by Karleen Koen
"I…will…kill…him," he said in a shaking, breathless voice. "With… my…own…hands…I will kill him." Blood was gushing from Philippe's nose, staining his linen shirt, his velvet coat.
"No!"
Roger's voice rang out. He had to get Philippe past that red rage. Men had died for far less than what Harry had just done.
"Think of the scandal! Think of me, if nothing else!" Roger's face was hard, commanding, the way it was when he had led troops. Philippe looked at him, and Roger saw the danger in his face.
"I will not let you do it," Roger said. And he put his hand on his own sword.
Philippe swung back his leg and kicked Harry in the ribs as he lay there. The sound thudded dully. The footman flinched. Harry groaned.
"English dog," Philippe said through clenched teeth. "I will eat your liver for supper."
Montrose, LeBlanc, and White burst into the room. They stood staring at the white–faced footman; at the overturned tables and chairs; at Roger and Philippe, both wigless, both bleeding; at broken plates and vases and scattered paper; at Harry, lying like a dead man.
"Is he…is he—" stammered Montrose.
"No! But I wish he were. Drunken fool! Carry him to his room."
Roger's voice was like iron, the only normal thing in the room. It snapped people back into themselves. LeBlanc and the footman picked Harry up and carried him away; he was strung between the two of them like a dead deer.
"Your face," Montrose said to Roger. Roger wiped his mouth, which was bleeding. Montrose ran to hand him a handkerchief, his own, starched, white, pristine, unused.
"What happened, sir?" he asked, his eyes wide as he looked around the destroyed room.
Roger and Philippe exchanged one glance, a glance that White, standing quietly by the door, was on the alert for. My God, he thought, it is true. They are lovers. He wanted to weep, like a child who has been told all his fantasies are false.
"He was drunk, and he attacked us without provocation," Philippe said, rage still on his face, in his voice. He dabbed at his bleeding nose.
"Perhaps he read this." White moved from the door to hand Roger a piece of paper. There was silence in the room.
"What? What?" cried Montrose, looking from one to the other, feeling the tension.
Roger flushed, tried to speak, but White had caught him off guard. White turned on his heel and left the room, and Roger gazed after him.
"There has been some ugly gossip, Francis," Roger said, tiredly handing Montrose the paper. "Gossip that is not true, but which Lord Alderley apparently believed. I trust you will see that the servants do not speak of this. It will be all that is needed to fan the fires. And will you see that this house is thoroughly searched? I will not have my wife exposed to this filth."
Dazed, Montrose bowed and left the room. Roger slumped into a chair.
"Dear Christ," he said. "What am I going to do?"
"I am going to kill him," Philippe said. "If he ever dares so much as to look at me the wrong way, I am going to kill him. And nothing you can say will stop me."
* * *
Montrose searched for White. Finally, he found him in his bedchamber. He was stuffing shirts into a battered valise. A fire burned in his small fireplace, and Montrose could see whole manuscript pages there, untouched except for curling edges.
"Your verses!" he cried, running to the fire and trying to pull them out. "My God, Caesar, what are you doing? It is your poem!" He managed to pull about half the pages out. He stamped on their smoldering brown edges. White continued to stuff shirts into his valise. Then he put in his brushes, his shaving razor, his soap cup.
"Where are you going?" Montrose cried.
"I am leaving."
"But why? Is it something I have done? Is it Thérèse? I thought you knew about LeBlanc. Has Lord Devane insulted you? What? What could it possibly be?"
White stood still, a shirt in his good hand, poised above the valise. "Thérèse and LeBlanc? What about Thérèse and LeBlanc?"
"Good God, I thought—that is—nothing. Idle gossip. You know how people are." Montrose never lied well.
"This seems to be my week for idle gossip. Tell me, Francis."
Montrose looked miserable. "Thérèse is sleeping with LeBlanc. She has been for some time. I did not know whether you knew, whether to tell you, so I said nothing. Do not leave here because of her. She is not worth it. Lord Devane values you. I value you, Caesar. You are my only friend."
"Thérèse is sleeping with LeBlanc," White repeated slowly. He sat down on the bed, as if his legs would no longer hold him. He put his hand to his face to cover his eyes. He made some sound. It might have been a laugh. It was hard to tell. Montrose stared at him, his round, earnest face anxious.
"I ought not to have told you. It was shock—the fight and everything. I hardly know whether I am coming or going."
"Yes…the upheaval downstairs. The quarrel. That paper." White's voice was odd.
"Surely you do not believe those verses? Lady Devane would never have anything of that nature to do with the prince. She loves Lord Devane."
"Lady Devane and the prince…is that how you read it?"
"How else?"
What could he say? "How else indeed."
* * *
Roger was at Harry's bedside, waiting for him to wake. As Harry shook his head, groaned and tried to sit up, Roger said in that voice that would not be disobeyed, "You are a drunken, dissolute, stupid man. You burst into my home like a common criminal and you insult me and my friend, a prince of France. I ought to have you horse–whipped, Harry!"
