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eyes glazed over. I could only assume he was lost in memories we both tried not to revive but had never managed to forget.
    “You can’t just—!”
    “I refuse to speak to you of this again.”
    “You would risk my validity as your heir on the birth of a son? What if it’s a g—?”
    “It will be a son. It can be nothing else. I won’t accept anything else!”
    The fool. Was he so certain of Providence’s favor that he would deliberately tempt Fate?
    “Soon, you will find yourself my bastard, and then you’ll have to take your vices somewhere else.” In one last burst of rage, he spun on a heel and left my chambers.
    I stood there for a moment. Long enough to be sure he had, in truth, gone. And then I released all the air corked up inside my lungs.
    A snicker erupted from my bed.
    I turned my back on the door and addressed the bed. “Come. You heard him. We should fall to our knees and beg for a miracle.”
    Remy emerged from the bedclothes where he had been hiding. He pushed the bed-curtain aside with a sweep of his arm, surveying the detritus of the previous evening’s entertainments. “Do you think he noticed?”
    Noticed? The upturned gilded chair? The collection of drinking glasses? The flurry of feathers that had fallen about the room? Or the pile of discarded gowns in the corner? How could he have failed to notice those excesses any more than Remy could have failed to note my inadequacies? The spirit, as they said, was willing. It was my damnable flesh that had, of late, become so flaccid…and so weak. “Noticed you? When I was standing in front of him quite naked?”
    “You don’t think he noticed.”
    Oh, he had noticed. But he had refrained from directly commenting upon my proclivities. He always did, for he preferred as much as possible not to acknowledge them. He was too much a gentleman for that. And I was too much a gentleman to let Remy know. Mother always said “better the foot slip than the tongue.” And I had always tried to follow her decrees.
    •••
    Some time later that morning, after Remy had gone out hunting and I had taken myself back to bed with a book, a knock sounded at the door. My manservant announced the visitor. “Physician Bresson.”
    My headache increased. I had no complaints but the normal kind. To which he would no doubt respond with his normal cure. It was thought an enema was the best way to treat the symptoms that had increasingly begun to plague me.
    “And how are we this day, my lord?”
    I pulled the covers up under my chin. Bresson was one for poking and prodding at the most inconvenient of places. I did not relish his visits, though I hoped fervently for a cure. “ We are fine.”
    “No pains in the head?”
    Bon. Maybe I was not completely, unequivocally fine. “A few.”
    “No pains in the bending of the arms or the legs?”
    “Some.”
    “And you have only your usual complaints?”
    Usual? They were un usual and not welcome, which was the reason I had complained. But I nodded.
    “I can see…?” He gestured toward my nether regions. He wanted me to turn back the covers and lie in a state where he could observe me like some prized pig. “You have had no more sores down…there?”
    “ Non .”
    “Not even one?”
    “Absolutely not.”
    Bresson frowned. “It is very important you tell me the precise truth.”
    I smiled. “The truth is I am so very thankful for your conscientious care.”
    “Well.” He turned from the bed and fumbled with his instruments while I turned over. “I would not wish for you to be syphilitic.”
    Neither would I.
    •••
    Once the physician had gone, I had my servant dress me. I went down to the hall, only to discover the meal was nearly over. I was late. I took my stepmother’s hand up in mine as I passed by her chair, and pressed a kiss onto it.
    “Good afternoon.” She smiled up at me.
    “Still in your morning coat?” My father’s tone was not benign.
    “I was so involved in my affairs I had no time