“Because it is.” He took another drink. “Louis.” It felt so good to say his real name. Sebastien Lemoine could be trusted, after all. He was friends with Vivienne.
“Remind me, Louis, where did you live in France?”
“Versailles, and then the Tuileries Palace in Paris. Until it was no longer safe.”
Sebastien raised his eyebrows, an unsteady smile on his lips. “Tell me about Versailles. Tell me about the Tuileries.”
Henri warmed to the attention. “I spent most of my time in the queen’s rooms,” he admitted. “And with the animals.”
“What animals?”
“There were cats everywhere, and dogs. Madame Elisabeth, Louis XVI’s sister, loved greyhounds, and the Mesdames Tantes favored spaniels. Such a racket they made when they set to chasing and hissing and barking!”
Firelight played across Sebastien’s face. “What else?”
Henri told him that the Duchesse de Polignac, the Royal Governess, had fled at the beginning of the revolution for her own safety and was replaced with the Marquise de Tourzel, whom the children all called Madame Severe. He spoke of the daily carriage rides through the queen’s English-styled gardens, the secret tunnel between the queen’s bedchamber and the king’s, and about the horrible attack by the mob of market women in October 1789, and Sebastien seemed quite interested in that. “And then we had to leave Versailles and live at the Tuileries Palace, until they attacked us there, too.” A day Henri would never forget, though he’d tried. He finished his drink and thought, though his thoughts moved slower now. He looked for the waitress.
Sebastien found her and waved. “Another drink for my young friend here!” he shouted across the room.
She threw her head back in unrestrained laughter and went to the bar. When she returned, she refilled Henri’s mug. “I’ll bet you’re feeling lovely warm, now, eh?”
He was. And it was lovely. Sighing, he fumbled at the buttons of his cloak.
Chuckling, she unfastened them for him, peeled off the cloak, and set it on the bench beside him. “Ooh, how fancy!” She lifted the edge of his lace collar. It was the one he’d worn to get ice cream. Mademoiselle had told him not to wear it again, and he hadn’t meant to disobey her, but his other collars were soiled at the moment, and he couldn’t be fully dressed without one.
The waitress flitted away again, and he wrapped his hands around the mug to warm his fingers. He took a drink, and contentment filled every inch of him. He rattled the cup back onto the table.
Sebastien stared at Henri’s neck, reached out his hand, and grasped the chain that hung there, pulling it free from his blouse. “What’s this?” His finger hooked inside the gold ring on the chain.
“That’s mine!” Henri cried out, suddenly alert. He’d started wearing it to feel close to his parents, and important. “Don’t let anyone see!”
“The signet ring,” Sebastien whispered, eyes hard and sharp. “Where did you get this?”
“It was my mother’s.”
“A little large for a woman’s hand, don’t you think?”
“Please. It’s special to me. Don’t take it away.”
Sebastien cupped the gold circle in his hand. “Louis XVI’s signet ring.” He swore under his breath, then dropped it on the table. “Isn’t it? Tell the truth now.”
“It is mine now.” Henri hurriedly tucked it back under his clothes, feeling the metal against his skin. It was so hard to think anymore. His eyelids were so heavy. “I’m so tired,” he admitted.
“A little nap will do you no harm. I’ll wake you when it’s time to rejoin Vivienne. Go on. Lie down on the bench and rest. I’ll stay right here to make sure no one bothers you.”
Agreeing, Henri balled up his ribbons and stuffed them in the pocket of his cloak. Then he made a pillow of his cloak and stretched out on the seat. He missed Bucephalus.
“Ah, yes. That was the stuffed horse that man took from you, wasn’t it?” Sebastien asked.
Henri blinked. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. “He was my favorite toy. My name is stitched on the bottom of its hoof.”
“Which name? Did it say Henri?”
“No,” Henri corrected him. “It said Louis. The name on the hoof is Louis-Charles.” It was the last thing he said before he slept.
