“Well, Your Highness, will we be seeing you again?” the bold one asked, her “s” whistling against a chipped front tooth, dimples dancing in her ruddy cheeks.
Her skinny friend tittered, holding a hand studded with chipped, dirty fingernails to her lips.
“It would be my pleasure, ladies,” he said, with an accent somehow familiar to Alex.
He stuck one foot out and bowed deep from the waist as though the two greasy-haired women were ladies from the best of families.
Alex grunted in disgust before she could stop herself, but no one paid her any attention.
Across the table from the foreigner, they could do nothing more than send him sly, sidelong glances from beneath heavy lids. Alex caught a slight movement as he rocked forward on his toes as though unsure of what was expected of him. She had the nauseating sensation he might have kissed their grimy little hands had he been standing next to them.
Their faces gleamed with anticipation, and she could read the thoughts in their eyes as they considered rounding the table. Alex put her hands on her hips and widened her stance, daring them to try to get past her. With an assessing glance, they chose not to make the attempt.
With a last crooked-tooth grin for the stranger and a glare at Alex, they rounded on their heels and strode from the bar. The bolder one did a credible job of swishing her hips in an inviting manner, but her skinnier friend looked more like she suffered from an affliction as she imitated her friend. Alex rolled her eyes and blew a puff of air so that it whistled between her teeth and lips as she turned back to the men.
The Bandys, however, continued to watch with appreciation. The two dunderheads probably didn’t even realize the unspoken invitation had not been meant for them.
“Josh, Beau,” Alex said, as soon as the women were gone and she had their attention once again. Then she turned her attention to the golden-haired stranger smiling at her, his hazel eyes twinkling as though he found the whole episode amusing.
Alex gritted her teeth. She ran a respectable establishment, and she would not let herself be disarmed by a handsome man with a winsome smile. If he were one of the privileged sort who thought they owned everything and everybody and could do as they pleased, she would set the record straight.
She tilted her head to look him in the eye. “Sir, I should warn you there are certain types of behaviors I do not allow in my tavern.”
She narrowed her eyes and gave him a pointed look that was, she reflected with wry amusement despite her irritation, intended to intimidate this man with smiling eyes.
“What types of behaviors are those, Mademoiselle?” His accented words washed over her.
He sounded bemused, but she could tell from the lines forming at the corners of his eyes and the way they still sparkled and danced, he knew what she meant.
Still, she had not anticipated the request to clarify, and his seductive gaze kept her brain as well as her tongue-tied in knots.
“Well, I…” Alex stammered, trying to find a way out of the awkward position her near assassination of the man’s character had put her in.
He stood, hands clasped behind his back, as though content to wait all night.
Alex stared at the floor, attempting to devise a suitable response while unbidden scenes filled with illicit activities she would not allow in her tavern flooded her mind—with him at the center of it all.
She steeled herself to look at him. A line ran perpendicular to one side of his mouth as his smile deepened into a crooked grin. His cocked eyebrow served to remind her he still awaited her answer.
The sniggering of the Bandy brothers rising above the din of rowdy conversations yanked her back to the present and sent shivers of vexation coursing through her. She had thirsty customers waiting and did not have time to be dithering over a man, however appealing he may be.
But what could she say? With the Bandys, she would have come straight out and told them she didn’t allow whores in her tavern. However, the direct approach seemed a bit course for the elegant stranger. Besides, he did not have the look of someone who needed to pay for…services.
“Alexandra, how are you?” Josh asked, coming to her rescue with his interruption.
She would have sighed with relief had it not been for his tone and the use of her proper name.
The boys never called her anything but Alex. When she was nine, Josh had smeared pinesap in her hair, and Alex’s mother had had to cut it off. Beau, with typical five-year-old tact, observed she looked more like an Alex. The name had stuck, and now, they rarely called her anything but Alex-except when the boys were up to something.
“I’m fine, Josh,” she said, casting him a narrow-eyed glare.
