by Shana Galen
He held her tightly, ignoring the tsks of passersby. “I promise I will try to buy you a ring.”
“I don’t need a ring,” she said. She rose on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. “Let’s find that scarf again.”
Author’s Note
Ever since I first learned the fate of Louis Charles, the boy king, he has haunted me. The story of Louis Charles is perhaps the saddest of many sad stories to emerge from the French Revolution. He was only 8 when the royal family was sent to the Temple prison. After 6 months in prison, he was separated from his mother and put in a room by himself. His mother, Marie Antoinette, and his sister, Marie-Thérèse, said that for weeks they could hear him crying for his mother. His tears resulted in harsh punishment from the jailors. His mother and sister could hear his torment but could do nothing to help him.
Louis Charles endured horrendous abuse at the Temple. Some said he was given alcohol and made drunk, he was taught to swear and curse his mother and father, and there were reports he was sexually abused by prostitutes in order to give him venereal diseases. It’s hard to know what’s fact and what’s fiction in these accounts, but he did testify against his mother at her trial, alleging that she sexually abused him. This accusation is widely believed to be a lie to make the queen look bad. That Louis Charles was willing to utter the falsehood is proof of extensive manipulation by his captors. One can only imagine the suffering of this poor lonely child, forced to testify against his own mother.
The guards at the prison changed frequently and over time Louis Charles was forgotten and severely neglected. Accounts from the time claim he was locked in a room and passed food through an opening in the door. He stopped speaking and became seriously ill. He died before he could receive any care, and the doctor who did the autopsy concluded the child died of tuberculosis. His body was covered with scars from his abuse.
After his death there were many conspiracy theories, the most popular of which was that the child escaped. But in 1999 these rumors were put to rest as DNA testing showed that the heart the doctor removed from Louis Charles’s body during the autopsy and kept preserved for all these years was indeed that of Louis XVII.
There’s something about the death of Louis Charles that has always tugged at my heart. I can’t imagine what that child was thinking, all alone in his filthy cell, sick, cold, lonely. He must have wondered what he’d done wrong, and of course, the answer was nothing other than be born the son of a king. I can also imagine the anguish of his parents who could do nothing to comfort him. I can’t go back in time and save Louis Charles, but I could save him in this book. And that’s what I did through the actions of my fictional League of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
If you’re interested in learning more about the French Revolution, check out my videos on the topic on You Tube.
If you enjoyed this book, pre-order The Claiming of the Shrew, available April 2019.
Here’s a sneak peek of The Claiming of the Shrew.
CATARINA ANA MARCIÁ Neves ran into the London rain storm without so much as a cloak or an umbrella. She didn’t care. She was glad for the rain that washed the hot tears away. If anyone were to see them—if he were to see them, she’d be shamed.
She swiped at her eyes and looked fruitlessly for one of those conveyances that transported people for a fee. She didn’t know why she was crying. Of course, he had another woman. What had she expected? She hadn’t seen him for five years. And though they were married in God’s eyes, this country did not recognize the union. She had supposed Benedict Draven had considered himself wed, but clearly she had been wrong.
About a great many things.
Oh, why could she not find one of those carriages for hire?
“Catarina!”
She spun around in time to see her husband exit the door to his lodgings and barrel into the storm. He was the sort of man who barreled or shouldered or plowed into most things—war and marriage chiefly among them. He had broad shoulders and a wide chest and the unruliest red hair she’d ever seen, and unless her eyes had deceived her, that red hair was not yet streaked with gray. It was too dark outside to see anything but shadows now.
She gave him her back. “Go away.”
“You didn’t come all the way from Portugal to tell me to go away,” he replied, speaking loudly to be heard over the pouring rain.
“I did not come from Portugal at all.” It gave her a small measure of pleasure to point out his mistake. “Leave me alone, adulterer!” She lifted her valise and took a few steps.
“I am not an adulterer. The woman you saw in my flat is not my lover.”
She gave him a scathing look over her shoulder. “No decent woman would go to the home of a man unchaperoned.”
“Catarina, come inside and let me explain.”
“No, thank you.”
He frowned at her. “We haven’t seen each other for five years, and I come home to find you in my parlor. Now you plan to leave without even saying more than a dozen words to me?”
“Go speak to your harlot!”
He rolled his eyes and seemed to reach for patience. “You can’t stand in the rain all night.” His voice was oh so reasonable.
“I do not plan to. I am seeking a hacking or hackly...I forget the name.” She waved a hand.
“A hackney. Come inside, and I’ll have my man flag one. In this weather, it might be some time before one passes.”
“I will not.” She set the valise on the wet walkway. “There is nothing for me to say to you, at any rate. I only came to tell you that I want an annulment.”
Even in the dim light she saw the shock on his face. His ruddy complexion paled, and his mouth opened and closed uselessly. He took a step back from her, as though she had struck him.
Good. She wanted to wound him.
“Why?” he asked, voice barely audible in the downpour.
“I want to marry someone else, of course.”
