Table of Contents
Excerpt
Praise for THE INDISPENSABLE WIFE:
The Honorable Officer
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
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His first view of Mademoiselle Hélène took his breath away. She was sitting in a beam of light, smiling down at the little girl who sat next to her on the bench. Her hair glinted gold in the sunlight, and her pink lips parted as she laughed.
“Mademoiselle Hélène, Colonel de Cantière is here to see you,” said the woman.
Jean-Louis bowed deeply and raised himself again to find Mademoiselle Hélène curtseying to him and the little girl staring at him, wide-eyed. Mademoiselle Hélène’s features had gone blank, erasing the sunshine and beauty he had witnessed.
“Ondine, chérie,” she said to the girl. “It is your papa, come to see us. Get up and curtsey, ma petite.”
The girl stood up on the bench and bobbed clumsily, clutching at Mademoiselle Hélène for support and reassurance.
Jean-Louis hadn’t seen his daughter since his wife’s funeral, over a year before. She likely had no memory of him, and yet her mistrust cut him to the heart.
“Please, Monsieur, join us for breakfast,” said Mademoiselle Hélène in the soft, shy voice that made him want to protect her.
He gritted his teeth. He was ridiculous. There was no threat here. It was leftover nerves from the battle and a lack of sleep, surely. The long argument with the Prince de Condé to get leave for two days to solve the problem, coupled with the long journey, had sapped what was left of his wits.
Praise for THE INDISPENSABLE WIFE:
“Ms. Lodge reminded me how much I loved reading Dumas [author of The Man in the Iron Mask, The Count of Monte Cristo, Twenty Yearts After, and The Three Musketeers]. The setting, the court intrigue, but more importantly, the characters. This is a character driven book that left me bereft when I finished. I wanted more of Aurore and Dominique. …Overall, I loved how Ms. Lodge plots the story and her characters come to life for me. I really felt like I was [in] King Louis’ court and the French countryside. The twists and turns that these two have to overcome make for an awesome read… I can’t wait to read more from Ms. Lodge in the future.”
~Harlie’s Books (4.5 Stars)
~*~
And for THE HONORABLE OFFICER:
“A story where every detail comes alive—a perfect marriage of strong characters, an engaging plot, and a time and place rich with detail. Sheer pleasure to read. I highly recommend this book!”
~P.D. Hurst, author of paranormal romance and
young adult contemporary fantasy
The
Honorable Officer
by
Philippa Lodge
Châteaux and Shadows, Book Two
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
The Honorable Officer
COPYRIGHT © 2016 by Phyllis Laatsch
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by Debbie Taylor
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Tea Rose Edition, 2016
Print ISBN 978-1-5092-0649-0
Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0650-6
Châteaux and Shadows, Book Two
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
To my mom,
who never read romance before I started writing it.
Acknowledgments
As always, I thank my husband and kids for being quiet (sometimes) and feeding themselves (sometimes).
Thanks to my mom for reading to me.
And to The Cherries: I didn’t know when I joined a writer’s fan page it was going to lead to writing. Thank you!
And to the Roses of Sacramento Valley, especially my critique partners, double thank you!
And to my editor at The Wild Rose Press, Nan Swanson, triple thank you!
Chapter One
Western Franche-Comté (not yet France)
War of the Devolution, February 1668
Jean-Louis, Chevalier de Cantière, second son of the Baron de la Brosse and colonel in the army of Sa Majesté Louis XIV, currently subduing Franche-Comté, stood from his makeshift desk as the dispatch rider left his tent. He stretched his neck from side to side and reached his hands over his head to loosen the tension in his shoulders. Among the shouts of soldiers and drovers and the clatter of hooves of oxen and draft horses, he heard a fast horse approach, surely another dispatch. He hoped it was news that the Spanish Army was not on the move, trying to break out of the siege at Dole. All the reports so far had been about the enemy lining up, possibly for another offensive.
He was sick of offensive and defensive maneuvers, sick of the reek of gunpowder, unwashed bodies, sewage, blood, and fear. He had twenty-three men ill with diarrhea, two of whom were expected to die at any moment. He had thirty-nine others injured and unable to fight, fifteen now missing limbs and ready to be carried to their homes if they survived the inflammation and infection which ran rampant in the filthy conditions, and twenty others dead in battle. Just in the last three days. His division still stood nearly two hundred strong. As strong as poorly educated peasants could stand with minimal training, inadequate food, shelter, and clothing, and inaccurate weapons.
He was sure they would win this battle and overwhelm the town’s medieval defenses. Modern cannons trumped stone walls rather easily. Pitifully easy: pitiful for the residents of the city, most of whom probably didn’t care at all which king ruled over them as long as they could plant their fields when the frosts ended. They—and his soldiers—were surely as eager as he to end the winter’s campaigns and return home.
