“I’m honored, sir, by your presence,” the captain said humbly, his hat rapidly shoved under his arm, as the marquis looked over the ship, stunned by how small it was to make such a long trip. He knew it couldn’t have been pleasant for those aboard.
“I’m here to meet my brother. The Comte de Margerac,” he explained, but the captain already knew.
“I’m aware of that sir, your honor.” He bowed low again as he said it. It wasn’t often he saw noblemen like this one, of such obvious distinction. “I’m afraid I have unfortunate news for you. Your brother fell ill halfway through the trip. Quinsy, I believe it was, sir, a terrible illness of the throat. He succumbed a little more than two weeks ago, and we were obliged to bury him at sea.” The marquis froze where he stood and looked at the captain, as though he had been shot. The prodigal son, or brother in this case, had almost returned to him, and now he was gone, and never would. It was beyond thinking, and tears instantly blinded the older brother’s eyes. Without shame, he wiped them away. Although he hadn’t seen him in five years, he was deeply attached to Jean and loved him dearly.
“Oh my God, how awful. I just got the letter days ago that he was coming, and this morning your message that you’d docked. How terrible. Did others get the disease?”
“No, no one, sir. Not yet.” He didn’t say it, but his own throat had been sore for a few days, but he had no fever and felt otherwise healthy, so he had said nothing. It might have just been a cold, or a draft. He didn’t want to panic the passengers before they arrived, so he had kept silent about it. “I’m very sorry. He seemed like a good man.”
“He was.” Despite his years of absence, Tristan still loved him as he always had. Jean had almost been more like a son to him than a brother, or both, and now he was dead. Tristan was heartbroken at the thought. It was devastating news.
“His wife is still here, sir,” the captain said softly, as though mentioning a forgotten trunk a passenger had left, and he saw that the marquis looked startled, as though he didn’t know about her. All Jean had written was that he intended to marry the girl he was bringing home with him, not that he already had. Knowing him, Tristan wondered if what the captain said was true or not. He knew his brother well enough to suspect that he might have claimed to be married to her in order to preserve her reputation until they did marry in France.
“Where is she?” the marquis asked, still overwhelmed by the shocking news, as the captain pointed to the deck, to a solitary figure sitting there with her back to them as she stared out to sea, oblivious to the fact that Jean’s brother had arrived.
The marquis nodded, boarded the ship, and walked up a short stairway to where she sat. He wasn’t sure what to say to her, except that he was sorry, and knew they both were. Her dark hair hung straight down her back, and he made a sound to warn her that he was behind her. She turned slowly and saw him, and there was no mistaking who he was. He looked so exactly like Jean, only larger, more serious, and more imposing, but he had warm eyes. She almost wanted to throw her arms around him, but didn’t dare. Instead she stood up and looked at him, and dropped the low curtsy Jean had taught her, as Tristan looked at her in amazement. Jean had not written to him that she was a Sioux. And the full force of it hit Tristan now. Jean had wanted to come home with an Indian girl, only she had arrived, and he hadn’t. He was speechless for a moment as he looked at her, stunned by both her origins and her beauty, and bowed low in answer to her curtsy.
“Countess,” he said, and reached for her hand to kiss it, but she didn’t let him.
“We didn’t marry,” she said softly. “We were going to here.” She didn’t want to lie to him and was honest immediately.
“I know, that’s what he wrote me … but the captain said …” She shook her head with a shy smile. She didn’t want to pretend to Jean’s brother to be something she wasn’t. She was not a countess, and never would be now. She didn’t mourn the title, only the man.
“I’m so sorry. For both of us,” he said kindly. “What will you do now?” He had no suggestion to offer, and was completely at a loss himself. What was he going to do with an Indian girl who had nowhere to go in France, and surely no money of her own?
“I don’t know. I can’t go back to my people.” She had caused a chief to be killed and she and her people would be blamed for it entirely and punished severely by the Crow if she returned. There was no going back for her. Jean had known that. His brother didn’t.
