My father cleared his throat, adjusted his cravat, then cleared his throat again. “You realize this matter of the girl has nothing to do with you.”
To my great shame, I crumpled against him, sobbing. And my father seemed not to have the faintest idea what to do. Awkwardly, he patted my back, his mouth a thin, grim line all the while. I took it for censure and tried to dry my eyes. I had not, after all, sobbed when Gilbert left for America, when I was younger and had better excuse.
“Do not put your child at risk,” my father finally said.
“I cannot bear it,” I sobbed. “I cannot bear it!”
My father glanced down at my pregnant belly, then cupped my chin and made me look at him. “Calm yourself. This is a temporary problem, I promise you. Do you understand?”
I did not—not entirely. Though I should have. How surprised I was, the very next morning, to hear that Aglaé had been abandoned by her husband. It was a catastrophe for her, because an agreeable husband was the polite fiction behind which a mistress was afforded respect; what harm was there in adultery, after all, if the spouse did not object? But how suspicious it all seemed that he suddenly did object. Aglaé’s husband had not minded his wife’s behavior for years. Why, quite suddenly, did he find her affairs intolerable? It almost offended me to think her husband might object to Gilbert as a rival, when he had not minded Philippe. But if she continued without her husband’s blessing, she would bring down her whole family.
That evening, Gilbert rolled out over my knees an architectural plan for a new house. A house designed in every way to please me and to get us both out from under my family’s thumb.
It is over with Aglaé, then?
I couldn’t ask, and distressed beyond measure, I pleaded illness and retreated to my apartment. There, in September, two months early, I gave birth to our third daughter. Like Henriette, she was sickly and small and I despaired for her survival.
We named her Marie Antoinette Virginie in honor of the queen and the Virgin Mary—or at least that is what I told Grand-mère. Lafayette told Dr. Franklin that our new baby was named in honor of the state of Virginia. Franklin sent his congratulations and a wish that I should birth twelve more, naming one after each state. Miss Carolina and Miss Georgiana will do nicely for the girls, Franklin suggested. But Massachusetts and Connecticut may be too harsh for even boys unless you raise them to be savages.
Alas, there would be no more children for me. The birthing of Virginie left me ravaged, without even milk in my breasts for my infant. The physician said there likely would not—and likely should not—be more children. To be all but barren at the age of twenty-two was a new calamity, and I mourned my womanhood as bitterly as I mourned my lost innocence about my marriage.
And I mourned John Laurens too.
The man I had helped secure an audience with the king—and the crucial aid that won the war—had perished in some trifling skirmish. A tragic loss. The news struck both Gilbert and me deeply. Remembering how Laurens and I had worked together at Versailles, I took the little drawing of a songbird he drew for my daughter and framed it upon our mantelpiece, which touched my husband. I was comforted to know that Gilbert still unburdened his grief to me, but was still wretched to think he gave some other part of himself to Aglaé.
I knew the affair must be ongoing despite the growing scandal, for Maman was particularly solicitous, distracting me with charitable projects. It was on my way to giving food for the poor that my carriage stopped at an intersection and the door suddenly opened.
“Aglaé,” I said, startled, as the porcelain-skinned beauty stepped inside. This was the sort of laughing trick she might have played to amuse the queen when we were young and Philippe would goad her to dress in breeches like a groom.
She was not laughing now. Eyes bloodshot, a kerchief clutched in hand, she cried, “I am on the verge of ruin! Does that make you happy, Adrienne?”
I had not a single notion how to reply.
“I have tried to break things off with Lafayette,” she said, leaning so close I could smell her orange-scented perfume. “Believe me, I have tried. Every time we quarrel, he reaches to comfort me, and then—”
“Mon Dieu.” I gasped, wanting to leap out of the carriage. “I don’t want to hear it! Have a care for decency.”
“Is it decent to spread rumors I’m a prostitute, selling my favors at the Palais-Royal?” she asked hotly. “They say Lafayette is my customer. You may be glad when this rumor destroys me, but must you blacken the name of my children too?”