taylor price
d e v o n
tannertan36
we're not kids anymore.
Product Placement
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
sheepfilms
Jules of Nature
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
Game of Thrones Daily
Love Begins
⁂
Acquired Stardust
No title available
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
almost home
@theartofmadeline
roma★
Andulka
No title available
seen from Switzerland
seen from Greece
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Italy
seen from Türkiye
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Poland
seen from Hungary
seen from Malaysia
seen from Kenya
seen from Germany
seen from Germany
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seen from United States
@espaduerro
The Birth of Venus by Botticelli figure/bjd
Part of The Table Museum collection by Freeing
Link: |X|
It’s super breathtaking:
What a bizarre series, I love the way these are displayed
Vitruvian Man, Da Vinci
The Thinker, Rodin
The Scream, Munch
Moai (Easter Island)
Winged Victory of Samothrace / Venus de Milo
This is my favorite
Carlos II of Spain
Why does bro low-key look like Prince Adam from Beauty and the Beast here?
goodbye, dolores, we barely knew you
Borrowed Names
Summary: Hidden beneath false clothes and borrowed identities, Louis and the Queen spend a rare day free from protocol. They bicker, laugh, and wander through ordinary life like two people who might have loved each other under different circumstances. Yet every joke, every smile, and every stolen moment is haunted by the knowledge that their freedom has an expiration date.
Pairing: Louis XIV × Fem! Reader
Warnings: Light Angst
First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth part here
Also read on Ao3
Louis was impossible to contain once he had decided he was no longer the King of France, but rather Marguerite, tragic beauty of the lower classes, misunderstood wife of a narrow-shouldered husband named Pierre.
He bloomed in anonymity.
Or, more accurately, he bloomed in what he thought was anonymity, which was not at all the same thing.
The borrowed carriage took you to the edge of the nearest market town, far enough from Marly that the household staff would not immediately recognize you, close enough that Louis could still return before anyone important began wondering why France’s monarch had vanished in brown wool and an apron. He stepped down from the carriage with scandalous enthusiasm, clutching your arm as if you were indeed his unfortunate husband, and looked around at the crowded street with the eager, delighted expression of a man who had discovered an entire kingdom existed beneath the level of his balcony.
“Oh,” he breathed, and even with the ridiculous attempt to soften his voice, the word still emerged in that deep, resonant baritone. He coughed delicately into his fan and tried again, higher. “Oh. How charming.”
“You sound like a judge pretending to be a duchess,” you muttered.
Louis snapped the fan open and struck your shoulder with it. “Do not ruin this for Marguerite.”
“Marguerite is going to be arrested.”
“Marguerite is beloved.”
“Marguerite is six feet tall and walks like she owns artillery.”
He ignored you completely.
The town square was alive with movement. Merchants called from wooden stalls, waving loaves of bread, ribbons, cheap lace, onions, salted fish, pears bruised gold at the edges. A boy balanced on a barrel and juggled knives badly enough to make you nervous. Musicians scraped out a lively tune near the fountain while children ran laughing between skirts and boots. Someone had set up a little street game involving painted cups and a hidden coin, and three drunk men were arguing over whether a goose had been unfairly sold as a duck.
Louis stopped at everything.
Everything.
He stopped to watch a puppet show and laughed behind his fan when the puppet king was beaten with a stick by a puppet wife.
“Historically inaccurate,” he murmured.
“You were dragged to a bath by your hair yesterday.”
He lowered the fan just enough to glare at you. “Treason.”
He bought roasted chestnuts from a woman with red hands and an unimpressed stare. He nearly overpaid her by a sum so obscene you had to snatch the coins from his palm before the woman called the entire square to witness the richest washerwoman in France.
“You said you knew how to disguise yourself,” you hissed.
“I do.”
“You just tried to pay for chestnuts with enough money to purchase the stall.”
“I am generous.”
“You are suspicious.”
“I am Marguerite. Marguerite has admirers. Perhaps one died and left her comfortable.”
“Marguerite’s husband Pierre is about to leave her in a ditch.”
Louis laughed, delighted, and hooked his arm through yours as if you had said something tender.
You did not know how long you wandered.
Time loosened. The sun lifted higher, then softened behind slow-moving clouds. Louis dragged you from stall to stall with embarrassing delight, tasting sugared almonds, sniffing soap with the suspicion of a man identifying poison, watching a pair of acrobats tumble over each other in the dust, and becoming far too emotionally invested in a game where one threw wooden rings over clay pegs to win ribbons.
He tried once.
The ring missed every peg and struck a chicken.
The chicken shrieked.
Louis froze.
You stared at him.
The stallkeeper stared at him.
The chicken fled with the offended dignity of a minister resigning.
Louis lifted his fan slowly and murmured, “The wind betrayed me.”
“You nearly assassinated poultry.”
“I was aiming for the blue ribbon.”
“You hit a chicken.”
“An agile chicken.”
“You are never commanding artillery again.”
He looked deeply injured. “I have won wars.”
“Not against that chicken.”
He sulked for several steps after that, though not convincingly. His hazel eyes kept darting toward the next attraction, the next smell, the next noise. He was absurd in the crowd: too tall, too graceful, too commanding even when pretending to be common. His black wig, hidden beneath the kerchief, gave his head too much volume, and the patched brown dress strained suspiciously across his shoulders whenever he forgot to move like someone who had not spent a lifetime being obeyed.
Still, people did not seem to know him.
They looked, of course. Everyone looked. At Marguerite.
Some with confusion. Some with curiosity. Some with the quiet calculation of men deciding whether an unusually tall woman might still be worth trouble if her husband seemed weak enough.
You noticed the man first near the pastry stall.
He was broad in the face, red-cheeked, with a trimmed beard and the swagger of someone who had mistaken persistence for charm. He had been laughing with two companions when Louis paused to inspect a tray of honey cakes, but his laughter died the moment he saw Louis bend slightly over the stall.
You saw his gaze travel.
Up the hem of the brown dress.
Over the cinched waist.
To Louis’s exposed throat, the fan, the kerchief, the ridiculous attempt at maidenly softness.
The man smiled.
You stiffened.
Louis, naturally, noticed nothing.
“Pierre,” he murmured, pointing at the cakes, “what are those?”
“Honey cakes.”
“I want one.”
“You had chestnuts.”
“That was nourishment. This is culture.”
“You are going to make yourself ill.”
“I am already married to you. Illness holds no fear for me.”
You gave him a look.
He fluttered the fan in front of his face and smiled as if he had just conquered the Netherlands.
The red-cheeked man followed.
At first, he kept distance. A few stalls behind. Then closer. Near the fountain. Near the musicians. Behind you at the booth where Louis bought a strip of blue ribbon and tied it around his wrist, declaring it a token of Marguerite’s tragic beauty.
“Take that off,” you said.
“No. It brings out my eyes.”
“It brings out your madness.”
“It brings out my eyes.”
The man laughed from behind you.
Louis turned slightly, and the man dipped his head with the boldness of someone who had waited long enough to convince himself the invitation was mutual.
“Madame,” he said, removing his hat.
Louis blinked.
You felt, with immediate dread, his entire soul awaken to theatre.
The man bowed—not well, but confidently—and reached for Louis’s hand before either of you could stop him. He lifted it and pressed a kiss to the rough knuckles, lingering far too long.
Louis went very still.
Not offended.
Not yet.
Intrigued.
The fan rose.
His hazel eyes widened behind it with a sparkle so dangerous you nearly stepped on his foot preemptively.
“What a gallant gentleman,” Louis said, attempting a feminine voice and landing somewhere between widowed duchess and tired magistrate.
The man did not seem to notice. Lust, apparently, had damaged his hearing.
“Forgive me, madame,” he said. “I could not help admiring you.”
“You could have tried,” you muttered.
Louis struck your arm with the fan again. “Pierre.”
The man’s eyes flicked toward you. “Pierre?”
Louis gave a breathy, theatrical laugh behind the fan. “My husband. Tell him, Pierre.”
You stared at Louis.
Louis stared back, fan fluttering, eyes shining with wicked expectation.
The man looked between you both. His expression soured faintly at the word husband.
You smiled.
“No,” you said.
Louis’s fan stopped.
The man brightened.
Louis turned his head slowly toward you.
You folded your arms, leaning into the role with sudden, vicious pleasure. “I am not her husband.”
Louis’s hazel eyes narrowed.
The man stepped closer. “Ah?”
“I am her brother,” you said blandly. “Poor Marguerite is unmarried.”
The fan lowered by one inch.
Louis’s face was a painting of betrayal.
“Pierre,” he said through his teeth, the baritone slipping dangerously low.
You smiled sweetly. “My sister is very modest.”
The man nearly glowed. “Unmarried, you say?”
“Widowed in spirit,” Louis cut in sharply, lifting the fan again. “Married in practice. Bound by vows. Deeply bound. Tragically bound.”
You coughed into your fist to hide your laugh.
The man, encouraged by your denial and apparently too foolish to notice the murderous energy radiating from Marguerite, moved closer still. “A woman such as you should not walk with only a brother for protection.”
Louis’s nostrils flared.
“I assure you,” he said, voice slipping even lower, “my brother is quite sufficient.”
“Is he?” the man asked, glancing at you dismissively.
Louis turned to you with a look that promised royal vengeance. “Pierre is stronger than he appears.”
You patted his arm. “Marguerite lies when nervous.”
The man laughed.
Louis did not.
The next quarter hour became a test sent directly from hell.
The man followed.
He offered to buy Marguerite wine. Louis refused with icy politeness.
He offered to win Marguerite a ribbon at the ring toss. Louis replied that Marguerite already had a ribbon, thank you very much.
He asked where Marguerite lived. Louis said, “Far away, in a place no man may enter without losing his head.”
The man laughed as if it were flirtation.
You laughed because it was not.
Louis leaned toward you at one point and hissed, “This is your fault.”
“You wanted to be beautiful and spoiled.”
“I did not want to be hunted by a turnip with boots.”
“He thinks you are charming.”
“I am charming. That is beside the point.”
“He kissed your hand.”
“I noticed.”
“You blushed.”
“I was restraining myself from having him imprisoned.”
“You cannot imprison a man for flirting with Marguerite.”
Louis’s eyes flashed. “I can imprison a man for making Marguerite regret her neckline.”
You looked down at the patched dress. “You chose the neckline.”
“I have many gifts. Humility is not one.”
The man returned with two cups of watered wine, offering one to Louis with a grin. “For the lady.”
Louis stared at the cup as though it contained swamp water.
You took it instead. “My sister does not drink from strangers.”
The man gave you a thin smile. “Your sister can answer for herself.”
Louis lifted his chin.
For one terrible second, you saw the King in him. Not Marguerite. Not the ridiculous washerwoman with a fan. The monarch. The man who did not tolerate being addressed as property by anyone unless he had decided to make a comedy of it first.
But then he smiled.
Slowly.
Falsely.
Beautifully.
“My brother is protective,” he said.
“So am I,” the man replied.
Louis’s smile sharpened. “How unfortunate for us all.”
You almost choked.
The man still did not understand.
By the time you returned to the ring toss booth, Louis had reached the end of his patience. You, unfortunately, were distracted by the game. Not because you cared about the prize, but because your first throw had actually landed around a peg, and the stallkeeper had declared it luck with such contempt that your pride ignited.
“I can do it again,” you said.
“You cannot,” Louis replied absently.
“I can.”
“You throw like a bookkeeper.”
“At least I didn’t hit a chicken.”
His lips flattened. “The chicken was in the wrong place.”
“You aimed left.”
“It moved.”
“It was standing still.”
“It moved spiritually.”
You picked up another ring.
The man appeared at Louis’s side again, much too close. “Your brother is serious about games.”
