He looks down at his desk, but not before I see the pity in his eyes. “You aren’t. The abbess has instructed me to be your permanent legal guardian.”
Bile rises in my throat, hot and bitter.
This is not happening. Cannot be happening. My head begins to shake from side to side, an emphatic no. “They will not have so easily dismissed all my years of service. The abbess would call me back to the convent to give me this news herself.”
He slams his hands on the desk, the sound of it cracking like a whip. “You foolish girl. She is protecting you! If she sent you a message, it would lead the Church fathers right to your door, and you would be subject to the same punishments that they will suffer.” His voice softens. “They are trying to spare you that.” He tosses the letter onto the desk between us. “See for yourself.”
I stare at him a long moment before allowing my eyes to glance down to the parchment. I immediately recognize the black wax seal of the convent. That at least is real. For the first time, I consider that what he says might be true. If he has proof, then there is nothing left of my life. There is no place for me to go. I carefully unfold the sheet. The handwriting is elegant and graceful, and the missive is signed by the abbess. I force myself to read the words on the page.
They say exactly what the count has claimed.
“It is what will happen to all the initiates,” Angoulême says in the face of my continued silence. “Suitable husbands will be found for most. Some might find their way to other convents, although more conventional ones under the Church’s purview.”
“What of the abbess? The nuns? Many are past marriageable age.” In truth, most were flatly against marriage to any man.
He shrugs. “They are not my concern. You are.”
I feel as if I will be sick. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means I am to arrange a suitable marriage for you.”
His words are all the more upsetting for their sincerity. He truly believes he is doing what is best for me, and being gracious in the process. “But I have no wish to marry.”
“Are you sure? There are any number of men among my court that would make a good husband, and your charms have not gone unnoticed, Genevieve. I will even let you pick.”
His generosity is a surprise. I would have expected him to use this to his advantage. More than before, I am at his mercy. I must get out of here and find someplace to think through the full implications of this. “Thank you, but marriage was never something I aspired to.”
He leans back in his chair and folds his arms. “Other arrangements can be made.” The look in his eyes makes his meaning perfectly clear.
“No, my lord.” My voice is not angry or bitter or defiant. “I will not follow in Margot’s footsteps.” I will not step into that snare.
Something in his manner shifts. “Am I so very repulsive? Have I not shown you kindness and a life of ease and luxury?”
That I do not want this life, that I do not want him, has wounded his pride.
“My lord, you already have many women who seek nothing more than to cater to your every desire. I cannot offer you anything they do not. And you yourself have said I am stubborn and contrary.”
He smiles, a slow, unsettling gesture. “Perhaps that is why I desire you? I have never been with anyone as . . . contrary and stubborn as you, that is certain. You know I am fond of you.” He leans forward, planting his elbows on the table, growing serious again. “I can grant you many things—?safety, shelter, a home, a rich and luxurious life with no hardship.”
He is utterly sincere, thinking he offers me my every wish on an engraved silver platter. “Thank you for your most gracious offer, my lord, but I shall pass.”
There is a long moment of silence in which he studies me with an assessing quality that only increases my unease. “Genevieve, you should think long and hard about refusing my offer.” He picks up his wine and takes a sip, drawing the moment out. “It is not like you have anywhere else to go.”
His words so closely mirror Margot’s that it is all I can do not to flinch. “I will find something, my lord.” For all the tumult inside, my voice comes out firm and steady.
He sets the wine down abruptly. “Tell me, how do you think the regent would react to learning that your mother was a common tavern whore?”
His words are like an ax that cleaves the earth from my feet. Margot betrayed me.
At the convent, we were taught that our birth stories are among our most precious possessions. Each of our stories carried the history of how we came to be marqued for His service. They were sacred. And Margot told Angoulême. She betrayed my secrets. Bile fills my throat again, and this time I fear I will retch all over the count’s fine carpet.
“So are you a whore, my dear?”
The word in his mouth is hard and ugly, and I want to snatch it from his tongue. He uses it to shame me, to shame my mother and my aunts, but they are not deserving of his—?or anyone’s—?disdain.
It is the very reason I hold my family origins so close. Not because I am ashamed, but because I cannot bear the way the world sees them. Some long-forgotten part of me rises up and takes control of my body. I place one hand on the chair in front of me and wave the other in the air. “La, my lord! You know how fond Margot was of telling stories.” The words skip nimbly off my tongue, as if that long-forgotten part of me knows precisely what to do.
He studies me for a moment, then stares down at the wine in his cup. “I wonder if this is one of her stories. It has the ring of truth in it to me.”
I force all the fury I possess to burn away my fear till it is naught but a faint metallic tang in my belly. “Truly, my lord?” I fold my hands in front of me and tilt my head. “Is that why I have worked so hard to avoid your advances? Why I pray so fervently in the chapel twice a day? Is that what is behind my utter devotion to the countess? Not to mention the convent?”
He shrugs again, but there is a faint crease of doubt between his eyes.
“Margot was a great liar. We all know that.”
He scowls. “She did not appear so to me.”
“Is that because she told you she loved you?” I ask sweetly. “Ah, I see by your face that she did. Well, she did not. It was a lie. She grew to love this soft life rather than the convent and its purpose and became your mistress to advance her financial security and position.”
He shoves his chair back, as if needing to put distance between himself and my words.
“Did she claim you were a fine lover as well? Another lie. She told me of your huffing and puffing, your soft belly and graying hairs.” I lean forward confidentially. “Did she also tell you that you were her first lover? Yet another lie. He was a knight at Amboise. Young and firmly muscled, with shoulders so broad they nearly blocked out the sun. And his sword was as long and as skilled as they come.” Each word I speak is like a blow, so that when I am finished, he will feel as if he has been pummeled into the wall behind him. “Besides, are not all women whores to you, my lord? And what of you? You sleep with every woman between fourteen and forty who crosses your path! What would you call that?”
He smiles thinly and without humor. “I am not paid to sleep with them.”
“No? Did Louise not bring a pretty dowry to this marriage? Was that not required in order for you to consummate it? How is that different from what a whore charges?”
He slams both his palms on his desk and rises to his feet. “You forget yourself!”
I step forward and lean into his space, nearly pressing my nose against his. “No. You forget yourself. No matter who my mother was or was not, I was sired by the god of Death, and you will be wise to remember that.” Without giving him a chance to respond—?or mayhap I’m afraid I will reach across the desk and strangle him—?I turn and stride toward the door.
“Stop!”
Out of habit, I obey, my hand poised above the latch as I look over my shoulder. He leans forward in his chair, his eyes hard. “You do know that
the punishment for masquerading as nobility is death?”
I grit my teeth and turn to face him. “And who aided me in that masquerade, my lord? I wonder what the punishment for that would be?”
“I would tell them that you lied and deceived me as well.”
“And I would produce this”—?I wave the message from the convent—?“to prove that I did not.”
His nostrils are pinched white and his muscles bunched. For a moment I fear he will leap up from his chair and wrest it from my hands. But instead he shrugs. “It will not come to that. You have had a shock, especially on top of your recent loss.” The pity in his voice makes me want to claw at his face. “I will not press you, but when I return after Christmas, I expect you to have come to terms with this new arrangement.”
In answer, I yank open the door, step through it, and then slam it behind me so hard that the latch rattles in its case.
Chapter 26
y rage is a living beast, driving me down the corridor, my steps so heavy it is a wonder the stone does not crack beneath my feet.
Margot has betrayed me.