Threads of Silk (37 page)

“If you had not been close to the cardinal and willing to alert me, Antoine may have been murdered.” He walked over to where Andelot sat. “Now, again, you must play the spy. Discover what you can of what the Guises are planning. How often are you called in to serve the cardinal?”

“Now it is every day, which is also unusual. I saw him only this morning. It was then that he told me I would leave for the Guise estate in Lorraine as soon as the colloquy ended.”

“They may have planned for something to occur during the colloquy. But what? Does it concern Jeanne and Antoine?”

“And whatever it is, if I am sent away immediately afterward, I will not be at court to speak of it.”

“Exactement! Are you willing to stay on with Thauvet until the end of the colloquy, to keep alert, and play the spy?”

“I shall keep both the ears and the eyes open. I will convey any news to you posthaste.”

Fabien glanced about. “You should also know that my plans to leave for London are even now developing with Nappier and the privateers. The details are not all in place yet, but our general plan is sound. We will escape sometime near the end or after the colloquy as the opportunity presents itself. Julot is my messenger with Nappier. For caution’s sake the
Reprisal
weighed anchor and left Normandy after Maurice announced its whereabouts at Amboise.”

“Ah, Marquis, I remember that terrible hour — I wanted to clout him!

I have heard he has left Fontainebleau for Beauvilliers. I am most surprised he seems to have surrendered his pride.”

“The
Reprisal
will be anchoring at La Rochelle,” Fabien told him. “If we separate for one reason or another, mon ami, you will know where to locate the ship. Unless you wish to go to Lyon and cross the border into Geneva? Pasteur Bertrand has told me he will depart after the colloquy for the Château de Silk with the Calvin ministers and then cross into Geneva. You may wish to travel with him and the ministers.”

“Perhaps yes, Marquis, but you see, for several months now I have been corresponding with an acquaintance in the London area and would wish to visit for a time.”

Fabien turned to look at him while Andelot avoided his gaze. Fabien thought he knew who that acquaintance might be.

They walked to their horses and mounted for the leisurely ride back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING,
as she and Nenette worked tirelessly on the last of the three gowns for Princesse Marguerite, and her meetings with Henry of Navarre drew closer, Rachelle waited in anticipation for her family’s arrival from the Château de Silk in Lyon. In Madame Clair’s most recent lettre from the château, she confirmed to Rachelle that they would be staying with the duchesse at the Dushane château in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

She also wrote that Idelette had given birth to a healthy boy and was living in London with Madeleine and Comte Sebastien. “And your sister Madeleine’s daughter, Joan, is healthy and growing. I thank God for my grandchildren. They are the most beau in all the world.”

Rachelle smiled, but then her amusement faded and she bit her lip over a disquieting thought. She was not wishing for pregnancy at this dangerous time when she would need all good strength for flight, but as the planning of their escape drew on, she was beginning to wonder about her own health.

After nearly than a year of marriage, it seemed that she should have become enceinte by now. She tried to shrug off the tiny fear growing at the back of her mind.
What if I am barren?
The thought brought cold fear
. What if I never give the house of Bourbon a son through Fabien’s
line?

Rachelle kept this emerging fear to herself and never spoke of it to Fabien, and though she rejoiced at the news of the healthy birth of Idelette’s baby, she became tense and sometimes cross, blaming her ill mood on the many long hours of work demanded by Marguerite’s gowns.

Unlike the gowns she had made Marguerite in the past, which had won praise, the princesse utterly hated these gowns. She took the peach silk and threw it on the floor. “I swear I will not wear such a drab and dull gown.”

Rachelle, feeling a headache coming on, complained to Fabien as she came home to the appartement weary and hurt.

“She threw the gown on the floor. All of my painstaking efforts! Why then must I waste further time in sewing the third gown?”

Fabien took her in his arms. “You know Margo. She can behave like a child at times. This rejection has nothing to do with you or your talent, chérie. I suspect her dislike is because the Queen Mother insisted on the design and colors. She has no interest, as you know, in Navarre. As for you, your fame is known far and near. A hundred élégante ladies would give much to have la belle couturière Rachelle designing their fine gowns. Remember Queen Elizabeth?”

Rachelle brightened. Yes, the Queen of England had been delighted with the gown she and James Hudson had made for her. “Tell me again her reaction when you saw her take the gown.”

“Ah, her sweet eyes brightened, and she broke into a tender smile.” Fabien’s tone exaggerated with passion. He squeezed Rachelle and kissed her lips. “Then she nearly swooned. Just as I nearly swoon each time your delectable lips touch mine.”

“Tell me more.” She smiled.

“About the English queen, or how your beauty turns me to melted wax?”

“About how my work with the needle thrills the Queen of England,” she said, just as disingenuously.

“The queen even inquired of Hudson whether or not you would come to London and become her couturière.”

Rachelle sighed as she laid her cheek against Fabien’s chest and imagined the scene.

“I wish I could have been there to see it.”

“So do I. I would not have needed to return to France to claim you.

But you will yet be there one day. And you may yet attend the whims of the Queen of England and her wardrobe.”

