Hélène remembered how dashing he’d looked, how bright his eyes appeared, when he came to fetch them from Dijon the first time.
“Monsieur le Colonel wore them into the mud a few days ago,” announced Fourbier from the doorway. “I have yet to replace all of the ribbons. Shocking.”
“Oh, good! Fournier. Fourbier!” Aurore rushed to the valet with her hands out. He bowed deeply, and she grasped his arm. “I have lovely blue wool for Hélène. I would like for you to take a look at it, please.”
“Ah!” cried Fourbier, his hand to his chest. “Please, please, show me the fabric. Take me away from these philistines.”
The comte chuckled, but Jean-Louis scowled. Hélène looked away, blushing.
“Come along, Hélène,” said Aurore. “We cannot make any decisions without you, after all.”
****
Jean-Louis was left in companionable silence with his brother-in-law. Though he was Cédric’s best friend, Dominique had never been chatty, which suited Jean-Louis.
Jean-Louis took out the newest letter from Cédric. No news, really, except to say Papa had gone to see Hélène’s uncle. He still hadn’t written back to Cédric, since he did not know if Hélène was a threat to Ondine. Obviously, she wasn’t, or he wouldn’t keep her in the house, but there was a tiny part of him unwilling to trust her.
What did he know about her, after all? Maybe she was truly desperate for money. Her aunt and uncle had never tried to contract a marriage for her, saying her dowry was too small and she had no suitors. They called her stupid and dull, never mentioning her near-blindness. Amandine had laughed at her cousin’s awkward ways and Jean-Louis had never questioned it. He had been polite to Hélène when he saw her, he thought. He hoped. He really didn’t remember.
But she was devoted to Ondine, brave enough to ride alone for nearly a week to a war zone to ask for help. She was also quite intelligent; if they had not discussed books, it was because he had not read them. Her blindness was something she could not help, of course, and now that she was walking about with her eyeglass in front of her eye most of the time, she wasn’t as clumsy. He wondered if she had learned to dance, if only as Amandine’s partner. She likely did not play an instrument, but her singing voice was clear and true, as far as he could tell from hearing her sing with Ondine.
She was truly lovely, once she looked up from her shoes. Beautiful eyes and a lovely pink mouth. Soft, pale skin like sanded silk. Tall and well-proportioned, not at all gawky.
She was too naïve, really, though maybe a naïve girl would be better for him than Amandine’s too-forward ways.
He didn’t need her dowry, so if it was small, it wouldn’t matter.
He found himself making notes in pencil on the back of Cédric’s letter, the pros and cons of marriage to Hélène. He scowled at it before folding it and shoving it back into his pocket.
“Are you marrying her?” Dominique asked, setting aside the book he was leafing through.
Jean-Louis shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I’m not sure.”
“She’s beautiful, she’s intelligent, she’s modest, she loves your daughter, she looks at you like at a hero…”
“I’m not a hero,” Jean-Louis said sharply.
Dom smirked. “Praised for bravery and leadership in action, promoted from lieutenant all the way to colonel in four years, in spite of interference from certain family members, suspicion cast on others, and people at court who wanted to see you fail. Riding a horse in front of siege guns. Confronting dangerous members of your own army to keep discipline. Low rates of desertion, even in battle, due to good morale.”
Jean-Louis shook his head. “I do my work. I am good at strategy and try to maintain good relations with my soldiers, but I am no braver than any man in my command.”
“And modest, so your superiors like you,” said Dom, with a half-smile.
“Until news gets back to the king from the Grand Condé that I have deserted due to my mistress,” he said.
Dom scowled fiercely. “Mistress?”
“She’s not, but Fourbier says most of the army in Franche-Comté thought she was. Probably the Spanish and Franc-Comtois forces think the same by now. And the news is probably in Paris.”
Dom narrowed his eyes. “All the more reason to marry her.”
Jean-Louis rubbed his eyes. “I said I would never marry again.”
Dom was quiet for a long time, nodding slowly.
Jean-Louis shook his head. “You can’t say you blame me.”
