The Ruins of Lace Read Online Free PDF Page B

found out. She must hide the evidence of her sin. If she could do that, then no one would ever know.
    I felt her guilt. I knew her panic. How could she rid the lace of its stain?
    She tried to rub it along the hem of her skirts, but it succeeded only in smearing the soot’s dark edge. Perhaps…if she cut off the part that had been soiled, then no one would ever know.
    No—a thousand times no!
    She dropped the cuffs back into the trunk and furtively shut the lid before leaving the room. But she would be back. She would take her shears from her workbasket, she would conceal them in the folds of her skirt, and she would return to the guest’s chamber.
    Was there no other way for this dream to end?
    There she was. And here she came, padding through the rushes toward the trunk. She lifted the lid. She pulled out the lace. She picked up the shears.
    Don’t!
    She set the edge of the lace between their sharp, cold, heavy jaws.
    No!
    Carefully, so carefully, lip caught between her teeth, she cut away the decorative fringe of the pattern, severing the soiled part from the rest. She secreted the evidence in her slipper, hiding it with the sole of her foot, and then she put the rest of the lace back inside the trunk. As she pulled down the lid once more, she was confident no one would learn of her transgression.
    But she didn’t know then what I knew now.
    She didn’t understand how quickly a life can fray. How a single thread come undone can cause the unraveling of everything else around it.
    But that was not the worst of the dream. The worst of it was this: I woke wanting the same thing I had wanted back then. I woke wanting Maman . I woke wanting to touch that lace. And I knew if I had it do all over again, I would do the very same thing. The worst was knowing I could not have done anything other than what I did.
    •••
    The Count of Montreau didn’t care that it was an accident. “She didn’t mean to.” I clung to my cousin Alexandre’s hand as Papa stepped between the count and me.
    “I don’t care if she meant to pronounce some magic over it and increase its length threefold!” He leaned around Papa to glare at me as he yelled.
    “She’s just a child. She didn’t know what she was doing.”
    “What she did just cost you two thousand livres.”
    “Two thousand! I could buy a second estate with that!”
    “That’s the exact amount it took to buy the cuffs. But…” He looked at Papa in a way that made him seem older than his years. “Perhaps I ought to charge you more. When I purchased it, such laces from Flanders were common. Now, all lace is forbidden. It would take twice as much to buy the same length today. If you dared to.”
    I held my breath. No one ever dared Papa to do anything.
    “I don’t have two thousand livres.”
    “I don’t want two thousand. I want four thousand.”
    Alexandre was tugging me toward the door. I didn’t want to go. “Come.”
    “ Non! ”
    Alexandre bent and picked me up. He had never done that before. He had rarely ever touched me. Though he had never been anything but gentle and kind and good, there was something about him that precluded any contact.
    Papa had put a hand to the count’s arm. “I don’t have the money. Please. You must understand. I could sell all I own, and still I could not pay you.” He swiped at the beads of sweat that had sprung into relief upon his forehead.
    I beat at Alexandre with my fists, but he would not let me go.
    “Yes, well, it’s too bad you took part in Chalais’s conspiracy against the King’s chief minister.”
    Papa swayed as if the floor had suddenly tilted.
    “I know the Duchess of Chevreuse. She was the Marquis of Chalais’s lover. If you’re going to involve yourself in further conspiracies, may I suggest you choose your companions more wisely? If she who helps make the plans does not bother to guard them…? Did you truly think the King would not take offense? Or Richelieu himself would not be troubled?”
    Papa