Pam Rosenthal (6 page)

Why had he undertaken to act the role of a smuggler? Had it been a sort of holiday from the poise that an aristocrat puts on along with garments of velvet and lace?

She could only suppose he’d done it for the adventure. Yes, she decided, he’d smuggled the books across the border as a reckless, dangerous diversion. And—she set her mouth in a hard line—she probably hadn’t been the only woman to help him.

She thought of the banquet she and her colleagues in the kitchen had been preparing. All the noble families of the region would be here tomorrow, bringing daughters decked out in pearls and plumes, towering hairdos and skirts so wide they’d have to skitter sideways through the doors like crabs. She hoped he’d choose one quickly and take her far away.

Of course, last December she’d merely shrugged when she’d come back from the market and found him gone, leaving only a receipt initialed with an X.

Goodbye and good riddance, she’d told herself. He was nothing but a drain on her emotions, a useless distraction from her perfectly acceptable life.

Which continued, busy and bookish, innocent and safe. The holidays came and went; when Augustin kissed her under the mistletoe at the Rigauds’ extravagant New Year’s fete, she flashed a sidelong look at his dreadful cousin—the one who’d been flirting with him all evening—and smiled modestly.

Papa ceased his coughing, though Gilles had given her a sober assessment of his condition. But he seemed well enough; she enjoyed their days together as winter became spring.

The
Societé typographique de Neuchâtel
sent replacement copies of the short-shipped books, with their apologies. The squint-eyed, bandy-legged porter who brought them had been most polite and respectful.

She even caught up on the sewing she hated; it was something to do with her hands when Augustin came to call in the evenings. She smiled at him over the sheets and towels she hemmed and embroidered—for the future.

And then Papa died and she became ill. And suddenly she had no future.

In the end, it hadn’t been her father’s weak heart that killed him. It was typhus, doubtless contracted at a ratty inn during the spring book fair in Lyon. She and Glues nursed him for two weeks, bathing him with alcohol, feeding him broths when he could take them, trying not to squabble with each other. Papa rarely was conscious, though she once heard him muttering a few cryptic phrases to Gilles: “Rigaud” and “taken care of” were all she could make out.

Her own illness waited politely until after the funeral. She collapsed and lost consciousness, awakening drenched and exhausted a week later to see a pale, relieved Gilles at her side. She’d passed the crisis, he told her in a shaky voice.

Only to encounter the real crisis.

For when Augustin came to her bedside and at long last proposed a formal engagement, she didn’t murmur the expected “yes” but stammered a tearful “no.”

She was as surprised as everyone else. What more could she possibly want, Gilles and the Rigauds demanded. But what she wanted—
who
she wanted—was too preposterous to be admitted, even to herself. So she simply wept and shook her head, looking dimwitted and disagreeable, until they explained her financial situation to her and left her to contemplate it.

The house and books were mortgaged to Rigaud. It had been foolish of her, she thought, not to realize where Gilles’s school fees had come from. Gilles owned the furniture, such as it was; the sale of it would support him through his last year of medical training. But except for sentimental knickknacks (she’d insisted on keeping Papa’s spectacles as a remembrance), Papa had left nothing to Marie-Laure. Well, there was nothing to leave; there hadn’t had to be. The Rigauds had wanted her even without a dowry, Augustin because he loved her and Monsieur Rigaud because she’d be an asset to his business.

You could say that Papa had mortgaged his daughter to pay for his son’s education. But that would have been putting too calculating a face on it. Papa had thought she’d be happy with Augustin and the paradise of books he’d someday inherit. Marie-Laure knew he’d intended the best.

Whatever face you wanted to put on it, though, the fact was that she was destitute. She’d have to live with Gilles after he set up a practice and married Sylvie next year. But in the meantime?

The job in the scullery was the best solution, even if it proved how far she’d come down in the world. Still, she thought, at least she’d gotten to see something of the world outside the city walls of Montpellier.

