My cousin spins to face me, his expression full of disbelief and fury. I put up a hand before he can speak. “Hear me out. I had no desire to marry you, yet we have since pledged ourselves of our own accord and on our own terms. Charlotte seduced you for my mother’s purposes, but I suspect she cries now at the loss of you for herself.”
“It is so,” Charlotte says.
“You see, Sir. What does the beginning matter if the end is love?”
His eyes soften slightly. I push harder. “Are there so many who love you in France that you will let pride keep you from embracing a true heart?”
“No.” He opens his arms and Charlotte runs to him.
“Charlotte,” I say, “as a wife I have no objections to your amour, but as an ally of the King of Navarre I must ask for your word that you will no longer carry tales to Her Majesty. She has forbidden you from continuing with my cousin. Let her think that you obey.”
Charlotte looks into my husband’s face. “You have my word. I will cut out my tongue before I will say aught that will damage you, Sir.”
“Now off with you. While all the Court wails over a flock of crows, you two have better things to do.”
“Ally of Protestants, matchmaker, your marriage has made you many surprising things,” Henriette says when we are left behind by the departing pair. “But I would venture to say it has not made you happy.”
“No. Yet I can hardly complain, because this does not seem an auspicious time for happiness in the court of France. If you can tell me one person who is happy presently, I will be astonished. My mother, perhaps?”
“Not even she, not completely. She is celebrated by the common people as savior of the kingdom and she is taking credit for the events of last week where that will help her, but did you not see her face this morning as His Majesty ranted?”
“She fears losing control of the King and the situation,” I say.
She nods. “Neither His Majesty nor France is known for fidelity of opinion. And the latter has always had a healthy skepticism where Madame Catherine is concerned. So Her Majesty still reaches. My husband worried that all the begging I urged him to would be insufficient to save Condé.”
“So you are an ally of Protestants too.”
“Not at all.” Henriette manages a wry smile. “But I would not let a sister’s husband die if I could prevent it. Neither of my sisters’ husbands.”
“Surely Guise is in no danger.”
“Not from Her Majesty. At least, not at this moment. But I believe he is in very great danger from you. He is being torn apart and changed in unbecoming ways by your rupture. He wanted Condé’s blood, though he is also related to that gentleman by marriage.”
“I will not accept blame for Henri’s bloodlust. It is the very reason we have no rapprochement, and I told him so. What concerns me now is that he clearly longs for my cousin’s blood, and that is in part my fault. I have allowed the Duc to believe, as the rest of the Court does, that my cousin is my true husband.”
Henriette’s eyes open wide. “No wonder he wants Navarre dead.”
“Go put that particular fear to rest. Tell Henri I was true to my pledge and that—as he claims still to love me—I rely upon him to guard this knowledge, which I have good reason to wish kept secret.”
As I watch Henriette go I find myself hoping that somehow my confession will both protect my cousin and provide the next step back into the Duc’s arms. For with my cousin restored to Charlotte, I have the presentiment that my own loneliness will be harder to bear.
*
My husband sends word as night falls that he will remain in his apartment. I hope this is not foolish even as I smile at the thought that two among my friends are happy this night. Climbing beneath the covers, I think how good it will be to be spared my cousin’s snoring. An hour later, when I am still awake, I wonder if that same snoring might not soothe me.
Rising, I pad to the next chamber, where Gillone sits at the table in a small ring of light, replacing some pearls on one of my partlets. I send her to the kitchens to fetch me a sleep pillow of lavender and chamomile. The relative dark of the chamber bothers me as it never has before. Am I become a child again? I think, angrily. No: even as a child the dark was not among my fears. I close my eyes, but a sudden vision of Gillone lying dead with a halberd through her forces them open. I shake my head to clear it. I must put aside such morbid imaginings. Why should anyone harm Gillone?
Yet my stern thoughts are not sufficient to set me right. I take the lamp from the table and begin to rekindle every light in the room, lifting shades with shaking hands. Perhaps action will restore my self-possession where sheer will has failed.
I have my back to the door when it opens.
I turn, expecting my little shadow, and nearly scream. My mother stands just inside. Here is a thing more justly feared than the dark.