A Powerful Little Love

Chapter 70

"I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced, had no existence."

Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit.

Cold dampness against her cheek was the first sensation she felt as she woke.  The throbbing in her head was the second and the afternoon sunlight had Amorette forcing her eyes shut again as the pain increased tenfold.  Vaguely she was also aware that her ankle felt as if it lay at an odd angle, but it was not nearly as painful as her head.  The pressure of the dampness increased slightly and Amorette felt the slightest brush of skin against her jawline.

She reeled backwards as her eyes flew open, blinking sharply in the harsh sunlight.  The first sight that met her as her eyes began to adjust to the sunlight was a damp and dirty cloth that was smeared with her own blood.  She followed the tanned hand that held it and found the youngest of Garcia's sons gazing back at her.  She was sitting upright again in the chair, but she was still tied to it.  The Spanish boy was kneeling before her, a bowl of murky red water at his feet. 

"You certainly don't help yourself Madame," he supplied thickly and without a smile as he raised the damp cloth towards her face. 

Amorette jerked away again as far as the bonds and the back of the chair would allow her.  "Don't touch me," she hissed icily.  "I do not want your help."

"I apologise for my father's behaviour," he said as he sat back a little and dropped the cloth into the bowl again.  Amorette glanced around the room and saw that they were completely alone.  She thought she could hear the distant rumble of voices from the floor below and hoped they would leave and not return to the upper floor of the building.  "He was out of order; but you have nothing to fear of my brother and I.  You know very well that we need you alive and the official order was unharmed.  My father ignored those orders and he should not have done so.  He will be punished, you should know that."

"He seems to be the one handing out the punishments," Amorette grumbled heavily.  "He's ...your father so I doubt he'll face much retribution.  From where I'm sitting it seems as if it's him giving the orders."

The Spanish boy threw her a grim smile.  "You really don't know who we are, do you?  My bother might not agree with me telling you, but I suppose you are as much in this mess as we are.  My name is Manuel de Medici and my older brother is Estevan."

Spanish Medici's? Amorette let her mind configure the information it had just been fed and couldn't see how knowing the name of the man before her would make anything better or easier for her in that moment.  Spanish Medici's were not a good sign at all.  "You do not share your father's surname?" Amorette probed to give herself a little more time to think.

"Garcia is not our father really," said Manuel as he wet the damp cloth again and raised it to Amorette's face.  This time she did not flinch away as she had done before.  She wanted to know what the Spaniard had to say as he seemed to be so forward in striking up a conversation with her.  "He brought us up and has been in essence everything that a father should be.  We call him father because that is how we see him and had we been anyone else we might have taken his name eventually because I do so want to remain a part of his family forever.  Alas, it suited better to keep our mother's name.  You are a clever one Madame, so I'm sure figuring out who our mother is will not be too strenuous given our name."

Amorette's mind began to whir as she took in the tanned and handsome visage of Manuel before her.  She was almost sure that she would have thought Garcia to be his father based on looks but that was before the revelation.  Spanish Medici's in Paris at such a time could mean only one thing though and Amorette knew it.  Her mind began to travel backwards in time to her French history lessons; back almost a hundred years to when the House of Valois ruled France.  When Marie de Medici had married the then King Henry IV; the first bourbon King, she had not been his first wife but his second.  His first wife was Margaret of Valois, and she was the last surviving son or daughter of Henry II and Catherine de Medici.  Surely it wasn't too presumptive to assume she had a lover at some point and bore two sons?  Provided that the father of said sons was indeed just a lover and not her husband the King, then those sons would not be descendants of the Bourbons.  They would be wholly Valois and Medici.