Of course she missed her family. Gilles’s regular letters weren’t very satisfying; he’d never grasped that writing might be more than a vehicle for the communication of facts.

But what she missed even more was life among the crowded bookshelves. She ached for intellectual stimulation, and for something else as well: like all true booksellers, she felt herself incomplete outside of a community of book lovers. Tedious day-to-day work is a small price to pay for the joy of matching a book with its ideal reader; slender profits don’t matter when readers hurry back to tell you how much they loved your recommendations. Marie-Laure’s customers had relied upon her, rewarding her with their confidences, their respect and trust.

A servant, on the other hand—well, she’d known that a servant wouldn’t command anyone’s respect. But it had still been a harsh thing to experience, immediately upon her arrival at the chateau.

Exhausted by her journey, she’d been handed over to the Gorgon’s poking and prodding, her furious scowls and angry mutterings that “Marianne” was prettier than Madame Bellocq had let on in her letter of recommendation. Marie-Laure had almost been fired on the spot for daring to correct the lady about her name.

What had saved her—though she hadn’t know it then—was the tantrum Monsieur Colet had thrown the day before, threatening to quit if he didn’t get more help. So Madame Amélie had to satisfy herself by slapping “Marianne” several times with a folded fan and commanding her to stay downstairs in the kitchen.

Luckily, she liked the kitchen. And she liked the other servants, too—except for one crude fellow whose advances she’d had to fight off her first week. She’d managed quite well, though, first using her fist and then—for Gilles had also taught her some dirtier techniques—her knee, which had left him howling in the corner of the storeroom.

The rest of the household staff had treated her with a certain degree of formality. At first she thought it was due to her success in the storeroom, but little by little she realized she’d always be an outsider here. For everyone else had grown up in tiny Provençal mountain villages, sharing superstitions and secrets forged by isolation and blood feud.

Wisely, Marie-Laure didn’t pry. Respectful of the sudden silences that sometimes greeted her entrance into a room, she was awarded a grudging approval in return. She was different, people decided, but not a bad kind of different; one or two of them even approached her and shyly asked her to teach them to read. What mattered was that she could be trusted in the unceasing silent war between servants and masters. The welts she’d received from the Gorgon’s fan sealed her acceptance into the world downstairs.

What she liked best about this downstairs world was its undisputed ruler, Monsieur Colet. Marie-Laure had always enjoyed cooking. After Mamma’s death she’d almost memorized her copy of
The
Modern Kitchen
; she’d been comforted to see it here, on Mr. Colet’s shelf. And when the chef caught her looking at it one morning before work, instead of punishing her he quizzed her on it, nodding approvingly as she recounted its sound principles.

A generous teacher, he encouraged her to learn all she could from his example. He’d even suggested that she become a cook herself rather than live with Gilles and Sylvie. A paid servant, he’d told her, was always better off than an unpaid one, which was what a spinster sister would be, even with the best of brothers.

Marie-Laure was still pondering his advice, as well as some tentative, secret plans of her own devising. For if she could earn an independent living here in the middle of nowhere, why couldn’t she also do so in a city—one with theaters, cafés, and bookshops? A cook, even for a bourgeois family, could make a decent living. And maybe, if she were a good enough manager, and if she sacrificed and saved her money wisely…maybe she wouldn’t have to be a cook forever.

And so, she concluded, things really hadn’t turned out so badly. The smuggler-Vicomte hadn’t really cheated her; it was time she stopped blaming him for unwittingly teaching her what physical arousal was all about. Grimy, exhausting, and déclassé as her life now was, she was lucky to have escaped a passionless marriage.

Perhaps she’d find someone else someday: someone who’d stir her desires without confounding her affections, someone with the Vicomte’s magnetism but without his rude emotional volatility. And—as long as she was wishing—someone of her own station in life. Yes, she told herself firmly, she’d find that someone someday. The same
someday
she was done with washing pots and back in the world of books and letters.