He grew serious and lifted her chin until their gazes met. “The plans of escape are all in play now. I have informed Bertrand. The final details, however, will await the last hour.”

She held to him tightly. “May God grant that nothing goes wrong.”

The day drew close when Rachelle could sit with her beloved mother and enjoy a long talk. Rachelle knew some of what had happened from the letters received since her parents had arrived at home at the Château de Silk. Both sisters had also written Rachelle after their safe arrival in England. However, only her mother had written that the silkworm experiment of Rachelle’s father near London had failed. Rachelle knew few details, but Fabien had seemed to think the silkworms had died of a disease for which there was no known cure.

What all this would mean for Arnaut’s wish to start a silk plantation in England, Rachelle did not know. She missed the sunny days in Lyon and wished for a visit home to the Château de Silk. Would she ever see it again?

As September neared, the hopes of the Huguenots were mounting that the regent Queen Mother and Charles would grant them a certain freedom to conduct Protestant worship services in various locations outside of the French towns and villages. Rachelle could not imagine Cardinal de Lorraine permitting this worship activity without ramifications, no matter how many petitions were accepted or edicts signed. She was sure the house of Guise, though quiet at the present, was busy planning traps for the Huguenot leaders, perhaps even their murder.

On a day not long after Marguarite had thrown the peach gown to the floor in disgust, Rachelle was in the atelier adding the finishing touch of embroidered silk rosebuds to the bodice of Marguerite’s third gown using Grandmère’s special needles, gold thimble, and chatelaine.

What would Grandmère think if she were here now, knowing the family couturières were leaving France for London to carry on the family work? Rachelle did not think she would be pleased at the loss. The Château de Silk should continue, and while there was no word from her parents that they expected to leave it any time soon and return to England, Rachelle worried over its future.

It will never be the same again
. The four women of the Dushane- Macquinet calling were going their separate ways. She looked at Grandmère’s needle and thimble. Will another generation of sons and daughters return to Lyon to the château and carry on? Or would this branch of the family merge with the English line? If so, what then?

As for her own future, Fabien had made no clear decision to remain in England even if they eventually took solace there for a time of safety. He had mentioned this to Bertrand when discussing Admiral Coligny’s old plan for a Florida colony, which had been postponed indefinitely.

“Someday,” Fabien had said, “I would like to see Florida and the Caribbean.”

Now, as Rachelle tacked on the final rosebud on Marguerite’s gown and mulled over these divergent thoughts, she wondered what the gracious Lord had planned for them all in the years ahead. Would they be together as a large family?

No matter what happens I must not fail to safeguard what Grandmère
has entrusted to me.

She was blessed to be a recipient of old family trade secrets. The work they had such affection and passion for would continue as long as she and Idelette pursued it and passed on what they knew to the next generation of silk growers, weavers, designers, and grisettes.

She held the gold thimble in her hand as the bridge to the future.

I may have the honneur of being a member of the royal Bourbon family,
but I am a Macquinet daughter of silk, and I will continue to be one
wherever the Lord may take me.

Nenette came running in, her eyes bright and a flush of excitement on her cheeks. Her red curls appeared to quiver.

“Bonne news, Mademoiselle Rachelle! Pasteur Bertrand sent me to tell you the family has arrived. Monsieur and Madame Macquinet are here.”

Rachelle was quickly on her feet, joy enlarging her heart.

She left the atelier and rushed into the salle. Her father and mother stood waiting with Bertrand.

“Daughter Rachelle,” her parents echoed. They came to meet her as Rachelle uttered a cry of delight and laughter and tried to embrace them both at once.

“You are looking well, ma chère,” Madame Clair said. “Marriage has done you well.”

“I am most happy, Mother — it could not be otherwise being married to Fabien. Happy, that is, except for my invisible chains, a ‘marriage gift’ from the Queen Mother.”

Madame Clair’s expression changed, but she was always so self-possessed that even when she was worried or ill, she could mask it with a certain poise that made her seem to Rachelle a pillar of beauty and strength. She remembered her mother’s courage during the tragic horrors of Avril’s death and Idelette’s trial. Her hand squeezed Rachelle’s arm with tender motherly love. “Surely the Lord will come to our aid in due season if we continue in prayer and trust His grace. Your father has been making plans with the marquis.”

“Is it safe to discuss such matters here?” Arnaut looked about the walls meaningfully.

“Fabien is assured.”

“And where is our new son-in-law? The buccaneer?” Arnaut gave a wink at Rachelle.

“Arnaut.” Clair shook her head forbearingly as Pasteur Bertrand gave a dry chuckle.

“I dare to wonder what my Geneva colleagues would think of me if they knew I had sailed as his chaplain to sink the Duke of Alva’s galleon.”

Arnaut threw back his head and laughed, and Madame Clair put a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes.

Rachelle said, “Fabien is in a council meeting with King Charles and the Queen Mother. He was given Sebastien’s seat at the table.”

“A position he finds distasteful,” Bertrand added. “I have sent Philippe to let him know you both are here.”