Hearts Beguiled (29 page)

Dominique stared back at Max with solemn, frightened eyes. He swallowed hard. "W-where is Maman?"

"The doctor's with her. She's sleeping."

"But will she wake up?"

"Yes," Max said, hoping God wouldn't make him out to be a liar.

The relief on the face of Gabrielle's son was patently visible. He pumped his legs against the stool and squirmed a bit. "What was heaven like?"

"I wasn't—" Max stopped himself. He forced out a smile. "It was boring. Too many angels and not enough devils . . .

Dominique? What were you and your maman doing out on that road at night and in the middle of a snow storm?"

"We were going to grand-mire's. She's a duchesse and she lives in a grand chateau. Like this one, I 'spect. But we got lost."

"Your grandmother is a duchesse?" asked Max, thinking the boy was confused, or perhaps indulging in a bit of make-believe. "What's her name?"

Dominique took a long swallow from his cup, then wiped his wet mouth with the back of his hand, smearing the chocolate across his cheek. "Don't know."

Max decided to try a different tack. "Do you remember the day you left Paris?"

Dominique screwed up his face. "I guess."

"Why did you leave? Was it to go visit your grand-mere?''

Dominique shook his head vigorously. "We had to go to Beaune to take care of Madame Balue. I didn't like her. She smelled bad. And she cried a lot. I don't cry because I'm Marxian's little man."

Beaune, Max thought. It was miles from here. And leagues away from Paris. "Did Madame Balue die? Is that why you left Beaune?"

A haunted look darkened the boy's eyes. "No, we had to run away. Because of the bad man. Can I have some more chocolate?"

Beating down his impatience, Max got up and went to the fire where the pot of cocoa and milk sat on a trivet.

He refilled Dominique's cup. "What bad man?" he asked carefully, feeling like a toothdrawer yanking on a stubborn molar.

"He tried to hurt Maman. But I gutted him."

"God in heaven ..." Max slowly sat down, the pot of chocolate forgotten in his hand. He remembered the rusty kitchen knife he had seen strapped to Gabrielle's waist when he had stripped her and bathed her with hot water and wrapped her in blankets warmed before the fire, trying to bring life back into those stiff, frozen limbs, wondering how she had survived those hours in that snow-filled ditch, wondering how she had come to be there in the first place, wondering so many things . . .

The cup clattered onto the table and rolled against Max's hand. Startled, he looked up. Gabrielle's son had fallen asleep, his head pillowed on his folded arms. His blond hair lay in the spilled chocolate, getting sticky.

❧

The faces haunted her dreams.

Once Agnes came, her hair covered by a huge mobcap and her mouth scowling in anger. "You promised you wouldn't go too far," Agnes said. "Instead, you went all the way to Beaune."

"But it was Louvois," Gabrielle tried to explain. "I had to go where Louvois couldn't find me."

Agnes didn't want to listen. She went away and Simon came. "What happened to the ring? How could you let someone steal it when you know how much it means to me?"

Tears filled Gabrielle's eyes. "That was all a mistake. He didn't steal it; Dominique had it in his pocket. And then I left it in Beaune. I had to leave everything in Beaune."

But she wasn't talking to Simon after all; it was Madame Balue, who looked at her with bruised eyes and held out her arms. "See the scars. I wanted to be a nun, but instead I bleed, I bleed for Jesus Christ." And then Madame Balue was taken away by the surgeon, who lifted his lancet and slashed and Gabrielle screamed because she felt the pain as if it were her own. Somewhere far away she heard a voice shouting in anger. "That's enough! Christ, do you want to kill her?" And the dreams faded into a heavy, still blackness.

She liked the blackness. It was peaceful, not angry like the faces. But Dominique wouldn't let her stay in the warm, gentle blackness. He kept calling to her and so she had to leave because he was sick and cold and needed her to take him to the duchesse de Nevers, who would love him and dress him in satin.

But the faces waited for her on the road.

Baptiste Balue, whose eye rolled demonically in his head, smiled and said, "You asked for it, my dear. I wouldn't have tried to give it to you, if you hadn't asked for it."

And Louvois, who smiled, too, so that the scar, raw and bleeding, puckered his face. "I will use him," Louvois said. "I will use your love for him to destroy you."

