Upon the small easel in the corner stood the watercolor and pencil drawing of Marianne that he’d made in a whirl of emotion the other morning.
“But this—?” Bonnet went to stand before the drawing. “This takes my heart.”
As she has taken mine.
“Will you show this to Montand?”
Could he part with that?
Never.
Could he part with her?
He had to, didn’t he? Not because he wished it, but because she did.
Within the next hour, Bonnet made to go, taking both figurines with him in a wooden box he’d ordered Carré to make for that purpose. Andre walked Bonnet to the front door and when he opened it, Marianne reached for the door knob herself. Home from the square, her little patch she’d claimed as her own under a beech tree, she had her sketch book under one arm and her wooden items in the other.
“Oh, pardon!” She laughed up into Andre’s face and smiled at Monsieur Bonnet.
“Allow me to present my friend, Monsieur Bonnet.”
Bonnet’s grin was warm and winning. The man knew how to charm the bark off a tree.
“How do you do, Monsieur.”
Bonnet offered a polite bow. “Enchante, Madame Roland.”
Andre saw the spark in Bonnet’s eye. Indeed, the man recognized the lady who was Dawn. The two of them chatted, the polite dialogue of those who meet for the first time. Andre informed her that Bonnet had collected two figures to cast in bronze for him. She exclaimed how wonderful.
“I see you are also an artist.” Bonnet indicated her tools.
“I am. Not as talented as some I know. But the contrast keeps me on task. Hoping, you see, for lightning to strike. ”
“Lightning can be dangerous,” he said. “I would hope for a less harmful way to emerge from the confusion of the mind.”
Nonetheless, Marianne grinned and accepted it as a polite comment. “I agree.”
Bonnet took his leave.
Andre closed the front door, reached to take her easel from her and headed for his studio.
Marianne followed him up the stairs.
Inside, Nanette was picking up glasses and plates from the wine and cheese service. Carré was putting away the clay in tempered boxes, the work of the day finished.
Marianne removed her straw-brimmed hat, pushing up stray curls into her chignon. She walked to Andre, smiling at him in expectation. “Monsieur Bonnet took your two Dawns?”
“He did.”
“He liked them! Oh, fabulous. What did he say?”
“He always does like what I give him. These were no exceptions.”
“Did he see the watercolor?”
“He did.”
“Did he ask you to make a clay figure of that?”
“No. He knows better. Besides, that is mine,” he told her. “Only mine.” As you should be. But may not need to be.
She examined him, looking for hidden meanings that he would not utter. She knew him too well, enough to see his anxiety, but not enough, he prayed, to understand his sadness and his fear of losing her.
He caught her close and kissed her quickly. “So I think we must celebrate. We will make a night of it, eh? Nanette, do not cook dinner. Put on your best gown. Carré, finish quickly here. Take off your apron, man! We’re going to dine in that cafe we all like in Boulevard de Rochechouart. Then we’re all going to the moulin de la Galette to dance.”
“Sir?” Carré looked aghast. “No! I cannot dance.”
“Yes, Carré, one day you will be famous, rich and the ladies will hover over you. You must know how to dance.”
“But, sir—”
“No arguments. Afterward we’re off to the theatre to see the new troupe do the can-can.”
He had to drink and dine, dance and sing. He’d show Marianne what they could be together. Or begin to return to who’d he’d been without her.
Chapter 13
Marianne strolled into the atelier, home from her afternoon sketching in the square. At the front door, she’d taken the mail from the postman and the only piece was a letter for Andre. “Another from your mother, I think.”
Nodding, Andre took the parchment from her hand and ripped the envelope. “Ah, oui. The third in a week. I imagine she asks again when I will go to the chateau.”
Marianne noticed that Carré turned away, busying himself with the clean-up of the days remains of clay from the bench. She deposited her sketchbook and easel, her pencils, chalks and inks on the far table, then removed her hat.
“Have you thought about a date?” She expected Andre would go south after she left him. That was to be in three days. They didn’t talk of her departure. She didn’t want to start now. But still. This was his mother and the lady deserved an answer about his arrival.
“I have.” He opened the letter, read quickly and then walked it to his rubbish bin. He dropped it in and turned back to the clay figurine he’d been working on for the past week. “When you leave.”
When I leave. When I leave…how will I manage to smile? She caught a breath. “I haven’t any letters from Lily lately.”
“Not from Ada either,” he said idly as he turned away.
She’d commented yesterday to him on that lack. “That’s unusual from both of them. Well, actually, Lily is more to be relied upon than Ada.”
He busied himself with the figure. “Lily is a newly wed woman. And a duchess with immense responsibilities.”
“Her tenants have been ill and she’s been nursing them. So I can excuse her. But Ada’s lack worries me.”
“If you think she’d get into trouble, Killian will stop that with one crook of his finger.”
She laughed.
A pounding emanated from the downstairs hall.
The three of them halted.
The beating on the front door resumed.
She grew alarmed.
Carré stopped his cleaning. “I’ll see who it is, Monsieur. That Eugene Saubert across the street gets more drunk every day. Probably him again.”
Whoever it was banged with such might that the sound pulsed up the stairs and into the room where the sun was sinking in the west horizon.