Louis watched you throw. The ring missed, bounced off the table, and rolled under a basket.
“A family weakness,” he said dryly.
The man leaned in. “Perhaps while he plays, you might walk with me.”
Louis slowly turned his head.
You were busy arguing with the stallkeeper about the fairness of the peg spacing and did not see the exact moment Marguerite died and Louis XIV returned in her place.
The man reached toward his waist.
Not touching. Almost.
Enough.
Louis’s expression became serene.
Too serene.
He looked left. A group of women were laughing over ribbons. He looked right. Children were chasing the previously offended chicken. The stallkeeper was bent under the table retrieving your escaped ring. You were pointing at a peg and declaring it crooked with all the authority of a queen disguised as an apprentice boy.
No one was looking.
Except the man.
Louis smiled at him.
“You want to walk with me?” he asked, voice still artificially light.
The man’s grin widened. “Very much.”
Louis leaned closer, fan half-raised, lashes lowered. “Then perhaps you should know something first.”
The man practically swelled with triumph. “Anything, madame.”
Louis took one graceful step back.
Then, with the calm satisfaction of a general unveiling artillery, he lifted the front of Marguerite’s dress.
The man looked down.
Silence.
For one perfect, suspended second, his face emptied completely. Desire vanished. Confidence vanished. Language vanished. All that remained was the naked horror of a man whose understanding of the world had just been struck by lightning.
Then he screamed.
Not shouted.
Screamed.
A high, ragged, soul-wounded sound that made three pigeons explode upward from the fountain and sent the offended chicken sprinting into a basket of onions.
Louis dropped his skirt at once and opened his fan with a sharp snap.
The man stumbled backward, pale as flour.
“Madame—!” he gasped, then choked on the word as if it had betrayed him.
Louis blinked at him sweetly over the fan. “Is something wrong?”
The man made a noise like a dying kettle.
You turned around at last, ring still in hand. “What happened?”
The man pointed at Louis with one shaking finger, unable to form speech.
Louis placed a hand over his bodice. “Sir, you wound me.”
The man backed away so quickly he nearly fell over a crate. “Devil!” he croaked.
Louis gasped. “Pierre, did you hear that? He called your sister a devil.”
“My sister often inspires religious confusion,” you said slowly, still trying to understand why the man looked ready to run into a river.
The man did run.
Not into a river, unfortunately, but through the square with remarkable speed, shoving past a bread seller, tripping over a dog, and vanishing down an alley while shouting something incoherent about witchcraft, false women, and the collapse of Christendom.
The square stared after him.
Then, gradually, returned to its business.
Paris had seen worse.
You looked at Louis.
Louis looked at you.
His fan fluttered gently in front of his face.
“What,” you said, very carefully, “did you do?”
He widened his hazel eyes in perfect innocence. “I discouraged him.”
“You discouraged him.”
“Effectively.”
“You showed him something.”
Louis’s mouth twitched. “Only the truth.”
Your eyes narrowed. “Louis.”
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. It was still too deep, still unmistakably his, still vibrating with smug masculine satisfaction beneath the absurdity of the dress. “He wished to know Marguerite intimately. I provided a correction.”
You stared at him.
Then you covered your mouth.
The laugh came before you could stop it.
Not dignified. Not queenly. Not controlled. It burst out of you so violently that you had to turn away, shoulders shaking, one hand braced on the ring toss table while the stallkeeper looked between you and Marguerite with open confusion.
Louis beamed.
Actually beamed.
“There,” he said, delighted. “You see? Perfectly handled.”
“You are insane,” you gasped.
“I am practical.”
“You lifted your dress in the middle of the market.”
“No one saw.”
“He saw!”
“That was the point.”
You laughed harder, despite every injury, every betrayal, every reason not to. You laughed until tears gathered at the corners of your eyes, until your cap sat crooked over your hair, until Louis reached out and steadied you by the elbow with a touch so gentle it almost ruined the moment.
Almost.
“He called you a devil,” you wheezed.
Louis lifted his chin, pleased beyond measure. “Many men have. Few have been so accurate.”
“You are proud of yourself.”
“I defended my honor.”
“You terrified a man with your royal cock.”
“Do not say it so loudly,” he hissed, glancing around, though his smile only grew. “Marguerite has a reputation.”
“Marguerite has a secret.”
“Marguerite has mystery.”
“Marguerite is going to get us hanged.”
“Pierre would never allow it.”
“Pierre is pretending not to know you.”
Louis leaned closer, hazel eyes alight under the ridiculous kerchief. “Pierre laughed.”
You swallowed the last of your laughter and looked away, annoyed by how warm your cheeks had become.
“I laughed because you behaved like a lunatic.”
“No,” he murmured. “You laughed because it was funny.”
You hated him a little for being right.
He reached for your hand, still playing the part enough to make it look like a wife clinging to her brother-husband’s sleeve. His fingers brushed yours once, then slipped away before you could decide whether to accept or reject the touch.
“Come,” he said, voice softer now. “There is a man selling pear tarts.”
“You just traumatized a citizen.”
“He will recover with prayer.”
“He may enter a monastery.”
“Then I have improved his soul.”
“You are impossible.”
“And hungry.”
You stared at him.
Louis smiled, radiant and infuriating in brown wool, fan resting against his cheek, black wig hidden badly beneath the kerchief, hazel eyes shining with victory.
“For the record,” he added, as you began walking again, “that man should thank me.”
“For what?”
“For sparing him heartbreak. Marguerite is already married.”
“You are still insisting on that?”
He took your arm with theatrical devotion. “Tell them, Pierre.”
You pulled your cap lower over your face and muttered, “My sister is widowed in the head.”
Louis laughed then, deep and unguarded before remembering himself and smothering it behind the fan in a ridiculous high trill.
It was awful.
It was absurd.
It was almost happy.
And for one dangerous afternoon, under borrowed names and false clothes, with sugar on your fingers and the King of France disguised as the most alarming woman in the marketplace, you forgot—briefly, foolishly—that nine days had an ending.
You had almost made it to the pear tarts.
Almost.
The smell of them had already begun to reach you, warm and buttery, drifting through the crowded street in golden waves. Louis had spotted the stall before you had, of course, because even disguised as Marguerite, tragic beauty of the lower classes, he still possessed a monarch’s instinct for pleasure and taxation. He had been steering you toward it with increasing determination, one hand looped possessively through your arm, the blue ribbon still tied around his wrist like a ridiculous trophy of his own vanity.
“Pierre,” he murmured, his voice dipping too low again, “I believe that woman has cinnamon.”
“You believe every woman has something you want.”
His mouth twitched behind the fan. “That was unkind.”
“It was accurate.”
“Accuracy is often unkind. That is why ministers are so depressing.”
“You employ them.”
“I must. Someone has to make numbers miserable.”
You nearly smiled, but then something else caught your attention.
A burst of laughter rose from the far end of the square, louder than the ordinary market noise, followed by the brash trill of a pipe and the slap of a drum. Children darted past you, shrieking with delight, ribbons and crumbs clutched in their fists. A few women abandoned a cloth stall. Men turned from their cups. Even the chestnut seller leaned around her brazier, eyes narrowed with curiosity.
At the crossing between two narrow streets, someone had raised a little wooden platform.
Not a proper theatre. Nothing courtly. Nothing polished. Just boards balanced on barrels, a painted cloth backdrop flapping in the wind, and a handful of actors dressed in exaggerated costumes. One wore a cardboard crown coated with yellow paint. Another wore an absurdly wide skirt and a mantilla made of black netting. A third had stuffed his shirt and cheeks until he resembled a swollen courtier with gout.
You slowed.
Louis tugged lightly at your arm. “No.”
You blinked at him. “What?”
“No,” he repeated, with immediate suspicion. “I know that look.”
“What look?”
“The look you get before danger.”
“I am watching a play.”
“Exactly.”
You pulled your arm from his and moved toward the crowd.
Louis exhaled through his nose, long-suffering and already annoyed, but he followed. Of course he followed. He stayed close, skirts gathered in one hand, fan in the other, black wig hidden badly beneath his kerchief, hazel eyes scanning the crowd with the practiced vigilance of a man who knew how quickly amusement could turn into threat. He positioned himself beside you, slightly behind, close enough that his shoulder brushed yours.
At first, it was harmless.
The puppet-faced actor in the cardboard crown strutted across the platform with an exaggerated limp, waving a wooden sceptre and declaring in a booming imitation of royal arrogance, “I am the Sun, and therefore I need not pay the candle-maker!”
The crowd roared.
Louis’s mouth tightened.
You glanced at him, amused despite yourself. “Historically accurate?”
“I pay my candle-makers,” he muttered.
“Eventually?”
He gave you a look.
Onstage, the fake king flung his cloak over one shoulder and posed, chin lifted, one leg extended in a grotesque mockery of royal portraiture. “Bring me mirrors!” he cried. “Bring me jewels! Bring me fountains! Bring me another mistress, this one has started asking questions!”
The crowd laughed harder.
Your gaze flicked to Louis.
His expression had gone very still.
Not angry exactly. Not yet. But narrowed. Contained. The fan stopped moving.
The swollen courtier character waddled forward and bowed so low that his padded stomach nearly knocked him over. “Sire,” he said, in a nasal whine, “the people are hungry.”
The false king waved him away. “Then let them eat admiration. It is cheaper than bread and lasts longer in portraits.”
More laughter.
This time, you did not look at Louis.
Because that one hurt somewhere you did not want to admit. Not because it mocked him, but because beneath the painted cruelty was something too close to truth.
Louis noticed anyway.
He always noticed when you tried to hide a wound from him. It was one of his more inconvenient talents.
His hand brushed the back of yours. Not taking it. Not claiming. Just there.
You kept your eyes on the platform.
Then the actress in the wide skirt stepped forward.
She wore black lace over her hair in a grotesque imitation of Spanish fashion, a painted fan clutched in one hand, her face powdered too pale except for two red circles on her cheeks. Her accent was monstrous, exaggerated beyond recognition. She rolled her r’s like a drunken soldier mocking a foreign song and pressed one hand dramatically to her bosom.
“Ay, ay, ay,” she cried, staggering across the stage. “I am the poor Spanish Queen, cold as a church wall and twice as dull!”
The crowd erupted.
Something inside you stopped.
Louis’s head turned slowly toward the stage.
The actress continued, encouraged by the laughter. “I come from Spain with my saints, my oranges, and my long face. I pray all day, eat garlic all night, and wonder why my beautiful husband runs from my bed!”
A man in the front shouted something obscene.
More laughter.
Your fingers curled into your borrowed vest.
Louis went completely silent beside you.
The false king strutted toward the mock queen and covered his nose with two fingers. “Madame, have the priests taught you nothing? In France, even sin smells better than Spanish virtue.”
The actress wailed theatrically and dropped to her knees. “But, my lord husband, I have brought you a dowry of boredom and a womb full of disappointment!”
The words struck harder than the laughter.
You did not move.
You could not.
The crowd’s amusement swelled around you like dirty water. Men slapped their thighs. Women hid smiles behind their hands. Children, not understanding, laughed because their parents laughed. The actress began miming prayer, crossing herself again and again while the fake king tiptoed away behind her toward a painted mistress with an enormous bosom and a powdered beauty mark.
“Do not,” Louis said.
You were not sure whether he was speaking to you, to the actors, or to himself.
His voice was still low. Too low. The baritone had lost Marguerite entirely. It had become Louis again, velvet over steel.
You tried to answer, but your mouth was dry.
The actress onstage clasped her hands. “Where is my husband? Where is my love? Perhaps he has gone to another woman because I am Spanish and therefore born with vinegar in my blood!”
