A Kiss in the Night (45 page)

The carriage hit a rivet in the road and Linness braced against the seat. "She had appeared in my dreams since the first day I met Paxton."

"Did she? Mercy, but your sight is a mysterious window to the future."

"Aye. Sometimes. She was in my dreams often after that, too. I thought of her as the lady in black. I knew somehow our lives were intertwined, but I did not know how, or even who she was until I discovered that Paxton would be marrying." She added with regret, for it had been all for naught, "Then, then I knew envy."

All for nothing, she realized now. She didn't want to imagine how hard it would be if the lady had not died and was instead brought to Beaumont as Paxton's wife. Many, if not most noblemen, kept their mistresses at their homes, often as a waiting woman to their lawful wives. Though the blessing of Paxton's love would have made such a position bearable and she would like to think she would have borne it with dignity, she was very glad things worked out otherwise.

Paxton, thankfully, would not likely have to marry again. Though if they were blessed with another child, the babe would be a bastard. She swallowed the painful reality and told herself it would not matter—it was the fate of thousands. They would have their parents' love and their father's wealth, and that was far more than so many children had.

Thinking on it, she asked quietly, "How did she die? I saw her laid to rest in a convent, but somehow I knew 'twas not the convent she had always known."

"Ah, it began with a head cold right at Marseilles. She did not want to halt our journey, but she was soon feverish. We stopped at a small nunnery, part of a rectory. I stayed at an inn nearby, a lovely place by the seashore. I visited every day, but it was clear she was not getting well." He thought again of her strange last words and almost didn't mention them, but it was a curiosity—they had made no sense. "Her last words to me were so odd really. Feverish delusions, no doubt, though she had seemed unnaturally lucid in her last moments—"

"What did she say?"

"She said, 'someone wants to step into my shoes.' Aye! That’s just what she said. Then she whispered, 'I hope the blessed Mary sees that they fit' and it was strange, all last night I kept dreaming I was trying to fit a lady's large feet into small shoes.”

Linness's eyes grew wide, and to his surprise, she laughed. "She meant me, do you not think? I always thought of her just like that—as the woman who had everything, the only thing I ever wanted: to be Paxton's wife. But now I am dead and I am nobody again—mercy, but I do not even have a name anymore."

"No, you do not, do you?”

Linness stopped thinking long enough to see a strange expression cross over John's face. "What is it?" she asked. "What are you thinking?"

He was thinking of shoes, of fitting a lady's large feet into small shoes, of a dying woman's last words. He was thinking how no one, but no one, of any consequence or importance had ever actually seen the Lady Beatrice Lucia, except for the one servant, a good man who could easily be paid off. His mind raced and he saw that while there were bound to be a few people going back and forth between Beaumont and Gaillard, the distance of three hundred miles would keep that number very small, and with any effort, it could be completely limited to those who knew and loved Linness. He was thinking he had the lady's death certificate in his trunk.

He was thinking she had done it once, and somehow, miraculously, she had managed to make everyone believe. He was thinking she could do it again.

Yet suddenly what John was thinking mattered not at all, for Michaels's exclamation sounded. "We must be approaching Beaumont!"

The carriage started down the main thoroughfare of a village. She looked out the window. She climbed on the seat and stuck her head out for a better view. They were quickly passing through the small, sleepy village and onto a road, divided by apple orchards, that led to Beaumont.

Forests surrounded the outlying area.

The chateau rose in the distance about a mile away. It was growing dark. The setting sun cast the vast park that surrounded the chateau in lovely hues of gold and pink, and the faintest violets. She knew this grand place. She had seen it a hundred times in her dreams. Dreams created by the many descriptions Paxton and his architects had discussed: descriptions of the magnificent forests, interrupted by huge, chaotic rocks, piling up in "the most savage landscapes..."

A square acre of parkland had been forged from this. The carriage passed quickly through the lawns, and the chateau came closer into view. It was as beautiful as she had imagined.

She spotted riders in the distance.

"Stop!" she called breathlessly. "Stop!"

The carriage came to a halt.

* * * *

The sunsets were the worst.

"Why, Jean Luc? Why do the sunsets affect you?"

They were returning from their afternoon ride back to Beaumont. Jean Luc shrugged at the question. 'Twas hard to say in words. Words could not explain how the heaviness in his heart felt like a physical pain in his chest; a pain that made him breathe too much, then not enough; that made it hard to eat and harder to sleep. Words could not explain how he feared he would never see his mother again, that was all, and if he could just see his mother, just have one look at her, he felt he would be all right.

Words could not explain about the sunsets.

For whenever his mother and he could, they went to the battlements to watch the sunset over the narrow forested mountain range behind the river. She held him in front of her, her arms wrapped around him, and they'd watch the sinking sun for the two minutes exactly that it took for the rim of the sun to disappear. He remembered how once she wondered if God was part of nature or the creator of nature, and she suspected the former. It was one of the secrets they shared.

"The sunset reminds me of my mother, you see. 'Tis so beautiful and then it's gone."

Paxton drew up his horse. The horse stopped and he reached over to grab the reins of Jean Luc's pony. "Nay," he said in a fierce whisper, as much to himself as to his boy. "She's not gone. We will see her again. I promise—"

A feminine cry sounded in the distance and he turned to look across the lawns. His breath caught. A woman was running towards them, and how strange, she wore a violet dress and her hair—

Jean Luc stared, too, but unlike his uncle, he knew he was not imagining what he was seeing. He slipped off his mount and then he was running.

John and Michaels watched the tender scene from the distance.

Linness knelt down to embrace Jean Luc and hold him tight in her arms. She was crying and kissing his tearful face before she released him just long enough to run into Paxton's arms.

