The Ruins of Lace (15 page)

It had been nearly three weeks since I had come to the Château of Eronville. The province of Orléanais was gentler and milder than my native Gascogne. There were streams here, and hills, but they were of the softer, less pronounced variety. The land ascended less abruptly; the streams ran more slowly. Though I missed Souboscq’s sand-colored stone and the red tiles of the roof, the Château of Eronville was charming. It must once have served a defensive purpose, for it was comprised of a collection of towers, though the arrow slits had long since been replaced by paned windows. The drawbridge spanned an admirably deep, dry moat in which a herd of goats seemed to be constantly grazing. The count, though rarely present inside the château, was often seen skulking in the shadows of the garden or pacing out in front of the stables.

One evening, he grabbed me by the arm after supper and steered us into the salon. “Does your father have some reason to hate you? Does it seem strange to you he has not yet tried to communicate? To let us know when to expect him with the lace?”

“Would you try to communicate with a daughter whose actions had so reduced your estates? Would you not be happy to be rid of her?” In spite of the impulse that had sent me here, I prayed I was not speaking the truth. I dropped my gaze from him and wrapped my arms around my chest.

“Then if you expect no communication, I will need you to have a talk with my father.”

His father? The marquis? “Why?”

“At the moment, he is threatening to disinherit me in favor of this babe who is soon to be born. I am unwilling for that to happen. He seems to think you might be favorably inclined toward me should I happen to press a suit for your hand.”

I felt my brow fold as I tried to understand what it was he was saying. “
My
hand? You?” He despised me. And he had made no show of hiding it.

“It doesn’t matter what you think. What matters is what he thinks. I need you to persuade him to be kind to me. Listen!” He grabbed me by the elbow, pulling me toward him. “He’s a man, just like any other man. And he’s been known to take the things he wants, even when he has no right to them. My stepmother can’t satisfy his needs at the moment. So if you please him, he might just give you anything you ask for.”

He wasn’t—! He didn’t—! “Are you telling me to—?”

“He’s already decided you might be able to redeem my degenerate soul. All I ask is that you find some way to have a private audience with him. And when you do, you need to encourage him to be merciful to your poor, pitiful Julien.”

I shrank from him in horror. “I won’t do that. Not to the marquise.” We had quickly become friends. I had not had one before. She was everything I had been born to be, and she had everything I’d always desired. And yet, in spite of all those blessings, I did not want to be her. It cheered me I was not so vain, not so selfish as I had feared.

“Have you so quickly forgotten our agreement?” He whispered this into my ear. The marquis had once more reappeared. The count bent and kissed my earlobe.

I flinched. “Don’t touch me.”

“I don’t plan on it becoming a regular occurrence. Remy is much more suited to such things than I am.”

“Do you threaten me?”

“Are you telling me you won’t do as I ask?”

I raised my chin as I glared at him. “I can’t.”

He smiled in the marquis’s direction and then pulled me along with him toward his father. “Unless you receive a letter from your father soon, telling us of his coming, then you must.”

I had tired of being subject to this man’s schemes and whims. “And what if I refuse?”

“Then I plan on delivering your father’s head, on a platter, to the King.”

•••

God help me! My teeth clattered together with fear as I walked down the hall to the marquis’s chambers. I clutched my hands together in front of me to keep them from trembling. Was there no other choice than this?

The marquis’s servant opened the door at my knock. He bowed and announced my presence to his master.

The count’s father peered at me from the chair in which he was sitting. “My dear girl! You’re so pale. What has befallen you?” He rose and turned to his manservant. “Bring her some spirits. Quickly!” Then he walked over, took me by the hand, and gently pulled me into his chambers. They were large and warmer than my own. A fire had been lit in the hearth, and it lent a golden glow to the place. A collection of jeweled objects and serving pieces crafted from stone glittered from the mantel. There was a brilliant lapis pitcher with a silvered Neptune posing as a handle. And a glowing jasper bowl, scalloped in shape, with a golden fleur-de-lis sitting atop its lid. In the place of honor, at the center, sat a jeweled dagger.

