Little Red Writing (14 page)

She’d finally found the love and passion she’d always dreamed about.

In a few hours, her world could collapse.

*****

Nicolas’s expression was tightly guarded as they waited in the Mars drawing room at Versailles. With Anne, her sisters, and the Comtesse already gripped with fear, he refused to add to their distress by showing any outward signs of the terror he felt.

The occasional sniffle or soft sob from Camille broke the silence, as did the laughter and music that occasionally drifted in from the gardens. Thomas tried consoling Camille as best he could, without success.

The King was in the gardens, as usual. Preferring the outdoors, Louis spent most of his day outside surrounded by courtiers and musicians who followed him around the expansive lawns covered with massive flowerbeds and fountains, bushes and his rare orange trees.

The wait was maddening. How much longer before Louis finally pulled himself away and entered the State Rooms? They’d already waited for what seemed a fucking eternity.

He glanced at Anne. She stood by his side, quiet and brave. He was amazed and proud of her courage. Most would have collapsed under the weight of worry and fright. She shed no tears the way Camille did, nor did she wring her hands as Henriette was doing.

Needing to touch Anne, every once in a while Nicolas reached out and squeezed her hand reassuringly, uncertain if he was trying to reassure her or himself. He would have held her the entire time but the Captain of the Guard, Tristan de Tiersonnier, entered and exited the room frequently.

Nicolas wrestled with the possibilities and probabilities of what the King might do, his restless mind making his heart race. The Mars drawing room offered little by way of diversions. Its walls were a plain red and the ornately painted ceiling depicted various scenes that he didn’t want to look at. Especially the one directly overhead. It was Claude Audran’s
Mars in a Chariot Drawn by Wolves
.
Le Loup
was a nickname he’d never minded, but rather liked.

Now he disliked it immensely.

A wolf was a predator. He’d come to realize he wasn’t that cold. He’d been well on the road to becoming just like his father and brother, and he was grateful that he’d veered off that path, for that path had led him to Anne. To love. And even more surprising, to a grandmother he actually wanted to know more about.

The Comtesse took Anne’s other hand. “Anne, I’m too old for this. This wait is taking years off my life. We’ll assure the King that Leduc is through. He’ll not write again.”

Anne glanced at the older woman and then at Nicolas.

“She’s right,
chérie
. Leduc is done,” he said. “He has to be. Even if the King is in a generous mood, he’ll not permit you to keep breaking the law.”

Anne gazed straight ahead and then softly ceded. “I know. But who will speak for those women in distress? Leduc was their only voice.”

“We’ll think of another way to aid women,” his grandmother offered. “But it will be legal. Something that won’t perturb the King.”

The door burst open, causing Anne to jump and Nicolas’s heart to lurch. The King and his Captain, Tiersonnier, marched in.

Immediately, Nicolas and Thomas bowed as the women curtsied low.

Louis sighed. “Which one is the author?” he asked Tiersonnier.

Nicolas didn’t like the annoyance in the King’s tone. His mood wasn’t particularly genial today. His fear spiked.

Anne stepped forward. “I am, Sire.”

Nicolas wanted to yank her back and shout, “No! There’s been a mistake.”

Louis cocked a brow, then tilted his head to one side. His gaze moved over Anne, a slow assessment that made Nicolas’s nostrils flare and his fists clench. At close to fifty years of age, his King was a notorious womanizer, and the leer he’d directed at Anne gave him great unease.

“Come with me,” Louis said, spinning on his heel and stalking from the room. Anne fell into step behind the King.

Nicolas stepped forward, but Tiersonnier shoved his hand against Nicolas’s chest. “Not you. Just her. Everyone else waits here.” Tiersonnier fell in behind Anne, and slammed the door closed.

Nicolas’s heart sank. His ire rose. There were State Rooms on either side of the Mars drawing room. It didn’t escape his notice that the King was headed in the direction of his private apartments—
where his bedchamber was located
.

Camille wept openly now, accepting Thomas’s shoulder as her sobbing worsened.

Nicolas’s mind was besieged with unwanted thoughts far worse than before. Was he supposed to just wait here while the King took Anne and . . .
Merde.
He couldn’t finish the thought.

