The Chevalier (Châteaux and Shadows) (11 page)

“I’m not entirely at your mother’s mercy, Monsieur de Cantière.”

He looked her in the eye, finally. “I’m glad, Mademoiselle.”

“I can sell Flamme. I know others who might want a gentle mare with spirit.” It would tear out her heart. Maybe she could ride the little horse for the summer.

Chapter Five

With his whole heart, Emmanuel wished his trunk had arrived either an hour earlier or much, much later.

As it was, his clothing arrived just before his mother and Mademoiselle de Fouet left for the evening entertainment. The baronesse said it was some variation on Molière’s
Le Misanthrope
. Manu found it perfectly fitting, as he was feeling rather misanthropic. His mother insisted he join them as quickly as possible.

He had already sponged himself down as best he could and put on his one clean shirt, even though his mother told him he still stank of horse. When the trunk came, all he had to do was put on his very best coat, breeches, stockings, and the high-heeled shoes—the ones he hadn’t worn since buying them in Poitiers a year before, at the urging of his sister—and make his graceful, mincing way to the assembly rooms. It was more like his stumbling, clunking way. His best boots had a slight heel, but nothing like this. The footmen hid their amusement poorly until he grimaced comically at them, at which point they smiled in something closer to sympathy. Luckily, he didn’t encounter many nobles until he more or less had the hang of it. Still, a half mile or so down reeking staircases and through corridors—he got lost twice—and his legs and feet were cramping.

He arrived at the door to the assembly rooms and a hot breeze laden with every perfume and every sort of body odor imaginable swept across him. His stomach contracted. His stables—which he insisted be kept quite clean but were still stables—smelled better. He wrinkled his nose, then paused and scanned the backs of the heads of the nobility. He didn’t immediately see his mother’s wig or Mademoiselle de Fouet’s dark hair, but then, there were two or three hundred people crammed into the room, watching actors dance around on a low platform.

Was this a
Misanthrope
ballet? Manu barely kept himself from snorting derisively.

A footman glared at him and told him to wait for the end of the scene before going in. Since many of the nobles were carrying on conversations—some not even in whispers—Manu didn’t see it as fair, but the footman had more experience than he in court etiquette, so he obeyed.

During the smattering of applause after a particularly awkward scene, the footman nodded and Manu slipped into the room, walking as silently as he could. He remembered to pose when he stopped to glance around, then eased sideways behind some seated ladies. He nodded to the gentlemen who stood at the back, waving handkerchiefs and holding their hats under their arms as they posed gracefully with their walking sticks. Manu had forgotten his hat entirely, he suddenly realized. And his court sword, which was rather plain when compared to the ones he saw at other gentlemen’s hips. It was too late to go back, so he bowed to one gentleman who looked vaguely familiar and tiptoed so very, very slowly that surely the actors would not notice he was moving.

He was nearly halfway around the room and sweating profusely when he spotted his mother’s pinched profile when she turned her head to the lady next to her. He saw Mademoiselle de Fouet seated behind his mother’s high hat, leaning from side to side to see the actors. A ripple of laughter went through the front rows of the crowd, the ones who might conceivably be paying attention and able to hear the dialogue. Manu drew in a sharp breath when Mademoiselle de Fouet looked at the gentleman to her right and smiled demurely. He took a moment to study her graceful neck with just a few curls bouncing against it. She said something to the gentleman, and Manu had an irrational rush of jealousy. The man turned and revealed himself as an ancient, longtime friend of the baronesse’s, who frowned at Mademoiselle de Fouet and turned sharply back to the actors. The Comte of…something. D’Yquelon, maybe. One of his mother’s particularly pious friends. His son was the worst hypocrite of Manu’s acquaintance, giving lip service to piety but leading a debauched life. Manu glanced around and wondered how many more hypocrites were around him.

“Psssst!” Someone hissed behind him and he looked over his shoulder. Some gentlemen about his age standing against the wall waved him out of the way. Ah. There was d’Yquelon’s son across the room. Manu nodded, but the man didn’t appear to see him, which was fine, since Manu remembered he didn’t like the man. Manu looked around for d’Yquelon’s godson, Lucas de Granville, whom he did like, as he slipped toward the wall to find an empty spot between glittering coats and puffed, beribboned sleeves which nearly steamed from the heat. He regretted not paying for gold braid on his dark red coat. He blended all too well into the burgundy curtains.

