My Brother's Crown (44 page)

“
Oui
. But I need to find Amelie. I do not know where she is or if she is in harm's way.”

“Wait for just a moment,” Anton said, reaching out and touching Catherine's arm.

Catherine turned toward Eriq. “What is going on? I don't understand.”

“Of course not,” Anton responded. “I have not gotten to the best part yet. I have a proposal for you.”

Catherine stepped backward.

“A proposition, actually, with much to gain on your part. A place in the court. A life of meaning. Time with Suzanne and even Madame de Maintenon, another woman with a Huguenot background who changed her destiny.”

“What are you talking about?” Catherine asked.

Anton smiled, but his eyes narrowed as he reached out to her. “You were much more amorous at Versailles.”

She jerked her hand away. “Amorous? I was no such thing!”

She looked to Eriq, expecting him to be as shocked and angry at Anton's words as she was. But he wasn't even looking her way. Did he not care? Had his affections for her been a lie?

“You were,
chérie
,” Anton insisted. “Aunt Suzanne said so too. She could think of no reason why you would not accept me.”

“No reason? We only just met. We conversed for a short time. How could anyone know…” She stopped. Anton was no better than Basile. He wanted her family's property too, but all of it for as little as possible.

“You're not making this easy on me.” His voice was calm. “Could we start anew? With me telling you how beautiful you are.” He reached for her hand again and raised it toward his mouth.

She shuddered at the thought of his lips on her skin. “I need to go.”

He grabbed her wrist. “Catherine, I'm asking you to marry me.”

The pressure of his hand alarmed her. He appeared sane, but his force was almost as much as Basile's.

“Eriq?” Catherine sought his eyes, pleading for his help.

Their eyes locked for a long moment, and then Eriq said, “What can I do? I have to look out for myself.”

She was dumbfounded. “You betrayed me,” she whispered, scarcely believing it.

“
Au contraire
. This is what is best for you too.”

“That is a lie and you know it.”

He shrugged. He didn't care. Why had she ever trusted him?

She turned toward Anton. “Why would you want to marry me?” Catherine stepped closer to him so the pressure on her wrist loosened.

“I can afford your home but not your land. I need to be a true nobleman.” He lowered his voice. “And you will be my lady. You will have a much better life than you would tied to a wheel. We will live here some but spend as much time at Versailles as possible.”

Catherine shook her head. “The land, all of it, belongs to my brother, not me.”

“Not if you convert,” Eriq said.

Catherine spun toward him, pulling away from Anton. “And what do you have to do with all of this? Did you work with Monsieur Olivier to make the arrangements?”

Eriq shook his head. “
Non
. With your Uncle Laurent. He drew up all the papers. Monsieur Olivier just gave us the idea.”

Catherine shook her head. “And Uncle Laurent will receive a cut, I presume.”

“Of course.”

Catherine put her hands to the side of her face. “My brother agreed to selling the house?”

“
Oui
,” Eriq said. “He is up to all sort of surprises. I was right about him and Pierre turning in Huguenots to the dragoons.”

“
Non!
” Catherine's hands fell to her sides. How could Pierre look her in the eye and bring her a cross as a gift if he was betraying their own people? Her hand went to her neck.

“It's true,” Eriq said. “The butcher and his family. Even his apprentice. You saw the vault in the warehouse. That's what they are using it for.” Eriq chuckled. “Why do you think the dragoons were not so bad to you and Amelie?”

She took a deep breath, thinking they had been horrible. But she knew it could have been much worse. “What about you, Eriq? Who have you been helping?”

“I am the one who got the cobbler out. And, of course, my parents too. At least my brother had the decency to let them leave. I arranged the sale of this house to help Jules with his latest project, still hoping I was wrong about my misgivings. But, tragically, I have learned how correct I was. And there is more. It seems he has been smuggling contraband.”

“What kind?”

Eriq shrugged. “I don't have the details, and it doesn't matter. He has what he wants. Money from the dragoons. Money from the house. He will buy the paper mill on the Lignon from the Audets. He is probably planning on turning them in next and getting his money back—and perhaps he has already betrayed Amelie.”

“Don't be absurd.”

Eriq shrugged. “All I know is that I have lost my brother.”

Catherine swallowed hard. She had lost Pierre too.

Anton cleared his throat. “It sounds as if there are many reasons for you to marry me and be under my protection, Catherine. What is your answer? I saw how fascinated you were with the glamour of Versailles. I think we have a lot in common.”

“Could I have a few minutes?” she asked. “To clean up?”

“Of course,” Anton said, smiling. “And put on some decent clothes. If I had seen you dressed all in gray in Versailles, I would not have given you a second glance.”

To think she had been so excited about the new clothes, paid for by an uncle who had no qualms about arranging a marriage and betraying her.

Catherine led them through the kitchen to the hall and then to Jules's study. “Wait here,” she said.

As she hurried down the corridor she wondered at the truth in all of it. Eriq was in alliance with Uncle Laurent and Anton. He had no love or concern for her, even though he had presented himself otherwise. Was Pierre as coldhearted? Could no one be trusted except for dear Grand-Mère?

She dressed quickly, putting on the skirt of her riding habit first instead of her underskirt, and then pulling the purple gown over the top of that. Next she put on the headpiece. Then she grabbed her satchel, made sure the copy of Grand-Mère's letter of protection was inside, and collected her journal and slipped it in too, along with quills, a bottle of ink, the flint from the fireplace mantle, and her purse with several coins.

