in her body, before she missed her courses or had any other physical sign. She tried to imagine how her child would look, and could only picture a smaller, rounder Henri, thick brown hair matted to his forehead, endearing snub nose, wide blue eyes surrounded by lashes dense and long as summer grass, an enticingly plump lower lip. If she was not pregnant—she could not think of that now. It was out of her control for the time being. To think of her own doom was just as dangerous as thinking the opposite. She had survived so far by living moment to moment to moment. She should think on the present.
She sat cross-legged on the bed and ate another slice of pear, then a fragment of cheese. She could feel the stretch in her leg muscles from her afternoon exertions. Her quim throbbed pleasantly, deep within. It had been a long time since she’d had sex. The duke did not seem to care if she became pregnant or not. A younger woman, and a more compliant one, would be infinitely more to his taste, and had been from the beginning of their marriage, over twenty years ago now. His ideal duchess would be a younger woman who never spoke and always smiled. No, Michel wouldn’t notice the smile if the woman kept her legs open.
How unfair, to die because you were not a man’s preferred toy. If he’d put her aside in favor of his concubines, even publicly, she might have endured, holding on to her dignity as the only blood heir to the duchy. Her people would have blamed the duke, not her. That was likely what he feared would happen, should she be both out of his favor and alive. Even though he ruled, he had not been born in the duchy. Her people would remember. They accepted him now, as he’d been crowned by her father. What would happen if Camille repudiated him? Of course, she could not do so while trapped within her suite of rooms. He could find her too easily, and close her mouth by opening her throat. She had already embarked on the safer course of convincing him he’d achieved the heir he needed to consolidate his position.
She lifted her hair in front of her shoulder and fell back onto her coverlet. The tasseled golden ropes binding back the curtains could symbolize her bondage here in the palace. Perhaps she should have insisted that Henri take her here, but he’d been so afraid, and so defiant of his fear, that she had done what he asked. It had been a small thing. He was doing her bidding, after all. She refused to remember her small moments of fear, when she’d thought she would not be able to convince him to take her.
He had surpassed her expectations. There was something to be said for vigor and enthusiasm when accomplishing a difficult task. Being fucked over a bench had been unexpected. Caught up in sensation for which she had not planned, for long moments she’d been unaware of her surroundings, lost in the intensity of being fucked by a partner whom she could not see.
If Henri had been the duke, she would have wanted to keep an eye on him. She would have been unable to relax even a fraction. As it had happened…she had been surprised by her own response. Perhaps because she had known she could stop Henri at any moment she chose? The duke’s threats had always been present in the back of her mind, but for those moments with Henri, she had taken something for herself. How much risk would there be in summoning him again? It might take several tries before he impregnated her. If he failed, would she be able to remain hopeful, and find another potential sire?
Soon, she’d be expected to give herself to the duke. His pleasure would be at issue, and her life.
Until then, she had only herself to please. She lifted her hand and ran it down her belly, pressing in lightly with her nail, then sliding her fingertip between the folds of her quim. She circled her bud, then pressed in. She twitched inside, as if in residual orgasm. She still had life in her, even after what had gone before. She rubbed herself again, sliding her other hand to join the first, using that one to massage her outer lips, pressing into the finger on her bud. Her arousal rose and spread slowly, like golden light. She thought of riding, she and her bay mare Guirlande cresting a ridge near the east boundary just as the sun vaulted over the hills, her groom and guards far outdistanced for a moment alone, a moment of peace.
She trembled into climax, each gentle spasm flooding her with another liquid wash of delight. When it was over, she slipped beneath her coverlet and linens, curled on her side with her knees drawn up, and coasted into a deep, satisfying sleep.
“Your Grace.”
Camille blinked and stared up at the duke’s chamber servant, Vilmos. He wore his usual blue livery trimmed in gold, and carried one of her heavy silk robes over one folded arm. His thick neck, pale hair and heavy features could give the impression of stupidity, though she knew he was crafty and perhaps more intelligent than his master the duke. His eyelids always looked sleepy and full; she could never tell what he was thinking, or how far his loyalty extended. Presumably the duke did not fear him, or he would never allow him into his bedchamber. If she were the duke, she would be more cautious.
Camille swallowed and said, with as much alertness as she could muster, “Where is His Grace the duke?”
“He is waiting for you below,” Vilmos intoned. “I am to bring you and your escort.”
So she was to be summoned like one of his concubines. Again. Vilmos would ensure she did not refuse. “I am ready.”
He held out her necklace and earrings and waited while she put them on, then wrapped her impersonally in the red silk robe, knelt and inserted her feet into embroidered slippers, and led her through her rooms. Camille took a moment to be grateful that she wasn’t being taken to the duke naked, as she had been on other occasions. She suspected that had been the order, but Vilmos had given her the robe for his own private purpose. She wondered what that meant about his relationship to her husband. Could Vilmos, perhaps, be coerced to her side? And if so, what would be the best advantage she could gain?
She glanced at Vilmos, but he appeared lost in his own thoughts. She knew the game of conspiracy, from her youth in the court of the king, but Vilmos showed no hint of it. She was building castles from sand. A single gesture of humanity did not mean Vilmos would betray her husband. Perhaps he merely pitied her as she grew older.
Kaspar and Arno awaited them in the corridor. Though their muscularity was less impressive than Vilmos’s due to their castration at a young age, they were of a height with him and she immediately felt less vulnerable.
She held her head high as they walked through opulent corridors, past the occasional courtier or footman or maid, and once past a courtier and a maid copulating in an alcove with enthusiastic gasps, at least until they noticed Vilmos’s steely gaze. Camille involuntarily stepped back against Kaspar as Vilmos shot out a meaty hand, seized the maid’s shoulders, and dragged her free of her petrified partner with an audible sucking sound. “You,” Vilmos addressed the man, one of the lesser land barons whom Camille affected not to recognize. “Leave.”
Grabbing at his trousers, the baron backed away, eyes fixed on Vilmos until he rounded a corner and scuttled off. Vilmos clamped one hand around the maid’s upper arm and with his other, tugged her gray dress and shift back down over her hips. “Marrine, you are late for your duties tonight,” he said reproachfully, and dragged her along with their procession. One of her husband’s concubines, Camille guessed. Marrine stood barely as tall as Vilmos’s elbow and was thin as a wraith except for her exuberant bosom. Straggles of violently red hair escaped her sober gray cap. A red suck-mark was clearly visible on her neck.
Camille hoped Marrine had not recognized her. Why should she? Minus her gown and cosmetics, with her hair pouring down her back and Kaspar’s and Arno’s protective bulks blocking her view? Then again, why should she care? That would be less embarrassing than being shamed by her own husband. She didn’t doubt the whole palace knew the duke’s proclivities. The courtiers seemed to remain loyal to him despite how he treated his duchess. Perhaps it was simply easier to do so. If she had not rebelled, why should they? And how many of them knew for a fact how she’d been treated? If they were wise, they