Still, he watched the back of Mademoiselle de Fouet’s head as he shifted from one foot to the other to alleviate the discomfort, wishing his handkerchief were at the very least embroidered instead of plain, brownish linen. He fanned himself with it anyway, trying to copy the other gentlemen’s elegant wrist movements. Every now and then someone in the cluster of young men would stare at him before turning back to his friends.

Finally, the play was over, and Emmanuel hadn’t heard more than the shouted parts. His shirt was stuck to him, his face red, his nicest coat smelled like his armpits, and his feet were swollen. He wondered why anyone would do this evening after evening when they could be riding. Or strolling in the gardens. Or making love.

His gaze went to Mademoiselle de Fouet, and he pushed away from the wall and tromped toward her as directly as he could through the buffeting crowd. At last he arrived next to her just as some older gentleman was helping the baronesse to her feet. She swayed slightly, and Manu was distracted from Mademoiselle de Fouet long enough to hold out a hand to steady his mother, who didn’t thank him. But it was also just long enough for the decrepit man next to Mademoiselle de Fouet to hold his elbow out to her and Manu to miss his chance.

“What took you so long?” His mother’s voice carried rather too well as the people around them turned to see who was receiving the latest tongue-lashing.

“I was in the back and didn’t want to interrupt the performance.” Not that he had seen or heard much at all. Or cared.

His mother introduced him around. Or rather, she supposed he already knew everyone, though it had been years since he had seen them. It was Mademoiselle de Fouet who came to his side and reminded him of names and steered him toward one person after another. He felt great relief at finding himself face to face with Lucas de Granville. He had been raised by his godfather, the Comte d’Yquelon, and was pious but not hypocritical as far as Manu knew. He didn’t behave badly in private, unlike d’Yquelon’s son. Of course, de Granville could have changed since they had last seen each other some three years before. Manu felt awkward, but de Granville seemed sincere in hoping to speak with him again soon.

Mademoiselle de Fouet stuck to his side as most of the crowd cleared away.

He sighed loudly. “I’m exhausted.”

Mademoiselle de Fouet chuckled slightly. Manu’s heart leapt.

His mother, though, raised one eyebrow and glared. One of the old men chortled. “You young men don’t know the meaning.”

“I think the travel and excitement would have been enough,” said Mademoiselle de Fouet in a syrupy voice, “but the carriage accident was certainly
de trop
.”

“Carriage accident?” one sharp-eyed lady asked. “Were you driving, young sir?”

“Ah, no. It was my father’s carriage and his coachman. The road was wide enough to get around the farmer’s cart, but a wheel slipped in the mud.”

His mother wore a gleeful look. “Was it Charlot? The baron really will have to sack him this time.”

Manu bristled. “I feel responsible. It was too muddy and too narrow. I should have told the farmer to back up farther instead of trusting the space was wide enough.”

A few of the cronies sneered, and his mother laughed.

Mademoiselle de Fouet squeezed his arm. “The coach only needs an axle, and we weren’t much delayed. There were no extra horses, so Monsieur Emmanuel took me up behind him on his horse.”

Manu glanced at her, surprised she hadn’t yet told the baronesse. He wasn’t some sort of hero. “We were only two leagues from here.”

The men began to debate the spot where they had crashed, asking the name of the nearby villages and declaring that stretch hazardous. Mademoiselle de Fouet tugged at Manu’s arm and whispered, “The baronesse holds a grudge against Charlot the coach driver.”

“What for?”

She shrugged delicately, drawing his eyes to the pearly brooch tucked right against her cleavage, and he wished her neckline were lower. “He refused to do her bidding back when he was a groom, apparently. The baron forbade her to leave, so Charlot wouldn’t hitch up the horses.”

Manu looked at her in confusion. “When was this?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She looked truly sorry not to be able to tell him the circumstances.

“Remember, De Forges?” The Comte d’Yquelon, who had sat next to Mademoiselle de Fouet during the performance, chuckled. “De la Brosse said the baby was too puny still. Wanted him coddled a bit more, eh?”

