The Ruins of Lace (23 page)

In spite of my father’s best-laid plans, I was still his heir. The irony is that for the first seven years of my life, my father did not even realize he had one. Not until the day he walked in on me as I was using a chamber pot.

“She’s a…a boy!”

“Of course she’s not.” My mother had taken me by the hand and tried to pull me off down the hall with her.

But Father had followed. “But she’s a—
he’s
a boy.” He said it with more certainty that time. And something within me cheered to hear him.
He
wouldn’t mock the way I walked.
He
wouldn’t constantly examine my face for signs of “wickedness” or pull the smallest of hairs from my neck. And maybe he wouldn’t keep measuring me and then binding me around the waist.

“He’s a boy.”

Mother dropped my hand and whirled on him. “What if she is? You took everything else from me. All I wanted was a girl. A girl who wouldn’t betray me, who wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Took? What did I ever take from you? You practically threw yourself at me from the moment we first met!”

“We were just children!”

“You weren’t a child. You were a temptress. A seductress.”

“I was just a girl doing what my mother told me to!”

“You bewitched me.”

“I despised you. You hurt me! After that, I prayed for God to give me a girl. I prayed and prayed and prayed, because I didn’t want my baby to grow up and ruin someone else’s daughter. And you know what?” Her face was contorted. She was panting with rage. “She never will!”

“Because you’ve spoiled him. You’ve completely destroyed him!”

“I’ve saved her.”

“
Him!
It isn’t natural, what you’ve done to him.”

“But now he’ll never grow up and turn into you!” Perhaps she was a witch, just as everyone had always said, for her words had come true. I never had turned into him. She had exacted the ultimate in revenge.

She had turned me into her.

I’d burst into tears at that point.

“Look at him—he’s blubbering like a girl!” Scorn and contempt dripped from the marquis’s words.

“He
is
a girl.”

“He’s not.”

“He is. I’ve made him into one.”

“Enough of this! Come, boy. Shed that gown.” He stripped me right there in the hall. “There, now. Isn’t that better? Don’t you feel like a man?”

I nodded simply because I knew that’s what he wanted me to do. But I was lying. It wasn’t better. I didn’t feel like a man. I only felt naked. Stripped and exposed.

And here I was again.

Exposed. Alone. Stripped bare.

My father despised me, and my lover had deserted me. In truth, I was not much surprised. I had always known the former, and the latter had simply been a matter of time.

But as long as I was my father’s heir, there was no reason for me to care. There would be other men. I would find another man just as soon as we left this godforsaken place for court. My father’s inheritance would ensure it. And once I had the lace, all would come right.

•••

I needed everything to come right, but increasingly I had the feeling something had gone wrong. As if something had eluded me. But what? The outcome of the birth had been much better than I had feared. We gathered for the baptism of the child, though not a week had passed since her birth and though it seemed I was the only one inclined to celebrate. I had worn my best embroidered satin doublet, and I carried my court sword instead of my pistol for the occasion.

Cardinal St. Florent was there to preside, resplendent in his scarlet-colored robe. Though my inheritance was safe for the moment, who knew when my father would try for another babe. As soon as the girl’s father returned with the lace, I would ensure it was safe forever.

Gabrielle was standing up in front by the altar, wearing a balloon-sleeved gown fashioned from yellow satin. New jewels sparkled at her neck and around her wrists. She was dreadfully pale, and she held onto the marquis’s arm with a white-knuckled grip. The marquis stood beside her in his best suit of clothes, the medal he’d been awarded for saving King Henri gleaming at his throat. They were pathetic, the pair of them, trying to disinherit me. At least their plans had ended in a disaster.

A girl child!

The child I had always wished to be.

They stood before me: the cardinal, my stepmother, the marquis, and the girl with the babe in her arms. Such a detestably endearing family tableau. Everything looked gallingly perfect, but the feeling nagged that something was not right.

What was it?

As I stepped into the chapel, the girl looked at me. The color drained from her face as she clasped the babe closer to her chest. I supposed she would be named the child’s godmother; the babe had been with the girl ever since the morning of its birth.

I mounted the steps to the altar and stood beside the marquis. In the girl’s arms, the babe kicked out at the confines of its gown, filling it with air. As the material settled, the babe kicked out at it again.