And then he was there, leaning over her, his eyes narrowed in anger, his mouth drawn taut, not smiling at all.

"No!" she cried, turning her head away. "Oh, Max, Max. Why did you do it?"

His fingers dug into her shoulders, hurting her and pulling her up, out of the dream. "Damn you, Gabrielle! Why did you leave me?"

"I love you!" she cried. She wanted to take his face between her hands and kiss away his anger. But when she reached for him, he faded away and the blackness returned. The blessed, welcoming blackness.

❧

She opened her eyes to a strange and luxurious room. Its walls were all gold and white, with hangings of turquiose-and rose-colored silk. She lay in a bed of white cotton softness, and beneath her hands was a bedspread of pink watered silk. On her body was the finest nightgown she had ever seen.

She turned her head. A strange girl in a starched, lace-trimmed mobcap leaned over her. She had a pert, tumed-up nose, and there was a bright smile on her heart-shaped lips.

"Where am I?" Gabrielle said. Or thought she said, for what came out of her mouth was barely a croak.

"Oh, madame! Are you awake at last?"

Gabrielle swallowed. Her throat was sore and she was very thirsty. It took her several tries to get the words out of her mouth, and even then her voice squeaked like a rusty hinge. "Is this ... is this the Chateau de Nevers?"

The girl covered her mouth with her hand to smother a laugh. "Oh, heavens no, madame. Nevers is way over in the next province. I must go tell Monsieur le Vicomte that you've awakened. He's been half mad with worry. I fear he'd begun to despair you would ever recover from your fever." She giggled. "He kicked Monsieur le Docteur down the steps!"

Gabrielle tried to focus on what the girl was saying, but it was too difficult and her head hurt too much. "Thirsty ..." she whispered.

A strong hand cradled her neck, lifting her head. "Here, madame, drink this. It's an egg beaten in boiling water with cinnamon and sugar. It will soothe your throat and keep the cough down."

Gabrielle painfully swallowed the draft. Her eyes drifted closed. The light was too bright; it made her head pound. What had happened to the gentle blackness? She felt the girl move away from her.

Her eyes flew open. "No!" she cried out hoarsely, and thought to hold the girl back, shocked to discover she was too weak even to lift her arm. "Dominique! Where's my son?"

The girl had paused at the door. She laughed. "Tiens! Don't worry your head over that one. The petit coquin is riding old Marthe round and round the paddock. Monsieur le Vicomte put him up on that old nag's back two weeks ago and I swear he's not been off since!"

Two weeks? No, that wasn't possible. She needed to see to Dominique. It had been over a day since they'd eaten. And it had started to snow. They were still a long distance from the Chateau de Nevers. They still had to walk all the way to the next province, and he would die if she didn't get him out of the ditch.

Tears spilled unheeded from Gabrielle's eyes. "Please . . ." she begged the girl. "You must bring him to me."

"But of course, madame," the girl said, misunderstanding. "I am to fetch Monsieur Max the moment you awaken."

Gabrielle thought she must somehow have slipped back into one of her dreams. Exhaustion washed over her and she closed her eyes. It felt as if the bed were tied onto the tail of a kite, being whipped and flung around the room by the wind. "No ..." She turned her head from side to side. "Not Max . . ."

She heard the girl's voice echoing to her as if from a deep well. "Oh, please forgive my impertinence, Madame la Vicomtesse. I was so used to thinking of monsieur your husband as Monsieur Max, I forget sometimes that he is now the vicomte. I will bring him to you now, if you please, madame . . ."

"No ..." Gabrielle felt herself slipping into sleep again and she tried to fight it, but she was so tired ... so tired . . .

When next she opened her eyes, it was to the sound of footsteps approaching the bed and, though she faced away from the door toward the wall, she felt her heartbeat stop and then start up again. She knew, oh, God, she knew it was he, for hadn't she always been able to tell when he entered a room, even without looking? The world glowed when he was near, and her heart took wings. It did so now, still, even after everything he had done and she had done and all that had somehow been done to them.

She sucked in a deep, painful breath and slowly turned her head ... to look up into a pair of sooty gray eyes.

