9
THE SPLENDORS OF VERSAILLES
I closed the door of the drawing room quietly behind me and stood still a moment, gathering courage. I essayed a restorative deep breath, but the tightness of the whalebone corseting made it come out as a strangled gasp.
Jamie, immersed in a handful of shipping orders, glanced up at the sound and froze, eyes wide. His mouth opened, but he made no sound.
“How do you like it?” Handling the train a bit gingerly, I stepped down into the room, swaying gently as the seamstress had instructed, to show off the filmy gussets of silk plissé let into the overskirt.
Jamie shut his mouth and blinked several times.
“It’s … ah … red, isn’t it?” he observed.
“Rather.” Sang-du-Christ, to be exact. Christ’s blood, the most fashionable color of the season, or so I had been given to understand.
“Not every woman could wear it, Madame,” the seamstress had declared, speech unhampered by a mouthful of pins. “But you, with that skin! Mother of God, you’ll have men crawling under your skirt all night!”
“If one tries, I’ll stamp on his fingers,” I said. That, after all, was not at all the intended effect. But I did mean to be visible. Jamie had urged me to have something made that would make me stand out in the crowd. Early-morning fog notwithstanding, the King had evidently remembered him from his appearance at the lever, and we had been invited to a ball at Versailles.
“I’ll need to get the ears of the men with the money,” Jamie had said, making plans with me earlier. “And as I’ve neither great position nor power myself, it will have to be managed by making them seek my company.” He heaved a sigh, looking at me, decidedly unglamorous in my woolen bedgown.
“And I’m afraid in Paris that means we’ll have to go out a bit in society; appear at Court, if it can be managed. They’ll know I’m a Scot; it will be natural for folk to ask me about Prince Charles, and whether Scotland is eagerly awaiting the return of the Stuarts. Then I can assure them discreetly that most Scots would pay a good price not to have the Stuarts back again—though it goes against the grain a bit to say so.”
“Yes, you’d better be discreet,” I agreed. “Or the Bonnie Prince may set the dogs on you next time you go to visit.” In accordance with his plan to keep abreast of Charles’s activities, Jamie had been paying weekly duty calls on the small house at Montmartre.
Jamie smiled briefly. “Aye. Well, so far as His Highness, and the Jacobite supporters are concerned, I’m a loyal upholder of the Stuart cause. And so long as Charles Stuart is not received at Court and I am, the chances of his finding out what I’m saying there are not great. The Jacobites in Paris keep to themselves, as a rule. For the one thing, they haven’t the money to appear in fashionable circles. But we have, thanks to Jared.”
Jared had concurred—for entirely different reasons—in Jamie’s proposal that we widen the scope of Jared’s usual business entertaining, so that the French nobility and the heads of the wealthy banking families might beat a path to our door, there to be seduced and cozened with Rhenish wine, good talk, fine entertainment, and large quantities of the good Scotch whisky that Murtagh had spent the last two weeks shepherding across the Channel and overland to our cellars.
“It’s entertainment of one kind or another that draws them, ye ken,” Jamie had said, sketching out plans on the back of a broadsheet poem describing the scurrilous affair between the Comte de Sévigny and the wife of the Minister of Agriculture. “All the nobility care about is appearances. So to start with, we must offer them something interesting to look at.”
Judging from the stunned look on his face now, I had made a good beginning. I sashayed a bit, making the huge overskirt swing like a bell.
“Not bad, is it?” I asked. “Very visible, at any rate.”
He found his voice at last.
“Visible?” he croaked. “Visible? God, I can see every inch of ye, down to the third rib!”
I peered downward.
“No, you can’t. That isn’t me under the lace, it’s a fining of white charmeuse.”
“Aye well, it looks like you!” He came closer, bending to inspect the bodice of the dress. He peered into my cleavage.
“Christ, I can see down to your navel! Surely ye dinna mean to go out in public like that!”
I bristled a bit at this. I had been feeling a trifle nervous myself over the general revealingness of the dress, the fashionable sketches the seamstress had shown me notwithstanding. But Jamie’s reaction was making me feel defensive, and thus rebellious.
“You told me to be visible,” I reminded him. “And this is absolutely nothing, compared to the latest Court fashions. Believe me, I shall be modesty personified, in comparison with Madame de Pérignon and the Duchesse de Rouen.” I put my hands on my hips and surveyed him coldly. “Or do you want me to appear at Court in my green velvet?”
Jamie averted his eyes from my décolletage and tightened his lips.
“Mphm,” he said, looking as Scotch as possible.
Trying to be conciliatory, I came closer and laid a hand on his arm.
“Come now,” I said. “You’ve been at Court before; surely you know what ladies dress like. You know this isn’t terribly extreme by those standards.”
He glanced down at me and smiled, a trifle shamefaced.
“Aye,” he said. “Aye, that’s true. It’s only … well, you’re my wife, Sassenach. I dinna want other men to look at you the way I’ve looked at those ladies.”
