Contents
The Bishop's Lady (short story)
A Soupçon of Poison (novella)
-Chapter One
-Chapter Two
-Chapter Three
-Chapter Four
-Chapter Five
-Chapter Six
-Chapter Seven
-Chapter Eight
-Chapter Nine
-Chapter Ten
-Chapter Eleven
A Matter of Honor (short story)
Author's Note
The Hanover Square Affair--Excerpt
Mysteries by Ashley Gardner on Kindle
About the Author
Copyright
The Bishop’s Lady
by Ashley Gardner
An Émilie d’Armand mystery
Paris, 1679
The Poullard hôtel did much to dispel my misgivings about returning to Paris. I had not been to the city often since my husband’s death—the memories of creditors and the police assaulted me at every turn. But when my friend Aimee’s carriage bore me through a gateway into the majestic courtyard of her father’s home, and I spied the line of footmen waiting to assist me down, I realized how very different this visit to Paris would be.
Red-haired Aimee Poullard, with whom I shared a cramped bed at Versailles where we were ladies-in-waiting to the queen of France, met me in the elegant chamber that was to be my own for a fortnight. The chamber held a bed large enough for four, a gilded cupboard for my meager wardrobe, and not one, but three real chairs with cushions. At court, I was allowed to sit on nothing but stools, and then only when a senior lady was not present. I imagined I’d spend much of my visit hopping from chair to chair to chair, reveling in my luxury.
Aimee and I embraced as though we hadn’t seen each other for months instead of only a few days. She’d gained a leave of absence to return home for a visit to her family, and remarkably, had obtained permission for me to stay with her. Aimee, for all her flightiness, was a favorite of the queen and had learned how to pry any favor she wanted out of Marie-Therese. It also did not hurt that her father was rich, not to mention loudly loyal to Louis of France.
Aimee released me and reclined in one of the damask-upholstered chairs to watch my maid Beatrice help me unpack.
“This was Angél’s room,” Aimee said, waving a languid hand at the portrait over the fireplace.
A young woman with doe-like eyes gazed down at us from a painting that had been competently though not brilliantly done. She had light brown curls arranged in a style of five years ago, which trickled over a bodice that was cream-colored and virginal.
“She was married to my brother, Renaud,” Aimee went on. “One evening, we found her dead at the bottom of the staircase.”
I thought of the steep and creaking staircase I’d traversed to reach this room and suppressed a shiver. A tumble from it would doubtless kill anyone. I had a sudden and unnerving vision of the lovely young woman lying broken on the slates three floors below, her hair splaying over her lifeless face.
The morbid image dissolved as Aimee came off the chair to crush me in another perfume-and-satin scented hug. “I am so glad you’ve come, Émilie. I will show you the Paris your husband never let you see. I promise you myriad delights.” She kissed my cheek, flashed me a dimpled smile, then left me alone.
Beatrice, who shared my vivid imagination, gazed up at Angél’s portrait in worry. When she caught my eye, she gulped, crossed herself, and began to frantically stuff my gowns into the cupboard.
Beatrice was not a good maid, but she was steadfast and loyal, and best of all, cheap. My husband, Marcel D’Armand, had left me with next to nothing, and at the moment, I lived upon the charity of Madame de Montespan, the Sun King’s former mistress. Though I nominally worked for the queen, it was Montespan I needed to keep happy. She was not pleased that I’d wanted to leave for two weeks, but she had grudgingly conceded to let me go. The queen had given permission, and Montespan wouldn’t risk annoying the king by defying her.
Montespan let others believe she liked having me about because of my shrewd observations of members of the court, but the truth was that I knew things she was keen to keep secret. I was not proud of my hold over her, but when one’s husband dies in scandalous circumstances, leaving his wife destitute and facing life on the streets or in prison, one does whatever one must to survive. Marcel had been a reckless gambler, but whenever he’d won, he’d taken not only money but knowledge as payment. Thus, though he’d not left me a sou, I’d found some very interesting notes among his meager belongings.
