Raal the Sword Master: Was it the Count…or someone else entirely? Well…what do you think? We shall soon know. ^_* You were right about Hansel and Gretel in the other story, and the Princess and the Pea as well. You're the first person to have taken up my challenges (as if they are challenges …) in both My Beauty, My Beast and Wings of the Heart – you win so far. Great job at guessing my first mysterious protagonist's true identity in the latter, by the way. Thanks for the reviews on both too!
Rosethorn: Crown and Court Duel – welllll, yes, I have read them, and yes, the 'Purity of Intent' thing was in this fic and those books, but I think that white roses mean that either way. Just so I don't get sued for plagiarizing, which is never my intention. V. good books though. I loved Shevraeth to death!
The nitpick, is Clarice really perfect? In the words of the Bard, "No, my profound heart!" You'll see some of her flaws as the story progresses, including in this chapter. Her seeming perfection stems from her diplomatic stand on things – meaning she avoids getting into arguments, making anyone mad, etc., at all costs. As for the Fire Rose similarities…well, perhaps, but the R/J thing was in a different context, and again, I mean no copying of Mercedes Lackey's work.
Disclaimer: The usual. On with the story…
Chapter Five –Dream, Defy, Escape
"You've been asked to do what?"
Normally, Jacqueline Boisvert was among the meekest, quietest, most reticent human beings in existence, and certainly in France. But right at the moment, as she stared white-faced and wide-eyed at her sixteen-year-old niece, she was anything but quiet or reticent. Clarice steeled herself for what was – inevitably – coming.
"Clarice Gisèle Violette Marie Boisvert, look at me!"
She did so.
Jacqueline pointed an almost accusing finger at the seemingly innocent, small rectangle of white paper that she held in her other hand, resting it in her lap: the insisting, relentless herald of possible dangers to come, embodied in a simple calling card. She spoke, and her voice was taut with anger, exasperation, and fear.
"Do you mean to tell me that you actually heard this – this man, or whatever he was, out on this most incongruous of offers? Did you actually give him reason to believe that you would remotely consider it?"
Clarice bit her lip – her most obvious reaction to anything, a habit that she had picked up long ago when she was worried – and was silent for a moment.
"I listened, Aunt Jacqueline."
With a groan of vexation towards her niece's latest untoward escapade, Jacqueline got to her feet and blew across the room, almost in a mind to tear the little piece of paper in her hand to shreds. When Clarice had come home from the shop late that night, she had instantly known that something had happened; for, in the last few weeks, her niece had taken to spending the night away from the manor.
But Jacqueline had never expected something like this! Who would have anticipated the announcement that a job offer had been made to a sixteen-year-old orphan girl of a low-ranking merchant family – a job offer entailing artistic work at the estate of the fabulously wealthy, enigmatic, and surely most powerful man at the French court, the Count d'Auberie?
She whirled around on her niece then, eyes blazing.
"Clarice, I cannot believe this! Do you know nothing of the Count d'Auberie?"
Clarice shook her head slowly.
"No, Aunt Jacqueline."
"Child, you are playing with the literal equivalent of fire! The Count is one of the King's favorite friends, and it is known throughout almost all France that he is, at best, an eccentric personage! In even merely listening to this messenger's embassy, you have given the impression that you might be inclined to accede, to do as he asks. There are so many things that have been said about the Count – I do not want you becoming even remotely involved with him! Oh, what shall we do?"
With that, Jacqueline collapsed back into her chair with a wail of despair. Clarice remained where she was, then went to her aunt's side and knelt beside the chair.
"Aunt Jacqueline, please," she said, softly. "What has been said about this man? Why am I not to give an answer to this offer? What's there to panic at?"
Her aunt looked at her incredulously.
"Child…do you really not know?"
And then she proceeded to tell Clarice of all the stories that surrounded the mysterious nobleman – of his doubtful past, his family and heritage of which no one knew, of his unbelievable wealth and the rumors concerning its origins, and of many, many more rumors. The Count was powerful: his displeasure was something that was rightly to be feared. They were now trapped – if Clarice refused his offer, their family would surely suffer. If she agreed…
Jacqueline had no wish to send her young niece, who was barely more than a child, into the hands of some noble whom no one seemed to know anything about.
Even if he was the Count d'Auberie.
* * *
Clarice was now at a crossroads.
She had no wish to disobey her aunt and respond to the Count's offer, whether negatively or in the affirmative. The mystery surrounding the nobleman intrigued her, as did the most tantalizing offer that he had made to her. It seemed incredibly simple – and yet she knew it wasn't.
