“What am I to do with it?”
“You must push this past your dame du milieu, do you understand? It will hurt, but it will offer your womb some protection.”
I look away as I part my babichon and push the sponge inside. It stops momentarily and then, in a single, swift thrust, it is gone. I yelp with the pain of it and my eyes water.
“Good,” Henriette declares, satisfied. And then she is gone.
A moment later Henri enters. He stops just over the threshold to stare. “Mon Dieu, you are a thing too beautiful to be real,” he says. Slowly he walks to the foot of the bed, unfastening his doublet as he comes. As he undresses I finger Henriette’s sapphires, arching my neck, hoping to look my best. Henri’s eyes never leave me.
When he stands in nothing but his shirt—a garment as fine as my chemise—I summon him. “Come to me,” I say, opening the neck of my chemise even further. “Lay claim to what should have been yours. To what is yours by my own volition. For I swear to love you always and no other.”
He eagerly complies. Lying beside me, his hands run over me—cupping breasts, caressing my waist and belly, slipping between my thighs. “I have dreamed of this since first you caught my eye as a slip of a girl,” he murmurs, kissing the side of my neck. As he pulls me against him I can feel the organ of his manhood pressing against my belly. It is as a rod of iron. Fascinated, I reach down to touch it. As my fingers meet his flesh—surprisingly soft—he cries out in delight. His delight emboldens me and I stroke him again and again. His hands fall to my hips and begin to gather up my chemise.
Rolling on top of me, he asks, “Shall I make you mine, then?”
The tenderness in his face makes my heart ache. I draw up my knees, rubbing them along his haunches. The smoothness of his skin sliding against mine causes me to moan.
“Yes.”
I have not a moment to prepare myself. Like a warrior charging into battle, Henri gives a mighty thrust and disappears inside me—stopping only when his loins collide with mine.
In all the months we feasted on stolen kisses, all the evenings he fondled me and crooned words of love, all the frustrated moments I longed for this and could not have it, never did I properly imagine the exquisite feeling of his flesh inside me. As he draws himself in and out, covering my face and neck with kisses, nipping and teasing my nipples with his lips and teeth, I am overcome. I want to touch every part of him. My hands run along his back beneath his shirt. My legs entwine behind his buttocks. I cry out in pleasure and the sound of my own voice excites me further. I want to shout to all the world that he is mine.
Harder and harder he presses me, his face growing fierce. I wonder if he will go through me and touch the silken sheets I rest upon. I close my eyes, helpless in the face of my own sensations. Without warning, the tunnel of my flesh, which he occupies so fully, begins to spasm. I keen his name, and as I do his voice joins mine, joyous, strangely strangled and shouting. Collapsing on top of me, he rolls onto his back, taking me with him. With my head resting on his chest, I can hear his heart racing faster than horse ever galloped. I can feel his hand stroking my hair.
“Dear God,” he murmurs, “I must have you night and day. Must dwell inside you. I swear your body was made to please mine.”
He is pleased! The thought fills me with pride and thanksgiving. He loves me, he has taken me and I have pleased him. Should my heart stop beating in this moment, it would be enough.
CHAPTER 15
January 1572—Paris, France
Another year has begun. I am to be painted by Clouet. It has been more than ten years since he made a portrait of me, dressed in cream. This time I will wear black. How fitting. Jeanne d’Albret has left Pau and moves ever northward, bringing with her a will to come to terms, and my detestable cousin.
After a year’s delay I felt certain the Queen of Navarre had no real interest in a marriage between myself and the Prince of Navarre. I started to feel safe. But I underestimated Mother. When wheedling and bribing failed, she turned to her favorite method: threats. Her Majesty intimated she would seek a papal investigation into the validity of Jeanne’s marriage to Antoine de Bourbon. Such an examination would call into question my cousin’s standing as First Prince of the Blood.
