“No,” she breathed, her arms going around his waist to hold him close. “’Twas only a moment’s grief. And oh! how sweet to feel you in me.”
“Dorothé!” He deepened his thrusts, seeing the pleasure on her face, losing himself in the pleasure of her sweet body, until his own body exploded in a great drenching rush, and he collapsed against her.
She began to weep then, her overcharged heart unable to contain the emotions that shook her. “My love,” she sobbed over and over, as he folded her tenderly in his embrace. “My love. My husband.”
When she awoke, the room was gray with first light. Chanteclair, in his breeches, was standing at the window peering through the leaded panes. She sat up in bed. “What time is it?”
“Nearly dawn. I thought I heard a noise.” He turned and smiled at her.
She dimpled prettily. “’Tis very early. Hours and hours before breakfast!”
He laughed and crossed to the bed, sitting beside her. “Brazen hussy, will you have me out of my breeches at every opportunity after we are married?”
“If I can!” She pulled his mouth down to hers, purring in contentment as he wrapped his arms about her and returned her kisses.
There was a noise on the stairs outside, and the door crashed open. Chanteclair leaped from the bed and reached for his sword, but two burly ruffians were there first, kicking away his hand from the blade and grabbing him savagely by the arms. He struggled and cursed them, until one of them dealt him a blow to the side of the head that almost rendered him unconscious. He sagged between their restraining arms, dimly aware that Dorothé had screamed, that two men stood before him. He shook the mists from his eyes and looked up.
“You villain!” The elder of the two men slapped him sharply across the face. “Would you rob me of my daughter? Did I not say you could not have her?”
Chanteclair nodded his head in mock politeness, his lip curled with contempt. “Monsieur le Baron des Loches. I had not thought to see you again.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the other man, a tall nobleman with cruel eyes, who glared at him and slapped the side of his boot with his riding whip. “And this gallows-bird?”
“Monsieur le Vicomte de LaPierre, the injured bridegroom that was to be.”
“Monsieur.” Chanteclair’s voice oozed charm. “If you will but tell these men to release me, and permit me to regain my weapon, we can settle our differences.”
“Insolent cur! I don’t do battle with scum!”
Dorothé, crouched on the bed, the sheets pulled around her naked body, found her voice. “No, you coward! You hire cutthroats to do your filthy work!”
“Hold your tongue, saucy miss!” Des Loches whirled on his daughter. “Monsieur de LaPierre is a man of great importance! He was willing to take you as his bride, despite your willful ways. You foolish jade! Had you wanted that vagabond, that useless stroller, you might have had him as a lover after your marriage to Monsieur le Vicomte!”
Dorothé gasped in horror. “Mon Dieu! Father! Would you have your daughter a married whore?”
“I should never have allowed you so many years in that convent. You speak like a bourgeois schoolgirl!” He smiled obsequiously at LaPierre. “Is she not a foolish child?”
“Indeed.” The Vicomte crossed to the bed and laid his hand on Dorothé’s bare shoulder. Chanteclair growled and struggled against the hands that held him. LaPierre smiled, his fingers playing with a curl at the girl’s temple. “I have always found that many lovers make a woman more interesting in bed. More…adventuresome, n’est-ce pas? I should have allowed you to seek your pleasures where you might, my dear.” His face darkened. “But now…you have run away…injured my pride. Still, you’re a pretty little thing…”
“My good Vicomte,” said des Loches effusively, “can I take your tone to mean that…despite the insult this unworthy chit has done to your honor…I might dare to hope—?”
“That a marriage can still take place?” LaPierre shrugged. “I might be persuaded to accept her, when my pride has been salved.” He smiled patronizingly as des Loches sighed with relief, then he turned to Chanteclair, still straining against his captors. “But as for you, actor,” he spat the word, “you have cost me a deal of time and money to recover my bride. You shall pay for it!”
“I have committed no crime. I have dared to love a woman another man desired. If that were a crime, half the men of France would hang.”
“True enough. ’Tis no crime. Though I could have you killed and no one would care—the law favors my class over yours. But I shall be merciful. My men will release you after we have gone. However…” his mouth curved in an evil smile, “before they do, they will see to it that you are incapable of debauching a woman ever again!”