The false king leapt into the arms of the painted mistress.
The crowd howled.
The actress turned to them, widening her eyes. “Do not blame him! A French king needs beauty, wit, perfume, and women who do not smell of chapel dust!”
You looked down.
It was stupid.
You knew it was stupid.
Street theatre. Cheap mockery. Crude voices in a market square. You had been raised around sharper insults than this. At court, hatred wore silk and smiled with better teeth. This should not have mattered. These were not ministers, not ambassadors, not Montespan’s circle murmuring behind fans. These were common people laughing because a man in a cardboard crown and a woman in bad lace had made your pain easy to digest.
But perhaps that was why it hurt.
Because they were his people.
Not yours.
France had dressed you in gold, crowned you, displayed you, used your Spanish blood when it suited diplomacy and mocked it when it needed laughter. You had learned its prayers, its dances, its court rhythms, its endless rules of precedence and vanity. You had carried his child. Buried it. Smiled until your cheeks ached while women with French names and French perfumes slid between you and your husband.
And still, to them, you were garlic, chapel dust, cold Spanish blood, disappointment wrapped in black lace.
Your vision blurred before you could stop it.
You blinked hard.
Louis saw.
The transformation in him was instant.
One moment he stood beside you as Marguerite, ridiculous and overdressed in poverty, fan half-raised, brown wool skirts brushing the dust. The next, all theatre vanished from him. His spine straightened. His chin lifted. Something cold and ancient entered his hazel eyes, something that belonged not to the man who had been dragged screaming from a bath, nor the lover who had wept in your bed, but to the monarch whose displeasure could empty rooms and ruin bloodlines.
His hand moved to his waist.
You noticed only because you knew him too well.
Beneath the apron, beneath the coarse wool, hidden flat against his body, was the small dagger he had insisted on bringing before you left Marly.
“For safety,” he had said.
“For melodrama,” you had corrected.
Now his fingers closed around the hilt.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
The actor playing the king pranced back to center stage, one arm around the mistress, the other pointing at the mock queen. “Take her away!” he cried. “Send her back across the mountains with her priests and sour oranges! France needs pleasure, not penance!”
The crowd cheered.
Steel flashed in the shadow of Louis’s skirts.
Not much.
Just enough.
Your heart lurched.
“Louis,” you whispered.
He did not look at you.
His eyes were fixed on the stage.
The dagger slid another inch free.
“I already,” he said, voice so quiet it chilled you. “I already showed one fool today what happens when he oversteps around you.”
“They don’t know,” you whispered quickly.
“They know enough to laugh.”
“They don’t know it’s me.”
“I do.”
The actress onstage began a grotesque little dance, stomping her feet in a clumsy imitation of Spanish rhythm while the fake king clapped and shouted, “Careful, my frigid bride! Move too fast and the rosary will fall from between your legs!”
Something broke in Louis’s face.
Not patience. Not restraint.
Something older. More violent.
He stepped forward.
You caught his wrist.
He stopped, but only because your fingers were on him.
The dagger was half-drawn now, hidden by the fall of the brown skirt and your bodies pressed close in the crowd. His hand was rigid beneath yours, tendons sharp, pulse hammering. The blue ribbon still circled his wrist, absurdly bright against the knuckles of a man ready to spill blood in a market square.
“Do not,” you said.
His gaze snapped to yours.
For one terrible instant, you saw no husband there. No ridiculous Marguerite. No bath-fearing Bourbon. Only king. Offended divinity. A man who had been taught that insult to what belonged to him must be answered with punishment.
His voice came low, shaking with fury. “They will not make a sport of you.”
“They already have.”
“Then I will make them regret it.”
“You will expose us.”
“I will carve regret into their mouths before they can say my name.”
“Louis.”
“They called you disappointment,” he hissed, and the word seemed to poison him as it passed his lips. His hazel eyes burned, bloodshot now in a different way. “They called you cold. They mocked your blood. Your grief. Your body. Your place beside me. I should cut out every tongue on that platform and leave them pinned to the boards for crows.”
You tightened your grip on his wrist.
Around you, the crowd laughed again.
No one looked at you.
No one knew the King of France stood among them in a brown dress with a dagger in his hand.
No one knew how close comedy had come to execution.
“You would kill them for repeating what your court believes?” you asked softly.
That struck him.
His breath caught.
You saw it land, saw the fury falter not because it lessened, but because shame entered it like a blade slipped between ribs.
The actors continued behind you.
The false mistress now strutted across the platform, hips swaying, announcing, “Fear not, good people! While the Spanish Queen freezes beside her saints, I shall warm the King for France!”
More laughter.
Louis’s jaw clenched so hard you thought he might crack a tooth.
You leaned closer, voice barely audible beneath the noise. “If you cut out their tongues, will you cut out Montespan’s too?”
His eyes flickered.
There.
You pressed harder.
“Will you cut out every courtier’s tongue? Every priest who called me barren in whispers? Every noblewoman who smiled when I suffered a stillbirth? Every man who bowed to me in the morning and praised your mistress at night?”
Louis looked as if you had slapped him.
Good.
You wanted him awake.
“Will you punish them,” you continued, “or only these people because they are poor enough for you to reach without consequence?”
His face changed again.
The rage did not disappear. It folded inward, becoming something uglier. Something wounded.
His fingers remained locked around the dagger.
But he did not move.
Onstage, the fake king announced, “Bring me another mistress! Preferably French, fertile, and less fond of confession!”
The crowd roared.
Louis closed his eyes.
Not gently. Not in pain alone. He shut them as if the sight of the platform, the sound of the crowd, the ugliness of that laughter had become something physical that might blind him if he looked too long. His fingers remained locked around the hidden dagger beneath Marguerite’s skirts, his pulse hammering hard against your grip, the blue ribbon trembling at his wrist like some obscene little festival prize tied to a hand ready for murder.
For a moment, you thought he might still do it.
You knew that stillness in him. That awful, composed pause before command became consequence. Men at court mistook Louis’s silences for mercy because they were fools. You knew better. His rage was at its most dangerous when it became elegant. When the baritone dropped low. When the hazel eyes emptied of heat and filled instead with that royal distance that allowed him to sign away lives without smudging the ink.
But then his breath moved through him, slow and rough.
Once.
Twice.
His jaw flexed.
When he opened his eyes, the fury had not gone anywhere. It had only been forced behind the gates.
“My court,” he began, voice low, tightly controlled, “does not think—”
He stopped.
Because you were no longer looking at him.
You were staring past his shoulder.
Not at the stage. Not at the actress in the grotesque Spanish mantilla. Not at the false king capering beneath his cardboard crown.
At someone in the crowd.
Louis followed your gaze.
And there, half-hidden near the awning of a spice seller, stood one of his own courtiers.
Marquis de Vardes.
Powdered, perfumed, dressed plainly enough for town but not plainly enough to be invisible, with a walking stick tucked under one arm and an amused little smile curving at the corner of his mouth. Not laughing openly. No, never that. Men like him did not roar with crowds. They smiled discreetly. They watched cruelty unfold from a distance and called it wit. He stood with another gentleman, both of them turned slightly toward the platform, their faces arranged into that careful, poisoned politeness that Versailles had mistaken for civilization.
De Vardes was smiling.
At the mock queen.
At the false Spanish accent.
At the jokes about your womb, your blood, your bed.
Louis went utterly still.
The dagger slid fully into his palm.
“Ah,” you whispered, so softly that only he could hear. “There is your court, Louis.”
His eyes did not leave the man.
All the blood seemed to drain from his face beneath the rough powder someone had smeared on him for the disguise. The ridiculous brown dress, the apron, the kerchief, the black wig hidden beneath it—all of it vanished again. There was no Marguerite now. There was not even the husband who had cried into the dark and begged not to lose you.
There was only a king seeing proof.
Seeing that your accusation had not been cruelty.
Seeing that the rot had names.
His mouth moved once.
No sound came.
Then, very quietly, in a voice like velvet dragged over a blade, he said, “Vardes.”
You tightened your hand around his wrist. “No.”
He did not look at you. “He is laughing.”
“He is smiling.”
“That is how cowards laugh at court.”
“Louis.”
His hazel eyes shone with such cold violence that, for one dreadful instant, you thought even your touch would not hold him.
“He has eaten at my table,” Louis whispered. “He has bowed to you. He has kissed your hand. He has accepted offices from me, money from me, favor from me—”
“And learned from you,” you cut in.
His gaze snapped to you then.
The words struck him harder than the street play.
You did not soften them.
“You taught them what a queen could endure,” you said, voice low and trembling now, not from fear, but from fury so old it had turned clean. “You taught them that my humiliation was survivable. You taught them Montespan could glitter beside you while I stood in shadow and still be expected to smile. Do not act shocked that they learned the lesson.”
Louis stared at you as if you had opened his chest with one hand.
Behind him, the stage laughter swelled.
De Vardes tilted his head toward his companion and murmured something.
The companion covered his smile with his glove.
Louis saw it.
The dagger shifted in his hand.
Then, from the far side of the square, a shout cut through the noise.
“Make way!”
The sound came again, sharper this time.
“Make way for the King’s guard!”
The effect was immediate.
Not panic at first. Confusion. Then the kind of nervous ripple that passed through common crowds whenever uniforms appeared in numbers. Heads turned. Bodies shifted. The musicians faltered. The pipe gave one last awkward squeal before falling silent.
The actors saw them first.
Three royal guards in blue and silver were pushing through the street from the eastern arch, followed by two more on horseback. Their faces were stern, their boots striking the stones with official purpose. The sun flashed over polished hilts.
On the platform, the false king froze mid-pose.
The actress in the Spanish mantilla went pale beneath her painted cheeks.
The padded courtier whispered, “Merde.”
Then theatre dissolved into survival.
The fake king tore off his cardboard crown and leapt from the platform so quickly that his cloak snagged on a nail and ripped in half. The mistress shrieked, kicked over a basket of props, and vanished behind the painted backdrop. The mock queen gathered her enormous skirt in both hands and fled in the opposite direction, her mantilla flying loose behind her like a black flag of surrender.
The crowd burst into shouts.
Not laughter now.
Alarm.
“Run!”
“The guards!”
“They saw!”
“Hide the box!”
Someone knocked over a tray of pears. A child began crying. The offended chicken, apparently cursed to witness every major scandal of the day, shot once more across the square and disappeared under a cart.
Louis did not move.
His eyes remained fixed on de Vardes.
De Vardes, for the first time, stopped smiling.
He had seen the guards too—but worse, perhaps, he had seen Marguerite staring at him with the eyes of his sovereign.
Recognition did not fully enter his face. Not yet. The disguise held by threads and absurdity. But something troubled him. Something in the height. The posture. The stillness. The terrible attention.
His smile died.
Louis took one step toward him.
You stepped in front of him.
“No,” you said.
His face lowered toward yours, fury blazing beneath the kerchief. “Move.”
“No.”
“He heard them. He smiled.”
“Yes.”
“He will answer for it.”
“Not here.”
Louis’s nostrils flared. “You ask restraint of me while he stands there breathing?”
“You prayed for this, remember?”
His mouth twitched, but not with humor.
Around you, the crowd began dispersing in every direction. Stalls were being shuttered. People slipped into alleys, dragged children away, gathered baskets in haste. The guards were closer now, their voices rising above the commotion as they demanded order.
You looked toward them, heart suddenly thudding for an entirely different reason.
“Why are your guards here?”
Louis’s answer did not come at once.
For one terrible second, you thought he would say something dreadful. That he had summoned them. That some hidden royal instinct had sent word ahead the moment insult touched the air. That even dressed in brown wool and calling himself Marguerite, he had somehow managed to drag the machinery of monarchy into the square with him.