“Perhaps you can stay for a while until you decide,” he said gently. He could see how devastated she was about his brother, and so was he. He had been prepared to celebrate, and now he would be in mourning for the brother he hadn’t seen in five long years. “Will you come with me?” he asked politely. She nodded and followed. She had nowhere else to go.
Wachiwi left the boat with Jean’s brother. She thanked the captain in the greatly improved French she had learned on the trip. And the marquis handed her into his carriage, and told the captain he would send another shortly for her trunks. Then the impressive carriage took off at a fast clip and left the port, and turned sharply toward the hills. Wachiwi had noticed the beautiful horses and wished that she could ride them. She saw that Jean’s brother was looking at her intently, as though studying her face, trying to discover who she was, and why his brother had loved her. For now, it was all a mystery to him. And then he realized something else.
“Jean never told me your name.” He had a kind face, Wachiwi decided, just like his younger brother. His was softer and not as full of fire and passion as Jean’s, but he had gentle eyes.
“I am called Wachiwi,” she said simply in French.
“You’re Indian, I presume.” There was no judgment in it, just a statement, unlike the people she’d met in New Orleans, who made “Indian” sound like a curse.
“Sioux,” she answered.
“I’ve met two of your great chiefs in our king’s court,” he said as they drove to the château where both brothers had grown up. “Perhaps they were related to you,” he said, trying to be pleasant, and still trying to absorb that the brother he loved was dead, and he had brought an Indian girl back to France. It was a lot to digest all at once. And what would he do with her now? Where would she go? He couldn’t keep her at the château forever. He would have to help her figure out something, but for now she could stay at the château with him and his children. And then Tristan smiled to himself as he looked out the window of the carriage. It was so like Jean to do something like this, to fall madly in love with an Indian girl, which was bound to shock everyone, and then die and leave Tristan to deal with her. He laughed as he thought about it, and smiled as he turned to Wachiwi. There was something totally absurd about it, and totally outrageous. And wonderful in a way too. He was sure that she was a remarkable girl if Jean had loved her enough to want to marry her. He had yet to discover what Jean had loved in her, and she was certainly very pretty. Tristan looked at her with a fatherly air and smiled. “Welcome to France, Wachiwi.”
“Thank you, My Lord,” she said politely, just as Jean had taught her, and then they sat silently together, and rode the rest of the way to the château.
Tristan could easily imagine Jean smiling at them, from wherever he was, or even laughing. Wachiwi, lost in her own thoughts, could feel Jean close to her, and had ever since he died. Even more so now that she was here.
Chapter 13
The drive to the Château de Margerac took longer than Wachiwi expected, since Jean had told her it was on the sea and not far from the port, but even with fast horses pulling the carriage, it took them nearly an hour on the narrow winding road.
The château was enormous and sat on a cliff with a magnificent view of the ocean. The terrain looked rugged, and the château was imposing and had been built in the twelfth century, but what softened its appearance were miles and miles of gardens, filled with brilliantly hued flowers and ancient trees that towered above them. Wachiwi had never seen anything so lovely in her life.
As they approached, Tristan told her some of the history of the family and the house. He said that his family had all been warriors in the early days, which was why the château looked so much like a fortress, and was inaccessible, to protect them from their enemies. It had served them well for centuries. She smiled and said that her ancestors had been warriors too, and the men in her tribe still were. Saying it made her think of her brothers and made her look momentarily sad. Tristan couldn’t help wondering how she had come to be with his brother, and how he had managed to take her from the Sioux. He wondered if Wachiwi had run away with him, which seemed likely.
“You’ll have to tell me sometime how you met my brother,” he said, sounding curious, and she nodded but said nothing. She didn’t want to tell him so soon that his brother had killed a man, because of her.