“Father!” Dorothé shrieked. “You cannot allow this!”
Des Loches shrugged. “Whatever Monsieur le Vicomte wishes, I shall not stand in his way.”
“But I carry Jean’s child,” she said. “Doesn’t that make a difference?”
Des Loches frowned at LaPierre, clearly upset. “What’s to be done? If she carries his child…she can swear it in holy church…before a court of law…Can I forbid her marriage to him then? And risk the shame of society, the dishonor to the family name?”
LaPierre began to laugh softly and pointed to the bed, indicating with his riding-crop the bloodstains on the white sheet. “If a seed was planted, it was only last night. But if I take the minx now…here…who can say, in a nine-month, that the child is not mine?”
“Damn you!” Chanteclair was beside himself, fighting to get loose.
“Mother of God,” sobbed Dorothé. “Would you abandon me, Father?”
Des Loches scowled at her, his eyes cold. “Wretched child. You have disgraced me, beyond all redeeming. Only the generosity of Monsieur le Vicomte—agreeing to marry you despite your wickedness—will save our house from shame and ruin!” He turned to LaPierre. “She is yours, to do with as you wish. I shall wait below.” With a last look of scorn for his daughter, he left the room.
The vicomte smiled, clearly enjoying Chanteclair’s anguish. “Hold the rogue,” he said to his men. “I want him to watch.” His eyes swept Dorothé, cowering on her knees behind the sheets. “This is only a taste, my love, of what’s to come.”
She drew herself up proudly, stilling her trembling mouth. “You shall find no pleasure if you rape me, monsieur. I shall curse you to your face.” She looked at Chanteclair, her eyes warm with tenderness and longing. “I have known the love of a true man. How can you harm me? I shall curse you with my every breath.”
“Insolent baggage!” he cried. “Will you defy your husband that is to be? Well, then, the battle is joined.” Savagely he ripped the sheet from her shaking fingers; he raised his riding crop above his head, poised over her naked body. “You’ll start married life, my sweet, with a few stripes on your pretty-skin!”
Chanteclair let out a roar and tore himself free from the two men. Before they could stop him, he had snatched up his rapier and plunged it between LaPierre’s shoulder blades. The vicomte gasped, sighed, and fell on his face across the bed. Chanteclair felt a blow to the back of his head, and then another. He stumbled to his knees, feeling the rain of fists and boots on his ribs and head, pounding him to the floor.
The last thing he remembered, before blackness closed in on him, was Dorothé’s tearful face, and her white breast spotted with LaPierre’s blood.
“Name of God, Valentin,” said Sébastien, keeping pace with the other man’s long strides. “Stop tormenting yourself. We shall be in Nemours in another two or three weeks. Time enough to discover how goes Chanteclair’s suit.”
“I like it not. Easter is long past, and we have had but one letter. If only I had been able to stop him from going. I could strangle Ninon for not telling me!”
“She meant well. And it was Chanteclair’s wish.”
“What a fool! She thought his mad scheme brave and sweet. She’s a simple-minded romantic who sti
ll dreams of true love and noble heroes.”
Sébastien laughed. “Eh bien! She did not find one in you! Is that why she left your bed?”
Valentin whirled to him, his eyes like black coals. “She left my bed because I wished it!”
Sébastien opened the back door of the theater and began climbing the stairs to the changing room. “Then tell me, my friend,” he said softly, “why you are so out of temper since she has been sleeping without you. Were I in your shoes, I should beat the wench soundly and take her to bed. Put a stop to her willful ways.”
“Mayhap I don’t want her,” growled Valentin.
“Mayhap you lie. Or, rather, you wish to lie…with her!”
“For the sake of our friendship,” said Valentin, pushing open the changing room door, “hold your tongue. Save your wit for the stage.”
About to step out of her skirts, Ninon looked up as they entered. “Ah, Valentin,” she said, her eyes wide with mock innocence, “today you wear your half-angry mask. What an improvement over yesterday’s scowl!”
“Your tongue grows sharper with each passing day,” he said. “’Tis remarkable how quickly a woman can transform into a shrew.”
She shrugged in indifference and stepped out of her skirts, then unhooked the bodice of her gown. “I see no reason to be pleasant,” she said.
