The Courtesan Read online

  Gabrielle released a tremulous breath, groping for her mask. “This—this is all the most arrant nonsense. I have no time for any more of this folly. If you don’t want to help me, then fine. I clearly made a mistake in coming here. I bid you good evening.”

  Cerberus emitted a short bark as Gabrielle stalked away, but she had not even reached the door when Cassandra called after her, “Gabrielle, wait.”

  Gabrielle halted, glancing back at the other woman. Cass stood motionless, frozen in the pool of light from the candle Gabrielle had forgotten in her haste.

  After a pause, Cassandra said, “I will do what you ask, but I warn you. There is a reason why the conjuring of the dead is considered black magic and forbidden. A séance is a dangerous proceeding, one that can easily go awry. Sometimes the soul one wishes to contact does not care to be disturbed, whereas there are others, more evil, who might welcome a portal back into our world.”

  Gabrielle frowned, wondering if Cassandra was merely seeking to frighten her. “Are you telling me that if you conjured wrong, you could—could what? Let loose some sort of ghost or demon?”

  “Anything is possible when you tempt fate by playing with the darker arts.”

  “If it is so dangerous, then why do you do it?” Gabrielle demanded.

  “Because my days are spent in darkness,” Cass replied softly. “But when I conjure the dead, I can actually see. This is the only way I have of looking upon another face and so to me that makes it worth any risk. The question is, is it worth it to you?”

  Was it? Gabrielle had to admit that Cassandra’s words had daunted her. But then she thought of Remy, the way she had parted from him the day he had ridden out to meet his death, so much left unsaid between them.

  “Yes,” Gabrielle said, steeling her spine. “The risk is worth it.”

  “Then I will help you.”

  Gabrielle warily returned to Cass’s side, her elation tempered with suspicion of this sudden capitulation. “You will? What made you change your mind?”

  Cass shrugged. “Perhaps I might one day find it useful to have you in my debt. I will give you one séance, one conjuring of the dead in return for some future favor.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “How can I possibly decide right now?” Cassandra protested. “But you will agree to perform some service for me, no questions asked, no refusal. Is it a bargain?”

  “Do you require an oath in blood?” Gabrielle asked dryly.

  “No, a simple handshake and your pledge will do.” Cassandra extended her hand toward Gabrielle.

  Gabrielle hesitated. She had not survived this long in Paris without learning some caution, and surely there could be nothing more rash than undertaking a commitment without knowing what it was.

  “Come now, Gabrielle,” Cass said. “I am not one of those backstabbing intriguers you associate with at court. I admit our acquaintance has been of short duration, but you may trust me in this. I would never ask more of you than you can give.”

  Somewhat reassured, Gabrielle shook Cass’s hand. “All right. I—I agree. Do this for me and I am in your debt. You have the word of Gabrielle Cheney.”

  An odd smile tugged at the corner of Cassandra’s mouth as they sealed their bargain, sending a chill through Gabrielle. But the disturbing expression was gone so swiftly, Gabrielle thought she must only have imagined it.

  Cass turned toward the cupboard, groping along the lower shelf. Her hand collided with the candle Gabrielle had left burning there. Cass swore as she nearly knocked it over, hot wax splashing her hand.

  “Move this candle out of my way,” she said, “and then stand back.”

  Although mystified by the abrupt command, Gabrielle did as she was told. She stepped away from the cupboard, holding her candle aloft. With an intent look of concentration upon her face, Cass continued to feel her way along the shelf.

  Gabrielle could not see what Cass did, but suddenly the entire aumbry shuddered and creaked. Cass scrambled back and Gabrielle gasped in astonishment as the cupboard swung outward, revealing a yawning hole in the floor. She crept closer, the light from her candle flickering over carved stone steps that spiraled downward, leading to a darkness that was cold and uninviting.

  A hidden cellar. So that explained how Cass must have escaped the witch-hunters all those years ago. Gabrielle wondered why the other Lascelles women could not have been saved as well, but Cass was loath to discuss the tragic loss of her family. As one who fiercely guarded her own wounds, Gabrielle understood and respected Cass’s reticence.

