The Chevalier (Châteaux and Shadows) (10 page)

His instinct was to ask her if they could leave. Instead, he asked, “Where do I leave you, Mademoiselle, so you may find my mother’s quarters?”

She directed him to a side door where a beautifully liveried footman looked them over with a sneer. Manu swung down and held up his arms for Mademoiselle de Fouet. She slid off as a groom approached too late with a wooden mounting block. Manu pressed her close for just a moment to hold her steady. “I’ll see to the stabling and join you in my mother’s quarters, Mademoiselle.”

He bowed deeply to her, and she curtseyed back. Another footman led her and Marie away to speak to a majordomo, who made some notes about their trunks and gave a note about housing the grooms in the stables to Manu.

Manu and his men trotted to the enormous stone stables they had passed on the way in. Finely dressed grooms streamed in and out, taking their beasts to and from their masters and mistresses for an afternoon ride. Some lucky few would be invited into the forest to ride with the king himself. The rest would ride in the parks and gardens, seeing and being seen in their lavish riding habits on their fine horses.

Manu felt particularly disgusting in his rough clothing as he spoke to a groom, who signaled to an older man. After a few minutes, the man in charge came and looked Manu over before dismissing him as no one, though he smiled at Jean-Louis’ horse. It stung a little, even though Manu knew he was no one and his brother’s horse was worth a smile.

“I’ll need stabling. I’d prefer to be near my mother’s horses. The Baronesse de la Brosse. Or if my father has written ahead to request space for his arrival next week, with his.”

The head groom was only mildly more impressed with Manu’s connections than he had been with Manu. Since most gentlemen sent servants to the stables, he was out of place. He stood up straighter and led his men and their horses to his father’s section. He brushed down his brother’s charger himself until a boy brought food and water and the gelding shoved him out of the way to get to it.

Manu continued down the aisle, curious about his mother’s horses. Maybe she would buy two of his Ardennais crosses. He had a handsome young pair of chestnut carriage horses ready to be sold. He eyed his mother’s pair, which didn’t match each other and looked rather tired. Probably bored to death. He wondered if she had them exercised as often as they needed. He turned to go, but his eye caught on the tag on the next stall—also his mother’s. He looked over the door to see a lovely light chestnut Landais pony, small enough for a lady to ride. Had she taken up riding? The mare looked him over warily when he clicked his tongue at her. She was certainly haughty enough to be his mother’s.

He stopped the groom who was carrying buckets of water to the line of stalls. “Is the baronesse stabling this mare for someone else?”

The groom shrugged and walked on.

Manu found the head groom.

****

Manu had not calmed down thirty minutes later when he arrived at his mother’s quarters in the palace, down a rather dark wing with doors rather closer together than for the nicest rooms. Her husband was only a baron, and she was not a favorite.

The footman who led him knocked softly, but when the door did not open for several seconds, Manu stepped around him and rapped loudly. At the end of another pause Manu was ready to pound, but the door opened, and a maid peered out.

“Monsieur Emmanuel de Cantière to see his mother,” the footman stated.

“We’re expecting him.” The maid stepped back, and Manu stepped in.

His mother reclined on a chaise longue. She waved her hand dismissively. “Mademoiselle de Fouet has been here this hour at least, Manu.”

He bowed to her. “I had to see to the horses and the men. I rode Jean-Louis’ favorite charger and wished to care for him myself.”

His mother sniffed. “If you devoted half as much time to people as you do to horses, you could make something of yourself.”

Manu shriveled up inside. Just enough for the edges of her disdain to touch the anger building inside him.

“I saw the mare you bought for Mademoiselle de Fouet.” Never once in all the years Emmanuel had lived with his mother at court had she bought him the horse he begged for. He had learned to ride on her friends’ horses until he went to live with Dominique.

“Oh, a friend had to sell it to cover some debts. He assured me it was a good mount, but really, I barely looked at it.” She yawned languidly and sipped from a glass of wine.

“And you are just giving it to Mademoiselle de Fouet?” Not even when he had everything in place for his breeding farm did his mother offer to help him in any way. She certainly didn’t buy a horse for him—or from him.

“Well, yes. She said she used to ride. I don’t know if she can afford the stabling, so she might have to sell it.”

