To Dance With Kings, page 37
Marguerite pressed her hands together in her sadness and let them rise and fall distractedly. Worse and worse. “Maybe I should send you to Florence. There you would be out of harm’s way from the king and everyone else. Even though Laurent is ill he shows more wisdom than any of us.”
Jasmin’s expression softened and she came to stoop by the sofa and look into her mother’s face. “Do you think Louis wouldn’t send for me at once? How could you or my father or I go against the wishes of the king of France?”
A shuddering sigh racked Marguerite’s whole frame. What Jasmin had said was true. “Then let us at least try to remove all anxiety about you from your father’s mind. When he has recovered some strength he will be better able to accept what you have told me.”
Although Marguerite prepared Laurent for some reassuring information from his daughter and he did hear Jasmin’s assurance that Fernand would never again be part of her life, his agitation about her going away started up again immediately afterward, even to the point that tears ran from his eyes and sobs rose in his throat. Marguerite cradled him in her arms.
“Don’t weep any more, my dearest,” she implored, full of tears herself. “Jasmin shall go away. I’ll make arrangements without delay.”
He was immediately comforted, trusting her to keep her word, and as she held his head against her breast she thought this was the first time she had ever lied to him. Her plan was that Jasmin should simply stay out of the bedchamber and away from that part of the château to ensure he had no hint of her continued presence, for ill as he was his brain had not been affected except for this delusion that Jasmin would still be safer far from Versailles. Any possibility of his having heard about the king’s arrangement with Jasmin was ruled out, for she had spoken of it to no one and knew that Louis, reticent in all matters, would not have breathed a word. In fact, her being at Versailles upon his return was to be a fait accompli against any move that the Duc de Bourbon might otherwise have made.
Then on the eve of the day when Jasmin was to go through the masquerade of departure, a letter was delivered from the Duc de Bourbon that lifted away the need of pretense to a certain degree. It was addressed to Laurent. Marguerite, opening it on his behalf even as she was dealing with all other communications that came for him, read that she and Laurent were to present themselves with their daughter, as previously arranged, at the hour of eleven o’clock the following day. The reason was in the single sentence that stated Jasmin should bring all the possessions that she would need with her.
Marguerite let her hand sink with the letter into her lap, feeling herself sag with it. It meant only one thing. As Jasmin had said, Louis would not be thwarted in taking her as his mistress and this was proof that Bourbon had agreed to install her at Versailles in readiness for the royal return. Laurent must have been informed when he had had his audience with Bourbon that day. It gave an explanation at last for the stroke and for his desperation that his daughter should leave the country while there was time. If he had been truly in his right mind he would have realized that Louis, even putting aside all regal powers, would only have had to beckon with his finger for Jasmin to follow her own headstrong way and come running back to him.
“You see!” Jasmin exclaimed excitedly when she was told. “I knew Louis would not be overruled in anything to do with me. He must be returning with the Court late tomorrow afternoon at the usual hour, and by that time I’ll be installed in my own apartment waiting for him.” Then she saw the anguish in her mother’s face and became subdued. “Don’t be sad, I beg you. It may be that through Louis’s love for me I’ll be able in time to do much for France. At Versailles he lives in a crystal bowl, seen by all but never seeing out himself. I’ll change that. I’ll let him know what it means to be a peasant worker living on a pittance just as you showed me. He needs me, Maman. More than he is aware of yet.”
Marguerite’s voice was heavy with sadness. “Have you thought what your fate will be when he tires of you? You’ll be given the choice of marriage with someone else or retirement to a convent.”
“You don’t know Louis as I do. But if what you fear should ever come about I’d spurn both those alternatives and come home to Château Satory. That would always be my haven.”
“Oh, my dear child!” It was a throbbing cry. Marguerite held out her arms and Jasmin flew into them. They hugged each other tightly, coming closer in spirit at that poignant moment than they had ever been. Marguerite, her eyes tightly closed against tears, thought how Château Satory had been her refuge when all else had gone. Leaning back, she took her daughter’s face between her hands and kissed her on both cheeks and then again. “I find no pride in your being chosen for this role and I never will, but you’ve given me hope for your future. Here under this roof you would always be able to find a meaning to life again.”
Jasmin spent the rest of the day deciding what should be taken in traveling boxes to Versailles and what should be left behind. Marguerite could take no part in advising her, for Laurent would not endure her being away from his bedside. Whenever he opened his eyes he wanted to see her there, lifting his good hand for her to hold, his fears soothed immediately by her presence. While he slept for a little she wrote to the Duc de Bourbon, explaining that neither she nor her husband could in these special circumstances attend at Versailles, but their daughter would be there at the appointed time. As she sealed the letter, making the imprint in wax of the Picard crest, she wondered how Berthe would feel about her days of chaperonage being at an end. Jasmin would be taking Josette, her personal maid, with her, a quick, skillful young woman, talented at dressing hair and sewing, who had been appointed on Jasmin’s twelfth natal day when Laurent thought it high time she was treated more as if she were grown up and less like a child. Although Berthe’s status as chaperone had been inviolate, she had been savagely jealous of Josette, seeing her as a usurper, which led to friction, and it would be a relief to have that running battle over at last.