Jean-Louis heard the soldier standing guard confront a man. A courier, a tall adolescent with a floppy hat, came into the tent and bowed low. Jean-Louis nodded.
The courier’s voice squeaked in excitement. “There’s a lady coming to see you, Monsieur le Colonel.”
A lady? Jean-Louis scowled, which sent a flicker of fear across the boy’s face. Wars had hinged on kidnappings and ransoms before. He wondered if his family would pay his ransom if this was a trap. His father would. His late wife’s parents were as rich as Croesus, but they wouldn’t want him back. “What sort of lady?”
“Not the, ah…mistress type, I would say. Sort of clumsy, in an ugly dress. Someone’s servant? She didn’t sound like a servant. At least that’s what Jouvet sa
id. He spoke with her and is riding next to her carriage with her outrider.” The boy shrugged, then froze, as if he had been warned about the insolence of shrugging when speaking to officers.
“And her name?” demanded Jean-Louis.
“She would not give it, mon colonel. Jouvet took pity on her and did not press for it. She said she is from your wife’s family.”
“What do they want with me?” Jean-Louis nearly laughed at the thought of anyone from his late wife’s family wishing to see him, especially at any risk to themselves. “Was it about my daughter?”
“That was the whole message, Monsieur le Colonel. Jouvet said she seems to be blind?” The courier didn’t appear to believe it.
Jean-Louis dismissed the boy with a flick of his hand and a scowl. From his wife’s family? He couldn’t make it out—barely had space for it in his thoughts—but figured he would see in a minute.
He hastily rolled up maps and stacked papers, then stood behind his chair, trying to look nonchalant as he heard a carriage. He took a look at his leather jerkin, the old one he wore under his armor. He’d put it on after the last time the king—accompanied by the queen and a bevy of mistresses and courtiers—surveyed the troops, two days and nights before, and had worn it constantly since. He had removed his cravat hours ago. He hastily took off the jerkin, rinsed his face, and despaired at the state of his shirt. He didn’t have time to change; he heard the voices of men and the reply from a lady. He tied a plain, mostly clean cravat on hastily, stuffed the miniature of his daughter and a handkerchief into the pockets of his dark blue officer coat, and was just closing the long line of brass buttons when a voice announced, “Mademoiselle Hélène to see you, Monsieur le Colonel.”
He stepped, outwardly calm, toward the woman who hovered in the doorway, her hand on Corporal Jouvet’s arm. Jouvet bowed, clicking his heels, and then bowed more deeply to this Mademoiselle Hélène. The boy was infatuated.
She was tall and slender, not obviously clumsy. As she pushed back the hood of her rough brown cloak, he felt a stirring of appreciation and another of recognition, but not enough to place her. Her face was narrow and pale, and her full, pink lips unpainted. Her next step drew her copious gray skirts against her legs, and he could see, firstly, she wasn’t wearing as many petticoats as would be fashionable or warm and, secondly, she had ample hips, probably overly ample for her otherwise slender form. She was looking him up and down, certainly not blind, though her eyes—large and blue—were squinting as if looking at something far away in dim light.
He bowed over her hand. “I am le Colonel de Cantière, Mademoiselle. How may I help you?”
She smiled at him vaguely, and he had the impression she couldn’t meet his eyes. “I have come about your daughter’s safety, Monsieur le Colonel.”
“My daughter? Ondine? Is she well?” His stomach clenched for the only female other than his sister and his mother for whom he would lay down his life. And then even his mother was questionable.
“She is in a safe place near here,” she said.
“Near here? There is nothing safe near here. The Spanish are preparing an offensive to try to break our siege. We will be victorious, of course, but the fighting might range more widely than we would wish, rounds from siege guns shooting too long, and so on. This tent will be moved in the next half hour, relocated further from the lines.”
She gasped, and once again her eyes didn’t quite meet his. “I am sorry. I was hoping she would be safe with you. I will get away as soon as possible. We will go to a friend in Dijon, if you think we will be safe there. When you can get away, you can go to the abbey and ask for Frère Thomas, and he will bring you to me.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why do you have my daughter? Who are you?”
Her face fell. “You do not recognize me? You are truly Monsieur de Cantière? Is this a trap?”
He scowled. In a panic, she fumbled around with her pocket until she pulled out a lorgnette, one with a particularly thick piece of glass, and held it to her eye. She glared at him. “Well, you are Jean-Louis de Cantière.”
He nodded and was about to say Oui, bien sûr, and have her thrown out, when she let her gaze travel down his coat and onto his legs—where it lingered with the glass pointed at his thighs. He glanced down and saw a large black smear—soot, mud, general filth—where his ballooning breeches showed between the sides of his long coat. His incorrectly buttoned coat.
He muttered a curse, feeling like a little boy, and her head and glass rose quickly back up to his face, her pale skin blotchy with a blush.