I laughed and put my hands behind his neck, pulling him down to kiss me. He held me around the waist, his thumbs unconsciously stroking the softness of the red silk where it sheathed my torso. His touch traveled upward, sliding across the slipperiness of the fabric to the nape of my neck. His other hand grasped the soft roundness of my breast, swelling up above the tethering grip of the corsets, voluptuously free under a single layer of sheer silk. He let go at last and straightened up, shaking his head doubtfully.
“I suppose ye’ll have to wear it, Sassenach, but for Christ’s sake be careful.”
“Careful? Of what?”
His mouth twisted in a rueful smile.
“Lord, woman, have ye no notion what ye look like in that gown? It makes me want to commit rape on the spot. And these damned frog-eaters havena got my restraint.” He frowned slightly. “You couldna … cover it up at bit at the top?” He waved a large hand vaguely in the direction of his own lace jabot, secured with a ruby stickpin. “A … ruffle or something? A handkerchief?”
“Men,” I told him, “have no notion of fashion. But not to worry. The seamstress says that’s what the fan is for.” I flipped the matching lace-trimmed fan open with a gesture that had taken fifteen minutes’ practice to perfect, and fluttered it enticingly over my bosom.
Jamie blinked meditatively at this performance, then turned to take my cloak from the wardrobe.
“Do me the one favor, Sassenach,” he said, draping the heavy velvet over my shoulders. “Take a larger fan.”
In terms of attracting notice, the dress was an unqualified success. In terms of the effects on Jamie’s blood pressure, it was somewhat more equivocal.
He hovered protectively at my elbow, glaring ferociously at any male who glanced in my direction, until Annalise de Marillac, spotting us from across the room, came floating in our direction, her delicate features wreathed in a welcoming smile. I felt the smile freezing on my own face. Annalise de Marillac was an “acquaintance”—he said—of Jamie’s, from his former residence in Paris. She was also beautiful, charming, and exquisitely tiny.
“Mon petit sauvage!” she greeted Jamie. “I have someone you must meet. Several someones, in fact.” She tilted a head like a china doll in the direction of a group of men, gathered around a chess table in the corner, arguing heatedly about something. I recognized the Duc d’Orléans, and Gérard Gobelin, a prominent banker. An influential group, then.
“Come and play chess for them,” Annalise urged, placing a mothlike hand on Jamie’s arm. “It will be a good place for His Majesty to meet you, later.”
The King was expected to appear after the supper he was attending, sometime in the next hour or two. In the meantime, the guests wandered to and fro, conversing, admiring the paintings on the walls, flirting behind fans, consuming confits, tartlets, and wine, and disappearing at more or less discreet intervals into the odd little curtained alcoves. These were cleverly fitted into the paneling of the rooms, so that you scarcely noticed them, unless you got close enough to hear the sounds inside.
Jamie hesitated, and Annalise pulled a bit harder.
“Come along,” she urged. “Have no fear for your lady”—she cast an appreciative glance at my gown—“she won’t be alone long.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Jamie muttered under his breath. “All right, then, in a moment.” He disengaged himself momentarily from Annalise’s grasp and bent to whisper in my ear.
“If I find ye in one of those alcoves, Sassenach, the man you’re with is dead. And as for you …” His hands twitched unconsciously in the direction of his swordbelt.
“Oh no you don’t,” I said. “You swore on your dirk you’d never beat me again. What price the Holy Iron, eh?”
A reluctant grin tugged at his mouth.
“No, I wilna beat ye, much as I’d like to.”
“Good. What do you mean to do, then?” I asked, teasing.
“I’ll think of something,” he replied, with a certain grimness. “I dinna ken what, but ye wilna like it.”
And with a final glare round and a proprietary squeeze of my shoulder, he allowed Annalise to lead him away, like a small but enthusiastic tug towing a reluctant barge.
Annalise was right. No longer deterred by Jamie’s glowering presence, the gentlemen of the Court descended upon me like a flock of parrots on a ripe passion fruit.
My hand was kissed repeatedly and held lingeringly, dozens of flowery compliments were paid me, and cups of spiced wine were brought me in endless procession. After half an hour of this, my feet began to hurt. So did my face, from smiling. And my hand, from fan-wielding.
I had to admit some gratitude to Jamie for his intransigence in the matter of the fan. Bowing to his sensibilities, I had brought the largest I possessed, a foot-long whopper painted with what purported to be Scottish stags leaping through the heather. Jamie had been critical of the artistry, but approving of the size. Graciously fanning away the attentions of an ardent young man in purple, I then spread the thing inconspicuously beneath my chin to deflect crumbs while I nibbled at a piece of toast with salmon on it.
