“You are going?” Mother asks.
“I must. I have not yet been to our h?tel. I was so eager to see you that I persuaded Charles to part company with me. But if we are to return and dine, I must unpack and rid myself of the dirt of the road.” Claude takes a few steps toward the door, then stops. “I wonder, shall I take Marguerite with me?”
“Do. Your influence will do her good, and in her present humor she is of no use to herself or anyone else here.”
Anjou moves aside to let us pass. “There is no use beating her; we have already tried.”
Claude throws him an icy backwards glance, then whispers, “Courage.” We sweep to the courtyard where her litter stands. Climbing in beside me, she says, “The H?tel de Nemours.”
I gasp.
“I am sorry I could give you no warning, but from the moment I read your letter it has been my opinion that the sooner this thing is settled, the better. Charles and I stopped to see the Duchesse de Nemours before I came to the Louvre. Her Grace understood our plan at once, but she fears her son will be difficult to persuade. He is, after all, a most determined man and used to having what he wants.”
“But what can I tell the Duchesse that you have not?”
“You misapprehend me. While I have been here, Charles rode to get his cousin.”
Henri! Henri will be at the H?tel de Nemours! Here is a thing I never prepared for—to argue personally for a marriage that will destroy me.
Claude looks concerned. “Have you the strength to see him? I believe you may have a power over him that exceeds that of any other.”
Do I have the strength? At this moment I fear not. I fear that, much as I have told myself ceaselessly since the night of the ball that I would do anything to save Henri, I will not be able to push him from me. I close my eyes. Please Lord, grant me sufficient self-abnegation to do this terrible but necessary thing. In the name of Your Son who gave up His body to be beaten and His life so that sins might be forgiven, help me offer up all my hopes for the future to save my beloved.
When I open my eyes, Claude still looks at me. “Shall I turn the litter?”
“No. The Duc must go from Court and not return until it is time for him to wed the Princesse de Porcien. This and this alone will stop the mouths of his enemies and mine. This alone will save the life so precious to me. If I am necessary to this result, I will do what I can.”
She takes my hand and kisses it. “You do have a Valois heart, or perhaps better say a Médicis one.”
I am startled to realize what she means: my mother is known by all to have the strength to do what others cannot, the strength of her sons combined. Could there be something of my mother in me that is useful rather than hateful?
When we arrive at the H?tel de Nemours, the Duchesse waits just inside. She embraces Claude and curtsys to me. There is wariness in her eyes. I cannot blame her. She must hate me at this moment, for her sons are her life and I have endangered the eldest and dearest of them.
“Has Charles begun?” Claude asks.
“He will not hear reason,” the Duchesse says. “He knows he is in grave disfavor, and accepts even that his life is in peril, but turns from the remedy.”
Her Grace leads us into the next room. My brother-in-law stands, hands on hips, interrupted in midsentence by the opening of the door. Henri sits before him, looking more bored and vexed than terrified. At the sight of me he leaps to his feet.
“Marguerite!” The way he says my name, the light in his eyes—I am nearly undone before I begin. In a few strides he is at my side, slipping an arm about my waist and pulling me against his hip in a protective manner, heedless of the impropriety of these actions. “These fools do not understand how I love you.”
“We do,” Claude replies. “But we also understand that love will not lead to happiness, nor will it restore you to your place at Court.”
“The King has publicly turned from you, son,” Anne d’Este says. “There is talk of negotiations with the heretics. Do you wish the houses of Guise and Lorraine to be absent from such talks?” I feel Henri stiffen.
“The devil take the King and the Huguenots!”
“That is precisely what I fear,” his mother presses. “Think of the harm that may come to France without the staunch Catholic voices of Lorraine at any conference for peace. Will you surrender the souls of your countrymen because you are crossed in love?”
“If my countrymen and my king have not enough sense to look to their own salvation, why should that concern me? I have executed my duty to both faithfully. Fought for both. And my recompense has been ill use. I am through being His Majesty’s loyal servant.”