Page 4

TWO

Y ou’re spoiling the lad.” Marguerite’s thin lips pursed as she gazed at Louis Charles’s fair head nestled against Juliette’s breast. “His nurse won’t thank you for this coddling when we get him back to Versailles.”

“He’s been ill.” Juliette’s arms tightened protectively around the baby’s warm, firm body.

Not really a baby any longer, she thought wistfully.

The queen’s second son was over two, but he still felt endearingly small and silken in her arms. “He deserves a little extra attention. The motion of the coach upsets his stomach.”

“Nonsense. The doctor at Fontainebleau pronounced the prince fit for travel.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s completely well again.” Juliette glared at Marguerite on the seat across from her. “Only two weeks ago he was running a fever high enough for the queen to fear for his life.”

“Measles don’t always kill. You had them twice and survived.”

Louis Charles stirred and murmured something into Juliette’s shoulder.

Juliette looked down, a smile illuminating her face. “Shh, bébé , we’ll soon have you back with your maman . All is well.”

“Yes, now that we’re returning to Versailles,” Marguerite agreed sourly. “So contrary of you to offer to stay with the child at Fontainebleau when the court returned to Versailles. You knew I’d have to stay with you no matter how much your mother needed my services.”

Juliette rocked the little boy back and forth, her fingers tangled in his downy, soft curls.

It would do no good to argue with Marguerite, she thought wearily.

The woman cared for naught but her mother’s comfort and welfare and was never happy except in her presence.

It didn’t matter to her that the queen had been worried to distraction when Louis Charles had fallen ill.

Marie Antoinette’s baby daughter, Sophie, had died only four months before and Louis Joseph, dauphin and heir to the throne, whose health had always been fragile, was failing rapidly.

When Her Majesty’s ever-robust youngest son had succumbed to the measles, she had been in despair.

“Put him down on the seat,” Marguerite ordered.

Juliette’s lips set stubbornly. “He’s still not well. Her Majesty said I was to use my own judgment as to his care.”

“A flighty chit of fourteen has no business caring for a prince.”

“I’m not putting him down.” Juliette’s lips firmed as she avoided Marguerite’s stare and looked out the window of the carriage.

She knew silence would serve her better than quarreling, but meekness was never easy for her.

Thank the saints they were close to the town of Versailles now and the palace was just a short distance beyond.

She would try to ignore Marguerite and think only of the painting in her trunk on the roof of the carriage.

Much of the detail on the trees in the work was still to be finished; she could paint sunlight filtering through the top leaves of the trees revealing the naked skeletal spines.

It would be an interesting effect, suggesting the lack of truth in the characters of the figures she had painted lolling below the boughs of the trees.

“You always think you know best,” Marguerite grumbled.

“Ever since you were a child scarcely older than the prince. Do you believe the queen would have trusted you to stay with Louis Charles if the child’s nurse had not come down with the sickness?

Her Majesty will find you out someday. You may amuse her right now with your drawings and bold tongue, but she’s easily bored and will—You’re not listening to me. ”

Juliette shifted her gaze to the thick green shrubbery bordering the bluff on the far side of the road.

“No.” She wished Marguerite would cease her acid discourse and let her enjoy these moments of holding the little boy in her arms. She had never had anyone of her own to care for, and during the past few weeks she had actually felt as if Louis Charles belonged to her.

But his time of recuperation was over now, she thought wistfully, and in only a few hours she would have to return Louis Charles to his mother and the attention of the royal court.

Marguerite’s palm cracked against Juliette’s cheek.

Juliette’s head snapped back, her arms involuntarily loosening about the baby.

“You’re not too old to be punished for your insolence.” Marguerite smiled with satisfaction at Juliette’s stunned expression. “Your mother trusts me to know how to school you in spite of the spoiling Her Majesty gives you.”

Juliette’s arms quickly tightened again around Louis Charles.

She had not expected the slap. She had clearly misjudged the degree of anger and frustration building in Marguerite since she had been commanded to stay with Juliette at Fontainebleau.

“Don’t ever strike me again while I’m holding the boy.

” She tried to keep her voice from shaking with anger.

“I could have hurt him badly if you’d caused me to drop him. ”

“You’re giving me orders?”

“I think the queen would be interested to know the reason if Louis Charles suffered any harm, don’t you?”