"So you've decided to live after all," he said in that silky voice of his that could weave songs around her heart.

It had been a year, over a year, and nothing had changed. She loved him still. She battled back tears and wanted to look away, but she couldn't. Her eyes and heart drank in the sight of his beloved face after so many days and months apart.

He looked stunningly handsome in an English hunting coat with a high collar and tight leather breeches tucked neatly into tall riding boots. The plain white linen neckcloth knotted at his throat set off his dark skin and hair. She wasn't surprised to find him here at what had almost been her deathbed, for wasn't he part of her destiny? Hadn't he been put on earth for her to love?

And to hate. "What have you done with my son?" she demanded in her pain-roughened voice.

The closed expression on his face didn't alter except for a slight flaring of his nostrils. "Your son, madame? I've clothed him and fed him and taught him how to sit a horse—the same as any other father would do."

She shut her eyes, summoning her strength. She tried to push up on her elbows, but she was too weak. She fell back, her head bouncing against the pillow. "I don't believe you."

He went to the door and flung it open.

"Maman!" Dominique came hurtling into the room, although he slowed as he approached the bed, remembering just in time that his maman had been very, very sick and needed lots of rest and quiet. "Guess what?" he said, trying hard to whisper and not succeeding very well. "Papa is teaching me how to ride a horse! And soon I can go hunting with him—he said so! We'll shoot some rabbits and then you won't have to steal them anymore."

A huge smile lit her child's face. It was still thin, but his cheeks bore the bloom of health. His blond hair had been brushed until it shone and tied back with a riband, and he looked the picture of a little gentleman in navy-blue velvet breeches and a matching coat with silver buttons. There were even silver buckles on his shoes. Tears flooded Gabrielle's eyes and overflowed to run down her face, dampening the pillow.

Dominique's smile slid off his face, and a worried frown creased his brow. "Don't cry, Maman. Monsieur le Docteur won't hurt you anymore. Papa punched him in the nose and kicked him down the stairs."

Laughter bubbled from Gabrielle's raw throat. She felt weightless with a strange happiness. But when she unconsciously turned to share the happiness with Max, she found that he had gone.

"
D
rink it!"

"
U
gh!" Gabrielle wrinkled her nose and twisted her head to the side. "It smells like cow's piss."

"Drink it or I'll force it down your throat."

"You wouldn't dare!"

Max grabbed Gabrielle by the jaws, pulling her mouth apart. He held the steaming cup to her lips. "Now. Are you going to drink?"

She blinked and tried to nod her head. Max tilted the cup and the liquid, which also tasted like cow's piss, poured down her throat. She swallowed reflexively and tried not to gag.

Only when the cup was completely drained did Max let her go. Her face tingled where his fingers had pressed into her skin, and she felt something quiver in her chest. Damn the man. He was a liar, a deceiver, the worst sort of villain imaginable—and all he had to do was touch her, even in anger, and she lost control of her senses.

He straightened and moved away from the bed, but he didn't leave the room as she half expected him to. It was the first time he had been to see her since she had awakened from her fever two days ago. She should have known he would return only to torment her.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. He watched her with that maddeningly arrogant smile of his that made her long for the day when she would once again have the strength to slap it off his face. "I hate you," she said. "What was that vile stuff?"

The smiled deepened, putting a dimple in one cheek and making him look boyish, making her want to kiss it.

"You don't want to know," he said. Then his face smoothed and tightened and the heavy lids fell over his eyes. "You should see your face, you little fool. You're still burning up with fever. Do you want to die? Think about Dominique if you refuse to care about yourself!''

She flung her head up defiantly, which wasn't easy since it was buttressed on all sides by mounds of pillows. "I should think my death would please you well, Monsieur le Vicomte. Then you would be free to sell my son all over again. Or do you no longer need the money now that you've come into your inheritance?''

He had turned to look out the rain-washed window, but he whipped around again, and she almost cringed at the harsh anger on his face.

"Sell him! What the hell are you talking about?"

"You know."

He crossed the room in two bounds. His powerful hands grasped her arms, half lifting her from the bed. "Oh, no, Gabrielle, I'm not playing any more guessing games with you. A year ago last August you stood up in church and took me as your husband. Two days later you disappeared. Now I'm going to hear the reason why if I have to tum you upside down and shake it out of you."

