Free The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie Page A

color and wears it constantly. But I do count twelve vases filled with lilacs grouped around us; their scent is cloying and close. Charolais only ever wears a special violet scent, made just for her, and she refuses to speak to ladies who dare to wear the same flower.
    “We have a delicate matter to propose to you.” Fleury coughs and I see in astonishment that this great man, the king’s most trusted adviser, is nervous.
    Charolais smiles her too-wide smile and leans in. “My darling Louise.” She has a lisping, insinuating voice. “Louise, you are so adorable. So pretty and so refined. Elegant.”
    I smile and thank her, confused. No one is as pretty as Charolais, even though she is getting older. She sees the doubt on my face and assures me they have nothing immoral to ask of me. Fleury laughs and shakes his head. “Not at all, not at all. Your service to the queen has been well received and well remarked upon.”
    “My loyalty to the queen is absolute and . . .”
    Charolais holds up a delicate ringed hand and the feathers trimming her sleeves flutter. “With the queen’s best interests at heart, and with the king’s as well, we have thought long and hard about how to accommodate the rupture between Our Majesties.”
    The rupture? What rupture? The king is not as devoted to the queen as he was before, and the queen will not see him in her bed on an ever-expanding list of saint’s days, but a rupture? “I—”
    Again the fluttering of feathers and that wide, false smile: “Please, Louise, darling, let me continue.”
    Generally I like Charolais for her wit and sense of fun, but today she is making me uneasy. She continues: “If I may speak frankly?”
    Fleury nods as though giving a cue.
    “The king no longer feels everything he used to feel for the queen. It is only natural, you understand? She is so much older than him, and remarkably plain, and with no disrespect intended, she is not the brightest diamond in the necklace.”
    “Not the sharpest knife on the table,” adds Fleury with a smirk.
    “Not, ofcourse, that one has to be intelligent to be a good companion,” Charolais says swiftly, shooting a worried look at the cardinal.
    He takes over: “It is only a matter of time before the king strays from the—ah—marriage bed. And it is important that when he strays, he does not go too far.”
    Fleury talks of the king as though he were a child, I think, as I watch the two play their game in front of me. After three years here, I am better at reading what is left unsaid or what stays beneath the surface. It is a useful skill but not one that comes naturally; I prefer honest words to artifice. Even so, I have no idea what they want of me. For they surely want something.
    “What we are saying, Louise, is that the king is certain to take a mistress.”
    “A mistress? Oh, no, the king is far too devoted—” I let my words fall off. It is true that everyone is betting on when the king will take a mistress, and who she will be. Gilette has quizzed me about her own chances, and wonders if the king will fall in love with her long dark hair, since the queen is fair-headed. She plots to leave her hair as loose as she dares and unpowdered one night, and claim that her hairdresser was sick.
    “No, Louise,” says Charolais with just a hint of impatience. “His days of devotion are fast fading. And he is a young man, only twenty-three, just like you. He cannot live the life of a monk forever.”
    “The king will take a mistress,” repeats Fleury. “But who that mistress will be, well . . . That is a matter of supreme importance. Even national importance.”
    They both smile at me intently. Last year the Marquis de Beaulieu came back from India, alive, and kept the Court entertained with stories of snake charmers. It is as though they are trying to hypnotize me with words as their music.
    “It is so important, dearest Louise, that the king’s mistress besomeone we know. And trust. Someone from a