Beatrice dressed me for supper in a pale silk gown whose bodice bared my neck and top of my bosom, and placed each of my dark curls across my shoulders with care. When a servant came to fetch me, I followed him to the perilous staircase. The footman, adolescent and agile, skimmed his way down and disappeared into the hall, while I gripped the banister and shuffled along in my high-heeled slippers.
I wondered if Angél had been hurrying down to supper, as I was now, when she’d slipped on the polished wood and lost her footing in her awkward shoes. I stopped, clutched the rail, and squeezed my eyes shut.
When I opened them again, a man in red velvets was striding into the empty passage below. Candlelight flared on a gold crucifix studded with gems that hung against his chest, and on fiery hair that was the same color as Aimee’s. He moved like a young man, and when he turned to look upward, I saw that his handsome face was unlined, his eyes sharp and glittering.
He caught sight of me and halted, his lips parting in shock. He stood fixed in place for a long moment, then he said, very softly, “Angél?”
I didn’t move, uncertain I’d heard correctly. The man studied me for a few moments of silence, then, with the impatience of one who disliked waiting for anything, put his foot on the bottom stair and started for me.
I quickly descended a few steps until I was in the candlelight. “No. It is Madame D’Armand, Aimee’s friend.”
The man stopped. Color flooded his face, his eyes flashing with rage, then I saw him carefully mask all emotion, leaving his expression as blank as parchment.
“I beg your pardon, Madame,” he said, his voice abruptly neutral. “Shall we go in to supper?”
He waited for me to reach him, then he escorted me through the echoing house, his face shuttered, his blue eyes cool.
The Poullard family had already gathered in the supper room by the time I and my velvet-clad escort reached it. Monsieur Pollard, a square-faced, solemn man in a long black wig, took his place at the head of the table. Aimee’s brother, Renaud, a staid young man with red hair—the one who’d been married to Angél—sat on his right. Renaud’s second wife, Mathilde, looked steady enough—rotund and sensible—the sort of woman who would never tumble carelessly down the stairs to her death.
Aimee’s oldest brother, Michel, looked much like the younger, and he too had married a solid, sensible wife called Léonore. Madame Poullard, Aimee’s mother, rounded out the slow placidity of the family.
The only color at the table came from the vivacious Aimee and my gentleman in red velvets. I learned he was Aimee’s cousin, Jacques de Sansard, the Bishop of Renne. He was only a few years over thirty, and in his hard eyes I spied the restless ambition that had lifted him to an important position at such a young age.
Ruby and sapphire rings flashed on his gloves as he spoke, and the family hung on his words. He included me in his conversation with easy courtesy, behaving as though our encounter on the stairs had never occurred.
After the meal, Aimee declared to her mother that she would take me to the salon of a redoubtable matron where the talk would be of moral plays. This surprised me, because Aimee’s interest in moral plays about equale
d her interest in plain boiled mutton. Once out of sight of her father’s hôtel, however, Aimee bribed the coachman to silence—he seemed used to the procedure—and dragged me into a world of glittering decadence.
The fourteenth king Louis had reached middle age and life at court had grown a bit dull, but in Paris, the nobles still entertained themselves like spoilt and mischievous children. I had never seen this world of colorful salons, bright coins discretely changing hands, ladies and gentlemen promising sin with mere glances, but I knew my philandering husband had.
As Aimee whirled me from house to house, and I played the banned card game of brelans and ate ices and drank wine, I realized that Marcel had lived this life while I’d shivered in our rundown house wondering what I’d do when the next creditor banged on the door.
“I hope the fires are hot, Marcel,” I muttered as I drained another goblet of wine.
“I beg your pardon, Madame?” the gentleman at my side at the brelans table asked. He put a hand on my waist. I tapped his arm with my fan and told him, with a smile, to behave himself.