Teeth clenched, he stalked to the window and looked down at the north gardens. But all he saw were the images flashing in his mind of Anne in the King’s bed. He slammed his fist against the wall.

“Nicolas.” His grandmother placed her hand on his shoulder. “I know what you’re thinking but you mustn’t torture yourself so. Anne is an intelligent woman. She’s been propositioned by powerful men before. She knows how to be tactful, yet to the point.”

“She’s never had to refuse a King.”

“I believe in her, Nicolas, and so should you,” she countered.

“I do believe in her. But I know Louis’s vice-ridden ways,” he said tightly. He was a thousand times a fool. He should have fled the country with her and never brought her to the King. His duty be damned. Thoughts of racing down to the State apartments after Anne were rioting in his head. How difficult would it be to get past the guards normally stationed in front of the King’s private chambers? How would he get her out of there if he managed to breach the King’s security?

The doors swung open, ensnaring Nicolas’s attention.

Tiersonnier stood at the threshold. “Follow me.” He turned and left.

The Captain of the Guard led them through more State Rooms, down the stairwell, and eventually to the doors leading out to the gardens.

“Are the King and Mademoiselle de Vignon outside?” Nicolas asked.

“No,” was all Tiersonnier offered.

Nicolas wasn’t about to relent. “Will the mademoiselle be escorted to the gardens to where her family is waiting?” He needed answers. He was about ready to jump out of his skin.

“If that is what His Majesty chooses.” Tiersonnier was a large, imposing man, only a few years older than Nicolas and beyond irritating.

“Do you have any idea how long her family will have to wait out in the gardens before His Majesty ‘chooses’?”

Eyes narrowed, Tiersonnier stepped in close, a gesture meant to intimidate, knowing he had a deterring effect on the men in the Guard. But Nicolas was neither deterred nor intimidated. He glared back, wanting nothing more than to deliver his fist against the man’s arrogant jaw.

“Savignac, you’d do well to remember not to question your superiors. You’ll wait in the gardens as ordered by the King until you are told otherwise.”

“Of course, Captain,” Thomas said, yanking Nicolas away and shoving him out the door.

Outside in the gardens, the noise from the throng abraded Nicolas’s jangled nerves. He tried to maintain his composure, but he couldn’t stop thinking, as his eyes scanned the windows on the upper floor—where the King’s private apartments were located. Anne was alone up there, with their lascivious monarch.

Was the King striking a bargain with her? Her freedom for a fuck? Worse still, what if Louis asked her to be his next mistress? Versailles would become her gilded prison. And until the King lost interest, she’d be lost to Nicolas.

“Forget about it, Nicolas,” Thomas murmured in his ear. “You can’t go back in there.”

“Anne!” Camille gasped.

Nicolas snapped his head around, searching the crowd, his heart suddenly pounding in his throat. He caught sight of her brilliant red hair as she maneuvered through the throng.

She was alone. Her expression was unreadable.

Forcing his legs to eat up the distance between them, he grabbed her by the shoulders the moment he reached her. “What happened?”

Her sisters, Thomas, and the Comtesse grouped around her, insulating her from the scores of people around them.

“It seems that the King is about as fond of the male aristocracy as Leduc is,” Anne said, sotto voce.

“What do you mean?” Henriette asked.

“He told me that he
enjoyed
the stories. He wanted to know the author behind them.”

Camille placed her hand on Anne’s arm.
“Enjoyed?
He really said that?”

Anne nodded. “He has a great dislike for many of the men I depicted in the pen portraits and found the volumes amusing. He confided that since the Fronde, he hasn’t had much regard for the men in the upper class. And he liked it that Leduc turned out to be both a woman and French.”

The Comtesse let out a laugh. “
Ah,
the Fronde, of course! Louis was still a boy, not yet old enough to rule, when his cousin and many noblemen rose up against him, almost dethroning him. It happened before any of you were born. It was a horrible uprising against the Crown. In fact, he and his mother had to flee Paris in the middle of the night and live in exile until the country could be brought back to order.”

“Well, he’s not forgotten the ordeal, I can assure you,” Anne said. “It has colored the way he looks at men of power.”

“What does this mean?” Nicolas asked. “Are you free to go?”