I knew what it felt like, that space beneath a gown. I knew what freedom could be found beneath a skirt. I knew what it was to spin and spin and spin again, skirts and petticoats flying out around me.

I too used to be free of all constraints.

That babe was destined for everything I was not; she was everything I ought to have been. It didn’t matter that the child wasn’t a boy. Still, it mocked me. It threw a fist up and cuffed the girl on the chin. She only smiled at it and kissed the top of its downy head. Eyeing me, she leaned over toward the marquise and whispered something in her ear. Glancing back at me once more, she tightened her grip on the babe.

My stepmother’s brow folded for a moment, but then she gave a small lift of her shoulder, nodding.

Why was it the girl had been given charge of the babe? Why hadn’t it been placed into the care of a nurse?

I leaned over and asked the marquis.

He frowned. “Because the girl asked for it. Hush now. The cardinal is to begin.”

She had asked for it? But…that was odd. Why would she beg to care for a babe that wasn’t her own? Normally a nurse would have taken charge of an infant. My gaze swung to the marquise. I looked at her, considering. Surely she wouldn’t have wanted to care for the babe herself. If I knew anything about her at all, it was that she would have had a nurse already chosen. Why, then, the change in plans?

The cardinal pronounced his incantations, waving his arms this way and that. “What name do you give your child?”

My father opened his mouth to speak.

It made no sense unless…unless…as I looked from the child to the girl, she seemed to cower before me. There was only one case in which her actions made any sense. I shoved the cardinal aside, drew my blade, and then lunged toward the girl.

“Give me the child!”

Darting behind the cardinal, she shouted at the marquis. “It’s a boy, my lord!” Her voice rang out, trembling but determined.

Gabrielle gasped.

“A boy, my lord!” I wished the girl would shut up her mouth. It was a boy I would destroy.

The marquis, fool that he was, did nothing but stand there gaping like some overfed goose.

I stalked the girl, chasing her from the cardinal back toward a steeply winding staircase tucked into the back of the chapel. It was built into a tower, with tall, open arches carved into its walls. With the babe clutched to her breast, the girl bolted up the stairs toward a balcony perched high beneath the vaulted ceiling. Meant for a singer or musician, the balcony was hardly bigger than a coffin. The stairs provided the only access.

“You run from me!” Enraged at her temerity, I dove for the skirts that were disappearing around the spiral of the stair.

She cried out as she stumbled. With another pull, she began to slide toward me.

“Julien! Enough!” My father was standing at the bottom of the stairs, wrath darkening his face.

I caught a flurried movement from the corner of my eye. The girl. With a gnashing of teeth, I darted upward again.

Her slippered foot kicked out and struck me on the chin.

The chit! I caught hold of her ankle and twisted, wrenching it. I felt my lips curl as she cried out in pain.

She fell on her back as I pulled her down the stairs toward me.

The babe squalled in the girl’s arms as her head struck the stone steps. I would shut him up! Dropping her ankle, I raised my sword.

Before I could silence him forever and make certain my future, the girl turned onto her stomach, hiding the child beneath her. As I retreated to avoid the churning of her feet, she scrambled back up the stairs. In an instant she had already vanished around the turn.

“I want that babe!” I shouted.

My only answer was the child’s cry. And a bellow from my father.

I charged up the steps, but she was standing there above me, blocking the way. I swung the sword at her. The broad side of the blade struck her on the head, but though she staggered, she did not yield. What had she done with the child? As I looked beyond her, straining to see up the stairs, she grasped my sword with both her hands and wrested it from me. She gasped as the blade ripped through her flesh. Blood dripped from her palms as she tore it from me and heaved it through one of the arches.

It clattered to the floor somewhere far beneath us.

“Let me pass!” Her fingernails raked at my neck as I pushed her toward the arch where the steps were wider. Finally, I caught her hands around the wrist and tried to slip past her. As she wrestled with me, kicking out at my knees, she lost her balance, threatening to pull me with her through the wall.

I let go of her hands.

She threw out her arms and then, with a look of horror and a terrible shriek, she dropped away through the arch.

•••

“What have you done!”

It was the marquis. And he was looking at me with such…loathing.

“Murderer!”

“I didn’t mean—I only—” I’d only meant to kill the child. And I had not yet done it.

With a cry of rage, he charged me.

