Part 8:"Le Coeur du Chasseur" (The Heart of the Hunter)

June 1777

Imogene was struggling to stay awake. She hurt, and she was exhausted. For nearly two days she had fought with grim determination for her own life and for his. She believed she had won.

"Madame!" she called out hoarsely. Her throat was raw, her lips cracked and sore. "Madame, let me see him!"

Anne-Louise was beside her. "Un moment, ma petite," she soothed, stroking the sweat-soaked tendrils of hair from Imogene's brow. "Madame is just cleaning him up a little bit, then he can come to his maman."

"No, please!" Imogene insisted. As she tried to push herself up against the pillows, she felt another warm trickle of fluid between her legs. She knew she had lost more blood than she should; she was so tired and weak. In a moment she would rest. As soon as she had made sure.

"I want to see him now!" she pleaded with Anne-Louise.

"All right…shh," Anne-Louise said softly.  "Madame, bring him back for just a moment. sil vous plait." Very gently, she helped Imogene to sit, pushing the bolsters up behind her back. "But then you must promise to be a good girl. You will have a nice bath, and go to sleep, yes?" She kissed the younger woman's clammy forehead. "You have done so well, petite. No one has ever been so brave!"

Imogene was looking past her, holding out her slender white arms towards the midwife who came forward with the naked child loosely wrapped in a linen towel. Madame Joubert placed the baby in his mother's arms.

Imogene pushed the wrappings aside hastily. He was tiny, still covered in blood and mucous, his ashy color slowly giving way to pink, his skinny little arms and legs flailing weakly as he screwed up his wrinkled little face as if expressing his extreme displeasure at being so suddenly and brutally removed from his silent world of warmth and tranquil slumber.

She ran her fingers lightly over the fragile ribcage, rising and falling in desperate, unaccustomed little breaths. She touched the remnant of the umbilicus, already beginning to shrivel away. She held up each little hand and foot in turn, examining it carefully. His hair was thick and black as a monkey's, his eyes a slaty blue, his genitals like a perfect little plum. She laughed.

"He is beautiful, Madame," said the midwife.

"Perfect," Imogene breathed the word.

"Oui, madame. He is perfect in every way," the woman said, smiling, for she had observed this ritual hundreds of time, given this same assurance again and again and again. "He is small, but so are his maman and papa, oui? It is a blessing." She came forward to take the child again.

"Send word to the Marquis," Imogene said to Anne-Louise, reaching out to touch her new son's hand once more. "Je t'aime," she whispered as the tiny translucent fingers closed instinctively on hers. "Je t'aime, mon fils. How long we have waited for you, Louis Emmanuel."

She had slept, deep and dreamless, for many hours, and when she woke, they brought him to her again, and again she laughed, for already he seemed bigger, plump and fair, and eager to take the breast. Her breasts were small and she worried she would not have enough milk for him. But Madame Joubert said that was seldom the case. She said she had seen women who were flat as boys having no trouble nursing their babes. The Virgin would see to it, she said.

Someone was looking out for this one, Madame Joubert had thought. Imogene had lost more blood than Madame believed she could spare from her fragile-looking body, and the labor had been long and brutal. But the child had never made a sound, had remained silent, almost serene throughout, as if determined not to waste an ounce of precious strength in crying out against the pain. But now the little Marquise had her son. Madame crossed herself. May he be strong, and live, she prayed; for she did not believe Imogene should ever try to bear another.

There was a light tapping on the chamber door, and Annette, Imogene's maid, thrust her white-capped head inside. Her round cheeks were flush with excitement, and she was a little out of breath from running up the stairs.

"Pardon, Madame," she puffed, coming into the room, and skipping over to the windows. "A gift has come! From the Queen! Would you like to see?"

"Madame needs her rest, Annette," Anne-Louise scolded.

"Oh, but it is right outside!" the girl said," You can see from the bed, Madame, look!" She pulled back the sheer drape covering the tall, many-paned window. Brilliant sun spilled into the room, and then a rush of sweet springtime air, as Annette, in her enthusiasm, threw open the sashes.

