Daughter of Mystery (12 page)

LeFevre looked surprised. “You don’t have your own maid? But…I’m sorry. I don’t know how these things are done in—” He faltered, clearly looking for a tactful way to say “ordinary households.”

Margerit shook her head. “No, it wasn’t thought necessary.” The word covered so many things left unsaid. “Could I hire one?”

Now it was LeFevre’s turn to frown thoughtfully. “Well, of course—in fact, it should be arranged soon. But I think it would be best to leave that to your aunt or to her housekeeper perhaps. Unless you mean to set up your own household, which would be a different matter. But a maid of your own, that would be more than reasonable.”

Margerit thought about following up on the household idea but it seemed too large a jump. What sort of extravagance might give him pause. “What if I wanted to order a dozen new gowns and,” he hadn’t reacted, “and a new carriage and—”

He threw up a hand to stop the tumult of images. “I would remind you that you already own a carriage. Several, in fact: a traveling coach and a town chaise, and in Rotenek there’s a light landau better suited to the narrow streets. I’m sure that your guardians will consider a new wardrobe to be entirely suitable. I’ll set up an account for your everyday expenses. Your guardians can administer it for you. Or you could simply have the bills sent to me.” He cleared his throat softly. “I would, however, suggest that you defer to Maisetra Fulpi in matters of dress. She’ll know the difference between what you can afford and what it’s suitable for you to wear.”

Margerit felt her face burning. This wasn’t at all the direction she had meant to go, sounding as if she cared only for silks and carriages. Her frustration showed in her voice at last. “You speak of what is reasonable and what is suitable. What if I wanted to do something entirely unreasonable and unsuitable? What are the boundaries of what I could do if my guardians didn’t approve?”

LeFevre seemed to wake up at last to the serious intent of her questions and answered very carefully. “So long as you are under age, those boundaries are small indeed. When you come of age, then it’s a question of what you’re willing to give up to do it. The baron’s will gives you complete control of your fortune on that day.”

Margerit’s heart leapt when she heard that. She’d expected her inheritance to be tied up for years or until she married.

He continued, “But the law isn’t the only matter you need to consider. I can’t really give you an answer unless I know what you plan to do. An unsuitable marriage? Foreign travel? The case may not be as dire as you think. Again, I’d need to know more.” He stopped short of asking directly.

Margerit was still uncertain how far he would go beyond amused curiosity. The next question tumbled out before she knew she wanted the answer. “Whose man are you?”

LeFevre blinked slowly but not, it seemed, in astonishment. His face had gone very still and bland. “I beg your pardon?” he asked softly.

Margerit scrambled for the question she thought she was trying to ask. “Who are you…to me? Another guardian? A property manager? Or a clerk? Do you answer to me or I to you? Or do you answer to my guardians? What were you to my godfather? Do you answer to him still?”

A light kindled in LeFevre’s eyes that told her that at least some of the questions had been the right ones. His answer was as careful and precise as the previous one had been. “In matters concerning the late baron’s will—in all senses—I am his man, both by contract and by oath. Some of those matters involve you; some do not. All of those matters come before anything else I might do.

“However, one part of the baron’s will is that I shall manage the inheritance he left to you until the specified term is fulfilled. In that, I answer not to your guardians, nor to you, nor—I should point out—to any husband you may acquire, but only to my understanding of good and prudent management. Management of monies and properties, that is. It isn’t my business to manage any other part of your life. However,” he repeated, this time with quiet intensity, “whatever is left to me of discretion and loyalty, when all else is done, I am free to offer to you, if you would have it.”

It was a gift carefully hedged about and bound up but Margerit thought it more valuable for that. In return she offered him her dream. “I want to study philosophy and theology at the university in Rotenek.”

He nodded without speaking and steepled his fingers before his face in a few minutes of quiet consideration. “Is this a plan of long standing?” he asked at length.

“How could it be?” she replied with a smothered laugh. “Before yesterday I might as well have wanted to…to become empress of Russia! I know that women are allowed to enter the lectures and libraries—my cousin Nikule told me—even though they can’t take a degree. He seemed to think it wasn’t quite the thing but he thinks that about a lot of things. Is it really something that is done? Could I do it?”

LeFevre quirked one corner of his mouth in a half-grin. “You’d do better to ask Barbara about that. She could tell you far more than I can.”

Margerit looked over at Barbara where she had been sitting silently throughout the conversation. She nodded. “I’ve attended some lectures—when it was convenient for the baron, of course. There are difficulties, but none that can’t be overcome.”

“There are, in general, three types of women who attend university lectures,” LeFevre continued. “There are the poor-scholars, who attend under scholarship to become teachers and learn what is allowed them of a clerkly trade. Needless to say, that wouldn’t do at all for you. There are the Eccentrics.” His tone made it more of a title than a description. “They have the money to buy a place, the time to indulge their interests and the social standing to do as they please. If you had been born to the nobility, you could claim a place as an Eccentric. To be sure, they’re mostly older single women: widows, those who failed to marry or never cared to. There are a few matrons who achieved Eccentricity after marriage but none, I think, who achieved marriage after Eccentricity. But what they all have in common is a position in society that can’t be taken from them and there you are at a disadvantage. Fortune can open the doors of society to you but only if you’re careful to play the game. I don’t think your guardians would allow you to behave in a way that closed those doors again.

