Anjou’s words sicken me. And Mother’s—I do not credit my mother’s assertion. I cannot. Yet it enrages me. And, at the edge of my mind, it occurs to me that some part of the anger I feel is directed at myself and at Henri. Am I a fool? If not for letting Henri speak love to me and loving him in return, then for failing to heed Henriette when she foretold this? And ought not Henri to have kept our hopes to himself instead of filling the mind and the mouth of his uncle with them? The doubts my mother causes make me hate her as I never have before.
“Why, Madame,” I ask, advancing on her with fury, “can you never believe that I might have value to someone in and of myself? Why can you not conceive that anyone could love me? Is it simply because you yourself do not?”
“Do not speak nonsense. My children are my life! France is my life. Of course I value you—better than you value yourself—for I know the worth of a woman’s honor.” Mother’s face is fierce. Her hand rises; then, just as I expect her to strike me again, she lets it drop. I watch with fascination as she takes control of her temper, rearranging her face into a look of deliberate calm.
“You will not hurt me, Marguerite, though you try.”
The idea that she would paint herself as the aggrieved party in this situation is beyond comprehension. I want to attack her, to tear at her as she and my brothers have just torn at me. I take another step, but Anjou catches me easily and restrains me.
“You will not hurt me,” Mother continues, “and you will not endanger your brother’s reign. This folly stops now. From this moment all communication with the Duc, save the words required by politesse in open court, will cease. Resign yourself to that or risk far more serious punishment than the few blows you have endured here. And know this: you will never be permitted to marry the Duc.” Her tone has a finality to it that sucks the air from my lungs. I look at Charles. The sight of his face—entirely unsympathetic—causes my knees to give way entirely.
Anjou supports my weight for a moment and then, giving a high, brutal laugh, releases me and lets me fall to the floor. “What about Guise?” he asks. “Blighted ambitions seem too small a price to pay for deflowering our sister. Your Majesty must have a better revenge.”
“Guise is hunting, is he not?” Charles looks down upon me with pitiless eyes. “I will send Angoulême hunting as well and ask him to bring down more than a stag. He shall strike the Duc and bring the House of Guise down a peg and back to its senses.”
No, no, no! The voice inside my head screams in terror. If Charles gives such a command, our half brother will obey. His fortunes and his very life depend on the King. He has no friend in Mother, who sees none of her husband in him and too much of the lady who seduced that husband.
“Excellent.” Anjou laughs. “Shall I take our sister back to her room?”
“Get her out of my sight,” Charles says, averting his gaze.
“Let me make her presentable first,” Mother says. “We do not need talk that might further compromise her.”
Do you not mean talk that would reveal you to be monsters capable of beating your own kin?
Anjou takes me beneath the arms and draws me to my feet. At the King’s dressing table, Mother brushes my hair and tidies my face. She can do nothing to conceal the tear in my sleeve or stop the bruise rising along my right cheekbone. Looking in the glass at Anjou, who hovers behind us, she says, “Go quickly, before the whole palace is awake.”
I rise with as much dignity as I can muster. Anjou takes my arm. I try to shake him off but he shows me by a shake of his head that he will have none of it. Swinging the door to the hall open, he pushes me before him. The Baron de Retz stands aside, his face impassive. Whatever he heard, whatever he observes, he will keep my mother’s counsel.
Anjou pushes me through the door to my apartment, nearly into the arms of the waiting Gillone. Her face reflects the shocking sight I present as clearly as Charles’ mirror did. We are not alone. The Baronne de Retz sits on one of my chairs.
“How did it come to this?” she asks sadly, shaking her head.
“It is the province of the young to fall in love. You once said so yourself,” I reply, disentangling myself from Gillone.
“That is not what I am talking about and you know it.”
“I have done nothing else,” I snap. I am tired of protesting my innocence.
The Baronne stares into my eyes as she never bothered to in all the lectures she delivered on appropriate behavior—as if she would see my soul. Perhaps she does, for she says, “I believe you.”
“Help me, then.”
“I cannot.”
“Then you condemn the Duc to death.”
“Surely that is an exaggeration.”
“The King is in one of his rages,” I reply. “He means to arrange a hunting accident and none around him have any reason to dissuade him. There must be some way to get word to the Duc so he will be on his guard.”