While Josh and Beau hadn’t bothered to rise for her arrival nor for the departure of the ladies, the stranger still stood. Unable to meet his eyes for fear of being swept away again by forbidden thoughts that came from she knew not where, she dragged her bar rag in small circles around the well-stained, but dry, wooden tabletop.
“So, what will His Highness be having?” she asked, echoing the words of the women and unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
“I am not royalty, Mademoiselle,” he said, as though he hadn’t recognized the irony. “My name is Mont Trignon. Le Chevalier de Mont Trignon to be precise.” His deep, yet soft, voice caressed the back of her neck.
Alex stopped in mid-circle. French, she thought, at last able to place the accent.
She straightened and cocked her head at him in amazement. What were the odds of meeting three people from France in the span of less than a day? Of course, there were many foreigners in America, but she seldom had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of such illustrious personages as the marquis and Marie. Now a veritable Greek god of a Frenchman had made his way into her tavern.
Her assessment of the French character had changed so thoroughly in the course of the prior evening through her association with Marie and her nephew. Well, Marie at least, as she still did not know what to make of the marquis. She warmed to the stranger even while she reminded herself that just because he was French did not mean he could be trusted.
She realized her pursed lips had turned into a grin when he smiled back at her as though they were the only two people in the tavern.
Not only did customers fill nearly every seat in the tavern, but they had an audience. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Josh and Beau watching their interaction with avid interest while nudging each other with pointed elbows.
Looking for a way to avoid amusing her brother’s friends, Alex stuck out her hand. She gasped when Mont Trignon clasped it in his palm and raised it to his lips. As his warm lips grazed her knuckles, ripples of pleasure coursed up her arm.
Yet she hadn’t intended for him to kiss her hand. For heaven’s sake, it probably smelled of stale ale from her dirty towel. Mortified, she yanked it from his grasp.
Josh and Beau sputtered with suppressed laughter.
“Don’t you know you’re in America now?” Beau asked, between gasps for air. “You don’t need to be kissing no hands around here.”
Did a slight rosiness appear on the chevalier’s high cheekbones?
He clasped his hands behind his back once again and smiled. “Where I come from, that is how a gentleman greets a lady. I apologize if I misunderstood.” He bowed his head to Alex.
A warm glow filled Alex. No matter how well she preserved an air of respectability in her tavern, no one had ever called her a lady.
“Lady?” Josh asked, shattering the moment. “You mean Alex? Alex ain’t no lady.”
Alex resisted the urge to snap her bar rag out of her apron’s waistband and nick Josh on the cheek. With much practice over the years, she had become deadly accurate. Apparently, Josh expected it too, as he braced both hands against the edge of the table, ready to dodge the foul-smelling towel.
“Perhaps this is the first time there has been a gentleman at this table.” Alex gave the boys a warning look.
The Bandys, uncowed by the retort, howled with laughter.
The Frenchman bent to her ear. “Touché, Mademoiselle, and I hope I am forgiven,” he whispered, his breath ruffling the wisps of hair peeking from beneath her cap and sending shivers of pure pleasure down the side of her neck.
She fought the urge to clap her hand to her neck and rub out the unsettling sensations with her palm. She really must get a hold of herself, or she would be swooning at this man’s feet.
Her brother would hear of it, and who knew what he would do. The shameless way he and the Bandys played on Nathaniel’s sensitive nature made her stomach clench in apprehension.
“So, Chevalier de Mont Trignon,” she said, trying to pronounce his name as he did, even though her lips and tongue weren’t cooperative. “What exactly is a chevalier? Is that some kind of aristocrat?”
“Careful how you answer that one,” warned Josh.
“Non, Mademoiselle. A chevalier is more like a knight.”
“I see,” Alex said, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
She was a little rusty when it came to titles of nobility. Did a knight not belong to the aristocracy? At least he wasn’t English. For now, she would give him the benefit of the doubt, at least for Marie’s sake since they haled from the same country.