And not only toast crumbs. While Jamie, from his vantage point a foot above me, had claimed to be able to see my navel, my umbilicus was by and large safe from scrutiny by the French courtiers, most of whom were shorter than I was. On the other hand …
I had often enjoyed snuggling into Jamie’s chest, my nose fitting comfortably into the small hollow in the center. A few of the shorter and bolder souls among my admirers seemed bent on enjoying a similar experience, and I was kept busy, flapping my fan hard enough to blow their curls back from their faces, or if that didn’t suffice to discourage them, snapping the fan shut and rapping them smartly on the head with it.
It came as a considerable relief to hear the footman at the door suddenly draw himself up and intone, “Sa Majesté, Le Roi Louis!”
While the King might rise at dawn, apparently he blossomed at night. Not much taller than my own five feet six, Louis entered with the carriage of a much taller man, glancing left and right, nodding in gracious acknowledgment of his bowing subjects.
Now this, I thought, looking him over, was a good deal more in line with my ideas of what a king ought to look like. Not particularly handsome, he acted as though he were; an impression enhanced not only by the richness of his clothes, but by the attitude of those around him. He wore the latest backswept wig, and his coat was cut velvet, embroidered all over with hundreds of frivolous silk butterflies. It was cut away at the middle to display a waistcoat of voluptuous cream-colored silk with diamond buttons, matching the wide, butterfly-shaped buckles on his shoes.
The dark, hooded eyes swept restlessly over the crowd, and the haughty Bourbon nose lifted as though smelling out any item of interest.
Dressed in kilt and plaid, but with a coat and waistcoat of stiffened yellow silk, and with his flaming hair loose to his shoulders, a single small braid down one side in ancient Scots fashion, Jamie definitely qualified. At least I thought it was Jamie who had attracted the King’s attention, as Le Roi Louis purposefully changed direction and swerved toward us, parting the crowd before him like the waves of the Red Sea. Madame Nesle de La Tourelle, whom I recognized from a previous party, followed close behind him like a dinghy in his wake.
I had forgotten the red dress; His Majesty halted directly in front of me and bowed extravagantly, hand over his waist.
“Chère Madame!” he said. “We are enchanted!”
I heard a deep intake of breath from Jamie, and then he stepped forward and bowed to the King.
“May I present my wife, Your Majesty—my lady Broch Tuarach.” He rose and stepped back. Attracted by a quick flutter of Jamie’s fingers, I stared at him for a moment of incomprehension, before suddenly realizing that he was signaling me to curtsy.
I dipped automatically, struggling to keep my eyes on the floor and wondering where I would look when I bobbed up again. Madame Nesle de la Tourelle was standing just behind Louis, watching the introduction with a slightly bored look on her face. Gossip said that “Nesle” was Louis’s current favorite. She was, in current vogue, wearing a gown cut below both breasts, with a bit of supercedent gauze which was clearly meant for the sake of fashion, as it couldn’t possibly function for either warmth or concealment.
It was neither the gown nor the prospect it revealed that had rattled me, though. The breasts of “Nesle,” while reasonably adequate in size, pleasant in proportion, and tipped with large brownish areolae, were further adorned with a pair of nipple jewels that caused their settings to recede into insignificance. A pair of diamond-encrusted swans with ruby eyes stretched their necks toward each other, swinging precariously in their gold-hooped perches. The workmanship was superb and the materials stunning, but it was the fact that each gold hoop passed through her nipple that made me feel rather faint. The nipples themselves were rather seriously inverted, but this fact was disguised by the large pearl that covered each one, dangling on a thin gold chain that looped from side to side of the main hoop.
I rose, red-faced and coughing, and managed to excuse myself, hacking politely into a handkerchief as I backed away. I felt a presence in my rear and stopped just in time to avoid backing into Jamie, who was watching the King’s mistress with no pretense whatever of tactful obliviousness.
“She told Marie d’Arbanville that Master Raymond did the piercing for her,” I remarked under my breath. His fascinated gaze didn’t waver.
“Shall I make an appointment?” I asked. “I imagine he’d do it for me if I gave him the recipe for caraway tonic.”
Jamie glanced down at me at last. Taking my elbow, he steered me toward a refreshment alcove.
“If you so much as speak to Master Raymond again,” he said, out of the corner of his mouth, “I’ll pierce them for ye myself—wi’ my teeth.”
The King had by now wandered off toward the Salon of Apollo, the space left by his passage quickly filled by others coming from the supper room. Seeing Jamie distracted into conversation with a Monsieur Genet, head of a wealthy shipping family, I looked surreptitiously about for a place in which to remove my shoes for a moment.
One of the alcoves was at hand and, from the sounds of it, unoccupied. I sent a lingering admirer off to fetch some more wine, then, with a quick glance round, slid into the alcove.
It was furnished rather suggestively with a couch, a small table, and a pair of chairs—more suitable for laying aside garments than for sitting upon, I thought critically. I sat down nonetheless, pried my shoes off, and with a sigh of relief, propped my feet up on the other chair.
A faint jingling of curtain rings behind me announced the fact that my departure had not been unnoticed after all.
