Intrigued

by Bertrice Small

  “Did you love him, Mama?” Autumn asked.

  “Yes, but I never told him. You see, ma fille, even though I was the daughter of a great monarch, my birth was deemed irregular by English standards, although it was certainly not in India. Henry was in love with me, but he would never be allowed to marry me. If I had admitted my love to him, he would have never married a proper princess, but in the end it didn’t matter. He died suddenly shortly after Charlie was born, and his little brother became England’s next king. A most unfortunate king. King Louis has been more forward than my prince was so long ago, but he is a king, Autumn. This position you find yourself in is not of your making, but it is up to you how you will solve the problem.”

  “What would you do, Mama, if you were in my place?” Autumn asked her mother seriously. “Would you yield yourself to this man?”

  “Yes,” Jasmine replied as seriously. “It is but a temporary situation, Autumn. The queen and the cardinal seek to marry Louis off and gain legitimate heirs for France as soon as possible. There are already two candidates for the king’s hand: the Spanish princess, Maria-Theresa, and the Savoyard princess, Marguerite. Any mistress the king may have when he marries will disappear from his life. No amour should embarrass his queen, whoever she is. My cousins also tell me that the cardinal’s niece, Marie Mancini, has also caught the king’s eye in Paris. This king will not enslave you, Autumn; but he will provide you with a momentary and delightful diversion. You have never known any man but Sebastian, may God assoil his good soul. You now have the opportunity to see what another man is like before you fall in love and remarry one day, which you will, ma fille, no matter what you may think now. You will love again,” her mother concluded.

  “Mama, I am surprised at you,” Autumn said. “I should have never thought to hear such advice coming from your lips.”

  Jasmine laughed heartily. “Why is it,” she said, “that all children believe their parents have had no life before their birth? I was forty-one when you were born, Autumn. I had lived a long and adventurous life even before you were a glint in my eye. Life, since your birth, I will admit, has been quiet, even staid, but these past years cannot take away from who I am, and I am who I am because of the life I lived before you were born. All you have ever known is that you were born at Maguire’s Ford in Ulster. Were you aware that you came early into life? That several hours before your birth I stood off a mob of angry men bent on murder and destruction?”

  “You never told me this,” Autumn said, surprised by the revelation.

  “It wasn’t necessary that you know,” her mother replied. “I tell you now because I want you to understaned that life is not always predictable, Autumn. It twists and turns like any road. Until now you have walked a fairly straight path, ma fille. King Louis is a steep curve that you must negotiate carefully, but you are my daughter, and I know you will do well.” Jasmine leaned forward and kissed Autumn’s cheek. “And when your time with Louis is over, ma fille, bow gracefully out while keeping the king’s friendship. That is the clever and wise thing to do.”

  The young woman sighed. “I will tell Lily and Orane to pack for our visit to Chambord, Mama,” she said, resigned. “Madeline will be safe here at Chermont for these few days.”

  “She will,” Jasmine agreed, knowing, but not saying aloud, that it was unlikely her daughter would return for less than several weeks if the king was pleased. This was something Autumn would come to face herself after she had been with Louis. Ah, the older woman thought, to be young again, and have a virile lover! Then she smiled. How Jemmie would laugh at her thoughts. But perhaps not. James Leslie’s notions of honor were strongly fixed. They had gotten him killed. Their daughter was very much like her father, but she must see that she became more flexible like herself, Jasmine considered. Especially if she was to survive in this man’s world.

  Before they departed the following morning, they were visited by Madame de Belfort tend Madame St. Omer. Both Jasmine and Autumn were surprised to see the two ladies, but the forthright Madame St. Omer spoke up, dispelling their curiosity.

  “We have heard that the king was here yesterday, mes cousines. What is it all about? Did he come to pay his condolences? How kind of him. Queen Anne and the cardinal raised a good man.”

  Autumn began to laugh. “How do the servants do it?” she asked aloud. “I know there is no keeping secrets from them, but how did the news travel from Chermont to Archambault so quickly, and in time for you to arrive here so early in the morning, tantes?”