“So what do we call you? Chevalier?” she asked, stumbling on his title once again.
“Go on,” Josh urged. “Tell her your full name.”
“Wait till you hear this, Alex. It’s a mouthful,” Beau added, grinning from ear to ear.
The chevalier returned Beau’s grin with a polite smile before continuing. “My given name is Honore Octavius Marie Louis Yves de Mont Trignon,” he said, pronouncing each of his names with great precision.
“That first one starts with an ‘h’,” Josh added in an expert tone, while Alex processed the information.
“Homly,” she said, using a mnemonic trick she had discovered as a child.
“Pardonnez-moi?” the chevalier asked, his eyebrows raised in surprise.
“I’m sorry,” Alex sputtered, wishing she could crawl under a table. “It’s just your initials. Using the first letter of each word helps me remember lists of things I need to buy at the market. I didn’t mean to imply that you are homely.”
“I am quite relieved, Mademoiselle.” He smiled, his white even teeth sparkling against tanned skin and full lips. “But there is no need to remember all of those names. You may call me Mont Trignon.”
“Mont Trignon,” Alex repeated, no more successful at reproducing the sound than she had been in her first attempt.
“How about just ‘Trig’?” Josh suggested, slapping the table with the flat of his palm.
“Oui, I like that,” the chevalier responded, with the polite smile that seemed to come so natural.
Alex couldn’t tell whether he was just being civil or if he really did like it when Josh butchered his name. Surely, a man of his stature, a man important enough to own five Christian names in addition to his surname, didn’t want his name shorted to one syllable.
“Trig?” Alex asked, her eyebrows raised, as she recalled one of her father’s books—one of her least favorites. “As in Trigonometry?”
“Mais oui, Mademoiselle! You are familiar with mathematics?” Frank appreciation shone in his hazel eyes.
Alex had never had a man admire her for her knowledge of mathematics, or at least a presumed knowledge. She hated to disappoint him with the full truth.
Before Alex could correct his understanding, Josh interrupted. “Trigo what?” he asked, his face pinched in confusion.
“Hey, Josh,” Beau said, and clapped his brother’s shoulder with his meaty hand, “isn’t that what Pa’s prize heifer came down with last year? Darn near had to put her down, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, that was bad,” Josh agreed, shaking his head. He took a swig of his ale and then brightened. “But still, it makes it easy to remember your name. Trig it is.” He set his now empty mug down with a thump, signaling a decision had been made.
As usual, by the time they were finished, Alex’s head spun from the boys’ dizzying banter.
“So, Mademoiselle, tell me, do you study the sciences?” Mont Trignon’s expressive face showed more interest in her than the abhorrent nickname the Bandys had bestowed upon him.
“Just call her Alex,” said Beau, before downing the last of his ale.
Alex glared at him before turning back. “Chev, I mean Trig.” Thinking of this man as “Trig” would take some getting used to. “You may call me Alex. And no, I do not study the sciences. I have a business to run. About the only science I know is the brewing of beer and the fermenting of wine, while the only math I need to know is how to count money.”
“This is your tavern?” Mont Trignon asked, his voice light.
The question made Alex stiffen nonetheless. It bordered on the personal and reminded her she did not know this man. There was always the chance his charm and gracious manners were part of a well-rehearsed act.
Her brother’s associations had turned her tavern into a meeting place for rebels and patriots. Reid had warned her often enough, even amongst civilians, spies were everywhere, and she should always be careful about what she said and to whom.
At the time, she had brushed his admonition away as the ranting of a man who loved stirring up trouble. But as rumors of the British nearing Philadelphia and stories of some of the atrocities inflicted on civilians spread, she found herself eyeing all but the oldest of friends with a certain degree of mistrust.
“Yes, well, mine and my brother’s when he bothers to show up. Our father left it to us when he passed last winter.” If he had been digging for information, he probably already knew that much. “How about you?” she asked, turning the focus from herself. “Are you a scientist?”