He didn’t speak, and she watched as water cascaded down his forehead and across his face. His unruly hair lay flat for once, finally tamed.
“I have all the papers, senhor,” she said, hoping they hadn’t become wet along with the rest of the items in her valise. “I need your signature before I send them to the Holy Father.”
“I’m not even Catholic.”
She nodded. “That may help my petition. That and the fact that you never intended to—” Even with the cold rain pounding down on her, she felt her cheeks heat. “Never intended to produce children with me.”
His eyes locked on hers, and she was the first to look away.
And that’s when she saw the hackney. She raised her hand and the driver veered toward her.
Her husband grasped her hand and lowered it, turning her to face him at the same time. “Catarina, don’t go. Come inside and talk this over with me.”
His voice was deep and compelling, and even in the cold, his hand was warm and comforting. But she could not give in to his charms. Slowly, she drew her hand away.
“I cannot stay. You may find me at Mivart’s.”
“I see.” His shoulders straightened at the mention of the exclusive hotel. Now he would know she was not the same impoverished girl he’d known, a girl who had not even been able to afford shoes.
“Where to, gov?” The hackney’s driver directed his question to her husband, of course.
“Mivart’s in Mayfair. I can see to the door.” He opened the door for her and helped her inside, his hand colder now than it had been earlier. A moment later he set her valise on the straw lining the floor.
“Thank you, senhor.”
“I have...business to attend to, but I will call on you at my earliest convenience. Perhaps the day after tomorrow.”
“Fine.” She gave a pointed look at the door, but he didn’t close it. Instead he continued to stare at her, almost as though he thought she might be a spirit.
“Me ‘orse shouldn’t stand long in this weather,” the driver called.
“You’re right,�
�� Draven said. “Good night, Catarina.” And he shut the door.
Catarina did not cry on the ride back to the hotel. She didn’t know what to feel. When Draven had walked into his receiving room with the woman, Catarina had been angry. But then when he’d said she was not his lover, Catarina had wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe his reaction to her request for an annulment was one of shock and dismay. She wanted to believe he did not want to let her go.
But she was no longer a child, and she could not afford to hold on to such childish fantasies. For years she’d prayed and hoped and yearned that he would come for her. If he’d wanted her, he would have. She had mistaken his reaction tonight. He probably cared only for the inconvenience she caused him.
She was barely inside the doors of the hotel, when Juan Carlos stepped out from behind the chair where he’d been lurking. His face blushed red with anger and his mustache quivered with impatience. “You are late,” he said in Spanish. He took her arm then abruptly dropped it, looking down at his damp hands. “What happened to you?” His gaze flew to her face. “You look like a street rat.”
“I was caught in the storm,” she answered in his language. She continued walking, heading for the staircase. “If you do not mind, I would like to change before I catch cold.” She lifted the hem of her heavy skirts.
His dark eyes dropped to her valise. “Did he sign the papers?”
“No,” she said simply. “Not yet.”
“What do you mean, not yet?” He followed her up the staircase. “You said this would be simple.”
“It will be simple, but it will also take more than a quarter hour. Benedict Draven is not the sort of man who acts without thinking.”
“Then he will sign tomorrow?” They reached the landing and she turned in the direction of the room she shared with Ines.
“He said he would call on me here the day after tomorrow.”
Juan Carlos made a sound of disgust. Catarina paused outside her room. “Do not fret, senhor. You will have control of my business soon enough.”
“Nonsense,” he said, reddening further. “I think only of your happiness and your marriage to my son.”
She gave him a hard look. “You think only of your own finances.”
“I am helping you, my dear.”
“I hardly consider blackmail a charitable endeavor. Buenos noches.”
She opened the door and Ines was immediately before her. Her younger sister had obviously been waiting on the other side and had probably heard the conversation with Juan Carlos. That was no matter. Ines knew all of her secrets, scant as they were.
“It seemed you were away forever. Oh!” Ines immediately began unbuttoning Catarina’s spencer. She was relieved as her own hands were too cold to manage. “You are wet to the bone.” She tugged the spencer off and turned Catarina around to begin unfastening her dress. Catarina felt as though she were the younger sister, though she was eight years older than Ines, who was barely eighteen.
“The weather is very bad.” Catarina stepped out of her gown and Ines started on her stays. “Cold and damp and wet.”
“I miss home.” By home Ines meant Portugal, not Barcelona, where the two had lived for the past three years.
“I do too.” But not as much as she would have thought. Catarina had liked the bustling city of Barcelona, and she found much in London to like as well. She might have wished to see the sun a bit more often than she had since arriving in England, but this was the land of knights and round tables. She found it enchanting. “Did Tigrino eat?”
“A little. He still hides under the bed and swats at the chamber maids’ feet when they walk by.” That sounded like her ill-tempered cat.
“I can do the rest,” Catarina said when Ines had loosened her stays. “Would you send for hot water?”
While Ines rang for footmen to bring hot water for a bath, Catarina stripped out of her wet stockings and chemise and wrapped a large blanket around her shivering body. She stood near the fire until she could feel her fingers and toes again.
