The Courtesan Read online

  Gabrielle flushed. “You sound just like Ariane, sentimental and impractical. It was my father’s coin that paid for all of this. Why shouldn’t I accept the offer?”

  “I can see the justice of that,” Remy conceded. “But—” Gabrielle could tell there was more he wanted to ask her, but he hesitated, probably because he feared the answers.

  Gabrielle tossed the brush back on the table and flounced away, saying, “Enough about me. I would far rather hear about what you have been doing these past three years.”

  Swirling the wine in his glass, he said, “You would not find it a very interesting tale, Gabrielle.”

  “Nonetheless, I insist upon hearing it.” Sweeping over to the window seat, Gabrielle sank down upon the embroidered cushion. In the old days, she would have patted the cushion beside her, inviting him to join her in friendly fashion. Now she indicated a high-backed chair a safe distance away.

  “Do sit down, Captain, and tell me everything.”

  Remy’s gaze flicked toward the chair, but he made no move to sit. He positioned himself by the fireplace, cupping his glass in his hand. Something had closed off in his eyes with her inquiry into his past.

  “Tell you everything? I’d hardly know where to begin.”

  “Why don’t you start with what happened to you on St. Bartholomew’s Eve?”

  “That would make an even less entertaining bedtime story.” Remy’s fingers tightened around the stem of the glass so hard, Gabrielle was astonished it did not snap. No doubt Remy found it hard to remember or speak of that terrible night and she was loath to inflict any more pain upon him.

  But Gabrielle had found it painful too, imagining the horrors of the way she’d thought that Remy had been brutally slaughtered. She desperately needed to know what had really happened.

  “Please, Remy,” she said in a gentler tone. “At least tell me how you survived that night. Renard said you had been cut down, mortally wounded. He thought you were finished or he would never have left you behind.”

  “I know that. The comte is an honorable and courageous man. I am glad he was able to escape with his life.”

  “Yes, but how did you?”

  Remy took a long swallow of his wine, nearly draining his glass in one gulp. “I was saved by a wolf.”

  “What!” Gabrielle cried. If Remy had not looked so grim, if it had been anyone else but him, she would have imagined she was being teased.

  “A wolf? Here in Paris?” she asked incredulously.

  Some of the tension melted from Remy’s shoulders. His lips twitched as though at some memory that amused him in spite of himself. “Martin Le Loup, a young pickpocket and thief. He spied my body sprawled in the street and took a fancy to my boots. The lad sought to—er, relieve me of them.”

  Gabrielle was horrified, picturing too clearly the scene, Remy, wounded, helpless, while some street rat attempted to rob him before he even went cold. She didn’t know how Remy could smile at such a callous action. She clenched her fists in her lap. “Why—why that scurrilous little bastard. He should have been hung, drawn, and quartered.”

  Remy shrugged. “If I had been dead, the boots would have been no use to me. But I let out such a groan when Martin touched me, I nearly gave the lad an apoplexy. He could have finished pulling off my boots and fled. I could never have stopped him.

  “Instead he managed to drag me to a place of safety, kept me hidden from the rampaging mobs while he found someone to tend my wounds. An elderly priest highly skilled in the arts of healing.”

  Remy gave a bemused frown. “I never even knew his name or why he chose to help me. It was a dangerous thing to do. St. Bartholomew’s Eve was not the best time for any Catholic to be caught trying to save a Protestant soldier.

  “As for Martin, I’ve never understood him either. He is generally a very practical lad, good at looking out for his own hide. To this day, I don’t know why he risked his life to help me.”

  Remy might not know, but Gabrielle did. There was something about a selfless man like Nicolas Remy, honest, valiant, honorable to his very core, that brought out the best in other people, made them eager to serve him even against their own interest and better judgment.

  When Remy fell silent again, she prompted, “So you were saved by this Wolf person and an old priest. What happened then?”

  “Martin is a lad of great resource. When I was well enough, he smuggled me out of Paris. Then we went abroad.”

  “Where?”

  “To Ireland first, then England.”

  “And did what?”

  “Worked. Traveled. Existed.”