  “You allowed me to read your palm, now I am trusting you with the secret of my innermost sanctum. Welcome to my real home,” Cassandra said with a mocking flourish of her hand. When Cerberus attempted to brush past her and lead the way down, Cassandra collared him.

  “No!” She bent down and muttered some command that sounded to Gabrielle like, “Go. Guard.”

  Head erect, the dog trotted away, looking like a soldier ordered to do sentry duty. Cassandra inched forward carefully and started to descend the stairs, pausing to call back to Gabrielle. “Clutch your candle tightly and follow me closely.

  “The way down is always a very dark and treacherous one,” she added with one of her strange ironic smiles, leaving Gabrielle with the uneasy feeling that Cass was talking about much more than the stairs.

  Gabrielle swallowed hard, but she had already come too far to turn back now. Gripping her candle, she plunged after Cass into the darkness.

  Chapter Two

  Gabrielle wished she could have conducted her visit with Cass where she usually did, in the small stillroom at the back of the house. But apparently, the conjuring of the dead required a more secretive and darker setting than the distilling of perfume.

  Gabrielle had never liked underground chambers, abhorring the cold, the damp, the prospect of rats or, even worse to her mind, spiders. They had had a dungeon like this room at her home, Belle Haven. The concealed workshop was replete with the potions, herbal brews, and ancient texts of forbidden knowledge the wise women of Faire Isle had kept prudently hidden for generations. Gabrielle had usually fetched whatever she needed from the storeroom and made haste to return to the sunlight.

  The underground room at the Maison d’Esprit appeared less of a workshop and more of living quarters. Someone, the serving girl, Finette, most likely, had taken great pains to make it as comfortable as possible for Cassandra.

  A cot with many feather pillows took up one side of the narrow room, the thick mattress heaped with wool blankets. A braided rug covered the rough stones of the floor. A bright red shawl and several other dresses of faded finery similar to the one Cassandra wore hung from pegs, lending a touch of color to the gray stone walls.

  The only other furnishings were a smaller version of the cupboard upstairs, a humble table, and two chairs arranged before a hearth that must have been connected to one of the chimneys above. It was obvious the fireplace was seldom used. Wisps of smoke wafting from the rooftops of the Maison d’Esprit could well give lie to the belief that only ghosts inhabited the manor.

  Cass gave Gabrielle permission to ignite a few of the torches mounted upon the walls and for that she was grateful. But despite the additional light, she found the small room with its low ceiling far too bleak and confining. The prospect of the séance was daunting enough without conducting it in a room that had all the cheer of a blasted tomb. Gabrielle was eager to conclude her business and get out of there.

  “Some refreshment?” Cass offered, picking her way over to the cupboard.

  “No, thank you,” Gabrielle replied and it was all she could do not to add, “And I wish you would refrain as well.”

  She had not been acquainted with Cass long before she realized that Cass suffered from a weakness for strong drink. But even hinting to Cass that she would be wiser to be more temperate was enough to rouse the woman’s ire.

  All Gabrielle could do was watch unhappily as Cass filled a goblet with liquid from
an amber-colored bottle. Her fingers curled round the rim of her glass as a way of measuring, preventing the vessel from overflowing.

  Gabrielle caught the reek of very strong spirits, some form of cheap brandy most likely. She fretted her lower lip as Cass drained the large glass as though it was nothing more potent than a goblet of water.

  “Ah,” Cass breathed. “I needed that.” Wiping her lips with the back of her hand, she said, “All right. Suppose we begin by you telling me all about this man that you want raised from the dead.”

  Gabrielle started. “Man? How do you know it is a man? I never said so.”

  Cass gave a throaty laugh. Carrying her bottle and glass, she found her way over to the table and eased down into the nearest chair. “You are a beautiful, intelligent woman who has been pushed to the brink of desperation. Of course there must be a man involved. So who was he? Some long-lost lover?”

  “No!” Gabrielle winced, fearing that her denial sounded too quick. But there had never been any question of anything like that between her and Remy. At least not on her part. She had never granted the man as much as a kiss.

