Chartres flushed scarlet, reacting with an intensity foreign to his usual distracted air. “—in dissecting the sea monster!”
“One person is adequate to perform a dissection, sir.” Yves spoke offhand, for he did not know Chartres’ interests. A natural philosopher of his erudition had no use for an inexperienced assistant.
“It’s beneath your station,” Madame said to Chartres. “Digging around in the guts of a fish.”
“Madame is perfectly correct,” Yves said, bowing courteously to the duchess. “For an ordinary dissection, even I would direct an underling in the cutting. But for the King’s sea monster—” He spread his hands modestly. “For the King, I’ll do the work myself.”
“Don’t you wish me to serve the King, Mama?” Chartres said, poisonously, to his mother.
“Yes—in a manner suited to your position.”
“I fear I wouldn’t know what to do with extra hands, M. de Chartres,” Yves said quickly. “You can learn all there is by watching and by studying the notes and the drawings.” He brightened suddenly. “Perhaps—can you draw?”
Marie-Josèphe caught her breath.
He plans to punish me, she thought, by taking away my tasks—by giving them to Chartres.
“Yes!” Chartres said. “I mean… a little.” Under his mother’s disapproving scowl, he dropped his gaze. “I mean… not well.”
“He means ‘No,’ ” Madame said, “and that’s enough about that.”
Greatly relieved, yet at the same time sorry for Chartres, Marie-Josèphe cast a sympathetic glance at the young duke, a grateful glance at Madame. But Chartres scowled, only his blind eye wandering toward her, and Madame had not spoken for Marie-Josèphe’s benefit.
Lorraine, glancing over Marie-Josèphe’s shoulder, suddenly bowed.
The duchess de Chartres and Mlle d’Armagnac swept into the group, as brilliant as chandeliers in their diamond-studded bodices. Mme de Chartres acknowledged Lorraine’s salute with a dismissive gesture.
“Good evening, papa,” Mme Lucifer said to Monsieur. “Good evening, mama.”
“Good evening, Mme de Chartres,” her father-in-law said. “Mlle d’Armagnac.” Madame, her mother-in-law, nodded with exquisitely polite coolness. Mme de Chartres ignored her husband; he ignored her. He drank a fourth glass of wine. Mlle d’Armagnac glanced at Chartres over the edge of her fan, lowering her gaze flirtatiously when he responded, right in front of her friend Mme de Chartres.
Marie-Josèphe wondered what it must have been like to grow up as Mlle de Blois, with no one to call mama or papa. For surely Mme Lucifer could never have called the King papa. Mme de Maintenon had raised Mme de Montespan’s children. Ever since Montespan had been banished, they were doubly estranged from their natural mother.
It was said that Mme de Maintenon loved His Majesty’s natural children as her own, and guarded their interests jealously. She had made brilliant marriages for them, much better than they could expect. She had offended many members of court in doing so, not the least of them Madame.
“We’ve come to spirit Father de la Croix away,” said Mme Lucifer. “All the ladies want to meet him.” She and Mlle d’Armagnac herded Yves off into the crowd.
“The manners of trollops,” Madame muttered. “You must warn your brother, Mlle de la Croix, if you hope he will keep his vows.”
“He would never break them, Madame!” Marie-Josèphe said. “He would never do such a thing.”
“Not for—any temptation?” Monsieur asked.
“No, Monsieur, not for anything.”
“What about the dissection?” Chartres asked. “When will it continue?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Marie-Josèphe said. “When the King wishes.”
“My uncle the King may delay it until the creature rots,” Chartres said with disgust.
Though she had said—feared—the same thing, Marie-Josèphe thought it politic to change the subject.
“Sir, I’ve written to Mynheer van Leeuwenhoek, begging to purchase one of his microscopes. His lenses are said to be marvelous.”
“Van Leeuwenhoek!” Chartres said. “You should buy a proper French microscope, with a compound lens. Mlle de la Croix, your eyes are too pretty to be ruined by van Leeuwenhoek’s difficult machine.”
“Which he will have to smuggle to you,” Lorraine said, “if he does not keep your money and send you nothing.”
“Smuggle it, sir?”
“Perhaps he’ll pack it in obscene Dutch broadsheets,” Monsieur said, “and smuggle two loads of contraband for the price of one.”
Lorraine laughed.
“We are at war with the Dutchmen, after all, Mlle de la Croix,” Madame said.
“One campaign next summer will put an end to that,” Chartres said.
“Do not expect another command,” Monsieur said.
“But I led my cavalry to a victory!”
“That was your mistake,” Monsieur said.
“Natural philosophy transcends war.” Into the silence, Marie-Josèphe said, timidly, “Does it not?”
“It should!” Chartres said.
“M. de Chrétien’s go-betweens may transcend war,” Lorraine said. “As they transcend borders.”
“So, no doubt,” Monsieur said, “you’ll get your micro-whatever-it-does.”
“It reveals things that can’t be seen, father,” Chartres said.
“As the Bible does?” asked Madame.
“Very small things, Madame,” said Marie-Josèphe. “If we looked at—at Elderflower’s fleas, we might see fleas on the fleas.”
“We must do that straightaway,” Lorraine said.
“I would not wish to do it at all,” said Madame.
Another footman appeared at Lorraine’s elbow. Chartres reached for the wine the servant carried, but the chevalier whisked it away so gracefully that Chartres could not object.
“You’ve drunk nothing all evening, Mlle de la Croix,” Lorraine said. “This will ease your mind from your worries of war and natural philosophy.”
Marie-Josèphe had no need to ease her mind, but she was thirsty, so she accepted the goblet. The red wine reflected light in patterns along the silver rim.
She sipped it, expecting the bitter, watery taste of the convent’s communion wine. Maroon velvet slipped over her tongue. The scent of fruit and flowers filled her nostrils. She sipped again, savoring the taste with her eyes closed. She thought, I could drink this merely by breathing.
When she opened her eyes, Lorraine gazed down at her, charming her with his amused smile.
“You like it,” he said.
“Of course she likes it,” Monsieur said. “It’s a delightful vintage.”
“You’ve given me my first glass of wine,” she said.
“Your first!” Monsieur was horrified.
“How else might I be your first?” Lorraine said softly.
Marie-Josèphe blushed. “You misunderstand me, sir.”
“What did you drink, on your colonial island?” Monsieur asked, peering at her as curiously as if she were one of Yves’ specimens.
“In the convent, sir, we drank small beer, or water.”
“Water!” Monsieur exclaimed. “You are fortunate to have your life.”
“Such delightful innocence,” Lorraine said.
Marie-Josèphe sipped the wine, and glanced up at Lorraine from beneath her eyelashes.
“You flatter me, sir—”
“I? I’m known to speak only the strongest of truths.”
“—and the nuns always warned me against flattery.”
“Ignore my devotion and my admiration, I beg you, Mlle de la Croix. A broken heart will distract me.”
Chartres snorted and downed another glass of wine.
“Ignore his meager wit,” Madame said. “He seeks only to divert himself from the tedium. The nuns would forgive even Lorraine, if they had endured one of His Majesty’s parties.”