That evening Jasmin sat a long time at her father’s bedside. He believed she was departing for Italy at dawn the next morning and was content that she should be there for their last few hours together. She guessed he doubted whether he would ever see her again and she was thankful that she would not be far away if the day she dreaded should come. Emotion made him more incomprehensible than ever and after several heartrending attempts to talk to her he gave up, sinking deeper into his pillows, his eyes tormented.
“One day we’ll be together again, Papa,” she promised when the hour became too late for her to stay with him any longer. Her tears were running profusely as she kissed him good night and farewell. After she had gone from the room he began to have breathing difficulties, making Marguerite fear that grief would stop his weakened heart, but after she had held him propped in her arms for a little while, the spasm passed and he slept without waking until dawn when he supposed his daughter to be well on the way to his sister-in-law in Florence.
He was sleeping when Marguerite slipped away from the bedchamber to see Jasmin leave in good time for the appointed hour at Versailles, Josette having departed already with the baggage. Jasmin was in full Court dress and to her mother’s eyes had never looked more beautiful. Her gleaming chestnut hair was dressed straight back from her forehead, curled at the sides and arranged in longer locks at the back. Her gown, low-cut with sleeves that reached to the elbows where they burst into frills of fine lace, was of summer-sky blue over one of the new cone-shaped hoops and so thickly embroidered with silver and pearls that it twinkled and shone from waist to ankle and showed the diamond buckles on her satin shoes at every step. Pearl eardrops and a single strand worn high around her pretty neck completed a picture of style and elegance.
“How is Papa now?” she asked anxiously.
Marguerite was quick to reassure her. “Tranquil and at ease in his mind. I’m full of hope that now he will begin to improve, although it will be a long, slow progress.”
“We’ll keep in close touch. When he is well enough to have visitors you must warn them to say no word of my presence at Versailles.”
“Have no fear. Somehow we must keep up our pretense until we are certain that to reveal the truth would not bring on another attack.”
Marguerite had no chance to stand in the doorway and watch Jasmin drive away, for Berthe came at a run to say that the baron had awakened. He had begun to gasp for breath upon failing to find his wife at his bedside.
In spite of Jasmin’s brave appearance there was no gladness in her as every beat of the horses’ hooves took her away from home. She felt it was her rightful place at the present time where she should be helping to nurse her father, even though circumstances had made that impossible. With effort she forced herself to look forward with the reminder that the most powerful duc in the land was being compelled by his sovereign to arrange everything for her comfort at the greatest palace in the world. Soon she would see the grand apartment selected for her and there within a few hours Louis would arrive to take her shyly into his arms. He would be sympathetic about her father, but he would not consider himself to be in any way responsible for what happened, however indirectly. In fact, she did not think he would ever want to be burdened with her troubles. Her task would be to lighten his.
Bejeweled and perfumed, dainty as a doll in her finery, Jasmin was driven through the gilded gates of Versailles on the first stage of the new life ahead of her.
Twelve
FOR THREE DAYS Sabatin de Valverde was kept waiting for his audience with the Duc de Bourbon. His annoyance at the time wasted showed in his expression when he finally entered the Council Chamber. It was to be the most stormy and violent encounter ever known there. Both men lost their tempers and at one point only the damask-draped table between them prevented a furious grappling with each other. Sabatin, well aware that he was dicing with the Bastille itself, was nevertheless unable to restrain his fury.
“The risk of the king taking a fall was minimal!”
“I’m aware of that.”
“So you’re using that minor incident to gain your own ends!” Sabatin’s forbidding, angular face was blazing. “You’ve long wanted to be rid of me at Court.”
“I don’t deny it. Since only you and I are within this chamber I’ll tell you that it’s why I’m taking this action against you!”
“But this sentence you’ve passed on me is insupportable.” Sabatin’s voice was close to a shriek in his wrath.
“I want you as far from the king as possible,” Bourbon ground out between his teeth, his color almost purple. “He shall not be contaminated by lecherous influences all the time it lies in my power to prevent it.”
“Nevertheless you would never have made a move against me if you had not seen the chance of killing two birds with one stone. This wretched female you would thrust onto me is some silly creature who pursued the Marquis de Grange until he could stomach no more of her. I heard it from him myself. You have no right to inflict such unwarranted punishment on me!”
“You dare to speak to me of right!” Bourbon looked as if he might explode. “Watch your words, Valverde. Do you wish to add treasonable utterances to all else marked up against you?”
“A tally kept by you alone!”
“You’re wrong. The whole Council of Ministers is for your removal from Court.”
“Only because you have most surely spoken against me! Has the young woman been similarly condemned or is that a private move on your part?”
“Enough!”
“So I come too close to the truth for you, do I? It would be disastrous if the romanticism in the king’s character should lead him to think along the lines of Louis XIV toward Madame de Maintenon. That would interfere with your plans for his marriage. Damnation!” Sabatin raised his arms and shook his fists in the consuming fury that possessed him. “I will not be a scapegoat to take the threat off your hands!”
“You have no choice! I’ve made my decision!”