Chapter Eighteen
Vivienne’s chest throbbed with the pounding of her heart. She could scarcely catch her breath. Snowflakes powdered her wet lashes and cheeks and stuck to the shoulders of her cloak. Lord! she prayed, desperately. Keep him safe, wherever he is! Help me find him. Don’t let him be afraid. But she was terrified.
She had no sense of how long she’d been searching with Armand. They had combed the wharves and the shipyard, the taverns and shops along Front Street, and even the covered stalls on Market. How could she have been so careless? What if they never found him? How could she live with herself, not knowing where he was or how he fared, or even if he was alive or dead?
Shame and guilt dogged her as she hurried over Philadelphia’s streets, her cloak dragging through mud and slush.
“Go home, Vienne,” Armand urged.
“How can I return without him?” She’d go mad with the waiting.
“Henri might be there even now. Or if he isn’t yet, he may be soon. You will want to be there for him when he arrives. I’ll keep looking and asking around.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “All is not lost, ma chère. My daughter, Angelique, once ran away from my wife and me during a Carnaval parade. Can you imagine the confusion? We did not see her for two days. My wife was beside herself with grief, and I suffered an agony of suspense. But we were reunited, and she was fine.”
Vivienne looked at him through the lace of falling snow. If she were not consumed with worry for Henri, she might have pointed out that a tale about his real family—the wife he was unfaithful to with Sybille, the daughter he raised while Vienne remained fatherless—failed to comfort.
“Go home,” he said again.
She turned and ran, hood falling backward off her head, for her galloping pulse would not abide a slower pace.
When she slid around the corner to Third Street, her gut wrenched. Sebastien Lemoine was climbing the cracked stone steps to the Pension Sainte-Marie’s front door. He held Henri’s limp body. Her legs turned to leaden weights, but she forced them to carry her.
“Henri!” she called out as Sebastien knocked on the door. “Take him inside.” She opened the door and burst into the pension before them.
Sebastien laid Henri on the couch in the parlor, and Vienne knelt by his side. “Is he—he isn’t—” Breath puffed from his parted lips, and the odor slapped her face. “Drunk!”
She rose and faced Sebastien. “What is the meaning of this?” she whispered.
“I could say the same thing to you, Vivienne. Twice now I’ve recovered him while he was to be in your care.”
Shame writhed through her anew. “Where was he?”
“I found him outside a tavern on Front Street, and I called him in from the cold. When he told me you and Armand were speaking outside, I went to find you, to tell you Henri was with me. But by then, you both were gone. He—” He stopped at the sound of footsteps in the hall.
Paulette entered the room and gasped at the sight of Henri. “What on earth?”
“He drank what didn’t agree with him,” Vienne explained simply.
“He looks right green! Not to worry, I’ll make a peppermint tea.” The maid scurried toward the kitchen.
Sebastien lowered his voice. “He was so cold, Vienne. I gave him something to warm him.”
“You made him sick with it!”
He shrugged. “Not my intention. But the drink did loosen his tongue. I know who he is.”
“He is—he is Henri Chastain.” But even she was not fully convinced.
Sebastien shook his head. “He admitted again, his name is Louis. He told me his name was stitched on the bottom of his lost horse. His name, Louis-Charles.”
&n
bsp; Unsteady, Vienne grasped the back of the armchair and lowered herself into it. “He told me that horse was a gift. How do you know he is not simply who Martine said he is, the son of one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting?”
“The collar you told him not to wear.” He pointed to the initials she had knotted into the lace herself.
Shocked to see it on him again, she licked her dry lips. She knew how it looked. And yet, “Could there not be some other explanation? The dauphin cast it off, perhaps.”
“He complained of rickets,” Sebastien pressed on. “Louis-Charles suffers from rickets.”
Vivienne bit the inside of her cheek. “You are certain?”
“Most certain. I am a member of the Royalist Society of Philadelphia, and we make it our business to know all the details of King Louis XVII.” With one finger, Sebastien hooked a gold chain from about Henri’s neck and drew it out. In his palm lay a gold signet ring. “How do you explain his possession of King Louis XVI’s ring? He removed it from his finger just before he was guillotined and sent it to his wife when she was still in prison with her children. As she is dead, God rest her, where else should this be, but with their son, Louis XVII, rightful king of France?”