“Madame! At last we are alone!”
“Yes, more’s the pity,” I said, sighing. It was one of the countless Comtes, I thought. Or no, this one was a Vicomte; someone had introduced him to me earlier as the Vicomte de Rambeau. One of the short ones. I seemed to recall his beady little eyes gleaming up at me in appreciation from below the edge of my fan.
Wasting no time, he slid adroitly onto the other chair, lifting my feet into his lap. He clasped my silk-stockinged toes fervently against his crotch.
“Ah, ma petite! Such delicacy! Your beauty distracts me!”
I thought it must, if he was under the delusion that my feet were particularly delicate. Raising one to his lips, he nibbled at my toes.
“C’est un cochon qui vit dans la ville, c’est un cochon qui vit …”
I jerked my foot from his grasp and stood up hastily, rather impeded by my voluminous petticoats.
“Speaking of cochons who live in the city,” I said, rather nervously, “I don’t think my husband would be at all pleased to find you here.”
“Your husband? Pah!” He dismissed Jamie with an airy wave of the hand. “He will be occupied for some time, I am sure. And while the cat’s away.… come to me, ma petite souris; let me hear you squeak a bit.”
Presumably intending to fortify himself for the fray, the Vicomte produced an enameled snuffbox from his pocket, deftly sprinkled a line of dark grains along the back of his hand, and wiped it delicately against his nostrils.
He took a deep breath, eyes glistening in anticipation, then jerked his head as the curtain was suddenly thrust aside with a jangling of brass rings. His aim distracted by the intrusion, the Vicomte sneezed directly into my bosom with considerable vigor.
I shrieked.
“You disgusting man!” I said, and walloped him across the face with my closed fan.
The Vicomte staggered back, eyes watering. He tripped over my size-nine shoes, which lay on the floor, and fell headfirst into the arms of Jamie, who was standing in the doorway.
“Well, you did attract a certain amount of notice,” I said at last.
“Bah,” he said. “The salaud’s lucky I didna tear off his head and make him swallow it.”
“Well, that would have provided an interesting spectacle,” I agreed dryly. “Sousing him in the fountain was nearly as good, though.”
He looked up, his frown replaced with a reluctant grin.
“Aye, well. I didna drown the man, after all.”
“I trust the Vicomte appreciates your restraint.”
He snorted again. He was standing in the center of a sitting room, part of a small appartement in the palace, to which the King, once he had stopped laughing, had assigned us, insisting that we should not undertake the return journey to Paris tonight.
“After all, mon chevalier,” he had said, eyeing Jamie’s large, dripping form on the terrace, “we should dislike exceedingly for you to take a chill. I feel sure that the Court would be deprived of a great deal of entertainment in such a case, and Madame would never forgive me. Would you, sweetheart?” He reached out and pinched Madame de La Tourelle playfully on one nipple.
His mistress looked mildly annoyed, but smiled obediently. I noticed, though, that once the King’s attention had been distracted, it was Jamie on whom her gaze lingered. Well, he was impressive, I had to admit, standing dripping in the torchlight with his clothes plastered to his body. That didn’t mean I liked her doing it.
He peeled his wet shirt off and dropped it in a sodden heap. He looked even better without it.
“As for you,” he said, eyeing me in a sinister manner, “did I not tell ye to stay away from those alcoves?”
“Yes. But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?” I asked politely.
“What?” He stared at me as though I had lost my mind on the spot.
“Never mind; it’s a bit out of your frame of reference. I only meant, did you meet anyone useful before you came to defend your marital rights?”
He rubbed his hair vigorously with a towel plucked from the washstand. “Oh, aye. I played a game of chess with Monsieur Duverney. Beat him, too, and made him angry.”
“Oh, that sounds promising. And who’s Monsieur Duverney?”
He tossed me the towel, grinning. “The French Minister of Finance, Sassenach.”
“Oh. And you’re pleased because you made him angry?”
“He was angry at himself for losing, Sassenach,” Jamie explained. “Now he won’t rest until he’s beaten me. He’s coming round to the house on Sunday to play again.”
“Oh, well done!” I said. “And in the process, you can assure him that the Stuarts’ prospects are exceedingly dim, and convince him that Louis doesn’t want to assist them financially, blood kin or not.”
He nodded, combing back his wet hair with both hands. The fire had not yet been lit, and he shivered slightly.
“Where did you learn to play chess?” I asked curiously. “I didn’t know you knew how.”
“Colum MacKenzie taught me,” he said. “When I was sixteen, and spent a year at Castle Leoch. I had tutors for French and German and mathematics and such, but I’d go up to Colum’s room for an hour every evening to play chess. Not that it usually took him an hour to beat me,” he added ruefully.
“No wonder you’re good,” I said. Jamie’s uncle Colum, the victim of a deforming disease that had deprived him of most of his mobility, made up for it with a mind that would have put Machiavelli to shame.
