French Passion (11 page)

The freckles showed more against the white of her disappointed face.

“I couldn't, ma'am,” she whispered. “It's the money I need. For the lodgings and food for my brother.”

“But I meant the two of you. That's why I mentioned the window. Wouldn't he like living here?”

“Joseph'd think he'd died and gone to paradise. But, ma'am, do you really mean it? The gentleman—”

“—is fond of me.” A lie? The truth?

“I should think so! He being old and ugly and all, and you so beautiful. Ma'am, my brother, he can eat all he wants?”

I nodded. She reached for my hand to kiss.

I pulled it away, saying, “Come on. Let's drink our milk.”

After our mugs were drained, Izette went to fetch her brother.

I started upstairs, carrying
my
brother some honeyed pears for his cough. I was furious with myself. You're pregnant, and you've just taken on two more responsibilities, you maniac, I thought angrily. Yet what could I have done? Let Izette with her plain, honest freckled face and quick gamine smile freeze or starve to death? Let her lame brother stay shut up in his windowless room and starve, too? Well, I thought grimly, let the worst come to the worst and I'll go out and get the laundry so Izette can do it. Somehow the thought was funny and cheering. I smiled.

Wooden clogs clattered behind me.

Old Lucien panted, “You sent her packing?”

“I've hired her as laundress.”

His toothless lips sank disapprovingly into his brown wrinkled face. “You'll be sorry.”

“Old Lucien, this is my business, not yours.”

“She be a thief as well as a bad 'un.”

I wondered why he'd been so set against Izette from the moment we'd found her, leaning against the wall, snow on her hat and shawl. “She's twelve, a child. What makes you hate her?”

“She be a bad 'un.”

“Will you stop repeating that! She's been forced into it by starvation. She looks after her younger brother. She's brave, and serious, and hardworking.”

“I had a wife once.…” Old Lucien's brown sunken jaw trembled as if a spasm of unwanted memory had washed over him. “My wife, she run off with a soldier, and after that she came back to Rheims and went on the street. Sauntering up and down, smirking at all the men. She be a disgrace to me in front of all Rheims. And after that I moved to the village.”

I'd never heard this story. All my life I'd known and cared for Old Lucien, yet I'd never thought of him as having a life apart from us. Once, he'd been young, shamed by a faithless wife into moving from his home. Taking a step down, I touched his arm. “I'm sorry, Old Lucien, really sorry.”

“Then you be telling that bad 'un to go?”

“I understand too well what forced her to it.” I looked down at the honeyed pears. “We'd all be starving if I didn't understand her.”

Old Lucien's puckered lips drew together as if he were going to spit at me, or curse me. That night of the robbery he'd known he might die if I didn't give in to the highwayman, yet the old man had begged me not to let André near me. I knew he'd rather we starved than my truth be the same as Izette's truth. In that long minute while rheumy old eyes gazed scornfully at me, I'd joined Old Lucien's legion of bad 'uns. My legs turned watery, as they had at Notre Dame. With my free hand I gripped the red-plush-covered banister. Old Lucien turned. His shoes clattered down the narrow staircase.

The next three days, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, wind howled, blowing flurries of snow. Izette settled into the front room of the third-floor servants' quarters. Her brother Joseph, eight, a malnourished wisp of a child, crawled from place to place after her, his useless withered legs dragging behind him. He had Izette's quick face-splitting smile, and never seemed to have the least self-pity about having to crawl. I remembered seeing a pair of old crutches either in the stables or the icy tool-shed. Old Lucien refused to look, so I went myself, finding them in the toolshed. Izette and I helped the boy balance himself on the whittled pine sticks. The sound of crutches tapped in the stone-floored laundry. Jean-Pierre's cough was gone, but the weather was too foul for a convalescent, so he stayed home, learning some rippling new pianoforte tunes by Herr Mozart. He invited the crippled lad to the music room. The boy gazed at my brother and me, his translucently pale face shining as if he were seeing a vision of saints. The whole thing was so pathetic I found myself wanting to weep.

