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AUTHOR: Flyingskull
SOURCE: Heyer's "The Devil's Cub", Brantôme's "Les Chevalier Galantes" and X-Men comic books
ARCHIVE: Do not archive elsewhere, please.
RATING: NC 17
DISCLAIMER: Don't own the X-Men, don't own the Heyer characters the Brantôme's episodes are public and not under copyright that I know of, but anyway he gossiped about the private life of Luis XIII (yep and his courtiers and musketeers) and I got some ideas from him. I do this purely for fun, not for filthy lucre.
FEEDBACK: Oh yes, please, I'll be very, very grateful. *smiles winningly*
NOTE: Sequel to Piqued, Repiqued and Capoted. I wanted to write a PWP and I find I'm writing about "the holiness of the heart's affections" as Keats called them, though with plenty of smut.
SUMMARY: The Marquis de LeBeau fights disillusion and a broken heart in a rather self-destructive way. Mr Wolverine is hot in pursuit with his valet, Kurt. They have much to apologise for.
DEDICATION: I wish to dedicate "France" to Esprit, my most invaluable and patient Beta reader. Thank you, Esprit!
'A bath? At this time of day?' The Marquis of LeBeau's butler was astonished. He knew his master was capricious and prone to odd starts, but this was the outside of enough.
'He loves to bathe,' said, primly, the Marquis' valet de chambre. 'Even when it's not necessary. He's Quality and of the Blood, and does not like to be kept waiting,' he added maliciously.
'But his bedroom's door is locked!' the butler protested. 'How can we prepare his bath?'
'Take the tub outside the door, and fetch the hot water. He'll open when he's ready,' said the valet, by now inured to his master's foibles.
'He came home very late, even for him,' the first footman said, helpfully. 'Likely he had a bad night, I heard the street door close, but when I went to see if he needed me, he was nowhere to be seen.'
The other two servants assented sagely to this piece of news. His lordship rarely came home in a foul mood: wine, women and cards were generally kind to him; he would be very rarely so drunk as to need assistance, or so angered as to be downright dangerous. There had been a couple of memorable occasions, though, and the three men shared a shudder, thinking of them.
'In this case,' said the butler, speaking for all of them, 'we have better be prompt. Peter, you and John take up the tub. I'll tell cook to heat the water, so it will be ready for you to carry it up. M. Gaston, will you please tell the Marquis his bath will be ready in half an hour?'
M. Gaston, the Marquis' valet, bowed. 'Naturally, Phorbes,' he said, very much on his dignity, and went up the stairs.
*
The Marquis had woken up cold, stiff and sore; his mind fogged by a tumult of nightmares. It took him a while to recollect himself and, when he did, his heart was pierced by such a feeling of loss that he gasped and moaned, as if he had been stabbed.
Memories flooded his mind and his eyes burned with tears he refused to shed. He had been duped, more fool he, and now the only thing that mattered was to show the world he did not give a sou. He would not wear his heart on his sleeve for all to ridicule; he would not pine and go into a decline for a man who had proved to be nothing else than a cruel sensualist, no, worse than that, an enemy.
He would never give Mr Wolverine the satisfaction of knowing how deep and sure his blow had been, how his heart had been broken and his hopes trampled upon. He was the mad Marquis of LeBeau, the Phoenix' son, the Devil's cub! The poor went to the devil in a basket; the rich, in a gilded coach; but he... he was the devil's own and had to find his own way.
Hid mind at long last made up, he rose unsteadily and tottered to the basin. He washed his face and body as best as he could, but it was not enough. Fighting the pain, using it as a lever to move his protesting body, he went to his bed and yanked on the bell-pull. He would order a bath ready and not allow his valet, whom he knew to be his father's spy, to see the state his body was in. Then... Then France and a life of dissipation abroad.
*
Mr Wolverine was ready to leave, when the billet was handed to him by lady Mist's footman. He ripped the seal open and spread, impatiently, the single sheet of rose paper. 'Kurt!' he called. 'There is no answer,' he said to the footman. 'You can go.' The footman bowed and left.
His valet bamfed near him. 'Sir?' he said, looking expectantly at his master.
'Miss Mist does me the honour of informing me that her mother is sending her to France,' Mr Wolverine said. 'Apparently, so she can forget me in the gayeties of Paris. She entreats me to follow her there and declares herself resolute to elope, if my suit continues to find no favour with her parent.'
'So you'll have her, sir?' Kurt asked.
'It seems I will. It doesn't signify, we're not going to France to elope with her, Kurt.'