  Her query gave Madame St. Omer pause; but then, shaking her head, she said, “I have no idea, ma petite. All I can tell you is that last evening I learned of the king’s visit from my own maidservant. It is true, isn’t it?” Her eyes shifted to the trunks in the foyer. “Where are you going?” she demanded to know.

  “The king has invited Autumn and me to join him at Chambord,” Jasmine replied.

  “Mon Dieu!” Madame de Belfort exclaimed, her blue eyes wide with surprise, and then sudden understanding.

  “As long as Jasmine is there, there can be speculation, but no one can say for certain what is going on,” Madame St. Omer said thoughtfully. “You will, of course, deny any and everything, ma petite,” she advised her niece. “Will you return to Paris with him?”

  “Why would I go to Paris?” Autumn asked.

  “If you are to become the king’s mistress . . .” he aunt began.

  “The king has offered me nothing more than a ‘sweet idyll.’ ” Autumn responded, “and I want nothing more than that, tantes. Moreover, I most certainly do not want to go to Paris. My home is here, and my place is with my daughter. There will be nothing more.”

  “We shall see,” Madame St. Omer said. “The rumor is that he is a splendid lover, ma petite. I shall want a full report when you return from Chambord, eh?” she chuckled.

  “Oh, sister, how can you be so indelicate?” Madame de Belfort twittered, her cheeks red with embarrassment over her elder’s frankness.

  “Well, sister, don’t you want to know if the rumors are true?” Madame St. Omer said bluntly.

  “If the king becomes my lover, Aunt, I can hardly fault his prowess, can I?” Autumn said with a small smile.

  “Not publicly,” her aunt agreed, “but privately I shall expect to know everything, ma petite!”

  Autumn and her mother bid the aunts adieu and departed for the journey to Chambord, which would take them most of the day. Chambord, Autumn had been told, was the royal hunting lodge, and while Louis used it each fall, it had been given by his father Louis XIII to the current Louis’s uncle, Gaston d’Orleans, who would not be in residence now. The king, while polite to his uncle, would never forget how that relation had made his childhood difficult and schemed to overthrow his mother’s authority, and especially how he had managed to have Cardinal Mazarin exiled for a time, endangering them all.

  Late in the afternoon, the marquise’s carriage approached the chateau. Autumn and her mother could only gape with amazement at the sight before their eyes, for the king’s hunting lodge of Chambord was the largest and most lavish chateau in the whole of the Loire Valley. The building and its great forest were girded by over twenty miles of perimeter walls. The great roof of the chateau, which seemed to stretch forever, was filled from one end to the other with turrets and dormers, windows and spires, lanterns, balconies, and chimneys.

  “It is almost oriental in appearance,” Jasmine noted. “I am reminded of the palaces of my youth.”

  “It is too big,” Autumn pronounced. “We shall never find our way about it. I thought Chenonceaux was large, but this chateau is huge. I am already sorry that I agreed to come.”

  “There was no choice,” her mother reminded her.

  Autumn just stared ahead at the great white stone building with its blue slate roof. There were four towers at each edge of the chateau, and at its midsection she could see more towers rising. She sighed and shook her head. To go to court as an observer was one thing, but to b
e part and parcel of such an elite grouping was another. And who would be there? There were no women, the king had told her. What would that make her appear to be? Her reputation was going to be in tatters by the time all of this was over and done with, despite her mother’s presence. And what if Louis did want her to go to Paris? She would not go. She simply would not go!

  The moat surrounding Chambord had been diverted from a nearby stream. The carriage crossed over it and rumbled onward, finally stopping at the main entrance of the chateau. Immediately liveried servants came running to open the coach’s door, lower the steps, and help the two women out. A more senior member of their number stepped forward and bowed very politely to them.

  “Madame la marquise, madame la duchesse, the king bids you welcome to Chambord. If you will follow me, I will escort you to your apartments. His majesty is still out hunting but should return quite soon.” He bowed again and, turning, walked quickly back into the chateau.

  They followed even as Lily, Orane, and Rohana scrambled from the carriage, following their mistresses, as behind them the footmen unloaded the luggage from the coach and then led the vehicle away to the stables.

