Chapter Thirteen
The next morning, they left at dawn for the ride to the lawyers’ offices. It took nearly two hours through busy, snow-laden streets. They arrived to find clerks straggling in, apologizing for their lateness.
“Monsieur Laurier, please,” said Jean-Louis, rolling his shoulders back and holding Hélène’s cold hand against his side more tightly.
Fourbier was at his back, but Jean-Louis couldn’t help but feel exposed.
“What is this concerning, Monsieur…” asked the bored-looking man in black clothing.
“I am Monsieur le Colonel de Cantière. This is Mademoiselle Hélène de Bonnefoi, and we are here concerning her inheritance from her father, who died fourteen years ago.”
The man in black looked up, interest in his sleepy eyes. “Mademoiselle de Bonnefoi? We have had several people asking about you over the last few months.”
The clerk went through a doorway, from which Jean-Louis could hear murmured voices. The clerk came out a moment later and ushered them in.
Monsieur Laurier was probably the same age as Jean-Louis’ father and wore a short white wig. He rose and came around his desk, holding out his hands to Hélène.
“So very like your mother,” he said with a sincere smile. “So wonderful to see you after all these years, ma chère demoiselle.”
“Merci, Monsieur,” said Hélène with a little curtsey.
As soon as they were settled in, Monsieur Laurier said, “As I told your uncle a few days ago, your father’s will is certainly valid. And of course, in a few days, you will gain control of the entire thing.”
Jean-Louis shifted in his seat. A few days ago?
“Of my…of my dowry?” asked Hélène.
“Well, yes, the dowry too, of course,” said Monsieur Laurier, his eyebrows rising in surprise. “Are you planning to marry?”
“Yes, we…” Hélène said.
Jean-Louis squeezed her hand in warning. “We are betrothed.”
Hélène looked at him, her eyes huge and confused, even though they had talked about their strategy on the way there. “Yes.”
They both looked at Monsieur Laurier, who was suddenly looking quite stern. “Now listen here, de Cantière…”
“Colonel de Cantière. I prefer it,” said Jean-Louis, stiffening at the challenge.
“I am sorry your wife died, but don’t you think that marrying her cousin… I never had the impression you were interested in the manufactory. It seems a little desperate.”
Jean-Louis looked at Hélène, whose whole face was bunched in thought. She glanced at him, and this time she squeezed his hand.
She took a deep breath. “Monsieur, I was told everything was sold to pay my parents’ debts.”
Laurier scowled. “Of course not. There were some carriages and horses and such that we sold, but everything else has been managed by us and by the bank, in your name. We’ve followed your instructions as best we could.”
Jean-Louis sat forward, his anger evident.
Hélène put her hand on his arm, calming him only slightly. “My instructions? I am sorry, but when did I write to you most recently?”
“Just two weeks ago. You sounded, ah…you sounded quite upset about something. You said you are thinking of becoming a nun and then asked if everything could be sold as soon as you turned twenty-four, in case you had not taken orders by then, so we have been scrambling to find buyers for you. Your shares in the company, though, have to be offered to your uncle and Monsieur Ménine first.”
Jean-Louis’ heartbeat was pounding in his ears. “May we see the letter?” he asked, his voice a low growl.
The lawyer, startled, scrabbled through some papers on his desk and pulled out a letter, which, standing, he handed to Hélène. His gaze darted over Jean-Louis in defiance.
She glanced over it quickly. “It’s not my handwriting.”
“But it’s the same as…well, as it has been since you were about sixteen,” said Laurier. “Here. Here are the others. You only wrote once a year or so, of course.”
He pulled out a small stack of letters and set them on the edge of the desk in front of Hélène. Jean-Louis took the last letter from Hélène’s hand as she picked up the whole stack and began to leaf through them.
“None of them are in my handwriting. I think it is my aunt’s hand. Some of the early ones look like Amandine’s. I have never written you. The last time I had any contact with you, I was fourteen, and my uncle made me wait in the anteroom. Your clerk gave me a candy and a hot cup of coffee. I felt very grown up.”