But Louis only stared toward the approaching guards, his hazel eyes narrowing beneath the crooked kerchief.
“I don’t know,” he said.
You looked at him. “You don’t know?”
“No.”
“You are the King.”
“And yet, astonishingly, men sometimes move without first asking me where to put their feet.”
“That must be very hard for you.”
“It is a national affliction.”
The guards were nearer now, their voices cutting through the square as people scattered around them. A cart rolled hastily away. A woman snatched up her basket of onions. Somewhere behind the platform, the mock queen had become trapped in her own skirt and was whispering desperate prayers to every saint she had just finished insulting.
You grabbed Louis’s sleeve. “Why would royal guards be here?”
He glanced down at your hand on him, then at the soldiers.
Then, with a seriousness that made the sentence worse, he said, “Perhaps they are after one of the peacocks.”
You stared at him.
The square roared around you. The actors fled. De Vardes vanished behind the awning of the spice seller. Royal guards in blue and silver pushed through the crowd with the grave purpose of men arriving at a murder, a riot, or a treasonous pamphlet.
And Louis had said peacocks.
“Peacocks,” you repeated flatly.
“Yes.”
“You think the King’s guard came into town because of a bird?”
Louis’s face hardened in immediate offense. “Not just any bird.”
“Oh, forgive me. A noble bird.”
“A very expensive bird,” he corrected, catching your wrist and pulling you sharply into the moving crowd before one of the guards could glance too long in your direction. “Do not stand there gawking like a provincial. Walk.”
“I am not gawking. I am trying to understand why France’s military resources are being used to chase ornamental poultry.”
“They are not poultry.”
“They have feathers.”
“So do angels. I would not call Saint Michael a chicken.”
“You would if he cost too much and screamed in your garden.”
Louis shot you a look over his shoulder, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the kerchief slipping sideways over the hidden black wig. “My peacocks are the pride of Versailles.”
“They scream like women being murdered.”
“They add atmosphere.”
“They attack gardeners.”
“The gardeners should develop courage.”
You stumbled after him as he dragged you between a bread stall and a woman selling ribbons, his grip firm around your wrist, the fan clutched absurdly in his other hand. He moved too quickly for Marguerite now. The disguise was failing in every line of him. The stride was too long. The shoulders too straight. The air of command too unmistakable. People made way instinctively, not knowing why they were moving aside for a very tall woman in brown wool who walked like war in skirts.
You yanked your wrist. “Louis, slow down.”
He slowed, but only enough to keep you from tripping over your borrowed boots.
“Do you understand,” he said in a low, urgent baritone, “how much one of those birds costs? The plumage alone—”
“I cannot believe we are discussing peacock accounting during a near-arrest.”
“The gardener will be in a panic.”
“The gardener?”
“Yes. Poor man.”
You glanced at him sharply. “Poor man? You just said your gardeners should develop courage.”
“They should. But in an organized fashion.”
The guards shouted again behind you. “Close the western lane! Check the market road!”
You tensed.
Louis heard it too. His fingers tightened around your wrist, and he pulled you under the shade of an overhanging cloth awning, pressing you close to a wall where sacks of grain were stacked high enough to shield you from the main square. He stood in front of you instinctively, brown skirts brushing your knees, his ridiculous fan half-lifted as if it could defend you from discovery by sheer theatrical force.
You peered past his shoulder. “They’re looking for someone.”
“They may still be looking for the peacock.”
“They said close the lane.”
“Peacocks run.”
“They do not organize sedition.”
“You underestimate them.”
You looked at him.
He looked back, maddeningly solemn.
“You’re enjoying this,” you accused.
“I am not.”
“You are. Your face is glowing.”
“That is exertion. These stays are barbaric.”
“You chose them.”
“For the silhouette. Not the suffering.”
One of the mounted guards passed near enough that the horse’s hooves struck sparks from the stone. Louis turned his face away slightly, lowering the fan to hide the shape of his nose, but you still saw the tension in him. Not fear exactly. Louis did not fear discovery the way ordinary people feared discovery. If someone recognized him, the world would simply rearrange itself around the truth, kneeling and apologizing. What he feared was losing the afternoon. Losing the laughter. Losing the fragile, impossible pocket of unreality in which he could be Marguerite and you could be Pierre and no one could point at you from a wooden stage and call your grief a joke without the King of France reaching for a blade.
His eyes flicked back toward the square.
De Vardes was gone.
You knew Louis had noticed.
The silence between you sharpened.
“Do not follow him,” you said quietly.
Louis’s mouth tightened. “I did not say anything.”
“You didn’t need to.”
His gaze remained fixed beyond the crowd. “He will answer.”
“Yes,” you said. “But not while you are dressed as a washerwoman and smelling faintly of pear tarts.”
“I do not smell of pear tarts.”
“You were leaning over them with longing.”
“I was evaluating them.”
“You were coveting them.”
“I am the King. I do not covet. I acquire.”
“Marguerite covets.”
That brought his eyes back to you.
A faint, unwilling smile tugged at his mouth despite the fury still burning under it. “Marguerite is complex.”
“Marguerite is about to get us both dragged before the guards because she cannot resist either revenge or pastry.”
“She contains multitudes.”
“She contains a dagger.”
His smile vanished.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
The dagger remained hidden in his hand, half beneath the fall of his skirt. You reached down slowly, your fingers wrapping around his wrist once more—not harshly, not pleadingly, but with a firmness that reminded him you knew exactly what he was capable of.
“Put it away,” you said.
Louis stared at you.
The old battle returned to his face: authority against restraint, pride against love, the King against the man who had prayed that morning not to become a monster in front of you again.
Then, slowly, he slid the dagger back into its concealed sheath.
It was a small sound.
A whisper of steel.
But it felt larger than the square.
You released his wrist.
Louis looked down at the place your hand had been as if your fingers had left a brand.
“Thank you,” you said, almost reluctantly.
His baritone softened. “Do not thank me yet.”
“Why?”
“Because if that truly is my peacock, I may still have to commit violence.”
You stared at him.
He stepped back from the wall, peering past the awning with renewed attention. “The blue one is particularly arrogant. If it has escaped again, I shall know. It walks like a bishop with unpaid debts.”
Despite yourself, you made a sound. Not quite a laugh. Too dangerous to be laughter.
Louis heard it and seized on it instantly.
“You doubt me,” he said. “But the last time one of them escaped, it took four guards, two gardeners, a laundress, and a boy with a cabbage to retrieve it.”
“A cabbage?”
“It was bait.”
“Peacocks eat cabbage?”
“This one did. It also bit a priest.”
You pressed your lips together.
Louis leaned closer, hazel eyes glinting now beneath the kerchief. “The priest said it was possessed.”
“Was it?”
“It was Spanish.”
You hit his arm.
He winced theatrically. “Abuse. In public. Pierre is cruel.”
“You deserved that.”
“I said the bird was Spanish, not you.”
“You implied a resemblance.”
“I implied passion. Temperament. A certain elegance of fury.”
“You are trying to survive.”
“I am succeeding.”
The absurdity should not have soothed you. It should not have pulled you back from the sharp edge of humiliation still lodged beneath your ribs. But Louis, damn him, had always known how to turn danger sideways at the last possible moment, how to make the room bend not only through power, but through charm. It was one of the reasons people forgave him things they should not have forgiven.
It was one of the reasons you hated remembering that you had once forgiven him too.
The guards continued spreading through the square, but their attention seemed focused away from the market stage now, toward the lane leading to the stables. A young soldier hurried past carrying a length of netting.
You blinked.
Louis followed your gaze.
His face brightened with vindication.
“Ah.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That could be for anything.”
“It is netting.”
“People use netting for many things.”
“For peacocks,” he said, deeply satisfied.
A second guard rushed by holding what appeared unmistakably to be a basket of grain.
Louis lifted one brow.
You closed your eyes. “Do not look smug.”
“I am not smug.”
“You are radiating smugness through the dress.”
“I told you. It is not just a bird.”
A shriek erupted from the far lane.
Not human.
High, metallic, outrageously dramatic.
The entire market turned.
A flash of iridescent blue shot between two carts, followed by three guards, a groom, a red-faced man in gardener’s clothes, and a small boy waving a cabbage with the solemn determination of a knight carrying a holy relic.
The peacock exploded into the square.
There was no other word for it.
It came tearing through the street in a storm of blue, green, and offended majesty, tail streaming behind it like a torn royal banner. People screamed and scattered. The bird darted beneath a table, knocked over a basket of pears, emerged from the other side with a piece of lace tangled around one foot, and shrieked again as if France itself had insulted its lineage.
Louis froze.
Then whispered, with horror and recognition, “Philippe.”
You turned slowly to look at him.
“The peacock’s name is Philippe?”
“He came with that name.”
“You named a peacock after your brother?”
“No. I named my brother after the peacock.”
“Louis.”
“That was a joke.”
“Was it?”
His silence was not reassuring.
The gardener chasing the bird looked moments from collapse. His face was crimson, his wig gone entirely, his sleeves rolled to the elbow. “Catch him!” he shouted, voice cracking. “For the love of God, catch him!”
The peacock shrieked again and launched itself onto the edge of the pastry stall.
The pear tarts trembled.
Louis inhaled sharply.
“Not the tarts,” he said.
“Of course that is your concern.”
“Those were excellent tarts.”
“You didn’t even taste them.”
“I had plans.”
The bird stepped directly into one.
Louis made a wounded sound.
The gardener saw it and nearly wept.
“Majesty will kill me,” he gasped to one of the guards. “He will kill me. He already dismissed me last time. I only got my place back because I wept into his robes.”
You turned to Louis very slowly.
Louis suddenly became fascinated by the fan.
“You fired him,” you said.
“He lost an expensive bird.”
“And rehired him because he cried on you?”
“He was very damp.”
“You are a ridiculous man.”
“He clutched my robes. In front of courtiers. There was mucus.”
“So you gave him his job back?”
“I am not made of stone.”
“You threatened to cut out actors’ tongues five minutes ago.”
“That was different. They insulted you. He only ruined velvet.”
The peacock hopped from the crushed pear tart onto a barrel, flared its tail half-open, and screamed into the face of the guard holding the net. The guard stumbled backward. The boy with the cabbage advanced bravely and was immediately chased in a circle.
You stared.
Louis stared too, his mouth pressed into a tight line.
Then he murmured, “He has grown bolder.”
“Your bird is terrorizing the market.”
“He is a royal bird.”
“He is a menace.”
“Most royal things are.”
That should not have made you laugh.
But it did.
A small laugh. Brief. Almost strangled. But real enough that Louis looked at you at once, all the violence and anger in him briefly forgotten.
You saw the way he watched you when you laughed.
As if he had been starving.
You looked away quickly.
“Don’t,” you said.
“I said nothing.”
“You were about to look sentimental.”
“I would never.”
“You always do it after surviving one of your own disasters.”
“This disaster has feathers. I refuse responsibility.”
Philippe the peacock chose that exact moment to leap from the barrel, land on the edge of the ring toss table, and send every wooden ring skittering into the dust. The stallkeeper shouted in outrage. The guards closed in. The bird darted left, then right, then made directly for the narrow space beneath your awning.
Louis’s eyes widened.
“No,” he said sharply, forgetting himself. “Not here.”
The peacock came straight toward you.
You had time only to step back before Louis moved in front of you.
It was instinctive.
Ridiculous, given that the threat was a bird.
But instinctive all the same.
Brown skirts flared. His arm came across your body. The fan snapped open like a shield. He stood between you and the incoming storm of feathers with the grim resolve of a man facing cavalry.
The peacock skidded to a halt.
Louis stared down at it.
The bird stared up at Louis.