  Gabrielle’s gaze traveled up Remy’s tall frame to shoot him a look of pure frustration. Remy had never been a great talker, but she was beginning to feel like it would be easier to extract the man’s teeth than any information.

  “So you just spent three years wandering the English countryside and then what? One morning you woke up and decided it was time to come back?” she demanded.

  “Something like that.” Remy fidgeted with the finely cut stem of the wineglass. He was not merely being his usual quiet self. The man was being deliberately evasive.

  “Why?” Gabrielle persisted. “Why have you returned?”

  “I am beginning to feel that I should not have.”

  “What? Not have come back to Paris?”

  “No, I should never have come back to you.”

  Remy’s words cut Gabrielle deep and she could not conceal it. When she flinched, Remy went on hastily, “I didn’t mean that I did not want to see you again. I did. Far too much. I only meant that my life has taken a rather desperate turn and I have had second thoughts about involving you.”

  “I was involved in your life once before,” Gabrielle reminded him.

  “Not by my choice. I was a bloody fool that summer I descended upon Faire Isle, so obsessed with my quest for justice, I didn’t stop to think what danger I brought in my wake.” Remy finished his wine and set the empty glass down on top of the mantel. “You never fully understood the nature of the evil that I had uncovered, the reason why I became a fugitive.”

  “Oh, for the love of heaven!” Gabrielle rolled her eyes. It still annoyed her the way Remy had confided all his more dangerous secrets to Ariane, but had persisted in treating Gabrielle as though she were some innocent child no older than Miri.

  She took great satisfaction in informing him, “I knew all about how Catherine de Medici assassinated your queen, Jeanne of Navarre.”

  “You . . . you did?”

  “Of course I did! You suspected your queen had been poisoned, and you stumbled upon the only evidence, a pair of beautiful white gloves. When you fled Paris, you stole the gloves and brought them to Ariane, hoping that she could help you to prove the gloves had been tampered with. Have I got that all right so far?”

  “Yes,” Remy agreed, still frowning in surprise. “So Ariane finally chose to tell you everything?”

  “No, I figured most of it out for myself. When I found the gloves she’d hidden down in our workshop, I tried them on.”

  “You what?” Remy looked appalled, then confused. “Then I was wrong? The gloves had not been poisoned after all.”

  “Oh, they were poisoned all right,” Gabrielle said wryly. “I damn near died.”

  “Gabrielle!” Remy blanched with such horror Gabrielle regretted telling him. He strode toward her and sank down beside her, gathering her hands in his strong grip.

  The concern that suffused his face was tender enough to thaw any woman’s heart and Gabrielle had difficulty resisting it. Her fingers involuntarily interlaced with his, returning their pressure.

  “My God! I am so sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I should have told you the truth about Catherine and the gloves. If anything had happened to you, I would never have—have been able to—”

  He broke off, so stricken with guilt it was all she could do not to wrap her arms about him. The only way she could resist the impulse was to pull free of his grasp
and retreat from the window seat.

  “Oh, don’t make such a fuss.” Her voice was not as steady as she would have liked it to be. “Obviously I am not dead. Renard came to the rescue. He was able to brew up an antidote. As it happens, the comte knows a bit more about the practice of dark magic than any man should. If we had realized that sooner, you could have taken the gloves straight to him. Unfortunately we don’t even have them anymore. After we all thought you were dead, we were obliged to make peace with the Dark Queen as best we could.”

  Gabrielle’s lips thinned, remembering how much it had galled her, had eaten away at her very soul to declare a truce with the woman who had threatened her family, the vile witch she had blamed so bitterly for Remy’s death. One day she would make Catherine pay dearly, Gabrielle had vowed.

  But it was a vow she had been unable to keep and gazing at Remy, Gabrielle was beset by the feeling that she had failed him.

  “I—I am so sorry, Remy,” she said. “We didn’t feel we had any other choice. The Dark Queen had captured Renard. We had to trade the gloves back to Catherine in order to save his life.”

