentle son for forgiveness, praying that this cloud over her spirit would lift. She had thought to be happy again once the fear was gone, but she found that she was grieving for the child, as if it had been fully formed and had died at birth.
She found herself grieving for what might have been, even though she knew that if she had had the child she would have been dismissed, that she or the baby could have died, that they would have been reduced to starvation. She might have gone home to her father, but she could see his face, the faces of her married brothers and sisters, pious and fat like turnips. It was better this way, even though the Holy Mother Church said it was a mortal sin. But she had grown up in a great household; she knew the stories of the noble ladies, married and unmarried. They took abortion powders; they visited the evil old women in the back alleys; and if the babies did not die as planned, they were given away at birth. And they were shriven by priests who could not be unaware of their sins. If she could have donated a bag of gold or built a new church, she would have been forgiven.
She shrugged and shook her head. Perhaps her prayers would bring forgiveness, for the Holy Mother had been a simple woman, a woman of the people, a woman like herself. But she had not thought she would feel so sad, so old, so drained.
She had not thought to find her mind going continually to that lilac tree, to that buried sheet. She found herself imagining what the child might have looked like. Surely time would heal her, as it did all things. She found comfort in her rosary and in the greening buds of the trees and in the tiny green stalks in the garden. But Holy Mother, where was the joy she had once felt in simply being alive? That joy was all that a woman such as her possessed. It made her special, set her above her fellow servants. Was it buried with that sheet which held all she would ever know of a child? She shook her head at her thoughts and went to oversee the laundering.
* * *
Louise–Anne de Charolais and Henri de St. Michel waited in the governor's room in the prison of the Bastille. They had come to visit Richelieu, who had finally been imprisoned for his duel with de Gacé a week ago, March fourth. His imprisonment had became a sensation; all of fashionable Paris flocked to visit him, to bring him flowers and sweets. In his arrogance, Richelieu had had the cell furnished with his own bed and a table and chairs from his home. Rugs lay over the cold stone floors and tapestries hung on the stone walls. His valet stayed with him to attend him and dress him. In the evenings, he strolled along the wall and in the garden with the governor. Paris loved it. Richelieu was an original. More women than ever vowed they were in love with him.
Bored with waiting, Louise–Anne went to the window, glanced out, and saw Barbara and Marie–Victorie de Gondrin being helped into a carriage.
"No wonder we must wait," she said to St. Michel. "He has been entertaining other guests!"
A jailer escorted them to the cell. Richelieu was dressed as he would have been on any day, in a plum colored satin coat with black cording and brown breeches. His wig was new. His ugly face was thinner. That was the only sign that prison might not be all he said it was. He stood by a birdcage, pushing his finger through the bars and whistling to a small, yellow–gold linnet. His valet at once went to pour wine as Louise–Anne and St. Michel entered.
"Welcome," Richelieu said. "I have been dying of boredom."
Louise–Anne turned her face away from his kiss. "Do not mouth 'boredom' to me. I caught a glimpse of your last two visitors!"
"Ah, yes, the worthy Marie–Victorie and the Countess Devane. As I said, I have been dying of boredom. What could be more boring than a visit from two women determined to protect their virtue? Henri, I begin to think that Lady Devane will outwit us both."
"I thought you were trying to sneak in ahead of me," St. Michel said.
"Would I do that?"
"Yes."
Both men laughed. Louise–Anne pulled off her long, soft gloves and unpinned her hat. She tossed it on the bed and walked around the room to inspect it, stopping in front of the birdcage to make clucking sounds to the linnet, which burst into song.
"How charming! Who brought you this?"
"Lady Devane," Richelieu said casually. "She thought it would cheer me. She had some odd notion that prison is not enjoyable.
"'Oh? And what other odd notions does she have?"
"Unfortunately, none of interest, my sweet. I was intent only on playing cards with her. Today I won. She was furious. Tomorrow she will win."
Richelieu's horse and Barbara's riding it were a topic of much gossip; as was their running card game, in which they traded ownership of the horse back and forth, as one or the other won. Yet the lady in question made no secret of her devotion to her husband and favored none of her admirers, not even the persistent St. Michel. Paris was beginning to consider her both dashing and original. (Virtue was always original. Done with style it became dashing.)
"She really is boring," said Richelieu, "except that she plays cards so well. Tell me, Henri, the truth. How does your pursuit go?"
St. Michel was silent. It went badly, as all Paris knew. "I am thinking of dropping her—"
Richelieu began to laugh, cruel, mocking laughter. St. Michel stiffened.
"'What a fool you are," Richelieu said. "I could have her in my bed within six months."
"Implying I cannot!"
"You will never be the man I am."
St. Michel's hand went to his sword. Richelieu had no sword since he w
as in the Bastille for dueling. He grinned.
"I know a true man," Louise–Anne said softly, "who would laugh at both of you and kill either of you in a second if you dared speak to him as you do to everyone else. He would not wound, like you and Gacé, Armand. Throwing down your swords at the first show of blood. But kill you. Dead."
"Your Uncle Philippe," said Richelieu, diverted from his game with St. Michel. "Is he back in town?"