Speech abandoned Vivienne.
“He cannot wear this ring on his person any longer, Vienne. Keep it hidden away until the time is right for him to assume the throne. If it had been the Jacobins who found him wandering the street and not me—things would have ended very differently.”
Vienne could barely hear over the pulse roaring between her ears. The king of France in her charge? The magnitude of it nearly crushed her.
She brought her hands to her cheeks. They were trembling. She hadn’t thought to question Martine. Why would she? That Martine was a lady-in-waiting to the queen was beyond question. But Vienne could as easily believe that her friend was simply his guardian, protecting his identity to keep him safe. In some ways, Martine had seemed as overwhelmed as Vivienne felt to raise a child.
Sebastien knelt on one knee before her, brown eyes burning like coals. “The question is, can you keep him alive until he can rule? Today’s fiasco is evidence to the contrary. Not to mention the incident which put Bucephalus in Jacobin hands—proof that Louis-Charles is in Philadelphia. If the Royalist Society knew what I know, they would say the boy needs to come under their protection. Do you hear what I’m saying? They would want to take him from you. They would say that you cannot care for him alone, and they would have reason.”
“I will keep him,” she whispered, though she didn’t deserve the assignment. “You cannot take him away.”
Paulette reappeared with a mug of steaming tea, the peppermint cloying with the lingering odor of hard cider. “He should rest in his own room.”
Sebastien scooped up the boy, and Vivienne led him upstairs and unlocked the door to her room. After he laid Henri on the bed, Sebastien paused in the doorway. “Tell no one about this, unless you want to lose him.”
Paulette pushed past him, forcing her way into the room as he left. She set the mug on the table beside Henri, then crossed her arms and eyed Vienne. “What was all that about?”
She swallowed. “Thank you, Paulette, for the tea.” She pressed her lips tight.
Paulette did the same and, lifting her chin, left the room.
Vivienne had not grown up like other girls, dreaming of suitors and marriage and children. During the brief period when she did imagine motherhood, she expected she would be so much more for her child than Sybille had been for Vivienne. More caring, more attentive. And yet, Henri had come near danger twice now.
“You cannot care for him alone.” Sebastien’s words filled her ears.
Vienne smoothed the hair back from Henri’s brow, wrestling with her thoughts. At least Sybille had lost Vivienne only once, and for Vienne’s good, when she placed her in her sister Rose’s care. It was better that way, far better, Vienne knew. Just as it may be better to give up Henri to someone better qualified.
In a single beat of her ragged heart, Vienne saw herself at eight years of age, that moment at Le Caveau when, with chocolate ice cream staining her lace, she watched Sybille turn her back and walk away. For the first time in her life, Vienne wondered if Sybille had fled not because she didn’t want Vivienne, but because she did.
The floor tilted and pitched beneath Henri as he hunched over the bucket in his lap. Mademoiselle knelt beside him in her nightdress, her hand on his back. Her long black braid tickled his cheek. She was saying something to him, but all he could think about was the angry sensation in his gut. It was dark when he began retching, and it was dark outside still. He feared this night of misery would not end.
Never in his life had he felt this awful. Even when there was nothing left in his stomach, his body cramped and heaved as if unconvinced. The walls seemed so close tonight, closer even than they had been during the past few weeks. Alone in the pension’s garret room, he had thought much about those famous English princes Edward and Richard, who were just twelve and nine years old when their uncle locked them in the Tower of London. For their safety, it was said. But even there, they were not safe.
The fire in the hearth laughed at him, yellow and orange tongues wagging. And what of the nine-year-old imprisoned at this very moment? Henri asked himself. Have you no thoughts to spare for him? You, who were once so close a friend?
Henri groaned with guilt, for he had earned this agony. Perhaps his body was trying to expel the secret he’d held for too long.
A cool rag swept the sweat from his brow. The cramping in his middle eased enough for him to straighten his back. He set the bucket on the floor and shoved it away.
