The Indispensable Wife

by Philippa Lodge

  Dom let out a gusty sigh and turned to her. She bit her tongue. No babbling.

  “I thought we would be happy,” he said, “when we first married. Then I made a horrible mistake when I thought you would become the king’s mistress. With all the babies we’ve lost, we’ve both been hurt. I never should have taken you at your word when you said to find someone to give me a child. You said you wanted my child, even if you could not bear it for me.”

  Her gut felt heavy and hard. She had said that in despair. Was she responsible for pushing Dom toward a mistress? He had come back home after only a few weeks and a baby never came from the liaison.

  His eyebrows shot up. He had thought of something. She was amazed she still understood the subtle signs of his thoughts and feelings. “Maybe we could adopt one of Cédric’s.”

  She jerked back in shock. “We couldn’t take a child away from his brothers.”

  After a moment, Dom nodded. “I was lonely as a child. So we would take two children.”

  “No!” Aurore’s heart sank. She looked down at the floor to hide her sadness at the casual way he would split up a family. “Maybe if Cédric could not afford them, or if Sandrine and Cédric didn’t dote on them the way they do—”

  Dom’s cold tone startled her. “Maybe they would be loyal to each other for their own sakes.”

  Aurore raised her head to find Dom looking at her again, pouting a little.

  “My brothers are loyal to us,” she said.

  “They are loyal to you. Each and every one of them has told me so. They keep rescuing you, rushing to help you. I am never in the right place and never know what to do when I am. Michel rescued you from the château while I lay injured in Versailles. Without Cédric, the king would not have listened. Without Henri, you would not have known where to find Mademoiselle de la Baume le Blanc. I have done nothing but fail you.”

  He was angry because her brothers helped her? “They would do it even if I were not your wife. They are not always happy with you, but they respect you.”

  “Are they warning me, then? That I need to treat you better?”

  Aurore tipped her head to the side. “They weren’t pleased with you. They would have accepted infidelity from anyone other than their sister’s husband. I know you all have other friends who have not been faithful to their wives.”

  “Maybe so,” whispered Dominique on a sigh.

  Aurore lifted her hand to his face. “And maybe the other wives are not hurt by their husband’s actions. I am sorry, Dom, that I am.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” said Dom, frowning. “You are softhearted and loyal, and you have high ideals. And you are vivacious and beautiful and everyone is drawn to you. Me more than anyone. I think—”

  Aurore couldn’t meet his eyes.

  Dom cleared his throat and put his hand over hers, pressing it into his cheek. “I think I knew you would be perfect for me ever since you were eight. The day you found out that Michel was at the château and not dead.”

  “You remember that day? Oh…” Aurore took in a labored breath. “Wasn’t that the day my father left in a hurry because Emmanuel and his twin had been born?”

  “When your father learned that Emmanuel was his. When the size of your mother’s belly turned out to be twins and not because she had been unfaithful.”

  “And the poor twin girl died. Oh, that was so sad.” Tears sprang to her eyes for that long-dead baby. And for her mother who had lost a baby, lost her last shred of faith in her husband, and who, as a result, had clung too tightly to Emmanuel and raised him to be as bitter as she was.

  “But I am thinking of the joy on your face when you came in, telling Cédric you had found Michel. You didn’t know he was your half-brother, and yet anyone could see your love for him and for Cédric. And you told me you didn’t want to be my sister. I was crushed.”

  “Oh, poor Dom!” She stepped closer to him and slid the hand from his cheek around to the back of his neck while she eased her other hand inside his unbuttoned coat. She trembled slightly in fear at the heat and lean hardness of his muscles. She closed her eyes, though, and reminded herself she was safe.

  “You said I could be your husband,” Dom whispered.

  Aurore laughed in surprise. “Did I? Oh, you were embarrassed, weren’t you? Poor, poor Dom!”