Imogene was sitting up in bed, well supported by numerous bolsters. The light breeze stirred the scent of lavender from the crisp new sheets. Smiling, she folded the corner of the blanket over Emmanuel's downy head as he nursed, so that the draft would not touch him. Turning her head, she looked out the window, out onto the manicured lawn, and Rigaud's elaborate topiary menagerie. There stood a miniature phaeton of glossy red lacquer, adorned with fittings and curlicues of gold, and in the traces, the tiniest pair of ponies she had ever seen, perfectly matched greys, with tiny gold-painted hooves, the size of fallow deer. Fanciful yellow ostrich plumes bobbed atop their gem-studded bridles, and at the head of each stood a little black boy in rich purple livery, emblazoned with the Golden Lily.

Imogene shook her head. The gift was the essence of Antoinette. Beautiful, original, generous, but impractical and far too extravagant. Poor 'Toinette. Imogene believed the Queen must be happy for her, but she knew, too, that each time another of her friends gave birth, 'Toinette was reminded of her own failures. She knew, she would say, that the people would never accept her as Queen of France until she was the Mother of France, and she knew, also, that they blamed her for the fact that after seven years of marriage to Louis, there was still no Dauphin. She did feel that it was her fault, even though Imogene knew that in fact, it was not. "When I am well," Imogene thought, "And now that I have seen to my own business, perhaps I will turn my attention to the matter."

And there was another matter she should see about, now that she had accomplished the goal to which she had devoted herself so single mindedly for so very long. There was the matter of a suite of rooms Lucien kept in the Rue de Bac. There was the subtly different way he smelled on the nights he would come to her bed, wanting only to sleep in her arms. And then there were the nights he would not come at all.

Imogene would never understand his need to betray her. Other women's husbands had mistresses, and other women had lovers, but Imogene knew that Lucien loved only her, and she wanted no other man.

She had too much pride to ever confront him with the things she knew. She had her own ways of keeping her house in order, and it was coming time, once more, for a clean sweep.

*****

December 1777 (six months later)

Jean-Xavier Lucien Gondrin de Moncoutant, Marquis de Muzillac, Comte d'Agniers, and newly promoted Chef de Bataillon of the Regiment de Charette made his way along the maze of corridors and winding stone staircases of the royal chateau at Versailles in search of his wife's apartment. He had not been there enough times that he could be certain of finding it without losing his way. Walking rapidly, he caught a glimpse of himself occasionally, flashing past the gilded mirrors that lined the walls. He was trim and fine in his white coat with facings of royal purple, perfectly and expensively cut and lavished with gold fleur-de-lis. The shine on his black boots rivaled the mirrors.

He was still incredulous, years later, at the manner in which his life had once more undergone a transformation, as if a conjuror had waved his wand, and all that had lain in ruin had suddenly righted itself. He could not begin to understand the workings of fate, but he had resolved to make the most of his good fortune. The wealth he had dreamed of was his, and along with wealth came favor, and he had come to believe that his personal ambitions---the accomplishments that would bring him recognition and glory---were now within his grasp as well.

He was a rich man. He had a beautiful, healthy son, and a beautiful wife who was the confidante of the young Queen, and who, it might well be argued, was more fashionable and sought-after than even the Queen herself. La Petite Gitan, "The Little Gypsy", as she was known, refused to wear a wig, or to powder her hair, and so the wig makers of Paris suffered, until they caught on to the idea of manufacturing new wigs in imitation of the marquise's inky black curls, and then they could not keep up with demand. Women tried to imitate her careless style of dress, and failed, not realizing that it was the woman inside the gowns, and not the gowns themselves which projected such an unaffected air.

Marie Antoinette liked to have Imogene at her side because she believed that, like a velvet patch perfectly placed upon a flawless cheek, the petite Imogene's fine, sharply drawn features and vivid dark beauty made the perfect contrast to hers, setting off the Queen's own misty coloring and voluptuous charms.