“Feeling better? Has it passed?” Mademoiselle’s voice was layered with hope and worry. She draped her arm around his shoulders, and he leaned into her. They huddled together on the bare floor for so long, Henri wondered if she’d fallen asleep. But then a silent sigh gently moved him before she whispered, “Forgive me for not being the mother you had, or the mother you need.”
“The mother I need?” Henri leaned back to look at her. “What do you mean?”
“Sebastien told me about your conversation with him. And showed me your ring.”
Henri clutched suddenly at his neck and found it bare. “Where is it?”
“In my drawer for now, but it needs a much better home than that, no? Just as you need a better home, too. A better protector than I have proven to be.”
Tears pooled in his eyes. “You don’t want me anymore?”
“Want you?” she repeated, then covered her mouth and turned toward the fire. When she looked at him again, her face was wet with tears. “I want you,” she said with a fierceness in her tone. “I love you. But I fear I am not the best for you.”
“You are!” Panic raised his voice. “I’m sorry, Mademoiselle, perhaps I should have told you sooner, but—”
“But what?”
“At first, I didn’t know you thought I might be Louis-Charles. And then I didn’t mind you wondering. I have never felt important before.” Oh, how bitter that truth was on his tongue. “I wanted you to have a reason to love me, and if you thought I was the missing king, wouldn’t that make you love me? Everyone loved Louis-Charles, just everyone. But then I worried, later, that if you found out I’d let you believe such a thing, and you learned I was just an ordinary boy, you’d be disappointed, and I couldn’t bear the thought. I didn’t know what to say to make it right.” He swallowed the sharp knob in his throat. “I still don’t. All I know is that keeping everything bottled up inside is making me sick, just like you said.”
Mademoiselle turned to face him. The right side of her face and gown shone in the firelight, and the other side remained shadowed. “Start from the beginning, mon cher, and don’t worry that I could love you any less—or any more—than I already do. But I do think it’s time to meet the real Henri, don’t you? Starting with your name.”
He nodded. “I was named Louis after the king. Maman said i
t was a way to honor the king, and it seemed a good strong name for a baby boy. My name is Louis Henri Chastain. I am not Louis-Charles, I vow it. Though if I could be the young king and someday save France, I would.” He looked at his thin legs. He wasn’t strong, but neither was Louis-Charles, who had rickets, too.
Vivienne slowly exhaled. “Go on.”
He could see she measured his every word. “People stopped liking King Louis XVI, so it didn’t seem like such a good name to be called anymore. Maman said it would be safer if we used my middle name. But I don’t understand why she insisted on it even after we came to America.”
Mademoiselle rubbed her hands together, then blew on them. “You and your maman saw a lot of scary things in the queen’s service, didn’t you? During the revolution. A lot of things you’re trying to forget. Perhaps your first name reminded your maman too much of the king for whom you were named, and the queen. Perhaps it was easier to forget if she didn’t say it many times a day.”
“Perhaps.” He pulled his knees up to his chest. “Maman’s hair was blond once, I think. Like mine. I remember thinking it looked like gold. Sometimes I even remember her by the smell of your gowns—the ones she gave you. Sometimes when you wear them, they still smell like her. But I don’t remember her smile.” His lips trembled, and he pressed them into a flat line until they stopped. “She stopped smiling the day her hair turned white. White, like the queen’s. So we could never forget Marie Antoinette, you see. I have lived that day over in my nightmares so many times. Do you remember the tenth of August, 1792?”
She nodded. “Very well.”
“Then you remember that mobs of soldiers and citizens came to the Tuileries for the royal family, and that they killed lots of people who were in their way. Louis-Charles and his family escaped in time, but we weren’t allowed to go with them. We—the ladies-in-waiting and children—we hid in a corner of a drawing room. The sans-culottes who found us spared us. Maman kept telling me that Papa was fighting to protect us, for he was in the National Guard that was meant to keep the palace safe. She said we would be all right in the end. But did you know, Mademoiselle, that the National Guard turned on itself? Did you know they cut off men’s heads and put them on pikes, and carried them through the streets?”
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