AN: This chapter took place in 'alternate' RoV, with 'real' Andre in it…
Chapter 6 .
"There's something you have to know. Rose is not your biological daughter," said Oscar.
She looked at him in the eyes. For some strange reasons she felt guilty telling him this, which did not make sense, because Andre knew Rose wasn't really his child. He just did not remember.
"She's not… mine?" he said shockingly. "So you… I mean… you did… what?"
Oscar raised her eyebrows. Andre's face was red and he looked really upset. And suddenly she realized what he must've thought and she blushed furiously. "No! No, no, no, no… That's not what I meant! I mean… how could you insinuate something like that!"
Andre let out a nervous laugh. "I… don't know what to think. You said she wasn't mine, so—"
"I meant she was adopted!" she said in high pitch voice she didn't recognize.
"Oh…"
"Yes, oh!" Oscar was more than annoyed. She was pissed. How could he! If there's one person who slept out of wedlock with another, it certainly wasn't her.
"I'm… I'm sorry… I shouldn't…" Andre stumbled for words, "I'm sorry... Oscar… the whole situation is quite confusing for me. I don't even know who I am and why I'm here… I thought… I'm sorry…"
Oscar took a few deep breaths. Okay, she wasn't that inconsiderate. She had to remind herself that he was unwell, he did not remember anything. Not that he didn't deserve that; hitting a bar and made out with some random woman when he was married to her, yes he deserved a full blown punch on the head. But it's not like he could not do that… afterall, they had their agreement.
"I think I have to explain to you our… situation," Oscar finally said.
Andre looked at her questioningly.
"It all happened five years ago…"
(flashback)
Oscar was walking through the corridor in Jarjayes Palace in furry. Impossible! Her father has gone too far now. How could he do this! What's the meaning of all the years of military training, addressing her as a male-heir, facing the world as a man, presented herself as a he and denounce her feminine nature? Now he wanted her to become a woman! As if it was as easy as changing clothes!
She had learned everything perfectly. She had been an excellent officer, a promising military personage. She had done her duty to the throne and family. But now her father wanted her to marry and give birth to an heir! It was beyond everything she could comprehend.
Oscar turned to the stable and without minding the stable man, she jumped onto her horse and galloped through.
Hotel de Bourgogne in Versailles was one of the most magnificent buildings in the area. She let one of the servants mount her horse and a footman announced her arrival. She took off her cloak and sword and gave it to a servant. The footman came back and led her to the room she knew so well, a small library with a fire place. Andre was sitting with a book on his lap. He only wore a simple white muslin shirt, culottes with silk white stockings and a pair of black shoes with silver buckles.
"Brigadier de Jarjayes," he stood up and gave her his famous smile. "To what do I owe you a visit?"
"The sun has not even set, Belfort. You already intent to drink yourself into oblivion?" Oscar points to the bottles of wine on the table with her eyes.
"I need those, ma amie, to calm some nerves."
Oscar smirked. "You just lost another wager?"
"Lost another wager! I'm telling you, Jarjayes, our society, our culture is robbing us. One cannot go to one place without being socially obliged to play vingt-en-un or picquet or quadrilles. And I am invited to at least two card games in a week. What can a man do?"
Oscar rolled her eyes. This was her friend whom she knew since both of them enrolled to military academy. At the age of twenty-eight, he had earned the reputation as a charming debauchee and notorious libertine. Her light-hearted, easy going go to guy, Andre Grandier de Bourgogne, Comte de Belfort.
One would wonder why the serious and virtuous Colonel de Jarjayes would befriend such a man. But Andre was so different from her that she needed him around to balance her life.
"How much you lost?"
"More like how much I have accumulated so far," said Andre defensively.
"How much?"
"Eight hundred…" said Andre slowly, Oscar raised her eyebrows, "…thousand livres."
Oscar looked at his friend in disgust. "Eight hundred thousand?! You could've bought a fleet with the money! Do you have any idea how serious the condition of our national budget is?"
"I…" Andre was at lost. "I honestly don't know how it got so out of control."
"You picked out the wrong friends to hang out with," said Oscar, arms crossed on her chest. "How will you get out of this mess now?"
Andre pressed both of his hands on his face. "My father will pay," he said quietly.
