Coulmier strode into the Marquis's quarters with shame and foreboding heavy on his heart. De Sade had always had a sixth sense about such things as now concerned his young friend – he had known immediately when Madeleine had shared her first kiss with a stable boy, and when she had almost surrendered her virginity to that same boy. Would he guess the Abbé's feelings for Anne simply by looking at him? It was no an option for the young priest to suddenly cease visiting the old man; that would be a dead giveaway that some change had taken place.
All he could do was concentrate on putting things into perspective for himself, and behave as naturally as was possible in the company of the Marquis.
Coulmier did not knock before unlocking the door and entering; there was seldom any need to do so, as the Marquis always seemed to smell him treading the hallways before calling on him.
"Good morning, my cherub," he greeted him from his desk, where he sat scratching upon a sheet of paper and sipping red wine from the asylum's cellar.
"Good morning, Marquis." The Abbé perched upon a velvet-covered chair nearby, awaiting the inevitable onslaught of jibes from the old man. Strangely, none immediately came.
"Where is our darling Madeleine these days? She does not come to visit anymore. I am feeling direly neglected…"
"She should not have been visiting you anyway. You know she is an impressionable girl, and your writings cannot be beneficial to her morality."
The Marquis turned to him, smiling wryly. "Oh, my dear, you of all people, a hypocrite!" He rose from his gilt chair and began circling the young priest, a full glass of wine in his hand.
"What do you mean?" The Abbé was unable to keep a note of panic out of his voice. "You think that I visit…"
"I know you visit Anne Lenoir. You allow me the privilege of freedom inside this place, you also allow me to observe my fellow inmates. She's splendid, isn't she? A subdued kind of beauty, but with great…potential!" He chuckled lasciviously. "She will make a fascinating subject for my new novel, in the absence of our Madeleine."
Coulmier stood up abruptly, confusion clouding his thoughts. He knew next to nothing of Anne, but enough to tell that she was the antithesis of Madeleine: odd, mute and imprisoned as opposed to vivacious and free. Why could the Marquis possibly be interested in her?
"You will not write about Anne." He could barely understand why he was so angry, but his increasing sense of shame gave him some clue. He had stood by for so many months, watching as the old aristocrat got his hooks into Maddie's mind and gradually loosened her control over her body. Either Madeleine's headstrong nature, or the Abbé's too-liberal authority over the Marquis was the cause – the young man dearly hoped that it was the former, something out of his hands.
The final straw would be if the Marquis were to make Anne his latest victim. Coulmier resolved at that moment to do everything in his power to prevent that situation from arising.
"You told me to write in order to purge my mind of wicked things. Do you not wish for me to empty my thoughts of Mademoiselle Lenoir onto paper?"
The Abbé, edging his way towards the door, hardly knew what to say. It was a reasonable idea – but what if the old man were to feel the need to practice what he wrote about with the young lady herself? For the moment, he chose to take his strange friend at his word.
"Very well," he said soberly. "Write whatever you please. But you are not to approach Mademoiselle – if I find that you have, or that your work is in her possession or in wider circulation, I will revoke all of your liberties. I must leave now." Impotent anger causing his whole body to stiffen, he quickly pulled open the door and stepped through.
The Marquis laughed again. "Fear not, my darling. My intentions are not what you think. She fascinates me, yes, but her corruption will be limited strictly to the page. If you see Madeleine, do tell her to drop by. I have need of a more willing accomplice than dear Anne."
Anne's quarters seemed to draw him to her like a magnet. Over several mornings he visited her, peering through the door before knocking, never receiving any answer other than her heartrending smile. He had concocted another strategy with which to win her trust: allowing her the same freedom to walk the courtyards of the building that he sometimes afforded the Marquis, though not at the same time, of course. The girl's safety from the old man's advances had become his primary concern.
She would follow the Abbé outside the building, where he would tell her where she was allowed to walk and where was out of bounds. Then she would begin a slow progress, a book always in her hand, occasionally looking at flowers or the sky as if she had never seen them before. He waited close by, noticing with gladness that she did not seem to mind him watching her.
One day, he asked himself why it was that he always kept an eye on her. It was not merely to protect her from harm, he now admitted. He loved her. Not the way he had loved Madeleine, either – not with brotherly protectiveness, mixed with fleeting lusts on those few dishonourable occasions. He needed to be with Anne constantly. When he was forced to be even a short distance away from her, he felt as though he were missing a limb.
Tonight, he would be offering up these sinful feelings to God as he did as often as they occurred to him. Priests were not ordained to fall in love with innocent, unsuspecting young women.
Or was she so unsuspecting?
Seated upon an iron bench, her book open in her lap, Anne frequently turned her blue eyes up to where he stood, as if reassuring herself that he had not moved. Surprised, he smiled at her, distracted from his thoughts of shame. She smiled back broadly. Tentatively, he began walking slowly towards her.
"Are you enjoying your book?" he enquired once he stood beside her, wondering whether he should presume to sit down.
This time, she did not nod or shake her head, as were her usual answers to his questions. Instead, she opened her mouth to speak.
"I am, thank you. I would like to go to the library myself when I have finished it, if you will allow me to."
Speechless, all the Abbé could do was stand, open-mouthed, for a long moment. "Anne…Mademoiselle Lenoir!"
She seemed amused. Her voice was lovelier than he could have imagined: clear and tuneful, marred only by a slight huskiness – the result of an obvious lack of usage in the past. Her accent was unmistakeably aristocratic, though without loftiness of any kind.
"They told you I do not speak, did they not? Well, I was not able to for two whole years after…then I began to once more, but not often. There simply were not many people I could speak to, until you, Abbé."