Who can say if there was any true defect in Jeanne’s union? The Queen of Navarre, as a member of a reviled sect, may simply have despaired of a fair hearing from the Holy Father. Whatever her reasoning, Jeanne wrote saying if His Majesty would confirm her son’s position, the Prince of Navarre would wed me. Without a miracle, I will be my cousin’s wife before we see another autumn. So my heart is as dark and heavy as the gown I am fastened into for my portrait.
I am not the only one in a black mood. Ruggiero il vecchio predicts Mother will die near Saint-Germain. All work on the Tuileries has been halted because it lies in the diocese of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois. And even such a precaution does not lift the pall that has settled on Her Majesty. I am not sorry. Mother has blighted my life. I am glad that her happiness has been taken by this prophecy, even though I am not quite wicked enough to wish her dead.
If delight in another’s distress were all I had to sustain me, mine would be a miserable existence. After another prolonged absence, however, my love, my Duc, has again returned to Court. He has been au Louvre daily—letting his wife, pregnant again, languish at the Hôtel de Guise, clutching a basin and heaving, while he flirts with me. Mother casts us warning looks but seems willing to tolerate the renewed attention we pay each other. I cannot understand this indulgence on her part, but I do not care to delve too deeply into it.
When Henri and I are together—dancing, stealing a glance across a room or a kiss in some darkened corner, exchanging witticisms—I feel alive as I have not since he left Paris last. But only when he moves inside me is the cause of my soul’s oppression blotted completely from my mind. Henri jokes that I have become insatiable, but he relishes it. And I relish finding new ways to leave him breathless in my power.
The first thing Henri gave me when he returned was a small ladder of a length to reach from my window to the dry fosse below. It is remarkably light. I laughed when he told me it could support his weight and allow him to be with me in secret. But the first time I saw his face appear above my windowsill, I stopped laughing. That night Henri gave me the string of pearls that I am wearing for my portrait. I wear it now as well—it and nothing else—as I wait for the signal to lower the ladder. The blessed low whistle sounds! I swing open my shutters, the cold winter air meeting my skin and invigorating it. Moments later Henri climbs over the sill and drops to the floor. Without a word I take his icy hand and press it to my breast. He tries to pull me to him but I use my other arm to hold him off. I draw his hand up to my mouth and begin to gently bite his palm. He gives a deep groan. Again he reaches out and I swat his hand away.
“Patience,” I murmur. “You made me wait and now it is your turn.”
“I made you wait?”
“It must be an hour since you took leave of the King.” I reach up, draw his head down, and run my tongue over his lips before releasing him.
“I had to allow time to make sure the King’s other guests were safely away and most of those who live au Louvre were abed,” he says pleadingly.
“I thought maybe you’d gone home to your wife.” My tone is teasing but, in truth, I continue to think of the Princesse as a rival.
“Why would I do that?”
I lead him to the bed. “Sit down,” I order. I remove his ruff, his doublet, and then his shirt—all very slowly—pushing his hands away again and again as they seek to help, allowing him only brief caresses of my flesh. Once he is naked from the waist up, I kneel and draw off his boots. As I do so, I can feel his hand in my hair, twisting. I unhook and roll down his hose, then begin to unfasten the front of his haut-de-chausses. As soon as there is a large enough opening, his prick pushes out. I slide my mouth over it—something Henriette advised me to try.
Henri cries out. I
feel the hand in my hair tighten into a fist. Without warning I rise and lower myself onto him. His head snaps up and his arms close around my waist. Leaning in, I bite his ear, his neck, and then plant my lips on his, kissing him violently. When we are done, we are both exhausted. We lean against each other, our sweat and heartbeats mingling. Then he falls back onto the bed, looking with undisguised admiration at me where I sit upright, his member still inside me.
“God, I will miss you.”
The lingering glow of my pleasure is extinguished like the flame of a candle snuffed between wet fingers. “Miss me? You are not coming to Blois?”
“I must wait for the child.”
Climbing off him, I look for something to put on. “The Princesse has months before her confinement.” Finding a surcote, I wrap it tightly around me.