  She paced the confines of the small chamber, hard-pressed to sort through her own tangled emotions about Remy and define exactly what their relationship had been.

  “He was a friend,” Gabrielle said at last. “Only a friend.”

  Cass’s eyebrows arched upward in skeptical fashion, but she made no comment as she refilled her glass. “And what was the name of this friend?”

  Gabrielle had to moisten her lips before she was able to speak the name she had scarce allowed herself to utter these past three years.

  “Remy. Captain Nicolas Remy.”

  Cass paused in the act of settling the brandy bottle back on the table. “Nicolas Remy. The great Huguenot hero? The one they called the Scourge?”

  “Yes, but how do you know of him?”

  “I am not a complete recluse. I have Finette to bring me tidings of the world.” Cass took a swallow of her brandy, taking a little more time to savor her second drink.

  “You intrigue me,” she said to Gabrielle. “Your father, the Chevalier Cheney, was also acclaimed a great hero. What does the daughter of a celebrated Catholic knight want with a Protestant soldier?”

  “On Faire Isle, we tended to ignore the religious wars. One summer, Remy came to the island, a fugitive and badly wounded. Ariane brought him to our home and nursed him back to health. We kept him safe, hidden from the—”

  The Dark Queen.

  Gabrielle paused, reluctant to speak of how and why Nicolas Remy had made himself such a powerful enemy, Catherine de Medici, the Dowager Queen of France, but far better known by other names. The Italian Woman, the Sorceress, the Dark Queen. A daughter of the earth herself, Catherine was the most skillful practitioner of black magic in all of France, perhaps the world.

  Most wise women shrank from challenging Catherine’s power and shied away from any witch foolish enough to do so. Gabrielle didn’t want to frighten Cass off by revealing the enmity that existed between the Cheney women and the Dark Queen, a grim history that had begun long before they had snatched Remy from Catherine’s clutches.

  Gabrielle hesitated so long that Cassandra demanded impatiently. “You hid Remy from whom?”

  Gabrielle stripped off her cloak, hanging it on a peg near the empty hearth, the action giving her time to think. “From—from the Catholic soldiers who were persecuting him.”

  Cass was silent for so long Gabrielle did not know if she had been fooled by Gabrielle’s evasive answer. To her relief, Cass did not press her for more details of Remy’s desperate flight to the Faire Isle.

  Cass took another gulp of her drink and murmured, “So this Remy arrived on your doorstep, a wounded and tormented hero. I can conceive of nothing more romantic. And yet you deny that he won your heart?”

  “Yes, I do,” Gabrielle snapped. Why did Cass persist in believing that Gabrielle must have been in love with the man?

  “If I had a heart, which I don’t,” Gabrielle went on. “I would never have given it to Nicolas Remy. The captain was far too solemn and earnest for my taste, one of those noble fools, all honor and duty. Every inch the soldier, no courtly manners whatsoever and—and very little experience of ladies.”

  “Then he must have been entirely bewitched by you.”

  “Perhaps he was a trifle smitten. I didn’t want him to be.” Gabrielle’s throat constricted as she recalled, “I was not even particularly kind to him.”

  Not particularly kind. A glaring understatement. Gabrielle’s heart ached at the memory of the way she had returned Remy’s sword to him, the one she had stolen to fight off the witch-hunters.

  “The morning he left Belle Haven, I—I didn’t even say good-bye,” Gabrielle faltered. “I never saw him again. He was here in Paris that St. Bartholomew’s Eve in the summer of 1572.”

  Cass lowered her glass, her thin face going solemn at Gabrielle’s words. “The night the Catholics went on a rampage, murdering Protestants? Not the best place for a Huguenot soldier to be.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Gabrielle agreed, her eyes welling in spite of herself. She rubbed her knuckles fiercely across her eyelids. “Remy was killed during the massacre, but by the time I—that is we—my sisters and I learned of his death, we could not give him a decent burial. He’d already been tossed into one of the mass graves.”

