Louisa Rawlings (23 page)

The rustling became a low whisper, a woman’s angry voice. “
Cousin?
When they’re laughing at me in Selommes? Whispering behind their hands? Cousin be damned, you teller of tales! While you amuse yourself with a new petticoat!”
 

“Jacquelan. Stop it.” Pierre’s voice was soft and conciliatory.
 

“Let me go, damn you! I saw her at the stream. She’s as plain as a potrag!”
 

“I wouldn’t know,” he said. His voice was strained. “I scarcely notice her. She’s lodging here. Nothing more. And she’ll be gone in a few weeks. Let it be, for the love of God.”
 

“Then why haven’t I seen you in nearly a week? You didn’t even come to mass on Sunday.”
 

“I’ve been busy.”
 

“With the plain-faced whore?”
 

“Enough, Jacquelan!” he growled.
 

Her voice was suddenly breathy with passion. “Pierre.
Mon amour.
It’s only that I miss you from my bed.”
 

He laughed softly. “Next to your husband, Madame Billot?”
 

“Even when I’m with him, I dream of you.”
 

Rouge heard soft murmurs, then something that sounded distinctly like kissing. Name of God, she thought, frozen on the ladder. What am I to do? Stay here until they’ve gone? She wasn’t surprised, of course. He had made it clear he enjoyed the favors of the village women. And a married woman was probably safer than a virgin; if he planted his seed, she could always blame it on her husband. Still, the conceit of the man—to woo the wife under her husband’s very nose!
 

Jacquelan’s voice, low and urgent, disturbed her reverie. “Come to me on Saturday. Simon will be gone all day. I beg you…”
 

“I don’t know. There’s work to be done.”
 

“That’s a lie! You want to be with
her
!”
 

He sighed wearily. “No.”
 

Jacquelan’s voice was thick with grief. “You don’t know how I suffer with Simon. God alone knows why I married him. He’s old and fat and…”
 

Pierre interrupted her sharply, his voice cutting the gloom like a knife. “Don’t play that game with me, Jacquelan! We both know why you married him. Because he’s rich.”
 

Silence. Then, “Of course I did,” she said. “But swear you’ll marry me and I’ll be a widow by Saint Médard’s Day!”
 

“By my faith,” he muttered, “you have a hawk’s talon where your heart should be.”
 

“Damn you, Pierre! If you don’t come to me on Saturday next…!”
 

“You’ll find someone else to warm your bed,
n’est-ce pas
?"
 

Her voice had become shrill. “You whoreson! You donkey’s entrails! You milksop in the body of a man…!”
 

Rouge had heard enough. Filled with disgust, she made her quiet way back up the ladder, tiptoed to the door, then retraced her steps, stomping across the floor with as much noise as she could. She stood beside the ladder and called down, “Pierre! Are you there? We need more wood for the fire, or there’ll not be a hot dinner today.” The box next to the hearth was brimming with logs, but it was the first thing that came to mind. She waited for a grunted response from him, then climbed down the ladder.
 

He hurried forward from the dimness and opened the door to the outside. Billot and his journeyman were still struggling to get the horse and wagon into position. Pierre smiled, his green eyes revealing nothing. “Rouge. You haven’t met Madame Billot. Jacquelan…Rouge.”
 

Rouge stared in curiosity as a woman emerged from the shadows. She was very beautiful, as dark as Rouge was fair, with a voluptuous figure and a manner of walking that accented the rounded curves of her bosom, the swell of her ample hips. She smiled, her lips stretched in a tight line. “How clever of Pierre to have found a cousin to cook and clean for him. But it’s cheaper than hiring a servant girl on market day.”
 

Rouge gave the other woman a withering glance. “Yes. It would appear that Cousin Pierre
is
clever. He manages to get everything he wants without paying for it.” She nodded toward the open door. “Your husband seeks you, madame.” She watched, feeling strangely victorious, as Jacquelan Billot swept out to join the baker.
 

