The Honorable Officer (11 page)

Do my eyes deceive me? Is the do-it-myself Jean-Louis requesting my help? Is it possible? I had to read your letter three times—and Papa asked me to read the letter you sent him also—before we could believe it
.
We agreed it was your handwriting
.
It was the begging for help that made us wonder
.

You say you wrote to Dom and Aurore
.
They are currently in Poitou too
,
so I am writing them there
,
in case you did not
.

Papa talked Henri into traveling to you
.
He should arrive by Thursday or Friday
,
as they are coming by coach
.
Henri said you surely would not be there before then
,
and he would rather be damned than travel a hundred leagues on horseback with Emmanuel complaining the whole way of the cold (for we are sending him too
,
to get him out of our hair
.
Dom and Aurore are meant to be raising him
.
Why is he in my house?) in the middle of winter
,
only to arrive before you
.
If he must listen to complaints
,
he should at least listen to them in the relative comfort of a coach
,
where he can read
.

Papa and I shall ask around at court
,
though I cannot believe there is much to be learned there
.
Papa will go to see your in-laws
,
crying worry for his granddaughter
.

We are most worried by the fires and the shots through the glass
.
Whoever this is doesn’t mind killing everyone around Ondine
,
do they? Are you sure they are aiming for Ondine? Perhaps Mademoiselle de Bonnefoi is the target
,
if they are shooting at adults
.

Do tell us more about Mademoiselle de Bonnefoi
.
None of us know her well except maybe Aurore
,
who is not here for us to question
.
Papa says she is quite pretty
.
Sandrine agrees and says she is sorry they are both so shy
,
because she sat next to Mademoiselle several times and could not think of what to say
,
so they sat in silence
.
Could she be behind the attacks? Mademoiselle
,
not my wife
,
of course
.
Perhaps she hopes to inherit if Ondine does not? Her uncle’s furniture factory is surely worth quite a lot
.

Of course
,
if she is not
,
then you will have to marry her
.
Honestly
,
Jean-Louis! Keeping a beautiful young lady under your protection in an army camp is hardly subtle
.
Even if she is merely Ondine’s governess
,
the situation is untenable
.

And when did you ever expect I would be preaching propriety to you? I used to have to convince Dom to break the rules
,
but only rarely could get you to
,
and only by physical threat
.
And only until you got strong enough to threaten me back
.

Anyway
,
as you can see
,
I am running out of room
.

Write when you have arrived in Poitou
,
and let us know how everything stands
.
We will write with what news we can glean
,
when we can glean it
.

Your loving frère,

Cédric

Jean-Louis set the letter on the desk. He had felt humiliated when he wrote to ask for his family’s help. Cédric was determined to make a joke of it, but his brothers and father were rallying to him, sending him aid, investigating on his behalf, just as they had all rushed to Aurore and Dominique’s assistance two years before. He had ridden up from Perpignan with some of his officer friends and helped restore their lands to them.

Of course, it was on that same trip he’d discovered Amandine was turning his superiors against him instead of forwarding his interests at court. And she was pregnant with her second child. He shook his head in disgust, forcing memories of Amandine from his head.

He took up his letters and went to his room. He hesitated outside the room where Mademoiselle Hélène was sleeping with Ondine and Charlotte. He tapped softly, not expecting anyone to answer.

The door opened after only a second, and Mademoiselle Hélène stared, her left eye huge through her eyeglass. “I was expecting the maid with hot water.”

She stepped out of the room and closed the door. She was still dressed in the cast-off bodice and skirts of one of his officers’ wives. At least she had changed out of the black Huguenot one. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and still gloriously red. He wished suddenly it were blonde again and spread across his pillow.

He found himself stepping close to her, his hand on her cheek. His lips touched hers. She sighed. He pulled back to see her face in the flickering candlelight in the hall. She was surprised, but not frightened, so he kissed her gently—tiny kisses from one corner of the mouth to the other, then up her cheek to the corner of one eye.