“He said you were shy and had been sullen lately,” said Laurier. “Which was why you didn’t acknowledge me.”
She stared at the lawyer. “I wasn’t allowed to take my eyeglass out of my pocket. I didn’t see you, Monsieur.”
There was a long silence. Jean-Louis’ mind whirled with the ways he would exact revenge on his former in-laws. His in-laws again.
Hélène’s voice squeaked. “And the house?”
Jean-Louis stared at her. She had never mentioned a house.
Laurier’s eyes went round with shock, his mind obviously racing. “It has been cared for and rented out. A few months ago, when the last people left, we asked you if you would like for us to find new tenants. You said—someone said—you meant to sell it when you turned twenty-four. You—they mentioned the nunnery at that time, saying you had decided to never marry.”
Hélène’s eyes got even larger, and Jean-Louis fumbled for a handkerchief as tears spilled down her cheeks. She smiled hugely. “My mother’s house.”
There was another long silence as she wiped away her tears. Jean-Louis wanted to hold her close and kiss them away.
Suddenly, the lawyer began to dig through the box of papers. He pulled out another stack of papers and smoothed them on the table for a moment before saying, “Ah, most of the principal of your parents’ investments is intact. We’ve been rolling the dividends back into other investments, except for your allowance.” He named a rather large sum. Hélène gasped.
Laurier sighed and scratched his head, making the wig slip. “You haven’t had the allowance, either.”
“No, Monsieur,” said Hélène. “Though my aunt and uncle gave me room and board and a governess, and sometimes a little money.”
“They had the money for your care and education separately. And the extra amounts you requested for dresses and special treats and such,” said the lawyer, holding up the handful of papers. When neither of them leaned forward to take them, the man banged the stack suddenly on his desk, stood up, and paced away.
He turned back with a fierce expression. “Your father was a friend of mine, Mademoiselle. I have failed you. I am… I should be disbarred. We fought together in the army, before the Fronde. We had both sold out by then, merci à Dieu. He was my first and best client. He helped me get started here, and I supported him when his family, an impoverished junior branch of the de Bonnefoi family, turned their backs because he married the daughter of a factory owner. Nearly fourteen years, and I have never once come to see you or spoken to you directly. I should be hanged for gross incompetence.”
Jean-Louis couldn’t help but agree. He picked up the stack of bills Hélène had allegedly asked the lawyer to pay. As he suspected, there were some from a certain dressmaker, dated just before his wedding to Amandine. He scanned it quickly, cold satisfaction stirring in his chest. “Here is enough to convict them.”
Jean-Louis held the bill out to Hélène, who looked at it and gasped. “I paid for my cousin’s trousseau, didn’t I?”
“Several fine dresses for court. I certainly didn’t get my money’s worth, either,” said Jean-Louis.
“It seemed rather excessive, but you wrote your cousin was to be introduced at court and you would go with her, and…” The lawyer sat heavily in his seat. “And the next letter told of the excitement and beauty of the court but said you had tired of the endless intriguing and had returned to your aunt and uncle.”
Hélène said, “I only went up to court once when Amandine was newly married—there was a ballet. Though I wasn’t allowed to use my glass, the music was quite nice. I went once when they were in Vincennes to take Ondine to see Amandine. It was over a year ago, when there was all the trouble with Aurore and the comte. We stayed at the de la Brosse house here in Paris.”
Jean-Louis nodded in memory. He had played with his infant daughter before discovering his wife was pregnant with Ménine’s child. After, he had hardly been able to look at the girl. He had focused on the assault at the château and then returned to Perpignan and his career.
The lawyer turned and looked at Jean-Louis. “Can you help me convict them? With a dressmaker’s bill?”
“The dressmaker is in my carriage.” Jean-Louis relished the lawyer’s amazed look.
Hélène took the paper from him, then turned to him with such a serene smile that he thought she must be an angel.
Jean-Louis returned her smile, and she smiled more broadly. Going to the door, he opened it and leaned out. “Summon my valet from my carriage.”
