“Commendable,” Charles replied, who couldn’t help but think that the handsome young prince might indeed be devoted to virgins, but probably not in the way presently under discussion.
“I was perhaps not listening closely at the presentation-but I do remember the priest saying that the bone inside the cross is a finger.”
Charles nodded.
“So one might pray here for-direction, shall we say? That the holy saint will point the way? To the speeding of one’s purposes?”
“Depending on the purposes you wish to speed, Your Serene Highness.”
“But of course.” Conti laughed and put a hand on Charles’s sleeve. “Are you always so righteous?” He squeezed Charles’s arm. “What a shame,” Conti sighed. “You might be very-ah-entertaining if you were a little more-unrighteous, shall we say?” He sauntered away, giving Charles a regretful glance over his shoulder as he went through the chapel door.
Charles’s hands twitched, and he had an unholy urge to throttle the man.
“Point him toward something he’ll trip over, Holy Virgin,” he suggested to St. Ursula, and went in search of Lulu.
He didn’t find her until the late-morning Mass, when he saw her in the train of courtiers gathering in the Hall of Mirrors to follow the king to the chapel. The gray day had taken the magic out of the Hall of Mirrors’ light, but the crowd had brought its own glitter in its bright, shimmering clothes and gold-set jewels. Lulu, dressed in gray silk and straw-yellow lace, seeming as quenched as the day’s light, stood beside a silver-potted orange tree, twisting one leaf after another from its branches. The king came from his counsel room, accompanied by the Polish ambassadors, and paced toward the chapel, everyone making a deep reverence to the royal presence and moving slowly after him. Louis glanced at Charles as he passed and gave him a slight nod of acknowledgment. Dismayed at being singled out, Charles belatedly whipped off his formal bonnet and bowed his head. And remained staring at the carpet. Had the king’s look meant that he knew of the plan to quiet Lulu, and approved? Among the many things Charles did not want, the attention of Louis XIV was high on the list.
He looked up just in time to step into the flood of courtiers behind Lulu and her women. When the king and his retinue, including La Chaise, turned aside to go up into the royal gallery facing the altar, Charles crowded into the nave with the rest and found an unobtrusive place to stand near a wall. The Mass began, but he was too taken up with deciding how to approach Lulu to do any better with his devotions than he had earlier. When the service ended, he jockeyed for position in the moving crowd, trying to keep the king’s daughter in sight. As he passed through the chapel door, fortune-or perhaps St. Ursula-smiled on him and Lulu dropped her prayer book, which slid on the shining marble floor and came to rest at his feet. Charles swooped on it, pretending not to notice that one of her women had bent to retrieve it, and straightened with it in his hand.
“Your Highness?” He stepped around the affronted attendant and bowed, holding out the prayer book. “Allow me to restore this to you.”
The girl’s pale, somber face lightened. “Oh, it’s you.” She nodded at the listening woman, who took the book from Charles. “Thank you, maître.” She hesitated and then said, “Will you walk with me?”
Surprised by the invitation, and even more surprised that it was given without coquetry, Charles nodded. As she gestured her women to make room for him to walk at her side, Charles saw that Anne-Marie, the Condé child, was among them, cuddling her little black dog. He smiled at her, somehow reassured by her presence, and fell into step with Lulu.
“Are you going to your dinner, Your Highness?” he asked.
“Not yet.” She sighed. “Shall we walk outside? The rain has stopped.”
“As you please.”
She led him to a door opening onto the gravel that led to the gardens. As he opened the door for her, she dismissed her women with a wave of her hand. The one carrying the prayer book started to object, but Lulu talked over her.
“Surely you can trust me with a cleric! Leave us. Not you, Anne-Marie, you may come.”
Gathering her gray skirts, Lulu swept through the door, and little Anne-Marie ran to keep up with her. Charles bowed gravely to the startled attendants, did his best to shut the door without seeming to close it in their faces, and followed. Lulu’s subdued quiet had vanished and she strode across the puddled gravel, indifferent to the little girl’s anxious warning of wet shoes and splattered hems. The vitality that made her seem twice as alive as other people swirled around her like a whirlwind. Feeling a little like a foolish chicken chasing a hungry fox, Charles caught up and kept pace with her. She flashed him a look, and in the harsher outdoor light he saw the shadows under her eyes and how pale she was.
“Aren’t you also going to tell me it’s too wet, that I should go in?”
“No.”
“Are you so eager to be alone with me, then? You weren’t yesterday.”
“We’re not alone. And no, I’m not eager to be alone with you.”
She spun to face him in a spray of water. “That is an insult!”
“I imagine you don’t often receive truthful answers.”
For a moment he thought she might slap him. Instead, she burst into tears and Anne-Marie looked reproachfully at him. Charles, certain that the tears were a ploy, said nothing. Lulu drew a small transparent handkerchief from the little bag hanging at her waist, wiped her eyes, burst into fresh sobs, and stumbled away from him along a garden path. Maybe not a ploy, Charles decided, and went after her, smiling reassuringly at Anne-Marie, who was at Lulu’s heels with a fresh handkerchief. Lulu stumbled again, and he caught her arm to keep her from falling. She mopped her face with the little girl’s handkerchief and stood catching her breath and staring down at the path. Charles thought she looked like a beautiful but bedraggled young bird, flown from the nest too soon and lost, and his heart suddenly went out to her.
“I would suggest we sit somewhere,” he said, “but it’s too wet.”
“You can go back,” she said drearily. “Anne-Marie and I will come to no harm here. You can tell my women where I am, if it makes you feel better. The old one will be hanging by the door still. She never wants me to have a moment away from her. Ever since this betrothal, I can hardly ever get away from my guards.” Her eyes slewed sideways to Charles. “But sometimes I used to.”
“Would you care to walk more, then? Instead of going back to your guards? It’s not quite the same as being alone, but you could pretend I’m a tree.” He grinned at the little girl. “Anne-Marie could be a bush.”
Anne-Marie eyed him. “And what would he be?” she said, holding up her dog.
“Um-still a dog, I think. Dogs are often better company than people. So you are alone, Your Highness, except for a tree, a bush, and a dog.”
Lulu was laughing in spite of herself. “You are nearly as tall as a tree.”
The three of them followed the path quietly, the dog running ahead. The sky was beginning to clear, and the day was promising the thick heat that followed summer rain. But the air was clean and sweet, and Charles was glad to be outdoors. They wandered for some minutes without speaking, Charles letting Lulu choose their direction. She turned aside beneath a rose arbor, and when they were all under it, she reached up and pulled at a tangle of branches, showering them with glistening raindrops. Anne-Marie shrieked and covered her little blue lace and ribbon fontange, but Lulu threw her head back and laughed, suddenly shining with life again.
“There! Now you’re all as wet as I am!”
Charles took off his bonnet and shook the water from it. “You seem to feel better. Crying often does that, I find.”
Both girls looked at him curiously. Anne-Marie, walking now on Charles’s other side, said, “Do you cry, too?”