CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Adrienne sat in the window seat in the morning room. As she had so many times these past few months, she let the book drop to her lap. She stared out into the bright sunshine. The snow was gone. The buds on the maple trees were full and red, ripe with new leaves. She glanced at the tulips by the edge of the terrace. Not a cloud marred the blue sky.
Stefan entered the room, his silver letter tray before him. He bowed to Genevieve. “Madame.” She took the letters he offered. Adrienne kept her gaze on the flowers outside. She dared not get her hopes up. It had been three weeks since she had last heard from Gerard. She had begun to think he had changed his mind. Perhaps he didn’t love her after all.
Stefan bowed close to her, and she jumped. His eyes met hers with a twinkle. “Mademoiselle.” She looked at him, at the gray hair, the gray eyebrows, and the absolutely emotionless expression on his face. Only his eyes showed the pleasure he felt in offering her this letter. She took it, her hands shaking.
He turned and left the room. Adrienne held the letter against her breast for a moment. She glanced at Genevieve, at Marie. They appeared to be absorbed in their own correspondence.
Adrienne slit the seal, pulled out the thick paper.
Dearest,
I am sorry to have kept you waiting so long. My heart is so heavy, I could barely put pen to paper. I have been transferred—to Brazil. I thought I was being groomed to work here, in Europe. I do not understand the sudden change of circumstances. I leave tomorrow.
I have tried, repeatedly, to speak with your father. He returned ten days ago from his trip, but he has not allowed me an audience. I am baffled by his behavior. I caught him in the hallway this afternoon, told him I must speak with him. He smiled, and took my arm, and told me not to worry, that whatever it was, it could wait until I return from South America. I should have pressed him, perhaps, but I was afraid that it would only make my situation worse.
I have no idea how long I will be gone. I am stunned by all that has happened these past few days. And I do not think I can bear it, being so far from you. Will you wait for me? Is it too much to ask?
Yours forever,
Gerard
Adrienne stared at the words on the paper. She read them again. Her mind refused to absorb them; her breath froze in her chest. She lowered the note to her lap, looked out the window at the sky. She picked up the note, read it again.
Adrienne turned her face back to the window and stared out at the scene that had, just a few moments ago, seemed so beautiful. Her eyes glazed; she could no longer see the daffodils, their yellow faces turned toward the sun. She could not see the blossoms on the chestnut tree, or the crystalline blue of the sky.
The clock ticked. Marie’s pen scratched against the paper.
Adrienne turned slowly, and stared at the dark curls of her aunt’s head. Hatred filled every pore of her being. Marie had made her life miserable, for as long as she could remember. With a venom that came from all the buried emotion of seventeen years, Adrienne sprang to her feet, her arms stiff at her side. “You did this, didn’t you?” Her voice cut through the air like a knife. She faced Marie, her jaw clenched.
Marie raised her head slowly, removed her spectacles from her face. She let her eyes travel over Adrienne. She looked at the note in the girl’s hand. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m sure you know very well what I’m talking about. He’s been transferred to Brazil.” Adrienne’s hands shook, but she did not allow tears to come. She stood, her body a blade of steel in the cool morning. A hush fell over the room. She raised her eyes to Marie. Her voice was barely a whisper. “And you are behind it, aren’t you?”
Every person in the room felt the change in barometric pressure. Genevieve’s mouth hung open in a soft, round O. Emelie looked as if her own heart had been broken.
Marie sighed as if bored by Adrienne’s hysterics. She sat, calm and cool, seemingly untouched by the heavy change in the room. She laid her pen on her desk and raised her eyes to her niece. “Has your mind come completely unhinged?”
Adrienne stopped. She blinked. Her eyes stung. She had no vision, no private information, to hurl at her aunt. She didn’t actually know anything. But her fury, her pain, her years of suffering, all rose to the surface, and she could no more stop the words flying from her mouth than she could stop her heart from breaking.