'I know, sir,' the valet said. 'There's something I wish to say to you, sir,' he added, anxiously.
'On the packet to Calais,' said Mr Wolverine. 'We'll have time to discuss things during the Channel crossing. Have you ordered the chaise?'
'Yes, sir,' the valet said. 'It's waiting outside the door.'
'Let's go, then,' said Mr Wolverine. In truth the night had brought a measure of reflection, and he was now as fearful of his reception as he was eager to meet the Marquis again. That young man's parting shot had not unduly alarmed him, though he knew it was a very real danger, what was making him uncharacteristically hesitant was the venom in his lordship's voice and the blaze of hatred in his eyes.
He had grievously wronged the Marquis. He had allowed his fear of love to push him to an extreme of cruelty that was not really in his heart. He prided himself on being honourable and just, but he had shown himself to be neither. He was ready to pay for his actions, but he couldn't bear the thought of having lost his chance at happiness forever.
He sighed and moved toward the door. The past was past and done, all he could do was fight for his future. He would woo the Marquis with all the means at his disposition, he would atone for his crime and conquer again the passionate heart that had ensnared his feral one. Straightening his sagging shoulders, Mr Wolverine set out on his journey for France.
*
"Madame, my client has heard glowing words of praise about your establishment. Its manifold pleasures and the absolute discretion that makes it one of the best in France have persuaded him to indulge a whim..." The Marquis' quill stopped and stood poised over the sheet of paper. He had been in France one week, now, waiting for his body to heal, but no amount of rest had been able to purge the feverish working of his agitated mind.
The night that had scarred his soul so deeply haunted his every hour. Sleep offered no succour; every night he was back in that bedroom, succumbing to an illusion of love and yielding his body to a shameful pleasure. Mr Wolverine's valet's words were etched into his heart.
Was he nothing but a whore? Why had he succumbed to a bliss born of pain and humiliation? Was he still deluding himself he could awaken love in Mr Wolverine's brutal heart, or had that night revealed his true nature?
He had to know, he knew his future depended on him knowing the truth, but how? He was ready to exile himself to spare his mother shame, if his nature was such as to warrant it; but if it wasn't, if he had been led astray by his misguided heart, then he could learn to curb his feelings and live like a rational man, no matter how deep the pain. He owed his family that much.
He needed to know, but how? Then his frenzied mind had evolved a plan, so mad and fraught with danger he had hesitated for days, before deciding, in despair, to put it in action. Yes, this was the only way to know the truth about himself without dishonouring his family and his name. The quill dipped into the inkstand and continued its ordered way across the paper.
*
Mr Wolverine braced himself on the deck of the packet ship and leaned into the wind. 'You can speak freely, Kurt,' he said. 'Nobody will hear you.'
The valet placed a hand on his master's shoulder and bent his head, to speak directly in the man's ear. The wind whipped away his words, but he knew Mr Wolverine would hear them all.
'Sir, I have never told you all I knew about my origins,' he said. 'I didn't think there would be any need, but what happened last night makes it imperative that I tell you. I was raised by kindly nuns in an orphan house in Germany. When I was old enough, I had to leave that oasis of peace and go into a world I was ill-prepared to face. My aspect was against me and I was barred from most gainful occupations; I wandered aimlessly until hunger reduced to me to join a travelling company of misfits. We showed ourselves at fairs and did tricks to amuse the public. You don't wish to know of all I was reduced to, I'm sure, but bear with me.'
'Nothing shameful in hunger and a will to live,' said Mr Wolverine kindly, 'but please get to the point.'
'I always wanted to know who my parents were, sir, that's the point,' Kurt said. 'When chance brought me back to the fashionable watering place where the orphan house was, I went back there and implored the nuns to tell me all they knew of my mother. Sister Katarina remembered her quite well, but as she had never known her name, she could do nothing more than describe her to me. My mother was of the Blood, she had blue skin and orange-red hair, she was beautiful and arrogant.' Kurt had to stop in remembered grief. 'The sister told me,' he continued after a while, 'her voice full of sadness, that my mother had given me naked to them, so that nothing would make that shameful connection known; that my mother had no wedding ring on her finger and that her behaviour had been one of the utmost indifference to my fate. This last thing preyed on my mind so much, I silently vowed revenge. I was so lost in my hatred and my pain that I didn't see the band of drunken revellers that only your timely intervention stopped from destroying me utterly.'
'Lady Mist is your mother?' Mr Wolverine asked, finally understanding. 'But why, in God's name, did you avenge your wrongs on her nephew? He wasn't even born when she abandoned you!'