A beautiful radiant smile formed on her lips. “Yes. But I am forbidden to write any more stories by Leduc. He gave me praise and a warning.”

Nicolas let out a whoop of joy and pulled her into his arms. He didn’t care who was watching. He just wanted to hold her, the tension and fear draining from his body.

Then a thought struck him.

He pulled her away. “Excuse us,” he told the others, clasped her hand and strode off, stopping several feet away from their group and the crowd. Holding her by the shoulders, he asked, “Did the King try to . . . Did he . . . proposition you?”

She lifted a brow. “Oh. Yes. He did.” Her tone was flippant.

“
And?
”

A smile twitched on her lips. “I’m not going to be the next royal mistress, Nicolas—if I get a better offer, that is.” Mischief twinkled in her eyes. She was clearly enjoying herself at his expense.

He pulled her to him and dipped his head, her smile contagious. “You’re being very naughty, Anne,” he murmured in her ear, his cock swelling between them. “Perhaps I’ll take you home and tie you to my bed and keep you bound for my pleasure. That way there can be no other man.”

“Perhaps the only offer I’ll accept is having you tied to my bed, bound for my pleasure.”

He laughed. “Anne de Vignon, you are mine. I love you.” He kissed her, enjoying the silky warmth of her mouth.

By the end of the kiss, her cheeks were a pretty pink, a small sign that she was already heated from their short exchange. “I love you, too. With all my heart. And I’m going to help those women somehow, Nicolas.”

He brushed an errant red curl off her cheek. “I know you are, and I fully support it, as long as you stay away from the King.”

She placed her hands on his chest. “I’m also going to write a lot more poetry.”

He grinned. “The world will be enriched by them.”

Anne’s smile grew and she slipped her arms around his waist. “And what are your plans for the future, sir?”

He lowered his head and brushed his lips lightly over the sensitive spot under her ear, enjoying her soft gasp. “I intend to marry one very beautiful redheaded poetess and spend the rest of my days loving her and cherishing her mind, spirit and heart.”

Before you decide that Anne was released too easily, let me assure you this is
exactly
how King Louis XIV would have behaved.

Without a doubt, he was an intimidating figure. But it seemed he had a soft spot for clever women. There were a number of them during his reign that he admired. Whenever he learned that a woman bested any man of the upper class—either with her wit, or her abilities with a sword, (you’ll learn more about that in
Bewitching in Boots
)—he delighted in it. He would have liked our heroine, Anne de Vignon, very much.

The
Fronde
—the civil uprising that started when Louis was only ten years old—scarred
Louis for life.

Incited by power-hungry nobles, they almost dethroned their boy King. They prompted riots in the streets, had the palace stormed—until finally one night young Louis and his mother were forced to flee Paris and live in exile for a while. He never forgot the hardship and fear he and his mother endured during that time. He developed a lifelong dislike and mistrust for the aristocracy. Intent on being absolute ruler, he spent his reign intimidating them. In fact, his distrust was one of the reasons that years later he moved his court out of Paris and built Versailles. He brilliantly kept the upper class under his roof.

And his control.

Seventeenth century France was beyond elegant, and refined—with its theaters and ballets, its salons for the intellectually elite, and of course its extravagant masked balls. I just couldn’t resist bringing to life a little bit of the publishing world of the time—where pen portraits were all the rage.

It was during this same time period that fairy tales were born—thanks to French writer Charles Perrault, creator of
The Tales of Mother Goose,
(and the genre of modern day fairy tales). While attending the very same sorts of salons mentioned in
Little Red Writing
, he went on to write stories that have delighted people for centuries:
Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Bluebeard,
and the ever-popular
Cinderella,
to name a few.

This novella is loosely based on Little Red Riding Hood. I hope you enjoyed Little Red Writing!

Lila

Antechamber
—The sitting room in a lord’s or lady’s private apartments (chambers).

Caleçons
—Drawers/underwear.

Chambers
—Another word for private apartments. A lord’s or lady’s chambers consisted of a bedroom, a sitting room, a bathroom, and a
cabinet
(office). Some chambers were bigger and more elaborate than others. Some cabinets were so large, they were used for private meetings.