“Jacques-Mars,” Delphine whispered. “And Anne-Mathilde.”
“And what, pray, would they feel was a secret between them and you?” She let go of the corset laces and turned Delphine around to face her. Delphine looked down to avoid her eyes.
We’d been having a good grouse, like we used to on the way to the abbey, Lili thought, and all of a sudden she’s in tears and talking about something else entirely? Anne-Mathilde and Jacques-Mars? Secrets?
Maman raised Delphine’s chin with her fingers to force her to look at her. “Is this about something Jacques-Mars has done to you? Has he …?” Lili’s memory flashed to the pictures in the book she had recently smuggled back to the library, and her body shuddered in revulsion. Not that. It can’t be. Please, not that.
“Maman, I didn’t mean for anything to happen. Anne-Mathilde and Joséphine suggested we all go out to the grotto at the end of the gardens the day before yesterday, since it wasn’t so awfully hot. Jacques-Mars asked to go along, like he always does. When we got to the terrace above the canal—you know, the one they call the Poèle—Anne-Mathilde said she had a headache and asked a servant waiting in a carriage to make a quick trip back to the château with her, and of course that stupid Joséphine had to go too.”
“That left you alone with Jacques-Mars,” Maman said. “You should have thought about how that might look.”
“Yes, but I also thought of how rude it would be to say I wanted to go back without seeing what he had walked with us so long to get to. He pointed out the statues of the River Gods in the grotto on the other side of the Poèle, and said that the water sprays made it nice and cool there, and we’d easily find someone who could give us a ride back.” Delphine’s eyes welled with tears. “It all made so much sense.”
“I’m not surprised you were persuaded.” Julie paused. “So you went to see the River Gods?”
“Well, no. After Anne-Mathilde’s carriage was gone, we walked down the stairs to the canal. There was no place to cross, except much farther down, and I told him I didn’t want to walk that far. I was annoyed he hadn’t told me it was still a long way from where we’d left Anne-Mathilde, but I guess I know why he didn’t. He was trying to get me alone. It’s so obvious now.”
“So you started back.”
“We walked for a few minutes, and then he said I looked a little flushed with the heat, and wouldn’t it be a good idea to sit and cool off in a little alcove under some stairs. I said yes, because my stomach was feeling a bit upset and I did feel a little faint. But when we sat down, he started kissing me really hard.”
Delphine touched her lip. “It hurt, Maman. My mouth is still raw inside. He pushed me back against the wall and started working his fingers inside my bodice. I tried to stop him, but he got my breasts pulled out, and he wasn’t even kissing them, more like bites so hard I
thought my nipples might bleed. And then he was pulling up my skirt and trying to reach under it.”
By now Julie had brought Delphine over to the couch and was sitting beside her while Lili sat on the floor clinging to Maman’s knee. “How far did his hand reach?” Julie asked.
“Almost to the top of my legs. I pressed them together as hard as I could, and he said if I would let him show me where women most like to be touched, I wouldn’t regret it. Then he moved his hand lower on my mouth, and when I had the chance, I bit his finger hard, until I tasted blood.”
She buried her head in Julie’s shoulder. “Then he grabbed me by the hair, saying the only reason he didn’t hit me was that it might leave a mark people could see, and that I had better not say anything to anyone, because he would make sure everyone thought the whole thing was my idea.”
Lili rubbed her knuckles on her thighs so angrily that her skin grew hot under her skirt. I’m going to get him, she thought. I don’t know how, but I’m going to destroy him for this.
“And what about Anne-Mathilde?” Julie asked. “Was she involved?”
Delphine’s chest heaved. “When I said Anne-Mathilde and Joséphine would defend me, he just laughed. He said Anne-Mathilde had been planning the whole thing for days. The carriage was waiting above the Poèle because she had asked someone in the stables to meet her there.”
“Mon Dieu,” Julie whispered, jumping up because she was too agitated to sit.
“Anne-Mathilde wanted this to happen?” Lili’s voice came out in a barking sob. “Why?”
“It was something about how Vaux-le-Vicomte was her family’s new possession, and I had been acting like I owned it.”
Lili threw her arms around Delphine as she took Maman’s vacant seat. “Did you notice Jacques-Mars’s hand?” Delphine asked. “It’s bandaged. That’s the only good part.”
She turned to Julie. “Did I do anything wrong, Maman? Other than being stupid?”