Pierre turned to Rouge, one dark eyebrow raised quizzically. He had the grace, at least, to look slightly embarrassed.
 

“Dieu du ciel!”
exclaimed Rouge. “It matters not to me what you do! But henceforth spare me your sermonizing on the themes of honesty and deception and the wickedness of the court!”
 

“There’s no dishonesty. Simon knows she’s not faithful, and doesn’t care. As for the charming Jacquelan, we’ve dealt fairly with each other. She engages nothing more than my lusts, and I return the favor. Were I to marry her, God forbid, it wouldn’t be long before she found someone else. An honest whore, that.”
 

Rouge pursed her lips in annoyance. “And not as plain as a pot rag?”
 

He laughed softly. “Ah. You heard it all.”
 

“Of course.”
 

“And all that pretense…the heavy footsteps so that we could hear you below. And the wood for the fire. My God, your voice was so convincing that I had to remind myself I’d filled the box this morning! And, lest I forget, the tricks with the peddler and Ruffec…” He studied her intently. “How skilled you are. You use your eyes, your mouth, your every expression to deceive. And your practiced voice, that can twist what a man thinks he hears. Even when I know it’s a lie, I find myself half believing you. No, mademoiselle. You’ll never make me believe that a country trollop, out to please her senses, is more deceptive than an artful courtesan.”
 

“How neatly you turn it around,” she said coldly. “What chop-logic. You sleep with another man’s wife, while
I
am made to feel wicked. Because of my face. Because I’ve learned to dissemble, to live by my wits, which is how one survives in this world. Because…oh!” She turned away in frustrated anger. “God alone knows what debauchery you suspect me of in the corridors of Versailles!”
 

He put his hands on her shoulders. Though she tried to resist, he was too strong; he turned her back to face him. His tanned cheeks were suffused with color. (A blush of shame? she thought.) He smiled ruefully. “Perhaps—you’ll be surprised to learn—I have a conscience that whispers ‘adultery’ in my ear however much I try to deny it. And never more so than when I’m being scolded by a woman who…”

“By a woman you know nothing about,” she interrupted with some heat, “but insist on judging in a most high-handed manner.”
 

He lowered his eyes, unwilling to meet her steady gaze. “In a high-handed, and
unjust
manner. Once again, I beg your pardon.”
 

“Ah, well.” She sighed, nodded her forgiveness, and moved away from the seductive warmth of his hands, still on her shoulders. “If apologies were louis d’or, I should have you beggared in a week! Now”—she pointed outside, where Billot had begun again to shout at Cosme—“go to your customers before the plum tart beats the rat to death!”
 

He stared, then laughed uproariously, shaking his head in delight as he went out into the sunshine. Using hoist and tackle, he helped the baker unload his sacks of grain, then reload his wagon with the flour that had been ground the week before.
 

Rouge continued with her dinner preparations, building up the fire and stirring the stew. Jacquelan’s basket was still on the table. Rouge unpacked the bread: four loaves of fine white bread, two of
bis-blanc
, that middling dark wheat so favored by the country folk. In the bottom of the basket were three freshly plucked pigeons; nicely grilled, they’d make a good supper. And next to the pigeons was a stone crock. Rouge unstoppered it and sniffed the contents. It was familiar. Rossolis, a warming liqueur made from brandy and spices. Very nice indeed, she thought. She and Tintin had used up the last cask of Rossolis at Christmas-time, and had found it too expensive to replace.
 

Well, there was no sense in standing about envying the miller’s simple life. She’d never get Tintin to give up his extravagance at the gaming tables. She looked down at the basket. Jacquelan would expect it back, no doubt. She could hear the baker Billot urging his horse up the incline again; they must be ready to leave. Basket in hand, she went out of the cottage.
 

Up against the front of the building was a small linden tree; beneath its shade, Pierre and the baker’s wife were locked in a passionate embrace. Rouge frowned. At any moment, Billot would surely see them. She cleared her throat audibly.
 