Dom smiled. “We’ve known each other for too long, Jean-Louis. We are too much alike. The rest of us thought Amandine was like Aurore, too.”
No one had known she would be Jean-Louis’ greatest heartache. So many aristocratic marriages were based on nothing but bloodlines and money, but Jean-Louis had fallen in love, which made his wife’s devotion to a dissolute lifestyle and other men hard to bear.
“You can trust Hélène,” said Dom.
Jean-Louis looked up at him. “How do you know? You’ve just arrived.”
“As a family, we have known her for years. Aurore loves her. She always has,” said Dom.
Jean-Louis waved his hand. “Aurore loves everyone. How many problems did I get her out of when she was little because she trusted Henri too much? Or trusted a simpleton goatherd to show her the shortest way home and got lost? Or sought Maman’s attention?”
Dom sighed. “Or loved me without reservation and I smashed her heart?”
Jean-Louis scowled at his brother-in-law. “I still haven’t forgiven you, you know, even if she has.”
“I try to earn her trust every day,” said Dom, wincing at his own thoughts. “She trusts me now—I am sure of it. Every time I go away, I feel like I have to prove something when I come back. Mostly, I find it easier to take her with me. She should not have come all the way to Poitou, but there was urgent business on my estate. She didn’t tell me she was pregnant until we were most of the way here. I do not want the child born here, though. I want the best doctors and midwives.”
“So she is pregnant?” asked Jean-Louis.
Dom nodded, his expression sour.
Jean-Louis’ sister had tried to have children and suffered miscarriages time and time again. He almost wished Amandine had shown her how to prevent pregnancy.
Of course, Jean-Louis only discovered Amandine was preventing pregnancy after she complained when she fell pregnant with Ondine three years after they wed. He’d wondered if one or the other of them was barren. Of course, they had made love only infrequently as Amandine settled into life as a lady in waiting and sneered at her own husband, a mere second son.
Not two months after that, Jean-Louis was surprised by orders sending him to Perpignan. Amandine refused to travel, saying she would stay near the king and her patroness, a duchess. Jean-Louis missed Ondine’s birth, only seeing her for the first time when she was two months old. Amandine had already turned Ondine over to her parents, and by extension to Hélène. Amandine was colder than ever toward him.
The next time he saw Amandine was when Dominique’s château had been occupied by mercenaries led by the bastard sons of an aristocrat. Jean-Louis had planned and helped lead the assault to take it back. He had found Amandine pregnant, even though he hadn’t seen her in a year. He never told anyone the baby was not his, though he thought Fourbier figured it out.
Jean-Louis shook his head to bring himself back to the present. Dom was reading, so Jean-Louis pulled the letter from Cédric out again and studied his notes on the advisability of marriage to Hélène.
His biggest fear was that he would be betrayed again.
Chapter Seven
Hélène spent most of the afternoon and half of the evening discussing blue dresses with Aurore and Fourbier, who did not need her at all, except to solve their squabbles. Not that they listened, as her solution was always less lace, while they were only debating where to place mounds of it. The comte dragged Aurore off to bed early after the frock had be
en decided on and someone sent to the village to buy ribbons. Fourbier insisted he would oversee every aspect himself, but allowed that the maids could help with the easier parts.
The next day, Hélène found the colonel at the breakfast table with the comte, discussing the crops they would plant in the spring. Ondine went straight to her father and stood by his elbow instead of asking to be picked up. He ruffled her hair absently before noticing Hélène and jolting to his feet, the comte following suit. The comte bowed as a servant pulled a chair out for her and the colonel pulled the chair next to him out for Ondine. The child knelt on her chair, big eyes watching her papa prepare a piece of bread, which she ate with great gusto, leaving smears of jam and butter on the tablecloth.
They heard a coach arrive. Men argued in the yard. Someone banged on the front door before a manservant could get up the narrow hall. The men rose from the table in a rush of tension.
Henri de Cantière, the third brother, came in, dragging their youngest brother Emmanuel by the arm. “Jean-Louis!” he shouted, spotting the colonel in the doorway to the breakfast room. “Come take this monster off my hands.”
The colonel bowed. “Honored to see you again, too, my dearest brothers.”