It had been said inexorably. Sabatin took a step back under the impact. Gulping, he switched his tone abruptly to an impassioned plea. “If banishment from Court is to be my fate then at least confine me to Paris. Not to my estate. I haven’t been there for years!”
“In Paris you would worm your way back to the king somehow.”
Sabatin’s lips drew back grotesquely over his bad teeth. “How you fear me, Bourbon!” he taunted viciously. “You were able to foresee yourself being supplanted by me as adviser to the king when he begins to reign as he should. Already he is showing signs of asserting himself, of using his own mind as to whom he wishes to have around him. Your days are numbered.”
“I think not. But if by some unlucky chance they should be, the decree I’ve given in this chamber on this day in the king’s name, with the authority of the Council of Ministers, will hold until you draw your last breath. I hearby banish you from the Court forever, and you will depart as soon as your marriage has taken place!”
Sabatin gave a terrible roar as if he were already in his death throes, raising his fists high and crashing them down on the table with a force that would have split asunder anything less well constructed. He looked crazed, his close-set black eyes narrowed, his heavy brows drawn together until the natural peak of his sleek hair seemed almost to touch them. Bourbon, thoroughly alarmed, shouted for the guards, who burst into the room.
“Escort the Duc de Valverde to his apartment,” he ordered. “He is to remain there until noon when he is to attend the Royal Chapel to await his bride.”
Sabatin shot him such a virulent look of hatred that the guards tightened their clasp on their pikes, ready to leap forward in the Regent’s defense if need be. But Sabatin made no move against him. Instead he spat contemptuously, leaving a glob of spittle darkening a spot on the blue and silver damask of the table’s drapery. Then he strode from the room with his features still congested with rage, and although the guards followed him, they hoped there would be no altercation. He looked ready to strangle with his bare hands.
It was a long walk through many rooms and down long corridors to reach his apartment. Although wrath kept his blood boiling there rose in him such desolation at his fate that his normally ruddy skin turned patchy and gray, drawing taut until his nose was bone-white, his eyes hollowed. By the time he reached his apartment his brain felt dazed as if the blow dealt him had been a physical battering. His mistress, sitting curled on a sofa with a box of sweetmeats, bored with Versailles in the Court’s absence, turned her head lazily toward him as he came slamming in through the door. Then she saw his racked face, the stare of unadulterated misery in his eyes, and could think of only one explanation for such grief. She sprang to her feet, pressing a hand to her heart and heedless of the sweetmeats that she sent scattering to the floor.
“Mon Dieu! The king is dead!”
He shook his head from side to side as did the caged lions in the royal menagerie and his voice broke from him hoarsely. “No. Worse than that.”
Compassion swept over her and she moved swiftly to him. “Then you have lost your father? Your mother? A brother, perhaps?”
He brushed her queries aside with a sweep of his hand. “My parents died long ago and I have no brother. I have been banished from Court. It is my own death you should be proclaiming, because to leave Versailles and everything appertaining to it is to enter hell.” He gave a crazed laugh. “Mourn for me, my sweeting. My grave is my estate in the Périgord.”
She drew back several paces from him, all sympathy gone. In a matter of seconds he had become a pariah before her eyes, one of the despised nobles who had no political influence and no entrée at Court through lack of favor or finance, through banishment or their own preference for a quiet life. Whatever the reason they were all figures of fun to be ridiculed by those whose sumptuous lives were centered on the Throne.
“Such punishment!” she exclaimed faintly. “For letting the king ride too spirited a horse.”
“That’s only the peg on which Bourbon is hanging his vengeance. He has found a way to settle old scores by the deadliest means in his power, simply because he is desperate to get rid of a young woman who has caught the king’s like.” His temper soared again until his face became grotesque with it, his hatred divided evenly between his enemy and his bride-to-be. “I’m to be wed to a creature of no standing or importance. She is the basic cause of my being thrown into exile and I’m to drag her along there with me.”
She felt a pang of pity for whoever was to marry this man set with such loathing against her. “Who is she?”
“The daughter of Baron Picard, a fellow who exists on the very fringes of Court. But my marriage need not spoil anything for us.” He came forward and took her by the arms, his tone becoming savage in defiance. “We’ll create our own Court at Château Valverde! Enough noblemen have been banished over the years to form a social circle of some grace and you shall reign as queen over it.”
She gaped at him incredulously. “You expect me to go with you?”
“Why not? Your husband is too senile to miss you.”
She pulled away from him, disgust in her face. “Do you imagine I would ever leave the Court of my own free will to bury myself in some Godforsaken abode? This is your disgrace, not mine! I’ve had enough of you anyway with your strange desires and your brutal ways. I pity the poor creature who is to marry you.”
She made to flounce away into the bedchamber to collect her cape, for his baggage and hers stood ready for the departure he had expected to make after that morning’s audience, but he grabbed her, struck her twice across the face, his rings drawing blood, and then threw her to the floor. As she struggled to her feet, shrieking and crying, he pulled open the door into the corridor before seizing her again and hurling her out into it with such force that she hit the wall opposite, breaking a wrist in the process. Then he slammed the door on her, leaving it to the two guards to help her to her feet and send for assistance.
