Playing for Love

Chapter 1: A Good Girl

A decade later, the same girl stood at the window smiling absently at nothing. Her long, dark brown hair was done up far more elaborately than she could have dreamed as that little girl first walking up the steps to this room. From her ears hung jewelry worth more than her childhood home and a necklace to match sat on the table nearby. Against her neck lay a violin, her hands making up for the stillness of her face as she did her best to follow the music her teacher had just placed in front of her.

So many gifts from her father.

So many rewards for her loyalty.

For her obedience.

Was this was Mama wished for?

Madeleine's performance ended and she nearly jumped at the sound of polite clapping. She'd forgotten her teacher and now she smiled politely at him as he showered her with compliments. He was new: her old teacher had been fired when she told her father how often he complimented her appearance instead of her talents. It had been an embarrassing conversation; her father had impressed upon her that even looks could one day be used as tool, that she shouldn't be ashamed of it. Madeleine had been practicing her smile on unsuspecting courtiers and servants ever since, to fairly successful results.

"Child, come down!"

The teacher stopped his compliments at the sound of her father's voice and Madeleine gave a polite apology and goodbye, handing the violin to him to be put away. She took a moment to refasten the necklace around her neck and then walked quickly down the stairs to find her father holding out her traveling cloak, his face fierce.

"Father, can I help with whatever is wrong?" Madeleine was a master of this. Of thinking of anything but herself. It was the easiest way to keep herself alive.

"Thank you, child." The Cardinal waited a moment for her to fasten the cloak and then began a march through the house toward a waiting carriage. They stepped inside together, Madeleine's eyes wide and curious. They didn't take many unplanned trips. "I have been betrayed." Her father said as the carriage began to move.

Madeleine leaned forward curiously, studying her father's face for any clue of what he felt. She saw nothing. She should try to learn to do that. "Who would dare do such a thing? Did they succeed?"

"No one of much consequence: a woman I should not have trusted." He sneered. "I do not know yet what the enemy will do with what she gave them."

The carriage came to a stop at another home, a small two-story place almost as fine as the home the Cardinal had prepared for his daughter.

"Say nothing of it to her." He commanded. "Show me you can act as though nothing is wrong."

"Yes, Father."

The carriage door opened to allow in a woman, pretty and not more than a decade older than Madeleine. Madeleine smiled and greeted her, complimented the way her light curls were done up before her father introduced the woman as 'Adele' and Madeleine as his 'ward'.

His ward.

Like they didn't have the same knowing smile.

The carriage door shut and soon rattled away, Madeleine making polite conversation. The traitor replied with genuine smiles, genuine sweetness. Madeleine believed none of it.

The sounds of the city faded and the carriage became colder. Madeleine busied herself wrapping her cloak more securely around her shoulders and Adele turned to the Cardinal.

"Where are we going? Is it a surprise?"

There was a knife in Madeleine's sleeve and she had been taught to use it well by a more loyal friend of her father's. She gripped it now, wondering if this woman was going to attempt an assassination.