Jean-Louis pulled his cocked hat down over his eyes again, trying to doze off. The battle of Dole had lasted only hours, but the aftermath had been the usual confusion of death, injury, and quick action to keep the rougher soldiers from sacking the town and raping the women. He had hardly slept for two nights.
After a few minutes, he gave up trying to sleep and lifted the curtain to look at the scenery. The sky was just getting light as they approached Auxonne.
His groom opened the trapdoor in the front and, seeing he was awake, announced, “Just about an hour left, Monsieur le Colonel.”
The siege was broken, Dole taken, and Auxonne never threatened, so he hoped Mademoiselle Hélène was still there, even though he didn’t like the thought of his baby daughter so close to a battle. “Merci, Jacques. Try to sleep. I will want you alert when we arrive.”
It had to be hysteria on the part of Mademoiselle Hélène, but she had his daughter. He would have to get to the bottom of it before he could rest easy. Maybe he would send the girl to his sister, Aurore, who doted on babies and still did not have one of her own. He knew her husband, the Comte de Bures, would be sure Ondine was safe.
Jean-Louis nudged his valet. “Fourbier, wake up.”
The thin man jerked awake, twisting nearly off the seat in surprise. He rubbed his neck and scrubbed at his eyes before untying the cord that held back his long, dark hair, combed it with his fingers, and retied it. With an adjustment to his cuffs and a few swipes at the wrinkles in his breeches, he looked too tidy to have slept in a carriage after a battle.
“I need my wig, Fourbier.”
The valet grunted. Jean-Louis smiled wryly and knocked on the wall. The groom reopened the trapdoor.
“Fourbier needs to piss,” said Jean-Louis, desperate for a stop too.
The carriage slowed to a halt, which wasn’t hard, as it was moving only slightly faster than walking pace. Jean-Louis found a likely-looking tree, as did the other men.
They returned to the carriage as the sun rose above the horizon. Fourbier sighed, watching purples and blues change to brilliant pinks and orange. Jean-Louis waited with his arms crossed, also appreciating the sight. Some days, his enjoyment of sunrise was because he had survived another night.
“The wig, Fourbier. It would not do to greet a lady looking as if I had just come from the battlefield.” Jean-Louis climbed back up into the ancient carriage and rapped on the ceiling.
Hélène had been raised as a lady, descended from nobility. Not currently nobility, as her family owned a factory and was involved in the day-to-day running of it. Even so, she had always been almost a servant in his in-laws’ house. She crept around the edges and supervised his late wife when they were younger, for all the good it had done for Amandine’s behavior and immortal soul. He wondered why Mademoiselle Hélène had never married. He had a glimmer of a memory of his wife telling him Hélène had no dowry—and hadn’t the lady herself said much the same two nights before?—and his in-laws could not afford to present her at court. She had terrible eyesight, too, as evidenced by her lorgnette. He wondered why they had not added to her dowry themselves and found her some minor merchant to marry.
Amandine’s judgment had been terrible about most things, so he winced to have trusted what she said about her cousin. He supposed he had already decided to trust Mademoiselle Hélène’s judgment—or at least his in-laws’ judgment of her ability to care for his daughter—when he left Ondine with Amandine’s family instead of moving her elsewhere. He’d been consumed with fury at his wife’s death and barely thinking of his daughter at all.
Fourbier held a coat up for his inspection. It was pale blue wool, with lace and ribbons dangling from the short sleeves. “Is that the only one you brought? It’s hardly fit for anything but court.”
Fourbier looked down, pretending to be abashed. “I am sorry, mon colonel. I thought you would wish to look your best for the lady. Though it’s certainly not good enough for court.”
Jean-Louis sighed deeply, gazing at the overblown gold embroidery on the matching waistcoat. “We are here to assess the risk to my daughter and determine if I can leave her here or insist Mademoiselle Hélène take her home. I am not here to court the lady.”
Fourbier smirked. “It brings out the blue of your eyes.”