“No, ma chérie. In fact I’m proud of how you handled him.” She came around to the front of the couch and helped the two girls to their feet. “But I’m not happy that you’ve hidden this from me. And from Lili.”
“I should have noticed,” Lili said, pressing her fingers hard to her lips to stop the trembling.
“It’s not your fault, Lili. I thought if I didn’t tell anyone, we’d go back to Paris and I could just pretend it hadn’t happened.”
Julie was no longer listening. “I need to think about what to do, but for now, difficult as it may seem, you have to put on your dresses and go down to dinner.”
“Oh no, Maman,” Delphine said. “My face is all swollen—and my eyes!”
Maman silenced her by holding up her hand. “You hid this from us for two days, and you can hide it from everyone else for a few more hours.” She gestured across the room. “The bedpost,” she said. “If you don’t show up, they win. If you behave as if you have nothing to fear, you’re the conqueror—not forever, but for now.” She arched her eyebrows at Delphine and pointed again. “The bedpost.”
DESPITE THE IMPOSING
size of the château at Vaux-le-Vicomte, arrival at dinner did not involve grand entrances through hallways glittering with mirrors and glowing sconces. Instead, guests went through a side door off the main foyer of the house and made their way through the library and a bedroom furnished for use by the king when he visited. After passing through five or six richly appointed rooms, guests came to a bathroom and skirted around a large tub that was often still wet from its latest occupant, before entering a wood-paneled corridor so narrow that women’s panniers often brushed the walls.
Lili cast a glance in a paneled mirror outside the dining room
and saw a reflection of a stranger walking behind her. Delphine’s strawberry-blond hair had become a tangled mat from her tears, and since there was no time to fix it, she was wearing a white wig retrieved from Maman’s dressing room. Her eyes were no longer bloodshot, thanks to some drops that made them sparkle in odd contrast to a furrowed brow that even Maman’s secret remedies could not mask.
At the door, Julie gave Delphine a little squeeze of the hand. “Be brave,” she said, before taking the honored seat next to the Duc de Praslin. “Come on,” Lili whispered. She took Delphine’s arm, remembering the little girl who had practiced curtseying until she fell over and then had gotten up to curtsey some more, the girl who believed that doing something perfectly was a talisman against something as powerful as an evil queen who could turn children to stone. Believe it again, Lili prayed. Walk into this room believing it again.
Entering the dining room at Vaux-le-Vicomte was like stepping into a mosaic. Paintings of mythological scenes were inset in glowing wood-paneled walls decorated with carpetlike designs in blues, yellows, and greens. Gold moldings framed the doorways and divided the painted ceiling into quadrants that glowed in the sunlight streaming through large, oak-framed windows.
Chairs upholstered in shimmering brocade lined a table set for the duke and duchess’s twenty guests. To Lili’s dismay the only seats that remained were on both sides of Jacques-Mars. Did he plan it that way? Lili wondered, as she sat down between him and Paul-Vincent. Directly across the table, Anne-Mathilde and Joséphine stopped talking to watch Delphine take her seat. Anne-Mathilde’s gown of golden brocade fit the colors of the room, and her elbow-length sleeves were tipped with several layers of lace so delicate they looked like froth. She was wearing a choker of pearls extravagant enough to settle any questions of rank at Vaux-le-Vicomte.
Wanting to see if Delphine was all right, Lili turned as far as her corset and the frame of her panniers allowed. Immediately she sat
back, startled by the proximity of Jacques-Mars, who had leaned in toward her. “You look lovely,” he said. His eyes lowered, resting on the tops of her breasts, pushed up into ample mounds but covered by a modest swath of nearly transparent white silk.
“Where have you been hiding, Jacques-Mars?” A rat hole? Lili thought, as she pasted on a smile she hoped disguised the shiver of disgust that had traveled along her spine. “Still giving paille-maille lessons to pretty girls?”
Jacques-Mars’s eyes flickered as she looked past him to Delphine. Much to Lili’s surprise, Delphine was already in deep and animated conversation with the younger brother of the rotten-toothed Comte de Beaufort, who was seated farther up the table near Maman. Apparently sensing Lili’s stare, Delphine turned to glance at her, revealing a glowing face that an hour earlier had looked trapped and near panic. I’m in worse shape than she is, Lili thought.
“Lili?” The voice was Paul-Vincent’s, on her other side. “Aren’t you speaking to me?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just a little distracted.”
“I just thought of an excellent experiment. Look at this.” He held up his wineglass. “Do you see?”