  His smile was small, but he was smiling. “I was embarrassed because Cédric laughed, but I was secretly pleased. I didn’t know our fathers had intended us for each other since your birth. But when you said that, you singled me out. You made me feel wanted. Even back then Cédric complained every time I said he was like a brother to me. He had enough brothers.”

  Aurore leaned against his strong shoulder, crushing the puffy sleeve of his borrowed coat. “He wanted you to be his friend by choice, not because you were forced together. If you didn’t know what it was like to have brothers, then he, Jean-Louis, and Henri didn’t know what it was like to have a friend who was not a brother.”

  Dom’s hands slid around Aurore’s corseted waist and pulled her tight against his body. She shuddered, the heat from his body scalding her. “I don’t feel at all like you are my sister, Aurore.”

  She forced a giggle, though her body was stiff with fear. “And you have never been my brother. I would have chosen you, even if our fathers had not done so already.”

  Dom held her tightly in a rustle of silk and velvet and linen. Through all the layers of her chemise, corset, and stomacher, she could feel he was growing hard. She shivered once, remembering her attackers, but a moment later, Dom kissed her sweetly and the past fell away.

  His kiss turned harder and hotter as he fumbled with her skirts, layer after layer. He paused and grunted as he hit his wrist on the panniers that stuck out behind her.

  The grunt dragged her back to the past. She shoved away from him, overwhelmed.

  Dom sighed and leaned his face into the side of her neck, breathing deeply. “We haven’t even had supper yet, have we?”

  Aurore tried to breathe again. She shook all over.

  Dom stepped back from her, adjusting the front of his ballooning breeches. “Cédric’s friend de Ligny is coming to supper, and we will all talk strategy. We hoped to leave tomorrow for your father’s estate, but if Jean-Louis’s friend knows who the bastard’s family is, we will stay another day.”

  Aurore took a deep breath and tried to look like she was thinking about travel and strategy and not fighting off panic. She was going to go down to supper still shaking.

  Supper. She could think that far ahead. “Poor Hélène, she’s so very shy with men, but I do want her to dine with us. I think she’s a little in love with Jean-Louis, not that she would ever admit it or he would ever notice.”

  Dom frowned. “It would be a terrible match. She’s so washed out and pale, while he’s so solid.”

  “She’s absolutely beautiful. And little Ondine is so sweet because of the love Hélène gives her. Left up to the baby’s grandparents, she would be a copy of Amandine.” Aurore grimaced in distaste for her sister-in-law. She felt relief in talking of someone else. “But he is married, even if Amandine is terrible. Nothing will ever come of it.”

  Dom nodded.

  “Hélène wants to marry. She’s so lovely, there’s no reason for her not to, except she has only the tiny dowry her parents left her. Though maybe she will fall in love with one of Jean-Louis’s officer friends. I didn’t look closely, but they seemed upright and even friendly. Perhaps one of them will take an interest in Hélène. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? If he’s not married, that is. Did you know she thought of becoming a nun before she took over Ondine’s care? Maybe we could bring them both to us and I could help raise Ondine.”

  Dom watched Aurore closely. He didn’t look at all as if his attention was wandering, in spite of her babbling. She forced herself to stop anyway. What was he thinking? His expression was inscrutable.

  He nodded. “If Jean-Louis chose to have Ondine raised in our home, I would agree. So we
will go down and make plans. But after supper, my dear… After supper we’ll undress.”

  Aurore shivered with fear and with lust. She went up on her toes and hugged him tight around the neck, kissing him on the cheek. She bounced away from him, trying to act natural, but knowing her movements were wild. “I will look forward to it, my love.”

  Dom held her arm as she turned away, and she froze, her mind going to the horrible men.

  She melted, though, when his hand caressed down her arm and he raised her hand to his lips, then gently turned it over and kissed her palm, his deep brown eyes slumberous.

  Finally, she shivered with desire instead of fear.

  “I will look forward to it, too. My love.”