For a suspended heartbeat, king and peacock regarded one another with mutual, ancestral contempt.
Then Louis lowered his voice, baritone deep enough to make the air seem to vibrate.
“Philippe.”
The peacock’s head tilted.
You stared between them, incredulous. “Are you speaking to it?”
“Hush.”
“You know the peacock personally.”
“I said hush.”
The bird took one delicate step forward.
Louis lifted the fan higher.
“Do not embarrass me,” he said, still in that dangerously low voice.
Philippe screamed.
Louis flinched.
You bit your lip so hard it hurt.
The gardener rounded the corner and froze at the sight of Marguerite apparently locked in diplomatic relations with the escaped peacock. The guards stopped behind him, panting.
The boy with the cabbage whispered, “Madame, don’t move.”
Louis did not take his eyes off the bird. “I am not moving.”
The peacock looked at the fan.
Louis looked at the peacock.
Then, slowly, Louis extended the fan sideways.
The bird followed the motion.
Louis flicked it once.
Philippe lunged.
Louis stepped aside with startling grace, the bird charging toward the fluttering object just as one of the guards threw the net.
Chaos exploded.
The net landed half on the bird, half on Louis’s skirt. Philippe screamed. Louis cursed. The gardener shouted. You grabbed Louis by the back of the dress before he could trip and fall face-first into grain sacks. The boy with the cabbage threw himself heroically at the bird’s tail and missed entirely.
For several seconds, everyone was feathers, netting, skirts, and profanity.
Then the guard managed to pin the net properly.
Philippe was captured.
The square burst into applause.
Louis stood frozen, chest heaving, one side of his dress caught under the net, fan broken in half, kerchief slipping low over one eye.
You looked at him.
He looked at you.
Then you said, “Marguerite is very brave.”
His eyes narrowed. “Not one word.”
“You saved France.”
“Not one word.”
“From Philippe.”
“Pierre.”
“The royal bird.”
“I will divorce you.”
“You are my sister.”
“I will divorce you anyway.”
The gardener dropped to his knees beside the captured peacock, nearly sobbing with relief. “Thank God. Thank God. His Majesty will not hear of this. Please, all of you, please, say nothing. If the King learns Philippe reached the market again, I am ruined.”
Louis, still trapped partially beneath the net, looked down at him.
The gardener did not recognize him.
Of course he did not.
Why would he? No man in his right mind would expect Louis XIV to be standing in a market square in a brown dress, smelling faintly of rose soap, pastry, and rage.
Louis’s expression shifted.
You saw the temptation before he spoke.
“No,” you whispered.
He ignored you.
With slow, theatrical dignity, he lifted the remaining half of his broken fan, lowered his voice into Marguerite’s most atrocious feminine register, and said, “Perhaps His Majesty would be merciful.”
The gardener looked up, miserable. “You don’t know him.”
Your mouth twitched.
Louis’s brows lifted.
The gardener wiped sweat from his forehead. “He is terrible about the birds. Terrible. Last time, he stood in the garden with that black wig and those eyes, staring at me as if I had personally sold France to Spain. Then he dismissed me in front of everyone. Everyone.”
Louis’s face changed.
You put a hand over your mouth.
The gardener continued, voice trembling with the trauma of memory. “I had to chase him through the south gallery. I cried into his robes. I am not proud of it. But I have six children and a wife who says peacocks are the devil’s chickens.”
Louis blinked.
You lost the battle and laughed.
Not softly. Not discreetly. You turned into the wall and laughed until your shoulders shook.
Louis shot you a murderous look.
The gardener stared at you, offended. “It was a difficult day.”
“I’m sure,” you managed.
Louis cleared his throat. “And did His Majesty rehire you?”
The gardener sighed deeply. “Yes. Eventually. After I ruined the velvet. He was angrier about the velvet than the tears.”
You laughed harder.
Louis’s mouth tightened. “Perhaps His Majesty has a complicated relationship with textiles.”
The gardener nodded gravely. “That is true.”
You wheezed.
Louis turned his face toward you, whispering through clenched teeth, “You are enjoying this far too much.”
“I have never enjoyed anything more.”
“I can still have you arrested.”
“For laughing at peacock treason?”
“For marital cruelty.”
“We are siblings today.”
His eyes flashed. “Conveniently.”
The guards finished securing Philippe into the netted basket, though the bird continued screaming with the moral outrage of a dethroned prince. The gardener rose, bowed quickly to Marguerite and Pierre as if gratitude required some gesture, and hurried away with the guards, the boy, the cabbage, and the captured royal menace.
The market slowly exhaled.
People returned to stalls. Someone righted the pears. The actors, seeing that the royal guards had come for a bird rather than satire, began emerging cautiously from hiding. The fake king’s cardboard crown peeked from behind a barrel.
Louis remained under the awning, one half of his broken fan still in hand, his brown skirt muddy at the hem and torn slightly where the net had caught it. The kerchief had slipped again, exposing the edge of the black wig underneath, which sat upon his head with the tragic imbalance of a defeated empire. His hazel eyes were narrowed, not at the actors now, nor at the guards vanishing down the lane with Philippe shrieking from his basket, but at you.
“You may stop laughing,” he said.
You tried. Truly, you did. But the image of Philippe the peacock staring down the King of France disguised as a washerwoman had imprinted itself too deeply into your soul.
“I cannot,” you wheezed, one hand braced against the wall, your cap crooked over your hair. “You called the peacock Philippe.”
“He is called Philippe.”
“You spoke to him like a minister.”
“He has more discipline than some ministers.”
“He screamed in your face.”
“So do some ministers.”
That only made it worse. You bent forward, laughing again, shoulders shaking, breath catching in your throat as Louis stood before you in all his wounded royal magnificence, smelling faintly of rose soap, pastry sugar, market dust, and humiliation. He tried to look offended. He nearly succeeded. But there was something in his mouth that betrayed him, a reluctant twitch at one corner, a softening he could not quite command back into severity.
He loved it.
You saw it before he could hide it.
Not the mockery, not his own embarrassment, but the sound of you. Your laughter. Real laughter. Ridiculous, unguarded, free. Not the brittle court laugh you used like a fan to strike people without touching them. Not the cold laugh you gave him when you wanted him to bleed. This was helpless. Human. Alive.
Louis looked at you as if he had stumbled upon a chapel in the woods.
Then, because he was Louis, he ruined it by muttering, “Pierre is cruel to his wife.”
“You are my sister today.”
His eyes sharpened. “You denied the marriage first.”
“I saved us.”
“You abandoned Marguerite to libertines.”
“You showed a stranger your royal cock in a public square.”
His expression became pained. “Must you say royal?”
“Would you prefer humble?”
“Never.”
You laughed again, though softer now, wiping at the corner of one eye. “God, Louis.”
His face changed slightly at his name. Not much. Only enough for you to notice. He was still in disguise, still ridiculous, still Marguerite in brown wool beneath a crooked kerchief, but the sound of his real name in your laughing mouth seemed to touch him somewhere bare.
He opened his mouth, perhaps to make some insufferable remark about the dignity of kings, when your gaze drifted beyond his shoulder.
And stopped.
At first, you thought you were mistaken.
No. Surely not.
The man from earlier—the red-cheeked turnip with boots, as Louis had so poetically christened him—had returned.
But not as he had fled.
No, this time he came with preparation.
His hair, previously wind-tossed from terror and lust, had been combed back with visible effort, though one stubborn curl had sprung loose near his temple. His coat had been hastily brushed. His hat was tucked beneath one arm. In his hands, clutched with absurd courage, was a small bouquet of flowers: cheap, bright, slightly wilted from market heat, but arranged with something almost like hope.
He searched the square.
Then he saw Louis.
And smiled.
You stared.
Then covered your mouth.
Louis noticed immediately.
“What?” he demanded.
You shook your head, already losing the fight.
His hazel eyes narrowed. “What is it?”
You pointed.
Louis followed your gaze.
For one rare, perfect moment, the King of France looked genuinely horrified.
Not politically displeased. Not theatrically wounded. Horrified. His mouth parted. The broken fan lowered. His eyes widened beneath the slipping kerchief as the man began walking toward him with flowers and renewed romantic purpose.
“No,” Louis said.
The man lifted the bouquet slightly.
Louis took one step back.
“No.”
You made a strangled sound.
“He came back,” you whispered.
Louis stared as if watching France collapse in real time. “Impossible.”
“He came back after seeing—”
“Do not say it.”
“After seeing Marguerite’s secret.”
“Do not.”
You were laughing again now, helplessly, one hand over your stomach. “He brought flowers.”
Louis turned on you, offended past speech. “This is not amusing.”
“It is the funniest thing that has ever happened to either of us.”
“He saw the truth!”
“And apparently reflected upon it.”
“He screamed witchcraft!”
“And then combed his hair.”
Louis looked back. The man was closer now, expression nervous but determined, bouquet held forward like a peace offering to a pagan goddess with unexpected anatomy.
Louis’s baritone dropped into a scandalized hiss. “What is wrong with these people?”
You leaned against the wall, laughing so hard your cap nearly fell off. “He is French, Louis.”
“That is not an explanation.”
“It is exactly an explanation.”
“It is a national insult.”
“It is a national pattern,” you gasped. “I have learned many things since coming here. Your people enjoy sauces, arguments, impractical shoes, and apparently they are willing to appreciate both sides of creation.”
Louis blinked. “Both sides of—?”
You gestured vaguely, unable to speak for a moment.
His face darkened with realization.
“Do not finish that sentence.”
“Madame,” the man called, still approaching, “forgive me!”
Louis seized your wrist at once.
“No.”
“You should answer him,” you wheezed. “Marguerite has an admirer.”
“Marguerite is leaving.”
“But he brought flowers.”
“Marguerite is widowed by necessity.”
The man hurried closer. “Madame, wait! I judged too quickly!”
Louis’s face became a mask of royal despair. “He judged too quickly.”
You could barely breathe. “He has grown as a person.”
“He has become worse.”
“Perhaps he spent five minutes thinking and decided love is love.”
“Stop laughing.”
“I physically cannot.”
The man was close enough now that you could see the hope in his eyes, the sweat at his temples, the tragic sincerity of his bouquet. “Madame,” he said, slightly breathless, “I have reconsidered.”
Louis clutched your hand tighter.
“Have you,” he said, and although he attempted Marguerite’s voice, outrage dragged it straight back into that velvet baritone.
The man faltered only slightly. Then, astonishingly, blushed.
You made a noise so undignified that Louis shot you a look promising future punishment.
The man held out the flowers. “I reacted poorly.”
“You reacted accurately,” Louis said.
“No,” the man insisted. “I was frightened. Surprised. But I am a man of Paris. I have seen many things.”
Louis stared at him.
You whispered, “Apparently.”
Louis tugged your wrist. “We are leaving.”
“Marguerite,” the man pleaded.
“Come, Pierre.”
The man followed one step. “Madame—”
Louis looked back over his shoulder, hazel eyes flashing.
“I said no.”
This time, the voice was not Marguerite’s. Not even close. It was the voice of the man who had ordered armies, dismissed ministers, built palaces, and terrified gardeners into weeping over peacocks. It struck the air with such quiet finality that the man stopped dead, bouquet drooping in his hands.
Louis turned away again and marched forward, dragging you with him through the market crowd.
You stumbled after him, still laughing. “You cannot blame him. You are very beautiful and spoiled.”
“I am not discussing this.”
“You said Marguerite was irresistible.”
“I was wrong.”
“You were right.”
“Do not encourage Frenchmen.”
“You are a Frenchman.”
“I am the Frenchman. That is different.”
“He brought flowers, Louis.”
“He brought madness.”
“They were almost the same color as your ribbon.”