  “Oh, damn those gloves. As if I ever had any hope of bringing that evil woman to justice. It was a fool’s quest. All I accomplished was nearly getting you killed.” Remy slumped forward, his hands dangling between his knees, his attitude one of bitter defeat.

  Gabrielle’s fingers twitched with the urge to smooth away those lines of worry, to rid him of those shadows that haunted him. She had to bury her hands in the folds of her gown to still the impulse.

  “Don’t be so foolish. If I had been killed, it would have owed more to my own curiosity and impulsiveness than any fault of yours. You may have noticed,” she added with an impish smile. “I can be a trifle reckless at times.”

  Her words did not provoke the answering smile from Remy that she had hoped for. His mouth remained set in a taut line of self-reproach.

  “You would never have been in any danger if I hadn’t brought it to your door. And here I am back again to—” Remy expelled a harsh breath, rife with self-disgust. “I should never have come. Forgive me.”

  He shoved to his feet. As though he did not trust himself to look at her again, Remy marched toward the bedchamber door. For a moment, Gabrielle was too stunned to react. But when she realized what he was about to do, she tore after him. Remy already had the door ajar, but Gabrielle shoved past him. She gripped the jamb to prevent him opening the door any farther.

  “What do you think you are doing?”

  “Leaving.”

  “Just like that? Without another word?”

  Remy made no reply, but the answer was writ clear in his eyes. He was going to steal back into the night, vanish from her life as though he’d never returned. And this time she truly never would see him again.

  She should wish for just that. Remy’s return into her life had only served to confuse her, to stir up vulnerabilities and tender emotions she could not afford to feel. But the thought of losing him all over again filled her with something akin to panic.

  “How dare you!” Gabrielle cried. “You let me think you are dead for three years and then you saunter back into my life one night. You scare the wits out of me, nearly shock me to death. You hint at some mysterious reason for your return, some favor you require of me. And now you’ve changed your mind and just plan to disappear again?”

  “It will be far better for you if I do.”

  “Damn you, Nicolas Remy.” Gabrielle tried to shove him away from the door. But it was like trying to budge a stone wall. She glared up at him. “Stop treating me like I am some innocent damsel that needs protecting. I am more than capable of looking out for my own interests. Just tell me what you want and I will decide if the price is too high.”

  Remy shook his head, his jaw set in an inflexible line. In another heartbeat, he would shift her to one side and walk out that door. Fighting to conceal her mounting desperation, she prodded, “Tell me what you need. A place to hide? Money?”

  A dark flush stained his cheekbones. “By thunder, Gabrielle! Do you truly think me the sort of man who would come to beg coin from you?”

  He drew himself up to his full height, a rare spark of anger flashing in his eyes. His umbrage caused him to step away from the door. Gabrielle made haste to close it.

  She caught hold of Remy’s hand and tugged him farther into the room. “Oh, stop being such a stubborn ass and tell me why you came back to Paris. You know me well enough to realize I won’t give you any peace until you do.”

  “Aye, how well do I know that.” He resisted a moment longer, then relented with a wearied sigh. “Very well. I came back because of my king. The Dark Queen has been holding him prisoner since St. Bartholomew’s Eve and it is my duty to rescue him.”

  “Oh.” Gabrielle dropped Remy’s hand as though she had been scorched. She managed to school her features to hide the fact that her mouth had gone dry with dismay. She stalked back over to the bedside table to fortify herself with a glass of wine.

  So Remy had returned to Paris to mount a desperate bid to free his king. The same cause he had risked his neck for three years ago. Gabrielle reflected bitterly that she might have guessed as much. The fool. The insufferably noble, reckless fool.

  “My information is correct, is it not?” Remy called uncertainly after her. “The Dark Queen does still hold him captive?”

  “Navarre is not languishing in the Bastille, if that is what you mean. He is Catherine’s son-in-law, after all. He has his own apartments at the Louvre, although he is kept under close guard. Very close guard.”

  “Nonetheless, it is my duty to get him out of there.”