They sat in silence, the lawyer sorting through papers and making notes and occasionally sniffing in outrage at the papers in front of him.
There was a discreet tap, and the door swung open to reveal Fourbier, with a deceptively bored face. His eyes darted around the room, checking for physical threats.
“Look at this, Fourbier,” Jean-Louis said, holding the bill up.
His valet took it with a little bow and looked it over. He raised his eyebrows in question, and Jean-Louis nodded toward the lawyer, who watched them.
Fourbier turned to close the door before saying, “I am Monsieur Marcel LaTrappe. I left Paris under a cloud, shall we say, for personal reasons, not long after you paid this bill. A falling-out with my family. I helped choose the fabrics and supervised the fittings. I wrote up this addition, which was delivered to the family with the last of the dresses listed here.”
The lawyer said, “And were these dresses and other, ah, items, picked out and made for Mademoiselle de Bonnefoi?”
“Only one,” said Fourbier, scanning down the list again. “This rose pink silk here. Only I made her one in mauve instead, and the bride’s mother got very angry, because she had wanted to make it over to fit her daughter after the wedding, and mauve did not suit the girl at all. That is why the amount has been reduced, because we did not give them the fabric they picked out.”
“And did you, Mademoiselle,” said the lawyer, “offer your cousin five dresses, ten petticoats, two cloaks, and assorted underthings as a wedding gift?”
Jean-Louis was impressed by the lawyer’s memory.
“Six dresses and an underskirt, including the pink one which was meant to just be borrowed,” said Fourbier.
“Non, Monsieur Laurier. I was under the impression I was impoverished except for a small dowry,” said Hélène.
The lawyer lost his serious, lawyerly demeanor again and slumped. “My poor girl,” he said with a sigh. “If I had known…if I had not trusted your uncle…”
Jean-Louis cleared his throat. “There is another matter. We would like to know the terms of the will and the status of all of Mademoiselle de Bonnefoi’s holdings.”
“Well, the terms are fairly simple, really,” Monsieur Laurier said as he relaxed back in his chair, obviously more comfortable with what he knew than with what he had failed at. “Your uncle is your guardian, your aunt if he were to die. All is held in trust with me and a bank officer to oversee it. All is released to you at your twenty-fourth birthday. If you marry, it goes as your dowry, with some things held in trust for children, dependent on marriage contracts. If you enter a nunnery, it all goes to the nunnery once you take solemn orders—so after about three years—except the share of the manufactories, which would be sold to the other shareholders for a reduced price, your house sold, and so on, and the money given to the nunnery. I am surprised you didn’t have every mother superior on the continent knocking at your door.”
Jean-Louis nodded at the little joke and looked at Hélène, who frowned.
More grim, Laurier went on. “If you died before you entered a convent, married, or turned twenty-four, your share of the manufactory would be split between your uncle and Monsieur Ménine, giving them each a half interest.”
Jean-Louis grunted in horror.
“And the rest? The house and money and all?” said Hélène, her brows knit and leaning forward.
“A good deal to charities, the rest to your uncle,” said the lawyer.
“What is their motivation to keep her alive, then?” asked Jean-Louis, fierce.
Hélène whimpered.
Laurier shifted in his seat. “Family affection. Loyalty. The usual things that keep family members from doing each other harm.”
“And all the rest are the reason family members murder one another,” said Jean-Louis.
Laurier’s face hardened back to his serious lawyer look. “Listen, Monsieur le Colonel. As Mademoiselle’s betrothed, you have an interest in this. You seem to have some affection for one another, but we are talking about extensive holdings and a third part of a large manufactory. I think we will draw up an airtight marriage contract, n’est-ce pas?”
Hélène’s hand squeezed his arm, and Jean-Louis looked down at her hand and then her face, so sweet and so full of pain at the betrayal of her family. He brought his other hand over and settled it on top of hers, squeezing it lightly. He had to stop being angry to soothe her. “Should we tell him everything?”