“I am guessing your husband did not sign or Juan Carlos would have sounded happier.”
“I only spoke with Benedict Draven briefly,” Catarina said. “I waited for him at his home, but he did not return alone.” She gave her sister a meaningful look.
Ines furrowed her brow. “Why should that matter?”
Catarina wondered if she had ever been so innocent. “He had a woman with him.”
“His wife?”
Catarina had never even considered that possibility. Thankfully so. “No. He claims she is not his lover.”
“Do you believe him?”
Catarina shrugged. She had no reason not to believe her husband. To her knowledge, he had never lied to her before. He had always treated her with dignity, honor, and respect. “I lost my temper.”
“Oh.”
Her sister’s tone was one of horror.
“It was not so bad.”
Ines pursed her lips, looking dubious.
“We argued in the rain and—”
“And then he kissed you!”
Catarina rolled her eyes. Ines was in love with love. She supposed that was why her father had tried to marry the girl when she’d been fourteen. If Catarina hadn’t convinced her sister to run away with her, the girl would have a house full of babies by now, like four of her other sisters did. Perhaps five were married by now as Beatriz was sixteen already. Ines had been the only one of her six sisters who was anything like Catarina, though to be fair Joana had been only six when Catarina had left home and her personality still developing. But like all the others, Joana had shown signs of being shy and obedient and utterly subservient. It was difficult to be otherwise when one’s father was a tyrant who demanded submission and subservience from the women in his household.
Only Ines had shown a spark of rebellion. It wasn’t the stubborn, pig-headed rebellion her father said Catarina possessed. Ines was a dreamer and a romantic. She was also overly idealistic, which in itself did not recommend her to Catarina, except that she was willing to fight for her ideals. When she saw injustice, she challenged it.
Thank the Holy Mother Catarina had been able to spirit the girl away or she would have had her spirit crushed by whatever old man her father chose for Ines’s husband.
Her father hadn’t been able to touch Catarina by then. After twenty years of enduring her father’s control in every aspect of her life—from what she wore to what she ate to when she spoke—she had escaped. She had married and left her father’s house to live with Tia Alda, but after she’d convinced Ines to leave home, she thought it wise to leave her aunt’s house. She’d always wanted to go to Lisbon, and that was where she and Ines had first set up shop.
“He did not kiss me,” Catarina said.
“Oh.” Ines looked disappointed. No doubt she wanted to hear about the kiss in detail. Her favorite story about Colonel Draven was when he’d kissed Catarina after their wedding. Catarina had made the mistake of telling her sister about the kiss and regretted it ever since. She’d made it sound too perfect, too magical, too...everything. Now even she doubted if it could have ever been as wonderful as it was in her memory.
But then again, she’d thought her husband could not possibly be as handsome as she remembered him, and tonight that had proven untrue. If nothing else, he was more attractive to her. He wasn’t handsome, not in the way some of the boys she’d flirted with in her village had been. But he drew her nonetheless. It was more in the way he carried himself, the way he spoke, the way she felt when he looked at her.
“I told him I wanted an annulment, and he agreed to come and sign the papers the day after tomorrow.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“But he is supposed to fight for you. He is supposed to save you from Juan Carlos.”
“I do not need saving from Juan Carlos. Marriage to his son will not be so bad.”
Ines’s expression turned stricken. “But a
ll you have worked for will be taken away. You will be his property, and you always said you never wanted to be a man’s property.”
Catarina blew out a breath. She should learn to stop talking so much. “I was foolish to say so. I was already a man’s property.”
“Not really. Senhor Draven made no demands on you. You were free and independent.”
She was forgotten, which was not quite the same thing. “Yes, but those days are over. I have no one to blame but myself.”
“How can you blame yourself? It is not your fault you were attacked!”
“Ines, hush!”
“No one can understand Portuguese here.”
“We cannot be too careful. If you expose me, you do Juan Carlos’s work for him.”
“Good. Then he cannot force you to marry Miguel.”
“I would rather marry his son than dangle on a scaffold.”
“You wouldn’t—”
Ines was interrupted by a knock on the door, which turned out to be the footmen carrying water and a standing tub. Catarina went to the dressing room, as she wore only a blanket, and Ines directed them to place the tub behind a screen and fill it. When they were finished, Catarina discarded the blanket and poured the water over herself, warming her skin and washing away the mud and dirt splashed on her from the rains.
By the time she was in her night rail again, she hoped Ines had fallen asleep. But Ines, as usual, was full of energy. “Tell me how he looked. What did his house look like? What did the woman look like? Or do you not wish to discuss her?”
“I do not wish to discuss any of it,” Catarina said. She was exhausted, having barely slept the night before because she’d been worried about seeing Draven today. And now after seeing him, she didn’t think she’d sleep very well tonight. “I am tired.”
“But you haven’t eaten any supper. I sent for soup and a vegetable tart. It’s waiting on the table.” She indicated a small table in the corner of the room with a plate under a dome on top.