Oscar gave him the look of disdain. As much as he liked him, her friend sometimes acted worse than a five years old kid.
"However, the old man would not give me a free pass. He wanted me to get married or no money."
Oscar whistled. She knew Comte de Bourgogne had pressured his son to marry for years. With this new circumstance, he might finally succeed to attach this lifetime playboy to a wife. Oscar could not help feeling pity to the wife.
"Now, enough about me. For you to come here, without sending a page prior, there must be something urgent, no?" said Andre. He poured some wine into a glass and offered it to Oscar, who sipped it off immediately. He wasn't the only one who needed drinks.
"My father wants to marry me off."
Andre choked on his drink. He was just about to sit back on his seat but he was so startled, he spilled on his shirt. He grunted, annoyed. Oscar pulled out her handkerchief and casually dabbed it onto his spoilt shirt.
Andre took the handkerchief from her hand and wiped his shirt himself as he seated. "What on earth! He wanted you to marry a gentleman or a maiden?"
Oscar looked insulted. "Very funny, Belfort."
"But seriously. He really wants you to get married? But why now?"
Oscar gulped the wine straight from the bottle then threw herself on the couch. "He said he wanted me to bear an heir to continue the family's line. Like hell I will! One of my sisters' sons could be his heir!"
Andre shook his head. "To whom he wishes you to be married?"
Oscar mumbled a name.
"Who?" Andre bent his body forward to listen better.
"I said Major de Girodelle," Oscar spat and then blushed.
For a moment, Andre was just staring at her with open mouth. "You mean Florian de Girodelle?" Andre asked incredulously. "The same Florian de Girodelle that used to cry because of our pranks?"
Oscar did not answer and took a gulp from the bottle again.
"My dear Oscar, he must've wanted to avenge you!" the man laughed, earning deadly glare from Oscar. "Why on earth Florian de Girodelle wanted you, of all men and women, to be your wife." But as abruptly he stopped and suddenly a devilish idea came to his mind.
"I do not like that look," Oscar warned him.
Andre grinned; he stood up to take a seat beside Oscar's. "Look Oscar, it's a win-win situation: a way out for both of us."
"Look, Andre, you know I love you like a brother. But never in a million years do I want to marry you."
Andre looked hurt. "Would you rather marry Florian de Girodelle?"
Oscar shuddered with the thought.
"Do you have anyone in mind you want to marry?"
Oscar was silent. She did have someone close to her heart for years now, a certain Swedish nobleman who was very much in love with the queen of France. However, she wasn't sure if she wanted to marry him.
"Do you think it was a coincidence that mon cher père, has demanded the same thing from me this very morning? It is fate, Oscar, you and I."
Oscar shook her head violently. "Do you realize what you were saying? I am not going to be your jackpot ticket. No."
"I'm serious. We know that marriage is a contract that will benefit both families. Now let's discuss a contract that will benefit our own interests. Now tell me Oscar, do you want to get married, I mean, not to me, but do you want to get married like… ever?"
"I am not having this conversation with you."
"Do you want to be little Comtesse de whatever, having people over to your salon every week, wearing fancy dress to a ball every other night, bearing children to your husband's name? Think about it, Oscar." Andre put his arm around Oscar and squeezed her arm lightly. "What I am offering you is freedom… I can make you a countess, if that's what you prefer. But, I can also let you be the way you are. You can continue being Colonel de Jarjayes and giving orders to men. Your freedom, ma chère… for mine."
Oscar freed herself from Andre. "You are crazy if you think I would accept your gambling habit if," she emphasized the last word, "…I agree to marry you. You would make both of us broke."
"Non, non…" Andre shook his head. "I have given my words of honor to my father that I will not bet on anything anymore; no matter how much Comte d'Artois tried to persuade me." He grinned. "Now Oscar, you and I are alike, we value our independence. You like being a man, an heir, a military officer… you like the freedom your position gives you: you are not a docile, you order men instead of obey, hell, you can challenge a man for a duel if he offends you. You are no damsel in distress, ma amie, you're the knight."
Andre smiled at her warmly. "I, on the other hand, am not a man to be tied. I cannot commit myself to a 15-16-years-old, fresh-from-convent virgin. I will only bring misery to that girl and a gentleman would try to save her from her sorrow and I would have to challenge him for a duel for offending my honor. And I dislike the hassle. I'm a free man and I like being free. And you, Oscar, after 27 years of being the heir of Jarjayes, are you willing to fulfill your 'womanly duty'? Tie yourself to a man and bend to his wishes?"