Emmanuel removed his hat, and the maid took it from him, frowning at the dirt and sweat. He tried to shrug away the sense of injustice. “If you have gold to spare, Maman, your own children have uses for it.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You mean you have uses for it. Surely your father and brothers could afford a better justaucorps for you.”

He shrank back slightly. “Our coach went off the road and the axle broke. I’ll have my clothing by nightfall. Or by tomorrow.”

“You will have to hide until then. No, in Mademoiselle de Fouet’s room, so you don’t leave my room looking like a groom and smelling of horses. You certainly cannot be seen wandering the halls of Versailles.” She sniffed dramatically and looked away, already bored.

Manu stared at her for a moment. “I am glad you’ve recovered, Maman. I believe I will leave for Poitou in the morning.”

He was gratified to see sadness pass over her face, but when she looked at him again, it was gone. “Tomorrow’s Sunday.”

He grimaced. “Monday, then. May I sleep here in your apartments?”

“There’s no room.”

“Here in the drawing room?”

“Is where my maid sleeps. And I suppose the frumpy little maid Mademoiselle de Fouet brought with her will have to sleep here, too.”

“Marie? She could sleep on Mademoiselle de Fouet’s floor.”

“Mademoiselle de Fouet’s room is barely a closet.”

“Perhaps my father has sent up servants to prepare his apartments already.” His mother flinched, and he felt a little pang of guilt. “I shall sleep in the stable with my men.”

“You will not. Do you think you’re not yet enough of a disgrace? “

His patience snapped. “I’m not a disgrace.” For the first time, maybe the first in his life, Emmanuel knew it was true. “I came all the way from Poitou because you were deathly ill, and yet you have done nothing but run from me. And now I have finally caught up, you are very badly behaved.”

Again, the trace of sadness before she scowled.

Anger constricted his throat, strangling him. “And if you alienate the only one of your children who has even a tiny bit of respect left for you, who will you have left?”

Her face clenched in rage, red spots rising against the unnatural pallor of her cheeks. “I will have my friends. I will have Mademoiselle de Fouet. She is the sort of daughter I always wanted.”

The anger washed away. They’d had this argument frequently before he moved to Poitou. She was never going to relent. He decided to remain reasonable. “Aurore is your daughter. She is possibly the kindest person any of us knows.”

Manu’s mother waved her hand dismissively. “She was always talking and questioning and showing up where she wasn’t wanted. Her father encouraged her to chatter and sing. A proper young lady knows when to be quiet and do as she is told.”

“A proper lady? Like you?”

Again the dismissive wave. “I am no longer a young lady. I am expected to be a leader.”

He shook his head. “Alors, a proper lady is like Mademoiselle de Fouet, whom you pay to do everything for you. A servant is the only proper lady?”

“I do not pay Catherine.”

“You buy her wardrobe, you feed and house her, you bought her a pony. In exchange she does everything you tell her to. It sounds like she is a servant, only without pay. Would you call her a slave, instead?”

Emmanuel only dimly heard someone clear her throat. When his mother broke eye contact to glance toward the noise, he looked, too.

He caught his breath. Mademoiselle de Fouet was completely transformed in an elegant day dress with a tightly fitting bodice, a modest neckline, and swirling skirts. Her form was even better than he had realized. Her face was lightly powdered and her cheeks rosy. He hoped it was because of her good health, not the effect of too much sun from riding without a mask.

He yearned for her. Only physically, of course. She was his mother’s puppet. If she wasn’t already, she would soon be as spiteful and sharp-tongued as the baronesse.

Her haughty expression soured his stomach. “I am no slave, Monsieur Emmanuel. And I do not have a pony.”

There was silence. Then Manu’s mother said, “Oh, DesCroart was selling some of his fripperies, and his wife wasn’t riding her horse anymore. It’s in the stables.”

“Flamme? Madame DesCroart’s little red mare?” Mademoiselle de Fouet gasped.

“Well, she’s brownish, I suppose. I just had them move it next to my carriage horses yesterday. I didn’t know what else to do with it.”

Mademoiselle de Fouet’s eyes widened, and her cheeks got pinker. Manu thought she was going to cry. “I wish I had a riding habit.”