Jacqueline would not let her leave the immediate grounds of the manor for days after that fateful evening, refusing to even permit her to venture out of sight, as if she thought that the Count or one of his minions would somehow suddenly appear and snatch her niece up, and spirit her away with him. Clarice chaffed under this restraint. She was, at heart, willing and even glad to do as her elders told her.
But not when their conditions were unreasonable.
Or just plain ridiculous.
She tried seeing from her aunt's point of view, but by the end of the week, she could no longer stand it. The case was once again presented by its teenage advocate to the uneasy judge; and even in the midst of refusal, the young lawyer stubbornly refused to back down.
The Count was well known – surely he would not risk scandal by putting a falsehood before her, or endangering her life for the sake of one of his whims. The offer had stated no obligations or underhanded clauses – she would do as she had been asked, and nothing else. Furthermore, the shop would be saved, they would be rid of Mme. Toussaint, their troubles would end therein.
Clarice was an unusual girl.
She had a very deep stubborn streak.
And in the end, Jacqueline gave her reluctant consent – a letter of consent to fulfill the Count d'Auberie's offer was sent, and a reply came not four days after that. Clarice's acceptance was vastly appreciated; she was awaited at the Château de Rêves.
But the situation took an unexpected turn when Felix returned from his long absence the evening before Clarice was to depart.
* * *
The dinner table was very quiet. Felix did not have much to say to either his wife or his niece after going on for quite a while about his business dealings, Jacqueline was her normal quite self, and Clarice had learned long before that she had best simply be silent in such a setting. If she said too much, chances were that one of the words out of her mouth would either earn her a sound lecture or her uncle's anger. Therefore, she remained silent, and – finally – she stood and excused herself.
Jacqueline was going to tell him.
As was quite apparent, neither Clarice nor her uncle had a very high regard for one another, and Clarice knew enough about him to predict one thing: Felix would never let her leave the manor, especially if he wouldn't make money off of her departure in some way. Whether or not her acceptance of the Count's offer would raise questions in the minds of those around them, Felix would not care.
But he would never let her leave.
So she ran to her room.
As she was to be making the journey to the Count's fortress on horseback, she couldn't take many of her possessions with her. Hastily, she packed whatever she could fit into her small canvas pack: her book with the beginnings of the Elven princess's story, her sketching paper, drawing utensils, and the books that her parents had left her as an inheritance. She glanced at the closed door of her room then, her green eyes worried and tense. If Felix tried to stop her…
Throwing her pack onto the bed nearby, she then stepped over to her wardrobe. She was wearing a simple gray dress that day; over it went a sturdy woolen skirt and full-length coat that covered all her other clothing, and then her cloak and scarf, and gloves. Smooth, knee-high leather boots replaced her thin-soled slippers, which would little avail her in the way of warmth once she was out in the cool nighttime air of spring, with two pairs of long woolen stockings underneath them.
This isn't going to impress Monseigneur le Comte…
Clarice shook her head, banishing this thought from her mind.
Hardly anyone was inclined to pay the slightest attention to sixteen-year-old girls, especially if they were without any sort of title and orphaned to the bargain. However, there was the problem of her traveling alone. Perhaps if she tried to stay away from the main roads and made her journey mainly at night, she would go unnoticed.
Perhaps.
"I'll look like a true wraith by the time this is over."
She stepped back over to the bed, scooped up her pack and slung it over one shoulder, then turned back at the door to survey the space that had been her refuge, her room, for what looked to be the last time in a very long while.
The tall, wide-open gables of windows that filled up almost every inch of space on the walls of the room let in the clear, cold stream of moonlight, shedding both light and shadow onto every surface about. There was her bed, with its soft, well-worn quilt and reassuring, smooth pillow, upon which her head had rested for so many thoughtful, silent nights as she had dreamed the hours away. There was the wardrobe, with her simple, unassuming gowns within; there was the bedside table, the chest at the foot of the bed.
This had been her life.
"But no more."
At least for the next six months or so.
She turned away then – for the last time – and slipped out the door. Her progress outdoors and to the modest stable where their five horses were kept went unmarked. The young gelding that she had chosen for her companion on the journey had been counted as hers for a long time; he would not be missed. His name was Archimedes and, although he was somewhat inclined to be a bit skittish, he was a good mount. With him, she would somehow reach the Château de Rêves.
The horses stirred a bit in their stalls when the stable doors were pushed slowly and laboriously open, a small, dark figure issuing in through them.
Archimedes started back, pulling on his rope-halter nervously, rolling his eyes so that their whites began to show, and Clarice had to quickly move to his side so that he would not take too much of a fright.
