Rebel Rose, page 14
“I suppose it’s not the worst idea,” admitted Bastien.
“Thank you for your ringing endorsement.”
He ignored the sarcasm. “All in favor of opening the castle to petitioners once a week?”
“Twice a week,” she corrected.
He pressed his lips together but conceded. “All in favor of opening the castle to petitioners twice a week?” The men around the table raised their hands as though they were made of lead, but Belle had her consensus. Bastien banged on the table. “It is done.” He looked over to Belle. “I’ll see to the arrangements. I hope you’re ready to take on all the mundane ills of the kingdom.”
She smiled serenely. “If I can help, I’d like to.”
The duc looked back to the advisers. “I think that’s enough for today.”
The men rose, but Belle wasn’t done yet. “I expect to be informed of all future meetings. It’s what the king wanted, after all.”
“Of course, madame,” said Gamaches, bowing stiffly. They began to shuffle out, and Belle imagined a future where the decisions made for the good of Aveyon had nothing to do with old rich men.
She stopped Bastien from leaving with a light touch on his arm. “You’ve been missed at meals,” she lied, knowing that Mrs. Potts, Lumière, Cogsworth, and the rest of her friends didn’t mind the duc’s absence at all.
Bastien squirmed a bit out of reach. “Yes, I’ve taken to dining in my room—”
“Join us in the dining room tonight. It does you no good to be shut up in your chambers.” She made it clear it wasn’t a request, but used a tone that made the demand come across lightly.
He nodded. “I will.”
In truth, Belle didn’t care if Bastien dined with them or didn’t. She found his company to be grating at best. She had never quite trusted Bastien, and now that he was excluding her from meetings, she had reason not to. She wasn’t sure she bought his explanation that he was trying to save her from something tedious, but then, she had no reason to suspect his motives were more sinister. Still, she wanted to be prepared for all possibilities. Her insistence that he join them for dinner had little to do with any desire to be near the duc and everything to do with wanting to keep an eye on him until Lio returned.
Belle would never admit it, but she was beginning to think Bastien might have been right about the mundane ills of the kingdom.
In the two times she had received petitioners, she had not come away from either session with a clear idea of what Aveyon’s commoners were thinking. There had been the baker who complained about her rival in business setting up shop next door to her out of spite. Belle wasn’t sure how to explain that she couldn’t simply tell the other baker to vacate his legally occupied premises, as the petitioner seemed to wish she would.
Then there was the droguiste whose complaint boiled down to not being able to find a satisfactory amount of live snails for vulnerary applications, and Belle had to explain that she didn’t think it was within her power or abilities to increase Aveyon’s population of snails.
Not to mention the washerwoman who had used her petition time to simply gossip about the various scandals going on at her place of employment, of which there were many more than Belle had thought possible for a laundry. Mercifully, the woman didn’t seem to require an answer or solution from Belle and was content to simply say her piece and leave.
Most petitions were of a similar ilk, and despite her earlier desire to hear from everyone who would petition her, Belle was coming close to suggesting a sort of vetting process, if only to weed out the truly actionable problems from the petty complaints.
Bastien, present for all petitioners, would look to Belle and shrug, or smirk knowingly, or laugh under his breath when she struggled to find a response for those who brought their problems to her. She had thought Aveyon’s commoners would be lining up to tell her in great detail what was wrong with the kingdom and what they believed would help. She had not expected to come away more confused than ever.
After her third session was again filled with interpersonal conflict, petty disputes, and neighbors informing on their neighbors over the smallest infractions, Belle was beginning to suspect she was being had. Word had gone out in the villages and shires of Aveyon that she was receiving petitioners in the castle, surely any number of the people who had protested in Livrade, Foy, and Plesance would have had the opportunity to bring their grievances directly to her by then. Bastien’s repeated reminders that Belle had asked for this and she should be grateful that so many of her people had answered her call for petitions were not helping. Something wasn’t sitting right.
She hatched a plan and bribed Lumière into calling Bastien from the throne room to attend to a very important, very imaginary matter. Belle was listening to a young girl who claimed her neighbor was stealing herbs from her garden in the dead of night. When she paused to catch her breath, Belle jumped in.
“What is your neighbor’s name?”
The girl faltered. “Her name?” Belle only smiled so as not to intimidate the girl further. After a long moment, she spoke again. “Emilde.”
Belle shifted in her seat as though wrestling with a decision. “I’d say the only solution is to bring Emilde in and figure out a way forward together.” The girl blanched. “That is, of course, if you’re willing.”
“Madame, that is a most generous offer, but I think I’ve overblown the situation.” She curtsied and everything about her posture begged for dismissal.
“I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to know that there is no wrong answer, nor will you be in trouble in any way based on your reply.” The girl looked like she wished she would melt into the floor, but she nodded. “Is your quarrel with Emilde real?”
“Real, madame?” The girl fidgeted with her skirts.
Belle tried to give off a sense of calm. “By that I mean”—she leaned closer and spoke softly—“is Emilde real?”