A footman handed her down from the carriage, and the marquis led her inside the château. There were long dark hallways going in all directions, filled with somber paintings of his ancestors. Some of them looked like him and Jean. There was a great hall in the center filled with hunting trophies and heraldic banners, a gigantic ballroom he had not used since his wife died, and several smaller receiving rooms. And all of it was cold and drafty, and looked daunting to Wachiwi. She wondered what it would have been like to discover all this with Jean, and not his more serious older brother. He was telling her about various ancestors as they walked around. She was confused by most of what he said, and overwhelmed. But she tried to look attentive. He spoke quickly in French, not realizing how recently she had learned.
And then he took her upstairs to an enormous living room with large chairs and many couches that looked like some kind of council room to her. She could imagine the warriors in his family meeting there to plan their raids on other tribes, just as the men in hers sat around the campfire or came to her father’s tipi to discuss similar things. In some ways, their histories and family traditions were not so different. War and hunting. She noticed with interest that there were no buffalo on his walls, mostly deer and antelope and elk. She wondered if they had no buffalo in France, but was too embarrassed to ask him.
A woman in a plain black dress with a lace apron came in and offered to serve them tea. She came back with two other women and a man and a gigantic silver tray almost too heavy to carry, covered with silver teapots and porcelain jars, and plates with small sandwiches and cookies. It all looked very interesting to Wachiwi, and she was starving. She sat down on the chair Tristan indicated, and ate as delicately as she could. It was all new to her still, but Jean had taught her well. He hadn’t wanted her to be embarrassed or feel awkward when she came to France, and thanks to his diligent lessons, she didn’t. The food tasted delicious to her.
She noticed that Tristan was watching her carefully, trying to decide what to make of her, and from time to time Wachiwi glanced out at the view of the ocean. And as she looked at the sea, she thought of Jean’s spirit, which was there now. And as she thought of him, two children walked in, with a tall serious-looking young woman with a pale face. She was wearing a gray dress, and she looked like an unhappy person, even to Wachiwi. She had plain brown hair, gray eyes, and everything about her seemed drab. The children looked like they couldn’t wait to escape her, and referred to her as “Mademoiselle.” They stopped in their tracks when they saw Wachiwi. The little girl looked to be about four years old, and the boy about six. Although they were beautifully dressed and very different, they reminded Wachiwi of the Indian children she had known. They bounded around the room like puppies, leaped at their father, and ogled the cookies on the tea tray, as Mademoiselle attempted unsuccessfully to dampen their spirits and make them sit down. They would for a minute, and then leap up again to laugh and play with their father, who looked delighted to see them.
Wachiwi didn’t like the tall spare-looking woman, and it was obvious the children didn’t either. She seemed cold and distant to Wachiwi, and Mademoiselle pointedly ignored her as though she didn’t see her in the room. It was the same disdainful attitude she and Jean had met in New Orleans.
“And these are my children,” Tristan said with a broad smile. “Matthieu and Agathe. Jean saw Matthieu when he was a baby. Agathe was born after he left.” They stared at Wachiwi with interest. Even though she was dressed in ordinary clothes, they could observe easily that there was something different about her, if nothing else the creamy nut color of her skin. “This is a friend of your Uncle Jean,” Tristan explained to them, trying to contain them, and relenting over the cookies, which they rapidly devoured as Wachiwi giggled. She looked like a child herself. Agathe smiled at her immediately. She thought she was pretty, and looked nice.
“Is this the lady Uncle Jean was going to marry?” Agathe asked, as she hopped onto the couch next to her father, and Mademoiselle scowled her disapproval. She thought they should stand at attention and never sit down in the drawing room when they visited their father. He was far less rigid than that with them, and the governess firmly disapproved.
“Yes, it is,” her father confirmed, surprised that his daughter remembered. But he had told her only a few days before, when he got Jean’s letter, and the little girl was excited about a wedding, and wanted to know if she could be in it.
“Where is Uncle Jean?” Matthieu chimed in, and there was a brief silence in the room. And then finally, with a heavy look and sagging shoulders, their father answered. His grief was easy to read.
“He is with Mama now, in Heaven. They are together. His friend came here alone.”
