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He gave her a small smile. “We have our reasons. But it might surprise you that Madame Royale is the person responsible for any little humility I possess.”
“A girl? But you said yourself she can be haughty and self-important.”
He leaned back and looked at the ceiling. He seemed to be seeing a different time and place—perhaps the gardens of Versailles or pleasant days at Marie Antoinette’s private retreat, the Petit Trianon. “She can be. From birth she has been catered to and spoiled by servants and courtiers, but her parents also taught her to be kind and to think of others. She always gave some of her money to charity, and she was happy to do it. This was, of course, the queen’s example and Madame Élisabeth’s as well.”
“Marie Antoinette gave money to the poor?”
“The king did as well. In fact, even as the king cut his own budget when the revolution began, he refused to stop giving to the poor and the needy. The revolutionary government doesn’t talk much about that, do they?”
“No.”
“Nor do they discuss how the church always funded the hospitals and a hundred other charities. Who is caring for the sick now?”
“We were just chased by the National Guard. You do not have to convince me of the evils of this new regime.”
“Perhaps I am trying to convince myself that theancien régimewas not so evil.” He continued to stare at the ceiling. “There’s something about watching a child give freely and happily that puts we stingy adults to shame. Marie-Thérèse would play with royal and common children alike. One of her most constant playmates was the daughter of a chambermaid, Ernestine de Lambriquet. The princess always took part of any money she was given and gave it to the poor. When her mother said the children could not have gifts because there were children who went without bread, the princess did not cry or argue. She begged her mother to send the toys she might have had to the little children who did not have bread.”
This was a very different picture of the little princess than the papers portrayed. The press described Marie-Thérèse as a miniature of her mother, the hated L’Autrichienne, or Austrian bitch.
“Madame Royale reminded me of my sister Amélie.”
Honoria leaned forward. She had been curious about Amélie since he’d first mentioned her. “Who was she?”
“My older sister. She had a pure heart, like the princess. But she died young.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was not by violence. She was playing and cut her foot on a nail. She became ill with lockjaw. She could not breathe, and she died.”
Honoria had heard of such deaths, and she knew they could be horrible. “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t save her. The doctors we called couldn’t save her. I was only a child, but I’d never felt so helpless. I haven’t ever allowed myself to be that helpless again.”
It made sense now, why he was so determined to rescue the princess. In a way he was saving the sister he had lost, and with all the turmoil of revolution swirling around them, saving the princess was one way to take control of the chaos.
“Rescuing the royal children is very noble of you.”
“It might have been noble—had I not first abandoned them and fled to Savoy with the Comte d’Artois.”
“But you came back.” He was too hard on himself, or did she only want to think he was a better man than he was because she’d enjoyed kissing him and because she wanted to kiss him again?
“Yes, and I was imprisoned almost as soon as I was recognized.”
“What were the charges?”
“Treason.” He shrugged. “I can’t deny it. Charles Phillipe and I were planning an assault on France and amassing an army. It certainly was treason against the new government, whoever it was at that time. But the other charges stemmed from the fact I am of the royal blood. That I have issue with.”
“Because you cannot help who your parents were?”
He turned to her and leaned close. “Because I am proud of that blood. Proud of my sovereigns. They were good rulers. They loved the people. Do you know what Louis XVI prayed before he died? He prayed for the forgiveness of the French people. I would not have been half so magnanimous.”
“Nor I.”
“If they wanted to imprison me because I wasted thousands of livres on fêtes or because I had forty pairs of jeweled buckles for my shoes—”
“Forty!”
He waved a hand. “Because I wasted money on women and wine and too many debauched nights to count”—Honoria scooted away from him slightly—“those charges I would have accepted. Those charges I do accept. I do not deserve to live.” His voice was raw with anguish, and she felt her heart twist.