Each word was like a blow from a hammer, implacable. Roger sounded like his mother, like his grandmother. Pain radiated throughout his body, from his face, from his ribs, making it difficult to think clearly. Roger's voice, his icy control, his contempt, made Harry unsure of himself. What had seemed so certain seemed now like shifting sand.
"This is Paris," Roger continued, each word spat out through clenched teeth, "and all kinds of foul rumors abound. To believe every one of them is the mark of a fool, which I begin to believe you are. You owe me, and you owe the Prince de Soissons, an apology. Only the fact that you are my wife's brother keeps me from throwing you out on the street as you deserve. It was all I could do to keep the prince from challenging you to a duel. Do you know how many men he has killed? You would be one more easy mark on the blade of his sword. You were wrong! Whatever you thought—and I do not want to know because then I will kill you myself—you were wrong! I am a rich and powerful man, and I have enemies who will say and do anything. You add credence to their filthy lies with your actions. You young fool! I expect a note of apology from you to the prince by tomorrow morning. If you do not write it, I will throw you out of my house, sister or not." He stared down at Harry contemptuously. "If your grandfather knew of your conduct today, he would be ashamed."
Harry lay where he was, listening to Roger's retreating footsteps. He felt the way he had felt at Tamworth, when his mother had raked him over the fiery red coals of her anger and he had been too surprised to think clearly. There was still a spark of defiance, but it was defused by the terrible pain in his ribs, and by Roger's words. Was he wrong? Did Louise–Anne lie, for some reason of her own? He did not know.
* * *
"You are sleeping with LeBlanc!" White cried. "And all the while you had me groveling at your skirts for one kiss!"
Backed against the corner, Thérèse was silent, watching his anger, every sense alert to save herself. White grabbed her wrist and pulled her from her corner, making her stumble.
"Why did you do it? Why?" He twisted her wrist, making her cry out with pain. His face was transfigured with the emotion, the anger on it. "I ought to beat you. I ought to make you grovel in the dust like the teasing slut you are!"
"Do it!" Thérèse spat at him. "Do it! Be like LeBlanc and make me do what I have no wish to! You are all alike! All of you! Taking, taking, caring nothing for the feelings I have! I did not want y
ou! Do you hear me, Caesar? I did not want you! And I do not want LeBlanc! But I have no choice! Can you understand that? I have no choice! I am a woman! I have no choice!" She screamed the last words at him.
He dropped her wrist, stunned by her words, by the vicious, cruel anger behind them. "Thérèse. I did not mean to—please, do not cry. Please."
She turned away from him, wiping her face with her apron.
"Go away," she whispered.
He touched one of her dark curls gently before he left the room. She sat down in a chair. "Oh, Caesar," she said, after him. "I am sorry. So sorry."
* * *
Harry struggled out of bed. His face felt as if it had been used as a bowling pin. There was dried blood crusted on his shirt. It hurt him to move, to breathe. He limped down the hallway to his sister's apartments. In the bedchamber he saw Thérèse sitting in a chair by the window. He limped to her, and when she saw him, she rose with a cry, and in a second had him in the chair, was pouring water from a pitcher, and bathing his face with her apron. He groaned, but sat still under her handling, like a child.
"What happened?" she whispered.
"Oh, Thérèse," he said. He put his arms around her, though it nearly killed him to move them, his head in the skirt of her gown, and held her. She stroked his short, thick, dark hair.
"There," she soothed. "It is all right. I am here. I am here."
The words were the same she used to soothe Hyacinthe when he had a bad dream. Nothing else was said. She bandaged Harry's raw knuckles. She cleaned the dried blood from his face, touching the swelling with gentle fingers. Carefully, she eased him out of his coat and shirt and wrapped torn strips of bedsheet around his middle. He gasped and turned white. He was trembling when she finished. Very gently, she touched his lips, his beautiful, firm red lips with her fingertips. He did not try to make anything of it, he simply accepted her gesture. She helped him stand up, and he limped away.
She straightened the room, putting away the bloodstained rags, the creams, the bloody water. There was no need to follow him. She knew where he was, as he knew where she was. It would be so easy. She sighed. Her heart was not healed from the baby. And he was hot–tempered and in debt and would be faithless. Time, she thought, smoothing back the hair at her temples. I have all the time in the world. She felt her heart swell. It was good to be young and alive. She began to sing, her voice as light, as lilting, as a bird's.
Chapter Eighteen
The moment she walked in, Barbara felt it: some odd tension came from the way the footmen stood back in the shadows like small boys caught and punished for something, the way their eyes cut at her and then away. Something has happened. It was her first conscious thought. And with it…Roger, he is ill. She heard people in the blue-and–gold salon nearby. LeBlanc and the housekeeper and a footman were in the process of trying to mend the damage. Pieces of broken chair lay stacked neatly in a corner; most of the pieces of porcelain were off the floor; most of the chairs and tables had been righted, but Roger's papers were still strewn about as if a wind had come in and thrown them everywhere. LeBlanc began to stammer even before she demanded an explanation,
"I am not at liberty to say."