Life, for Lucien, had settled into a delightful and predictable rhythm. In time of peace, the officers of the King's army were permitted to take time off from the Regiment in the deep of winter and in the long, hot summer. And so, in the winter, the Moncoutants were caught up in the whirl of court life, in hunting and fetes, masked balls and the opera, gossip and endless games. And in summer, the estate at Agniers offered respite, and soon there would be, as well, the nearly completed new house in Brittany, built as the centerpiece of a beautiful new village square, all designed by the Marquise of Muzillac. There was to be a public garden, and a fountain that would serve as a community well. Lucien could not really imagine ever going to live there, but it amused his wife to make her plans and show him her drawings and to meet with the architect who visited frequently to apprise her of his progress.

Lucien might never have found the right door, had he not happened to see Annette emerge from it at just the right moment, and turn, without seeing him, to move on down the corridor, a large water ewer cradled in her arms.

She had left the door slightly ajar, and Lucien pushed it open slowly, and stepped inside. A miniscule foyer had room for little more than a mirror and a marble console upon which sat an enormous arrangement of powerfully fragrant lilies and ferns. Beyond the foyer was the salon, which blazed with white light from the large, undraped windows, and silhouetted against that light, her back turned to him as she stood in front of her easel, was Imogene.

A smock of some coarse material was tied over her gown of ivory silk, and the mass of midnight curls spilled over and under a head wrap of matching silk, streaming down to the small of her back. As he took another silent step into the room, she turned, as if sensing his presence, and the diamond drop that swung from her delicate earlobe threw a flash of fire as it caught the sun.

At that moment, a movement caught his attention, and an intense fragrance, as powerful as incense, assaulted his nostrils. Rising from the pale green couch which was set before the windows, was a towering, naked Venus, with hair the color of flame, limbs as firm and unblemished and pale as alabaster, and the round, full breasts of the Goddess herself. Awestruck, Lucien said not a word as Venus picked up her wrap which lay in a heap on the glossy pink marble floor, and without bothering to don it, walked slowly towards, and then past him, magnificent breasts swaying, her ample, bare hip brushing his sleeve as she passed, amber eyes locking with his for a brief instant of mad seduction.

Lucien blinked as the door clicked shut behind her, and the odor of her perfume swirled around him still like a dizzying cyclone.

"Splendid, isn't she?" Imogene was coming towards him, untying the smock and dropping it over the back of a chair as she came. "She belongs to the Duc d'Orleans. An Anglaise, a widow, if you can believe it. I lost our latest bet, and so he has asked me to paint her in recompense."

She stopped, and she smiled at him, and suddenly he saw in her expression, beyond the mask of skillfully applied cosmetic and the adornment of silk and precious jewel, in that familiar yet enigmatic smile, and glittering green-gold eye, the hawkish, wild, mysterious girl-child who lived, as ever, in his heart.

"Beloved," she whispered, coming closer, and now he smelled her own fragrance, strangely elusive, a faint breath of sweet woodruff, a suggestion of cool, damp earth. "I wondered when you would come."

Her lips brushed the underside of his chin. Her clear green eyes gazed serenely up into his. He imagined he could feel the flutter of her heart through the stiff bodice of her gown as she pressed against him. His own heart pounded, and his cock, stirred by the vision of Venus, now went hard at the touch of her hand through the fabric of his breeches.

"I am here," was all he could say, for already she was moving down his body. Her skirts billowed in an ivory corolla around her as she sank to her knees. Glancing down, he saw that her hands were covered in paint, gaudy smearings of yellow and orange and black. Cool little fingers were slipping inside his clothing, giving him delightful shivers as they tickled his heated skin. His cock stood out from the pushed back fabric of his white breeches like the stamen rising amid the petals of a lily.

"Imogene," he said softly. "Someone may come in. I saw your maid…"

"No," she said, and his eyes rolled back in his head as she massaged the place just behind his balls. "She won't be back for hours. She is sleeping with a page of the Chambre du Roi. She has been trying to escape all morning."

"Ahh!" he gasped as she took him all the way inside her mouth in a single, smooth motion. She pushed his breeches down to the tops of his boots, and she ran her hands up and down, kneading the backs of his thighs. He took her head in his hands, pushing off the white silk scarf, letting his fingers twine in her snaky black curls. She moved back and forth on him in a sinuous motion, tilting her head slowly from side to side at the same time, her little tongue wrapping itself around him, and he never knew when he might feel the vicious scrape of the edge of her teeth, that little insinuation of delicious pain that sharpened his pleasure like a sprinkle of vinegar on his meat.