Moments later, a breathless red-faced Killian Hanniford stood in the middle of the room.
“Mon Dieu, Monsieur! Wait!” Carré scurried behind her uncle. “Monsieur le duc, I could not stop him. He—”
“No apologies, Carré.” Andre held up a hand. “I know this man. We both do. This is Madame Roland’s uncle, Monsieur Hanniford. Killian, what in hell is wrong?”
Marianne had seen her uncle dismayed, distressed, even grieved. She’d heard of his rages with adversaries, his disagreements with his subordinates. She’d watched him bark at underlings and urge others to higher standards. But she had never seen him in a state that burned all before it.
“What’s wrong?” She hurried to him, a hand to his sleeve. He was wide-eyed, wild. Someone was hurt? Lily? Ada? Pierce? “Tell me.”
“You must come home with me.”
“What’s happened?”
Andre stepped to her side.
“Come home, Marianne.”
“Why?” she urged her uncle. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Ada.”
“What about her?”
“She’s ruined herself. I need you to talk some sense into her. She’s locked herself in her room and won’t talk to me.”
Marianne shook his arm. “How did she ruin herself?”
“She went with those two idiot girls night before last. They met three men who took them to a cottage along the beach. They fed them wine or liquor or god knows what. Ada walked back to our hotel along the promenade. Alone! The concierge in the hotel says that other guests told him, she was singing bawdy songs as she walked home.”
Marianne couldn’t believe it of her. “Ada is foolhardy but she’s not stupid.”
“She doesn’t have to be. That Francine and Ezzie are stupid enough!”
“Is she—? Did th
ese men hurt her? The others too?”
“Ada says not, but then can I trust her?”
“Yes. You can. Ada is no liar.”
“She was drunk!”
Marianne recalled how she’d feared something like this would occur. Pierce did too, when he’d stated weeks ago that the three girls had gotten into a little too much brandy. “She knew enough to find her way home.”
“I should not have let her go.”
This was very true. “Didn’t they have a chaperone?”
“Ada told us—Pierce, Chaumont and me—that Francine’s mother was to be with them.”
“Was she?”
“No! It seems that paragon Mrs. Lang has taken a lover for the summer. She left them to their own devices.”
“Who are the men?”
“Ada won’t say.”
“Why not?” Marianne asked.
“She doesn’t wish to hurt anyone’s reputation. Meanwhile… Meanwhile! What of her own?”
“I hear you, Uncle. She always was a carefree girl.”
“Carefree? She’s always gone for the lark. The fun of it.”
Marianne bit her lip. That was true.
“I’m sending her back to Baltimore.”
“Oh, Uncle Killian. She can’t go back there. She’ll surely be ruined then. People won’t see her and that’ll fan the rumors. Even assume she’s with child!”
“I told her if she crossed me I‘d send her home and I will.”
“Let’s learn what happened first.”
“No. Everyone in Cherbourg knows about it. She sang, for Christ’s sake! Nothing like announcing you’re a tart.”
“And where were the other two girls?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care.”
That was ridiculous. She glared at him. “Of course, you do, Uncle Killian. You’re the man who saved ten African men off a sinking slaver ship at risk to your own. Do not tell me you do not care about those girls.”
That calmed him. But he winced. “I need you to come home. I need you to talk to her. Find out all the details.”
“I will, of course. I’ll come tomorrow.”
“Now.”
That offended her. He’d never demanded anything of her. But then, she’s always given what she could which was, literally, her companionship, her love, her devotion. Could she do that again? So liberally? “You promised me, sir, you would not force me home before my time here was done.”
Andre took a step forward.
Killian frowned at him and told her, “This is different. It’s Ada.”
“She is most likely very upset. At herself. At her own lack of judgment. At your displeasure with her. She doesn’t need me to point out her foibles or emphasize—”
“Of course she does. You were her mother after she had none. You were the one who kissed her scraped knees and helped her with her Latin. You were her voice of reason—”
“I may have once been her substitute for her mother. I may have once been her voice of reason. But she is of age and she must learn to steer her own path.”
“She steered it onto the shoals,” he said through gritted teeth.
“She made a mistake. But she must face the results. Before she marries.”
“No one will have her now,” he said, his brows knit, his tone mournful.
“I doubt that. She’s lovely, charming. If she’s also carefree and honest, many men could benefit from that in a wife. It will take time, but people will forget.”
“I doubt it. I’ve seen proof they don’t.”
He meant his own black reputation as a ruthless businessman and before that, as a Confederate blockade runner whose stealth had made him notoriously rich—and universally feared.
“They do not know everything about you, sir. When they learn, they amend their views. And the gossip ends.”
“Does it?” he challenged her, his tone anguished. “I can’t wait. I’m sending her home.”
“To do what? Be under lock and key?” She was appalled. “Be reasonable.”
“She’s going home.”
“No!”
“And I want you to go with her.”
Her world tilted. Righted. “I cannot do that.”
“Why not?”
Because…because I don’t want to. “Send Madame Chaumont.”
“Fat lot of good Chaumont can do,” he muttered.