Jamie stood up and unbuckled his swordbelt, narrowing his eyes at me. “Dinna think I don’t know what you’re up to, Sassenach. Changing the subject and flattering me like a courtesan. Did I not tell ye about those alcoves?”
“You said you didn’t mean to beat me,” I reminded him, sitting a bit farther back in my chair, just to be on the safe side.
He snorted again, tossing the swordbelt onto the chest of drawers and dropping his kilt next to the sodden shirt.
“Do I look the sort of man would beat a woman who’s with child?” he demanded.
I eyed him doubtfully. Stark naked, with his hair in damp red snarls and the white scars still visible on his body, he looked as though he had just leaped off a Viking ship, rape and pillage on his mind.
“Actually, you look capable of just about anything,” I told him. “As for the alcoves, yes, you told me. I suppose I should have gone outside to take my shoes off, but how was I to know that idiot would follow me in and begin nibbling on my toes? And if you don’t mean to beat me, just what did you have in mind?” I took a firm grip on the arms of my chair.
He lay down on the bed and grinned at me.
“Take off that whore’s dress, Sassenach, and come to bed.”
“Why?”
“Well, I canna wallop you, or drench ye in the fountain.” He shrugged. “I meant to give ye a terrible scolding, but I dinna think I can keep my eyes open long enough.” He gave a terrific yawn, then blinked and grinned at me again. “Remind me to do it in the morning, eh?”
“Better, is it?” Jamie’s dark-blue eyes were clouded with worry. “Is it right for ye to be sick so much, Sassenach?”
I pushed the hair back from my sweaty temples and dabbed a damp towel over my face.
“I don’t know whether it’s right,” I said weakly, “but at least I believe it’s normal. Some women are sick all through.” Not a pleasant thought at the moment.
Jamie glanced, not at the gaily painted clock on the table, but as usual, out the window at the sun.
“Do ye feel well enough to go down to breakfast, Sassenach, or ought I to tell the chambermaid to bring up something on a tray?”
“No. I’m quite all right now.” And I was. In the odd way of morning sickness, once the inexorable nausea had had its way with me, I felt perfectly fine within a moment or two. “Let me just rinse my mouth.”
As I bent over the basin, sluicing cool water over my face, there was a rap at the door of the appartement. Likely the servant who had been dispatched to the house in Paris to bring us fresh clothes, I thought.
To my surprise, though, it was a courtier, with a written invitation to lunch.
“His Majesty is dining today with an English nobleman,” the courtier explained, “newly arrived in Paris. His Majesty has summoned several of the prominent English merchants from the Cité to lunch, for the purpose of providing His Grace the Duke with the company of some of his countrymen. And someone pointed out to His Majesty that Madame your wife is an English lady, too, and thus should be invited to attend.”
“All right,” Jamie said, after a quick glance at me. “You may tell His Majesty that we will be honored to remain.”
Soon thereafter, Murtagh had arrived, dour as ever, bearing a large bundle of fresh clothes, and my medicine box, which I had asked for. Jamie took him into the sitting room to give him instructions for the day, while I hastily struggled into my fresh gown, for the first time rather regretting my refusal to employ a lady’s maid. Always unruly, the state of my hair had not been improved by sleeping in close embrace with a large, damp Scot; wild tangles shot off in several directions, resisting all attempts to tame them with brush and comb.
At length I emerged, pink and cross with effort, but with my hair in some semblance of order. Jamie looked at me and murmured something about hedgehogs under his breath, but caught a searing glance in return and had the good sense to shut up.
A stroll among the parterres and fountains of the palace gardens did a good bit to restore my equanimity. Most of the trees were still leafless, but the day was unexpectedly warm for late March, and the smell of the swelling buds on the twigs was green and pungent. You could almost feel the sap rising in the towering chestnuts and poplars that edged the paths and sheltered the hundreds of white marble statues.
I paused beside a statue of a half-draped man with grapes in his hair and a flute at his lips. A large, silky goat nibbled hungrily at more grapes that were cascading from the marble folds of the draperies.
“Who’s this?” I asked, “Pan?”
Jamie shook his head, smiling. He was dressed in his old kilt and a worn, if comfortable coat, but he looked much better to me than did the luxuriously clad courtiers who passed us in chattering groups.
“No, I think there is a statue of Pan about, but it isna that one. That’s one of the Four Humors of Man.”
“Well, he looks fairly humorous,” I said, glancing up at the goat’s smiling friend.
Jamie laughed.
“And you a physician, Sassenach! Not that sort of humor. Do ye not know the four humors that make up the human body? That one’s Blood”—he motioned at the flute-player, then pointed down the path—“and there’s Melancholy.” This was a tall man in a sort of toga, holding an open book.
Jamie pointed across the path. “And over there is Choler”—a nude and muscular young man, who certainly was scowling ferociously, without regard to the marble lion that was about to bite him smartly in the leg—“and that’s Phlegm.”