She nodded, as though she’d been persuaded by impeccable logic rather than stubborn optimism. Well, if no one else was around to remind her of what was just barely possible, she’d simply have to do it herself.

Time for bed, she told herself. Tomorrow would be a hard day. But just one more thought before sleep. She sighed and shook her head: even
she
couldn’t convince herself that this last thought was a logical argument. It was only a slim, rather pathetic hope, a final little request to the fates.
Please, oh please
, she whispered to whatever powers might be listening,
please make his visit a brief one.

She’d just reached to loosen her dress when someone began a thunderous pounding at her door.

Chapter Six

In future years Marie-Laure would never be quite sure what had really happened during the next moments. Of course she’d recall it with vividness and clarity, joy and delight. But she’d never truly be able to separate perception from imagination or distinguish memory from surmise. For how could she possibly have experienced every astonishment, decoded every sign, interpreted every wonder of that first embrace?

He’d mumbled something when she opened the door and looked up into his dark eyes.
Pardon me, Mademoiselle Vernet, I’ll explain all this later
, was what she thought she heard; perhaps he’d also said something about “danger” or “protection.” But the only words she could be sure of were “Mademoiselle Vernet,” the only emotions she’d be able to swear to were giddy delight and delirious elation—silly, selfish relief and prideful vindication, in truth—that he hadn’t forgotten her name after all.

He wasn’t wearing his coat or waistcoat. She’d caught a quick glimpse of his hips and thighs in pearl-gray velvet breeches. The lights and darks of the velvet, illuminated by her flickering candle, revealed rather more than she was prepared to admit she’d understood.

Nonsense, she’d think later.
Of course
she’d seen the bulge between his legs. After all, she wasn’t a child or a fool—the velvet was definitely stretched by the tumescent flesh beneath it. And even if she’d been embarrassed to bring it to consciousness upon first observation, there could be no doubt of what she’d felt a moment later, no mistaking the urgent press of him against her own hips and thighs. And no use pretending that she hadn’t been thrilled by it.

The weave of his linen shirt had grazed her chest and shoulders; his hand cradled her breast. She’d gasped with surprised recognition: somewhere, in some secret place at her center, she’d wanted his hands on her breasts ever since she’d watched him pile books onto Papa’s desk.

Was that the sound of cloth ripping? It was hard to discern behind the sound of her heartbeat and her breath, hard to concentrate with his mouth against hers, opening it, probing and teasing it with his tongue.

His other hand was tight at the small of her back. Well, it had been tight at first. Yes, she was sure of that. He’d held her closely—for a moment. And…she was
pretty sure
of what had happened next,
almost
certain
that his hand had loosened, had become more adventurous. It had moved downward, slowly but confidently lingering over the curve of her buttock, while it gathered her skirt and petticoat out of the way. And as for where his hand was poised to go next, and where he might put his fingers…

She’d marvel, later on, that she hadn’t been shocked or frightened by how indecently he was touching her. But wasn’t she also caressing him under his shirt at the back of his waist? How could she take offense at his wandering hands, when her own hands were touching him everywhere she could reach? She could feel the ache starting up in her belly, the trembling, like that night in Montpellier…

Such a jumble, such a torrent of sensation. And such a mystery, for she couldn’t think how they’d come to be in each other’s arms in the first place. It didn’t seem quite accurate to say he’d “swept” her into his arms—or, for that matter, that she’d “rushed” into his embrace. If there had been a crucial gesture, a shy or importunate first touch, she couldn’t specify what it had been or who had made it. The embrace had simply…happened, like a bolt of summer lightning.

It ended just as quickly.

The door rattled. She realized with a start that nobody had locked it. But who else could possibly be coming here at this hour?

She blinked in the sudden glare of another candle. A short man had flung open the door. He wore a quilted satin dressing gown, open at the front, his wattled neck purplish against the ruffled shirt below.