Mont Trignon sighed, and his lips turned down at the corners. “Unhappily, I do not have as much time as I would like to study either. Back in Paris, I was a member of the Royal Académie de Science. I could spend hours, non, days, listening to lectures given by great scientists from around the world. Even your own Benjamin Franklin spoke at l’Académie.”
Her initial resolve to give him the benefit of the doubt waned. If there were ever an indication this man had nothing to recommend him…Who had time to sit and listen to lectures all day? She longed to give him one now.
“How nice it must have been for you.” She knew he caught her sarcasm this time by the arch of one of his aristocratic eyebrows.
“Well, speak of the devil,” Josh interjected, before Alex could say anything to soften her remark.
“Have you seen the latest from George Smythe?” Reid Turner asked as he plunked a stack of pamphlets in the middle of the table.
“Nah, what’s ol’ George have to say lately?” Josh asked, picking up one of the pamphlets and perusing the cover.
“As though you can read,” Beau said, grasping the pamphlet from his brother’s hands.
“Not like you can either.” Josh reached for the pamphlet but only succeeded in snagging a corner between his thumb and curled index finger. That didn’t stop him from giving a tug, which threatened to tear the pages of the pamphlet when his brother pulled in the opposite direction.
“Hey, hey, those cost me dearly, so I’d appreciate it if you kept your manure-covered mitts off them,” Reid said, as he freed the pamphlet from his ham-fisted friends.
Alex ignored the usual good-natured teasing that passed for conversation between her brother and the Bandys and picked up a fresh copy from the table to read Smythe’s report for herself. The locals referred to the prolific author as “Ol’ George”, but he was, in fact, Reid Turner.
She did not wholly approve of her brother’s career as a pamphleteer, stirring up the passions of his fellow Philadelphians. Yet, she knew more than one of her patrons frequented her establishment hoping to hear, or read if he knew how, the latest diatribe of the unknown, but fearless, George Smythe. Althoug
h she didn’t care one whit about it, she owed at least part of the tavern’s success to Ol’ George.
“Is this true?” Alex asked her brother, after reading only a couple of lines. “Do you really think the British will try to take Philadelphia?”
“According to Ol’ George,” Reid said, casting a wary glance at the stranger, “Howe is even now formulating his plan.”
“But doesn’t General Washington himself protect the city?” asked Mont Trignon.
“What do you know of the general, friend?” Reid asked, lowering his voice, suspicion in his dark brown eyes.
“I’m sorry, Reid. You have not met the Bandys’ latest acquisition. This is the Chev…the Chev.” Alex’s face burned as she realized she had forgotten how to say the man’s title.
Mont Trignon stood. “Allow me to present myself. I am Le Chevalier de Mont Trignon, at your service, sir.”
He bowed to Reid in a ceremonial manner, out of place in the rustic little tavern.
“But you can call him ‘Trig’,” Josh Bandy added, breaking the formality of the moment before erupting into laughter alongside his brother.
Reid’s stoic expression cracked as a smile curled the corner of his lip. “If you’re a friend of these two fools, then I guess you’re all right.”
Alex’s eyebrows flew to her hairline. Reid thought Josh and Beau were a good judge of character?
“But to answer your question,” Reid continued, “Washington does have a good portion of troops stationed here, but you know how the British are. They are desperate to restore their reputation after the beating our boys gave them at Trenton, and Howe is after Washington like a hound after a fox.”
Reid opened his mouth, but his usual cautious nature took over, and he closed it again. Preferring to let Ol’ George to do the talking for him, he had already said more in front of a stranger than was his style.
“I see thou art at it again, Turner.” A short man with close-cropped, curly, blond hair joined them and reached for a pamphlet. He glanced at the words before tossing the pamphlet back to the table as though it were one of Alex’s well-used bar rags.
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