The girl looked to where Bastien had been sitting until only moments before. When she confirmed that he was still away from the room, she looked back at Belle and shook her head ever so lightly. Belle felt she had enough to go in for the kill, but she restrained herself.
“Did someone tell you to come here today?” The girl nodded. “Did someone tell you to fabricate a story to present to me?”
“He—he offered me twelve livres to come here.”
“Who?” Belle didn’t want to goad her into answering. She knew if she was going to get her facts in order, the girl would have to tell her voluntarily.
The girl looked down at her hands twisting together. “Madame, I cannot. I swore not to tell.”
Belle nodded, trying her best not to appear annoyed by the girl’s reluctance to identify the man. She rose from her chair and stepped closer to the girl. “If you hadn’t been told to come here, would you have known about my taking petitioners?”
The girl shook her head. “No, madame.”
“No announcement has been made about it?”
She swallowed. “None that I have seen or heard.” Footsteps echoed in the hall beyond them, and the girl paled. “Please do not say anything, madame. My family needs the money.”
Despite the rage coursing through her, Belle held up her hand to stop her. “I won’t. I promise.” The fact that the girl was more afraid of Bastien than she was of lying to the wife of the king of Aveyon spoke volumes. Belle’s blood was boiling as the doors to the room opened once more and Bastien strolled back inside, giving the two girls a curious look.
“Thank you,” Belle whispered. “For telling me the truth.” She pressed another twelve-livre coin in the girl’s hand, hoping she understood the need for discretion. The girl bobbed in an uneven curtsy and left.
Bastien came to stand beside her, watching the girl leave the room. “Everything all right?” he asked.
Belle sighed. “Just another mundane complaint that has almost nothing to do with the kingdom at large.”
He gave her a sympathetic smile. “What did I tell you?”
“You were right,” she agreed, making a show of it.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Belle. You’re doing your best.”
He walked back over to where he sat during the petitions, and Belle bit her tongue. She couldn’t be positive that it was Bastien who had put the petitioners up to lying to her. There was a chance it was another adviser, like Baron Gamaches or Seigneur Geoffroy, working diligently to undermine her. But despite how much she knew they disliked her, she didn’t think they had it in them to make a move so overtly against her.
Either way, it was baffling. More work would have gone into finding commoners willing to lie to Belle and keep their mouths shut about it than simply announcing that she was taking petitioners. But there was something Bastien, or someone else, didn’t want her to know, didn’t want the people to tell her. What could it be? She was aware of the protests already, so it didn’t make sense that anyone was trying to shield her from the unhappiness of her people.
She was going to have to be smart about her next move, smarter than the duc de Vincennes, who she suspected had been playing at deception all his life, having learned from the best at the court of Versailles. She knew if she were to confront him right away, he would have some excuse for his actions at the ready, and she wouldn’t be able to decipher his true intent.
The question remained: Now that Belle suspected Bastien was lying to her, what was she going to do about it?
• • •
The pain of missing her husband was Belle’s constant, aching companion.
She did her best to keep busy to avoid losing herself to the yawning void of it, but if she paused long enough, it crept upon her like a chill.
It even rendered her favorite pastime, reading, difficult. Her mind was too idle, sitting in a sun-drenched parlor with only someone else’s words to occupy her. She thought of Lio, alone when they should have been together, and sadness began to pool around her like a rising tide. She stood and tried to shake free of the melancholy, setting out from the room like she was running from something.
The halls were empty, and Belle needed a refuge from her thoughts. She tried to think of happier times with Lio, back before they had left for Paris, when everything seemed simple in the wake of destroying a curse, back before he took the crown, when it had felt like there was nothing that could come between them, and even if something tried, they would have been able to take it on together.
But she hadn’t anticipated that the thing that would come between them was family.
As she walked the empty halls, Belle thought back to Bastien’s desk full of revolutionary pamphlets. She wondered if they came from infiltrating the ranks of the sans-culottes or bourgeoisie on behalf of King Louis, or if perhaps Lio’s cousin had secret revolutionary sympathies. It was hard to know which Bastien was real and which was an artifice. He painted his face and powdered his hair and threw parties infamous for their intemperance, and yet he defended the Third Estate to her.
And if he was a secret revolutionary, then what was he doing so far from Paris? And why was he doing his best to foil Belle’s plans to improve the lives of Aveyon’s commoners?
It didn’t make any sense. She needed more information before she could accuse him or clear him of any wrongdoing.
She wandered all the way to the kitchens and was happy to find Mrs. Potts inside with a sinkful of teatime dishes and soap up to her elbows.
“Do you mind if I dry?” Belle asked.
“Now tell me, why would I mind a bit of help?” Mrs. Potts replied, gesturing for Belle to take a tea towel and get to work on the pile of dripping cutlery. “What’s troubling you? Aside from Lio being gone.”