'I wouldn't have, if he had not offered me the protection of his family's name,' the valet said, with difficulty.
'It was done in generosity,' Wolverine protested. 'The noble action of a noble soul! Why should that goad you to mistreat him so?'
'To have what was my birthright offered to me like alms to a beggar!' Kurt cried 'And all for noblesse oblige! To be condescended to by a cousin, an arrogant scion of Xavier doing nothing but his duty to the Blood! To feel the humiliation of my position before him!'
'Steady on, Kurt,' said Mr Wolverine, holding both his valet's shoulder in a strong grip. 'I understand you. But it's the devil of a coil.'
Kurt leaned in Wolverine's grip and hung his head. 'You understand, but will he?' he said, mournfully. 'My hatred blinded me to his real intentions and to the honesty of his offer. I punished him for a sin his aunt had committed. How can he forgive me? Maybe I should leave your service and roam the world once again.'
'Nonsense!' Mr Wolverine said, bracingly. 'The Marquis is far more likely to want my blood than yours. I could have stopped you, but I chose not to. We'll have to be honest with him, and hope that, in time, he may forgive us both. We shall have to prove repentant and do our best to gain his… goodwill,' he finished rather lamely.
Wolverine knew he was responsible for all that night's happenings. He had lost control and gained a joy that he had never experienced. That had so terrified his rational mind, that he had felt an irrational need to destroy the man who had so easily gained possession of his heart. He had tried to drown that fledging love in sensual cruelty, but to no avail.
He'd forced himself to pass every bound, to go against his very nature, in order to kill that unwelcome sentiment, but all he had obtained was self-loathing and a sense of unbearable shame. He realised that all three of them had been humiliated needlessly in that bed, and that it was all his doing. Now, only a tenuous hope he refused to relinquish was all that kept him going.
His heart was branded by the image of the loving luminous smile he had taken such pains to erase from the beautiful face of the smiler. If he got killed for it, he had to try and make it shine again; life had no meaning without his darling Marquis, anyway.
The two men stood riveted to the spot, lost in thought, no longer master and servant, but friends, united in grief and a forlorn hope of redemption.
*
"... My client wishes to serve for a night as a putain in your establishment. You will of course be paid for your trouble and you can keep any monies gained by my client's services. There are only two provisos. One, that you and any and all who will require my client's services will not attempt in any way to discover my client's identity. To that end, he will come at the appointed hour with his face hidden, and he will receive his patrons with a sack over his head, which must be not removed, no matter what. Two, that he reserves the right to stop his service at any moment, assuring you at the same time that he will not do so during a "visit". You can send your answer to the "Lion d'Or" where I will be staying for the duration."
Madame Frost lay the letter on her escritoire and snorted. Another fils de burgeois who wanted a thrill. Why in hell did this imbécile expect to be skilled enough to satisfy her clients? The aristocrats who frequented the Maison de Givre expected the best food and drink and the most beautiful and skilled meat in bed.
This bête was in luck, though. His foolish letter had come hard on the heels of Sir Henry McCoy's interesting missive. He was well known to her, his taste ran more to the unschooled poor than the professionals, but he had asked her services as a procuress every time he was in France. She had fobbed him off with novices in the sensual arts, and that had pleased him very well. She wanted him in her power, he was intimate with the Duke of Xavier: the man she hated most on Earth.
Xavier had been her lover, had kept her in royal style and had denied her nothing. She had loved him passionately, but his heart had always been cold. He had used her and paid well for her bed, her time and her compliance. Madame Frost had hoped to win that ice-cold heart one day, and be admitted to the ranks of the aristocracy. It wasn't a mad dream, she was of the Blood, almost as good a telepath as Charles and could become a being of diamond at will.
He'd gloried in her power and she had often dazzled the more daring salons dancing a minuet in diamond form, her body barely draped in coruscating cloth-of-gold set with tiny pearls. Then... Then he had met the Phoenix and had lost his heart to her fiery beauty, spurning the night for the day, the moon for the sun.
She had been discarded, paid with a princely sum and forgotten. Her heart had become as hard as her skin and she had lived for revenge from that day on. She would ruin and humiliate Xavier and his wife, she would disgrace their son and make a byword of their name. She would...
Madame Frost snapped out of her reverie and dipped a quill in the inkstand. One letter to Sir Henry, promising new delights, and one to the young imbécile acceding to his request. That done, she sat back again and sighed in satisfaction.
*
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