Thief of Hearts Read online

  The maidservant hesitated. Miriame saw Metin slip a piece of gold into her hand. “Wait here for a moment,” the woman said, “and I will see if she will see you.”

  Metin strode up and down along the street, his shoulders huddled in his greatcoat, stamping his feet to keep warm. His movements were surer now, though he put his hand to his head every now and then as if it hurt him badly. Other than that, he seemed to have come to little enough harm from his fall on to the cobbles.

  Miriame was glad of his quick recovery. She could leave now with a good conscience. Indeed, she should leave now, but curiosity made her stay. What would the charming Francine do with two Metins to amuse herself with? Choose one and let the other alone? Or play them both on her line at once and trust in the strength of her lure to land them both? She wondered which way the Marquise would choose.

  She was growing mighty cold by the time the maidservant returned. She rubbed her hands along her arms and danced up and down on the soles of her feet whenever Metin was looking the other way in an effort to warm herself, but the air was so bitter cold that her best efforts did not help much. She was as glad as Metin when the maidservant returned and opened the door again.

  He rushed eagerly towards the door, evidently expecting to be welcomed with open arms. “How is my darling Francine? Has she missed me as much as I have missed her? Will she forgive the lateness of the hour and allow me to see her? I have been desolate without her.”

  “My mistress is indisposed,” the woman said in a whisper that carried through the dark of the night. “She cannot see you now but begs you will call in on her chambers on the morrow. She will be receiving petitioners after the noon hour.”

  “Indisposed? My Francine is sick?” Metin tried to force his way through, but the chain held the door fast and he could not get in. “Let me in to her at once, I beg of you.”

  “She is not ill – she just has a megrim which has made her tired, and she wants to sleep. She begs you will not bother her at this hour. It is too late for visitors.”

  “But...”

  His protests were no use. The maidservant shut the door in his face and drew the bolts home again.

  He thumped on the door again, but there was no reply.

  After a few moments of indecision, he strode off, muttering to himself. “She has a megrim when I come to visit her now, does she? When one of my colleagues has just come from her apartments? How is she too indisposed to see me, but not too ill to see that vile imposter who has stolen my name? I will call him out in the morning, see if I don’t...”

  Miriame left him to his grumblings and made her way home through the frozen streets to her own apartments. She could almost find it in her heart to feel sorry for him, she thought, as she climbed the stairs to her attic room and warmed herself in front of the dying fire in her grate. She had stolen more from him than she had ever intended. His money, his horse, his clothes, his boots, his name, his papers, and now even the woman he loved.

  She’d give him back the woman gladly enough. She’d give him back the papers if he asked her politely – they were of no use to her after all. She might even give him back his boots if he begged for them – she could afford to buy her own pair now.

  As for his name, that was hers now as much as it had ever been his. She would not give up that now – not for anything.

  She liked the new Jean-Paul Metin even better than the old, Francine decided, as she prepared her morning toilette in the warm light of the noonday sun. The old Metin, for all his almost supernatural beauty, had been a bit of a bore at times – always prating on about his everlasting love for her and wanting her to give up her life at court to be his wife.

  Silly boy. He knew she was already married. The King himself had chosen her a tame husband to cuckold so she could bear the royal children without a scandal. The King would be furious if she were to leave her husband for another lover, particularly if he were a young nobody who didn’t know the ways of the court and would rant and rave and be a jealous fool. She would lose the King for ever were she to make such a disastrous mistake.

  Young Metin had not had the wit to see that a bucolic country life among the peasants and the pigs and the pumpkins was not the life for her. Uugh. She smoothed her hand over her brow to smooth out the wrinkle that had appeared there at the very thought. She would shrivel up and die in such a place.

  He had only thought of love and fucking. She herself had thought plenty about fucking, but not at all about love. He was an amusing distraction to her. Nobody as he was, he could be nothing else, beg as he would for the keys to her heart. She disliked being pestered for what was not in her power to give.

  The new Metin, though, would be quite different. She could feel it already. He would not ask so much of her, but neither would he give more than he took – at least not without a struggle.

  The new Metin would not fall in love with the first pretty face he saw, and think that she was the grand passion of his life – he was too shrewd for that. Indeed, he would not fall in love at all - or not easily.

  He was more like her. An alley cat, claws out, ready to run or to pounce. Selfish. Concerned with his own thoughts and feelings, not with anyone else. Ambitious. Ready to climb over the backs of his comrades to climb as high as he could reach, and higher. Determined. Prepared to hang on to his position with all his might, cost him what it would.

  What a triumph it would be to bring such a man to heel. What a victory she would have when she had subdued him, forced him to fall in love with her and to admit it openly, and become the slave to her whim. She would make his abase himself, make him prostrate himself on the ground with his neck under her heel. She would make him feel his utter submission to her in every pore of his body. Her victory over him must be absolute.

  He would not be easy to captivate. Harder by far than the King himself, she feared. The King was a man of simple tastes, captivated by nothing more than a pair of blue eyes and a heaving bosom, and a pretense that she found him the most fascinating man alive.

