The Dark Queen

  But the elaborate meal heaped upon the platters went largely untouched as Renard quaffed his wine, quietly getting drunk as he feared he’d done far too many times since he’d left Faire Isle.

  How many days ago had that been? He wasn’t even sure. He kept hoping that Ariane would send for him. But she hadn’t and he’d come to doubt she ever would. He tried to keep his despair at bay by nursing his anger against her. For being so hard, unreasonable, and unforgiving.

  But mostly his anger was directed at himself, for being the greatest fool who ever lived to have let such a remarkable woman as Ariane Cheney slip away from him.

  Being forced to talk about Lucy, the aspects of her wretched past, had ever made him edgy and defensive. The same reaction he’d always had at any reference to his Deauville grandfather.

  One side of his family spawned by a witch, the other side by the devil himself. Lord, what a heritage, Renard thought in disgust as he drained his glass to the dregs. He’d long dreaded telling Ariane the truth about Lucy. But when the issue could no longer be avoided, he should have attempted to remain calm and reasonable instead of waxing so bitter and caustic.

  But the way Ariane had looked at him had torn him to shreds. Helpless and frustrated, he had watched the trust he had labored so long to win from her shattered beyond hope of repair.

  He could still hear the hurt-filled echoes of her voice.

  “So now, you will pretend you have fallen in love with me?”

  And his own angry answer . . . “No. I told you once before. I would never pretend anything like that.”

  Because he didn’t have to pretend. He did love her, would love her until his dying breath, although he didn’t know quite when this transformation in him had happened. Perhaps his fall had begun the first moment he’d ever gazed into those quiet eyes of hers.

  He loved her courage, her strength, her wisdom. Her compassion, her serenity, her remarkable gifts for healing. He loved the adorable way her mouth quivered when she was trying so hard to remain serious and not laugh at some outrageous remark he’d made. The way she tipped her head to one side when she listened to him, not in that half self-absorbed way most people listened, but so intently, so earnestly. Ariane listened with her whole heart.

  He also loved the shy way her eyes glowed just after he kissed her, the rosy flush that spread across her cheeks when she was aroused, those soft little sighs of surrender she breathed when he made love to her. All the more precious because the Lady of Faire Isle did not surrender herself lightly to any man.

  Renard groaned, thrusting his glass aside. “You bloody fool,” he muttered. Why the devil hadn’t he gotten down on his knees and told her all that when he’d had the chance? When he’d first begun his pursuit of her, he had had some idiot notion about acquiring her ancient manuscripts. But he didn’t give a damn about those blasted books. They could all burn to ashes and he wouldn’t care as long as he could have her back in his arms.

  She’d never believe him now. And yet the woman had been compassionate enough to bestow the Breath of Life on that wretch Le Vis. If she was capable of forgiving a witch-hunter, then why not him?

  Because Renard had hurt her in the worst way imaginable. Ariane’s greatest fear was being deceived, having her trust betrayed just as her father had done with her mother.

  “My lord—”

  The timid voice roused him from his dark musings. Renard lifted his head to find one of his pages hovering timidly at his elbow.

  “I—I was sent to inquire if you were done, milord— That is, if you wanted the covers cleared . . .” The lad swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing in his scrawny neck.

  His fear was so palpable, Renard felt himself flush with shame. He had resolved that none of his servants would ever cringe in terror of him as they had done with his grandfather. But his humor had been so black of late, he’d been behaving worse than the old devil, roaring at anyone who came near him.

  The boy gulped and tried again, “Un—unless there is something else I can fetch you. M-more wine?”

  “No, lad,” Renard replied gently. With some difficulty, he even managed a smile. By lingering this late at the table, he was keeping the entire kitchen staff from finishing their tasks and getting to their beds.

  Scraping back his chair, he rose to his feet. He was drunk, but not drunk enough to quite drown his misery, he realized ruefully. Only enough to make his gait a trifle unsteady as he moved away from the table.