I put a hand to his chest and shoved him away. He stumbled against the rail. As I brushed past him, he reached out and grabbed at my sleeve.

“I never knew you.”

At that moment, I realized the disappointment and disapproval he had always shown me were nothing compared to the hatred his eyes now held. As I looked back at him, I discovered that hell was not some place of torment or unquenchable flames; it was the chill oblivion of contempt and disregard. And then I felt myself being jerked from behind, dragged down the staircase, and flung out onto the floor. “You
bastard
!”

It took two days to reach the Château of Eronville. But once there, I strode up the steps, dog trotting beside me.

A servant met us in the hall.

I had not washed for two days, and my face was unshaven, but I lifted my chin and did my best imitation of my father, Nicolas Girard, the King’s finest warrior. “The Count of Montreau, if you please.”

The servant bowed. “They’re all in the chapel, my lord. For the baptism of the child. You may not yet be too late.”

Being too late was the greatest of my fears. I hurried through the halls behind him, and when I discerned the direction in which he was headed, I pushed past him down the corridor. I had waited too many weeks already. I would wait no longer.

As I crossed the threshold of the chapel, I saw a cardinal, as well as a man and a woman I didn’t recognize. They were all staring at some stairs in the back, and as I followed their eyes my heart stopped. I saw the red-faced count and Lisette high on the staircase. He was pushing her toward an open arch. Before I could move, before I could even call out, she fell through it.

“No!” My cry joined her own as I watched her tumble, striking her head against the wall. My heart stopped beating as all my hopes turned to dust. No one could long survive such a fall.

I took the steps to the altar two at a time. As I knelt beside her, blood poured from a gash in her head and slashes in her palms. Mon dieu! Her limbs were so bent and twisted that I feared to touch her. I stripped off my doublet and folded it, placing it beneath her head. If only I could do something for the bleeding. The lace! I shook it from its packet and wrapped it about her head, praying that it might slow the bleeding long enough to let me bid her adieu.

And long enough for me to demand some measure of justice.

Leaving her, I sprung up the stair, grabbed the count by the back of his collar, dragged him down the steps, and threw him onto the chapel’s floor. “You
bastard
!”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You detestable, loathsome bastard!” I had not been forced to sell our estate, nor toil in the rain and mud; I had not been cheated and assaulted and nearly killed, to have Lisette murdered before my eyes by this…this…monster.

“It wasn’t—”

Pulling the dagger from my waistband, I lunged at him.

Somewhere up near the balcony, a baby cried.

Rolling beyond my reach, the count recovered his sword and regained his feet. “My father wanted to give that babe everything that’s mine.”

An old man stumbled down the staircase. Had the count attacked him as well? I lunged at the count again.

He parried. “I only ever wanted your love.” Though he was countering my thrusts with admirable skill, he was focused almost entirely on the old man. “Your love and your regard.”

“And you had them! You have always been my son. But now…? You can be no son of mine. You’re a murderer. And I’ll see you hanged for it.”

“Like some common peasant?” The count attacked me.

I parried.

“You’re worse than common!” the old man cried. “You’re a disgrace. I could tolerate your gambling and even your—your proclivities. But murder?”

The count took a slash at me.

The dog growled and sprang at him, biting at his boot.

He swore and shook the dog off.

The babe’s cries rang through the chapel.

The count’s face twisted with fury. “Will no one
shut him up
!” He raised his sword toward the balcony as if he held some hope of silencing the child.

His attention diverted, I threw myself at his side, rocking him off balance. He fell to the floor, sword rattling at his feet.

As I moved to collect it, he swung his leg and tripped me.

Though I fell, I retained hold of my dagger. But the move had given the count time enough to recover his sword. Seizing it, he launched himself toward me. I crouched and then sprang up to meet him. The dagger rent his doublet and plunged into his chest.

His sword dropped to the floor.

I kicked it away from him.

Hands outstretched, he turned from me and staggered toward the old man. Halfway there he paused, putting a hand to the altar. He lowered himself to the floor and leaned against it, panting.

The cardinal rushed forward, bellowing profanities.

The count seemed not to hear him. He put a hand to his chest, clasping the handle of the dagger. Blood welled up between his fingers. He sent a despairing glance in the old man’s direction. And then, with blood darkening the front of his shirt, he looked up at me. His eyes blazed with fury, as his hand dropped to his chest. “So much blood…” He coughed, a pink-tinged froth burbling from his mouth. And then he let out a great sigh and died.