I quite forgot my mission and my fears as I walked toward a cup that could only have been made of rock crystal. It was a standing cup, poised on a tall, thin, fluted column of gold. The crystal itself was a swirl of patches, both transparent and opaque. With its drinking edge covered in gilt, it brought to mind the mists of Souboscq.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” The marquis took it down from the mantel and offered it to me.

“Oh.
Non.
” I put my hands behind my back. “I couldn’t.”

“Yes, you can. You must. Such craftsmanship is meant to be appreciated.”

I shook my head.

“
Tenez.
Take it. You won’t break it.”

How did he know I would not? My fingers ached to touch its base and stroke its clouded sides. But how could he trust me when I did not trust myself?

He put a gentle hand to my arm and drew my own hand from behind my back. Then he placed the cup into my palm, closing my fingers about the stem.

“There now. A little beauty does the soul good.”

“I am used to admiring from afar.”

“Beauty is meant to be lived with, not just admired.”

The marquis put the cup back on the shelf and pulled a chair from his desk toward the fire. “Come. Sit and warm yourself.”

“I didn’t mean to—” I could have finished the sentence with a hundred different phrases. I didn’t mean to disturb you. I didn’t mean to destroy the lace. Or my father. And yet I had done all of those things…and I had one thing yet to do. All I wanted was to free those I loved from the curse of my presence. I had not meant to give them another reason to despise me.

“Please, do not worry yourself. Only tell me why you have come.”

He was looking at me with such kind solicitation, such genuine concern, I nearly turned and ran from the room. But I did not dare to. I had already torn from my father everything of value. The only good I could do him now was to keep the count from revealing Papa’s secret.

“You seem troubled.”

I almost wept from vindication and relief. At last, someone who saw things as they truly were. Someone who did not pretend I was anything other than I was. We had never talked at Souboscq of that night when everything had changed. Papa and Alexandre took such great pains not to bring it up, they might as well have spoken of it daily.

“Is it…Julien?”

I could not answer.

“Has he done something…?” There was a note of judgment and outrage in his voice.

“It’s nothing.”

He reached up and grabbed hold of the dagger on the mantel. “By God, if he has harmed you in any way—!”

“No. Please! He has not.”

“What has he done, then?” The blade flashed with the fire’s light.

“Nothing!” He had done nothing at all. He’d left everything up to me. I rose and walked toward the old man as his son’s words rang in my head.
If
you
please
him, he will give you anything you ask for.
My own father’s words followed after them:
Sometimes
the
past
has
the
power
to
devour
the
future.
Was my own worth so very great that I could not sacrifice myself for the sake of my father? Had he not sacrificed so very much for me? “Please. Put the dagger down. He’s done nothing.”

He swung away from me toward the door, and for a moment I thought he did not hear me. But then he stopped. His shoulders drooped as he sighed. “Julien has always been good at doing nothing. Nothing I’ve ever asked him to do, in any case.”

I led him toward the same chair he had just offered me. The warrior who had been brandishing the dagger just moments before had disappeared. Left in his place was a tired and stooped old man. He collapsed into the chair. Resting his elbows on his knees, he turned the dagger between his hands. The hilt was encrusted with glittering jewels in a multitude of colors. They seemed to capture and then return the fire’s light as the marquis turned the dagger round and round.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” He glanced up at me. “I fought in the Spanish Wars, you know. With the King’s father.”

Good King Henri.

“He was the best of men. King Henri knew what it was to be a nobleman. And he never required any of us be other than what we were. ” He sighed as he looked at that dagger. “During the wars, I met up with a man near Troyes, at the Battle of Fontaine-Française. We became true brothers, united by combat and bound by blood. We swore our sons would never want for anything if it were ever in our power to help them. I owe everything, my life, to that man. Quite literally.” The dagger kept turning between his hands as he spoke. “A Spaniard very nearly killed me at Ardes. He would have, had it not been for my friend.”