"You are not at liberty to say!" She drew herself up to her full height. "This is my household, Pierre LeBlanc, and you will give me an immediate explanation."
LeBlanc exchanged a glance with the housekeeper. A glance Barbara caught.
"Well?" she snapped.
"There was an…ah…altercation of sorts, madame."
"An altercation? Do you mean to tell me there was a fight…here?"
"Yes, madame."
"Between whom?"
"Ah…Lord Harry, and Lord Devane and the Prince de Soissons, madame."
Whipping her full skirts over one arm, she ran up the stairs. The doors to Roger's apartments were locked. She hammered on them with her fists. Justin let her in. Lord Devane, he explained, not looking at her, was resting with a poultice on his mouth. She swept past him.
"What is this I hear of a fight between you and Harry?" she began, but was stopped by the sight of his face, sick and white.
"Roger!" she cried, throwing herself on the bed beside him, ignoring Justin. "Tell me what happened. This is all so unbelievable!"
There is a hell, thought Roger, and it is here on earth. Now, in this room, seeing her face, its innocence. That is hell. I do not want to pay for it. Not with her. He touched her cheek.
"Do not worry your head about it." he said, trying to smile. "It will all blow over in a few days."
"A room downstairs is destroyed. Your face is bruised. I hear that you and my brother and Philippe have engaged in some kind of quarrel. And you tell me not to worry! Roger, I want to know! I have a right to know!"
He made a decision, gambling with fate, with his luck, as he had always done.
"Read this." He gave her a small piece of paper, which he had found pinned to his pillow. Justin had no idea how it got there, and Roger had realized the futility of Barbara's not seeing the verses sooner or later. Why now? he had thought, smashing his fist against a wall in a rage of helplessness. It was just as true five years ago. Why now, when there is someone who can be so hurt by it? Dear God, what shall I do?
She scanned it quickly. "Devane, Soissons, Devane—'tis all in vain…" She finished, "in life, in love, in bed." Her face changed. Dear Christ, it is coming, thought Roger.
"I…do not understand," she said slowly, as slowly she began to. "Who would write this?"
Roger shrugged, his face showing nothing. "I have many enemies, Barbara. Any influential man does."
"Yes, but to write this…this filth! To use my name as if I were a common whore! To imply that Philippe might be my lover!" Her voice had gotten louder with each word, propelling her off the bed. She was screaming by the time she finished.
And then, at the expression on Roger's face, "Sweet Jesus, you do not believe it! Surely you do not think—Roger, you are the only man in my life! I swear it!" She threw herself back on the bed, on him. "Tell me you believe me!"
Some kind of struggle was going on inside of him; she could see it.
"I believe you," he said, but it was said too slowly to satisfy her.
She took his hand in both of hers and held it to her heart. "I swear by all that is holy, by Our Lord Jesus Christ above, that you are the only man that I have ever loved, and that I have never been unfaithful to you." Steadfastly, she refused to think of the time she had thought about kissing Richelieu. Surely the Lord would not want her to count that.
"You are a good wife, Barbara."
She nodded her head in agreement, making him laugh. Reprieved, unexpectedly so, he leaned forward to kiss her mouth, tempting and soft.
"Who would have written this?" she demanded under his lips. "It is outrageous. Someone ought to be hanged! We will cancel the dinner! We will go to the regent, demand satisfaction! We will—"
"See that vase there?" said Roger, pointing to an ancient Chinese vase on his mantel. "Smash it and get your tantrum over with now, because I am sick to death of Tamworth temper. There is nothing we can do except ignore it and act as normally as possible. Does anyone in your family understand the concept of rational behavior?"
She felt as if she had been dashed with cold water. Harry. She had forgotten Harry. What had he done?
"What did Harry do?"
"He attacked Philippe and me. You saw the downstairs. Imagine the rest. I can only assume he was drinking. It was all I could do to keep Philippe from challenging him to a duel—"
"Sweet Jesus."
"Precisely."
"He was defending my honor—"
"Do not talk to me about honor, Barbara. He lost his temper and acted without thinking. As a result, he has given the gossips more than enough fodder to make these despicable verses seem to be based on some fact. We will hold your dinner party, Harry will be on his best behavior, and you will behave as charmingly as possible to the Prince de Soissons. That
will give people something to think about, if they can get past the marks on all our faces."
She put her hand to his swollen mouth. "Oh, Roger, I am so sorry. Does it hurt?"
"Of course it hurts, but not nearly as much as being embarrassed in my own home. You will, I hope, emphasize to your impetuous brother the need for continued good manners in the coming weeks."
Now she was beginning to feel angry. "He did it for my sake. What was he to think? At least Harry fights for what he believes—"