“She did?” Agathe turned to her with wide eyes. “On a boat?” Wachiwi nodded, smiling at her. The little girl had soft blond curls, a sweet round angelic face, and was impossible to resist. Matthieu had the stamp of Tristan and Jean and was tall for his age. Agathe looked more like her late mother, who had been the light of Tristan’s life until she died, and still was. He had mourned her for the past four years.
“Yes, I came on a boat,” Wachiwi said. “I just arrived today.”
“Was it very scary?” The little girl’s eyes were wide.
“No, it was all right. It just took a long time. Nearly two full moons,” she said, and caught herself. “Almost two months,” she corrected, remembering Jean’s words.
“I don’t like boats,” Agathe said firmly. “They make me sick.”
“Me too,” Matthieu added, studying Wachiwi. He wasn’t sure what she was, but he knew that she was different and interesting, and he could tell she was nice to children. Both of them had already decided that on their own.
The children chatted animatedly with them for a few minutes, and then Mademoiselle announced that it was time to go. Both Agathe and Matthieu protested, to no avail. She told them to say goodnight to their father, and escorted them firmly from the room.
“They’re so wonderful!” Wachiwi said sincerely, “and your son looks just like you and Jean.” It had warmed her heart to see it, and despite their fancy clothes, they reminded her of the children in her tribe.
Tristan smiled at what she said. “Yes, he does look like us, poor boy. Agathe looks like her mother. She died when Agathe was born. But the governess is very good with them, we’ve had her since Matthieu was born. Particularly now, without a mother, they need someone to keep them in line. And I’m not always here.” It felt odd speaking to her about these things but he was curious about the woman his brother had brought home, and intended to marry, and he wanted to get to know her. He wasn’t nearly as shocked at her being an Indian as Wachiwi had feared he would be. In fact, he appeared not to be at all. He was an amazingly open-minded and kindhearted person and made her feel welcome at the château.
“She seems very severe,” Wachiwi said honestly about the governess, surprisingly at ease with him. She had disliked her the moment she saw her, but knew enough not to say that. She didn’t want to offend her host. In Indian culture, Mademoiselle would have been a relative of some kind, but she had already learned from Jean that in Europe the people who worked for them
were “servants,” and in New Orleans they were “slaves.” The slaves had seemed nicer than Mademoiselle, who was painfully austere, and cold as ice. She didn’t appear to like children.
“I’ll have the housekeeper show you to your room,” Tristan said then. “You must be tired from the trip. How fortunate that you didn’t catch my brother’s illness. You’re feeling well, aren’t you?” He looked concerned. He didn’t want her ill or spreading disease, but she looked healthy to him and said she felt fine. And it was obvious to him that she was young and strong.
He rang a long bell pull next to the fireplace, and a woman appeared who looked like an older relative of Mademoiselle’s, and Tristan said she would show Wachiwi to her rooms. He said that he had arranged for her dinner to be served in her own suite that night, but he would see her in the morning. He didn’t want to sit down to a solitary dinner with a single woman. It didn’t seem right to him, and he had no idea what they would do in future. Perhaps she could eat in the nursery with the children. It wasn’t proper for him to eat with her every night. Without Jean, their situation was more than a little awkward. Wachiwi taking her meals with the children seemed like the only possible solution to him.
The suite of rooms that Tristan had assigned to her, once he knew that his brother wasn’t with her, were a far cry from the slave quarters where his cousin Angélique had put her in New Orleans. She had an enormous sitting room with a view of the ocean, a bedroom with a four-poster canopied bed worthy of a princess, a large bathroom, a dressing room, and a small writing room with an elegant ladies’ desk. Wachiwi had no idea what to do with all the space. And she was so sad that Jean wasn’t with her. If he had been, although she didn’t know it, she would have eventually shared his gigantic suite on the same floor as Tristan’s, but under the circumstances, the marquis had put her in another wing of the château. The nursery where the children lived was just above her, up a single flight of stairs. She could hear them, but didn’t dare go up and risk Mademoiselle’s glacial gaze and stern disapproval.
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