  As he wended his way from the great hall, he had no desire to retire to his own bedchamber, to face another night tormenting himself with thoughts of Ariane, of that all too brief afternoon when she had been truly his, when they had lost themselves in each other’s loving again and again.

  But where was he to go? He could scarcely spend another night pacing the parapets. Shielding his candle from the draft, he hesitated, then turned abruptly, heading for the one part of the château he had steadfastly avoided ever since his return.

  The private chapel had been remodeled sometime late in the fourteenth century. But Renard spared not even a glance at the costly, extravagant stained-glass window or the gilt trim on the altar. He headed toward the circular stair that led to the crypt below, where generations of Deauvilles had been laid to rest.

  The dark was so impenetrable, his candle made little impression. Renard paused to light one of the torches embedded in the walls. He glanced about until he found the newest addition. It would have been hard to miss the sarcophagus that had become his grandfather’s final resting place. The elaborate tomb had been fashioned to suit Robert Deauville’s sense of his own consequence.

  But the knight carved into the marble bore little resemblance to the grandfather Renard remembered. The effigy’s countenance was too serene to reflect the old man’s choleric temper, cruelty, and arrogance.

  Renard’s gaze drifted from his grandfather’s magnificent sarcophagus to the recess in the wall behind it. A plain clay urn rested on the stone ledge, the urn that held all that remained of the legendary Melusine, the woman that Renard had known for so long simply as grand-mère.

  It was a strange irony that these two who had been such fierce enemies should now lie here, entombed side by side for all eternity. Why the old comte had had Lucy’s remains fetched here, Renard had no idea. Out of superstitious fear perhaps, or some final warped revenge. As a daughter of the earth, Lucy would have wanted her bones returned to the soil where they belonged.

  When Renard had become the comte, Toussaint had pleaded with him to take Lucy’s bones into the forest, see that she was properly laid to rest, but Renard had adamantly refused, saying it made no difference after all this time.

  Perhaps he still harbored some resentment toward the woman who had so twisted his life to suit her own ends. Ariane’s shock had been great to discover that Lucy was Melusine, but no less than Renard’s own. He’d never learned the truth about his grandmother until that night he’d escaped from his Grandfather Deauville’s château and made his way back to the only home he’d ever known, the cottage high in the mountains. His back was torn and bleeding from his grandfather’s whip, his heart lacerated even worse from his discovery that Martine had married someone else in his absence.

  He’d overheard Toussaint and Lucy talking and that had been how he’d discovered who his grandmother really was. Although he’d been stunned, his reaction had not been entirely one of horror like Ariane’s.

  Perhaps because when all was said and done, Lucy was still his grandmother, the woman who’d raised him. Or perhaps because he’d lacked Ariane’s wisdom. He’d only been a boy of sixteen, raw with hurt and exhaustion.

  He had collapsed on his knees before Lucy, clutching her skirts and pleading.

  “If you truly are this dread Melusine, grand-mère, then use your power to save me. Hide me. Keep me safe from that old devil. And—and find a way to bring Martine back to me. Make her love me again.”

  Lucy had smiled, gently laying her withered hand upon his che
ek. “Forget about that girl, Justice. You see how easily she has forgotten you. She was never worthy to be your bride. You have a great destiny awaiting you. You are going to be the Comte de—”

  “Damn my destiny. I don’t want it. If you won’t help me, I’ll find a way to escape from here. I’ll go far from Brittany, someplace where he’ll never find me. And I’ll get Martine to go with me.”

  Lucy’s green eyes had flashed, those strange bright eyes of hers that never seemed to dim with age. “You think that I have planned and schemed and dreamed such dreams for you all these years to let you throw it all away? Heed me Justice and heed me well. You are going to be a great man, a man of extraordinary power.”

  It was at that moment that the truth had finally penetrated his thick skull, that it was not his Grandfather Deauville who had torn him away from his life in the hills, the simple future he wanted, the girl he loved. It had all been Lucy’s, or should he say Melusine’s, doing.