“Ah yes. With your gallant Chanteclair gone, there is no one to cosset you, make you think you are a fine lady in a château.”
“Chanteclair was a gentleman.”
He smiled, one eyebrow arched in mockery. “I am a gentleman. When I find a lady who’s worth the effort!”
“Plague take you,” she hissed, and swung at him. He clutched at her wrist, his hand wrapping about hers. They glared at each other for long moments, then he released her, as though her very touch burned him.
“If ‘Sylvie’ misses her cue this afternoon,” he said through clenched teeth, “I swear I shall stop the performance and rebuke you before the whole audience!”
“Mon Dieu!” said Hortense, poking at Valentin’s sleeve. “Go away and get into your costume. I vow you two put Sébastien and me to shame!”
Ninon whirled away from them and pulled off the rest of her outer garments, stripping down to her chemise. She felt like the strings of a lute, stretched to the breaking point. She could not eat, she could not sleep. She hated him. She wanted him. Oh, God, she thought, how long could they go on this way, rubbing each other raw? He hated her, that was clear. He had taken her into his bed, into his heart (as much as he would allow), and now he was reproaching himself for his weakness, making her pay for his brief lapse.
She looked up. Two elegant noblemen had strolled into the changing room; after a pause to survey the three actresses, they ambled up to Ninon. She smiled falsely. It was common for the young idlers to come and watch the women change into their costumes. There was very little that could be done about it. If a cavalier was treated rudely in the changing room, he might be disposed to hiss and boo the actress when she appeared upon the stage, thereby turning the whole audience against her. It meant being pelted with candle ends, fruit pits, and orange skins, and sometimes being driven off the stage entirely. Quickly Ninon reached for the shimmering gauze gown she was to wear as “Sylvie,” ignoring the eyes that swept over her brief chemise and seemed to strip the garment from her.
“Oh. Wait a moment. Upon my word. Let me look at you, goddess, just as you are!” One of the noblemen leered at her, lifting an eyeglass to one eye. A silly fop, she thought, from the blond curly wig he wore to the ribbon bows on his high-heeled shoes.
“For shame, monsieur,” she chided. “Have a little respect for my modesty!” She slipped the gown over her head, then presented her back to him. “But you may lace up my bodice for me!” Grinning, he complied, his hands lingering on her waist.
His companion, a short cavalier with a tall hat, grumbled at Ninon’s choice and went off to seek solace with Toinette, who was only too glad to let him fondle her breast for the price of a supper after the performance. Ninon sat down and proceeded to change her stockings, while her suitor crouched before her, admiring her ankles and hoping for a glance up the front of her skirt.
She smiled uncomfortably at his scrutiny and slipped into her shoes. “Chéroy is a charming village,” she said, by way of making conversation. She straightened her hair and placed a crown of silk flowers on her curls.
“I find it so,” he said, sniffing at his lace handkerchief. “Will you take supper with me?”
She contrived to look helpless. “I cannot think now, when my head is filled with my parts.”
“Pox take me, but I should like to fill you with my parts!”
“You wicked sir!” She stood up, smoothing her skirts. “Do you live here in Chéroy?”
He shook his head. “No. Merely visiting. I come from Dijon.”
Valentin strode over to them, in the costume of a court jester, his face white with paint. “Your pardon, monsieur,” he said coldly. “While I hate to disturb your traffic with this jade, I must tell you the play begins in a moment. Please be so kind as to find your seat out front.”
“But the lady has not answered my question. Will you sup with me, my charming flower?”
“The company sups together, monsieur,” said Valentin, indicating the door.
“Wait!” Ninon put a hand on the gentleman’s beribboned sleeve. He came from Dijon. It was months since she had received Philippe’s letter. She longed to know if he was well, if he was happy. And this man came from Dijon. Surely he must know Philippe. She smiled coyly. “Where shall we meet, monsieur?”
He beamed in pleasure. “The Sign of the Brown Cow.”
“Till then,” she said, and pushed him gently through the door to the theater.
Valentin eyed her with contempt. “You’re getting more like Colombe every day.”
“’Tis none of your concern. I don’t belong to you.” She laughed sharply. “I’m only surprised you no longer call me whore. Is it that you’ve changed your opinion of me? Or that my whoredom is so confirmed in your mind that it’s no longer worthy of your notice?”
