The Princess in His Bed (40 page)

“So?” His heart was beating in slow hard thuds.

“So if you have secrets, they need to remain that way. I personally selected you and I’ll not be embarrassed before the King. Be discreet and I’ll not arrest you for your conduct.”

“Arrest me for what conduct?”

“Sodomy is a crime.”

Mathias reached out across Sard’s desk, grabbed his vest, and yanked him forward, their noses all but butting. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, Sard.”

He’d hardly led a monkish life, but he’d never had any sexual interest in men. As for the law, it was a joke. Everyone in the entire realm knew the King’s only brother, Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, preferred men in his bed. The younger the better. It was an open secret no one discussed.

Mathias released Sard. Unfazed, the Lieutenant General held his gaze. “If the young man means nothing to you, get me his name—and conduct yourself in a manner that would please the King.”

Holding back the profanity burning up his throat, Mathias turned on his heel and stalked out.

Moments later Valette was permitted back into Sard’s study.

“Well?” Valette asked.

Sard smoothed his vest and sat back down at his desk. “We’re going to go ahead with the raid at the next Basset game Navers hosts in his home.”

8

The afternoon sun was warm and pleasant in the courtyard of Gaillard’s town house. Seated in the shade of a walnut tree, Gabrielle had a book on her lap. She’d yet to read a single word. Her mind crowded with thoughts, it was difficult to focus on the sonnets.

She was leaving tonight.

Everything was packed. Right after the Basset game, she’d be on her way to her uncle’s château, where members of the King’s Guard would find her two days hence to escort her back to the palace.

The last few nights with Mathias had been bittersweet.

She didn’t want to leave him. But what choice did she have? She was the King’s daughter. A princess trapped in a gilded prison, she had to return to Versailles. Return to her role and accept the husband her father selected for her.

Around Mathias she was a different person than she was at court. With him, it was easy to be light. To laugh. It was difficult to be distant with him when all she wanted was to draw near.

She’d never lacked strength in her life. She’d relied on her strength to make it through all these years. But she didn’t possess enough to say good-bye. Not to his beloved face. For that reason, she hadn’t told him she was leaving tonight instead of tomorrow, as he believed. She’d already completed her note and would leave it with the majordomo for him.

“There you are.” Mathias’s voice grabbed her attention.

Joy welled up inside her the moment she saw him walking down the cobblestone path toward her. The light breeze caressed his long dark hair, and his light gray justacorps not only accentuated his broad shoulders, but was a perfect match with those knee-weakening, beautiful eyes.

Her nerve endings sparked to life.

Smiling, he sat down beside her on the stone bench, slipped a hand onto the nape of her neck, and pulled her close for a kiss. Long and luscious and languorous. It was heaven.

He was heaven. Behind her closed eyes, she felt the sting of tears. In the years to come, would he remember her still and think of her from time to time? Or would she fade in his memory?

“I brought you something,” he said, smiling.

His smile was contagious. “Oh?”

Reaching inside his justacorps, Mathias pulled out a pink satin box, a little smaller than his palm.

Surprised, she took it from his hands, placed it on her lap, and lifted the pretty lid.

Her eyes immediately filled with fresh tears. She fought them back.

Inside was a small leather-bound volume with the name SILVIE on the cover. Pulling the small book out of the box, she held it in her hands. She was so moved, she couldn’t speak.

“It’s a book of poetry. I saw it at the bookseller and had the cover custom made,” he explained. “Do you like it?”

She nodded, and put her arms around him, her throat tight with emotion. “I’ll cherish it always. I’ll think of you each time I read it,” she said near his ear.

Grasping her wrists, he removed her arms from around his neck and held her hands. “I’ve been thinking, Silvie. I’d like to speak to your father.”

Her brows shot up. “Speak to
my
father? Why?”

He gently squeezed her hands. “Since he is looking for potential husbands for you, I’d like him to consider me.”

Her heart lost a beat. Hope surged inside her. She had to tamp it down. “My father isn’t exactly an easy man to speak to. He—He may have made his decision. If that is so, he isn’t one to change his mind.” Dear God, this was the first time Mathias had ever discussed the future—with her in it.

“I can be persuasive, Silvie.”

Her mind was spinning. Could it work? Might it actually happen?

Dare she wish for it? No, she wasn’t going to wish for it. Her father was unpredictable. With the brood of children His Majesty had sired, he usually gave his daughters in marriage to those he favored at court. Like gifts. The probability of the King being amiable to the idea of marrying her to a man who had a reputation for vice was slim. It mattered little that the King himself was vice-ridden. His Majesty rarely saw the irony in things.

“I have to think . . .” she said. “My father isn’t easily dealt with . . .”

“I want to marry you, Silvie.”

“Why? You don’t know me.”

“Yes, I do. I know that beneath that hard exterior is a woman who is tender and kind and beautiful from the inside out. She makes me smile. She makes me happy.” He nuzzled her neck. “She makes me so damned hard.” His warm breath tickled her neck and sent a delightful shiver through her. He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.