She nodded sadly, looking up at him with those huge, trusting eyes.
Glancing over his shoulder at the corner where his valet was lurking, he said, “Help us, Fourbier, in case we leave anything out.”
Fourbier nodded gravely.
Settling back in his seat slightly, Jean-Louis said, “First of all, Monsieur Laurier, we must apologize for practicing a deception. We are already married. We were married two weeks ago in Poitiers, in the presence of the bishop.”
The lawyer looked confused, but Jean-Louis could see anger taking over.
“At the time, I thought it was for the best—we all thought so—to protect Mademoiselle de Bonnefoi and her reputation. At the time, I did not inquire as to the amount of her small dowry. I did not marry her for her money, Monsieur.”
The lawyer settled back, but Jean-Louis could see the man’s brain working.
“She fled from her uncle’s house, you see, when someone tried to kill her and my daughter, Ondine,” he said.
The lawyer turned red, bafflement and anger evident, and maybe suspicion.
Jean-Louis went on to describe the other assassination attempts, the kidnapping, and their travels. The lawyer took notes, and when Jean-Louis finished his story, the lawyer kept writing for a moment before laying down his pen and leaning back in his chair, contemplating both of them.
Finally, he spoke quietly. “I know your uncle, Madame. Not as well as I knew your father and not as well as I thought I did, but I have handled his affairs for many years. I would not think him capable of murder. I am inclined to believe his anxiety would indicate he is frightened for you. And yet, knowledge of a crime without doing anything to stop the crime is criminal in itself, on top of being morally reprehensible.”
“He tried to get Jean-Louis to put me in a nunnery,” said Hélène.
“Alerting the guard. Informing the authorities. Warning you or me. Helping you hide. All are things he could have done to protect you,” said Jean-Louis. “A letter lying about your mental stability is not protection.”
The lawyer nodded in approval. “And he—or your aunt—told whoever was trying to kill you where you were.”
Hélène whimpered again, just slightly. Jean-Louis wanted to pull her onto his lap and hold her tightly. He moved his chair closer and held her hands as she leaned against his shoulder.
She took in a shuddering breath, but there were no tears. “It has to be Bernard Ménine,” she said, h
er voice soft but sure. “He argued with my aunt and uncle when Amandine married you, since he had hoped to have her part of the business along with his own. He wanted to marry me, even though he hated me. I didn’t know why, at the time. He and his father have the funds to hire someone to trail us across the country and bribe innkeepers. The man who was caught but escaped said Ondine was to be brought to Paris.”
The lawyer looked down at his notes and nodded. After a silence, he shook his head. “They would benefit without having any familial bonds to stop them from doing you or her harm—only the usual legal and moral strictures. They have never struck me as particularly pious. I do not handle their affairs, but there has been a rumor they would sell part of the company to raise funds. I am going to suppose the Ménines did not know until recently that you owned the other third of the company. The manufactories are not doing well, but so close to you inheriting, they cannot make a decision without your agreement.”
“Why didn’t they just seek my agreement?” asked Hélène.
No one knew the answer. Jean-Louis cleared his throat. “I am speculating: perhaps your uncle didn’t mind so much that you would have control of your share. He likely thought you would never know. He would make all the decisions as he had always done and continue to have your aunt write fake letters.”
“He would have to explain a lot of things,” said Hélène sharply. “What he had done with my parents’ house, why he had lied to me. How did he know I would do as he said?”
“Because you love Ondine,” said Jean-Louis. “He would have threatened to take her away. He could have told me you were unfit. I am sorry to say I might have believed him. I might have given Ondine to my sister to raise. Ondine stayed with you at your aunt and uncle’s because she had always been there and because you seemed reliable.”
Hélène was looking at her hands where his covered them. She pulled one hand away and ran it up his arm a little ways, stealing his breath. His mind went to the night before, when they had kissed so tenderly. Then he thought of the coming night, and he felt his body twitch in anticipation. He pulled his thoughts back to the present, in the silent office.
The Honorable Officer Page 21