  Gabrielle swore softly under her breath. Damn Nicolas Remy and his infernal sense of duty. She raised the wine to her lips only to set it back down untasted. Whipping about, she glared at him. “I see. You didn’t manage to get yourself slaughtered on St. Bartholomew’s Eve, so now you are determined to have another go at it.”

  “I trust it won’t come to that . . . with your help.”

  “What do you think I can do?”

  “I have heard that you are received at court and I wondered if you might contrive to get a message to the king, let him know I am still alive, that I have returned to free him. But I need information regarding the location of his rooms, the number of his guards . . .” Remy trailed off, raking his hand back through the uneven lengths of his hair. It was clear that he had not wanted to ask her. But it was equally clear that he was desperate for her help and that part of him hoped she would agree.

  “So you want me to act as the go-between in this escape plot?” Gabrielle asked bluntly.

  “Yes,” Remy said, his eyes intent upon her face. Gabrielle was obliged to turn away so he could not see the full depth of her consternation.

  She retreated to one of the tall windows near the bed. Oh, why couldn’t the blasted man have wanted something as simple as money or a place to stay? Outside of her sisters, Nicolas Remy was one of the few people in the world she would have been willing to do anything for. Well, almost anything, Gabrielle corrected herself.

  Others had tried before to spirit the captive Navarre out of Paris. The conspirators had been caught and condemned to death. Not only was Gabrielle unwilling to help Remy to hazard his life in such a dangerous enterprise, there was another problem with what Remy wanted her to do.

  Navarre might be Remy’s king, but he was also the man that Gabrielle was fated to ensnare as her lover, the man who was destined to make her the most powerful woman in all of France. Gabrielle didn’t see how that could happen if Remy succeeded in turning Navarre into a fugitive, fleeing back to his inconsequential kingdom on the border of Spain.

  Remy hovered behind her. She could see his reflection in the night-darkened windowpanes, like some ghost from her past. The specter of a brave soldier who had once pretended to be her knight and she, his lady fair. Unfortunately, that was all it had ever been, a pretense, and she was far too worldly-wis
e to be beguiled by make-believe.

  Her heart felt leaden as she came about to face Remy. “I am sorry, Captain Remy. But I cannot do what you ask.”

  His eyes darkened with disappointment, but there was a certain amount of relief there as well. “No, Gabrielle. I am the one who should be sorry. I never should have asked you. The risk is far too great. You have reason to be afraid. If you were caught smuggling messages—”

  “I am not afraid of that. I am very good at intrigue.”

  A deep furrow appeared between Remy’s brows. “Then I don’t understand. If you don’t think there would be any risk, why won’t you do it?”

  Gabrielle compressed her lips together, wishing that she had let Remy leave when he had wanted to. Then she wouldn’t have to face this moment, wouldn’t have to tell him the truth. But she feared that even without her help, Remy would proceed with his dangerous plan. There was only one thing that might discourage him. If she told him about the prophecy, about Navarre’s destiny . . . and hers.

  She had to swallow hard before she could find the courage to speak. She began haltingly, “I—I won’t help you because Navarre needs to remain with the French court. This is no time for him to disappear back into the wilds of Navarre, so far away from me. Because . . . because I desire him for myself.”

  Remy stared at her for a long moment, then his jaw hardened. “What the devil do you mean, Gabrielle? Are you trying to tell me that you have fallen in love with—with a king?”

  “Kings are much the same as any other man, but in this case love has nothing to do with it. I admire and respect Henry.” Gabrielle hesitated, then added, “He is my destiny.”

  “What sort of destiny do you imagine you could have with Navarre?” Remy asked impatiently. “He is already married.”

  “Perhaps you should ask the witch I consulted tonight. Among other things she conjured up the future for me. Navarre is going to be the king of France one day and I—” Gabrielle found it hard to meet Remy’s eyes, but she forced herself to do so as she continued. “I am going to be his mistress.”

  Remy looked stunned for a moment, then he paced off several agitated steps, swearing. “Damnation, Gabrielle, you shouldn’t be fooling about with that dark magic. You know better than that. It’s all bloody nonsense anyway. You could never be anyone’s mistress. You are a noble lady. Gently and properly reared—”