  Metin had barely glanced at her bosom. She had sensed both his wariness and his imperviousness to her beauty. He would have to be caught by more subtle lures. She shivered a little with excitement. She had not been faced with such an exciting and challenging task for a long while.

  Careless generosity to start with she decided, to keep him coming back to her. How his eyes had lit up at the sight of the jewel she had given him. A few such pretty baubles and she could guarantee that he would return to her. That part at least was simple.

  Then she would need plenty of wit and humor to keep him entertained while he was here. He had seemed interested in her latest novel – maybe she would offer to read some aloud to him. The King had often commented on her soft, melodious speaking voice and said that he liked to have her read to him. She would see if the new Metin liked it equally well.

  A hint that she was lonely? Yes, but only a hint. Enough to let him know that she valued his company, but not so much that she seemed as though she was complaining. A man liked a woman to be cheerful and uncomplaining.

  Then, at the very end, a rush of vulnerability. He would have to save her from something or other – she would think more on the what and the how when the time came. That would be the coup de grace. No man could resist the feeling of being worshipped as a hero.

  Then she would have him where she wanted him. She would make him acknowledge her as the victor. She would subjugate him. Then and only then would she toss him aside.

  Velvet. Red velvet. Miriame eyed the gown suspiciously. She wasn’t too sure about it. It was so...so feminine. Not her style at all. She didn’t know why on earth she had ever agreed to wear it.

  Sophie, already dressed in a gown the color of rich emeralds, and looking every inch the lady, held the red velvet up to the window. The sunshine lit it with a warm glow, making the fabric seem almost alive. “Try it on for me. Please? You cannot come to my wedding as a man in boots and breeches. My husband would not look twice a
t you dressed as a woman – it is only natural for a woman to want her friends with her on her wedding day, after all, and I do so want you both there with me. If you were dressed as a man, he would be suspicious of our close friendship. You would have to fight him, or confess your secret – confess that I am not the only woman who has dared to masquerade as a man and join the King’s Guard. I do not want you to fight him on my wedding day.”

  Courtney hooked together the last row of fastenings on the bodice of her petticoat and hugged a gown of golden yellow to her chest with what looked suspiciously like love in her eyes. “I would fight a hundred of your husbands for such an excuse to wear a gown again, even though it is only for this morning. How I detest these stinking breeches that men wear.”

  Miriame would rather fight a hundred Musketeers than wear a gown on the street. “I’m not afraid of fighting him.” Even looking at a gown made her feel vulnerable and afraid. If she put it on, everyone would know she was a woman. She had kept her sex hidden for so long, why would she ever reveal it now? If Rebecca had pretended to be a youth, she would still be alive today. Women were easy prey. Safety lay in being a man, or being thought a man.

  “Maybe not, but I’m afraid of you fighting him. He’s bigger and stronger than you are, but you’re sneakier, and you’re both as stubborn as a pair of old mules. One of you would end up hurt, and I’d rather not have to bandage up either my friend or my husband on my wedding day.”

  Courtney pulled the golden yellow gown over her head and turned her back to Sophie. “Do up my buttons for me, would you?”

  Miriame watched in fascination. How impractical gowns were. You could not even do up your own buttons, but had to rely on someone else to do them for you.

  “Please?” Sophie begged as she deftly did up the row of buttons that ran the length of Courtney’s bodice. “We have to leave soon for the church.”

  Just this once wouldn’t hurt, she supposed grudgingly as slipped her arms out of her jacket and kicked off her boots. After all, she had promised.

  By the time Courtney’s buttons were fastened, Miriame was standing on the rug, naked as the day she was born. She shivered a little in the cold air as she held out her arms in defeat. “Dress me up, then. I’m all yours.”

  Shifts, bodices, stockings, slippers, and finally a gown – she’d never realized how complicated getting dressed was for a woman. Thank the Lord she didn’t have to go through this fuss every morning.

  Courtney made a final adjustment to her skirts and stepped back to admire her handiwork. “Not bad,” she said, her voice full of satisfaction. “Not bad at all. You clean up pretty well for a gutter rat.”

  Miriame stuck her tongue out and made a rude gesture. She’d get Courtney back for that one of these days, just see if she didn’t. Courtney knew how much she hated to be called a gutter rat and did it a-purpose to bait her.

  Sophie gave a squeal of mock horror. “Ladies in velvet gowns don’t do such vulgar things. My governess would have whipped me for less.”

  “Gutter rats don’t have governesses to whip good manners into them,” Miriame reminded her with a sarcastic raising of her eyebrow.

  Sophie put her hand on her hip, ignoring Miriame’s grouching. “You do look good though. Remarkably good.”

  Miriame looked down at the gown. “Well, can I see myself in the looking-glass then?” she asked irritably.

  Courtney shook her head. “Not yet. The hair – it’s all wrong. What shall we do with her hair?”

  Sophie bit at one of her fingernails. “I see what you mean, but we’re running short of time for anything fancy. How about braiding it? Would that help? Or some ribbons?” She sounded doubtful.