Such interesting things she had learned since coming to Court, he thought, and he groaned loudly as one slender finger slithered up inside him. She had told him that the Queen would ask her to read aloud to the ladies from pornographic novels, and though sadly, it would seem that Louis XVI had yet to benefit from his wife's education, the Marquis de Muzillac most certainly had.

*****

He was still inside her, barely moving, simply enjoying the pleasure of watching her shudder and sigh sweetly with the final dissolution of her climax, her muscles gripping him spasmodically, like gentle fingers squeezing him, massaging his softening cock.

"How I love you," he whispered, kissing the swelling breasts which had escaped the top of her gown. Since Emmanuel's birth they were fuller, the nipples dusky and enlarged. Her whole body was that slightest bit rounder, more womanly. His love for her was more profound, the power of her attraction more devastating, than ever.

His Imogene, in diamonds and white silk, at the palace of Versailles. Was it not exactly as he had imagined on their wedding night? And, at long last, she had given him a son. More than ever, she seemed to him to be the embodiment of his every dream.

"Do you know what I would not do for you?" he asked reverently, "What I would not give to you?"

They lay on the green modeling couch in front of the window. He had managed to lose his breeches and boots, but to somewhat comic effect, not his coat, waistcoat and shirt. He lay between her lace-gartered thighs, her skirts puffing up around them like a great ivory cloud.

She stroked his soft hair as he lay on her breast, thinking of things she would not ask, things she dared not yet to say. "I want you," she thought,  "I want you to be my husband, mine alone. I want our child. I want to go home. I want you to teach your son to tame a wild hawk and watch her soar along the banks of the river. This life, none of this, have I ever wanted. All of this I do only for you."

"I have been wanting you so, Lucien." She said.

"Evidently," he replied, raising his head and giving her a wicked smile. "I came yesterday, but I could not find you."

"I attended the Queen. Poor 'Toinette, she is at her wits end with Louis. He refuses to do what needs to be done."

"What needs to be done?" Lucien inquired curiously.

She was twirling a strand of his hair around her finger. "There is nothing so very wrong with him. I showed her some things she might do…"

Lucien laughed. "Poor Louis-Auguste! Let us hope for his sake, and for the future of France, that she does not have teeth as sharp as yours, little cat!"

She went on, "When she is able to achieve intimacy with him, he…responds, but there is pain, and he cannot… complete the act. What he needs is to be cut."

Lucien blanched. "Cut?"

"Oui." She raised her hand in front of his face and opened and closed two fingers in a snipping, scissoring motion.

"God!" he shuddered. "Why have his physicians not seen to it?"

"The King will not allow it. He is too afraid. Antoinette even asked her brother, the Emperor Joseph, to come and speak to him, but even he could not convince Louis. I think," she said softly, pulling his head down towards her, "That I may need to have a look at it myself."

Before he could say anything in response to the rather astonishing revelation that his own wife seemed to be proposing to examine, and perhaps even to perform an operation upon the Royal jeanchouart, she kissed him, and when at last she released him, she changed the subject.

"Will you stay with me tonight, beloved?"

He shook his head regretfully. "I will be in Paris. I am meeting with Pierre. It will be too late for me to come back."

She would not ask where he would spend the night instead.

"The day after tomorrow we hunt the boar," he said, rolling on his side and pulling her into his arms. "I will come back then, ma belle Imogene, my only one."

"Beautiful liar," she thought.

*****

The fire in Anne-Louise's bedchamber blazed, and the cozy room with its walls and hangings of soft, coral-colored watered silk glowed fleshy amber in its flickering light, and throbbed with the languid heat of high summer on this chill December evening.

Charette lay back in the enormous copper tub, able to stretch out to almost full length. A huge copper water butt, heated by a brazier, stood ready to dispense endless quantities of steaming water from its gleaming golden taps. For a boy who had grown up in a spectacularly grand, but forbiddingly cold ancient castle in the far northern province of Lorraine, and a man who had just spent the better part of two months wasting time with his regiment en poste in the bitter environs of Saxony, cooking himself for hours in this voluptuous stewpot of heat and perfume felt all at once like the most exquisite of luxuries and the most deliciously wicked of sins.