“See what?” Not science. Not tonight.
“The fruit flies. They’re everywhere. I think they like wine, but it looks as if something about it makes them act strange.”
Lili dutifully held up her own glass, trying to catch as much light as possible from the candles. “I’ve got two of them sitting on the rim,” she said, “tipping down inside, like they’re trying to get whatever’s left there.”
In spite of herself, she was interested. “Maybe they just don’t want to fall in.”
“And maybe they’re a little drunk,” he snickered. “I wonder if vapors coming up from the wine are doing that, or if they’re actually drinking from the film around the top of the glass. I wish I’d brought the microscope.”
Lili laughed. “You can’t bring a microscope to dinner!”
“How about tomorrow?” He lowered his voice. “I promise I won’t try to kiss you if you come to the lab.”
Lili stared at him, so wrapped up in the problems of the day that it took a moment to understand what he was referring to. She had already looked at a fruit fly under the microscope and been horrified by its enormous eyes and tiny, clawlike feet. Now she felt nothing but sympathy for the little creatures hovering on her glass. Could they escape or would they just stay there, caught and confused between the forces that attracted and repelled them, until they fell in and drowned, or perhaps flew out and survived a little longer?
“I’m the one who should be upset!” Jacques-Mars’s angry whisper brought her back.
“Monsieur Courville,” Delphine said, pulling herself up in her seat. “I can only wish that if I have the misfortune to meet you again, I will at least have the pleasure of being able to see the scar I hope I’ve left you with.” Her smile and lilting tone were at odds with the words spoken under her breath, as if she were daring him to be the one who called the guests’ attention to their argument.
She caught Lili’s eye and her own flashed with triumph before she turned to speak to Anne-Mathilde across the table. “You’re so far away I can scarcely hear what you’re talking about, but Joséphine seems so amused I’m sure I’d like to know!”
Temporarily taken aback, Anne-Mathilde looked to her left to exchange a glance with Joséphine, ignoring the dazed expression of the hapless male guest with the bad luck to be seated between them. Recovering, she let out a shrill laugh. “We were just discussing taking another visit to the grotto. I’m so sorry to have missed it, with my wretched headache.”
Delphine’s face flushed momentarily. “Yes, it’s quite enchanting—don’t you agree, Jacques-Mars?” she replied, turning to him. “Just meant for an afternoon with friends.”
Jacques-Mars turned away from Delphine and glowered across the table at Anne-Mathilde.
“Is there something wrong?” Lili turned to ask him, in a voice as rich and sweet as syrup.
“Not at all,” he said. His brow rose. “If you’d like we can take a carriage there tomorrow. I can show you what Delphine means.”
Lili fought down the urge to slap him. Pretend nothing is wrong, she told herself. “That sounds quite pleasant,” she said.
“Really!” Jacques-Mars drew out the word in pleased disbelief, as he darted his eyes at her bodice again. “So Delphine didn’t—”
“Didn’t what?” Lili raised her voice in mock puzzlement. I’ll plead sick every day to avoid having to spend one minute alone with him. I’ll make my heart give out and die before I let him come near me.
Jacques-Mars’s nostrils flared almost imperceptibly. “Didn’t tell you how very charming I find you,” he said, giving her a calculated stare. “I shall pursue you until you make good on what I insist is a promise to come to the grotto with me.” The coldness of his eyes and the turn of his lip belied his attempt to make it sound like a simple flirtation.
Lili picked up her wineglass as a means to look away, gently blowing a fly off the rim before taking a sip. Mon Dieu, she thought as her own invisible storm whirled.
“Lili.” Delphine leaned forward to look around Jacques-Mars. “The Comte de Beaufort has just told me the most remarkable story about the château.” She looked back at the man seated next to her. “Do tell Lili yourself,” she asked. “I’m sure I can’t do it justice.”
Honoré de Beaufort cleared his throat and coughed into his handkerchief, examining its contents before looking down the table at Lili. “I told mademoiselle,” he said, with the precise but stuffy articulation of someone certain that no one appreciates the great significance of his words, “that Vaux-le-Vicomte so incensed Louis the Fourteenth that he had the man who built it imprisoned for having a grander home than his own. Died in prison, in disgrace, I’m afraid. Of course the king claimed to have other grounds for what he did. He said that Monsieur Fouquet had used his position as the king’s
treasurer to embezzle money, and that’s how he could afford to build the château.”