Marguerite’s baleful gaze sidled away from Juliette’s stare. “You’ll soon not be able to hide behind the prince. You never would have gotten so out of hand if your mother hadn’t required my services.”

“I’m not hiding from—”

A horse neighed in agony .

The coach lurched and shuddered to a halt, throwing Juliette to her knees on the floor.

Louis Charles awoke and began to whimper. “Jul…”

“What is it?” Marguerite thrust her head out the window of the carriage. “You fool of a coachman, what—”

The blade of a scythe pierced the wood beside her head, burying its curving length through the side of the coach.

Marguerite shrieked and jerked back from the window.

“What’s happening?” Crouched on the floor of the coach still, Juliette gazed at the blade. She could hear shouts, metal clashing against metal, the screams of the horses.

A bullet suddenly splintered the wooden frame of the door.

“Farmers. Peasants. Hundreds of them. They’re attacking the carriage.” Marguerite’s voice rose in terror. “They’re going to kill me, and it’s all your fault. If you hadn’t insisted on staying with that brat, I’d be safe at Versailles with your mother.”

“Hush.” Juliette had to stem the panic rising in her. She had to think. Stories abounded of carriages and chateaus being attacked by the famine-stricken peasants but never a royal carriage accompanied by the Swiss guard. “We’ll be safe. They can’t overcome the soldiers that—”

“You fool. There are hundreds of them.”

Juliette crept closer to the window and looked for herself.

Not hundreds but certainly too many to assess at one glance.

The scene was total confusion. Coarsely dressed men and women on foot battled the mounted uniformed Swiss guard with scythes and pitchforks.

Men on horseback garbed in mesh armor were plunging through the melee, striking with swords at the peasants on either side of them.

Two of the four horses pulling the coach were lying dead and bloody on the ground.

Black Velvet .

Her gaze was caught and held by the only still, inviolate figure in this scene of blood and death. A tall, lean man wearing a sable velvet cape and polished black knee-boots sat on his horse at the edge of the crowd. The man’s dark eyes gazed without expression at the battle.

Another bullet exploded in the wood just above the seat where Juliette had been sitting.

She ducked lower, her body covering the sobbing child.

If they stayed in the carriage, how long before one of those bullets hit Louis Charles, she wondered desperately.

She couldn’t stay and wait for it to happen.

She had to do something. All the fighting was taking place to the right of the carriage, so the Swiss guard must have kept the mob from surrounding it. The thicket bordering the bluff…

Juliette crawled toward the door, clutching Louis Charles tightly.

“Where are you going?” Marguerite asked.

“I’m trying to escape into the woods bordering the bluff.” Juliette ripped off the linen kerchief from her gown and tied it around the boy’s mouth, muffling his wails. “It’s not safe here for Louis Charles.”

“Are you mad?”

Juliette opened the door a crack and peered out cautiously. The shrubbery started only a few feet away, and there seemed to be no one in sight.

“Don’t go.”

“Be silent or come with us. One or the other.” Juliette clasped Louis Charles’s small body tighter and opened the door wider.

She drew a deep breath, leapt from the carriage, and darted across the dusty road and into the shrubbery.

Branches lashed her face and clawed at her arms as she pushed through the bushes.

“Come back to the carriage at once! You can’t leave me.”

Juliette muttered an oath as she bolted through the shrubbery. Even in the cacophony of shouts and clatter of sabers Marguerite’s shrill voice carried clearly. If Juliette could hear it, she would be foolish to believe none of the attackers would.

Louis Charles whimpered beneath the gag, and she automatically pressed him closer. Poor baby, he didn’t understand any of this madness. Well, she didn’t either, but she wouldn’t let those murderers harm either the child or herself.

“Stop!”

A sudden chill gripped her and she glanced over her shoulder.

Black Velvet .

The man who had sat watching the battle was now crashing through the underbrush behind her, his cloak flying behind him like the wings of a great bird of prey.

Juliette ran faster, trying desperately to outdistance the man in black.

Tears were running down Louis Charles’s cheeks.

She jumped over a hollow log, staggered, and almost fell as she landed in an unseen hollow behind it. She regained her balance and ran on. Pain stitched through her side.

“Merde , stop. I mean you no—” The man broke off, cursing.