He took another huge gulp of warm brandy from his glass, which rested on a tiny table of gilt and travertine, placed conveniently at his elbow. He swallowed, and liquid fire blazed a path of enervating heat down the back of his throat, while on his tongue lingered flavors of wood smoke and burnt sugar. With a groan, he slid beneath the surface of the water, dousing himself once more, thinking there could be worse things than drowning in the bathtub of Madame Rigaud d'Agniers.

He came up for air just as Anne-Louise swept in from her boudoir, provocatively dressed in a rather diaphanous white sacque gown that tied down the front with dozens of trailing pink ribbons, her golden hair loose and rippling down her back. As she moved towards him, with a smile a little indulgent, a little disapproving, on her sweet, generous mouth, he saw that she hadn't bothered with stays, and therefore, probably not with much else.

"Are you still in there?" she laughed, coming to perch on the edge of the tub. "You will shrivel away to nothing!"

He shook his head. "I am in no danger of shriveling, Madame, I can assure you. Quite the contrary."

Even at thirty-eight, Anne-Louise was still a beauty, fashionably pink and white and plump, with wide violet eyes in a lovely, sweet face. Her hairline dipped into an attractive widow's peak on her high forehead, and that, along with her full cheeks and dainty chin, reminded him of nothing so much as the shape of a heart.

She glanced down at the water to examine the evidence of his claim, its dark pink head just now breaking the surface. He reached up and gave a tug on the first of the pink ribbon ties, loosening it easily, and meeting no resistance, untied two more before she put a hand up to stay him.

"Shouldn't you be getting dressed?' she inquired. Her eyes sparkled with happiness, he thought, and her cheeks were still flushed from their long afternoon of lovemaking.

Not answering, he took hold of the little white hand that would prevent him, and with his other hand, proceeded to untie another half-dozen pink ribbon ties in unhurried succession. The filmy white fabric parted and slid back a little over her shoulders as it came undone, and the creamy splendor of her bosom was revealed, along with the soft little swell of her belly.

"Did you not tell me you had an engagement this evening?" she asked, her fingers playing in the long, soaking wet strands of his dark blonde hair.

"I do," he murmured, as his hands slid inside her gown. "And I am very, very late." His arms went around her waist, and before she could protest, he had pulled her in on top of him.

"Pierre!" she squealed as he held her, burying his face in the back of her neck, reaching around to take her breasts in his big hands. "We have been in bed all day!"

"And so…" he mumbled against her ear. "Now we are in the bath." He lay back with her in his arms, and she sighed as he gently pushed the wet gown down off her shoulders and arms, easing it down around her waist. The white material floated, along with a tangle of pink ribbon seaweed, in the steaming water that was slick with oil and fragrant with civet and jasmine.

She surrendered, relaxing, warm and contented against his lean chest, feeling his hands gliding over her breasts, now covered with perfumed oil. His hard cock was poking her in the bottom, so she shifted a little, and it bobbed up between her legs.

When she felt his fingers moving the damp strands of hair away from her ear, she quivered in anticipation, waiting for the unbearable yet exquisite moment when his tongue would delve into her ear. It was a secret that only he, and no other lover had ever discovered. It drove her wild, and he knew it, and he loved to tease her for long minutes, his teeth nipping and tugging gently on her earlobe, his tongue stroking just behind her ear, making little darting thrusts within, withdrawn as soon as he felt her begin to shrink and shudder.

He clasped her head firmly between his two hands, and she knew it was coming, was already wriggling and squirming. Then his tongue was ravaging her ear, and she was utterly at his mercy as he held her still, his breath mingling hot and ragged with the dampness of his probing tongue. She tried to wriggle away, giggled and begged and pleaded for him to stop. But her excitement grew with every fruitless wriggle until by the time he released her; she was positively weak with desire, the pulse in her loins ticking a wild staccato.

"Oh, God…Pierre, please," she heaved herself up out of the water, and the remainder of her sopping gown slid off over her hips as she rose onto her knees, draping her arms over the edge of the tub. She threw back her wet hair and looked over her shoulder as he moved up behind her, following her lead.