Hélène hid her smile at his dry humor, since his two younger brothers looked murderous. Henri shoved Emmanuel, who bowed awkwardly and sullenly. The comte snorted a laugh.
Henri slapped the colonel on the back and kissed his cheeks. “I almost had to kill Manu at least fifty times on the way here. I hope you appreciate this.” Glancing around, he asked, “Where’s the blushing…” He spotted Hélène in the breakfast room.
Her heart raced, and her face got hot and tingly as he strode toward her and bowed elegantly over her hand. He was darker and thinner than the colonel but had the same nose and chin. She had never seen his face from so close.
“Good to see you, Mademoiselle de Bonnefoi,” he said. “I am sorry for your troubles and glad our family can be of service to you.”
He had not yet released her hand and didn’t turn his face from hers as he barked, “Em-man-u-EL! Show some manners. Doesn’t matter how much you hate me, Mademoiselle Hélène deserves better.”
Emmanuel appeared at his shoulder, a sullen adolescent still growing into long limbs. He looked just like the colonel, down to the blond hair, blue eyes, and scowl. He greeted her creditably before Henri slapped him on the shoulder. “Go away. Stop scaring everyone.”
Aurore raced down the stairs, crying out and throwing her arms around Emmanuel’s neck to kiss him several times on the cheeks. The boy blushed terribly and visibly restrained himself from shoving her away, even though Hélène could see his eyes were suspiciously wet.
“Has Henri been horrible to you?” asked Aurore, holding her brother’s face in her hands.
Emmanuel nodded.
“Ask instead how horrible he has been to me, Aurore. A week in a coach with a brat—I ask you! Nothing but complaints and digs and everything Maman taught him to say. We should never have called in on her on the way.”
“Oh, my poor Henri-Chéri,” said Aurore, kissing him as thoroughly as she had kissed Emmanuel. “You didn’t tell her anything about Jean-Louis and Mademoiselle Hélène, did you?”
“Give us some credit for discretion, Aurore.” Henri rolled his eyes. “I said we were coming to see you. She’ll know soon enough something is wrong, but she won’t have the details from me. She’ll make them up.”
“It is generally enough for her,” said Jean-Louis.
Ondine trotted in with Charlotte right behind. Hélène was not sure if she should send them up to the nursery, but Aurore picked Ondine up and presented her to her uncles. Jean-Louis dismissed Charlotte to the kitchens.
“And this dress, Aurore?” asked Jean-Louis, not quite looking at Hélène.
Aurore grinned at Hélène. “Fourbier says that if the dusting does not get done for a few days you are to blame him. He and the maids and the dressmaker from the village have been in the nursery since dawn, stitching. You’ll have a dress in no time, Ondine, and Mademoiselle Hélène soon after.”
“Dress?” asked Ondine in amazement.
“She loves new clothing.” Hélène took Ondine from Aurore.
The colonel took the girl from Hélène. “Just like her…”
Hélène knew he was going to say “mother.” Everyone else did too, as there was an uncomfortable silence. Maybe they knew as much about Amandine as she did.
The colonel cleared his throat. “Like her Aunt Aurore.”
Aurore chuckled and pinched his forearm.
“Aïe. Haven’t you stopped that yet?” said the colonel as Aurore rubbed away the sting.
“It’s remarkably effective,” she said.
It was most effective as a change of subject. Over breakfast, Henri told them of every incident in their childhood when Aurore had wronged him, to general amusement. Henri had a few minutes to calm down, apparently, as did Emmanuel during the telling of the tales. Meanwhile, Ondine stared in awe at these uncles she had not seen for more than a year.
When Charlotte reappeared and took Ondine upstairs, Fourbier came out of the back halls and drew Hélène to the side. “We shall have the bodice ready to fit to you before dinner.” He smiled smugly. “The sleeves by tonight. The skirts tomorrow, and then there’s just the hem.”
“Oh! Thank you, Monsieur Fourbier. So quickly!”
“As you know, our shop turns out only the best and in as short a time as possible.” He bowed deeply.
Hélène smiled at the little joke and turned to go into the drawing room.