Her eye, magnified through the glass, glowed enormous and pale blue. He suddenly recalled where he had seen that monstrous eye before. “Of course! My late wife’s cousine, Hélène. I am sorry I did not recognize you, Mademoiselle. I am much distracted by the coming battle.”
****
Mademoiselle Hélène de Bonnefoi sighed as relief and disappointment battled in her chest. They had met any number of times—before, during, and after his brief marriage to her beautiful, viperous second cousin, Amandine. Hélène was three years older and, as the impoverished relation with no marriage prospects, had served as chaperone. Amandine always asked her because her parents would approve, and yet Hélène’s vision was even worse than the others realized.
Her latest eyeglass was stronger than ever, but as always she tried to get along without it because it certainly didn’t improve her homely looks or make her too-tall, dowry-less self any more appealing.
She blushed again because he caught her ogling his legs. She hoped he thought she was noticing the dirt. She found herself glancing again at the way the loose fabric pulled against superb legs, noting the high shine on his slouched boots. She realized he was asking her a question.
“I am sorry, Monsieur le Colonel. I am overtired from the long journey and was not paying attention.”
“I was merely asking again why you have brought my daughter to a war zone, Mademoiselle,” he snapped. His chin was up, his voice tight and angry. “The tent will be taken down around us in ten minutes, so I would appreciate an answer as soon as possible.”
She stood up straighter, falling victim to his bossy demeanor as thousands of young conscripts surely had. She was half-asleep on her feet and had to hold herself steady to keep from swaying.
“There was an attempt on her life four days ago, Monsieur. Someone set a fire outside her room in my Uncle Ferand’s house.”
He stared at her so hard she very nearly dropped her lorgnette to avoid his gaze. She did not, though. She stared into his dark blue eyes. Her gaze flickered to his very short, blondish hair, and she decided he must wear a wig, usually.
“This is unbelievable, Mademoiselle,” he said.
“I awoke when I smelled smoke. Ondine cried for her cat when I tried to carry her out of the window. I found the cat twitching, dying, on the floor. I told her the cat had already gone out, so we escaped and raised the alarm. The next morning, we left without saying where we were going.” She had been brave and resourceful in defying her uncle’s assurances that all was well. No one believed the cat had been poisoned, saying it must have died from the smoke.
“In Monsieur Ferand’s carriage? And how do you know you did not bring a culprit with you as an outrider?” His brow wrinkled over his narrowed eyes.
“I hired another carriage once I got out of Paris.” She lowered her lorgnette, leaving her squinting at vague colors and shadows.
“And hired new outriders?”
“I kept one, the man I trusted the most, and sent everyone else back. I hired another carriage in Dijon and sent that man back with the Paris coach.”
“I thought you were impoverished,” he said.
She sniffed. “My uncle gives me a supplement to my allowance because I take care of Ondine. I suppose it is what you send them to pay a nurse. And I have some of my own money, just not enough to convince anyone to marry an ugly girl who can’t see.” She never had outbursts like that. It
was fatigue and because he did not recognize her right away. Of course, she had never spoken more than three words to him before.
He looked at her for a long time before shaking his head. “Off topic. You say Ondine is safe nearby. I shall send you away with an escort. I want you to retrieve Ondine and ride as fast as you can to Auxonne. There is an inn there where they know me. Change horses as often as you need and do not stop. If you can so much as hear the cannons, turn west to Dijon.” He reached into his coat and brought out a small purse. “Here is money for fresh horses and to bribe anyone you need to.”
He held out a handful of coins, and she had to stuff her lorgnette into her pocket to take them. They were still warm from his body, and she flushed at the heat.
“My aide-de-camp is signaling me. He wishes to gather up my papers and have the tent taken down. I have yet to put on my armor, as you see. You must flee as fast as you can. I will come find you and Ondine. In a day or two, I hope.”
She was glad her hand was on his arm as she stumbled over rocks and ruts keeping up.
He handed her up into the carriage. Just before closing the door, he leaned in. “And you are not ugly. As for seeing, it does not matter, unless you would like us to train you with a sniper rifle. Safe journey.”
He slammed the door and shouted for Jouvet, the boy who had led her in from the carriage, to ride alongside and for the driver to make haste. As the carriage turned to pass in front of his tent again, she pulled her lorgnette out to look at Jean-Louis, Chevalier de Cantière. He scowled as his men bustled all around, a short, dark-haired man pausing at his shoulder to watch her go. He waved and turned away just as a cannon boomed in the distance. Her last view of the camp was of soldiers running in every direction and the colonel barking out orders.
****
Jean-Louis woke with a start when his carriage jerked to a halt. The carriage shook as the groom climbed down to talk to someone. Jean-Louis shifted in his seat, trying to get comfortable. His aide-de-camp, Fourbier, asleep on the seat opposite, shifted, muttered, and farted loudly. After a change of horses, they were on their way again, dragging the carriage through the muddy, icy slop which passed for a road after the army had marched on it a few days before.
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