Silver in the Blood (5 page)

Lou felt a red flush rise up her cheeks. She wanted to go to the Tuileries with her father, just the two of them, just this once. Her twin brothers were ten and extremely rambunctious. They would probably run amok in the gardens and get the entire family arrested.

The need to protest rose in her chest, and she fought it down. She wanted to argue, to shout that it wasn't fair and that the boys should stay home until they learned to behave like civilized human beings and less like heathens, but she didn't. She never did. Dacia would have, but Lou just couldn't.

“Maria,” Lou's father said coolly from behind the paper, “I am taking LouLou to the Tuileries. Just LouLou. Then we shall
go to lunch. The boys may stay here with their tutor and learn to speak French. And attempt to sit still for five minutes without starting something on fire.”

Lou made an unladylike noise, trying not to giggle at that. Or to shout with triumph.

“But boys need their father—” Maria began.

“Those boys need a good whipping,” their father observed. “But since you will not let me do so, they will have to live with being confined to the house until they can show that they are fit to be seen in society. Yesterday I tried to take them to the Louvre, but David took it into his head to have a swim, climbed a railing, and nearly leaped into the Seine before I stopped him.”

“He's very high-strung, and you must be gentle with him,” Maria scolded her husband.

“He's an awful little brat, and so is Adam,” her husband said in his mild voice. “And I am resolved to stop being gentle, because gentle is getting us nowhere. Meanwhile,” he went on, “our daughter has turned out to be a beautiful and charming young woman, and it will be my pleasure to reward her always delightful behavior with a treat today.”

Lou glowed with pride.

“Our daughter I am not worried about,” Maria said sharply. “Louisa's place in this world is secure. Our sons, on the other hand . . .” She trailed off, muttering darkly into her coffee.

Her father lowered the corner of his paper again, winked at Lou, and then raised it.

Lou winked back, but her father couldn't see it. She felt a surge of elation that he had refused to let the twins spoil their
day together. She felt guilty about it, but she just couldn't enjoy having her brothers around. They seemed to multiply, as though they were quadruplets, and they made enough noise for a whole herd of small boys.

Although at night when they were scrubbed and sleepy and tucked into bed, they could be very sweet. Occasionally.

After breakfast, she put on her hat and walking boots and got her gloves, purse, and parasol. Her father, in a straw hat and a smart new spring jacket, looked very dapper as he took her arm. He had been very young when he married her mother, only eighteen, and Maria herself had been only seventeen. A handsome and still-young man, from one of the best families in New York, which showed in his clothes and bearing, he drew many admiring glances from women as they walked through Paris. The confidence that came from knowing That Awful Man would not dare to approach her with her father so near made Lou smile, her cheeks flushed with color and her eyes sparkling.

The Tuileries were magnificent. The early-summer flowers were blooming, the grass was very green, and the sky above them very blue. Lou wanted to gather the flowers and the sky together into her arms and simply dissolve into the crystal air. Dacia had confided to her of that feeling of restlessness she sometimes had, a feeling that came on so strong at times that Dacia wanted to run and run and never stop. She had tried to prod Lou into feeling the same way, but Lou never did. Instead, in moments of great happiness, or even in moments of distress, she simply wanted to break apart and float onto the breeze, something that Dacia understood even less than Lou herself.

As she was bending down to admire some pansies, Lou heard a familiar voice behind her, a strange thing so far from home.

“Don't move, fair one, for I shall paint you just as you are!”

Blushing, she disobeyed, and straightened to face a young acquaintance from New York, William Carver. Dacia fancied herself to be madly in love with him, and everyone expected them to become engaged soon. Seeing him now, Lou thought of Dacia's letters from London, filled with stories of a handsome young lord named Johnny Harcastle, and she blushed even more. She felt inexplicably guilty, though she was sure not a flicker of guilt would cross Dacia's mind if she were here.