Belle picked up a fork and got to drying. She trusted Mrs. Potts more than almost anyone in the castle, but she didn’t want to sully the cook’s opinion of Bastien just yet. All Belle knew was that he, or admittedly someone else, was lying to her, which was egregious enough, but she needed more to go on before she pointed fingers. So she went with another thing that was bothering her. “Lio’s advisers refuse to take me seriously. They act as if I am a child, not the wife of their king.”
Mrs. Potts raised her eyebrow. “You’re more than someone’s wife, dearie.”
“You know what I mean.”
She sighed. “I do.” She glanced over at Belle. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but why on earth do you give a damn what those decrepit windbags think about you?”
Belle was so shocked to hear Mrs. Potts curse that she dropped the cup she was holding. She had never heard Mrs. Potts swear before. It was a shock, but a welcome one. “I suppose I don’t care, but they still hold a lot of power here. Everything I do must pass through them first, and they don’t think very highly of my desire to work with commoners.”
“So stop seeking their approval.”
She said it like it was the easiest thing in the world. “Then I’m no better than King Louis.”
“We all know that isn’t true. What I mean is, dear, you’re not a queen, so stop acting like one.”
Belle tried to grasp what she meant and failed.
Mrs. Potts dropped the dish she was scrubbing back into the sink and wiped her hands on her apron. “A queen must answer to everyone: her staff, her advisers, her nobles, her people. Every move she makes is scrutinized, dissected, and judged, because her decisions affect the entire kingdom, yes?”
Belle nodded, still unsure of where Mrs. Potts was going with this argument.
“But you aren’t a queen, nor do you wish to be. Your decisions will not be acted upon as though you are. You are free to associate and learn from who you wish. And you are free to give Lio wise counsel when he returns so that he can be the one to shoulder the responsibility, as he should.”
“So you mean to say that I can do as I please.”
“If Aveyon can’t have you as their queen, being its people’s advocate might be the next best thing.”
Belle smiled but then remembered her promise. “I told Lio I’d stay in the castle.”
“And did you ever really intend to? What Lio doesn’t know won’t hurt him. He was wrong to ask that of you, and I’ll tell him that myself when he returns.” Mrs. Potts plunged her hands back into the soapy water but then paused again. “I’d keep all of this from the duc if I were you. There’s something about him.…”
Belle touched Mrs. Potts’s arm. “I know what you mean.”
They had come to the end of the pile of dirty dishes. “Thank you for your help.”
“Anytime,” Belle replied.
“Now go make yourself useful.”
Belle knew what she meant, and she left the kitchens feeling like she had a great deal more control over her life than she had an hour earlier. Now that she understood that she didn’t need the advisory’s approval for every step she took, they could stop butting heads so much. She would keep her activities and research to herself, and still attend meetings to remain aware of what was going on in the kingdom.
As she walked through the castle, a new plan for how she would gather ideas and research from the regular people was forming in her mind, one that would require a disguise.
She would have to be careful to keep it from Bastien, though. Knowing she wasn’t the only one suspicious of the duc was reassuring. If there was anyone whose instincts Belle trusted even more than her own, it was Mrs. Potts.
• • •
Belle meant to slip from the castle just after the sun went down.
No one knew she was leaving, and she made sure there were no witnesses to her departure. She had feigned illness all day, steadily increasing the severity of her apparent ailment until Cogsworth sent her away from the dining room at dinner, begging that she retire to her chambers until her symptoms abated.
She faked a cough in Bastien’s direction as she left the room, relishing the way he flinched from her.
In her chambers, she undressed quickly and donned her disguise—a simple rough-spun dress not unlike what a maid would wear, and a hooded cloak—and studied herself in the mirror. The outfit had the same effect as her plain gown in Paris. She would blend right into the streets of Aveyon. She would be invisible.
Belle opened the door and looked both ways down the empty hall. She shut it quietly behind her and slowly made her way to the stables, occasionally hiding around corners to avoid seeing anyone.
The stables were dark, but she knew where to find Philippe. She stepped up to his stall and whistled a familiar note to her dear Belgian draft horse. She hadn’t had reason to ride him in months. He whinnied excitedly and pressed his velvet-soft coppery nose to her outstretched hand, searching for the treat he knew she’d brought him.
“Are you ready to go on a small adventure with me?” she whispered into his ear while removing the apple from her pocket and holding it to his mouth. He made a noise that could have been an agreement and made quick work of the snack. She saddled him in the dark, working from memory since she couldn’t quite see what she was doing. Philippe stood patiently still and waited for her to mount him.
Together they left the stables. Philippe seemed to understand the need for secrecy. Belle guided him through the gardens and out to the northernmost edge of the castle grounds, where there was a small breach in the wall no one had gotten around to repairing yet.
“Think you can make the jump?” she asked. Philippe grunted as though the question was an insult. He trotted over and made the jump with ease, earning a gracious scratch around his ears from Belle. “We’re going to the village, Philippe.”
He walked her dutifully down the winding hill and all the way into the village of Mauger, the only one that lay between the castle and Belle’s home village of Plesance. Everyone in Plesance knew who she was, but in Mauger, she could be anyone.