  Autumn tried hard not to goggle at the magnificence of her surroundings, but it wasn’t easy. The upper servant led them through the foyer and up a flight of wide marble stairs into the central keep of the building and down a corridor. Before them was an incredible staircase with twin helical flights that made it impossible for those ascending to see those descending. “Mon Dieu!” the half-whispered words escaped her before she could restrain them.

  “It is amazing, isn’t it?” the servant said quietly. “All who first come to Chambord are astounded by it. Ah, here we are.”

  He turned and gave them a small smile. “You will both be staying in the king’s apartments. You, madame la marquis, here.” He flung open a door. “And you, madame la duchesse, but a little ways down the corridor, here. The trunks will be brought up, and your serving women may share the cabinet next to your chambers, mesdames. You will find chateau serving women at your command, and a footman will come to escort you to the evening meal. I shall tell the king when he returns of your arrival.” He bowed again most politely.

  “I will want a bath,” Autumn suddenly found her voice.

  “I will see to it, madame la marquise,” he told her and then, turning, he was swiftly gone.

  “I have not seen such grandeur since my father’s palaces,” Jasmine said. “It is all quite overwhelming, but exquisite.”

  “It is too much,” Autumn said to her mother.

  “Ah, my little Scots daughter, who thought nothing was finer than Glenkirk and Queen’s Malvern,” Jasmine teased. “These French kings have a great flair for style. I think it comes from the Italian blood in them.”

  “Where do you think the king’s bedchamber is?” Autumn wondered.

  “Quite near to yours, I suspect,” her mother said. “He will certainly want to come and go without being observed by anyone, ma fille.”

  “Oh, Mama, I am afraid,” Autumn admitted suddenly.

  Jasmine shrugged. “He is only a man, ma petite. There is no mystery, and you are no virgin.”

  “But I have never known any man but my husband!” Autumn was pale.

  “Sebastian is dead, and now you will know another man,” her mother replied in practical tones. “Do not be a fool, cherie. Since you must do this, do it with goodwill and endear yourself to the king. It will be the better for you, for Madeline, and for Chermont when he finally tires of you and you are no longer in his life.”

  “I wonder if I shall ever be as sanguine as you, Mama,” Autumn said.

  The older woman laughed. “Perhaps one day, ma fille,” Jasmine replied.

  Chapter 14

  Autumn and her mother were escorted to the king’s salle a manger by a liveried footman. Within the dining room were eight gentlemen. Louis came forward and kissed the ladies’ hands, introducing them immediately afterwards to the others in the room. None were noblemen of particularly high rank, which Autumn found interesting. As their manner was informal, the beautiful marquise assumed the king preferred it that way. Her mother was seated at the foot of the dining table, the king leading Jasmine there personally, while the Comte de Montroi placed Autumn on the king’s right at the table’s head.

  As the servants began serving their first course, the king took Autumn’s hand in his and kissed it once again, this time turning it over and embracing the palm. She flushed prettily, surprised at his public action, pulling the hand from his light grip.

  “Sire,” she chided him softly. “You are not being very discreet.”

  “How can I be when all I want to do is kiss your pretty lips?” Louis replied, his brown eyes twinkling.

  Autumn laughed and shook her head at him. “Eat your soup, monseigneur,” she advised, and dipped her own spoon into her bowl, sipping delicately, her gaze modestly lowered.

  The king chuckled. “You make it most difficult for me, ma bijou, but later tonight I shall make it most difficult for you.”

  Again Autumn’s cheeks colored, but then she boldly looked up at the king and responded. “Perhaps, sire, I shall make it quite arduous for you in return.” Then she was shocked at her own words, which seemed challenging in her own ears, but she had somehow sensed that she must not allow herself to be this man’s victim. If he would have her in his bed, then they would play the game as equals. Where on earth had that idea come from? she wondered to herself. She almost sounded like her own mother.

  But Louis smiled, not in the least offended by her speech, turning his attention to his meal now.

