Prophecy - Страница 47

‘At this hour?’

‘Well — you are here at this hour.’

Her face softens into a sideways smile.

‘Perhaps I get homesick too. And lonely. Don’t you, Bruno?’ She seems to glide towards me, feet silent. ‘In any case, I should think my reasons are not the same as that clerk’s. What’s his name?’

‘Leon Dumas.’ Perhaps it should not surprise me that she doesn’t know the names of her husband’s staff, but it seems to confirm something about her, a lack of interest in anyone not immediately useful to her. ‘But you have a husband,’ I add, trying to keep my voice level. She stands now barely inches from me and raises a hand to my brow, her face concentrated in concern. I flinch even before she touches me, and she laughs.

‘Don’t worry, Bruno, I am not going to hurt you. Yes, I have a husband, and I can see you have never been married, if you think it a cure for loneliness.’

I clench my jaw tight as she runs a finger lightly through my hair just above the wound.

‘Courcelles said you had been attacked — I was worried about you,’ she whispers. I wonder briefly when Courcelles found the opportunity to speak to her between my late arrival and this dawn ambush, but my thoughts are scattered by the touch of her left hand on my breastbone, as her right forefinger continues to trace a line along my temple and down my face. Again, I concentrate on keeping very still, though my nerves are burning and my throat has constricted. Her gown has slipped a little and the naked slope of her shoulder is visible. ‘Bruno —‘ she begins, not quite looking me in the eye — ‘what happened yesterday —‘

‘Please — forget it happened,’ I hear myself say, in a new strangled voice. ‘There is no need to say any more about it.’

‘But this is just the problem, Bruno,’ she whispers, her breath warm on my chin. ‘I can’t forget. I can think of nothing else. I don’t know how you have done this to me.’ Her body snakes closer to me in a fluid, instinctive movement, fitting herself to the angle of my hip. Enough. My head clears as if doused by cold water; I step back and grasp her gently by the shoulders.

‘Please, Marie, I have done nothing knowingly, and you should not be here.’

‘That you have not done it knowingly makes it all the sweeter,’ she murmurs, and through her small shoulders I can feel the pent force as she strains to press herself against me, and the heat of her body. Again, I am wracked by confusion; her desire seems real enough, but I cannot shake off the suspicion that this is a performance, a trap she means to spring. Even if it is not intentionally a trap, I think, it would soon become one. I must get her out of my room before I have any cause to reproach myself.

‘Marie,’ I say gently, and she lifts her head to look me in the eye, her expression hesitant, her lips parted and breathless. Dio mio. It takes every atom of self-control I possess not to simply lean in and kiss that hot mouth. ‘This cannot be. In your heart you know it. It would only cause pain — not just to your husband, but to you and to me. Please, I implore you — try not to think of me like this, as I try not to think of you.’

She shakes her head, but at least she does take a token step back.

‘More pain than I feel already, Bruno? To see you every day, to live in the same house and eat at the same table and know that you do not want me as I want you? If there is a greater pain than this, I do not know of it.’

Because you have never known what it is to want something and not immediately have it in your possession, I think, looking at her. For her the attraction lies solely in my continuing refusal; I am not so vain as to imagine otherwise.

‘In any case,’ she goes on, averting her eyes, ‘I do not know how to live with this any longer. I begin to think that if you will not love me, then we cannot go on existing under the same roof. One of us must return to Paris.’

I run a hand through my hair and take a deep breath, trying to muster a diplomatic answer. Now she speaks of love; if she truly means this, it is nothing more than an illusion she has created in her own mind. She has persuaded herself that she loves me, because I have refused her. But then, perhaps what we call love is only ever self-delusion. And if she is acting a role, is this all part of a larger ruse to get me out of the way? If she decides one of us must return to Paris, she can only mean me, and as far as I can see, there is nothing for me in Paris except the gathering strength of the Duke of Guise and his Catholic faction, waiting to welcome the Inquisition as soon as they have the chance. I wonder who might have put her up to it; whoever has the most to gain from removing me just as the invasion plot gathers momentum. Henry Howard? The Duke of Guise himself? Whoever it is, they must not succeed.