His chest was tight. He couldn’t breathe or feel his heart beat.

She dropped her lorgnette on its string and wrapped one arm around his neck.

He kissed each of her eyelids, then pulled her tight against him and leaned his face against her hair. It smelled of dirt and smoke and henna.

She pushed away from him, her eyes still closed. She fluttered them open and stared at his face from two inches away, squinting against the darkness.

“I can’t…” she said.

But what she couldn’t, he didn’t wait to hear as he took her mouth again, pressing a hard kiss and licking at her lips.

There was a clatter at the bottom of the stairs and he jumped back, releasing her and straightening his clothing, smoothing out wrinkles in his long coat.

Hélène smoothed out her dress, her hands shaking. The maid appeared at the top of the stairs to find them standing several feet apart in the hall. They must have looked respectable enough. Hélène directed the maid to leave the hot water in her dressing room.

Jean-Louis cleared the roughness from his throat. “I have had a letter from your uncle. He wishes Ondine home. Obviously he did not believe your story. He says he sent someone to Franche-Comté.”

She looked surprised. “Do you think it’s how we were found so quickly?”

Jean-Louis considered this for a moment, his stomach clenching with guilt. “Yes, I suppose so. I’m more worried about his other points, which were that you are possibly insane and he wants you in a convent.”

Hélène’s pale eyes filled with tears.

Jean-Louis put his hand on her arm, wanting so much to hold her again, but conscious of the maid nearby. “You cannot go back there. I’ll never send Ondine back there, either.”

“Oh, thank you, Monsieur.” She smiled up at him worshipfully.

He winced. He hated to be worshiped.

Her face fell. The maid came out of Mademoiselle Hélène’s room and curtsied before going downstairs.

He took a deep breath, trying to decide what he could say. “My…my brother Cédric wrote. My brothers Henri and Emmanuel are coming by Friday. The Comtesse and Comte de Bures are already in Poitou. Dom has an estate near here, only ten miles away. I will send a messenger in the morning.”

Hélène smiled, though not as broadly as before.

Jean-Louis took a deep breath to keep himself from babbling insanely. Should he tell her of his brother and father’s suspicion of her? He didn’t think it remotely possible, but he had seen the resolve under her shyness. Just bringing his daughter to him must have taken a great deal of bravery. Could she be so jealous of her cousin and, by extension, of Ondine, that she would wish the girl dead?

Not her
, his heart said. But he never listened to his heart anymore; his heart was unreliable.

His brother wrote, though, that if she were innocent of involvement in the attack on Ondine he would have to marry her for propriety’s sake. She was certainly “not the mistress sort of lady,” as the courier had told him before she entered his tent in the field near Dole.

He was standing in a barely lit hallway with a beautiful lady, the household quieting all around them. If she were the mistress sort, he would lead her into his room just next door. Even in one so innocent—especially in one so innocent—the look she had given him after he kissed her was an invitation.

Instead, he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles one after the other. Unable to release her hand just yet, he kissed her palm, then rested it on his cheek, its cool surface pulling the heat from his face.

“Until tomorrow,” he whispered huskily.

He stepped backward and released her hand. She fled into her room and closed the door.

So what if he could hear through the wall of her dressing room as she washed? And so what if he sat next to the wall until the sounds stopped?

And so what if he stayed up half the night, writing a letter to the Grand Condé, announcing he would return as soon as he could and that he would resign his commission if this was unacceptable? And the other half of the night waking from erotic dreams?

Chapter Six

The morning after the kiss, Ondine awoke early, as always. Hélène had hardly slept, reliving Jean-Louis’ kisses, touching her lips where he had touched them, and holding her palm to her cheek. She awoke several times, imagining someone had opened her door, even though she had locked it. She hadn’t been able to get up to double check, though, for fear of waking Ondine and Charlotte.