  Her grief and anger over that was still so sharp, Gabrielle stalked back across the room, hugging herself tightly. Remy had been a valiant soldier, the most honorable man she’d ever known. He had deserved a far more fitting end, to be laid out like a knight of yore in gleaming armor, his sword clutched in his hands. Not dumped like refuse in a pit, no gentle hands to clean the blood from his face, no one to whisper a prayer.

  Damn the Dark Queen for so callously bringing about his destruction. Damn the jackals who had cut Remy down and then so dishonored his body. Damn them all to hell.

  And most of all, Gabrielle thought wretchedly, damn herself for never being able to love Remy as he had deserved.

  She turned back to Cass, disturbed to see the woman pouring yet another drink. She had lost track of the amount of brandy Cass had consumed in such a short period of time, certainly enough to put any ordinary woman under the table.

  Cass’s hand still appeared remarkably steady, but her nose and cheeks were getting flushed. She lolled against the back of her chair, saying, “What happened to the gallant captain is very sad to be sure, but the massacre was over three years ago. You say you didn’t love Remy. Why not simply forget the man and let him rest in peace?”

  “Because he is giving me none! It is perfectly absurd.” Gabrielle tried to laugh, but the sound came out strained and hollow. “I can’t get Remy out of my head, can’t stop remembering. I even dream about him. He is haunting me and it is growing worse of late.”

  She dragged her hand back through her hair. “The other day I fancied I saw him in a crowd and made a fool of myself chasing after a stranger. Then earlier tonight I imagined I saw him out in the courtyard, by your gate.”

  “And so you would conjure his spirit to do what?” Cass demanded. “Ask him to leave you alone?”

  “I don’t know,” Gabrielle said miserably. “To tell him I did try to find him and give him a proper burial. And to beg his forgiveness. I could have saved him, Cass. I knew how—how much he cared for me. I could have seduced him into staying on Faire Isle, safe in my arms.

  “But I didn’t,” she added in a broken whisper. “I just let him . . . go.”

  Cass shook her head. “It never works, Gabrielle.”

  “What?”

  “Seeking forgiveness from the dead.” Cass sounded so bleak, Gabrielle wondered if the woman spoke from bitter experience. “Ghosts are not that easily laid to rest.”

  “But I need to try. I have to make my peace with Remy. Somehow I don’t think I can get on with the rest of my life until I do.”

  “Very well, but it is
difficult for me to conjure up the spirit of a person I have never met. You will have to describe Nicolas Remy for me so that I can fix some image of him in my mind.”

  The request, simple as it was, daunted Gabrielle. She had once been so good at capturing the essence of any person, place, or thing with the magic of her hands. Her skillful fingers wielding a brush could transfer all that she saw upon the blank expanse of canvas or paper. She had never been as adept at painting with words.

  “Remy is . . . he was,” Gabrielle paused to correct herself painfully. “Was a man of—of average height, but he had a very powerful body with a broad chest. His flesh was hard muscled, especially his sword arm, and—and he had a scar where he had been pierced with a shaft from a crossbow. As for his thighs, they were like iron.”

  “What an excellent description,” Cass said in a tone laced with sarcasm. “But tell me. Did you ever happen to notice his face?”

  “Of course I did. He—he—” Gabrielle floundered, perhaps because it was easier to focus on Remy’s body and somehow far less painful than dwelling on his face.

  Her memory of his face was distressingly vague. The impressions she retained were of a visage carved of infinite patience and kindness, of an unfailing gentleness, but those all seemed odd terms to apply to a man who had been a much-decorated warrior.

  She said haltingly, “He—he had dark blond hair and a beard that he kept closely trimmed.”

  “You could be describing any of a million men. What of his eyes?”

  “They were dark brown.”

  “I’m not talking about their color,” Cass said impatiently. “What of their expression, their reflection of his thoughts?”

  “I—I don’t know.” Gabrielle laced her fingers together in a helpless gesture. “I was never good at reading eyes. But my little sister Miri said that Remy’s were far too ancient for his face.”

  “The eyes of a wearied knight, doing battle with the evils of the world,” Cass murmured into her brandy glass. “Even when the cause is hopeless, never surrendering, never laying down his sword until the bitter end.”