“Is it, by Jove?” Phlegm, a bearded gent with a folded hat, had both arms crossed on his chest, and a tortoise at his feet.
“Hum,” I remarked.
“Do physicians not learn about humors in your time?” Jamie asked curiously.
“No,” I said. “We have germs, instead.”
“Really? Germs,” he said to himself, trying the word over, rolling it on his tongue with a Scottish burr, which made it sound sinister in the extreme. “Gerrrms. And what do germs look like?”
I glanced up at a representation of “America,” a nubile young maiden in a feathered skirt and headdress, with a crocodile at her feet.
“Well, they wouldn’t make nearly such picturesque statues,” I said.
The crocodile at America’s feet reminded me of Master Raymond’s shop.
“Did you mean it about not wanting me to go to Master Raymond’s?” I asked. “Or do you just not want me to pierce my nipples?”
“I most definitely dinna want ye to pierce your nipples,” he said firmly, taking me by the elbow and hurrying me onward, lest I derive any untoward inspiration from America’s bare breasts. “But no, I dinna want ye to go to Master Raymond’s, either. There are rumors about the man.”
“There are rumors about everyone in Paris,” I observed, “and I’d be willing to bet that Master Raymond knows all of them.”
Jamie nodded, hair glinting in the pale spring sunshine.
“Oh, aye, I expect so. But I think I can learn what’s needful in the taverns and drawing rooms. Master Raymond’s said to be at the center of a particular circle, but it isna Jacobite sympathizers.”
“Really? Who, then?”
“Cabalists and occultists. Witches, maybe.”
“Jamie, you aren’t seriously worried about witches and demons, are you?”
We had arrived at the part of the gardens known as the “Green Carpet.” This early in the spring, the green of the huge lawn was only a faint tinge, but people were lounging on it, taking advantage of the rare balmy day.
“Not witches, no,” he said at last, finding a place near a hedge of forsythia and sitting down on the grass. “The Comte St. Germain, possibly.”
I remembered the look in the Comte St. Germain’s dark eyes at Le Havre, and shivered, in spite of the sunshine and the woolen shawl I wore.
“You think he’s associated with Master Raymond?”
Jamie shrugged. “I don’t know. But it was you told me the rumors about St. Germain, no? And if Master Raymond is part of that circle—then I think you should keep the hell away from him, Sassenach.” He gave me a wry half-smile. “After all, I’d as soon not have to save ye from burning again.”
The shadows under the trees reminded me of the cold gloom of the thieves’ hole in Cranesmuir, and I shivered and moved closer to Jamie, farther into the sunlight.
“I’d as soon you didn’t, either.”
The pigeons were courting on the grass below a flowering forsythia bush. The ladies and gentlemen of the Court were performing similar activities on the paths that led through the sculpture gardens. The major difference was that the pigeons were quieter about it.
A vision in watered aqua silk hove abaft our resting place, in loud raptures over the divinity of the play the night before. The three ladies with him, while not so spectacular, echoed his opinions faithfully.
“Superb! Quite superb, the voice of La Couelle!”
“Oh, superb! Yes, wonderful!”
“Delightful, delightful! Superb is the only word for it!”
“Oh, yes, superb!”
The voices—all four of them—were shrill as nails being pulled from wood. By contrast, the gentleman pigeon doing his turn a few feet from my nose had a low and mellifluous coo, rising from a deep, amatory rumble to a breathy whistle as he puffed his breast and bowed repeatedly, laying his heart at the feet of his ladylove, who looked rather unimpressed so far.
I looked beyond the pigeon toward the aqua-satined courtier, who had hastened back to snatch up a lace-trimmed handkerchief, coyly dropped as bait by one of his erstwhile companions.
“The ladies call that one ‘L’Andouille,’ ” I remarked. “I wonder why?”
Jamie grunted sleepily, and opened one eye to look after the departing courtier.
“Mm? Oh, ‘The Sausage.’ It means he canna keep his roger in his breeches. You know the sort … ladies, footmen, courtesans, pageboys. Lapdogs, too, if rumor is right,” he added, squinting in the direction of the vanished aqua silk, where a lady of the court was now approaching, a fluffy white bundle clasped protectively to her ample bosom. “Reckless, that. I wouldna risk mine anywhere near one o’ those wee yapping hairballs.”
“Your roger?” I said, amused. “I used to hear it called peter, now and again. And the Yanks, for some peculiar reason, used to call theirs a dick. I once called a patient who was teasing me a ‘Clever Dick,’ and he nearly burst his stitches laughing.”
Jamie laughed himself, stretching luxuriously in the warming spring sun. He blinked once or twice and rolled over, grinning at me upside down.
“You have much the same effect on me, Sassenach,” he said. I stroked back the hair from his forehead, kissing him between the eyes.
“Why do men call it names?” I asked. “John Thomas, I mean. Or Roger, for that matter. Women don’t do that.”