Oscar bit her lower lip. She did not say a word, so Andre continued.
"I will not ask you to do anything you do not want. I expect you will do the same about me. If you distrust me with your money, and believe me you are wise to do so, we'll separate our wealth and fortune on our marriage contract. We are both free from conjugal duties and so we are free to seek love elsewhere, in discreet of course, I will not harm your reputation and you will not drag me into unwanted duel. In short, we could continue being who we are, doing whatever we want like nothing happened. The only difference would be your residence, but Oscar, you know this house as well as I do. At least consider it, Oscar. I am your damsel in distress, ma chère; you could be my knight and save me." Andre smiled pleadingly.
(end of flashback)
"We shammed a marriage to get me out of debt and enable you to live as a man?" Andre looked at her in horror and it made Oscar uneasy. But it was his idea. Yes, she had her share but it was still his idea, he did not have right to make her feel like she was committing dishonorable act. If she had doubts before, now she was sure something was seriously wrong with Andre, he even sounded almost... virtuous.
"So how did Rose come to live with us?" he asked again.
Oscar was playing with the trim of her dress nervously. "You might not remember the girl, Rosalie, years ago I took her into my house…"
"Rose was Rosalie's daughter? What happened to her?"
"You remember Rosalie?" Oscar was surprised.
Her question caught him by surprise. "I think… I thought the girl lives with Bernard in Paris now?"
Oscar knitted her eyebrows. "You mean Bernard the Black Knight? Where did you get that idea? Rosalie was in my house for months before she found out she was the long lost daughter of Duchesse de Polignac. The Polignacs adopted her and made her their legitimate daughter then married her off to Duc de Guiche," Oscar said in bitter tone. She still could not forgive herself for letting Rosalie being blackmailed into obedient daughter to save Oscar from the duchess' deadly attack. "She… Rosalie died in childbirth. So we took her baby to live with us."
Andre was stunned. "Rosalie is… dead? And Rose's father just agreed we took her?"
Oscar rolled her eyes, remembering the same conversation she had with Andre three years ago. "The duke will marry another maiden to bear him heir. A daughter will not have much use to him."
Andre seemed to contemplate what he had just heard. After all, there were many things his mind needed to proceed.
Oscar put her hand on Andre's and squeezed reassuringly. "We have rather unusual… relationship. But we are happy, Rose is happy."
Andre put his other hand on Oscar's. "I used to think nothing is worse than marrying someone you don't love. But now I don't know which one is worse, that or marrying someone you love but does not love you in return."
oOo .
Oscar stood by the window as she watched Andre departed to French Guards headquarters by carriage. As soon as he was out of her sight, she instructed her chambermaid to enter her bedroom and help her change. She was going to wear her old clothes, a man's clothes. There's something about Andre that made her uneasy. Amnesia was one thing, but she's almost convinced that this man was someone else.
When Florian de Girodelle came with his men and unconscious Andre to de Bourgogne's residence in Passy, he had told her that Andre was with a woman that night, probably in hope that she would open her eyes and see what kind of man whom she was married to. But Oscar knew, expected even, that Andre had mistresses. After all, that was one of the conditions of their version of marriage contract.
Sadly, that did not change the fact that she felt stab on her heart when she learned about the woman. She should have known that any crazy plan orchestrated by Andre de Bourgogne was going to end up in disaster.
Never in a million years would she admit to anyone that this infamous libertine had charmed his way into her heart, not as a friend or a brother like he used to, but something more. She was convinced though, that Andre did not feel anything other than brotherly affection towards her. So when last night Andre told her in the eyes that nothing was worse than 'marrying someone you love but does not love you in return', she had to make sure whatever doubt she had about this new Andre. She had to find out what really happened that night in the bar. She had to find the woman; the last person who was with him before he passed out and the only missing witness. She would be knocking on every door in Paris if she had to.
tbc .
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AN: Sooo… I'm sorry I killed Rosalie. The real Duc de Guiche was indeed married to Polignacs' daughter, Aglae de Polignac, when she was only 12, the groom was 24.