The dancing, gaming, and flirting went on, but I was cautious by habit and stopped myself long before the night was over. I’d half expected one of the houses to be raided by the Paris police, led by one Pierre Marchand, a man wanting to rise in the world, who always thought me up to no good. Unfortunately, at times, he was right.
I’d learned that Monsieur Marchand had eleven children, which made me believe his struggle to rise through the ranks could not be an easy one. I once told him that a man bringing eleven children into the world ought to arrest himself. This was the first—and the only—time I had seen him smile.
I’d lost Aimee hours before, but I knew from experience she would turn up smiling and rosy and whisper to me of the gentleman or two she had conquered. I sent for Aimee’s coach and instructed the coachman to take me to the Poullard house. He could return for Aimee while I put my already aching head to bed.
As the carriage rolled through a quiet avenue, a man staggered out of a side street and fell in front of the coach.
The coachman cursed, horses snorted, and the carriage careened sideways. I caught myself before I slid from the seat, then as the carriage rocked to a halt, I let down the window and peered out to see if the man had been hurt.
Below me on the drizzle-soaked cobbles, a man in red robes climbed to his feet and braced himself on the coach’s wheel.
“Your Grace?” I asked in astonishment.
Jacques de Sansard looked up at me. His velvets were rumpled, his hair disheveled. His crucifix scattered blue radiance as it swung back and forth, the coach’s light catching on the sapphires.
I opened the door. “You’d better get in.”
The footman, recognizing the bishop, hopped from his perch and assisted him into the coach. The bishop collapsed onto the seat opposite me and lay against the cushions, breathing heavily. The footman slammed the door and the coach lurched onward.
“Your Grace,” I said, keeping my voice soft.
He raised his head. As he had in the stairwell, he started then went still, his expression anguished. The next moment, he’d slid from the seat to his knees and buried his face in my lap. He grasped my hands with gloved fingers, and warm lips touched the inside of my wrist.
“Angél. You’ve come back to me.”
I brushed back his sleek hair, my compassion stirring for this proud man who obviously grieved deeply. Jacques pressed a long kiss to my belly then, after a time, knelt back and looked up at me.
Uncertainty darkened his eyes. “You are not Angél.”
“No. It’s Émilie. I am sorry.”
The bishop rested there, his hands on my skirts, as though not wanting to acknowledge his mistake, or to give up his vision.
“You loved her,” I said gently.
A defiant blue sparkle worked through the confusion in his eyes. “I ought to be ashamed. But I am not.”
I waited. In a moment, he went on. “Angél had nothing. I gave her all I could, but I could not give her the protection of my name. But my cousin Renaud needed a wife. I knew he would be good to her in his own way.” The bishop’s grip on my skirts tightened. “She was my life.”
“Did you kill her?” I asked. In my experience, men who loved with passion often were the first the police turned to when the object of that love was killed.
The bishop straightened abruptly. “I loved her. I would never have hurt her.” He levered himself from the floor and back onto his seat. “Why do you say killed her? It was an accident. She fell.”
“Were you in the house when she died?” I asked, wondering how much he truly knew of what happened.
The bishop shook his head, tears shining on his face. “I was away. Madame Poullard wrote to me.”
“I am sorry,” I said again. He was hurting, this man, who could trust no one in his world of power and backbiting intrigue.
The bishop gave a negligent wave of his gloved hand. “It is no matter, Madame. I am not myself. I cannot think why I mistook you for …”
“You are befuddled with wine, Monsieur. As you said, not yourself.”
My words seemed to relieve him. The bishop pulled out a handkerchief and sniffled into it, then he turned his face to the window and did not speak the rest of the way to the hôtel.
When Beatrice stripped my gown from me up in my chamber, I felt as though something heavy had been removed from my bones. Angel watched me from the wall, as though knowing I’d comforted her lover. Her smile was soft with gratitude.