His big, strong hands slid up and down her slippery back and over the curve of her luscious bottom, and then, without hesitation, he parted the plump, pinking cheeks and plunged, his long, hard cock, steaming from the heat of the bath, sliding easily up inside her.

The warm water sloshed about her thighs in waves as he thrust himself slowly in and out. He massaged her bobbing breasts and caressed her belly as she arched against him, urging him to go harder and deeper. His rhythm grew faster, more urgent. The only sounds in the quiet chamber were the muted roar and snap of the fire, their quickened breathing, and little soft, wet, slapping sounds as his thrusting hips smacked against her wet behind, again and again.

Eyes closed, lips parted, intent on her own mounting crisis, she suddenly gave a little cry of despair as she felt him go rigid and heard his groan of release. He wrapped his arms around her as he came and came, and then went still, his breath coming ragged, moist and hot on her skin.  After a moment, she felt his stomach muscles contracting against her back as he chuckled feebly.

"Don't worry, my sweet," he murmured, slipping out of her, "Do you think I would abandon you?"

She sank back into the tub, gazing at him hot-eyed and breathless with wanting.

With a great sloshing and splashing, he stood up in the tub, and reaching down, slid his hands under her arms, pulling her to her feet. Effortlessly, he scooped her into his arms, and stepping from the tub, sloshed even more water out over the sides, soaking the thick Turkey carpet. He carried her the few strides to the bed and dropped her lightly, dripping and fragrant, onto the rumpled sheets.

"I love you!" he whispered, falling half on top of her. "Marry me, Anne-Louise!"

"Non," she shook her head, pressing her fingertips to his lips.

"Oh, why, why, why?" he moaned. His dark eyes were so desolate, and he looked so much like a disappointed little boy, or a dear little dog begging for a treat, that Anne-Louise had to laugh.

"A dozen reasons," she replied. "All of which you have been told a dozen times. Stop asking."

"I will not. Never!" He kissed her sweet, full mouth, and gloried in her ardent response as she met each thrust of his probing tongue with her own. She was writhing against him, seeking his hand with hers, urging him towards that fulfillment of her pleasure. Leaving her mouth, he made his way slowly down her oil-slick perfumed body. She let her thighs part, and he pushed them open even wider with his hands. His fingers, manly and calloused, but with a touch as delicate as a whisper, pushed into the damp, curling hair, and parted her gently, revealing her glistening center, and the pulsing, unhooded bud of her desire, shining there like a lustrous pink pearl.

He gazed upon her lush, full body, laid open before him in complete surrender. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining, her wet hair sprayed all over the linens, the color of tarnished brass. She drew her legs up still further, offering herself.

What heavenly perfume he inhaled as he buried his face in that warm, damp moss, heady with jasmine, civet and musk. He suckled the delicate bud of her sex, lapped at the petal-soft, flower dew font of her womanhood. He plunged his hot tongue all the way up inside her, making her cry and twist and sob his name as he pleasured her with all-consuming devotion, until she gave one last desperate wail and bucked against his restraining hands, as her climax took her in great, shuddering convulsions.

*****

"Marry me," he mumbled again, pressing his face into the softness of her belly.

She looked at him from beneath her lowered lashes, at his hard young body, long and lean and beautifully muscled, the skin as smooth as milk. She buried her elegant fingers in the damp tangle of his hair, and sighed.

"I will not, my darling. I am happy as I am. And I am too old for you," she said tenderly.

"Then tell me you love me," her implored her, raising mournful dark eyes to hers.

She smiled. "I love you. You know that I do."

He moved up the bed to gather her in his arms,

"It is time for you to go," she said softly.

"Not yet." He kissed her again.

*****

Charette was late, and Lucien, who had left the comfort of his wife's arms long before he might have wished in order to make the assignation, was becoming increasingly annoyed, knowing full well that his friend had no such compunction, and was likely, at this very moment, still lolling in bed with his own lover. Trying to put the disquieting image of his lovely aunt, the sweet woman who had raised him, and his best friend out of his mind, Lucien called for another round.