Angry tears threatened to choke her so that she had to swallow several times before she could hurl the words right back at him. "Two days later I saw you in the Cafe Monoury selling us to Louvois!"

"Louvois!"

He let go of her and she landed back on the bed so hard that she bounced. His face was the epitome of bewildered shock, and if she hadn't seen the proof of his deception with her own eyes she would almost have believed him innocent.

"Don't pretend you don't know him," she said.

"I do know him. He heads the smuggling ring. Or did."

Smuggling . . . ?

No, she thought, I don't believe this, I can't believe this. He's lying. He has to be lying.

He had returned to the window. He had his back to the light, facing her, which left his eyes in shadow. His mouth was a tight, straight line. She wished she could see his eyes.

"You're lying," she said.

He shrugged. "Why not ask him yourself, since you seem to be on such intimate terms? What precisely is the nature of your acquaintance with him? Or is that one of the many secrets you refuse to tell me, my lady wife?"

Gabrielle's chest felt tight. She heard her own voice say from a long way away, "You know. You must know. He had to have told you."

"I beg to differ, but your name never came up in the conversation."

She shook her head wildly back and forth. "You're lying."

He made a movement as if collecting himself to walk away.

Gabrielle struggled to sit up. "No, wait . . . please . . ." She squeezed her eyes shut, summoning all her courage. "He—he works for the duc de Nevers."

"I know that." Max's voice was flat, detached. "It's how he was able to ran the smuggling. I still don't see what that has to do with you."

"The ... the duc de Nevers was my husband's—my first husband's—father.''

He said nothing for the longest time. Then he made a small sound that was part exclamation of surprise and part laughter. It was the spontaneity of that sound, more than anything else, that convinced her of his innocence.

"My God . . . This Martin fellow of yours was the duc de Nevers's son?" He left the window and came to stand beside the bed. She turned her face away, for now that she could see his eyes, she couldn't bear what they told her.

His hand cupped her cheek and forced her head back around. "Just who in the name of all that's holy are you, Gabrielle?"

She told him then. She told him everything. By the time she finished it was the hour of the evening when the lamps were lit, although he had dismissed the servants, allowing the room to grow dark. Her voice spoke to him from the bed, sounding disembodied, while he listened from as far away as he could go and still be in the same room, leaning against a mantel on the opposite wall. She thought he probably felt it, too—that impossible, uncontrollable attraction that had always been between them. And she decided he probably mistrusted it now as much as she did.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he said when she had at last finished.

"It's not the sort of thing you blurt out to someone you hardly know."

"Hardly know! You were my wife. "

"It wasn't exactly a long betrothal. We met and married within a week. I Wanted to tell you. I tried to tell you on our wed—" She choked over the word. "Our wedding night."

"That would have been a good time, Gabrielle. It was, I believe, the night I told you I loved you."

She flinched as if his words were a whip, flaying her. She tried not to cry, but the tears were choking her throat. "I was being hunted. By marrying you I made you hunted as well. I was afraid you would hate me for it. That you'd leave me."

He gave a sharp, bitter laugh. "So you left me instead."

The tears were pouring from her eyes, harder than the rain that beat against the window. She thought they would flood the room until she drowned in them. "But I s-saw you with Louvois. He-he gave you money. You s-said you would do anything for m-money."

Again he laughed bitterly. "Did I say that? One of these days I'm going to learn that not everyone shares my sense of humor."

He was silent for a long time. Then he sighed. "You saw me with Louvois. And he gave me money, although if you'd waited another second or two you would have seen me give it back to him. I'm not the kind of man to condemn a woman, any woman, to the fate Louvois had planned for you ... If you had trusted me, believed in me, loved me, you would have known that."

"Oh, God, Max, please ... I do love you. I never once stopped loving you."

He shook his head. "If you loved me you would never have left me. No matter what you saw, or thought you saw—"

She held up her hand in an unconscious supplication. "They were trying to take away my son. "

He pushed away from the mantel and started for the door.

"Max!"

He paused with his hand on the latch and turned to look back at her. In the dusk his eyes shone like polished glass. "I loved you, Gabrielle. I thought I would love you forever."