  Courtney was silent for a moment, her forehead creased in thought. “I know of just the thing.” She scuttled over to a trunk in the wardrobe and emerged in a moment with a bunch of tiny red flowers on green stems. “Silk roses. We can simply weave them through her curls and let it be at that.”

  Sophie clapped her hands in delight. “Just the thing. Here, let me have a couple, and I’ll do the back.”

  Miriame stood where she was, feeling disgruntled, as her two friends fussed with her hair. She didn’t suppose they had any intention of asking her opinion. What if she didn’t want flowers put in her hair? She didn’t want to be made into a figure of fun that children would point and laugh at in the street. “Now may I see myself in the glass?” she asked, when they both stepped back.

  Courtney pursed her lips. “I think so.”

  Sophie nodded. “Much better.”

  Miriame walked over to the looking glass in the far corner of the chamber. At least she was pleasantly surprised by how comfortable the slippers were. Not as practical as her leather boots, but so soft and easy on the feet.

  Courtney pulled back the draperies of silk that covered the glass, and Miriame stood and stared at her reflection. She blinked once, and then again. She’d never looked like this in her life before. She’d never know she could look like this.

  She looked like a woman. She really looked like a woman. She had none of the blue-eyed, pink and white prettiness that the Marquise Francine possessed in troughs, but even so she looked better than she had expected. There was nothing masculine about her – nothing at all. She looked as if she had been born in a gown.

  Even the rosebuds in her hair weren’t as bad as she had feared. She touched one of them gently. They looked quite natural, even fashionable. Why, in a gown like this, she could pass as a lady of quality. No one would ever suspect her of being a gutter rat.

  Sophie was starting to shuffle her feet impatiently, anxious to be on her way. “Shall we go then?” she asked at last.

  Miriame turned to follow her friends out of the safety of the chamber and into the streets of Paris, taking care not to stumble in her unaccustomed footwear. The velvet of her gown swished around her legs as she walked. Despite the silk stockings tied around her thighs, her legs felt naked without her breeches.

  She had never felt so much like a woman in her life– or so vulnerable, either.

  The church bell tolled as the wedding party stood outside in the sun on the church steps. Book held high, his eyes squinting against the sun low on the horizon, the priest pronounced Sophie Delamanse and Count Lamotte husband and wife.

  Miriame breathed a sigh of relief and shuffled uncomfortably in the heavy velvet. It was all over. She disliked standing around in such a public place in full sight of all the passers-by, especially wen she was wearing a gown. Thank the Lord she could get out of her blasted dress and back into her breeches, where she felt safe.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flicker of familiar colors drawing ever closer - the uniform of a Musketeer. He wore a jaunty hat with a feather over his long curls. His broad shoulders filled every inch of his jacket, and his gleaming thigh-high leather boots showed off the muscles of his calves to perfection.

  Jean-Paul Metin. She groaned as he drew closer to the wedding party. How could fate be so cruel to her, bringing her nose to nose with her only enemy now, when she was defenseless?

  She looked around for a way to escape. Sophie and her Count, standing with their heads together at the foot of the stone steps that led up to the church door, were safely married. Her promise was kept. Sophie did not need her any more.

  Dressed as she was, she could not run for it. She would attract far too much unwanted attention, and her gown would only trip her up if she tried. She would duck into the church to get away from Metin. Better to run out on Sophie now than to spoil her wedding with a brawl. For a brawl it would be she had no doubt, if Metin spied her.

  She put her hand surreptitiously on the knife she had hidden in her garter, tied to her leg. She would not be totally without a weapon if it came to a fight. His face would not remain unmarked if he chose to tangle with her. She would not go down without a struggle.

  She sidled up the steps of the church, her eyes never leaving his face. If once he spotted her, she was doomed.
/>   Just as she was at the door of the church, he looked up- straight into her eyes. She shut her own for an instant, waiting for the roar of rage that would signal his recognition and preparing herself for flight.

  Churches were a place of sanctuary. Would he honor the custom of the times and lave her be in the house of God? She thought on the whole he probably would not violate the sanctity of the church, though she hated to risk her life to something so chancy. Still, it was her best hope.

  The roar of rage she was expecting still had not come. She opened her eyes again. Metin was staring at her indeed, but not with recognition. She could have sworn that there was admiration in his eyes.

  Was it possible that he did not know her dressed as a woman? She took a deep breath and felt the racing of her heartbeat start to slow. If so, her disguise was better than she could have imagined. Maybe her gown would yet prove to have its uses.

  She slipped inside the door of the church, and into the welcoming darkness. She had never before considered that dressing as a woman held its own advantages.

  Metin strode through the streets of Paris with a purposeful air, heading towards the Palace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He would see Francine this morning, at her public levee if he could see her no other way. Come what may, he was determined on it.

  He must have offended her in some manner. No other reason for her coolness towards him made sense. Never before had he ever been refused admittance to her chambers, however late the hour. Never before had she pleaded the excuse of a megrim to avoid seeing him, though he had heard her send out her maidservant with that very excuse a thousand times to impertinent visitors to avoid being interrupted when the two of them were alone together.