  He’d recoiled from his grandmother, his voice breaking. “Mon Dieu. You—you have never really cared about me, have you? I’ve never been anything but a means to an end for you, a way to finish the rebellion you started years ago.”

  Lucy sorrowfully shook her head. “You can’t defeat powerful men through rebellion. There was only one way I could make sure any grandchild of mine would never be helpless, trampled into the dirt. And that was to make you one of them, an aristocrat.”

  Outside the cottage, he heard the thunder of horse’s hooves, saw the flare of torchlight. Peering out, he saw that his grandfather’s retainers had arrived to fetch him back to the château. He glanced desperately at his grandmother. Rarely had he ever been able to read Lucy’s eyes, but he saw the flicker of guilt, her final betrayal. The men had come because she had sent for them.

  “Justice, I do love you, more than life itself. I only want what is best for you.” She reached up to cup his face between her hands, but he’d thrust her away.

  “You want me to be a powerful man? Then here is my first command, that I never set eyes on you again. It will be a damned embarrassment for a comte to have an old witch as his grandmother.”

  Lucy was so strong. She rarely ever showed her pain, but her face crumpled as though he’d struck her. He hadn’t cared. He wanted to hurt her as much as she was hurting him. He’d flung himself out of the cottage and never looked back . . .

  Renard’s fingers trembled a little as he reached out to touch the clay urn. Even as he’d resigned himself to his life, he’d continued to nurse his resentment against her. Years later and he was still struggling to come to terms with his feelings about her, love and anger, guilt, regret, and shame all jumbled up inside of him.

  “Justice? Lad? Are you there?”

  Toussaint’s voice echoing down the stairs caused Renard to jerk hastily away from the urn. Before the old man could descend into the crypt, Renard was already there barring his path.

  Toussaint shuffled cautiously down the worn stone steps, balancing a candlestick in his hand as he grumbled, “This is a gloomy place to spend a fair summer night.”

  “What are you doing back here?” Renard asked tersely. “I asked you to remain on Faire Isle, to look after my lady.”

  “Your lady is well enough. I am more concerned about you.”

  “Well, don’t be,” Renard said, brusquely turning away, but Toussaint clamped his hand upon his shoulder.

  “How long is this foolishness between you and Mistress Cheney to go on? You should return to her, lad.”

  Renard shook his head. “If Ariane decides to forgive me, she will send for me. I won’t force my presence upon her again.” After a moment, he added gruffly. “I am in love with her, Toussaint.”

  “Well, praise be. It certainly took you long enough to figure that out. So why not go and tell her so?”

  “Because it is too late for that.”

  “Only if you allow it to be.”

  Renard moved away from the old man, his boots echoing off the stone floor. “You tried to warn me. I should have been honest with her from the beginning. But no, I had to be so clever, trying to bully her into marrying me as my grandfather would have done. When that didn’t work, I resorted to Lucy’s kind of tricks, forcing Ariane into that pact with the rings.” He halted in front of the sarcophagus, staring from the old man’s tomb to the urn resting behind it. “Sometimes I think I am the worst of both of them.”

  Toussaint stepped quietly beside him. “No, lad. You tend to forget you are also your mother’s and your father’s son. Only natural I expect, because you never had a chance to know them. They were kind, loving people who adored each other, who managed to steal a bit of happiness from a world that is sometimes full of dark magic. You and your lady will too.”

  Renard wished he could believe that. He turned to Toussaint and pressed the old man’s hand, commanding more gently this time. “Go back to Faire Isle. Keep her safe for me.”

  Toussaint studied him for a long moment, but apparently saw the futility of trying to reason with him further. He started back toward the stairs but not before casting a sorrowful look in the direction of the urn set in the wall.

  Renard wrestled with himself for a moment before saying hesitantly, “Er—Toussaint, if you want to—to take Lucy’s bones, lay her to rest in the earth, you may do so.”

  “No, lad, you are the only one who can grant her that peace. Lucy made some terrible mistakes during her life, but she did love you, boy. Far better than she ever loved anyone else.”