She heard the voices before she got to the doorway and stopped in the hall, frozen in place.
“Of course it’s ridiculous,” said Henri. “Cédric and Papa are seeing plots where there are none. They have hardly seen Mademoiselle Hélène, much less seen how she is with the girl.”
The comte said, “I would never doubt her innocence.”
Aurore said, “Of course not. She’s a mother to Ondine. And why would she do anything to hurt the girl? I am ashamed of you, Emmanuel, for bearing such a tale.”
“Cédric wrote of it to me, too,” said the colonel in a tight voice. “We have to make sure of the facts.”
“And move too slowly to save her reputation,” said Aurore, with acid in her voice. “Honestly, Jean-Louis, you would rather believe some hare-brained idea of Cédric’s than the obvious truth? She’s shown great resourcefulness, and will be slandered for spending so much time alone with you.”
“Her aunt and uncle wrote that she was insane and asked me to close her up in a convent,” said Jean-Louis.
Everyone gasped, including Hélène out in the hall.
The others protested on her behalf. She stepped into the doorway, her face hot, her feet weighing several tons. She cleared her throat, more loudly than she meant to. She felt her face heat under everyone’s gaze.
Aurore came to her, distressed and pleading. “Tell him he’s just an idiot, Hélène. Honestly! Insane? Trying to hurt Ondine? Who would think such a thing?”
Hélène glanced at Jean-Louis, then dropped her eyeglass to swing on its ribbon so she wouldn’t have to see his face. “Ondine is everything to me. I would die to save her. But if there is trouble, I would rather leave her with you and go away.”
She walked away, trailing her hand along the wall. She heard footsteps behind her and sped up, turning the corner and running up the stairs.
“Hélène.”
She reached the top and dabbed at her eyes. Heavy steps came up after her.
“Hélène,” said the voice, the colonel, “stop.”
She didn’t. Run away. Run away.
She went to push open the door to her room, but he grabbed the handle and held the door shut.
His body was right behind hers, warming her back, making her want to turn and seek comfort from him.
“You have to admit we need to explore all options,” he said.
“No. I d
o not have to admit it.” She leaned away from him, more defiant than she had ever been, at least since the first days with her aunt and uncle.
“There is the remote possibility—” he started.
“That I wanted the person whom I love most in the world dead? For what motive? Insanity?” She had not interrupted anyone in years, either.
“You’re not insane. Maybe your aunt and uncle would leave the manufactory to you if they no longer had a granddaughter.”
“They would leave it to Monsieur Ménine, my uncle’s partner,” she said. “After Amandine died, my uncle mentioned it.”
The colonel turned her toward him. He was silent for a few moments, staring into her face. She watched him warily.
“Then we are looking for someone who can afford to hire mercenaries, someone who knows how to hire mercenaries. My family has a history of trouble with mercenaries.” He referred to the men who had been hired to kill the Comte de Bures and take his lands.
Hélène shook her head. “I am not sure the factory is doing well. Ever since LeBrun sneered at their chairs and Gobelins criticized the colors, orders have fallen off.”
Jean-Louis stilled. “I cannot understand the need to harm Ondine.”
“Even if they had the money, it’s not my aunt or uncle,” she said.
“Possibly,” he said. “I do not think your uncle and aunt would do away with Ondine. But the partners… the Ménines. Bernard Ménine.” His voice was angry when he named the man who had spent too much time with Amandine before her marriage.
Hélène lifted her eyeglass as she turned to face him, wanting to see his face. The colonel clenched his jaw. She put her hand on his arm. “Did Amandine ever talk about Bernard?”
“Talk?” Jean-Louis pinched the bridge of his nose.
Hélène thought he surely meant a great deal more than that one word. “They were fond of each other before your betrothal.”
Jean-Louis opened his eyes to stare into the distance. “You are saying I have him to thank for all Amandine knew of lovemaking and for leaving her a virgin.”
Hélène should have been more shocked than she was, but she had surprised Amandine and Bernard more than once in dark hallways, kissing and groping. She was surprised Amandine had been a virgin. She blushed.
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