Jean-Louis dropped his head back, staring toward heaven to pray for patience but seeing only the light wood of the ceiling. The lady would hardly be able to see the display of wealth, much less compare it to his eyes. He scowled at his valet, whose eyes twinkled merrily. “I was hoping to slip in and out of Auxonne and be back with the army tomorrow, not make a splash.” He was a knight in the never-ending chess game between France and the rest of Europe. He should dress like a knight, not a prince.
He stripped off his leather jerkin and the shirt—the same smelly one from two nights before—and washed himself hastily with perfumed oil before putting on the clean white shirt with excessively large sleeves, the embroidered waistcoat, and the offending coat. The valet held out the matching breeches, and Jean-Louis sighed and stripped out of his leather ones.
The valet wrinkled his nose in distaste.
“No, Fourbier, you may not burn them this time, either.”
He donned his fine linen underthings and the woolen breeches with their six-inch ruffle below the knee, trimmed with dark blue ribbon and gold-edged lace. “At least they aren’t silk.”
“Much too cold for silk in February, Monsieur,” replied his valet, rolling up the dirty clothes and tucking them into a bag. “And silk is not appropriate for a morning visit in the provinces.” He efficiently tucked and fluffed and tied the sleeves so they ballooned out exactly as they should.
Jean-Louis laughed. “Fourbier, I do not know why you stay with me. Surely there is a dandy at court who would make much better use of your services.” He would be lost without Fourbier, and they both knew it. The man loved lace and beautiful colors but ran his small group of servants like the toughest of sergeants.
Fourbier grinned. “It’s the adventure, Monsieur le Colonel. I have met no one at court I like as well as I like you.”
Jean-Louis winced. His valet sometimes seemed to like him far too much.
Fourbier combed the wig to extraordinary heights and settled it on his head as they rode up to the inn. Jean-Louis took his good hat and pulled it down on top of his wig, making the valet groan. The carriage stopped and Jean-Louis swung down, his groom behind him, covering his back.
He tugged his best cloak straight on his left shoulder and adjusted his saber. A thin, aging woman in severe black wool answered his knock. Jean-Louis had a moment of doubt when he did not see the innkeeper. He had only spoken to a man on the way in with his division.
“Mademoiselle Hélène de Bonnefoi, s’il vous plaît, Madame,” he barked out.
“Much too early to call, Monsieur,” said the innkeeper’s wife.
“Ah, but I have not come only to see Mademoiselle de Bonnefoi. It is my daughter I wish to see. She is almost three and is called Ondine. She has blonde hair and her eyes are very like mine.” Jean-Louis brushed a bit of fluff from his sleeve before looking the woman in the eyes.
She was not timid at all, this woman. She narrowed her eyes and looked him up and down and then stared at his eyes before nodding slightly.
“They are in the breakfast room, Monsieur le Colonel.”
She curtsied as he passed, and he bowed in return.
“My groom will keep watch while we are here. Are there any back doors? My other men are outside in the carriage, watching the street.” The woman’s eyes widened in surprise. “All standard precautions for an officer traveling in time of war.”
The innkeeper’s wife marched ahead of him, back rigid, to the breakfast room, where his first view of Mademoiselle Hélène took his breath away. She was sitting in a beam of light, smiling down at the little girl who sat next to her on the bench. Her hair glinted gold in the sunlight, and her pink lips parted as she laughed.
“Mademoiselle Hélène, Colonel de Cantière is here to see you,” said the woman.
Jean-Louis bowed deeply and raised himself again to find Mademoiselle Hélène curtseying to him and the little girl staring at him, wide-eyed. Mademoiselle Hélène’s features had gone blank, erasing the sunshine and beauty he had witnessed.
“Ondine, chérie,” she said to the girl. “It is your papa, come to see us. Get up and curtsey, ma petite.”
The girl stood up on the bench and bobbed clumsily, clutching at Mademoiselle Hélène for support and reassurance.
Jean-Louis hadn’t seen his daughter since his wife’s funeral, over a year before. She likely had no memory of him, and yet her mistrust cut him to the heart.
“Please, Monsieur, join us for breakfast,” said Mademoiselle Hélène in the soft, shy voice that made him want to protect her.