“No, really, Miss Neulander, I would like to paint you,” he said, frowning, but not as though he were angry. He was holding a large drawing board and a handful of pencils. “Perhaps if you stand just there, and I sit here?” He backed up until he reached a small bench, and then sat on it. “Turn your head to the left, and then don't move,” he instructed.

Lou sighed. William Carver was determined to be an artist, and he was always trying to get people to hold still so that he could sketch them. It was quite tedious, but she would never admit that to Dacia. Nor would she admit that she didn't think his paintings were very good, because she admired his need to do something with his life. He would never have to work a single day to earn a living, so he had tried to find himself a vocation to take up his time. Lou rather wished he would do something more useful, like study medicine, but art was apparently more suited to his temperament, if not to his talents.

She turned her head to the left, scanning the area for her father
while she posed. He had just stepped over to look at something, and should be back any moment. Ah! There he was! She tried to signal to him with her eyes.

“LouLou, are you all right? Are you hurt?” Her father hurried toward her.

“She's just fine,” William Carver said testily. “But you're blocking the light.”

“Mr. Carver is an artist,” Lou said as best she could without moving her head.

“Is he now?” Her father's eyebrows rose. “I had no idea that you wanted your portrait painted, LouLou. You should have told me!”

“I—well—” Lou didn't know what to say.

“It's not a portrait,” William Carver said, even more cross. “I'm not some hack portrait painter, flattering old ladies by painting out their chins! I am a true artist, like the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood!” He struck his breast with one fist, leaving a smear of charcoal on his lapel. “Miss Neulander shall be a nymph, standing before her oak tree.” He gestured at the tree just behind Lou and went back to his work.

“That is a linden,” Lou's father said. “And also a very strange angle for my daughter's head to be tilted at for very long.”

“The tree hardly matters,” William said vaguely, returning to his picture. He stuck his tongue in his cheek as he shaded something with the side of his pencil.

Her father gently moved her head over by pushing her chin with one finger, and Lou felt a rush of blood to her neck, making it tingle. She gave her father a grateful look. He smiled at her and then went over to William.

“Are you Henry Carver's boy?”

“Yes, sir,” William said, looking up at her father with an expression that said he was suddenly aware of how rude he had been. He dropped his charcoal pencil into a little case and held out a smudged hand to Mr. Neulander.

Lou's father smiled and handed him a handkerchief instead of shaking hands. “Son, I'm not here to scold you,” he said. “I know your parents have done a fine job of educating you as a young man should be educated. But I would like to give you two pieces of advice. Will you listen?”

Will Carver gulped. “Yes, sir.”

“First of all: treat all ladies, even young ladies you've known for years, as if they were princesses and you merely a servant. Understand?” Mr. Neulander cocked his head.

“Yes, sir,” said Will Carver in an abashed voice.

“And second . . .” Mr. Neulander stopped for a moment and looked at Will's drawing. “You don't need a model in front of you, just paint from the heart.” He held out his own hand then, and Will, looking rather dazed, shook it, stammering his thanks. He offered Mr. Neulander his handkerchief back, gray with charcoal, but Lou's father just waved it away with another smile and shake of his head. “You keep it, my boy. Good day to you.” He held out his arm to Lou. “Shall we, my dear?”

Lou took her father's arm and they strolled out of the Tuileries in search of lunch. She sighed happily, drinking in the sights and sounds of Paris.

“You're a good girl, LouLou,” her father said, putting his other hand on top of hers where it rested in the crook of one elbow. “Perhaps too good,” he said in a low voice.

“Whatever do you mean, Papa?”

“Just a moment, my dear; I did want to talk to you, but let's get comfortable first.”

He took her into a hotel that was quite as grand as the one they were staying in, if not grander. There were ladies in fanciful hats and elegant gowns going in and out, servants bearing luggage or boxes from fine shops, struggling along in their wake. Lou instantly felt very young and rather grubby, and tried to adjust her hat and straighten her gown as best she could as they went into the restaurant, which had a chandelier the size of a small carriage hanging from the ceiling.

“Papa, I don't think I'm dressed properly,” Lou whispered as they followed the maître d' to a table.