  Chapter Nine

  Once at the table, Dom stared at Aurore so much she forgot to help Hélène make conversation. Her face got hot as she thought of their kisses, and then she felt the blood drain away as she thought of how Dom would want to touch her. No, she couldn’t even dream of that. If they were ever going to have a baby, and surely one day she would carry a healthy baby to term and not miscarry, they would have to—

  She shivered so much that Hélène raised her monocle and asked in a whisper if she were all right. Aurore shook her head and forced a smile.

  Aurore apologized to Hélène for her distraction, holding her back for a moment outside the library where they all retired to talk strategy after supper. Hélène’s vague, watery blue eyes widened in surprise when Aurore said she had hoped one of the officers might be tempted to court her. “It doesn’t matter. If I marry, my aunt and uncle will not let me take Ondine. I cannot leave her.”

  As Hélène turned away to return upstairs, Aurore’s heart broke for the thousandth time, not only for Ondine’s loving caretaker but also for herself. When would she have a baby to raise? Perhaps Dom was right and they could borrow some of Cédric’s boys. Maybe she could get more involved in the training school. They could invite boys to train, much like Dom and her brothers had been tutored under Dom’s father. But those would be someone else’s babies.

  ****

  Dom watched Aurore go from pretending to be happy to fidgeting. She told them again what she knew of the interlopers in the château, which wasn’t much. Michel returned from wherever he had been all day—Dom would have to speak to him about going off on his own, though he had the feeling that Michel would not welcome his interference—and told what he knew.

  Cédric avoided Dom’s gaze—they had quarreled again on the way back from court that evening—and smiled and made jokes. He lapsed into thought, staring at his sister whenever he wasn’t the center of attention.

  Jean-Louis, though, dug out a map of the château—Dom hadn’t known the baron had one in Paris. They sketched in the secret passageways and argued over where the bastards were likely to be sleeping. Cédric’s information, about who was left in the château and how friendly they would be, had been gleaned from the peasants and servants who had escaped more recently. It was helpful, but also incomplete.

  Dom found it sad that his wife and brothers-in-law knew more of the state of affairs of his château than he did. He had spent too much time at court and not enough in the country.

  As Aurore and Cédric debated the loyalty of this and that guard, Aurore with a better idea of the men’s characters and Cédric with recent, though secondhand, knowledge of the men’s actions, Dom’s mind wandered to how Aurore had felt against his body earlier and how she had pulled away, frightened. She had smiled, but it seemed forced.

  Forced.

  Maybe she would never lie with him again. He thought of their uninspired couplings of the past several years, grown worse since she had lost the baby so near its birth. He wanted his wife, but she only wanted a baby. He closed his eyes, overwhelmed by a sense that he would never have an heir. She’d had two more miscarriages after a court doctor told her it was too dangerous to keep trying to have a child. She likely would have miscarried the last baby even if she hadn’t been attacked.

  Attacked. What a weak word.

  Violated. Raped. Ruined.

  No, not ruined. She was still Aurore. She was afraid of men and afraid of sexual activity. That might never change. He sighed deeply to think of looking at his wife for the rest of their lives without touching her.

  On the other hand, she was thinking more and talking less. Or else he was listening more carefully to her musical voice. She still chattered sometimes, but she made perfect sense, though sometimes off on tangents. Perhaps she always had and he hadn’t listened.

  Perhaps if he had listened to her more carefully, he would not have attempted to have a child with his former love. He had felt nothing with her except guilt.

  Aurore had always been his entrée into conversations at court, introducing him to people, flitting from group to group, making people smile. But now she was even more than that. She knew singing made her happy, even if it was singing bawdy songs for peasants. She knew her brothers would come to her rescue. She knew her place was with Dom. Or did she? If she didn’t know that, he would make her see.

  He sighed again.

  “If the Comte de Bures would be so good as to pay attention?” Cédric thumped the table.

  Aurore smiled at him. Always smiling. He forced his gaze to Cédric.

