The Rose Bride (17 page)

He panicked
un petit peu
, and missed another note.

Then Desirée walked onto the balcony alone. She didn’t bring her ladies to giggle and admire him. She came by herself, graceful as a queen. She wore a long white gown cut low in front, and tucked into her bodice was a dark red rose, very much like the ones he had placed in the hands of Lucienne’s effigy, of a dark, heavy night.

He strummed again; she leaned over the balcony and her smile was as luminous as the magical messenger sent to him by the goddess.

“Je t’aime,”
Desirée said over the sweet sounds of his lute.
I love you
.

“How can you?” he asked in a soft voice as he played. “You don’t know me.”

She leaned her hand on the balcony. “But I do. I
feel as if I’ve known you my entire life. I dreamed of you for years. I think the gods were whispering in my ear about the life I was going to have,”

Her voice was Lucienne’s; her smile, Lucienne’s.

“Some say that’s what dreams are,” he said. “The gods whispering their secrets. Do you worship Artemis?” He held his breath, hoping that her answer would add weight to his belief that she was in some way, his old love.

“Of course,” she replied, “but my heart has room for Zeus as well.” She smiled sweetly. “And for you.”

Joy and grief swirled, deep purple and deep pink. Purple and rose.

His fingers trembled against the strings and he plucked another discordant note. It was like a teardrop in the midst of his happiness.

She held out a hand to him and said, “Mon amour, it is late and you must be very tired.”

He smiled up at her. The light behind her head made her glow like the favored of Artemis. He strummed his lute gazing at her, reminding himself that this was another woman, a different one; but when he gazed at her, he saw the princess of the Silver Hills. He saw the future he had imagined with her. Her children.

The nightingales sang as he finished his serenade and went back inside the palace to join his bride.

Across the moon large blackbirds flew and cawed, and the candles on the balcony guttered out.

Accompanied by her herd, Rose stepped from the shadows and stared up at the darkened balcony. She had been drawn by the music of the lute and the man’s deep, wonderful voice.

She knew he was the king. She understood that he had married Desirée because he thought that she was Rose, and that even now they were together in a private garden of love.

What she didn’t understand was why she cared. Why it mattered to her that his black hair curled around his ears, his eyes dark and deep-set, his profile strong and familiar. She reasoned that his appearance drew her because she had seen it on the gold coins her own half brother, Reginer, had given her for her roses.

But the coin did him no justice. She had no idea King Jean-Marc of the Land Beyond was so handsome and bore himself so nobly and she was riveted.

Was this love at first sight?

That cannot be
, she thought.
Love is a rose that grows over time. It is not a burst of lightning
.

Yet she could not deny that she was thunderstruck.

And that the purple roses had been created in an instant and burst into full boom overnight, many times.

Then she saw a large blackbird fly across the moon and she started. Was magic afoot? The voice had told her that Desirée and Ombrine had their own god and they were not defenseless. Desirée wore
a mask—a glamour—and they had convinced the king that she was Rose. Was what she felt for the king—this strong, deep desire—another thread in the spell they had woven?

I
want him
.

The herd called to her to come away, come away and she turned away from the balcony.

She nickered to the others and followed as they led her to the sleeping place the does had arranged for her. She realized that they knew she was different and they were taking care of her. She was grateful to her soul and she vowed that if one day she had the power, she would forbid all deer to be hunted.

Her tiny purple rosebud had been laid on a bed of rushes, and Rose lay down beside it. The bucks and does gathered around her, one facing her, one facing out, making it clear that they would guard her through the night.

“
You are loved,”
the rosebud whispered.

And as she curled up and drifted off, she thought to herself,
Not by him
.

In the morning, Rose gazed sleepily down at her hooves, they didn’t seem as foreign as they had the day before.

She stirred and lifted her head. Then she blinked her long lashes at the purple rosebush that had grown overnight, from the bud to a fist of three blossoms.

“You are loved,”
they whispered.

The other deer gathered around her and showed her how to forage for blackberries and mushrooms, and to drink crystal-clear water from a stream.

Refreshed, she bowed her head in thanks to Artemis.

Jean-Marc
, she thought.
Jean-Marc of the Land Beyond
. That
it is his name. He’s a man. Men kill deer
.

Those were deer thoughts.

They kill each other
.

That was the thought of a young woman who had seen war.

They kill the ones they love
.

She didn’t know where that came from.

He is not like other men
.

Nor that one, and the thought of seeking him out
made her heart beat too fast. She felt woozy and leaned against a mighty oak tree until it slowed down. But it wasn’t fear that made her pulse race. It was something else entirely.

He is nothing to me
.

And yet, as an image of him filled her mind, she raised her head and sniffed the air in search of his scent.

He is danger
.

Her nose found him. The other deer stared at her as if say,
Forget humankind, dear sister. Stay with us
.

Straightening her ears, she trotted among lacy ferns and quivering aspens. The others followed for a time, and then they backed off, wheeling away. Rose gained speed until she was running, and leaped gracefully over a tree stump dotted with lavender and sunflowers. She leaped again, bounding as if her hooves were winged, racing out of the forest with no thought but that he was near.

Danger
.