 Talk, that evening, among the men who gathered at the Inn of L' Epee du Bois, had been of the latest communication from the twenty-year-old Marquis de Lafayette, departed that autumn, along with his cronies, Segur and Noailles, and that venerable old soldier, the Duc de Broglie on a self-financed expedition to America, to aid in the rebellion against the British king.

"My friends, I am bound," Lafayette had written, "To be a defender of that liberty which I worship, utterly free in my own person and going as a friend to offer my services to the most interesting of Republics, bringing to the service only my candor and goodwill, without ambition or ulterior motive. Working for my own glory will become working for their happiness."

Lucien scoffed at this assertion of altruism on the part of the hotheaded young Marquis. As a boy, his friend Charette had carried the colors of his father's regiment at the battle of Minden, where Lafayette's own father had fallen, and it was well known that Lafayette, like a great many French patriots, burned with a desire for revenge against the ancient enemy, the nation to which so much had been lost in the wars of Louis XV's reign.

And this sentimental notion of liberty and equality, the romantic ramblings of Rousseau and Voltaire that had so infected the soft, susceptible minds of much of the nobility! The cult of nature and feeling indeed! Lucien's education in the natural world had been more truthful and more devastatingly real than ever Monsieur Rousseau or the idealistic young Lafayette could have conceived. Nature was not freedom. Nature was not sensible and sweet. Nature was a cruel hierarchy of tooth and claw. God and Nature had created the falcon, noble and beautiful and rare, to have dominion over the vermin, timid, common and plain. And as a mouse, a rat, a hare, was born to scrabble on the ground, so the hawk was born to soar.

And yet sympathy for the American cause was all the fashion in France these days. Even the Queen embraced the cause of the colonists, to the consternation of her husband, who knew full well that France could not afford an international conflict. And, however strong his political dislike for Britain, Louis held no antipathy for his fellow King, George III, and he believed, as, Lucien maintained, would any good monarchist, that the monarchy had no business helping rebels.

Lucien's drinking companions were beginning to move off to the gaming tables and to the distractions that were to be had in the upstairs rooms, when Charette finally shambled in, looking for all the world like a man well-sated and contented, grinning and slapping backs as he moved through the smoke-filled room, his shaggy head nearly brushing the low-hanging beams of the timbered ceiling.

"My apologies, my friend," he said magnanimously, dragging out a chair and plopping himself down across the table from Lucien. He draped one long leg over the corner of the table, laced his fingers over his flat belly, and sighed, smiling cheerfully. His hair was slightly damp, and he reeked of perfume.

Lucien wrinkled his nose. "God! Where have you been sticking your head?"

Charette's grin was gleeful and mischievous.

"Don't say it, Pierre!" Lucien warned peevishly, "I can hardly call my commanding officer out onto the field of honor." He poured his friend a cup of wine, then topped up his own and took a long draught.  "Why don't you find yourself a wife?"

Charette raised an eyebrow. "The woman I love will not have me." He shrugged, "What am I to do?" Raising his pewter cup to his lips, he mumbled, "We cannot all manage our affaires du coeur as adeptly as you, my friend."

Lucien followed the movement of Charette's eyes to a far corner of the room where Melusine was systematically fleecing a tableful of young gentlemen at cards and dice.

"You should let that one go, Lucien," Charette said lowly.

"Go where?" Lucien replied casually, "She is where she chooses to be."

"In my regiment! I should not allow it!"

Lucien smiled thinly, "Discharge her then. I cannot prevent you."

"If she were not the finest maitre d'armes in all of France," Charette said with a prideful grin, "I might."

He set down his cup and leaned forward, his arms folded on the table, and said seriously, "I know that you love your wife. So why, then do you keep this one on a string? She is not a whore, Lucien. Look at her."

Both men glanced over at Melusine. Charette took note of the way she lowered her eyes when she caught Lucien's gaze, the faint flush that colored her cheeks. Over the years her disguise had been perfected, inhabiting her masculine persona was as natural to her as drawing a breath, but once one knew the truth, Charette thought, it was impossible to imagine ever having been fooled.

  He shook his head. "I cannot understand you."

"Then," Lucien said evenly, looking his friend directly in the eye. "Perhaps you should not presume to give advice about things you do not understand."