Paxton seemed for a moment too stunned by the miraculous sight to move, and suddenly he was swinging her around and around. The sound of his laughter reached across the distance and it stopped as he lowered her to her feet and kissed her as if he would never stop.

"Come, Michaels. I believe it is necessary to interrupt this happy scene. For you see, I have a plan, and this fantastic plot must be executed before Linness reaches Beaumont's gates... "

* * * *

Clair kept glancing out the window, waiting for Jean Luc to return before she picked up her sewing again, working quietly in the comfort of her very own room. Beaumont was not at all like Gaillard. First of all, there were over thirty rooms in the main house. She had been given one of them. Not in the whole of her life had she ever had her own room. Like a lady.

The thought made her shake her head with wonder.

Not only that, but she had a four-poster featherbed, a rich green coverlet, an armoire for the new gowns she was making, a table, sitting chairs. Like a lady, all of it like a lady. At first she had been alarmed by it, the enormity of Lord Paxton's generosity, and she had even wondered if there wasn't a mistake. She was a servant, after all, not really a lady in waiting as Linness had always pretended, but a simple waiting woman. Between the two stretched a gulf as wide as the North Channel.

Then she thought, who was she to point out mistakes?

The fact remained—Beaumont was a grand place. There was no keep nor battlements, for it was now impossible to imagine a hostile army's march into the secured borders of France. The old style of building was obsolete. Gaillard's chateau had been built from an old castle and had retained many of these elements: the battlements and wall walk and keep. Not so Beaumont.

It was a white structure, built of local sandstone and brick. There was the main building with four large towers built around what Lord Paxton said was a too large courtyard. The kitchen had four ovens. Linness would marvel at the glorious modern buildings, the carpeted rooms, the wide hallways, the windows everywhere, the fifty or so servants, and especially the lawns. How she would love the gardens! And the food, too. From her long-ago days as a peasant, the Lady Linness always loved her food, and even that was grander here, fit for the king himself. Instead of Gaillard's more common Maslin, they had expensive wheat bread every night, the cream was as plentiful as water, and the possets, soups, and pottages were delicious. The chef had been recommended by Francis himself. Beaumont had its very own bird catcher, who put fresh fowl on the table almost every night. All the dishes seemed new and exotic.

If only Linness could see Beaumont. She wondered if she would ever get to see it. Originally they had thought she could squeeze a visit out of Morgan once a year to see Jean Luc. No more. He'd never let her go now. And so 'twas why Beaumont, even with all its modern convenience and beauty, could not keep Clair from longing to return to Gaillard. Just to tell Linness all that was here, to see her again and try to ease the sorrow of her days.

She shook her head sadly. She never did believe in happy endings. Not in real life anyway.

A trumpet sounded from the guardhouse, warning of an approaching visitor. Not just the town's butcher either. It had to be someone important, she knew.

She set down her sewing and went to the window that overlooked the enormous courtyard.

Down the road through the archway she spotted a coach approaching. She knew that coach, the two weary-looking creatures pulling it. Lord John Chamberlain was arriving.

Clair stared down at it heatedly. John Chamberlain had returned from Italy and he would have with him Lord Paxton's wife. She hoped the lady had a pox-marked face, crossed eyes, and scraggly hair. She hoped her figure was as wide as a cow's or as narrow as a reed. She didn't wish the lady dead exactly but maybe just injured. A nice brick on the head ought to do it.

If only she had one.

Some of the servants gathered on the steps—the head housekeeper, the chef, a number of the maids the dairy maid. She abruptly noticed Lord Paxton's horse and Jean Luc's pony tied to the back. They must have met on the road. But the young man riding alongside looked like Michaels—

It was Michaels!

Perhaps John Chamberlain first stopped at Gaillard! He would have news of Linness.

She started running. She raced out the door and down the hall, flying down the steps into the en trance hall and finally into the courtyard. A fresh breeze blew her hair in her face and she pushed it aside, watching not the coach but Michaels. He was dismounting, opening the carriage door. She could hardly wait to speak to Michaels.

Lord Paxton emerged from the carriage. He looked to the people gathered, more still arriving, racing from all corners of the estate for this long-awaited event. Clair, in the back, caught sight of the lord's strange smile, the light of excitement in his eyes. He half looked like he had been crying for joy. As if he were pleased.

By his new wife?

Indignation colored her cheeks, her mouth pressed to a hard line. She didn't understand. Even less as John and Jean Luc came out beside him, both of them smiling the same kind of wicked smile.

"Good people," Lord Paxton said in his deep, rich voice, "I should like you to meet my wife, the Lady Beatrice Lucia Calabria Nuovo, now Chamberlain."

He reached into the coach and took her hand to help her out. Clair held her breath. First a violet slipper appeared, then a familiar pattern of skirts.

Linness stood up.

Clair's knees went weak. She caught herself from fainting and instead stared, just stared. From the corner of her eyes, she caught Jean Luc’s stare. The boy winked conspiratorially. She knew that wink.

Lord, she was getting too old for this.

Paxton was introducing Linness to the new faces. She looked beautiful, the lord's new bride, a beauty, more pronounced by the giddiness, the laughter the happiness bubbling over. She was obviously a happy bride. And the groom! He looked just as happy, more even, obviously overjoyed by the sight of the lady, his beautiful new wife. She nodded, taking hands when they were offered. The chef asked in Italian how her trip was. She laughed, "The good sisters only spoke French and Latin. I fear my own native tongue is practically forgotten.”

Clair almost laughed at this. She had no idea how it happened; she could reasonably guess any number of unlikely scenarios. The fact remained. Despite all else, the girl was smooth; she had always been as smooth as the king's pudding.

Linness finally reached Clair. With eyes that shone brightly with happiness and tears, Linness said, "And you, Madame, must be Jean Luc's nurse?"