The baronesse pointedly ignored them. Emmanuel looked at her with confusion as her friends laughed at her. Unkind friends. Were they talking about him?

De Forges sneered. “She came up to court without him, spitting fire.”

Mademoiselle de Fouet squeezed his arm again, then leaned against him and began to speak of how cool it would be in the gardens. Soon, the group was weighing the benefits of a bit of cool air against the dangers of night breezes.

Emmanuel looked down at his companion. “I think your cheeks look pale in this heat, Mademoiselle. Maybe we should risk a moment of night air before we return to my mother’s apartments?”

She stood up straighter and narrowed her eyes at him.

He narrowed his eyes, too. “Just tell me if it’s simply not done. I want some air and thought you might want some, too. But if you don’t, tell me.”

He realized he had spoken too loudly when one of his mother’s friends chuckled.

“She’s not likely to contradict you, Monsieur Emmanuel,” said a lady whom Manu remembered from when he was little, who had been kinder to him than most. “She was my companion before she was your mother’s and never once corrected me, even when I could have used it.”

He glanced at Mademoiselle de Fouet, the young lady who had contradicted him over and over. She looked away. “Would you accompany us, Madame Philinte? Just outside the doors for a moment to get a breath of cool air. Not so far as to risk getting your shoes dirty.” And certainly not caked in mud as he and Mademoiselle de Fouet had been earlier.

He led them, one on each arm, so supremely self-conscious of stepping in the right way he was hardly watching where they were going. The terrace doors were open, so he stuck his head out and looked around before leading them. Which was probably the wrong thing to do, as it made him look nervous, but he wasn’t about to lead ladies into an ambush. He wished he had his sword. Though what sort of ambush might be there, he didn’t know, since there were Swiss Guards in the shadows and Mousquetaires riding by on their black horses. He thought briefly of establishing a line of black horses just to curry favor with the Mousquetaires.

Perhaps he had retained the family wariness, since his brother-in-law Dominique had been shot with the bolt from a crossbow when shooting at targets in the grounds of Versailles. The training at Dom’s château-fort was old-fashioned, not only because they taught students to fight with broadswords and fencing foils, like gentlemen, but because they trained guards—probably even some of these Mousquetaires—to be ever-vigilant in protecting others from every possible threat.

Manu couldn’t see past the torches ringing the fountain in the center of the terrace, but the area was clear to the top of the stairs on either side. There were a few nobles idling around, seeing and being seen, but mostly chatting and flitting their handkerchiefs and fans.

He wanted nothing more than to take off his heavy coat and waistcoat, maybe even his shirt. He yanked at his cravat and loosened it slightly, then turned his face toward an erratic breeze and was glad he wore neither wig nor hat. He sighed and closed his eyes.

After a minute, he realized the two ladies were silent. He turned to where they were looking at him expectantly. He felt stupid again. “What do you want me to do? Suggest a topic? Take you for a walk in the dark?”

Mademoiselle de Fouet glanced at the older lady, who smiled at him. “Maybe just a little turn around the terrace, dear. And you can tell me more about your carriage accident.”

“I can hardly believe Mademoiselle de Fouet didn’t tell you everything already. She was inside when it slid. We lifted her out before hauling the carriage back onto the road, which is when the axle broke. My father’s going to shout.” He cringed at the thought.

Mme Philinte looked worried. “From what I’ve heard of him, he shouts at everything. Your poor mother.”

Manu stared at Mme Philinte. His father was a cheerful, jovial man, who rarely shouted at anyone. Except, it was true, his estranged wife, but even with her, he tended to speak in a deadly precise murmur, not a shout. Manu had been exaggerating; he was likely to get the deadly murmur as well, and was still worried about his father’s anger. As the truth burned inside him, Manu bit his tongue rather than defend his father to people who were set against him.

The silence weighed heavily, but because of it Manu heard the group of men coming up the stairs from the lower garden. He swung around and saw them just as they reached the top. It was the group of young men he had stood near during the play. The one in front looked Manu over, found him lacking, and swaggered to them, the others trailing behind.

He swept his hat from his head and bowed gracefully to Madame Philinte. “How are you this beautiful evening, Grand-mère?”