An exasperated cry went up from the gaming table, as well as a burst of good-natured laughter, and several of the young gentlemen stood, clearly tapped out. Melusine was  coolly raking in a pile of coin and crumpled notes.

"How does she do it?" Charette asked.

"She cheats," replied Lucien. "And rather badly, too. I cannot quite believe no one has offered to run her through."

Charette, thinking of Melusine's unsurpassed lethality with the blade, snorted. "Who would dare?"

And Lucien, his body still humming from his afternoon of pleasure, was thinking again of his wife.

"Who indeed?" he said.

*****

The Palace of Versailles had been originally built as a hunting lodge, and the thick forests surrounding it still teemed with game. Here was to be found some of the finest sport, and the keenest huntsmen in all of Europe, not the least of which was the young King, Louis XVI.

Melusine rode alone through the broad ride that stretched through the trees, still clinging to the last of their golden autumn leaves. A light frost lay upon the ground, as yet untouched by the brilliant sun now just beginning to show its power, promising a warmth that would belie the season, for it was nearly Noel.

Ahead in the distance, Melusine could hear the commotion of the hunt, a hundred horses and riders ready for the chase, the lean, elegant deerhounds yapping, beaters crashing through the bushes, driving up birds for the archer's skill, scaring doe and rabbit into the path of the dogs.

She urged her horse into a canter, for she needed to make haste. Lucien was waiting. He was here, along with a small party chosen by the King, to hunt the boar. A wild boar was unpredictable and dangerous, with an evil temper and razor sharp tusks, and to take him was the greatest test of a hunter's skill and courage. For running the deer Lucien would ride Gloire, his fleet-footed thoroughbred, but for the boar hunt, there was Aja, a magnificent Portugese stallion. Bright bay, close-coupled, nimble as a cat, and with a heart of fire, Aja snorted and danced at the end of the lead.

The ride opened onto the field where the hunt was gathered, and Melusine felt a thrill of excitement at the sight, the whirl of color and motion, the music of the hounds, the jingle and flash of bridle and spur. She scanned the field for Lucien and spotted him at last. His back to her, she recognized him by his straight, slender shape, the gleaming black of his hair, the familiar way he sat the horse. She rode towards him, her heart in her throat, thinking how handsome he was, and of last night, in her cozy little rooms in the Rue de Bac, feeding him a meal she had prepared herself, beating him twice at chess without having to cheat, and then, letting him make love to her twice to even the score.

As she drew closer, she saw him dismounting. A group of horses and riders moved to one side, and she could see a handsome dark green landau there, and perched prettily at the reins was a young woman Melusine knew instantly could only be the Queen of France. There were two other women in the carriage, one, clearly a lady's maid, was standing, and she held a baby in her arms, well bundled against the cold.

Lucien was moving to the carriage, holding out his arms to the second woman, a tiny figure in a cloak of crimson velvet, lined with black sable. As Melusine watched, not realizing that she was still riding forward, coming closer and closer, she saw Lucien help the woman down from the carriage, and she saw him take the black-gloved hands in his, kissing first one, and then the other. And then she saw him reaching back towards the maid, and she placing the baby in his arms.

Melusine was not fifty feet away. The little woman put up one gloved hand and pushed back the hood of her fur-lined cloak. Hair as black as midnight, as black as Lucien's, tumbled over her shoulders. And as Lucien bent to kiss his baby son, his wife turned and looked at Melusine.

Her face was delicately made, parchment pale, her lips blood red, and her high, arched nose gave her the look of a predatory bird. Her eyes, green-gold, clear as glass, regarding Melusine with the cold, patient, superior stare of the raptor, could have been Lucien's.

"She knows me", thought Melusine. Blood pounded in her temples, and then, suddenly, her heart shattered, as if made of ice and shot through with a cunning blade of wicked steel. She couldn't breathe, and all at once the true misery of years of loving in vain, of stubborn pride and self-deceit struck home with a vicious, killing blow. It had always been a losing game, she knew, she should have known.

She hated to lose. She always had. But for the first time in her life, she could not think of a way to win, and she was tired of cheating.

"This horse belongs to the Marquis de Muzillac," she said, handing Aja's reins over to the first groom she could find.

Lucien had never known she was there.

Go to Part Nine