With a boot to his chest, I pulled my dagger from him, wiping it on my breeches and securing it in my waistband. Then I went to Lisette.

She still lay where she had fallen, though her limbs did not look so twisted and her neck was no longer bent to the side. And—she was yet breathing! I knelt beside her, brushing her golden curls from a face gone deathly pale. “My love.”

“Alex…andre…”

I took up her hand in mine. It was so small. And so cold.

“My eyes…they betray me.” Her words tore at my heart. If only I could hold back that eternal night. But she spoke without fear. Without panic.

“I have—I brought you something.” The lace that I had wrapped around her had become a bloodied crown, though it seemed to have served my purpose. It had staunched the flow. But in doing so it had become joined to her wound. To tear it away would only cause more harm.

How fitting that the lace could not be taken from her. That which she had once desired she now possessed.

So much blood. So much pain, so much suffering for something so insubstantial. Just a handful of threads woven around nothing but air. “Here.” I took the free end, wrapping it around her bloodied hands and then closed her fingers about it. They burrowed into the threads as if they could tell her the information her eyes could no longer convey. The suggestion of a smile curled her lips. “Lace.” The word came out in a sigh.

I had done the right thing by killing the count, and I had done the wrong thing by leaving Lisette in his care. Now there was nothing left at all, and I did not know who could save me. I had become Alexandre Girard once more. I gathered her to my chest. The memory of her smiles and kisses and laughter was still so fresh in my senses. I closed my eyes as I lay my cheek against hers. I did not ever want to open them.

At that moment the count’s father clapped his hand on my shoulder, jerking the dagger from my waistband. “Where did you get this?” He said it with great indignity, as if accusing me of theft.

There was no sin greater than the one I had just committed. I had taken a life in the sight of God’s presence, again, in spite of all my promises never to hurt another man. And I could conceive of no greater grief than the one I now felt. It could matter no longer who my father was or how he had come to die. I laid Lisette back on the ground, and I pushed to my feet before him. “I got it from my father, Nicolas Girard. He brought it back with him from—”

“From the Battle of Fontaine-Française.” He gestured fiercely toward some servant and then whispered into his ear. The servant bowed and then left.

I would be arrested for killing the count. There was no way around it. His own father had been witness to the killing. Closing my eyes, I prayed for the mercy of oblivion.

Several minutes later, the servant came back into the chapel. He handed something to the old man, who then extended it toward me. “I have here your dagger’s match.”

Find its match,
fiston
. Therein lies your destiny.

I could only stare dumbly. First at one of them and then at the other.

“You are Nicolas Girard’s son.”

I nodded.

“Then you have proved yourself worthy of his great valor.”

I understood nothing at all about his words. I had just killed this man’s son. In God’s holy sanctuary. Valor? I expected nothing but to be cursed forever. And then hanged afterward.

The old man laid a trembling hand on mine. “There is good news for you this day. I have been holding your father’s lands on your behalf. They border my own.”

My father’s lands? Surely he was mistaken. “My father never owned any lands.”

He pushed his dagger into his waistband, took my face between his hands, and kissed both of my cheeks. “Today, you have become your father’s heir. You must now take his title and possession of all that is his.”

He was offering me a title? And lands? I looked beyond him, toward Lisette. Why could they not have been offered when I could have used them? When they would have meant something? I could have paid the debt. I might have saved Souboscq. And then Lisette would not be lying on the floor, bent and broken. A laugh burbled in my throat, but when I opened my mouth, it was a sob that escaped instead. Wretched, vile lace! What use were lands to me now?

The dog approached the count’s body. He took a sniff, pointed his nose at the ceiling, and howled. Then he crept toward Lisette.

“Come here,
chiot
.”

He ignored me.

“Come here!” I wouldn’t be able to bear it if he howled again.

He gave me a cursory glance and kept going.

“
Mon cher
!”

Though his tail wagged and his muscles bunched as if he wanted to spring toward me, he took a delicate sniff instead. He walked closer to Lisette and nosed at the lace clutched in her hands. Sniffed again. And then he lay down at her side and whined.

“Come here,
mon cher
.”

He barked, tail wagging.

And as I looked at the lace in her hand, it seemed to tremble.