“But the doctors make a great deal of the delicacy of her health. It is not like when she carried Charles—”
“A perfect excuse to leave her here, but no excuse to stay yourself.”
“Marguerite! Would you have me look a monster before the whole Court? I may not love my wife, but I am still a gentleman and value my reputation.” He reaches for me but I take a step back.
“I gave up my reputation for you.”
He has no easy answer for that. “Let us not make this about your honor or mine,” he says uneasily. “I concede you mean more to me than my honor. But the plain truth is Her Majesty would hardly allow me to stand about the halls of Blois while your marriage is negotiated.”
“How can she prevent you coming when the rest of His Majesty’s gentlemen attend him? What reason could she possibly offer?”
Henri sighs. “When has your mother needed a reason to do as she will? She is too subtle to say, ‘Duc, you may not come to Blois, I forbid it.’ Rather, I will be charged with some matter that takes me elsewhere.” He looks up to see if I will yield, but I allow neither my face nor figure to soften. “Or if she cannot be bothered to find a pretext for keeping me from Blois, I will meet with an accident.”
How different this Henri is from the one who nearly refused to leave me, to leave Paris, to save himself before he married. I push the thought away. Of course he is different. So am I. Ought I to begrudge my love his caution when we sacrificed so much to make certain of his safety?
“Enough.” He holds his hands out, palms up in resignation. “I must be mad, but I will follow you—whatever others say and whatever the risk.”
His willingness to put me before all else assuages me. “You must not,” I say, rushing back to him. Taking his face in both hands, I tip it upward and kiss his forehead as a mother might kiss a beloved child. “Though I cannot bear the thought of being parted from you again so soon, I will not sacrifice your honor and safety to satisfy my selfish needs.”
“My beautiful, beautiful love,” he says. “I will write to you every day. Unless the receipt of my letters will put you in peril…”
“Not at all. Nothing would please me more than for Jeanne d’Albret to find me reading one—except, perhaps for her to see us as we are now. I want no man but you. And I wish my cousins to know I am yours so that the Prince’s honor will demand he reject me.”
* * *
The motion of my horse reminds me of Henri—both the rhythm of the animal and the slight soreness I feel after being several hours in the saddle. My beloved made love to me more times than I could count during my last days in Paris. So often that I am left tender as a virgin after her first encounter. I am riding silently beside the King, thinking of the frenzied hours Henri and I passed last night, when Mother maneuvers her horse into the place at my other side.
She waves my brother on. “I have decided to put your cousin in rooms near to yours,” she says without preamble. “I will place the Queen of Navarre près to my own apartment on the pretext that this will permit us to interact without interference from the multitude of royal advisors on each side of this matter. And I will give the rooms adjacent to Jeanne’s to her daughter. Such actions will seem natural while providing you with an opportunity.”
“An opportunity, Madame?” I ask disingenuously. “You have impressed upon me repeatedly that the Queen of Navarre is strict in matters of morals. Surely then you do not wish me to flirt openly with her son.”
“Of course I do, just not when his mother is looking.” She looks me up and down. “Your color is healthier since a certain Duc returned to Court. And even at your worst you are likely the most beautiful woman your cousin has ever seen. My spies tell me Jeanne comes with a long list of conditions. I do not want to waste months wrangling.”
I, of course, wish to waste years.
“Fortunately,” Her Majesty continues, “Jeanne’s son has inherited her strong will. He is not a man to be entirely led by the nose, or so I am told.”
I am surprised at the admiration in her voice. After all, Mother requires malleability in her own sons.
“Dazzle your cousin,” Mother says, “and I think we may dispense with many hours of negotiations.” She lowers her voice. “And remember, while I reward dutiful children, I punish those who defy me—and sometimes their friends as well.”
The sinister underpinnings for Mother’s toleration for my flirtation with Guise are revealed. She desired a way of twisting me to her will, and he—or rather my love for him—will become the rope by which I am led or hung. Whatever I do to scuttle this match once the party from Navarre arrives will have to be done subtly. I cannot sacrifice Henri.