“I have no power in the French embassy. Did it ever occur to you, Adrienne, that Gerard might not want to marry a woman with your . . . shall we say . . . encumbrances? Perhaps he heard about your vivid imagination. Perhaps he requested the transfer.”
The words were delivered quietly, evenly, but Adrienne felt as if she had been kicked. Did someone tell him about her visions? Did someone tell him that she was defective? The silence in the room was overpowering. All eyes focused on Marie; everyone in the room held their breath.
Adrienne stared at Marie, heat smoldering in her cheeks at the suggestion. No, it had not occurred to her that Gerard himself might have requested the transfer. She ran her fingers over the letter she held in her pocket. Was it possible? Would he have done that to her? Would he have said the things he had in this letter, asking her to wait? Her entire life, she had felt different, unworthy, flawed in some irredeemable way, and this possibility just flamed the fires of her own self-doubt.
She turned and fled from the room, across the terrace and into the woods. Her stride was long; her arms swung, desperate to escape the tidal wave of thoughts and feelings and fears and questions that were slamming into her consciousness.
Daylight faded from the sky. Dusk settled on the countryside. The keening of the wind seeped through the edges of the windows; branches bent and swayed, scratching at the sides of the chateau. Adrienne had been gone for hours. She had left without a sweater, without a cloak, without any kind of protection from the cold. Genevieve paced by the window. She stopped, looked out, bit her nail.
Marie sat, even now, at her desk. As if her work were too important to leave, under any circumstance. “Quit pacing, Genevieve,” she ordered. “It won’t help.”
Lucie stood at the other window, staring into the woods where Adrienne had fled. She turned suddenly, and moved toward the hallway. “I’m going to go look for her,” she announced, heedless of either of the women. She strode from the room, her fury clicking through her heels and onto the floor. She grabbed her own cloak and Adrienne’s from the front hall.
Lucie flew down the path toward the lake, anger and worry boiling inside her, making her walk harder and faster than she ever had. She found Adrienne at the cemetery. The girl was crumpled in front of the comte’s headstone, her face streaked with dirt and tears. Adrienne shivered, her teeth rattling. Lucie stooped and wrapped the cloak around her. She leaned close to Adrienne, pulled the girl into her arms.
“I’ve tried so hard. All these years, I’ve tried so hard to do the right thing. To be quiet. To hold my tongue. I did what Grand-père asked. I kept quiet.” She looked up at Lucie, her eyes filled with fear. Adrienne wiped her hand under her nose. “I tried so hard.”
She stopped for a moment, raised her tear-stained face to Lucie. “He’s already gone. That letter was dated over a week ago.” Adrienne stared at her grand-père’s stone. “I hate her. I wish she was dead.”
“How do you know? How do you know it was Marie? Could it have been a normal transfer?” Lucie did not speak the thought that Marie had planted in both of their minds, that Gerard himself might have requested the transfer.
Adrienne turned away. The wind gusted, whistling through the stones, singing with the spirits. It lifted Adrienne’s skirt, set it back down. “I don’t know. I didn’t see anything, if that’s what you mean. I don’t know anything, except that she hates me and always has.”
Lucie squeezed the girl’s shoulders. “Did he say he was breaking the engagement?”
Adrienne wiped tears away, and shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Nothing about not wanting to marry me. Only that he had been transferred and had not been able to speak to my father.”
“There, you see? Marie was just being mean. This will all work out—it just may take longer than we thought it would.”
Both women watched as the last rays of sunlight turned the gravestones pink. Lucie said a silent prayer, asking the comte to help this girl, to protect her.
“Maybe. Maybe.” She turned to her governess, her eyes filled to overflowing. “But that’s not the way it feels.”
Lucie put her hand on Adrienne’s arm. “Would it help if I write to your father?”
Adrienne turned and looked at Lucie. “Write to my father? But why would you write to him?”
