Marshal Rieux steps forward with a look of outrage on his face, but before he can speak, d’Albret roars out, “I spared your miserable lives.” His voice reverberates through the room like thunder, and the other servants finally have the sense to cower in fright. “And this is how you repay me?” There is a ring of steel as he draws his sword. My stomach shrivels into a tight little knot and tries to crawl up my throat, but before I can so much as call out a warning, the sword cuts through the huddled men. Blood splatters over the floor, then a second blow dispatches the rest.
I do not even realize I have taken a step forward until I feel Julian’s arm snake around my waist to hold me in place. “Careful,” he murmurs.
I close my eyes and wait for the roiling in my gut to pass. Julian nudges me, and my eyes snap open, a carefully neutral expression on my face. D’Albret’s shrewd gaze is on us and I curl my lip, as if faintly amused by the carnage he has just wrought. “Fools,” I mutter. It is a good thing that I no longer have a heart, because if I did, it would surely break.
“Julian!” d’Albret calls out, and I feel Julian flinch. He steps away from my side. “Yes, my lord father?”
“See to the cleanup here. And you, daughter.” D’Albret’s flat black eyes zero in on me and I force myself to meet his gaze with naught but amusement on my face. “See to Madame Dinan. I fear she has fainted.”
As I step away from the safety of the stone wall to do as my father bids, I wish again—so very much—that Julian had not found me up on that tower. If our father finds out what I did, he will kill me as easily as he killed those men.
Although perhaps not as quickly.
Chapter Three
I FOLLOW THE FOOTMEN CARRYING Madame Dinan to her room, my thoughts and movements sluggish, as if I am wading through mud. It takes every last crumb of discipline I possess to keep myself together. I do not dare stumble about half-witted now.
When we reach the chamber, I have the footmen put her on the bed, then order them from the room. I stare down at the older woman. We are not allies, Madame Dinan and I; we merely share each other’s secrets, which is an entirely different thing.
She came into our lives only occasionally, when she would escape her duties as governess to the duchess, the very duchess she has so thoroughly betrayed. D’Albret relied on her to oversee his daughters’ upbringing. Much of that oversight was conducted across distances, with letters and go-betweens, except when some tragedy struck—then she would make an effort to come in person and smooth things over.
She looks older in repose, her face missing the false gaiety she wears like a mask. I unlace her bodice to ease her breathing, then remove the heavy, cumbersome headdress she wears. Not because it has contributed to her fainting, but because I know it eats at her vanity that she has white hair like an old woman’s. It is a small enough punishment, but it is one I can afford.
I reach down and slap her cheek—perhaps harder than necessary—to rouse her. Her breath catches in her throat as she startles awake. She blinks twice, orienting herself, then begins to sit up. I push her back down. “Easy now, madame.”
Her eyes widen when she sees who attends her. Her gaze flutters around the room and notes that we are alone. That gaze lands once more on me, then skitters away like a nervous lark. “What happened?” she asks.
Her voice is low and throaty, and I wonder if that is part of what draws d’Albret to her. Some say their union began when she was in the flower of her youth, a full two years younger than I am now. “You fainted.”
Her long skinny fingers pluck at her bodice. “It grew warm in there.”
Her quick and easy lie pricks my temper. I lean down close and put my face next to hers, forcing my voice to be as light and sweet as if we were talking about the latest fashion. “It was not warmth that caused you to faint, but the slaughter of innocents. Do you not remember?”
She closes her eyes again, and her face drains of what little color is left in it. Good. She does remember. “They were simply punished for their disloyalty.”
“Disloyalty? What of your disloyalty? Besides, you knew those people!” I hiss. “They were servants who’d waited on you for years.”
Her eyes snap open. “What do you think I should have done? It’s not as if I could have stopped him.”
“But you did not even try!” Our angry gazes hold for a long moment.
“Neither did you.”
Her words are like a kick to my gut. Afraid I will slap her, I shove to my feet, cross over to her wooden chest, and begin fumbling through her pots of powder, jars of cream, and crystal vials. “But I am not his favorite, the one voice he listens to. That role has belonged only to you for as long as I can remember.” At last I find a linen cloth. I dampen it with water from the ewer, then return to her side and practically fling it onto her forehead.
She flinches, then glares at me. “Your tender ministrations may well kill me.”
I sit down and busy myself with my skirt, afraid she will see just how close to the truth she has come. Our secrets sit heavy in the room, not only the ones that we share, but those that we keep from each other. Neither she nor Rieux is marqued, and I am plagued by this nearly as much as I am by d’Albret’s lack of a marque.
When I speak again, I am able to keep my voice calm. “And what of the duchess? You have cared for her since she was in swaddling clothes. How could you let d’Albret spring such a trap on her?”
She closes her eyes to the truth and dismisses my words with a quick shake of her head. “He was only claiming what was promised him.”
Her steadfast denial is like flint to tinder, and my temper flares again. “He was going to kidnap her, rape her, declare the marriage consummated, then perform the marriage service after the fact.” Not for the first time, I wonder if he is as rough with Madame Dinan as he is with others, or if there is some softer emotion between them.
She lifts her small, pointed chin. “She betrayed him! Lied to him! She had been promised to him by her father. He was only doing what any man would when such promises are broken.”
“I’ve always wondered what you tell yourself so you may sleep at night.” Afraid that I will say something to break our precarious truce, I rise to my feet and head for the door.
“It is the truth!” The normally elegant and refined Dinan screeches at me like a fishwife. While getting under her skin is no small accomplishment, it does little to wash the bitterness of the day from my tongue.