His eyes had drifted toward the fire, though they did not seem to reflect any of its light.

“At Fontaine-Française, the King himself became encircled. My friend and I saw him, and we broke through the Spanish lines to save him. He rewarded us with titles and lands, granted side by side, at our request. My friend begged to be sent to Amiens to continue the fight. Before we parted, he entrusted his lands to my care. We had these daggers made.” He held it out toward me. “But that was the last I ever saw of him. He wrote me several years later that he had fallen in love with a Spanish woman.”

His teeth flashed in a smile.

“After all of that!” He shook his head. “Who can reason with the heart? He said they’d had a son. And then I never heard from him after that.” He sighed a long sigh that spoke of regrets and lost opportunities, turning to me with a sad smile. “Julien wants to be my heir. He ought to be my heir. But things being as they are…I’ve often wondered what might have happened if I’d never had a son.” A veil of sadness fell over his features. “I’ve tried to understand him…”

I reached down and placed a hand on his arm.

“Half of what Julien thinks I have is not even really mine. I hold it by proxy…for my friend.” He sighed once more and looked up toward the mantel. He tried to stand, holding up the dagger.

“Let me.” I took it from him and put it back.

“Thank you, my dear, for listening so graciously to the musings of an old man. Now what is it that you came for?”

Why is it I had come? I had come to save a man just as old and tired as the marquis. I had come to save what was left of my family. The marquis had spoken of nobility and honor. Perhaps he would respond to a request for those very same things. “I wanted to speak to you, in fact, about your son. He’s unsettled by the coming birth of your child.”

“My son. So many disappointments Julien has brought me. I do not know that I could survive anymore. You know how he is, don’t you?”

I hesitated only for a moment before nodding. I could speak nothing less than the truth to a man who had bared his soul to me.

“I left him alone too long with his mother. Such a beautiful girl she was…only she did things to him…to punish me.” His voice trailed off, and then he blinked and seemed to return to the conversation. “I thought…She made it quite clear, at the start, how she felt about me. I thought…She practically gave herself to me. Why did she then despise me for the…” His eyes drifted toward the fire as I read a thousand sorrows in his eyes.

I shivered in spite of my proximity to the fire.

“Julien desperately needs someone to save him. I used to think I could do it…maybe—do you think you can? Can you save him from himself?”

“I don’t…” I did not want to disappoint him, but neither did I wish to promise him something I could not undertake. “I do not know.”

He seized my hand. “You can do it. You must do it. He is anathema to all that is right and true, and yet…I find myself hoping. You see why I must have a new heir. A real heir. But I will not abandon my son. I will make provisions for him. If you stay with him, I will see neither of you lack for anything. Please…you could be his salvation.”

If he weren’t so bent on destroying me! There was nothing more to say. I had accomplished what the count had requested of me. I curtsied. “Thank you, my lord, for your kindness.”

“You will consider what I said, won’t you?”

•••

I returned to my chamber and was helped from my basque and gown by a maid. She had hardly turned me into my night clothes when the door opened. Startled, I clutched at my nightshift.

It was the count. He stalked into the room. Settling himself into a chair beside the table that held a looking glass, he propped his chin in his hand. “You weren’t there very long. What happened?” His gaze fastened upon my face.

My eyes fell from his as I felt a blush rise to my cheeks. “I…”

“Yes?”

What did I have to be ashamed of? I had done nothing wrong. Raising my chin, I took a breath. “I did not have to do as you asked. He has already planned to make provisions for you.” Now maybe he would leave me in peace!

“Provisions! I don’t want
provisions
. Before his arrangement with the cardinal, that might have sufficed, but now, I want it all!” He swept a fist across the table, spewing the glass and a hairbrush onto the floor. “I want everything! I want all the world to know I am his son. If he won’t be proud of me, at least he must claim me.” He snarled at the maid, who left without even a backward glance. Then he came at me, his dark, flinty eyes reflecting no light at all. “I want everything, and I will have it. You must return to him at once and find some way to secure it for me.”