  Dom replayed the last few sentences in his mind. He could sometimes listen without listening, a skill he had been accustomed to using with Aurore. Just to see her again after two months of anxiety—

  He cleared his throat. “Jean-Louis will go to the court early in the morning and seek out his friend the former lieutenant. Later in the day, Aurore and I will seek an audience with Mademoiselle de la Baume le Blanc, also at Vincennes, and we will ascertain the whereabouts of your mother—two separate tasks, as your mother has nothing to do with the official mistress. Michel will accompany Cédric and be introduced around a bit to make friends with other younger sons and maybe some older ones. I am not sure how this latter pertains to me, but I am in favor, of course.”

  Jean-Louis nodded approval, as serious as ever. Dom wondered for a moment why Cédric had always been his best friend when Jean-Louis was the most like him—nothing to say unless it was to the point, heading straight to his objective, not always diplomatic. Perhaps they were too taciturn. Perhaps they both wanted to be in charge.

  “And the day after tomorrow, we travel to la Brosse, where we will assemble our forces and then travel in small groups over different paths to our château. From that point, I am merely a soldier in Jean-Louis’ regiment.”

  Jean-Louis smiled. “Dominique, you are the general. You shall direct the infantry while I lead the cavalry.”

  Dom thought of his weakened left arm and of how he hadn’t practiced with a sword for several weeks, but he nodded.

  “Though there’s not much point in all this if he dies.” Cédric had his lips pressed together in an angry way that made Dom wonder again if his brother-in-law was wishing he had never gotten mixed up in this business. “There’s only a distant cousin to inherit, and the king would probably divide up the lands. We will have failed and—” He took a deep breath. “And I would have lost a friend.”

  Dom’s heart turned over. Cédric was still his friend.

  “Revenge.” Aurore stared at a point above Dom’s head. “Our revenge will mean nothing if Dom dies.”

  That stung his pride. “I will not sit this out. I will hold up my end in a fight. I will be the first one inside. I want to take the whole château by myself.” He raised an eyebrow as the others chuckled. “I would if I could. I know I need the best with me to compensate for my weakened left arm, but we need the best in every place in the fight. I want to arrest the leaders and their supporters with the least disruption and injury to innocents. Anyone who did nothing to help Aurore is suspect.”

  Silence greeted his pronouncement. Aurore stared at him. Were those tears in her eyes? “I’ll wait in the village. I want to be there when the château falls.”

 
The others argued, saying what he felt about keeping her safe far away. Dom knew it would be hard to persuade her to stay away. She wanted revenge, too.

  ****

  They were still arguing half an hour later as they entered her bedchamber.

  “I will keep you safe. I never again will leave you somewhere that you are not well guarded.” Why wouldn’t she listen to reason? Dom closed the door with a thud.

  Aurore, just a few steps ahead of him, froze, her shoulders high and tight.

  He looked around the room, expecting trouble. No one. His gaze swept the floor, in case it was a mouse. “What is it, Aurore?”

  He touched her shoulder, and she spun to face him, her mouth settling into a false smile.

  She is terrified. Of me.

  She smiled more broadly, but still falsely. Her breath came in rapid pants.

  Dom held up his hands in supplication and to show her they were empty of weapons. “It is only me, mon âme. I will never hurt you.”

  She closed her eyes, and her face shifted from a false smile to a real frown. “The bang of the door…”

  Dom glanced at the door. He hadn’t banged it. Maybe he had closed it a bit more firmly than necessary. He stared into her face as she put on her mask of happiness. “Don’t pretend with me, Aurore.”

  She stepped back, startled. “I…of course not.” Her laugh was high and nervous and even more false than her smile. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes; she seemed to be looking at his right ear.

  “You have been…bizarre ever since I found you.”

  She pressed her lips together in a hard line, and he realized that he shouldn’t have told his wife she was bizarre.

  “You won’t relax with me. You aren’t happy. We’ve shared kisses, but every other time I have touched you, you looked like you were going to break. I…I don’t want you to pretend.”

  She shook her head in denial, but when he took a step toward her, she jerked away.