  Autumn heaved a silent sigh of relief, but her appetite was scant despite the delicious dishes offered by the well-trained servants. Looking about her, she was enchanted by the dining room. It was beautiful, with much gilt, exquisite carvings, and wood panels covered in silk. There was a huge marble fireplace flanked by lifesize knights in full armour, their swords before them, pointed down. The heavy bronze andirons in the fireplace were large and held enormous logs that crackled merrily as they burned. The shorter walls were hung with large woven silk tapestries, the longer walls with great paintings. The floors were black-and-white marble, but beneath the sizable oak dining table was a beautiful Turkey carpet.

  Autumn remarked on it, and immediately the king said, “One day we shall make such exquisite carpets here in France, and we shall make silk as well. I do not wish France to be overly dependent upon foreigners for rare and unique things. We shall make our own porcelain too. I vow it, cherie! When I complete my palace at Versailles it shall be filled with all manner of wonderful things, and many of them will have been made here in France!”

  “Then you have begun your new palace,” she replied.

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “You will come and see it one day.” It was a statement, not a request.

  The evening ended early for, as the king announced, they would hunt at dawn. The king’s companions looked archly at one another, all thinking their master was far more interested in the hunt he would conduct that night than the one scheduled for the dawn.

  “Not that I blame him,” the Sieur de Belleville said to his companions. “What a rare beauty. Such skin! And those bewitching eyes. One blue and one green.” He sighed. “Why is it that kings always have nothing but the best?”

  “You defame madame la marquise,” Montroi said quickly. “If you do not cease, I shall be obliged, law or no law, to challenge you, de Belleville.” Because of the affection in which he held Autumn, Guy Claude felt obliged to defend her honor. She was not some loose woman of the court.

  “Come now, mon ami,” de Belleville reasoned, “we all know why madame la marquise is here at Chambord, though how the king ferreted out such a beauty in the midst of the wilds is beyond my ken.”

  “Having lived most of your life in Normandy,” Montroi replied, “you cannot know it, but five years ago, madame and her deceased husband did the king and his mother a great servi
ce. As you are aware, the king never forgets a kindness.”

  “Or a great beauty,” Baron Chaizefleurs chortled knowingly.

  “For God’s sake, monsieurs, her mother chaperones her!” Montroi said angrily.

  “I think, Montroi, that you are still in love with her,” de Belleville insinuated slyly.

  “I was never in love with her,” Guy Claude said bluntly.

  “But you courted her!”

  The Comte de Montroi laughed. “Come now, de Belleville, do not be so naive. Who would not, given the opportunity, have courted her? She is beautiful. She is wealthy. She was a virgin of impeccable lineage. I would have been a fool not to have tried for such a prize. I am not in love with her now, or ever, but we are friends, and I will not have her reputation so quickly compromised by a group of ignorant fools who know nothing of madame la marquis or her peerless reputation.”

  “Then I must apologize, mon ami,” de Belleville said, ending the discussion quite peacefully. He bowed to the Comte de Montroi.

  “Your apology is accepted,” Guy Claude said, satisfied that he had protected Autumn’s reputation as best he could. He did not for a moment believe his companions thought any differently now than they had several minutes before, but at least they would not discuss the matter too easily or too publicly.

  Autumn had bid her mother good night, saying nothing that would reveal her nervousness, although Jasmine certainly knew. Both Lily and Orane had come with her. They helped their mistress to disrobe, and Orane brushed out Autumn’s long dark hair with firm but gentle strokes, while Lily fetched a clean, soft silk chemise for her lady to wear to bed. Autumn dismissed them, having washed her hands, her face, and her teeth, rinsing her mouth with violet water. She was not yet ready to get into bed, and she wondered how soon it would be before the king visited her.

  She stood by a window looking out over the wide lawn of the chateau. The moonlight dappled the greens, and she saw several deer grazing. It was a sight she had not seen since she had last visited Queen’s Malvern. She sighed deeply, affected by the beauty of it, which almost hurt her heart. How far she had come since those days of her innocence. Her ears picked up a faint sound behind her. She did not even start when the king’s voice said to her, “It is lovely.”