Or so my wine-soaked thoughts told me. I crawled into the wide bed and slept deeply, and awoke with an aching head.
Aimee sent word next morning that she was ill—I could not wonder why—and would stay in bed all day. But the bishop had aroused my insatiable curiosity, and left on my own, I wandered the house, asking questions about Angél.
The servants responded readily enough, eager to impart the family tragedy.
“Right before my eyes, Madame,” a ruddy-faced housemaid told me. “Madame Renaud rolled over the railing, all limp, her skirts fluttering like a bird’s wings. Her head gave such a crack when she landed. I’ll never forget it. I saw the blood, and I screamed and ran for help. But too late, I knew it.”
The maid looked avid, not grieved, as though the death had happened to someone she hadn’t known. All the servants behaved that way, however. Angél had been pretty and quiet, never had a row with her husband, they said, but no one knew much about her.
Later that afternoon I stitched silk embroidery in a salon with Aimee’s oldest brother’s wife, Léonore. Like the servants, Léonore Poullard showed no hesitation in discussing Angél.
“She was a quiet girl,” Léonore said with a sniff. “Never said much for herself.”
“How sad that she died,” I responded, trying to sound polite and disinterested.
Léonore bit off a thread. “Indeed, it was sad. But accidents do happen. Renaud was able to marry Mathilde soon after, who is a much better wife to him. Angél was not suitable. I said as much to Jacques when he introduced them. I cannot know what Jacques was thinking.”
She had little more to add. Léonore reiterated how much the family preferred the stolid and dependable Mathilde then turned the conversation to other topics.
After supper that night, I played piquet with Léonore’s husband, Michel, a plump-faced man whose long black wig was a little too large for him. Michel also did not seem to find it unusual when I brought up the subject of Angél.
“She was a soft-spoken young woman.” He paused to write down points for himself—thirty before we’d even played a trick, such was my bad luck. “But too pretty. She drew attention to herself.”
I made the appropriate noise of sympathy for him having to witness such a thing. “You must have been shocked when she died.”
“No, no, not shocked. We were surprised, naturally, but truth to tell, she was not happy, and I have always wondered if she didn’t slip and fall on p
urpose. She was an odd creature and did not fit in with the rest of us.”
I laid down a card. Everything I’d learned of Angél today had been unenlightening—she hadn’t spoken much to the family, she hadn’t fit in, she was not missed.
But the handsome, lively bishop had loved her. She must have had something in her, something that these dull, staid people had missed, and that Jacques de Sansard had understood.
I glanced up and found Renaud, Angél’s husband, staring at me. I wondered if anyone could truly be as passionless as he appeared, and what kind of emotions, if any, lay behind his pale gaze.
I turned back to the game and found Michel also watching me, but in a different way. His gaze strayed to my décolletage, and his eyes betrayed his thoughts. I laid down another card, pretending not to notice.
Later, I drowsed in Angél’s bed, the opiate I’d taken for my headache rendering me limp and tired. I lay with eyes half-closed and mulled over the maid’s description of Angél’s death.
I was certain of one thing. If I had tumbled over that railing I would never have gone limp and fallen without a peep. I would have screamed and flailed, desperate to save myself.
That suggested several things. First, that Angél had done away with herself as Michel would like to believe. That she’d been unhappy living in this house, I could well believe, but on the other hand, she only had to put up with the family until her bishop, a wealthy, intelligent, and handsome man, could come to her. I had no doubt that any gentleman who could rise to power as rapidly as Jacques would have canny ways to meet the woman he loved with no one being the wiser.
But people killed themselves for all sorts of reasons. I still hadn’t made up my mind as to whether Angél had been truly happy.
Her death also might have been pure accident: Angél had fainted and fallen at a bad moment.
The third possibility was that someone had killed her. The upper hall was always badly lit, and the maid below might not have seen the person who’d pushed Angél to her death. Or Angél might have been killed elsewhere, and her body carried to the landing and dropped over.