He gritted his teeth. He was ridiculous. There was no threat here. It was leftover nerves from the battle and a lack of sleep, surely. The long argument with the Prince de Condé to get leave for two days to solve the problem, coupled with the long journey, had sapped what was left of his wits.
He sat across the table from the lady and his daughter and waved Fourbier to a chair. The innkeeper’s wife entered with a servant bringing bread and jam.
They ate in strained silence. He complimented the woman on the delightful sausage; it had been weeks since he had eaten properly, even though he knew he ate better than his soldiers. “Well, Mademoiselle Hélène, I would like the rest of the story of how you came to bring my daughter to a war.”
Hélène looked down at her lap, blushing. “I do not know how I had the strength to do it, but I was so frightened for Ondine. I didn’t feel safe with my aunt and uncle Ferand.”
“You said there was a fire? And your uncle thought it was nothing serious?”
“He said it was just a dropped candle, but there was a great deal of smoke under the door of the nursery. And Ondine had not drunk her milk. She did not want it—if a child who is not even three does not want something, there is no point in forcing—and so we gave it to the cat that sleeps in her dressing room.”
Jean-Louis scratched at his head, confused. He encountered his damned wig, though, and didn’t dare disarrange it any more than it already was so brought his hand back down to the table.
Mademoiselle Hélène turned to the serving girl. “Lily, could you watch Ondine for a short time while I speak to the colonel in the hall?”
The girl agreed, glancing fearfully at Fourbier, who nodded. Jean-Louis followed Mademoiselle Hélène into the dark, cramped hall.
“I did not wish to frighten Ondine. She understands most of what we say, though she doesn’t speak clearly yet.” She dragged her hand along the wall until they were ten feet from the breakfast room.
Jean-Louis leaned against the opposite wall, glancing out a tiny, wavy window to where his carriage was waiting. He wondered again if this was a horrible waste of time.
“You see, Ondine did not drink her milk, but the cat did. When the smoke started, Ondine cried for me to save the cat, but I found it on the floor under the bed, vomiting and twitching. I took up Ondine and opened the window and called for help as I stepped out onto the ledge.”
“The third-story ledge by the nursery?” His heart wrenched.
“Yes. I knew I could walk along it to the balcony two windows down. Amandine used to climb out to escape lessons. The ledge is wide enough to walk on, if one is careful. I had Ondine in the shawl I use to carry her when she gets tired on walks. She stayed very still.”
Jean-Louis stared at Mademoiselle Hélène for a long time after she stopped talking. She was looking in his direction, but not meeting his eyes. He would not have thought her so bold as to walk along a ledge or speak an entire sentence. “Tell me the rest. Why your uncle did not agree there was a threat. Why you chose to leave anyway.”
She sighed and looked down at her twisting hands. She was nervous, not bold at all. “He said the cat must have breathed smoke. The fire was put out very quickly. They were already throwing water on it when I came back in through the schoolroom. We were hardly in, though, when the window broke.”
“Broke?” he snapped. “How?”
“I’m not sure. The window, which is like a narrow door, really, jerked out of my hand and shattered,” she said. “And then I heard a crack.”
His heart stuttered. He swallowed. “Like a gunshot?”
“I don’t know. I thought it might be, but my uncle said I must have broken the window. I am clumsy.” She blushed and looked down.
Jean-Louis rubbed the spot between his eyebrows, the spot where every headache started. “How did you determine this was a threat against Ondine?”
She brought her head up, her jaw set. “We’ve had someone following us on walks. I started to bring a footman along because I thought I saw someone lurking in the trees. One time, in the village, a man darted out and tried to grab Ondine, but I held on and the footman chased him away. No one knew who the man was. My uncle said it was surely just a joke, but I found it extremely upsetting. But when the fire was set—because I believe it was set and not just an accident with a candle, as he said—I had to get Ondine away.”
There was another long silence as Jean-Louis wondered about Mademoiselle Hélène’s ability to properly assess a kidnap or murder threat, especially as she surely could not see well enough to identify anyone. He sighed.
