Lessons in French (47 page)

He took a deep drink of coffee, not caring that it burned him. "C'est à chier, non?" he

said, closing his eyes brief ly.

"Oh my son!" She reached across and caught his hand. "I am sorry! It was a sting of the

moment only. Forgive me! Forgive me."

He pressed her fingers. "You've nothing to forgive. Not you." He let her go, still not

meeting her eyes. He rolled the sterling knife over, watching the dull light gleam on

ancient silver. "But let us for once be frank with one another. How much do you know,

Maman?"

She drew a shuddering breath. He looked at her sidelong.

"Very much, I think," she admitted, "that I deduce, but do not know."

He waited, spinning the knife with his fingertip.

"Monceaux is gone, is it not?" she asked quietly.

The sadness in her voice was like a mortal wound to him. "It is a pig farm," he said, his

lip curling a little. "Except for the vineyards. They've been honored by Jacobins and

royalists alike. A mistress of the Duc de Berri now enjoys possession, I believe."

A steady tap of rain beat on the old glass panes. He watched the watery f low of green

and brown and gray outside. His mother did not speak.

"I could not bring myself to tell you," he said. He leaned on his elbows and rubbed his

hands over his face. "I could not."

She said, "I have only one regret for it. That you never saw it as it was. What belonged

to you."

"It never belonged to me. It was yours, and my father's and grandfather's. I wanted it for

you. For you and Hélène and Aimée. I wanted you to dance again at Monceaux, those

dances that you used to teach us." He shook his head. "It was never mine. It's why Grand-

père hated me, because my heart was born between. I was happy here; I loved to come

home from school and be with you in this shabby old house. And Callie—my God—" He

laughed. "What would he have done to me if he'd known? I don't know where I belong,

Maman. But I wanted—ah, I wanted to come back and hand you a golden key, and make

it all right again."

"And so you could not come back at all, which makes me hate Monceaux now."

He shrugged. "I should have come. At least after—" He broke off.

"After you fought for Bonaparte?" she asked wisely. "No, not then. Your grand-père

would have killed you for certain if he had discovered it. Or you would have made a duel,

which would be very shocking—here in such a
petit
place as… Shelford."

He frowned at her. "You know of that? How?"

She hid her face behind her handkerchief for a moment to cough and then lowered it

elegantly. "Your English friend. The officer. Hixson? He came to call on me, to assure

me that you were safe."

"Geordie Hixson?" Trev was astonished. "That was damned handsome of him."

"Yes, he said that he was making… calls on the families of his men while he was on

leave. He said that you were captured but allowed to go about freely on your honor as a

gentleman." She caught her breath. "It was a great comfort to me. But I did not mention

it—to your grand-père—of course."

Trev was left without words for a moment. Then he only said: "You see? We were in

school together. That's what makes me love the English."

"They are a most stout people," she agreed. "Very kind friends. But you have been a

good friend also, I think? To the Chicken?"

He regarded her with unwilling amusement. "The Rooster." He took the coffeepot from

her shaky hand and poured for her. "So I find, after all my toil and trouble, that I have no

secrets from you at all?" he asked ironically.

She gave him an apologetic glance. "The ladies of Shelford are so liberal as to bring the

monthlies to me—they are a little out-of-date, but I find them—
très piquant.
I cannot

always be—reading my prayer book, you know."

"The ladies of Shelford appear to be preoccupied beyond reason with the scandal

papers."

"Of course," she said, lifting her cup by its double handles and looking at him over the

rim. "Particularly when young Frenchmen of a certain description appear prominently in

the pages."

He ran his hand through his damp hair. "You understand my situation, then."

"In truth, mon trésor, I am not certain that I do." She set down her cup. "You tell me

you must leave the country? I thought you safe to remain concealed at Shelford Hall?"

"Safe?" he echoed sarcastically. "Shelford Hall is presently host to the Home Secretary

himself, along with some uncounted number of his minions." At her questioning

expression, he added, "He's minister in charge over such fellows as Cook's been taken to

entertaining in her kitchen lately. Constables and Bow Street Runners and the like."

She did not appear to be alarmed. "But I do not think his bunions expect you to be

there. As they might expect to discover you here, for instance, though I am happy for you

to call briefly."

"'Minions,' Maman. But that's not the worst."

She gazed at him with wide eyes. "What is worst?"

His mouth flattened. "Mrs. Fowler," he said. "The devil only knows how she's found

me. But she presented herself at the Hall and managed to get herself a word with Lady

Callista."

His mother straightened a spoon and fork on the well-worn linen cloth. "Mon dieu," she

said mildly.

"Mon dieu, indeed." He shoved away from the table, causing the cups to rattle as he

stood. "Callie taxed me with having wed the woman, thanks to what she read in some

scandal rag. She even had a plan for us to meet at the masquerade tonight."

"Oh, the poor child. Breaking her heart."

"Hah. She near pushed me out the window," he informed her. "'The poor child.'"

His mother sat up a little. "She was angry with you?"

"Yes."

"But you explained to her, of course? That you are not such a fool as to be in love as

the magazines say? With a woman such as that. I brought you up to know better."

"I explained to her," he said shortly.

She put a spoon in her empty cup and stirred as if there were coffee there. "And now

you must go away, you tell me?" Her voice broke upward. She dropped the spoon and

took up her handkerchief to her mouth.

"Yes."

"What did you say to her?" The question was more like an exclamation. She balled the

handkerchief in her fingers.

"I told her the truth."

"Oh, you must have made a great spoil of it all! She did not accept it?"

"She accepted it well enough, Maman," he said, as gently as he could. "And still I must

go away."

His mother stood up, leaning on the table. She was trembling, but she managed to say,

"What have you done to her?"

"It's what I will not do to her."

