The Chevalier (Châteaux and Shadows) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mademoiselle.” The girl sat up straighter.
    “I was sixteen the first time I came to court.”
    The girl smiled slightly, but when Catherine didn’t go on, she looked out the window. They rode in silence.
    When she’d first arrived at court, Catherine had been shocked. She, the best-liked girl in her district of Normandy, was completely overlooked because she wasn’t beautiful or vivacious enough and her dowry was tiny. Besides, she was already promised to the third son of a useless drunkard. Her fiancé, Laurent, was kind, at least. Her father was actively disliked by many other courtiers. In fact, her popularity in Normandy might have been due to people trying to get on her father’s good side or out of pity for her sweet-natured mother.
    At court, Catherine had been invisible. Later, invisibility became an advantage.
    She’d lain with Laurent several times because they were engaged and the wedding was fast approaching. He made her feel visible. They hadn’t had much to talk about—the only thing he was interested in was his future in the army—his father had promised him a commission.
    When he died, she thought she would die, too. Her father promised he’d find her another husband, then went off to a hunting party, dragging her mother along in an attempt at reconciliation. They weren’t the only ones to get ill at the party but had been two of the three who died. They had never agreed on anything; that they both ate large quantities of the same fish seemed suspect to Catherine. She had been powerless to launch any sort of investigation, prostrate in grief, and friendless. Few people missed her father and hardly anyone had known her mother. Even fewer knew her.
    And yes, there were debts. Her father’s Paris house was sold to pay them. Her uncle inherited the debt-ridden estate and proceeded to drink it away. Catherine was left on the mercy of her father’s friends. She had been back to Normandy only twice in the intervening eight years, once to rent out the farm and a second time when a flood wiped out the crops. Not only was the renter unable to pay the rent, but the people who worked the land were in danger of starving. She had spent far more than she earned that year. She had also seen that the small, unoccupied house on her land was beginning to fall into ruin, while the barns and other outbuildings were seen to by her renter.
    She wondered what the maid hoped to see in the two days she would have in the capital before she went home. A glance across at the child showed her the girl was pale and swallowing convulsively. Catherine leapt to her feet to bang on the panel at the front of the coach. “Stop! Stop! She’s ill!”
    The coach slid and lurched to a halt. Catherine swung the door open and slipped to the ground, holding up her hands to the girl, whose feet barely touched the ground before she bent over, throwing up everything she had eaten for breakfast and what appeared to be everything from the day before, too. Catherine’s stomach roiled at the sight, smell, and horrible noises. She crouched down, holding back the wispy tendrils of the girl’s dark hair that had escaped her linen cap and patting her back as she heaved.
    A groom approached, but the girl gripped Catherine’s sleeve.
    “You should have said you get ill riding backwards,” Catherine whispered.
    The maid looked up at her, face splotchy, eyes red. “I didn’t know. I’ve never been this far from home. The housekeeper thought it would be a treat for me.” She sobbed once. “You’ll send me home.”
    “Do you think you’ll be all right riding forward?”
    “I don’t know. I’m—” But what she was, she never said. She heaved again.
    “Is she all right?” said a voice above Catherine’s head. Monsieur Emmanuel.
    “Just fine, as you can see,” Catherine replied acerbically.
    He crouched down, looking over the girl, who shivered. “Are you ill? Or is it the carriage?”
    “It’s the carriage, Monsieur Emmanuel.”