Louis glanced down at the blue ribbon still tied around his wrist, then scowled as if it too had betrayed him. “I am beginning to hate this town.”
“Marguerite, I’m going to write to you!”
“Mon Dieu, non!”
You laughed, grabbed Louis by the arm and dragged him away this time.
He came willingly, laughing under his breath as you fled with him through the market, both of you ridiculous, compromised, dust-streaked, no longer quite king and queen, not forgiven, not healed, not safe from the ending of nine days.
But laughing.
And Louis, who had been worshipped by France and still starved in ways no one could see, held the sound of you beside him like something rarer than jewels.
Like grace.
Temporary.
Conditional.
But real.
A Garden for Widows
Summary: What begins as a royal apology becomes something far larger when the Queen demands the garden serve the people. For once, Louis listens—and surprises them both.
Pairing: Louis XIV × Fem! Reader
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: The big winner of the poll was Gilded Defiance, and here’s the new chapter! And there’ll be another one very soon. In fact, this was originally supposed to be one huuuuuge chapter, but I just discovered that Tumblr refuses to accept posts longer than 10,000 words. 😭 So, congratulations, Tumblr. You’ve accidentally turned one giant chapter into two. 😅
First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth part here
Also read on Ao3
When you woke the next morning, the sun was already brushing pale streaks across the damask curtains. The hunting lodge was quiet—eerily so. For a moment, you thought perhaps you’d dreamt the chaos of yesterday. That Louis hadn’t bargained for your forgiveness with baths and flowers. That he hadn’t cried in your bed, pressed trembling kisses to your fingers, and begged with the desperation of a dying man.
But then you reached across the sheets.
And he wasn’t there.
No wig. No scent. No warmth.
Just a faint indentation on the mattress.
He had risen before you.
You sat up slowly, rubbing the back of your neck, the weight of the silence pressing into your shoulders. Before your thoughts could spiral, the soft rustle of skirts at the door drew your attention.
Your ladies-in-waiting had already assembled.
Marie. Béatrice. Solène.
All of them neatly dressed, their hair pinned, their hands folded like birds on a perch. Not one of them commented on your expression. Not one asked if the King had slept beside you. But they saw the redness at the edges of your eyes. They saw the tired grace in your limbs as you rose.
None of them spoke of it.
Instead, they drew your bath.
Steam lifted in curling ribbons as you stepped into the copper tub, jasmine still lingering faintly in the air from Louis’s punishment-bath the day before. You bathed quietly, scrubbed your arms, shoulders, and legs, and—like always—used the linen cloth soaked in vinegar to clean your teeth. Sharp. Astringent. Comforting.
You sat still as Béatrice brushed out your hair and began weaving it into something respectable—nothing too formal, but elegant enough for court eyes.
By the time you were dressed, the summer sun had climbed higher, spilling gold across the stone floor. You chose a modest gown in soft green silk, adorned with cream lace, and no jewelry save for the ring Louis had given you the year of your marriage. You wore it today not for sentiment.
But for theatre.
When you arrived in the breakfast chamber, you expected silence. Perhaps Louis alone, sulking behind a goblet. Or waiting for you, brooding with that storm in his eyes.
Instead—you found company.
The man rose at once when you entered, bowing low in deference. He was older, with clever eyes and hands that looked more accustomed to soil than ink.
Louis stood beside him, perfectly composed, dressed in a crisp morning coat of blue and gold, black wig freshly powdered and perched askew as always. He held a teacup with imperial laziness, and his expression—when he looked at you—was bright. Smiling.
As if the previous night hadn’t happened.
“As promised,” he said, his baritone warm and effortless, “I have summoned the very man who will build your orchard.”
The man bowed again. “Jean de La Quintinie, Majesty. At your service.”
You arched one brow.
Orchard?
Louis gestured to the chair beside him. “Come, ma rebelle. Sit. We’ve begun without you, but I’m told the soil will wait.”
You obeyed—not because he asked, but because you needed to know what game he was playing. You took your seat beside him, your spine straight, your eyes fixed on the stranger.
Louis poured you tea as if nothing had happened. “Monsieur de La Quintinie is the finest gardener in France. I’ve tasked him with creating a fruit garden worthy of the Crown.”
“A potager, Majesty,” Jean corrected gently, his voice eager. “A formal kitchen garden, to be exact. But one with elegance. Harmony. I envision a space that marries nourishment with beauty.”
You turned to Louis slowly. “A potager.”
“Oui,” Louis said, grinning, as if this were his idea and not something ripped straight from your arguments. “A personal one. I will no longer tolerate the disgrace of linens-flavored peaches on your breakfast tray.”
Jean smiled with pride. “The King has instructed that we grow peaches, above all. His favorite.”
You looked at your husband.
His expression was insufferably smug.
You blinked once. Slowly.
“You’re serious?” you asked.
Louis leaned closer, his voice pitched intimately low. “Utterly.”
Then, to Jean, louder: “The Queen wishes to know what else we might grow. Enlighten her, monsieur.”
Jean brightened. “Tomatoes, of course, though they remain a novelty. Strawberries. Figs. Aubergines. Lettuce. Cress. Even medicinal herbs—lavender, rosemary, hyssop.”
You tilted your head. “Could we grow oranges?”
La Quintinie smiled. “If there’s a greenhouse, Majesty. Or a well-positioned wall to shield them. But yes.”
You smiled despite yourself. “And cherries?”
“Certainly. Though we must protect them from the birds.”
Louis nodded, folding one leg over the other. “What of the placement? I want it where the Queen can see it. Right in front of her windows.”
You froze.
La Quintinie hesitated. “Sire, that depends on the terrain. I must study the light, the soil, the water access. If the ground is not fertile, we would waste months—perhaps years.”
You opened your mouth. “There’s no need to build anything in front of my windows—”
“There is,” Louis said firmly, reaching for your hand.
You blinked down at your fingers. His were warm. Steady.
“I made a promise,” he said, not looking at Jean now. Just you. “And I intend to keep it. Even if I have to move the trees myself.”
You didn’t speak.
You stared at him—wig crooked, hands still faintly damp from rosewater, eyes heavy with everything left unsaid from the night before.
He smiled.
Not charming. Not imperial.
Just soft.
“I told you I would bring you fruit,” he murmured. “And I will.”
You slowly withdrew your hand from his, careful and deliberate, like pulling away from something hot.
Louis didn’t stop you.
He watched the motion in silence, the faintest crease forming between his brows. His fingers lingered where yours had been, as if holding the ghost of your touch.
Then you spoke—quietly, but without softness.
“This isn’t the promise I asked you to keep.”
The words settled in the chamber like falling dust—light, but impossible to ignore.
Louis didn’t flinch. He didn’t argue.
He only lowered his gaze for a moment, the lashes of his tired hazel eyes casting faint shadows against his cheeks. Then he exhaled through his nose and said, baritone voice calm and composed:
“I will keep this one, too.”
You looked at him—truly looked. He met your gaze evenly, the smile now gone from his lips, the theatre stripped away. He wasn’t trying to charm you. He wasn’t pleading, bargaining, groveling, not this time.
“I swear it,” he continued. “When we return to Versailles, the first thing I do will be to send her away.”
You didn’t answer.
You couldn’t.
Not because you didn’t want to believe him—but because hope was a dangerous thing in the hands of men like Louis.
Instead, you turned your attention away, your gaze drifting to Jean de La Quintinie, who had wisely busied himself with his plate, his knife moving through a poached pear with delicate precision, as though it were the most fascinating object in all of France.
You studied him for a moment.
Then asked, “How much do you think the Potager will cost the crown, monsieur?”
Jean blinked, startled, his fork pausing mid-air. “Majesty?”
“The construction,” you said. “The walls, the irrigation, the greenhouses, the seasonal labor. What will it cost?”
Jean opened his mouth to answer, but Louis interrupted—casual, dismissive, waving one gloved hand as if brushing away smoke.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “The taxes will cover it.”
You turned back to him, sharply. “You already take too much from the people of France.”
Louis’s smile thinned. “They’ve always paid for the glory of their kingdom.”
“And what glory do they eat at night?” you shot back. “What use is an orchard outside my window when children in Paris dig through gutters for bruised fruit?”
He tilted his head, tone still calm, though his jaw tensed faintly. “You’ve already done more for them than most queens have. The twelve wells in the city—your wells—have changed lives. I heard it myself. They praise you for it. And that hospital for war widows—”
“Is only one,” you cut in. “One building. For one kind of suffering.”
Louis sighed, setting down his teacup with care. “You expect me to fix all of France before breakfast?”
“I expect you to remember them,” you said, your voice quiet now. “When you order gardens built and marble shipped and wigs powdered with silver. I expect you to remember them. That’s all.”
Silence fell between you.
Not hostile. Not cold.
Just quiet.
Louis leaned back slightly in his chair, fingers tapping the table once—twice—then stilling.
He studied you.
Hair braided, gown simple, posture regal but tired. Not defeated. Just… guarded. Fortified. Like a fortress that had once been a palace.
His voice, when he spoke, was lower.
Steadier.
“I remember them more when you’re near.”
You didn’t look at him.
Jean de La Quintinie cleared his throat discreetly. “The costs, Majesty,” he said carefully, “can be managed if we reuse the old stone from the collapsed east wall at Saint-Cloud. The scaffolding will need reinforcing, but if we begin in autumn…”
Louis listened.
You stared at the steam curling from your teacup, hands still.
The garden would be beautiful.
But it was not the thing you needed.
Not yet.
And Louis—well, Louis was learning.
Slowly. Painfully.
Like a man dragging himself through every inch of the orchard he promised to build.
Fruit by fruit.
Lie by lie.
Bath by bath.
Jean de La Quintinie spoke for nearly an hour.
He spoke of walls and soil and sun exposure. Of espaliered pear trees trained against warm stone, of peaches coaxed into sweetness by clever placement and patience, of herbs that could be both useful and beautiful if planted in ordered beds. He spoke with the fervor of a priest describing paradise, hands moving over the table as though already shaping the earth between his fingers.
Louis listened with the kind of grand, regal attention he gave to men who interested him. Chin lifted, one hand resting near his cup, black wig sitting with more confidence than accuracy upon his head. Every so often he would ask a question—sharp, practical, unexpectedly informed—and Jean would light up, delighted to be understood by a king whose vanity, for once, had found something useful to attach itself to.
You listened too, but more quietly.
You watched Louis more than you watched the gardener.
He seemed almost peaceful when discussing fruit.
It irritated you.
Not because peace looked unnatural on him, but because it suited him too well. Because under the powdered grandeur, beneath the ridiculous black wig and the royal stiffness and the stubborn refusal to bathe without threats of exile, there was still the man you had once loved. The man who could look at a map of a garden as if it were a kingdom kinder than the one he already possessed. The man whose hazel eyes softened when Jean described cherries ripening under netting, whose mouth curved slightly when oranges were mentioned, as if he remembered Spain because he remembered you.
That was the cruelty of it.
Louis was never only the villain of your grief.
He was also the hand that had once steadied yours when you first crossed the threshold of Versailles. The voice that had read to you in the dark when storms shook the windows. The man who had sent musicians away because their playing gave you a headache, then pretended it had been his own displeasure, not tenderness, that moved him.
He was the wound and the memory of the bandage.
And now he sat across from you, speaking of soil.
“It must not be ornamental only,” you said at last, interrupting Jean’s discussion of drainage channels.
Both men looked at you.
Louis tilted his head. “What must not be ornamental?”
“The garden.” You folded your hands in your lap. “If you build it, then it must feed more than my vanity.”
A faint line appeared between Louis’s brows.
Jean, wise enough to sense the ground shifting beneath his feet, lowered his eyes to his notes.