“They don’t?” Jamie asked, interested.
“No, of course not. I’d as soon call my nose Jane.”
His chest moved up and down as he laughed. I rolled on top of him, enjoying the solid feel of him beneath me. I pressed my hips downward, but the layers of intervening petticoats rendered it more of a gesture than anything else.
“Well,” Jamie said logically, “yours doesna go up and down by itself, after all, nor go carryin’ on regardless of your own wishes in the matter. So far as I know, anyway,” he added, cocking one eyebrow questioningly.
“No, it doesn’t, thank God. I wonder if Frenchmen call theirs ‘Pierre,’ ” I said, glancing at a passing dandy in green velvet-faced moiré.
Jamie burst into a laugh that startled the pigeons out of the forsythia bush. They flapped off in a ruffle of indignation, scattering wisps of gray down in their wake. The fluffy white lapdog, hitherto content to loll in its mistress’s arms like a bundle of rags, awoke at once to an awareness of its responsibilities. It popped out of its warm nest like a Ping-Pong ball and galloped off in enthusiastic pursuit of the pigeons, barking dementedly, its mistress in similar cry behind it.
“I dinna ken, Sassenach,” he said, recovering enough to wipe the tears from his eyes. “The only Frenchman I ever heard call it a name called his ‘Georges.’ ”
“Georges!” I said, loudly enough to attract the attention of a small knot of passing courtiers. One, a short but vivacious specimen in dramatic black slashed with white satin, stopped alongside and bowed deeply, sweeping the ground at my feet with his hat. One eye was still swelled shut, and a livid welt showed across the bridge of his nose, but his style was unimpaired.
“A votre service, Madame,” he said.
I might have managed if it weren’t for the bloody nightingales. The dining salon was hot and crowded with courtiers and onlookers, one of the stays in my dress frame had come loose and was stabbing me viciously beneath the left kidney each time I drew breath, and I was suffering from that most ubiquitous plague of pregnancy, the urge to urinate every few minutes. Still, I might have managed. It was, after all, a serious breach of manners to leave the table before the King, even though luncheon was a casual affair, in comparison with the formal dinners customary at Versailles—or so I was given to understand. “Casual,” however, is a relative term.
True, there were only three varieties of spiced pickle, not eight. And one soup, clear, not thick. The venison was merely roasted, not presented en brochette, and the fish, while tastily poached in wine, was served fileted, not whole and riding on a sea of aspic filled with shrimp.
As though frustrated by so much rustic simplicity, though, one of the chefs had provided a charming hors d’oeuvre—a nest, cunningly built from strips of pastry, ornamented with real sprigs of flowering apple, on the edge of which perched two nightingales, skinned and roasted, stuffed with apple and cinnamon, then redressed in their feathers. And in the nest was the entire family of baby birds, tiny stubs of outstretched wings brown and crispy, tender bare skins glazed with honey, blackened mouths agape to show the merest hint of the almond-paste stuffing within.
After a triumphal tour of the table to show it off—to the accompaniment of murmurs of admiration all round—the dainty dish was set before the King, who turned from his conversation with Madame de La Tourelle long enough to pluck one of the nestlings from its place and pop it into his mouth.
Crunch, crunch, crunch went Louis’s teeth. Mesmerized, I watched the muscles of his throat ripple, and felt the rubble of small bones slide down my own gullet. Brown fingers reached casually for another baby.
At this point, I concluded that there were probably worse things than insulting His Majesty by leaving the table, and bolted.
Rising from my knees amid the shrubbery a few minutes later, I heard a sound behind me. Expecting to meet the eye of a justifiably irate gardener, I turned guiltily to meet the eye of an irate husband.
“Damn it, Claire, d’ye have to do this all the time?” he demanded.
“In a word—yes,” I said, sinking exhaustedly onto the rim of an ornamental fountain. My hands were damp, and I smoothed them over my skirt. “Did you think I did it for fun?” I felt light-headed, and closed my eyes, trying to regain my internal balance before I fell into the fountain.
Suddenly there was a hand at the small of my back, and I half-leaned, half-fell into his arms as he sat beside me and gathered me in.
“Oh, God. I’m sorry, mo duinne. Are ye all right, Claire?”
I pushed away enough to look up at him and smile.
“I’m all right. Just a bit light-headed, is all.” I reached up and tried to smooth away the deep line of concern on his forehead. He smiled back, but the line stayed, a thin vertical crease between the thick sandy curves of his eye-brows. He swished a hand in the fountain and smoothed it over my cheeks. I must have looked rather pale.
“I’m sorry,” I added. “Really, Jamie, I couldn’t help it.”
His damp hand squeezed the back of my neck reassuringly, strong and steady. A fine spray of droplets from the mouth of a bug-eyed dolphin misted my hair.