The Comte didn't come. I told the others his absence was due to the snow, his bride. Secretly, however, I feared he'd discovered I'd employed Izette. Or was it my pregnancy? More likely the pregnancy, I decided. I kept telling myself not to worry, we would be all right. I found myself constantly at my armoire, holding up my gowns, attempting to put a price on them. I asked Izette to iron the three cotton morning dresses. She used her irons as a musician does his instrument, her expression passionately serious, her hands light. The gowns, to me, looked brand new.

I questioned Aunt Thérèse about food prices until she patted my cheek, saying, “Don't worry, child. We'll manage.” I forced myself to smile cheerfully and deny my worry.

I pondered cheaper lodgings, remembering signs in windows of the raffish area near Palais Royale.

Friday afternoon neither the Comte's footmen nor his second chef arrived. Jean-Pierre raised his shoulders in a shrug and gave my forehead a gentle kiss. Inwardly I blessed his silent sympathy. Anything more would have had me in hysteria.

No matter the Comte's servants didn't come. Our fat cook prepared two bubbling hot compotes and a great platter of thin-sliced pink beef, and most of this went begging. For Friday wind and sleet turned into a blizzard. Our soiree drew only a few actors and two actresses—and as everyone knows, that starving profession will show up anyplace there's a free meal to be had. Their talk was all of the weather, and theatrical attendance. Oh, how I missed the Comte's sharp wit to cut through the boredom.

By ten only one elderly actor remained. He and Jean-Pierre hunched over a game of dominoes.

Telling the yawning maidservants to go up to bed, I myself started up the stairs, planning to once more go through my armoire.

The door knocker sounded. Too late for a guest, I thought. Must be the night watch.

I went down to answer.

In the dark, snow-swept courtyard was the Comte's equipage. The three lackeys behind shivered in their scarlet livery. The front horses pawed icy slush, and the coachman held tight to the reins. The second coachman had been knocking at my door. As I opened it, the Comte rapped, and one of the lackeys ran to help him descend. The blizzard whipped at his cloak, and he grasped his three-cornered hat as he came up the front steps. In the shelter of the entry he gestured that the carriage should leave. The four horses, their nostrils steaming, moved along the path to the stables.

My hand protected the candle flame and this small wavering light reflected in the Comte's gaze.

Nervous, I determined to get unpleasantness over with. “Izette's here,” I said. “She's my laundress.”

He raised a black quizzical eyebrow.

“She's excellent,” I said.

He nodded.

“And healthy. She has no disease. Of any kind.”

He bowed slightly, as if congratulating me.

“Her brother's here, too.”

“My dear, is it necessary for us both to freeze while we discuss your household arrangements?”

A gust of snow howled. The candle went out. He moved inside, closing the door behind him. Around the gameroom door light showed, and there was an occasional muted click of dominoes, or a muffled word. Otherwise we were in dark silence.

His voice came out of the night. “I'm not here to gossip about servants.”

I replied pertly, “Then let us go up to bed.”

Wind hurled branches against a shuttered window. When the Comte spoke again, his voice was low. “I've spent the time since Monday morning ordering myself not to come here.”

“Because I'm pregnant?”

“Wasn't I kind about that? Under the ambiguous circumstances?”

“You were. Very,” I admitted. “Then you didn't care to interrupt your honeymoon?”

I felt his snort of angry laughter. “Honeymoon? The important man in the Comtesse's life is her pastry chef.” He paused. “No, I needed to prove something to myself.”

“Did you?”

“Beyond doubt,” he said.

“What, Comte?”

“I'm forty-seven years old, my dear, and in that time beliefs become deeply ingrained. I've always believed, cynically of course, that in this nasty world we invent conventions to protect ourselves from reality. In particular the reality that surrounds the sexual act. We make up pretty stories to cover our animal lusts. Being worldly, I've never accepted the pretty stories. I've never believed in love. So how could I accept my falling in love?”

“Love?” I echoed. Monsieur Sancerre and Aunt Thérèse both had said the Comte loved me. I hadn't believed them. And, obviously, neither had the Comte.

“Oh, I've been telling myself it's just the pleasures of that exquisite little body of yours. But the past few days, my winter's honeymoon, I've been thinking.”