You continued, your voice calm. “If the Crown is to spend money on walls and fruit trees and clever irrigation, then part of the yield should go to the hospital. The widows’ hospital. Fresh herbs, vegetables, fruit in season. Not scraps after the court has eaten. Not bruised fruit. A proper portion.”
Louis stared at you.
For a moment he said nothing, and you thought he would dismiss it. You were ready for the familiar gesture, the elegant hand wave, the paternal little sigh that reduced suffering to numbers and numbers to inconvenience.
But he did not wave you away.
Instead, he leaned back slowly in his chair, his fingers resting against the carved arm. The morning light touched his face at an angle that made him look older than his portraits ever dared. There was gray at his temples beneath the wig, a tired heaviness around his eyes, a faint looseness at the mouth that had nothing to do with weakness and everything to do with years spent performing strength.
“A royal potager,” he said thoughtfully, “that feeds widows.”
“And children,” you added.
His gaze flicked back to yours.
“The children of soldiers,” you said. “If their fathers die for your wars, they can at least taste peaches from your gardens.”
Jean’s fork stopped against the porcelain.
Louis’s expression did not change, but his hazel eyes darkened.
For one sharp second, you wondered whether you had gone too far. Then you remembered the tax carts. The hunger. The silk gowns paid for by cracked hands. The war widows with infants at their breasts and nothing but prayer between them and starvation.
No. Not far enough.
Louis took a breath.
“That,” he said slowly, “would be good theatre.”
Your face hardened.
His hand lifted before you could speak. “And good policy,” he added, softer. “And perhaps, even, good mercy.”
You looked at him warily.
He turned to Jean. “Can it be done?”
Jean blinked. “Majesty?”
“The Queen’s proposal. Can the garden be designed with distribution in mind? Proper storage? A place for washing and packing the produce. A record kept of what leaves the grounds and where it goes.”
Jean’s face changed at once, calculation replacing surprise. “Yes, Sire. It would require planning. A separate entrance, perhaps. Somewhere carts could arrive without disturbing the formal paths. Storage cellars. Drying racks for herbs. If we include medicinal plants—”
“Include them,” Louis said.
You said nothing.
Jean bowed his head. “Then yes. It can be done.”
Louis nodded once, as if he had just ordered a fortress built. Then he looked at you again.
“There,” he said quietly. “A garden that feeds.”
You hated the small flicker of warmth that moved through your chest.
So you crushed it.
“A promise written over breakfast is not yet a deed,” you said.
Louis’s mouth twitched, but there was no amusement in it. “No. It is not.”
Jean, sensing that the conversation had become less about gardens and more about a battlefield he had not been paid enough to enter, began gathering his papers with careful dignity.
“I shall inspect the grounds this afternoon,” he said. “With Your Majesties’ permission.”
“You have it,” Louis said.
“And I will prepare sketches. Several possibilities.”
“Good.”
Jean bowed to you first, then to Louis. “Majesty. Sire.”
When he left, the chamber felt larger.
Too large.
The remaining servants retreated without being asked, closing the doors behind them with the quiet skill of people who had survived court by knowing when not to exist.
You reached for your cup.
Louis watched you.
You could feel his gaze like heat across the table.
“Don’t,” you said.
He blinked, all innocence. “Don’t what?”
“Look at me like that.”
His voice dropped, baritone and smooth. “How am I looking at you?”
“As if you have earned something.”
His eyes lowered.
For once, he accepted the blow without flinching theatrically.
“I know I haven’t.”
The admission was quiet enough that you almost disliked him for it. You preferred him arrogant. It was easier when he was impossible. Easier to hate the Sun King than the tired man whose hair curled gray beneath a badly placed wig and whose hands trembled when he thought you were not looking.
You set your cup down. “Where were you this morning?”
“In the chapel.”
That surprised you.
Louis saw it and gave a faint, humorless smile. “You did not think me capable of prayer?”
“I think you capable of performance.”
“As do I.” He looked toward the window. Beyond the glass, the trees of Marly moved under the wind, green and gold and indifferent. “But this morning I prayed.”
“For what?”
His fingers tightened once on the arm of the chair.
“For restraint.”
You studied him.
He did not look at you as he said it.
“For restraint,” he said again, when you did not answer.
The word sat between you strangely. It did not sound natural in his mouth. Louis XIV had been raised to believe the world was a thing meant to bend around him: men, armies, churches, borders, women, weather if he could find a minister foolish enough to promise it. Restraint, for him, had always seemed less like virtue and more like an insult invented by people with no power.
You tilted your head. “Restraint from what?”
Louis’s mouth opened.
For one treacherous instant, the truth rose so quickly in him that you saw it almost form on his tongue.
Not to kill your lover.
His hazel eyes flashed. His jaw tightened. The tendons in his throat moved once, hard. He almost said it. Almost spat Henri’s name across the table like blood. Almost dragged the night back into the room, with all its silence and jealousy and the image of another man’s hands where his had once belonged.
But then he stopped.
A small miracle.
Or perhaps only strategy.
He turned his face slightly toward the window, fingers smoothing the cuff of his sleeve with exaggerated care. “From speaking too quickly,” he said instead. “From saying something that cannot be unsaid.”
You watched him.
“That sounds almost mature.”
He gave you a wounded look. “Do not insult me before noon.”
“I thought kings enjoyed praise.”
“That was not praise.”
“It was close enough for you.”
A faint smile touched his mouth, brief and unwilling. Then it faded, and for a moment he looked toward the trees beyond the glass as if he had forgotten the chamber entirely. When he spoke again, his voice had shifted—lighter, too casual, the voice of a man turning a knife into a ribbon before anyone noticed the blood.
“Come into the city with me.”
You blinked. “What?”
“The city,” he repeated, turning back to you, and now there was something almost boyish in his face. Dangerous, because boyishness in Louis was rarely harmless. “Paris. Or the nearest market town, if Paris is too far for your royal patience. You have never properly seen it.”
You did not correct him.
You did not tell him that you had gone once.
But you did not tell Louis that.
Instead, you lifted your cup with regal composure and asked, “How, exactly, do you propose we go to the city? We are king and queen. We cannot simply wander through the streets as if we are two bored merchants looking for ribbon.”
Louis’s entire face changed.
It was immediate. Alarming. Like you had handed him a battlefield and permission to enjoy himself.
“Ah,” he said, leaning forward. “But that is where you underestimate me.”
“I rarely underestimate you. I usually prepare for the worst and am still surprised.”
“I am excellent at disguise.”
You stared at him.
He looked offended. “I am.”
“You are Louis XIV.”
“Yes.”
“You wear heels, jewels, embroidered coats, and a black wig that announces your presence three rooms before your body arrives.”
He raised a finger. “Which is precisely why no one suspects me when I am not wearing them.”
You lowered your cup slowly. “You have done this before.”
His silence was far too elegant.
“Louis.”
“A king must know his people.”
“A king must not sneak through taverns in borrowed shoes because he is restless.”
“I have never borrowed shoes.”
“Of course not. You have probably stolen them from a footman and called it taxation.”
He smiled, pleased despite himself. “You wound me.”
“You deserve it.”
“I do it often enough that it has become a skill,” he said, ignoring you with magnificent enthusiasm now. “A true skill. I know how to lower my voice, how to walk without command, how to keep my hands hidden so no one sees the rings. The trick is not to look humble, you understand. A man trying to look humble is always suspicious. You must look tired, slightly annoyed, and concerned about the price of onions.”
You stared at him for a long moment.
Then, despite yourself, you laughed.
It was not a warm laugh. Not entirely. It had disbelief in it, exhaustion, a thin silver thread of the absurd. But it was still laughter, and Louis heard it. His eyes caught on your mouth as if he had found something alive in a burned house.
“You are serious,” you said.
“Utterly.”
“You have costumes?”
“Not costumes,” he corrected, deeply affronted. “Fantasies.”
“Fantasies?”
“Disguises,” he amended quickly. “Though technically both.”
You closed your eyes. “God preserve France.”
“He has so far, though I admit the arrangement has required effort on both sides.”
“Louis.”
“I already have the perfect ones.”
That should have warned you.
It did not warn you enough.
Less than an hour later, you stood in a private dressing room at Marly, staring at the King of France as he twirled.
Twirl was the only word for it.
He did not turn. He did not test the hem. He did not examine the stitching with sober interest. He twirled.
The low-class dress was brown wool, coarse at the sleeves, patched at one elbow and cinched too tightly at his middle in a way that made his waist look both theatrical and deeply unconvincing. A faded apron hung over the front. A kerchief covered the infamous black wig, though he had insisted on keeping the wig beneath it because “no one respects a woman with insufficient volume.” The effect was not peasant. The effect was a widowed tavern keeper who had once seduced a bishop and was waiting for him to apologize.
Louis lifted his skirts slightly and looked down at himself with open admiration.
“Well?” he demanded.
You blinked once.
Then again.
“You look insane.”
“I look poor.”
“You look like poverty as imagined by a man who has never touched a broom.”
He turned to the side, examining the fall of the dress in the mirror. “The hips are good.”
“The hips are a national emergency.”
He smiled, smoothing both hands over his waist. “You are jealous because I am beautiful.”
“You are wearing a tablecloth.”
“A flattering tablecloth.”
“You are the King of France.”
“Not today.” He turned to you then, hazel eyes gleaming beneath the shadow of the kerchief, his baritone lowering into wicked satisfaction. “Today, I am your wife.”
You looked down at yourself in horror.
They had put you in boy’s clothes. Low-born boy’s clothes, to be exact: plain breeches, a loose shirt, a worn vest, stockings slightly too large at the ankle, and a cap meant to hide your hair. Your shape had been flattened with linen binding, your sleeves rolled up, your face scrubbed clean of royal polish. You looked younger, sharper, less like a queen and more like a narrow-shouldered apprentice who might steal pears and lie badly about it.
Louis circled you once, assessing.
You hated that he looked delighted.
“No,” you said.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Absolutely yes.”
“I refuse.”
“You already agreed to the city.”
“I did not agree to become your husband.”
“History will applaud your sacrifice.”
“I will push you into a ditch.”
“And I will scream as any respectable wife would.”
You pointed at him. “You are enjoying this far too much.”
He lifted his chin, every inch the monarch even in brown wool and an apron. “Because I understand theatre.”
“You understand lunacy.”
“Same family.”
You crossed your arms, but the gesture looked irritatingly boyish in the clothes. Louis’s mouth twitched.
“Do not laugh,” you warned.
“I am not laughing.”
“You are glowing.”
“I am radiant by nature.”
“You look like a spoiled washerwoman.”
His expression brightened. “Exactly.”
“That was not a compliment.”
“It should have been.” He stepped closer, the hem of his dress brushing your boots. “Listen carefully. For this to work, we must have names.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Mine is Marguerite.”
You stared at him.
He continued gravely, “A beautiful woman. Spoiled, yes, but misunderstood. Born for finer things. Married beneath her station to a thin, irritable husband with limited intelligence but occasional usefulness.”
Your mouth fell open. “Limited intelligence?”
He gestured toward you. “You must commit to the role.”
“What is my role?”
“Your name is Pierre.”
“Pierre?”
“Yes. Skinny. Somewhat retarded. Loyal in the way a dull dog is loyal.”
You stared at him so long the silence became almost religious.
Then you said, very softly, “I am going to kill you before dinner.”
Louis placed one hand dramatically over his bodice. “You see? Brutish. Very Pierre.”
“I am not playing your skinny, retarded husband.”
He leaned closer, his eyes glittering with mischief. “You must. Otherwise no one will believe I married you.”
“Why would anyone believe I married you?”
His mouth curved. “Because I am beautiful and spoiled.”
“You are deranged.”