“Och, dinna mind me, Sassenach. I didna mean to snap at ye. It’s only …” He made a helpless gesture with one hand. “… only that I feel such a thick-heided clot. I see ye in a misery, and I know I’ve done it to ye, and there isna the slightest thing I can do to aid you. So I blame ye for it instead, and act cross and growl at you … why do ye no just tell me to go to the devil, Sassenach?” he burst out.
I laughed until my sides hurt under the tight corseting, holding on to his arm.
“Go to hell, Jamie,” I said at last, wiping my eyes. “Go directly to hell. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. There. Do you feel better now?”
“Aye, I do,” he said, his expression lightening. “When ye start to talk daft, I know you’re all right. Do you feel better, Sassenach?”
“Yes,” I said, sitting up and beginning to take notice of my surroundings. The grounds of Versailles were open to the public, and small groups of merchants and laborers mingled oddly with the brightly colored nobles, all enjoying the good weather.
Suddenly the nearby door onto the terrace burst open, spilling the King’s guests out into the garden in a tide of chatter. The exodus from luncheon had been augmented by a new deputation, apparently just decanted from the two large coaches I could see driving past the edge of the garden toward distant stables.
It was a large group of people, men and women, soberly clad by comparison with the bright colors of the courtiers around them. It was the sound of them, though, rather than the appearance, that had caught my attention. French, spoken by a number of people at a distance, strongly resembles the quacking conversation of ducks and geese, with its nasal elements. English, on the other hand, has a slower pace, and much less rise and fall in its intonations. Spoken at a distance where individual voices are impossible to distinguish, it has the gruff, friendly monotony of a sheepdog’s barking. And the general effect of the mass exodus presently coming in our direction was of a gaggle of geese being driven to market by a pack of dogs.
The English party had arrived, somewhat belatedly. No doubt they were being tactfully shooed into the garden while the kitchen staff hastily prepared another dinner and reset the massive table for them.
I scanned the group curiously. The Duke of Sandringham I knew, of course, having met him once before in Scotland at Castle Leoch. His barrelchested figure was easy to pick out, walking side by side with Louis, modish wig tilted in polite attention.
Most of the other people were strangers, though I thought the stylish lady of middle age just coming through the doors must be the Duchess of Claymore, whom I had heard was expected. The Queen, normally left behind at some country house to amuse herself as best she could, had been trotted out for the occasion. She was talking to the visitor, her sweet, anxious face flushed with the unaccustomed excitement of the occasion.
The young girl just behind the Duchess caught my eye. Quite plainly dressed, she had the sort of beauty that would make her stand out in any crowd. She was small, fine-boned but nicely rounded in figure, with dark, shiny, unpowdered hair and the most extraordinary white skin, flushed across the cheeks with a clear deep pink that made her look exactly like a flower petal.
Her coloring reminded me of a dress I’d once had in my own time, a light cotton frock decorated with red poppies. The thought for some reason struck me with a sudden unexpected wave of homesickness, and I gripped the edge of the marble bench, eyelids prickling with longing. It must be hearing plain bluff English spoken, I thought, after so many months among the lilt of Scotland and the quacking of France. The visitors sounded like home.
Then I saw him. I could feel all of the blood draining from my head as my eye traced disbelievingly over the elegant curve of the skull, dark-haired and bold amid the powdered wigs around it. Alarms rang in my head like air-raid sirens, as I fought to accept and repel the impressions that assaulted me. My subconscious saw the line of the nose, thought “Frank,” and turned my body to fly toward him in welcome. “Not-Frank,” came the slightly higher, rational center of my brain, freezing me in my tracks as I saw the familiar curve of a half-smiling mouth, repeating, “You know it’s not Frank” as the muscles of my calves knotted. And then the lurch into panic and the clenching of hands and stomach, as the slower processes of logical thought came doggedly on the trail of instinct and knowledge, seeing the high brow and the arrogant tilt of the head, assuring me of the unthinkable. It could not be Frank. And if it were not, then it could only be …
“Jack Randall.” It wasn’t my voice that spoke, but Jamie’s, sounding oddly calm and detached. Attention attracted by my peculiar behavior, he had looked where I was looking, and had seen what I had seen.
He didn’t move. So far as I could tell through the increasing haze of panic, he didn’t breathe. I was dimly aware of a nearby servant peering curiously upward at the towering form of the frozen Scottish warrior next to me, silent as a statue of Mars. But all my concern was for Jamie.
He was entirely still. Still as a lion is still, part of the grass of the plain, its stare hot and unblinking as the sun that burns the veldt. And I saw something move in the depths of his eyes. The telltale twitch of the stalking cat, the tiny jerk of the tuft at the end of the tail, precursor to carnage.
To draw arms in the presence of the King was death. Murtagh was on the far side of the garden, much too far away to help. Two more paces would bring Randall within hearing distance. Within sword’s reach. I laid a hand on his arm. It was rigid as the steel of the swordhilt under his hand. The blood roared in my ears.
“Jamie,” I said. “Jamie!” And fainted.