Quieting him took her a moment or two, but in the end, she managed to finally get the horse saddled and ready to go. She led him out of the stable and then glanced towards the house, inhaling deeply, holding her breath in apprehension.
Now…or never.
She mounted, slinging the pack onto her shoulder blades, and gave the horse a little nudge in the sides. Archimedes needed no great urging; he sensed from his petite mistress's air that something was going on, and that was enough – they went galloping out of the courtyard, gravel flying from beneath the horse's clipping hooves, Clarice's long, silky dark hair streaming out behind her.
By the time that Felix came dashing out the front door, shouting, "No – Clarice! I forbid it!" she was almost out of hearing range, and into the night.
* * *
Mme. Adele Colbert – the chief housekeeper and head cook of the Count d'Auberie's Château de Rêves – was occupied with her embroidery work, sitting in a rocking chair in one corner of the cavernous kitchen that was part of the castle, as maids and footmen and butlers and stable-boys and many, many others swarmed around her on their own business.
It was a typical day in the Château de Rêves; everyone was going about their normal duties, and the atmosphere was one of peace and contented quiet.
The Count had not yet summoned her for anything that day, and so she was quite all right with staying where she was. From time to time, she would look up and make sure that the two newest kitchen maids – Sylvie and Margot – were attending to the soup for lunch that they were supposed to be watching over the fire, instead of whispering and tittering to each other.
Mme. Colbert was a warm, motherly woman of an age somewhere betwixt forty and fifty-five, which was surprising for that day and age. She was married to the chief butler, M. Jean-Pierre Colbert, and together they had a family of twelve happy, pink-cheeked children ranging in age from twenty-four to five.
This, of course, had made her a very easy-going and kind lady, but there was no excuse – to her – for wasting time gossiping and frittering about.
Hence, she kept a good watch on the two girls.
At length, she looked up again from her sewing; this time, to check the progress of the mid-morning sun across the sky. It was a cool, unassuming spring day, and the sky was painted in a marriage of misty gray clouds and pale orange sun, with the sharp, almost black tips of the forest trees piecing into the pastel void above themselves.
It wasn't an unpleasant day, but it might very well turn into one, knowing the unpredictable patterns of the weather in the mountainous regions that the Château de Rêves was located in. Mme. Colbert suppressed a shudder at the thought of being out somewhere in the forest that day, should a sudden storm come up.
And then, suddenly, there was a knock on the door that led out of the kitchen and into the gardens beyond it.
It was a weak, almost despairing knock: a knock that sounded as if the hand that had made it was rapidly losing both strength and hope, as if that hand's owner did not honestly believe that anyone was about to hear and answer.
Mme. Colbert swiftly got up, pushing these premonitions out of her matronly, practical mind, and bustled across the room in her proper, no-nonsense way, and opened the door. The sight that greeted her was an unsettling one.
A petite, slender girl with a wealth of thick, ebony-black hair that cascaded down her back and around her sagging shoulders, 'til it almost reached her waist, and a pair of large, startlingly green eyes that looked at her bemusedly stood there. She was very pale, and her eyes had dark rings around them, adding to the ghastly pallor of her skin; she looked dead-tired, and her clothes were quite ragged. Behind her, on the gravel walk, stood a sleek young gray gelding, its neck bowed and drooping.
Before Mme. Colbert could say anything, the girl spoke. Her voice was soft and musical, and reminded the housekeeper of silver, of autumn, and smoke.
"Is this…le Château de Rêves?" she ventured.
Mme. Colbert nodded, gazing at her in wonder and pitying horror. What circumstances had brought the poor child to the expansive, lonely grounds of the chateau, and in such condition?
"Yes – yes, indeed, it is."
The girl's expression and whole demeanor seemed to relax, as if Mme. Colbert's words had just relieved her of some great, pressing burden.
"Oh – thank goodness."
And suddenly, she slumped forward – eyes slipping closed in a deep swoon – and all colour left her complexion.
* * *
I made it…I'm here.
Clarice's mind was filled with relief and then a great blank void, gray and enveloping and completely numbing. She vaguely heard herself saying, "Oh – thank goodness," and then she felt herself falling…falling.
But arms – strong, encircling, masculine arms – came around her and she heard the motherly-looking housekeeper's gasp and horrified exclamation, as if from a great distance off, and then a reply—
"She's ill with exhaustion. We must get her inside."
And from there, she remembered nothing.
Her mind dulled, and everything went black.
* * *
A/N: And provided that my writer's block doesn't interfere too much, I will have a new chapter or two (or more…as some well know, I don't mess around when it comes to updates) up soon. As for now, review and tell me what you think of things now. @{--------
