Miramont's Ghost (14 page)

“It is late,” Marie observed, standing. “Perhaps we ladies should retire, and leave you gentlemen to your brandies.”

Lucie and the children made their bows. Adrienne curtsied to Armand, turned slightly, and dipped her head toward Gerard. He bowed.
“Bonne nuit, messieurs.
”
She turned toward her father.
“
Bonne nuit
,
Papa.” He bent and kissed her cheek.

CHAPTER TWENTY

J
anuary arrived, colder and wetter than anything Adrienne could remember. She was oblivious, though, to the cold, the wind, the snow. Gerard and his grandfather were here for their third visit. Though she was still quiet, it was getting easier to talk to him. She found herself thinking about him far too often. There was something about him, something in his eyes, in the gentle way he spoke to her, that made her feel as if she already
knew
him, had known him forever. She had a hard time concentrating on her studies. All her concerns about Marie had vanished, dissolved by the warmth of Gerard’s attention.

The two young people had pulled on hats and cloaks, gloves and mufflers. Adrienne rested her hands in her fox muff. She and Gerard strolled the grounds of the château, oblivious to the bite of the wind. This was their first time alone, though they were not, strictly speaking, alone. Lucie and Emelie trailed the two young people, a suitable distance behind: far enough that they couldn’t hear what was said, close enough that the couple would still be considered adequately chaperoned.

They walked with no obvious destination in mind, and Adrienne looked up in surprise when
they found themselves at the gate to the little cemetery. Gerard stopped walking, let his eyes drift over the stones, all of them brushed with windblown drifts of snow. The oak tree stood sentinel, its arms bare, reaching toward the gray skies.

“My grand-père is here,” Adrienne said.

Gerard glanced at her face. “I wish I could have known him,” he answered. “He is still highly regarded at the embassy . . . even after all this time.”

Gerard wrestled with the gate, difficult to open in the icy drifts. They wandered through the stones. Gerard noted the comtesse, the tiny child-sized grave beside her. They stopped in front of the largest stone, dark gray granite carved with roses. Shadows stretched in front of the stone.

Adrienne stared into the distance. “He was my favorite person in the world,” she whispered. “Strong, intelligent, kind. He had blue eyes.” She smiled at his stone. Dead leaves skittered across the icy ground. She raised her eyes to Gerard. “Your grand-père reminds me of him.”

“You were very young when he died?”

Adrienne nodded. “Seven. I still miss him.” A gust of wind lifted the edge of her cloak.

Gerard stared at the stone. “I never really knew my parents. They died when I was very young. But I miss them, just the same.”

Adrienne looked at his jawline, his eyes still glued to the comte’s stone. His cheek was red. “How did they die?”

Gerard dropped his eyes to the ground in front of him. “My father was killed in the Franco-Prussian War. He was with Mac-Mahon. I was only a few months old.”

There was a long silence, broken only by the moan of the wind. “And your mother?”

“She died when I was a year old. Fever, they said. My grand-père says she died of a broken heart. That after my father died, she lost the will to keep going.”

The icy air crawled under their coats and hats, and both young people shivered. “It seems I’ve been alone most of my life,” Gerard continued. “I have Grand-père, of course. Thank God. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

They both looked into the distance. The turrets of the château reached into the gray skies. “I’ve never been very good at making friends. And I don’t have any family, other than Grand-père . . . not like you.”

Adrienne sighed. Her breath formed a white puff in the air. “Having family does not ensure that one won’t be lonely.” Her words were so soft; they were almost lost in the wind. She stared at the château grounds surrounding them. She wanted so much to tell him, to unburden herself and tell him the truth about her life. She had thought about it, over and over in the last few weeks. Telling him about her visions; telling him about the way she had been ostracized, the way the visions had marked her as different, defective. She wanted to tell him what it felt like to be left out, not quite accepted by anyone around her. She wanted to tell him that she was just as isolated, in this huge château and all this family, as if she’d been completely alone. That maybe, in some ways, it was worse than being alone. She had been judged and found defective for almost as long as she could remember, and it hammered at her relentlessly.

She looked at him again, his eyes still locked on the gravestones before him. Would he understand? Or would he, like so many others, judge her and push her away? She wished she had a vision that could tell her
that.
She wished that for just once in her life, the visions would come and tell her something that was actually useful. She waited, watching him, until he turned and looked at her. The moment passed. Adrienne swallowed; the words retreated to that deep space in her heart that held all of her secrets.

The wind gusted, lifting Adrienne’s cloak, and she trembled with the cold.

“Come,” Gerard said, taking her elbow. “We’d better be getting back.”

She met his eyes, warm and kind and attentive. Someday, she thought. Someday she would tell him. Someday, maybe, she would be able to share all her secrets, all the things she held inside. But not yet. Not now.

They walked in silence, down the hill, past the lake, frozen now—a milky gray glass, flashing in the sun. Pine trees outlined the opposite shore. Occasionally, they heard Emelie laughing as she walked along behind them.