They went down to the kitchen and discovered that “Monsieur Jean-Louis” had already been up, sent out a rider, gone for a ride, discussed the next few days’ plans with the housekeeper, Madame Grenier, and gone back upstairs to rest. Hélène was disappointed that she wouldn’t see him for a while, but relieved because she would blush when he did appear.

Fourbier and Madame Grenier were discussing meals and which rooms to prepare for the guests who would soon arrive. They seemed to have come to some sort of understanding since the night before, though they debated every last detail.

By midday, the nursery was clean and warm. It was nearly empty, much to Ondine’s disgust, but the housekeeper explained the family had only rarely come down when the children were young, and even now Monsieur Jean-Louis always came alone. Except for when he came with his wife on their honeymoon, but she had never come back.

The housekeeper’s expression and tone were carefully neutral when she spoke about Amandine.

Fourbier entered the nursery beaming triumphantly, carrying a few dusty books from the attic. He was declaiming on the right shades of soothing blue for the nursery and reviving yellow for the drawing room when the housekeeper’s remark about Amandine never coming back to Poitou after her honeymoon sank in.

Several months before her death, Amandine said she was going to her husband’s estate in Poitou to tend to her husband, whose leg was broken. On her return to Paris several weeks later, she announced she was pregnant with her husband’s child, conceived in Poitou. Not long after that, when the colonel rushed to Paris for his sister’s sake, there was some sort of scene between them which left the colonel very angry. Seven months after her return from Poitou, Amandine died in childbed.

Jean-Louis had arrived too late for the burial but in time for the funeral Mass. He had been angry and refused to reimburse his in-laws’ expenses for the elaborate funeral, saying only he hoped Amandine had confessed before being given last rites. In spite of it all, he did not wish her in Hell.

Hélène had overheard the argument between Jean-Louis and her uncle, but she had never learned the reason. She thought he was angry to cover his grief, angry that his son died, too. The servants hinted that Amandine’s flirtations at court had gone too far, but Hélène was never anywhere near the court except to bring Ondine in to see her mother for a few minutes.

Hélène knew Amandine was capable of lying—more than merely capable, she was quite accomplished at it—but hadn’t realized how far her deceit went. Hélène’s hands were shaking.

Fourbier looked at her strangely. She blurted out, “Did Monsieur the Colonel know that Amandine was unfaithful?”

Fourbier jerked back as if hit and looked around the room in a panic. Luckily it was only the two of them and Ondine.

“I will not answer that,” said Fourbier. “I am sorry, Mademoiselle. However you have come to that conclusion…”

“The housekeeper said Amandine had not been back here since their honeymoon trip. Amandine said that she had fallen
enceinte
when coming to see the colonel after his broken leg, when he was recuperating here.”

Fourbier clenched his teeth. “I will not answer.”

Hélène sat back in her chair. Fourbier’s refusal was surely agreement. Her stomach turned. “I must not speak ill of the dead.”

Charlotte came in, and Fourbier took his chance to escape.

Late that afternoon, a carriage rattled up the drive. Hélène went to the window, raised her eyeglass, and saw a beautiful coach outside.

“Come, Ondine. Your Tata Aurore and
Oncle
de Bures have arrived.” She brushed dust from the girl’s dress with her hand.

“Tata No-Nor Noncle?” Ondine frowned in confusion.

“You might not remember them. They are your papa’s sister and brother.”

“Papa?” Her face brightened.

“We shall see him, too. Let’s go greet them. Charlotte, would you help Ondine on the stairs, please?”

By the time they made their way down from the third floor, the comte and comtesse were indoors. Hélène curtsied to them, and Ondine followed suit only to have her little bobble interrupted by her Tata Aurore, who snatched her up with a cry of delight.

Ondine struggled for only a moment before leaning away, staring at her warily.

“Ondine, this is your
Tante
Aurore,” said the colonel, “who has seen fit to presume on old acquaintance.”

Aurore laughed and kissed Ondine loudly on both cheeks. “You have grown so much,
ma petite
. And I bet you talk all the time now, don’t you?”