“I love you, Silvie.”

She grabbed his justacorps and kissed him hard, afraid the same words would slip past her lips. Words she couldn’t say. It would shatter her, knowing he couldn’t be hers. Knowing her father wouldn’t agree. Why pick Mathias when there were scores of men who followed the King around each and every day at the palace whom he knew and liked and wanted to reward?

Mathias’s words only weighted her heart more.

“I have to go,” he said when he broke the kiss. “We’ll discuss this matter later.” He rose. “There is one more thing, Silvie. Under no circumstances are you going to Navers’s Hôtel tonight. I’ve left a purse with your majordomo. It is the balance of the debt. You are going to take it and forget Basset. There is going to be trouble, and you’re not getting involved in it.”

Gabrielle set down the items on her lap on the bench and stood. “What do you mean, ‘trouble’?” When he paused, she added, “Either you tell me what you mean, or I am going.”

He sighed. “Silvie, if I trust you enough to be my wife, and that is what you are going to be regardless, then you need to know there is a chance that there may be a raid tonight by the Paris Police. The King wants his ban on Basset taken seriously.”

Gabrielle’s pulse began to race. “You’re involved? You are helping the Police?”

“Yes, and as committed to it as I am, I’ll not hold my tongue about the raid and place you in harm’s way.”

A most extraordinary plan took shape in her mind. The best one she’d ever devised.

A life-altering plan.

Mathias smiled on his way from Navers’s Hôtel to Silvie’s town house. Slumped back in the moving carriage, he felt weary, but happy, and most of all, relieved.

It was over.

And he’d been right.

Two hours into the evening, thirty men from the Paris police, including Sard, burst into Navers’s home and arrested the Duc, his nephew, and all the players in attendance.

But not Silvie. For once she’d actually heeded his advice. And he was thrilled she wasn’t caught. He couldn’t wait to see her. To make love to her.

To make plans on broaching her father. Just how difficult could the man be? Whatever he was like, whoever he was, Mathias would get his way.

Silvie would be his. She loved him. He knew it. He knew in time, she’d come to verbally express the emotion that was in her eyes each time she looked at him.

The carriage pulled up to the town house. He alighted with a bounce in his step. His heart raced, now that he was so close to her.

He couldn’t wait to share the details of the night. Describe the look of outrage on the Duc’s face. There were enough men of quality there that the sweeping arrest, with a
Lettre de Cachet
for each man Mathias had named, would rock the aristocracy and make them take heed.

The King was deadly serious.

There would be no more Basset.

Mathias stopped before the door to the town house. He looked up at the night sky. It was punctured with a million twinkling lights. “Rest in peace, Charles,” he said, then knocked on the door.

As usual, the majordomo answered. “Good evening, my lord.”

Mathias stepped inside. “Good evening.” He proceeded to cross the vestibule. Because he was there every day, he simply showed himself to Silvie’s private apartments.

“My lord, the mademoiselle is not here.”

Mathias arrested his steps. “What do you mean, not here?” Silvie never left the town house, except in disguise to play Basset.

“She left, my lord. She took her party and her trunks and departed this afternoon.”

Mathias’s stomach plummeted. He turned and raced up the stairs, down the hall, and burst into Silvie’s rooms. He stopped short in Silvie’s bedchamber.

It was empty.

He threw open the doors of the armoires. They were empty, too. He slid his hand beneath her mattress. No diamonds there.

No anything.

Jésus-Christ
, she was truly gone! He looked around the empty chamber, incredulous and in shock.

Mathias returned to the vestibule, moving slower down the stairs than he’d ascended them. His legs felt leaden, his insides cold and numb.

The majordomo waited patiently at the bottom.

“Did she leave me a note?” he asked. He hated the desperation in his voice, but at the moment, he didn’t care.

“No, my lord.”

“A message of some kind with you or perhaps another member of the staff?”

“Any message or note would be given to me, one way or the other. I’m afraid there is nothing, my lord.”

“Where did she go?” he demanded, his frustration showing.

“I’m afraid I couldn’t say, my lord.”

“What is her name? How is she related to your master?”

“My apologies, my lord, but again, I couldn’t say.”

Wouldn’t say
was more accurate. But he couldn’t blame the servant. Giving out information about one’s employer or his houseguest would surely result in the man’s dismissal.

Mathias felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach. He couldn’t believe she’d left without saying good-bye. Or leaving a note.

He couldn’t believe he’d misread her affections.
Fool. You proposed marriage and declared your love
. She neither accepted the former nor claimed the latter. She said she was leaving and she’d left.

Mathias moved to the door. The servant was there promptly to open it for him.

“One last question,” Mathias said.

“Of course, my lord.”

“The purse I gave you, the coin . . . Did you give that to the mademoiselle?”

“Yes, my lord. I handed it to her personally, just as you requested. She took the purse with her when she left.”

Mathias stepped outside, reeling. The door closed softly behind him.

His love was rejected. But apparently his money was acceptable.

9