“Monseigneur!” Velvet pretended outrage, but the king was not fooled, and they both laughed.
“Does this Mignon prepare a beef ragout,chèrie?A beef ragout with tender green leeks? I adore beef ragout with leeks!”
“Is Your Majesty seeking an invitation?” Velvet teased him.
“Yes, I most certainly do seek an invitation,” he said, looking almost boyish. “The dowager queen Louise will serve up carp and plain boiled vegetables for dinner tonight as she does almost every night. She has made her mourning a fine art, and even her guests must suffer!”
“Then why do you visit her?” demanded the practical Velvet.
“Because it is my duty; becauseChenonceauxis so incredibly beautiful and peaceful; and because the hunting is good,” he answered her.
“I cannot feed your friends,” she said. “It is not that I would be ungracious; it is simply that I have neither the food nor the staff for entertaining.”
“I do not ask you to feed my men. What I hope for is a dinnerà deux.”
“Dinner, monseigneur, is all that I am serving,” said Velvet severely to Henri of Navarre. “You must promise me that you understand that before I will tender you an invitation. I am not a woman to play the coy flirt. I love my husband and will not compromise either his honor or mine.”
“Lovers,” said the king, “should always begin as friends. It was unforgivable of me to behave as I did earlier. I can only excuse myself by saying that your beauty blinded me to reason. I promise to behave myself,chèrie, if you will invite me to supper.”
“We arenotgoing to be lovers!” said Velvet, somewhat crossly.
The king smiled sweetly at her. “I shall bring a fine red wine for us to drink with the ragout,” he said as he mounted his horse.
“I have not said you could come!” Velvet protested.
“Do you think your Mignon would make me a pear tartlet for the last course,chèrie?”he asked her.
Velvet couldn’t help but laugh. What a charming and impossible man he was. “I’ll ask her,” she said, “and now, sire, I bid you adieu, for if I do not bring these leeks in to Mignon immediately, there will be no supper for you.”
The king kissed his fingers at her and, turning his horse, rode off.
“So that’s what a king looks like,” said Pansy matter-of-factly. “He’s a bit big and gawky, ain’t he? What was all that chattering you was doing?”
“He’s invited himself to supper,” said Velvet, still chuckling.
“He looks to me like he’s got more than supper on his mind,” said Pansy disapprovingly.
“He does,” replied her mistress, “but I have been most truthful with the king. He understands me, though he will not yet admit that a lady could refuse his suit. There is no danger, Pansy, from Henri of Navarre. Besides, he is only visiting atChenonceaux, and must be on his way in a day or so. France is still at war with itself, and he will not really be safe as its king until the country is once again united.”
“You’re going to throw old Mignon into quite a tizzy, m’lady. I don’t expect that she’s ever cooked for a king before.”
Velvet’s laughter renewed itself at that thought. “Wait until I tell her that he has requested a pear tartlet for the last course!”
Mignon, however, was not one bit nonplussed by the news that Henri of Navarre was coming to supper. When Velvet passed on the gossip aboutChenonceauxto her, the old woman said, “Poor man! He grew up in the wholesome atmosphere of Navarre far from the French court. He is used to good country food and he misses it, I have not a doubt. I shall be pleased to cook for the king! I am only sorry that I shall not be able to tell everyone atArchambaultabout it. That fat Celine who cooks for your grandmother would be so jealous! After she cooked for Queen Catherine and Princess Margot at your christening, there was simply no living with her! Oh, how I would like to tell her!”
“In time, Mignon,” Velvet soothed the old woman. “When I am with my husband, and King James no longer seeks me, then I can tell my grandparents that I was here, and you can brag to your heart’s delight to Celine and the rest of the staff atArchambault.”
“Celine will be so jealous,” cackled Mignon as she threw the leeks, now peeled, into the steaming pot of ragout. “I think I shall put currants in with the pears,” she mused. “It makes a tastier tartlet.”
Velvet smiled and then, taking Pansy with her, went to prepare the table in the lovely hall where once her family used to gather when she was a tiny child.Belle Fleurswas not a large chateau. Built in the early fifteenth century, it sat in the midst of a garden, surrounded on three sides by a lakelike moat. Beyond it lay the forest, and four miles to the north, the great chateau of her grandparents,Archambault, which, like its neighbor,Chenonceaux, sat on the banks of the river Cher.
Belle Fleurswas a chateau out of a fairy tale. It was built of dark, reddish gray schist stone, and its four polygonal towers had slate roofs that were shaped like witches’ hats. Since access to the chateau could be gained only through thecour d’honneur, it was easily defensible. It was the gardens, however, that had givenBelle Fleursits name. During the growing season, from spring until the late, late autumn, the gardens ofBelle Fleurswere filled to overflowing with varied and colorful blooms of every known variety and hue. They were old Guillaume’s pride, and he spent all of his waking hours amid the flowers, keepingBelle Fleurs’gardens thriving and orderly.
The chateau itself had a fine hall and kitchens, six bedchambers including the lord’s apartment, and room for a dozen house servants. The outbuildings consisted of a stable for the horses, though there were only three, two that had been brought by Velvet and Pansy and an old mare that pulled a cart kept by Mignon and Guillaume. Velvet had hired a coach to bring them from Nantes toBelle Fleurs, but she had also purchased the two riding horses which had been tied behind the carriage. Transportation was vital in this isolated location. There was a dog kennel, but right now the only dogs atBelle Fleurswere an elderly spaniel and an even older hound. The falconry was empty now though the dovecote still housed a large family of gentle birds.
Velvet’s father, Adam de Marisco, had bought the chateau furnished by its former owners, and the rooms were filled with attractive furniture and beautiful hangings. Though there would be but two of them at supper, Velvet knew that she must set the high board for the king. Carefully, she and Pansy laid the convent-made linen cloth upon the long table. There was but one pair of gold candelabra in the chateau, and Velvet cleaned them, placing them upon the table with the beeswax tapers. Pansy brought a bowl of flowers in autumn colors of yellow, brown, tawny orange, and gold, which was also placed on the table. Two place settings of silver knives and Florentine forks with matching silver plates and goblets studded with green jasper were set upon the table. The fires were laid in the two fireplaces on either side of the hall, and crystal decanters of wine, a pale gold liquid fromArchambaultand a crimson one the king had already sent ahead with one of the footmen fromChenonceaux, were placed upon the sideboard.
The hall ready, Velvet departed to her chamber to bathe in gillyflower-scented water and to dress in a dark green velvet gown that had once been her mother’s. She thought it fortunate that Skye had left so many clothes atArchambault, else both she and Pansy would have been quite at a loss. They had worn the same clothing from the time of their kidnapping until they arrived atBelle Fleurs;clothing that Velvet immediately burned, for it was filthy beyond repair. Had they not had their cloaks to cover their stained and torn garments, Velvet did not know what they would have done.