He could not suppress a smile of delight any longer. "This is wonderful! Mademoiselle Lenoir…"
"Please call me Anne, and do sit down." She gestured at the space beside her, looking demurely at her lap again as he settled beside her.
Her closeness rendered him silent then, as he remembered what she had just said. Until you, Abbé. Was he to be proud that he had inspired her to speak, or happy that she was at last beginning to return his friendship?
He waited for her to speak again, though she did not, merely staring down at her book. Her speech and actions, once more and to his extreme confusion, suggested perfect sanity. Nay, proved it. It made no sense at all. Turning his head, he caught her peering at him, and this time not looking away modestly as had become her habit whenever they made eye contact.
She had seemed exceptionally nervous when she had first arrived at Charenton. Was this another clue as to why she was there? Anne seemed to sense the questions and turmoil within his mind, for she was smiling almost reassuringly. He almost gasped out loud when, seconds later, she reached out towards him, her dainty hand taking hold of his own.
He swallowed. "I trust you are comfortable in your rooms?"
"More than comfortable, thank you, Abbé. I feel better knowing that you look after my welfare, and I apologise for being so unpleasant when I arrived. Your friendship has helped me very much."
His heart pounded as her fingers stroked against his own. This was wrong, yet wonderful. Perhaps if it felt this right, it wasn't so sinful after all.
"I knew her kinsmen intimately, you know, Abbé."
Coulmier shivered automatically, partly out of disgust that the Marquis could be so very insensitive, and partly out of the remaining sensations Anne's touch had left coursing through him. Reluctantly, he turned towards the older man's door before he passed by it on the way to his own quarters.
"What have you got to say, then, Marquis? Please do not make any outrageous claims."
"I knew them, including that arrogant fool her father, who thought he could defy the mob and maintain his family's estate and position." He almost hissed the words, his voice thick with disgust. "I believe he maintained that conviction right until they stormed his château, cutting his son's throat before his eyes. Anne's brother was their only heir, you see, and an upstanding young man. Ironically, he was sympathetic to the idea of a Republic…" He laughed, almost manically, his eyes bulging as he indulged in his favourite pastime – telling tales.
The Abbé felt compelled to listen, as much by the mention of Anne's name as anything else. "Go on, Marquis."
"After that, her father duly went to the guillotine. That was a dark day if ever I saw one. I hated the man, but it is never a pleasant thing when two strokes of the blade are needed to do the deed."
Coulmier shivered, unsure whether to believe anything the old man said, or to regard it as another of his despicable fictions. "Then what of Anne and her mother?"
De Sade raised his eyebrows quizzically. "Your interest in her knows no bounds, I see!" He took a deep breath. "Her mother was a tremendous woman, a harlot in her youth, I hear, but who in spite of temptations proved an exemplary wife. She and Anne escaped, I believe, jumping from a back window and hiding in a village, dressed as waifs. The mistake they made was in carrying such great quantities of jewellery with them, and attempting to sell it. They chose as a potential customer none other than one of the very same mob who had disposed of their men folk."
"Is this the truth?" the young priest asked, appalled.
"It is legend, my dear, and legend is almost always based on some truth."
"But you said you knew them intimately?"
"We were acquaintances, if not for very long, before the Terror. They were true friends…I miss them terribly in these times, when a woman as lovely and as loose as Anne's mama is so difficult to find."
"I should have known you did not really care!" Coulmier spat, before calming slightly. "So what became of them after they were recaptured?"
The Marquis shrugged. The two men's faces were now inches apart, separated only by the oaken door confining the older to his chambers for the night.
"Anne's mother soon found herself upon the scaffold, ready to join her husband and her son. The girl was luckier, or maybe not – either way she was delivered to her cousin, and then here. Are you happy now?"
"Happy? What do you mean?"
"You are troubled and tantalised by the enigma that is Anne Lenoir. Are you happy now that you have some answers to your questions?"
The young man eyed him perplexedly for a moment, before smiling. "Yes, I am. Thank you, Marquis."
Madeleine carried a basket of linens before her clumsily, trying to ignore the figure of the Abbé approaching her from the opposite direction. Soon it became impossible, however, as he greeted her cheerily, awaiting a friendly answer which was not delivered even after several seconds.
"Maddie, what's wrong? You are not yourself in recent days. Is something troubling you?"
The girl did not answer, frowning and turning away slightly, hopping from one foot to the other as if reluctant to leave.
"You know you may tell me anything. Is it the Marquis?"
She shot him an angry look then, baring her teeth. "You always blame the Marquis for my moods, don't you? Well, Abbé, this time it is you who makes me unhappy. You and that girl…"
"Maddie! You cannot possibly mean Anne? What has gotten into you?"
She smiled bitterly, nodding stiffly. "You used to be my friend. Now you ignore me for that weird girl who does nothing but read her stupid poetry all day. She does not even speak. What can you see in her?"
"I see nothing in her! I am merely doing what I am here to do and seeing to the welfare of a ward. Madeleine, I am horrified that you would misconstrue my intentions! I see that the Marquis has been twisting your view of the world again…"
He fell silent, seeing tears begin to fall in rivulets down her face, and was consumed afresh with remorse. He may have rejected her as a lover, and with good reason, yet in the process he had rejected her as a friend. Walking towards her, he opened his arms, hugging her tightly as she accepted his embrace.
"I am so sorry, Maddie. I never meant to neglect you. Anne and I have become friends, it is true, but I will never prefer her over you as a companion."
Coulmier could not guarantee, however, that he could stop short of falling in love with Mademoiselle Lenoir as he had with Mademoiselle LeClerc.