‘I would never willingly cause you pain,’ I begin. My head is aching. ‘But neither do I wish to insult your husband. I don’t know what my choice is, Marie — you want me to become your lover, here, under his roof? Do you think that could ever be managed without the entire household knowing that he was being cuckolded by his house guest? Already, we have Leon Dumas speculating on why you would be coming to my chamber in the dawn, so —‘ I gesture to her flimsy gown, feeling myself blush — ‘so informally attired. There are other servants who would be less discreet. It would be an impossible situation.’

Immediately I know I have said the wrong thing; her face darkens, her eyes flare and she darts a furious glance towards the door, as if Dumas might be standing outside taking notes.

‘You think he would say something to my husband? Or to the other servants? What could he say? I gave him a good reason for my visit, what cause could he have for idle gossip?’ Her voice is tight with anger. I rub my brow. Does she really believe that the household staff would not find it worth commenting on, that the mistress of the house should visit the lodger under cover of darkness, barely dressed, while her ageing husband snores in his bed?

‘Dumas will not say a word, he is a good man and would not want to spread rumours,’ I say, squeezing her arm re assuringly. ‘But you see how it would go for us if there were a story for the servants to tell? You would not want to dishonour your husband in his own house, I’m sure, whatever else you may feel about him.’

She sighs. ‘Michel is a good man. And he adores me, so he is often persuaded to go against his own judgement for my sake. We need him if this invasion is to succeed. You are right, Bruno, I cannot afford to lose his support now.’

This is not exactly the point I have made, but I say nothing.

‘But he is sixty years old, Bruno. He cannot be a husband to me in the way I need. You understand me.’ Her voice grows silky; again, I feel the sharp heat in my groin, the dry throat. ‘I want only to know that you feel the same,’ she adds, her voice barely audible, her eyes reeling me in.

‘I — you must know that I do,’ I say, thinking that this is the only politic answer. If I reject her outright, she will see that I am sent back to Paris; she has as good as said so. ‘But you are right. I do not want to see the invasion plans fail because we could not set aside our own selfish desires for a short while. Your husband’s support is essential and he must not be distracted at this stage. It would let everyone down.’

She regards me with genuine surprise, which turns slowly to cautious approval.

‘You know, I had wondered about your commitment to the invasion plan, Bruno. I confess that there were those among us who have doubted the truth of your loyalty to the Catholic interest — Howard and the Earl of Arundel, Claude, even me at times. I am glad to hear you prove them wrong.’

I incline my head in acknowledgement.

‘And as for the other matter,’ she says with a secret smile, lowering her voice again, ‘if you mean it, then we will find a way. The Duke of Guise will have no use for my husband in any case, once Mary Stuart is queen of England and Guise has asserted power in Paris.’

Her certainty about this future Catholic empire, and the ease with which she talks of disposing of her husband, chill me, even while my body remains in thrall to her proximity. I regard her with a fascinated revulsion, as she leans forward and kisses me softly, though chastely, on the mouth. I neither respond nor withdraw but remain perfectly impassive, at least outwardly, hoping that I have bought myself a little more time.

‘Speak to your friend the clerk,’ she says imperiously, at the door. ‘Make sure he doesn’t say a word.’

‘I will.’

She gives me a last, knowing smile, pouts a kiss and pauses in the doorway for a moment, glancing to left and right along the corridor to make sure she is not seen. Then she is gone, leaving the door banging behind her and a trace of ambergris perfume in the air of my room. I wash my hands slowly over my face and sit on the bed to compose myself. Balancing my interests here with regard to Marie and her husband will demand greater feats of diplomacy from me than anything the ambassador himself could face at court. In the meantime, I must corner Dumas alone and draw from him the rest of his garbled confession about Mary Stuart’s ring.

I have no opportunity during the rest of the morning; once I have broken my fast, I take a book and lurk as unobtrusively as I may in the passage that leads to Castelnau’s office, in the hope that Dumas will emerge at some point so that I can accost him. But the ambassador must have him tethered to his desk, for there is no sign of him for the best part of two hours, though Courcelles passes me twice on his way to and from a consultation with the ambassador; both times he looks me up and down pointedly and asks if I have sufficient light to read, and if I would not be more comfortable in the gallery? The third time he appears, he offers to interrupt Castelnau and send me in; hurriedly, I assure him I have no wish to bother the ambassador, and slink away to my room, Courcelles watching me retreat with his usual shrewd-eyed face of suspicion.