“And you are Pierre.”
“I am the Queen of France.”
“Not in those trousers.”
You glanced down at yourself again and felt the immediate, irrational urge to kick him in the shin. “Why can’t you be the husband?”
Louis looked genuinely scandalized. “Dressed like this?”
“You chose the dress!”
“Yes, because I have range.”
“You have vanity.”
“I have artistry.”
“You have several lovers and no shame.”
That struck closer than you intended.
For a heartbeat, the brightness in his face dimmed.
Not fully. Louis was too practiced a performer to drop a mask completely. But the smile paused, caught at one corner, and his hazel eyes shifted from playful to watchful.
The room cooled.
You regretted it, then hated yourself for regretting it.
Louis looked down, adjusting the rough cuff of his sleeve with needless care. “Today,” he said quietly, “I have one wife.”
You swallowed.
The words should not have moved you. They were too little, too late, too easily spoken in a borrowed dress, far from Versailles, far from Montespan’s perfume and the gilded corridors where promises went to rot. Still, something in his voice—low, baritone, stripped of its usual flourish—settled uneasily beneath your ribs.
You looked away first.
“Your kerchief is crooked,” you muttered.
His eyes lifted.
A smile returned, softer this time. “Fix it, then.”
You hesitated.
Then, with a sigh sharp enough to preserve your dignity, you stepped close and reached up. The kerchief was indeed crooked, tied badly over the black wig he refused to abandon. You tugged it into place, fingers brushing the edge of his temple where, beneath all that theatrical darkness, you knew gray hair curled close to his skin.
Louis held very still.
Too still.
His gaze rested on your face with a kind of aching attention that made your hands clumsy.
“There,” you said, pulling back too quickly. “Now you look like a woman who overcharges for eggs.”
His smile widened. “Perfect.”
“You cannot use your real voice.”
“I know.”
“Your voice sounds like a king trying to seduce a courtroom.”
“A courtroom would be fortunate.”
“You need to sound ordinary.”
He straightened, cleared his throat, and produced in the same unmistakable deep baritone, “Good day, sir, might I trouble you for the price of onions?”
You stared.
He stared back, waiting.
“That is the exact same voice.”
“It is not.”
“It is. You just added onions.”
He tried again, slightly higher. “Good day, sir—”
“No.”
“Madame—”
“No.”
He frowned. “I cannot make myself sound like a goose.”
“I am not asking for goose. I am asking for peasant.”
“French peasants vary widely in tone.”
“You would know, apparently, from all your secret onion research.”
Louis’s expression became solemn. “Precisely.”
You covered your face with one hand.
He reached for your wrist, gently lowering it. “Come with me.”
You looked at him.
The humor was still there, but beneath it something else waited. Not command. Not even pleading. An invitation, foolish and dangerous and absurd. A door cracked open where there had only been walls.
“I want to show you,” he said. “Not as King. Not as Queen. Just… come.”
“You cannot stop being king by putting on a dress.”
“No.” His thumb brushed once over your wrist, then withdrew before you could pull away. “But perhaps I can stop being obeyed long enough to hear something true.”
You did not know what to do with that.
So you chose irritation. It was safer.
“If we are caught, I will tell them you forced me.”
“If we are caught, I will faint delicately.”
“You will not.”
“I shall collapse into your arms, Pierre, and cry that my cruel husband led me astray.”
“I hate Pierre.”
“Pierre loves me.”
“Pierre is considering annulment.”
“Pierre cannot afford it.”
Despite everything, the laugh escaped you again.
Louis brightened at once, greedy for it.
You pointed at him. “Do not look pleased.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
“I am merely appreciating my wife’s effect on my husband.”
“That sentence alone should have you excommunicated.”
He swept into a clumsy curtsy, skirts rustling. “Then let us go before the Church catches up.”
You stared at him: Louis XIV, King of France, disguised badly as a low-born woman named Marguerite, still wearing his black wig under a crooked kerchief, smelling faintly—miraculously—of rose soap rather than rot, his hazel eyes alive with mischief and melancholy both.
Then you looked down at yourself: breeches, vest, cap, the absurd skinny husband Pierre.
Nine days, you reminded yourself.
This was only day two.
God help France.
fifteen glorious glorious glorious years
Withnail & I having fun during filming.
Richard E. Grant, the man that you are.
withnail and i doodles 😁😁😁
Someone on Letterboxd said that the first half of the movie Istanbul (1985) is "beat-for-beat just Withnail and I" and now I can't unsee it.
Ludwigsburg Palace, Germany,
Photo By Josep Solé Llagostera
Georgie Hobson (19th century), “The Phantom Guests”
oil on canvas, n.d.
source
Smoking Room at Palazzo Valguarnera-Gangi,
Palermo, Sicily, Italy
The Dangers of Limerence: Part One
This is based on the 1985 Belgian film Istanbul, directed by Marc Didden and starring Brad Dourif and Dominique Deruddere. Like a lot of people, I watched it for Dourif and was spellbound by how strange and attractive he was... Until the big plot twist when I felt sick to my stomach. Watching it again recently made me wonder what would happen if another woman (besides the one who shows up at the beginning and towards the end) joined Martin (Brad Dourif) and Willy (Dominique Deruddere) on their road trip. How would the dynamics change? How would she respond to the dark revelation towards the end? What would she do? How would the two men treat her in response? This is what I came up with.
It was a cold Tuesday night in Ostend.
Alice was working her usual late night shift at the dive bar - one of two jobs she held in a desperate attempt to scrape by on what little she had. With each meagre paycheck, her plans for a grand, illustrious future continued to elude her.
It was the younger man who spoke first. He was the smaller of the two, with thinning black hair, a boyish face, and that mischievous gleam Alice had seen in the eyes of many patrons after their fourth or fifth round of drinks.
"So, what are you doing tonight?" he slurred, a silly grin plastered across his impish face as he leaned against the bar.
Alice rolled her eyes. "Babysitting," she replied sardonically, wiping the inside of an empty pint glass.
"Bit late now, eh?" the man giggled.
"Oh, they're allowed to stay up late." She placed the now clean glass on the shelf beneath the bar. Glancing at her watch, she added, "But they'll have to go to bed soon, unless they want to spend the night in a dump."
The man smirked, peered over his shoulder and, to Alice's surprise, spoke in English. "Last orders!"
"How 'bout one for the road?"
Another man staggered clumsily to the bar. He looked to be in his mid thirties. Angular face, wavy hair that fell to his shoulders, and piercing blue eyes that were a little unfocused in his drunken state.
"Can you handle one more?" Alice asked in English, raising her eyebrows like a stern mother.
"Soon find out," he replied in a southern American drawl.
Alice cast him a sideways glance and poured the men their last drinks.
Maybe it was the validation she was receiving from the strange pair, or perhaps it was simply boredom. Whatever the reason, Alice left with the two men after closing time. They were both rather eccentric and seemed like the sort of guys who knew how to have a good time. What was waiting for Alice at her run-down apartment but shitty food, broken plumbing and other bitter reminders of the life she would rather leave behind?
༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺
Later, the trio set up camp on the beach. The men had sobered up somewhat. Contrary to Alice's assumption, they'd only just met that night. They all introduced themselves - the Belgian's name was Willy, the American's was Martin ("Sometimes John," he added).
As the night wore on, Alice found herself becoming drawn to Martin. There was a quiet intensity behind his eyes, and his cat-like features were sharp beneath the soft glow of the campfire. He seemed to have a similar effect on Willy; so much so that when he invited them to join him on his trip to Istanbul, they both accepted. It seemed they had valid reasons for doing so. Willy had lost his job; Alice was looking for excitement.
Though Martin spoke mainly to Willy, Alice did catch him stealing a few glances her way. She wondered what he thought of her. He was a foreigner, after all. Perhaps he saw in her the same kind of exotic allure she saw in him. But he was fascinating beyond the American drifter mystique; he had a certain je ne sais quoi that Alice found intriguing. She looked forward to travelling with him.
༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺
The trip had already taken an unexpected turn. Martin refused to take the train, so they spent hours at a roadside waiting for someone charitable enough to pick them up. After hitching a ride with Beatrice, a woman on her way to Ghent, they stopped at a hotel, which Alice had hoped would lead to a carnal encounter with Martin. Instead, she had a threesome with Willy and Beatrice; Martin made himself scarce.
During the act, Alice imagined it was Martin fucking her; pale skin damp with sweat, dark blond hair beautifully dishevelled as it had been last night on the beach, eyes dark with lust as she writhed against him. That fantasy alone made her come harder than Willy's efforts.
He's probably waiting to get me alone so he can have me to himself.
Afterwards, Alice left Willy and Beatrice lounging in bed while she slipped on a bathrobe and went into the bathroom to take a shower, only to be met with the sight of Martin lying on the floor and groaning. Feeling a sudden rush of panic, she knelt beside him and gently took his hand that was clutching his shirt.
Martin's eyes snapped open; he looked like he'd seen a ghost. The wild rogue from last night was gone. In his place, there lay a wan, fragile figure whose gaunt frame trembled as he hauled himself upright. He sat with his back against the side of the tub.
"Steady," soothed Alice, placing both hands on his tense shoulders. "What is it?"
He cast his eyes downward, raking a trembling hand through his hair.
"Would you like a drink?" she asked.
He rubbed the back of his neck and exhaled through his nose.
"Something you ate?" Alice reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear.
He recoiled sharply, as if she'd raised her fist at him, and turned to face away from her.
Martin's reaction to the gesture made Alice withdraw, a wave of guilt consuming her at the thought of upsetting him. She slowly got up and left him sitting there on the bathroom floor, hardly sure what else she could possibly do.
Alice sat on the edge of the bed, having a smoke while Willy and Beatrice were still entwined in each other's arms. A few minutes later, she heard the hiss of water as Martin turned on the shower. That haunted look in his eyes was seared into Alice's mind. It was the look of a man whose heart had been cruelly dashed to pieces. She wondered what previous lover had hurt him enough to cause such distress. Shit -- she was probably to blame for his breakdown earlier. She'd seen the stolen glances; he wanted her, and only her.
༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺
Later, Beatrice paid for the room and departed, leaving Martin, Alice and Willy to continue their meandering journey. They ended up at a street festival that night in Ghent, where Martin surprised his two companions by getting onstage with an acoustic guitar and performing. Alice was bewitched by his haunting vocals as he sang of sorrowful roads and oceans full of tears. Martin hadn't spoken a word to her since the incident in the hotel bathroom, but as his willowy hand danced over the guitar strings and his voice drifted over the crowd, Alice felt as though he were telling her his life story of being an orphan in a storm, haunted by the highways.
When the song ended, Martin left the stage to thunderous applause and rejoined Alice and Willy. They were approached by an elderly ex-pilot named Albert, who took them to a bar and bought them cocktails.
Alice sipped her drink and smoked in silence while the men conversed. She was still hung up on what happened at the hotel; when Willy left the table, followed by Albert, she seized the opportunity as she sat opposite Martin.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly.
Martin leaned back in his chair and cocked his head.
"For earlier this evening," she added, taking another drag on her cigarette. "If you wanted... I mean, that is, if you're interested..."
Martin made a gesture for her to get to the point, but at that moment, there was a commotion followed by Willy storming back in while Albert was doubled over in pain. Alice barely had time to register what was going on. Several patrons at the bar tried to attack Martin and Willy, but they managed to fight them off; the trio made a lucky escape out the back door just as the barmaid got on the phone to the police. Adrenaline pulsed through Alice's veins as she and her companions disappeared into the night. She wondered if they'd always run into trouble like this.
To be continued.
John Barrymore and Dolores Costello in When a Man Loves (Alan Crosland, 1927)