The part of her that had joined the forest—the part of her that thought like a doe—fought against her eagerness. But her human side overruled and she put on a burst of speed as if he was that harbor she sought.

Stop. Turn back! Stop!

As she broke through the last stand of trees and into the daylight, she realized what she was doing and came to a dead stop. She clopped the earth in confusion as she caught her breath. This was madness.

“Bonjour
, little one,” said a voice. “What a surprise.” Jean-Marc stood perhaps twenty feet away, at the
edge of a long pool. He was dressed in a white doublet embroidered with gold over a white tunic and dark blue leggings. In his right hand he held a purple rose. He was smiling like a lighthearted youth.

At her.

If she hadn’t been so exhausted, she would have run. But as it was, she could only pant as she caught sight of him. He took a step toward her; she danced backward, but only a couple of faltering steps. She smelled a bit of sulfur mingled with the perfume of the rose and she knew he had been with Desirée. She bobbed her head urgently.

Danger
.

“Please, don’t be afraid,” he said. His voice was very deep and pleasing, like the lower strings of a harp. He held out the rose. “Here. I’m sure this is very tasty:”

There was no sulfur on the rose. It was on him. The rose smelled delicious.

She took another step back.

Mild disappointment creased his brow. “Eh,
bien,”
he said, tucking it into his doublet. “I meant it only as a token of thanks to your mistress, queen of the hunt. I assume she lays claim to all deer. Unless, of course, you are her magical emissary. Are you?”

I
know
not
, she thought. I
don’t know why I’m here. Why this has happened to me
.

“I have her to thank,” he continued, “because she herself has brought my wife back to me:”

He looked over his shoulder. Rose chuffed, fearing
that Desirée had accompanied him. But then she saw the spires and domes of the palace in the lavender distance and knew he meant that she was somewhere on the grounds.

“She sleeps,” he said, as if Rose had asked aloud. He cocked his head. “Can you understand me? Do you speak French?”

She blinked at him and pawed the ground.

“Does that mean yes?” He bent over his leg with a flourish like a courtier. “If you serve the goddess, please tell her that I am grateful. She told me not to give up hope. Et
voila.”

She looked hard at him, urging him to continue. She wanted to know what he had been told.

He ran his fingertips over the rose petals. “We haven’t found her stepsister yet. That is the only blot on our joy. Still, the court needs to celebrate:” His smile was gentle. “I as well. I’ve been so long unmarried and now the Rose Bride has bewitched me completely:”

Rose bleated.
It
is
witchery
, she thought.
Know me. See me
.

Then she smelled the other deer nearby and fled the king’s presence.

Jean-Marc announced seven days and seven nights of celebrations and feasting to mark his marriage and his victory over the Pretender. While he met with Monsieur Sabot and the councillors, his bride busied herself with acquiring a proper wardrobe for her new
station in life. Whenever he went to see her, she was draped in fabrics, turning this way on a stool as Reginer’s wife, Claire, and her seamstresses took her measurements and made the patterns. She was beaming with delight and he smiled faintly. He couldn’t remember Lucienne being as interested in clothes, but she was royal by blood as well as by marriage and was used to the life of nobility.

Gold tissue, rose velvet, yards and yards of lace. Ombrine looked on from a gilt chair upholstered in black, scrolls and papers heaped around her dress and sheaves of pages on her lap.

As Jean-Marc watched quietly from the doorway, Desirée-as-Rose gazed at herself in the mirror, pushing back her blond hair just as he had done the night before.

“Give me that one,” Desirée said to Claire, pointing to a bolt of yellow satin. Claire was kneeling beside the lady with a pin in her mouth. She held a piece of vellum and a quill dipped in ink. She was making a dress pattern.

“Yellow? I think not,
madame,”
Claire said, shaking her head as one of her assistants picked up the bolt. “It will make you look sallow:’ She brightened. “I purchased a dress some time ago from a countess. It’s such a lovely shade of—”

Desirée stared at her as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “Are you disobeying me?”

“Rose,” Ombrine remonstrated.

“I want the yellow,” Desirée insisted. She held out
her hand. “I had a closet full of yellow gowns before the fire. Give it to me.
Now.”

Claire Marchand—who, after all, was the lady’s sister by marriage—jerked as if she had been slapped. “I only thought that—”

Desirée turned her gaze from Claire to Jean-Marc, noticing him for the first time. Color blossomed in her cheeks.

“M’excusez,”
she murmured to Claire. “I’m a little tense. So much has happened:’ Her lower lip trembled and she bent down, taking the quill from Claire and fidgeting with it.

“She’s so worried about her sister,” Ombrine said in a half whisper. She turned and saw Jean-Marc. Immediately she leaped to her feet and swept a curtsy. All her lists and papers tumbled off her lap. “Your Highness. I didn’t see you there:”

Claire and her helpers scrambled to their feet as well, while Desirée curtsied atop the stool. He made a courtly bow in return.

“Bonjour, mesdames,”
he said. “What is it that you’re so busy with?” he politely asked Ombrine.

“I’m taking an inventory of the household, sir.” She frowned at his raised eyebrows. “Ought I not? It was the way my husband trained me. I am showing Her Majesty how it’s done:”