“She likes to serve. She needs the money. And she’s a better chaperone than none. ”
Killian stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. “You’re serious?”
“Quite so.”
His silver eyes flashed with anger. “We had an agreement, you and I.”
One year to see Lily married. Another to see Ada launched. Meanwhile, her own life slipped by. A life that now was so different from the one she’d had within his fold. “You have been good to me, sir.”
“I need you to do this, Marianne.”
She raised her chin. “I will speak to Ada, but I do not approve of you sending her home. It would stain her permanently. And I’ll take no part in that. I’ll go and talk with her, but that is absolutely all.”
“You defy me?”
“I do.”
“And our agreement?”
What was that agreement compared to her dignity? Her independence? She could live. Somehow. Use her own money. She’d pine for her family but Killian could not buy her compliance. And she must not let him. “I end it.”
“You joke?” He was shocked.
“Not at all. I’ll come to talk with Ada tomorrow.” She strode toward the door to the stairs. This was the end of their discussion.
Andre walked behind her.
Carré who had remained by the door, yanked it open.
“Tomorrow,” she told her uncle. “I’ll arrive at one. I’ll speak to Ada alone and learn what precisely happened in Cherbourg.”
Killian jammed his hat on his head. Defeat was an evil he’d never known. “I’ll send my carriage.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’ll hire a hack, Uncle. Good evening to you.”
Ada was deathly pale. She shot to her feet to greet Marianne the moment Foster opened the salon door to her.
“Hello, sweetheart.” Marianne went to her and kissed her cheek, took her hands and pulled her to sit with her on the settee. “Sit beside me.”
“I’m so glad you’ve come. Papa is being horrid. Where is he?”
“In his study. I told him I preferred to speak to you alone.”
“He agreed?”
“He did.” Her uncle had never forced her to do anything. Given her refusal of him yesterday, Marianne predicted he wouldn’t start now. Not about this. Not about accompanying Ada home to America.
Ada glanced at their entwined hands. “I realize I’ve shamed everyone and I’m so sorry. But I really didn’t know that Mrs. Lang would abandon us. Francine did, I think. Francine arranged it all and I’m very angry with her.”
Marianne patted her hand. “I’m sure you understand why your father is so upset. And I am quite certain you know what this means for your immediate future.”
“He says he’ll send me home. I can’t go back, Marianne. I don’t want to. I never would’ve said I’d go with Francine if she’d told me the full of it, but you know Francine is devious and—”
Marianne put up a hand. “Stop please. I give you the benefit of the doubt that you weren’t fully aware of Francine’s plans nor her mother’s duplicity toward you and Ezzie.”
“Thank you.”
“I told your father that I think you foolhardy, but not stupid. I’m sure you know how this episode has caused a stir.”
Ada bit her lip and hung her head. Her sleek golden brown hair was caught back in a severe knot. For a long moment, she gazed at her tightly clapped hands. Her knuckles white. Then her shoulders shook. She cried quietly.
Marianne waited until the small storm passed. When Ada was little, Marianne had often hugged her close and soothed her tears. Bu
t both of them were older now and affection might salve her wound, but it would not heal it. Not when it was self-inflicted. “You must tell me all of what occurred. I can’t help you in any way if I don’t know.”
“Yes, of course.” She dug for her handkerchief in her skirt pocket and blew her nose. Then, unlike the little girl who had often clung to Marianne’s hands, Ada rallied, rose and walked to the mantel. She whirled to face Marianne. “We were to attend a private party at a cottage along the promenade. Mrs. Lang was to be our chaperone. Francine said it was to be a little supper for all of us. But then three gentlemen arrived. I was surprised but tried to be gracious. Ezzie was keen to leave. We should have. But I stayed on.”
Marianne noted her hesitation. “Why?”
Ada rolled her gaze around the room. “I didn’t want to be a nay-sayer. And you see…well…one of the gentlemen was Monsieur Durant.”
“The French tutor?” That was surprising. Marianne had thought better of him than to seduce a young woman who was to be his client, no less. “Why would he go to Cherbourg? Doesn’t he have students to tend to?”
“He does. But it’s August and he was on holiday. Sort of. You see, he’s a vicomte. Poor, but still. I learned that at the party. He told me. His estate is very small and he must work.”
“Why did he think it proper for you to be there? For him to be there?”
“He didn’t. The other two gentlemen asked him to come along. They needed a third to fill the party. He said he heard I was to go and he wanted to come to protect me.”
“I see. A fine sentiment. But he failed.” Marianne nodded. “Tell me about the behavior of Mrs. Lang.”
“She was there with Francine. I was relieved we had her there, but then in a few minutes, she left. And I panicked.”
“Did you think to leave?”
“I did. I did. But by that time, I’d had a glass of wine.”
Marianne tilted her head in question.
“Actually, two.”
“Did you like it?”
“The first glass was fine. I was nervous and drank it quickly. Too quickly, I’d say. I’ve tasted good wine, though and the second glass was terrible. Red. Dregs. Awful. But by then, the taste didn’t much matter.”
“So Mrs. Lang left. Then what happened?”
Daring Widow: Those Notorious Americans, Book 2 Page 22