"And what is that? You do not offer a… a carte blanche… not to such a lady. You

would ask her to wed you."

"Ma mère, I'm afraid to ask. I'm afraid she would say yes."

She stared at him. "But of course yes. And why not?"

"Because she would go with me!" He paced across the small room. "You know that she

would; she is a little heroine: she is all heart. She's never refused me any mad thing I

asked, never once. And I want her—my God, I want her with me. But I will not. I will not

ask her to live as I do. I was wrong to linger here, wrong to speak to her at all." He closed

his eyes. "What I've said, what I've done—knowing that I had no right!" He shook his

head helplessly. "You don't know this life, Maman, and neither does she. It would be

exile for her, from everything she holds dear."

"And so?" his mother demanded. "Do you think I do not know exile?"

He stopped and looked around at her.

"Trevelyan," she said, more quietly. "I will tell you something, mon ange. It is you who

condemn her to exile."

He gazed at her. Then he looked away blindly.

She lowered herself to the chair again. "What will the life be with this officer who cares

only for her money?"

"She says they're growing to love one another."

His mother gave him a look of scorn. "You will let another man take her from you?"

she asked provocatively.

"I'm not fit for her," he said, scowling at the fading gilt on a pier mirror that was older

than he was.

"
Chut!
Your grand-père will strike us with lightning bolts! The Duc de Monceaux,

twenty generations in Bourgogne, and to say you are not
worthy
of some English girl."

He gave a reluctant laugh at her exact imitation of his grandfather's frosty tone. "How

many times have I heard that? Twenty generations in Bourgogne."

"At the measured pace you are proceeding,
mon fils
, I will not live to see twenty one,

not any place at all."

He gave her a speaking look. "I'm not quite past that point, ma'am," he said dryly. "But

if you mean to talk in this shockingly forward manner to a gentleman of my advanced

years, while sitting up in your morning negligee, then you'll find yourself swept off your

feet and carried directly to your sickbed."

"Bien," she said with a sigh. "You may carry me, so that Nurse will not scold, but do

not disturb the Runner with a great noise on the stairs."

"I doubt a full cannonade would disturb him," Trev said and gave his hand to help his

mother from her chair. "But what's this, Mademoiselle?" As she stood up, he noticed a

pair of billowy yellow trousers that had been lying folded over the chair back. "Have you

been cheating on me?"

"Never!" she declared, placing her arms lightly about his neck as he lifted her. "It is

most mysterious. Nurse found them hung over a rafter in the attic, and we have no notion

how they arrived. I meant to have Lilly put them in the rag bag."

"The rag bag! I'll have you know those cossacks cost thirty guineas."

Her fingers tightened as he mounted the stairs. "Assure me that they can't be yours, my

son."

"Hmmm," he murmured. "I may have to discover if they fit me now."

"
S'il te plaît
!" she begged. "Spare my frail health."

Callie tried to make a daydream for herself. It was what she always did when she could

not quite bear what was real. She was, as most of those who knew her had informed her

with some exasperation at one time or another, quite capable of becoming so lost in her

thoughts that she did not hear any words spoken to her. But this time she could find no

way to lose herself in any reverie—or delusion, as they all seemed.

So she heard her sister clearly when Hermey came to her door, but she didn't rise from

her place on the window seat in answer to the knock.

"At least the sky has cleared," Hermey was saying to Anne as she came in without

waiting for a reply. "The mud will be horrid, but—" She stopped on the threshold, a

vision in pink in her costume of Venus rising from the waves, a necklace of seashells

about her throat and a foam of sparkling net and lace at her hem. "My dear sister," she

said with gay reproof, "it's nearly half past six—haven't you begun to dress?"

Callie bit her lip and shook her head. "Not yet."

"Callie!" Hermey came forward. "What is it? Do you feel quite well?"

"Oh yes." She summoned a smile. "I'm all right."

Hermey reached for the bell pull. "We'll have something to eat.
The Lady's Spectator

strongly advises that one should always eat before a ball and take a short nap. Come and

sit down, I've brought some plumes to try in your hair."

In numb obedience Callie sat before the mirror and turned her head from side to side as

Hermey held up the feathers. She ate the slices of buttered bread and drank some wine

without protest. She allowed Anne and her sister to dress her in the costume that the maid

had created by cutting up two of Hermey's overgowns, then swath her with spangles and

the blue and green gauze. Below a shortened hem, her ankles were covered by a pair of

puffy silken panta loons drawn up with ribbons, and Hermey had tied tiny bells to her

slippers.

It was only when her sister, reaching for some pins, instead accidentally swept a folded

note out of a dish on her dressing table, that Callie awakened from her deadened state and

made a sudden move. "That's nothing," she said quickly. "I'll take it." She held out her

hand for the oddly shaped paper.

Hermey had been about to toss the note aside, but she paused then, a teasing expression

on her lips. "What is it? Are you keeping secrets?"

"
No,
" Callie said, with too much emphasis.

Hermey giggled. "Well, it's a night for secrets, is it not? A masquerade." She held the

note just out of Callie's reach. "Is it from the major?"

"No, it is not," she retorted, realizing that she had made a grave tactical error by

drawing any attention to the paper at all. She turned back to the mirror. "This plume is

drooping," she said, pulling it out of the turban Anne had wrapped about her hair. "I look

like Mrs. Farr's cockatoo after a disorderly night on the town."

Hermey made as if to unfold the note, and Callie grabbed for it. She managed to seize it

from her sister's hand, but then there was no escape. She felt herself blushing fiercely as

Hermey and Anne both stared at her.

"I heard a whisper about something," Hermey said with a smirk.

Callie felt her heart go to her feet. She glanced at Anne, saw the maid bite her lower lip,

and suddenly knew that the servants had been talking. Her mouth went dry. She gripped