“Don’t take supper with that coxcomb.”
“Go to the devil.”
They played the pastoral in a state of war, Valentin taking every opportunity to criticize her performance each time they were backstage, Ninon deliberately confusing her lines so he missed his cues and appeared a clumsy fool on the stage. They managed to get through it at last, receiving much applause in spite of everything. They hurried to the changing room while the scenemen put out new wings and a back-cloth that represented a village street on one side, and a kitchen on the other. Several chairs and benches were set in place, as well as a kitchen table laid with saucepans and pots and the breakaway plates. They were playing The Imaginary Cuckold, or The Jealous Vicomte, as the day’s farce.
Ninon put on her gray skirt and sleeveless jerkin, pulling down the neckline of her chemise to an immodest level, and shook free her chignon, letting her copper curls run riot. She ignored Valentin, who glared at her from across the changing room as he savagely wiped the paint from his face and replaced it with his comic half-mask with its sharply pointed false nose. Of shaped leather, it covered most of his face—forehead, temples, cheeks. Only his mouth and chin were uncovered to allow him to be heard clearly.
She hesitated, unwilling to speak to him even to discuss the business of the stage, then crossed the room to where he stood buckling on a sword harness and slipping his slapstick into it. “Shall we play the kitchen scene in mime? As we did in Sens?”
“I think so,” he said coldly. “The lines are useless in any event, when the audience is laughing.” His lip curled in an ugly smile. “But since we improvise anyway, I give you leave to insert in the first scene a brazen speech or two, directed to your gallant, your supper partner. Or would you prefer me to speak up and play the procurer, and arrange his entertainment for after supper?”
“My God!” she brea
thed with contempt. “You’re as jealous as the cuckolded vicomte in the play. But you gave up your right to dictate to me months ago—if indeed you ever had the right! I do as I choose! And if I choose to dance naked before that man, I shall do so! Now get out of my way.”
“You shameless strumpet! Will you warm every bed in Chéroy?”
“Where was your concern for my shame when I warmed your bed?” she asked, and was glad to see him flinch.
Then he shrugged. “I had no more scruples on that score than had your Philippe. At least I took you in a bed. I would not have deflowered you in a barn, on a pile of hay—as he seemed willing to do.” He laughed cruelly at the look of surprise on her face. “Yes. I knew you were a virgin. Did you think I didn’t?”
It was too much. She turned on her heel and stormed from the changing room, gnashing her teeth in fury. Damn him! Damn him! All the times he had called her whore—when he had known, from that first day, that she had never had a man before him.
They played the first act of The Imaginary Cuckold with the proper degree of animosity, hurling lines and insults back and forth like daggers. Sébastien, watching from the wings, shook his head and wondered how they would manage the reconciliation of the lovers in the third act. The first act ended with the scene where Valentin asked for the box. They had rehearsed the movements—she pretending to give him a box on the ear—a thousand times. But Ninon was still seething from his words. She made as if to strike him with her right hand, as usual; as he ducked away and howled, she slapped him as hard as she could with her left. His eyes, behind the mask, widened in shocked surprise. They played the scene out with Ninon’s mock assault (Valentin carefully avoiding another genuine blow) and left the stage to much laughter and applause.
But the moment they were out of sight of the audience, Valentin whipped off his mask and whirled to her. “I warn you, Ninon!” he said through clenched teeth.
She tossed her head and moved away from him, going to stand behind the back-cloth that represented the kitchen. She smiled sweetly at Joseph, who was already waiting there, and refused to look at Valentin. When Sébastien and Marc-Antoine had finished the duet they were singing, Ninon waited for the applause to die down, then stepped through the slash in the canvas that represented the door. In silence she fussed with the plates and saucepans on the table, then clasped her hands together in delight as Joseph, her hopeful suitor, entered the kitchen. They played their amorous scene in mime, with many kisses, and pinches on the rump—Joseph all the while indicating, with lewd gestures, exactly what he had in mind for his inamorata. It was a scene that never failed to earn the audience’s approval; the coarser his suggestive movements, the harder they laughed, adding bawdy comments of their own, which Ninon had long since learned to ignore.
Dreams So Fleeting Page 31