“Me?”

“You,” he said. “Thinking about when you told me you'd already been had. I couldn't have you for my wife, and that hurt me more than I could remember being hurt. And when you ran from the house—well, let's say it wasn't pleasant. And even more unpleasant when you returned. My dear, I've been in battles, I've seen much gallantry. But no man I ever saw was as gallant as you, returning to save your brother, your chin a trifle too high, limping, and in that mended gown. It was Monsieur Sancerre who mended it?”

“Yes. Don't blame him, though. He was being kind.”

“I'm not blaming him.” The Comte sighed. “I wanted to be kind, too, and comfort you, let you go. Instead, I lost control. And afterward … It's not often that I've experienced fear.”

“
You
were afraid?”

“The next morning, my dear. I stood watching you, terrified of how you'd look at me. And when you woke, I knew. I was still old and ugly in your eyes. And brutally vicious, too. Well, I asked myself, what's the difference? I'll take her whenever I want. And what else is a mistress for?”

From the gameroom came the muffled rattle of dominoes being knocked over.

“The past few days I've thought of nothing but you. Not just your body. Though I do confess, my dear, that has been in my mind a certain amount.” The Comte paused. “I've been thinking how brave you are. And of the generosity with which you care for your family and servants. Your impetuous generosity. Taking in that little streetwalker was very foolish, and far too brave. I could tell you were frightened of me by the spirited way you lifted your chin. I've thought how your eyes sparkle to a deeper green when you laugh. Your unwise honesty. And the arch of your hands as you pour my coffee and chocolate. Your voice—I enjoy hearing you sing with your brother. And do you know how much I'd give if just once you'd smile at me with that relaxed warmth? It amuses me when you defy me, and I'm almost as amused at my own anger. I love your pleasure in a now gown. I've never been happy before, not the way I'm happy in this funny little house.”

I was touched, profoundly. Yet as the Comte's voice came low through the darkness, I couldn't help thinking of my child, who possibly was the Comte's child, and who in any case would be branded a bastard. I thought, too, of Jean-Pierre's compulsive gambling, and of Aunt Thérèse's hurt eyes lit by the tapers of Notre Dame.

“You've fallen in love with your whore,” I said.

He gave a deep, shuddering sigh. “Not believing in love, my dear, I never comprehended how vulnerable it makes one. I feel all your shame. At my wedding I wasn't struck deaf. I heard them talk about you, my friends, and their remarks cut me as deeply as they cut you. When you fainted, you fell very slowly, and I felt your weakness in my own heart. I came to you far, far sooner than manners and prudence dictated. I knew I could be ruined at Court. Incur the enmity of the King.” He gave a short laugh. “No sane man would have come here on his wedding night. But, my dear, I realize now that I haven't been sane since your birthday.” He drew a deep breath. “Do you know what hell is? Hell is where a man lives when he's shut in a pigpen with a fat sow and he's aching every second to be here with you.”

I pitied him with all my heart. Here, again, was that enigmatic duality. He loved me, yet had tied himself to a woman from a family even richer and more powerful than his own, a woman he couldn't bear.

He gave a small, mocking laugh. “In short, since Monday I've been missing you.” And his arms went around me. The cold on his cloak penetrated my silk gown. I put my arms under the sable lining, holding myself to the warmth of his body. I could feel his heart beating.

“I missed you, too, Comte.” And as I spoke, I realized it was true. I didn't love him: love was young, love was André. Often I disliked the Comte intensely, yet undeniably I'd missed him.

“How?”

“The salon was very dull without you. I was dull without you. And last time in bed, when … when you said I was your pleasure, you were mine, too.”

“Sweet.”

And, because everything had to be completely honest, I added, “I worried what we'd do, the baby, me, all of us, if you didn't come back.”

“You still don't trust me?”

“When you say you'll do something, yes. I knew you'd let me keep the gowns, but—”

“I'll cherish you. You're mine to have and to hold from this day forward.” He pressed his face to mine. “
You're
my wife. I married
you
.”

As if he, powerful as God, could reverse time! “Hush,” I murmured.