“Nonsense,” her father said, squeezing her hand again. “My LouLou is beautiful enough for any restaurant in Paris.”

Lou reminded herself sternly that while New York may not have been as elegant as Paris, it was hardly Robinson Crusoe's desert island. And she was from one of the oldest families in New York on her father's side, Romanian gentry on her mother's. She straightened her shoulders and gracefully sat down in the chair offered to her.

Her father ordered lunch for them in his impeccable French, learned from private tutors and polished with a grand tour of Europe. They ate and chatted about the food and the enormous chandelier and the other diners, but all the while Lou was wondering what her father wanted to tell her, and could see that whatever it was occupied his thoughts as well.

When their plates had been cleared and they were eating
sorbets garnished with fresh berries, her father at last looked her in the eyes and began to speak very seriously.

“LouLou, I know that you don't always feel like you are beautiful, but you are.”

“Thank you, Papa,” she murmured, looking down at her dish.

“No, look at me.”

She looked up at her father, a little puzzled. His expression was so grave: quite unlike his usually sunny countenance.

“You struggle to be tall and slender like Dacia, but you aren't, and that doesn't matter. Everywhere we have gone today, the young men haven't been able to take their eyes off you.”

She blushed and wished she dared look down. She had a feeling that her father wasn't simply going to warn her about speaking to strange young men in public gardens. She met her father's gaze as frankly as she could and nodded a little to urge him to go on.

“And you are also a very intelligent young lady. I'm proud of how well you did with your studies, and if you wanted to continue at a young ladies' college, I would be happy to support you in that.”

Her mouth opened slightly in surprise, and she put some sorbet into it hurriedly. College? She really had not thought of such a thing . . . well, that wasn't true. She had, in fact, toyed with the idea of studying to be a nurse, but had mentioned it just once to her mother.

“Mama said . . . it's just foolishness,” she said when she had swallowed her sorbet. “Young ladies with my upbringing . . . don't do such things.” She was a little surprised by how much that
still stung. She remembered sobbing into Dacia's lap that young ladies of their upbringing never got to do anything, startling them both with her vehemence.

“That's precisely what I wanted to talk about,” Mr. Neulander said, putting down his spoon. “Your mother.” He grimaced. “And her sisters. And the whole damn family—pardon my language.”

Lou's eyes widened and she set aside her own spoon.

“You've always been a sweet and obedient daughter,” her father continued. “And I know I should be grateful, but just at present this worries me. Your mother and her family are . . . different. More different than you think, and it has everything and nothing to do with where they come from.”

Lou stared at her father. “I don't understand.”

“I know you don't.” Her father scowled. “And I'm sorry, but I promised to let your mother and her kin tell you more about the family once we arrive in Bucharest. Why I agreed to such a thing I'll never know. But I have always tried to honor my promises . . . and I know you have, too. Which is why I need you to promise me something now, Maria Louisa.” He reached across the table and took her hand.

“All right, Papa.” Her voice was shaking. She was bewildered and frightened by her father's words, and the unusual pallor that had come over his face.

“I want you to swear to me that you will listen to your own heart. If your mother's family asks you to do something that . . . that sounds too strange, or that you don't want to do, I want you to listen to your heart and follow it instead. You and Dacia
both. You can come to me, and I will do my best to help you. Both of you.”

Lou was very frightened now.

“Can you promise me, darling?” her father said. “If you are ever scared, you can come to me, and I will take you and Dacia home to New York at a moment's notice. I will send you to college, or whatever you like. That is my promise to you, if you will just listen to your heart, and refuse if you are asked to do something that . . . that feels wrong.”

“I promise, Papa,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

“Thank you.” He squeezed her hand and sat back. “I'm sorry to darken our day like this. I'm sure it will all be nothing but a silly fancy of mine, and in a few months we shall return to New York with a song in our hearts!” He signaled the waiter and ordered a plate of crepes with strawberries and chocolate sauce. “To cheer ourselves up,” he told Lou.