  Renard said nothing. He supposed the old man was right, but the thought brought him little comfort. It was his heritage from Melusine that was costing him Ariane. And yet how could he ever expect forgiveness from Ariane when he couldn’t bring himself to forgive his own grandmother?

  Renard lingered down in the crypt long after Toussaint had gone. He didn’t rouse himself from his bleak reflections until the torch suddenly flickered and went out. Cursing softly, Renard groped his way through the darkness, trying to make his way toward the stairs when a voice carried to him, calling his name, as though from a great distance.

  “Renard . . .”

  Renard’s heartbeat quickened. He felt the ring on his finger turn warm, the familiar tingle coursing through him.

  “Ariane?” His voice was raw and desperate with hope. He pressed his hand bearing the ring over the region of his heart and concentrated as he’d never done before, sending all his thoughts, his longing for her winging through the night.

  Time seemed to crawl by before he heard her voice again. Not clear like the other times she’d used the ring, but disturbingly faint and far away.

  “Renard. Please come . . . to me. In danger.”

  His gut knotting with fear, he closed his eyes and called out to her.

  “What is it, Ariane? What is wrong? Answer me.”

  Her voice echoed inside him again, her accent low and urgent. “I have been captured by Le Vis. He is taking me for trial. We are already on the road to Paris. Please . . . help me.”

  Her terror reached him across the distance, icing through his veins. His jaw clenching with grim purpose, he tried to send back to her his love, all his reassurance.

  “Don’t be afraid, ma chère. I am on my way.”

  The ring glinted against the pale skin of the woman’s hand, but it fit far too snugly. For a moment Catherine feared she was going to be unable to remove it. But with a hard tug, the metal band scraped from her finger.

  She cupped the ring in the palm of her hand, smiling slightly as she translated the inscription.

  This ring to me doth bind you both heart and mind.

  Catherine had been uncertain if she would be able to command the power of the ring, use it to confuse Renard, but the whisper of the comte’s last words assured her of her success.

  “Don’t be afraid, ma chère. I am on my way.”

  Catherine closed her hand over the ring. It was all she could do not to burst into laughter. Men were so appallingly easy to
manipulate. Just like the one that waited so anxiously behind her.

  She had turned away to the window so that Le Vis had been unable to see what she was doing. It would hardly do at this point to have the fool realize she was just as versed in the ways of magic as the women she had sent him to destroy.

  Composing herself, she turned back to face the witch-hunter. She had always had a distaste for Le Vis and never more so than now. He had dared to appear before her, his robes stained with the dust of his hard journey, his face gaunt, his misshapen eye wild, and he was practically slavering like a dog.

  “Well, Your Grace?” he demanded. “Will it serve?”

  “Oh, yes indeed,” Catherine purred. “You did not bring me Remy and the gloves, but this ring will serve the purpose just as well. It will lure our enemies to Paris. You have done well, Monsignor Le Vis. And you too, Master Aristide.”

  She nodded toward the haggard boy standing in Le Vis’s shadow. The boy said nothing, merely bowed his head.

  But Le Vis rubbed his hands together, an almost insane light glinting in his eyes. “We will have them this time. But get that demon and his whore to Paris where your soldiers may lay hands upon them. I will build a bonfire hotter than the fires of hell. Then you will remember all that you promised me. My appointment as grand inquisitor.”

  “But certainly, Monsieur Le Vis. I will make certain that you receive all that is coming to you,” Catherine murmured.

  Le Vis detected nothing amiss in her promise, his eyes glowing with visions of future glory. She noted, however, that the boy had snapped alert, his expression troubled and suspicious.

  Catherine dismissed them both, holding out her hand to be kissed with a regal smile.

  She had greater matters at hand. Her heart quickened with a rare sense of excitement and triumph. Everything was falling into place. She had the king of Navarre and his Huguenot followers settled here in Paris. The miasma she had brewed had reached its full potency. She had even determined the occasion upon which to finally set her plan into motion. St. Bartholomew’s Eve.