Pierre lifted his head. Quickly he took from Jacquelan a small pouch of coins and shook it noisily. His voice, when he spoke, was unnaturally loud. “Thank you for your trade, Monsieur…and Madame…Billot!”
 

As the baker’s wagon slowly rumbled along the dirt track to the distant highroad, Pierre and Rouge returned to the cottage. He opened the pouch, spilled out the coins on the table, and counted them with care. “A good piece of work,” he said with satisfaction. “But he’s paying for the best-milled flour he’ll ever get.”
 

He reached up to a shelf of books above the table and pulled down what appeared to be a large volume; upon closer inspection, it proved to be a wooden cask, painted and gilded in imitation of a book. Pulling a key from his pocket, he unlocked the cask. It was filled with coins.
 

Rouge tried not to show her surprise. “Are you a highwayman?” she said lightly.
 

“I work hard. And this is not such a deal of money as you might suppose. It costs me, for the mill, nine hundred livres a year to the good prior in Selommes. Not counting repairs. My quarterly rent is due at the end of June. And there are taxes to pay.
Mon Dieu
,
there are
always
taxes to pay. And I can scarcely pretend to poverty when the assessors are chosen from the ranks of my neighbors.” He looked at Rouge and laughed wryly. “Of course that’s not something that troubles your life. Taxes. And the constant worries about money that burden so many in the village.” It was—surprisingly—not a condemnation, merely a statement of fact. The nobility were not required to pay taxes.
 

Rouge thought of Tintin’s debts, the decaying stones of Sans-Souci, her unholy bargain with Torcy to avoid debtor’s prison, or worse. How little you know, my fine friend! she thought. “Do you want me to put the Rossolis in the larder?” was all she said.
 

He nodded. “For a cold night.
Dieu!
I could have wished for some warming spirits the night the storm blew you to me!”
 

“I doubt I could have swallowed a mouthful that night,” she said.
 

His eyes twinkled. “I didn’t mean for you. I meant for
me
!
Something to ease the pain of your rebuff.”
 

“Clown,” she snorted. “Had I my wits about me that night, you might have received more than a slap for your bold kiss.”
 

His grin deepened. “Had you your wits about you, you might not have rebuffed me at all!”
 

“Faugh! I’m not my lady Jacquelan!” she said, enjoying their banter. “Now, Monsieur Don Juan, if you want to eat, your dinner is ready. I put away the rest of the breads, but I fear they’ll be dry and hard long before we can eat them all. If I could bake bread fresh, when we needed it…”
 

He sat down at the table and sliced a piece from the crusty loaf. “Damn,” he said. “We should have butter. I forget, living alone. If the cupboard is empty, it has been my habit to ride into Selommes for a bit of supper at the tavern. But I’d intended to go into the village this afternoon at any event. To see how soon the
rhabilleur
Poncelet can come and fix the oven. He’s the best stone-dresser in the region. He’s ground my millstones to a fine edge on many an occasion. But he does masonry from time to time. I’ll ride into Selommes to speak to him. I can return with a basket of food, if you tell me what you need.” He frowned at the plain bread and dipped it into the stew. “Butter, of course. And cheese and sausages.”
 

“Salt pork—to go with that sack of beans of yours—would be nice. And milk and sugar for the bread pudding. Oh, and I nearly forgot. Yeast! If I’m to bake bread when the oven is repaired, I must have yeast. For the rest, the choices are yours.”
 

“I’ll not go till late this afternoon. I still have two
setiers
of corn to grind. And I might be late returning. Sup without me, and don’t wait up. I’ll eat in Selommes if I’m hungry.”
 

“I can roast the pigeons, in any case. You’ll find them cold in the cupboard when you return.”
 

It was not until he had ridden out of sight, leaving a cloud of dust in his horse’s wake, that she thought to wonder if he intended to visit—and bed—his “honest whore.”