The baronesse scoffed and glared at Manu, as if he had some hand in this. “Well? Have someone bring the horse up for her to see it. There’s no time for a ride, though, Catherine. You only have a short time before you will have to dress for the evening. And do something with your hair, because pulling it back and hiding it under a cap will not do. Tell Anne to curl it if that little girl you brought with you cannot.”

Manu passed the request on to a nearby footman. Mademoiselle de Fouet disappeared again.

“You’ll escort her down, of course, Manu.”

“I thought I was meant to hide until I could get my court clothing.”

His mother shrugged. “Pretend to be a groom. If anyone asks, give them someone else’s name. Though why someone else’s groom would be following my companion, I do not know. Try to look less angry.”

He shook his head. Mademoiselle de Fouet—what had his mother called her? Catherine?—bustled from her room with a large hat hiding her hair and a parasol in one hand. “Come along.”

Instead of offering his arm as he had been about to do, he bowed slightly and followed her as she rushed from the rooms.

“Where are they bringing Flamme?” Her voice was tense, even waspish.

He told her what the footman had said, and she led the way because he didn’t know where they were going.

****

Catherine stood just outside the side entrance, her stomach in knots. Monsieur Emmanuel had walked two paces behind her all the way down, and when she glimpsed his face as they went around a corner, he still looked cross. She didn’t like to hear him fighting with his mother, not least because the baronesse was not fully recovered. And she’d hoped her glimpses of a kind young man during the journey meant he would be patient with the baronesse. But what a reunion—they had jumped immediately to arguing. She had kept her door closed for as long as she could and had only come out at the end when their voices had grown softer but no less venomous.

And yet the baronesse had bought Flamme for her. Her own pony. A beautiful mare she had seen and wished she could have. She hadn’t had a horse since she was sixteen, since her parents had died and everything but her mother’s land had been sold to support the estate.

A groom on a pony rounded the corner, jogging along next to Flamme, who pulled at the reins, not used to being led. Catherine’s breath caught, and tears sprang to her eyes. She stepped forward and felt someone tug on her arm. A carrot was pushed into her gloved hand, and she said, “Merci,” to Monsieur Emmanuel.

As if in a dream, she approached the horse. Her horse. She held the carrot out. The mare nipped it from her hand, and Catherine shivered in excitement. The groom pulled on Flamme’s halter, but Catherine stepped forward and rubbed the horse’s face. Her horse.

The groom and Monsieur Emmanuel talked while Flamme sniffed at Catherine’s hands, trying to find more carrots. Suddenly, another one was shoved into her hands, only to be plucked away immediately by the mare, who tossed her head in triumph. Catherine circled the mare, scratching her mane and stroking her sleek, chestnut side. The afternoon sun brought out the fiery red as Catherine returned to Flamme’s head and removed her glove to stroke the soft nose.

All too soon, Monsieur Emmanuel was asking the groom to have someone exercise the mare and giving him a coin. It suddenly came to Catherine she should be issuing the instructions and paying the vails, but by then the groom was jogging back toward the stables.

Monsieur Emmanuel handed her the parasol she must have given him in her distraction. She watched the mare disappear around the corner, tears springing to her eyes.

Gradually, she became more aware of him at her elbow. “I haven’t had my own horse since I was sixteen.”

He sniffed slightly. “I got my first horse when I was thirteen. My father gave him to me when he took me from my mother.”

She nodded. “You felt it was a bribe.”

He inhaled sharply. “I did. But it was what I wanted more than anything. My mother wouldn’t let me have my own. Said I had to practice dancing instead. She hoped I would dance in the king’s ballets.”

Catherine grinned and turned to see Monsieur Emmanuel still scowling in the direction the mare had disappeared. “I’m sorry,” she said, though she wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for.

He looked at her, and his scowl eased somewhat. “I have a lot of horses now.” He smiled suddenly, but it was more like bared fangs. His eyes were still angry.

“I don’t know how I’m going to afford this one,” she said before she realized it was true.

He shrugged. “I don’t think my mother thought that far ahead.”

Catherine winced. “I have some income from renting out my property, but I’m saving it for the future.”

He glanced at her with a question in his eyes, but she didn’t want to answer any questions about the future, since it was uncertain.