The French Mistress by Susan Holloway Scott Read Free Book Online

as she continued to inch away from him. “I cannot be faulted if He has not yet granted us the miracle of a son!”
    “But God will punish a sinful wife through her husband,” Monsieur said sharply. “An unnatural wife who prefers to abandon her husband’s bed and country to dabble in men’s affairs.”
    “That is not true, Philippe, none of it!” She twisted to one side, trying to slip past him.
    He grabbed her arm to stop her, his grasp so tight upon her that she yelped with pain, or perhaps frustration. He pushed her backward onto the bed, and climbed atop her, pinning her flaying legs beneath his knees. She fought him still, reaching up to try to claw at his face and chest, and with a loathsome oath he struck his palm hard across her cheek. She cried out with pain and anguish and resignation, too, and covered her eyes and her tears with her hands so she could not see what he did.
    In my inexperience, I remained still in the hall, unsure of what else to do, and the awful image of what came next was soon seared forever in my consciousness. With a shocking swiftness, Monsieur unfastened the front of his breeches and pulled his shirt to one side. At once his member sprang forth, already furiously engorged and as unappealing as the rest of him. Breathing hard, he tore aside Madame’s skirts, heedless of how his impetuosity ripped the fine linen and lace hemmings. He pushed apart her pale thighs and fell between them, shoving hard without any preamble or pretense of lovemaking. Sparing not a single endearment to ease his wife, he grunted and found his own rhythm. She caught her breath, but that was all, and soon the only sounds were Monsieur’s animal-like groans and the creaking of the bed’s springs as he worked her hard, and without mercy or kindness.
    I had never witnessed such a sight, either for its intimacy or its cruelty, and yet I could not make myself look away, even as hot tears of horror and sympathy for Madame’s plight slipped down my cheeks.
    Though it seemed to last forever, in truth Monsieur was quickly finished. His face was blotched and florid beneath its cracking white paint, the tendrils of his black wig sticking to his temples and the back of his neck. He withdrew his staff, inspected it briefly as if it were his most treasured belonging (and perhaps it was), and at last tucked it away. He slipped from the bed and the silent form of his wife. With disgust, not tenderness, he pulled her skirts back over her violated nakedness. Her eyes still covered, she moaned softly and rolled to one side, away from him, curling her knees up tightly against her chest.
    And for Monsieur, there was no further reason to linger in his wife’s bedchamber.
    “I’ll expect you to attend my brother with me this night, Henriette,” he said as he gathered up his hat and cloak. “Do not disappoint me.”
    In my inexperience, I’d no idea what to say or do to comfort my new mistress. Perhaps this hateful treatment was common between husbands and wives of long standing. Perhaps the sweet love and poetry of courtship for which I so longed was destined to fade after marriage, and deteriorate into the wretched treatment I’d just witnessed.
    Gabrielle had told me that everyone at Court was accustomed to looking away and pretending things were other than they were for the sake of ease. If I were wiser, or more worldly, perhaps I, too, would have followed that course, and returned to my new lodgings. But by nature I was too tenderhearted to slink away like that, and too honest to pretend ignorance. Madame had been kind to me when I’d been in need, and now I’d not leave her to suffer alone.
    I waited until the latch of the door clicked shut and the sound of his heeled footsteps faded down the hall. Then I threw open the door and ran to Madame’s side, kneeling before the bed so my face would be even with hers.
    “Oh, Madame, my poor lady,” I cried softly, “are you hurt? Are you ill? Should I send for a physician,