“I will be agreeable.”
“Be more than agreeable. You know what it takes to capture and hold a man. Even as the Princesse de Porcien works to provide her husband a second son and thus herself with twice the security, she remains jealous of you, with good reason.”
I am about to protest, but Mother raises a hand.
“You need not waste either of our time in denials. Provided you wrap your cousin around your finger and lead him to the altar, I do not care how much you upset the Princesse.”
I remember years ago when Baronne de Retz admonished me that my standards of conduct must be above those other ladies who served the Queen. I wonder what my former gouvernante would think to hear what Mother asks of me.
“Madame, I will do all that I can to charm the Prince without engaging in conduct that might demean the House of Valois.”
“You were not so fastidious in the past.” Mother snorts in disgust. “If you were, they would not call you ‘Guise’s whore’ in the south. Yes, I have heard it.”
“From Anjou.”
“Does it matter where? Just be advised that if you give credence to the name in front of the Queen of Navarre, the consequences will be unpleasant.” She says the last word as if it were “deadly.” “As for the Prince of Navarre, I shall count on your looks if I do not have your enthusiastic cooperation. And who knows, perhaps your cousin likes a difficult chase. He is an avid hunter. But make no mistake: you are a quarry that cannot escape. When terms are reached, Henri de Bourbon will have you if I have to truss you up and deliver you myself.”
* * *
Everyone expected the Queen of Navarre to arrive at Blois in grand state shortly after we did. As days slip by with no sign of her party, Mother becomes increasingly testy. I count the days with mixed feelings. Each is a precious sliver of freedom. Yet, just as pleasant anticipation can increase eventual pleasure, the anticipation here increases my dread.
When we have been at Blois a week, Henriette bustles in as my hair is being dressed. I know by the way she moves that she has something important to tell. Has my cousins’ party been sighted? Does she have news from Paris?
“A representative of the Holy Father arrived this morning,” she proclaims. “And not just any diplomat: the Pope’s nephew, Cardinal Alessandrino.”
Dear God! Can it be the dispensation? Henri assured me it would be difficult to obtain and I have taken solace in those words, considering the Holy Father the final bulwark against this detestable match. If a dispensati
on has been secured this quickly.… I can barely breathe. Then it dawns upon me: Henriette is smiling. She would never delight in news abhorrent to me.
“And?” I ask, clutching the edge of my dressing table.
“He brings a letter from the King of Portugal—”
I believe I have stopped breathing entirely.
“—avowing that he is so eager to have you, he will take you without dowry and without delay.”
“Oh, Henriette!” I jump to my feet and pull my friend into an embrace. “I am saved.” Three years ago, when the Portuguese match was first pursued, I would not have celebrated such news. But now, with no hope of marrying my lover and faced with a marriage to a heretic, Dom Sébastien seems an attractive groom indeed.
“Margot, you are too hasty! I fear the Cardinal comes too late. My husband, from whom I had this news, asserts it is so. He says both King and Queen Mother firmly believe Navarre the more desirable husband.”
“An opinion easily held when he will be someone else’s spouse! It is not they but I who must subjugate myself to a heretic. I who must spread my legs for a man who, when last I saw him, smelled and looked always as if he had passed a long summer day in the saddle. How shall I bear such a thing?”
“You can hardly say that. But you may choose to say something to sway matters. That is why I bring the news expeditiously.”
“I will go to the King at once.”
When I arrive at Charles’ apartment, I am not surprised that it is Mother who calls “Enter.” Her Majesty, on the other hand, is entirely astonished to see me. “Margot? Your brother and I are engaged in business of state.”
“I have come on a matter of state.”
She looks faintly amused. “The only matter that need occupy you is the order in which you will wear your gowns when we entertain your future husband.”
“I believe, Madame, there is something more serious to be considered.”
Mother narrows her eyes. Her fingers drum on the arm of her chair.
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