“This place is beautiful,” Gerard murmured. He stopped walking. His body stood close to hers. She could feel his warmth. He put his hand at the small of her back, and she felt the slightest pressure against her cloak. “I have always been drawn to the quiet places.” He turned and looked at her, raising his eyebrows. “Someday, perhaps. When I no longer work at the embassy.”

They stood for a few moments, staring at the scene. A shared understanding of loneliness wrapped them, and Adrienne felt connected to Gerard in a way she had never felt before. His hand was still resting gently on her back, and she allowed herself to lean into him, his strength, his concern. For the first time since she was very little, she felt protected. Cared for. She wanted the moment to last forever.

Gerard turned to look at her, and he took her gloved hands in his own. “Adrienne, every time I visit, it is harder for me to leave. I think about you constantly.” He looked away for a moment. “It feels as if . . . as if we understand each other. As if we are connected in some way that I do not really understand. It has reached the point where I cannot imagine life without you.” He kissed first one hand, and then the other. His eyes locked on hers. “Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

The gentlemen left at noon, and Adrienne spent the afternoon walking on air. They had agreed not to speak of their plans until Gerard had a chance to talk to her father. Pierre was in England, and was not expected back for a few weeks, but Gerard would speak with him as soon as Pierre returned to Paris.

For now, at least, Adrienne had to hold her happiness in check. She wandered from room to room, lost in a fog of dreaming. She pulled a book off the shelf in the library and opened it as if studiously interested, but if anyone had asked, she would not have been able to even produce the title. The afternoon was endless; dinner was a long ordeal in which she could not remember what they were served or whether or not she had eaten any of it.

They sat in the parlor after dinner, Genevieve and Marie, Lucie and the children. Genevieve’s knitting needles clicked. The pendulum on the clock ticked. The fire crackled. Emelie sighed heavily every time she hit her finger with her embroidery needle, which was often. Antoine sat across from Lucie, playing chess. Occasionally, he would move a piece and beam his pride into Lucie’s eyes. “Your turn,” he announced, as if he knew that he had just performed so brilliantly that it made no difference what she did in response. Adrienne sat in the corner, a book in front of her, unable to focus on the words. She reread the same page, over and over again. Her mind kept slipping into the future, into her life with Gerard. Several times, she caught herself smiling, and had to force her face into a more composed expression.

Marie stitched. She had not said much at dinner. After the last several days with the gentlemen present, dinner had seemed abnormally quiet and subdued. Once or twice during the evening, Adrienne felt as if Marie were staring at her, but she would look up to find Marie engrossed in her stitching.

When the clock struck eight, they all knelt for prayers. Each of them counted off the decades, murmuring the words that had filled every evening of their lives. Antoine dropped his hands to scratch his leg, and Lucie put her hand over his, quietly forcing him to be still. Adrienne closed her eyes for a moment, the beads ticking through her fingers, the words so automatic that they no longer had meaning.

It hit her with a jolt—the same vision she had had at the opera house, the same vision that had struck her the night of Gerard’s first visit: Marie turning, slowly, blood splattered on her dress and her hands.

This time, though, the vision hit her hard. Adrienne crumpled onto the floor, the wind leaving her as if she had been kicked. Everyone stopped praying to look at her, sitting in a pile on the rug, her beads dropped to the carpet and sweat breaking out on her face.

“Adrienne? Is something wrong?” It was Genevieve who spoke.

Adrienne raised a hand to her chest, forced herself to steady her breath. “I . . . I’m not feeling well, all of a sudden.” She did not allow herself to look in Marie’s direction, but she could feel the woman’s eyes on her. She barely registered the stares of her mother and the two children.

Lucie stood and moved to Adrienne’s side, bending low so that she could wrap her arms around the girl. “Come. I’ll help you upstairs.”

It wasn’t until after Lucie had tucked the younger children into their beds that she returned to Adrienne’s room. The two women sat in the window seat, illuminated by the light of a crescent moon in the eastern sky and the candle on Adrienne’s bedstand behind them.

“You’ve had another vision, haven’t you?” Lucie whispered.

Adrienne nodded. She poured it all out, the relief so overwhelming it brought tears to her eyes. She described seeing Marie, surrounded by the dark water of the ocean. She described following her down a corridor, knowing that Marie had something she was hiding in that valise, watching her turn and seeing the blood on her dress, her hands.

Lucie sat quietly, taking it all in.

“The worst part . . . the part I can’t stop thinking about . . . is that every time I’ve had this vision, three times now, it seems like Gerard has somehow been involved. That first night I met him at the opera, the first night they came to visit, when we played and sang. And now this, tonight, right after he left. It’s been weeks since the last time. Why now, just when—” Adrienne caught herself and looked up into Lucie’s dark eyes.

“Lucie, do you think it has something to do with him? Do you think that Marie might try to . . .” Adrienne found that she could not give voice to the thought. She did not want to speak the words, to put them out there in the air. She felt tears racing down her cheeks; she shook her head from side to side.

“Do you think that Marie might try to hurt him?”