As she turned away from the desk, she saw her small Bible behind the jar of quills. She slipped it under the headpiece, securing it in her bun as Jules had once suggested, and took Grand-Mère's small dagger from the drawer of the desk, slipping the scabbard into her stocking. Finally, she took the Huguenot cross Pierre had given her from around her neck and tucked it into her purse.

Then she opened the window and the shutters at the very end of the room and lowered her satchel to the ground.

A few moments later she stopped in the doorway of the study. “You must be hungry,” she said to Anton and Eriq. “I apologize that we have no cook. I will prepare some food myself and be right back.”

In the kitchen she wrapped a loaf of bread and the end of a block of cheese into a towel and then tiptoed out the back door, retrieving the satchel and then hurrying to the stable.

Her horse was the only one left. “Hush
,
” Catherine whispered soothingly, grabbing a saddle blanket and then the saddle.

Once the mare was ready, Catherine led her through the courtyard to the street and mounted quickly. The bells of the cathedral began to toll
.

As she passed Janetta's shop, the girl stepped out into the street.

“Catherine, what are you doing?” she called out.

“Starting a new style,” Catherine replied with a wave. Janetta laughed, and Catherine turned her horse toward the river and the warehouse. If Jules did have something to do with Amelie's disappearance, that was where he would have taken her.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
IVE

Catherine

C
atherine put her horse in the stable and tried the back door of the warehouse. It was locked. She hurried around to the front to the shop. She banged on the door and finally heard footsteps. The oldest of the printers, a man who had worked as a boy for her grandfather opened it.

“
Bonjour
, Mademoiselle,” he said, peeking out the door. “No one is here but me.”

“When did Jules leave?”

“A while ago.”

“Was he by himself?”

The printer shook his head. “Monsieur Talbot was with him.”

“No one else?”

“Not that I saw.” The man's bushy white eyebrows furrowed as he spoke.

Catherine hesitated. “I may have left something in the warehouse. May I come in and take a look?”

He shook his head. “I'm sorry, but Monsieur Gillet gave me strict instructions…”

She looked up at him. “But he didn't know I was coming.” She felt unsettled about her deception, but she had no other choice.

He glanced back into the shop as if trying to guess what Jules would want him to do. He finally arrived at a decision. “Come in.”

Catherine thanked him and hurried forward, but then she remembered she would need a light for the vault and headed to the fireplace. She grabbed a stick out of the crock Jules kept for tinder and held it to an ember until it caught fire. The man watched but didn't say anything.

As soon as she reached the warehouse, she lit the lantern on Pierre's worktable and then stamped out the stick on the stone floor. She bent down, pushed the lever, and then held the lantern high as the pulleys lifted the door. The room, in the shadows from the light, was empty. Her heart fell.

Surely Jules would not have risked taking Amelie to the Plateau. Catherine turned to go, but a white object on the floor of the vault stopped her. Valentina's blanket! She snatched it up and hurried back through the warehouse, blowing out the lantern and leaving it on the table. Someone must have taken the baby, and most likely Estelle too, from the cathedral soon after she left. Perhaps Father Philippe was working with Jules and Pierre. Perhaps all of them were deceiving her.

She hurried back into the print shop. “Found it,” she called out to the printer, quickly holding up the blanket and heading out the door.

Once Eriq realized she was gone, he would either come to the shop looking for her or go to the Bergers. As much as she longed to see Grand-Mère, she couldn't risk going there.

When Papa, Uncle Edouard, Amelie, Jules, and she had gone to Le Chambon all those years ago, it had taken them two days, and she was sure she could do it again. She remembered the route, the stops. She reached the stable, led her horse out, quickly mounted her, and headed back across the bridge to the other side of the Saône. She needed to get out of town as quickly as possible.

On the outskirts of Lyon she passed three dragoons she didn't recognize. She kept her head up and dug her feet into the flanks of her horse, holding her breath as she urged the horse forward. In her
purple-and-gold gown, she certainly didn't look like a Huguenot woman. The dragoons did not follow.

Still Catherine's legs began to shake. She wouldn't be safe along the road. Women never traveled alone, but what other choice did she have? Either Jules and Pierre were both deceivers and had captured Amelie, who now needed Catherine's help, or else they had a plan up their sleeves to save them all—and in that case she needed to find them. Perhaps she should have dressed as a man, but there was no going back home now to find a pair of Jules's trousers. Besides, if she disguised herself as a man and then was found out, the consequences might be even worse. She determined to keep on going. Traveling alone was by far the most foolish thing she had ever done, but she would do it anyway.

She rode along green fields, with the Rhône always nearby. The warm weather had dried out the road and dust blew around her skirt. She tied the baby's blanket around her neck, pulling it up over her mouth and nose, adding to the look of the ridiculous headpiece and the riding dress under her gown. Perhaps looking like a madwoman would keep people away. She stopped at the fountain in Oullins, the first village she came to, to water her horse and for a drink and then veered west toward the next village.

She stopped at that fountain too, in the shadow of the steeple of the church, and ate some bread and cheese. A group of little boys pointed at her top-knot and giggled. She simply smiled and mounted her horse.

She rode on. From the position of the sun, Catherine guessed she had three hours until dark and thought she could easily make it to Saint-Étienne. She would not sleep under the stars—that would be far too foolish. Perhaps there would be a temple there, and she could find a Huguenot family to stay with. Or an inn. Surely the community had some sort of accommodations.

The road grew steeper. She stopped along the river, dipped her hand into the water to drink, and then ate the rest of the cheese and more of the bread. Dusk began to fall as she saw the abbey on the hill ahead. With another turn of the road, the village of Saint-Étienne came into view.