“Was I wrong, Monsieur?” Her voice squeaked. “I was so frightened for Ondine. I didn’t know to whom I could turn, but since you are her father, I thought you would know what to do. She’s…she is the most precious thing in the world to me.” Mademoiselle Hélène’s voice broke. “I know I am not her mother, but I feel as though I am.”
Jean-Louis turned his back on the weeping lady. Tears had always been his weakness. How many times had his late wife lied to him through tears? And how many times had his mother warped his childhood with a delicate show of tears after a display of temper and spite?
He had escaped the family home at ten, for which he had been grateful. At the time, he had been horribly homesick, even with his brother and Dominique, the heir to the Comte de Bures, as companions in Dom’s father’s château. The two older boys were both heirs to lands and titles, besides being bigger, stronger, further advanced in their studies, and already friends. He had worked hard to prove himself their equal, and soon surpassed them, though they would never admit it.
He shook his head and turned back to Mademoiselle Hélène, who dabbed at her eyes.
“Can you be ready to leave within the hour?” he asked her.
Her mouth dropped open in surprise. He had surprised himself. He had planned to tell her to stay where she was or return to her uncle’s house, not to come with him.
“My aide-de-camp will find you a tent and blankets and so on. Our campaign in Franche-Comté is nearly over, if the battle at Dole is any indication. The Spanish forces know they have no reinforcements coming, and the people have welcomed us, for the most part.”
He wondered constantly if this sector of the War of Devolution was of any use at all, except to kill a few soldiers and civilians and to impoverish the countryside. There were already mutterings among the officers that once they won the county it was to be used as a pawn in the king’s posturing with Spain, which had signed a treaty with Sweden, England, and the Netherlands.
She sat up straighter. “I can have our things ready very quickly. We did not bring very much with us. I did not…”
“I did not expect to believe you at all, Mademoiselle Hélène.” His voice was harsher than he had meant it to be. She cringed. “I still do not, but will feel better knowing exactly where Ondine is. I will write a letter to her grandparents, saying she is safe with me.”
“Oh, please, do not…”
He interrupted. “I would much appreciate it if you would stay with her and care for her as you have done. She would be much distressed without you, I am sure
.”
“Oui, Monsieur,” Mademoiselle Hélène said, somewhat breathlessly. “Only I would feel safer if my aunt and uncle did not know where she was.”
No one who was not at least a colonel ever contradicted Jean-Louis. “She is in my care, and you will be too. There is no threat, Mademoiselle Hélène. I should send her back, but just in case you are correct, I would rather keep her nearby.”
Mademoiselle Hélène looked up at him with a sweet, small smile, like he was some sort of hero, and for a moment he felt like one. He turned away and went to give orders to his servants, spotting the innkeeper’s wife at the end of the hall. “Thank you for your assistance with my daughter, Madame. Please let my valet know what is owed you.”
He only caught a fleeting glimpse of the woman’s surprise before nodding to the groom, who opened the door for him. “Stay and help them get ready. Find out if they have blankets we could buy. Find out where she gets the sausage; I’d like to take some back with me. Keep an eye out for trouble. Don’t let anyone near my daughter except our own men.”
****
After the bustle of getting ready, the ride in the cramped carriage proved painfully awkward. Hélène’s presence probably made it dull for everyone else, too. She sighed as she glanced out the window, appreciating the smudge of bright blue sky and the glimpse of bare, brown tree branches, even though she could not see the details. Ondine shifted next to her. The girl had insisted on riding next to the door, which forced Hélène up against the hard muscles of Monsieur le Colonel de Cantière in a way that made her leg tingle and her face flush.
Of course, Jean-Louis de Cantière had always made her tingle with excitement, even when he had been married to her cousin, Amandine.
The rear-facing seat was taken up with a dozing groom and the neatly-dressed aide-de-camp, Fourbier, who had—inexplicably—smiled in delight when she peered at him through her heavy lorgnette. He announced he had some wonderful ideas already for a gown for her. The colonel groaned and told him to make a sketch and to not bother them with ribbons and lace. She smiled at the aide, who smirked as if it were a joke.
The Honorable Officer Page 2