Lucie felt the girl’s scrutiny, and she reddened. She could see Adrienne’s thoughts lining up; she watched as Adrienne began to connect the pieces of the puzzle. She felt, once again, the heat of Pierre’s gaze on the night that Gerard and his grandfather had first come to visit, the night she and Adrienne had performed the duet. She remembered the way she had blushed, remembered turning to see Adrienne looking first at her father and then at Lucie.
Adrienne leaned backward in the grass. She stared at Lucie. “Lucie? Has something happened? Between you and my father?”
Lucie met Adrienne’s gaze. She swallowed. She wanted to protest, to ask Adrienne how she could think that, but when her eyes met those of the young girl, the words stuck in her throat. Adrienne would know. She would know the truth, no matter how Lucie tried to explain.
Lucie swallowed again, trying to force the truth back down, hidden, where it had stayed for so long. She drew a deep breath. She reached a hand to Adrienne, but the girl jumped up, refusing to be touched. She stared, her eyes wide with horror.
“I was seventeen when my father died. Alone. Penniless. I had nowhere to go.” For years, Lucie had kept it all inside, shrinking away from the thought of what had happened. For years, she had cringed at the idea of what might become of her if the truth were known.
“After he died, I went to the embassy . . . to see if they might have some work for me. My father had known so many people there. Twenty years of his life, he worked there. He helped deliver the city during the siege of Paris. I thought there might be someone there who would be willing to help me.”
Adrienne began shaking her head.
“Your father . . .” Lucie’s cheeks flushed pink, like the sky in the dying sunlight. She drew in a breath. “Your father said he could find me a position as a governess. I was well educated. He knew I was proficient in music and painting and languages.
“I was so grateful to him. I had been so afraid. I . . .” Lucie glanced at Adrienne and let her eyes drop to the ground again. “I was afraid I would be forced . . . Sometimes there aren’t a lot of choices for women. It often comes down to the convent or—” She stopped. Her eyes were brimming with moisture. She met Adrienne’s gaze, wondering if the girl knew enough of the world to understand the implications.
Adrienne sank to her knees.
“When he told me that he knew of a family—a wealthy family—that needed a governess, I was so relieved.” Lucie bit her lower lip. “The price . . . the price for being placed in such a good position . . . was only one night. Just one night.” Lucie’s words blew away from her, the sound fading in the dusk.
The branches on the tree swayed and creaked above their heads.
“I didn’t know until I arrived here that he was sending me to be the governess to his own daughter. That I would be living with his own wife.” Lucie stared into the sky, now almost completely drained of color. She shrugged. “I thought the worst was over. I needed the position.”
Adrienne swiped her hand at her own tears. Lucie did the same.
“It was so hard. At first, I couldn’t look Genevieve in the eye. I had these spells where I would feel like I was going to faint. I’d get light-headed . . . hot. But then, after a time . . . it got a little easier. Genevieve didn’t know.”
Lucie stole a sidelong glance at Adrienne. “You were so little. Just a baby, really. I fell in love with you, right off. I wanted you to be my daughter. And your grand-père. He reminded me of my own father. I felt so at home with him, and with you.” She took a deep, quivering breath. “After a while, I was able to forget, to pretend it never happened.” She looked at Adrienne’s face again, barely visible in the dusk. “I had lost everything. Everything. I needed this position . . . I needed you. Oh, Adrienne! I never deliberately lied to you.”
Lucie blinked, and stared off into the distance. All those years of fear, of dreading anyone ever knowing the truth, evaporated in an instant. It was over. The truth was out. She was swamped with relief, and with a horrible, aching guilt. As much as she wanted to tell Adrienne everything, she could not share the fact that it had happened again, on Pierre’s most recent visit.
They sat in silence. Lucie did not move to comfort the girl, knowing that she would need time to absorb all the revelations of the past few hours.
Suddenly, Adrienne sat up straight and turned to Lucie, her eyes wide. “Do you think Marie knows?”