“But there’s a third case,” he added hastily as her face fell. “It’s a fashion among certain silly young ladies to play at being scholars. They attend the lectures in academic robes of satin and lace, flirt flagrantly but safely with the ordinary scholars, mingle more freely than otherwise with the well-born dabblers and generally grow bored with the whole exercise after a few terms. The
dozzures
put up with them because their parents pay outrageously for the privilege. The serious students despise them as a distraction. But society considers it as harmless a diversion as riding to the hunt or playing piquet. So a serious young woman might find entrance both to society and scholarhood by disguising herself as a silly dilettante. If it happened that your uncle approved of you living in Rotenek, then there might be the opportunity…” He let the suggestion trail off and sink in.

As if summoned, Margerit heard her uncle’s voice distantly through the halls. She looked anxiously over at LeFevre and said, “Don’t tell him.”

He frowned a little, but nodded. Barbara hurriedly pushed her chair back and stood as the footman came in to notify them that Maistir Fulpi was waiting in the office.

* * *

Margerit could tell he was startled to see her but he didn’t seem angry. Was he only concealing it for policy’s sake? How much had changed in their relationship? How much was yet to change?

“Does your aunt know you’re here?” he asked sharply.

“I told her I was going out,” Margerit answered, which was no answer.

LeFevre rescued her by adding, “We’ve been having a very pleasant discussion about the generalities of the baron’s will. You and I can move on to the details.” He turned back to her with a polite bow. “It has been a lovely morning and I hope to see you again soon.” And then a nod to Barbara as he addressed her: “I had almost forgotten—Donati came by this morning. I told him to expect his regular fee while matters are being settled, but perhaps you could send him word about new arrangements for your practices.”

Barbara murmured, “I don’t yet know what might be arranged.”

“Easy enough,” LeFevre replied.

Margerit saw what seemed to be a warning glance from Barbara, but LeFevre ignored it as he turned to her uncle. “Arrangements will need to be made for Barbara’s practice sessions with her fencing master. Is there a large enough space in your house? If needed she could continue them here. Some convenient transportation could be arranged.”

“That will not be necessary,” he said shortly. And when LeFevre seemed confused as to which part of his question was being answered he continued, “In keeping with His Excellency’s will, that woman may keep the title of armin, but I think I will be making other arrangements for my niece’s necessary protection.”

“Then you’re a fool,” LeFevre said in an even voice, as if merely commenting on the weather. But he escorted them out of the room and closed the door before continuing in inaudible tones.

Chapter Fourteen

Barbara

Whatever arguments LeFevre made, they must have bent Maistir Fulpi’s objections. For while no space for her practice could be found at Chaturik Square, allowance was made for her to stable the bay mare there. Not only could she slip out more easily for her lessons but there was more freedom in the hours when Margerit received visitors at her aunt’s side. Or the endless hours with the dressmaker.

Over the next days, things settled into a routine that passed for normal. Barbara was amused at the narrowed scope of her duties. Though she trained and practiced as if her potential opponents still worked at the highest levels, her everyday chores were more that of a governess or hired chaperone. The potential hazards she had sketched out that first evening might have been exaggerated, but there were everyday pitfalls to navigate, even in those first weeks.

The visits to Fonten Street and lessons in the management of properties became more common than walks in the park. Margerit claimed the time as private. The aunts might oversee her social visits, but they had no patience for sitting through LeFevre’s detailed explanations. Her uncle didn’t take her interest in the estate seriously enough to pay it any heed. But at least one person had noted that her midday walks to Fonten House were unaccompanied by any of her guardians. From the promptness with which the man fell in beside them one morning, Barbara concluded that he had been loitering for the purpose. He touched his hat and addressed Margerit with, “It isn’t right for a lady to go walking out unescorted,” as he offered his arm to her.

Margerit paused, appearing to flounder for a response. And yet she clearly recognized the man and Barbara could see he was a respectable gentleman, perhaps a colleague of her uncle? This was not someone to be warned off with a hand on the hilt and a menacing glare. Barbara cleared her throat and sought a safe middle ground. “Maistir, she is not unescorted.”

He blinked at her as if he had only then noticed her existence. “Hmm. Yes. As you say.” He turned back to Margerit. “Would you grant me the honor of accompanying you on your errand?”

Margerit threw her a flustered look but this was her lead to take. “Maistir Palmir, I thank you for your kind offer, but there is no need.”

“Of course not, my dear.” He smiled. “But it would be my pleasure.”

With that “my dear,” Barbara concluded, he had stepped across the line. She took a step closer to Margerit and said in the most deferential tone she could manage, “If the gentleman wishes to walk out with you, Maisetra, it would be best if he called at your home and spoke with Maistir Fulpi first.” Although she addressed Margerit, her eyes were fixed on the stranger.

The surest confirmation of his transgression was the promptness with which he demurred, “As you say. As you say.” He tipped his hat once more and strolled in the opposite direction with the self-conscious casualness of a cat.

Margerit stifled a laugh as they continued on. “Do you think he really will speak to my uncle?” she wondered.

Barbara considered it unlikely. He didn’t have the marks of high birth, and mere money wouldn’t be considered sufficient attraction now. But he might not have the sense to realize that. He’d lacked the sense to guess how few personal charms a fifty-year-old man might hold for a girl of eighteen.

There were two other approaches in those first weeks, as clumsy and as easily deflected as Maistir Palmir’s. The serious suitors would take their time and employ more subtlety.

* * *

It seemed that no sooner had the Fulpi household settled into its new routine than it was broken again by the advent of Saint Chertrut’s day. They followed the old custom of traveling to the countryside, to the home village of their family, to celebrate the saint’s mystery and decorate the churches with flowering boughs. Barbara could faintly remember honoring the patroness of gardens and orchards in the village church at Saveze. That was before the baron had begun taking her with him to Rotenek. The festival fell too early in the year to return south for no other reason.

Evidently Maistir Fulpi’s people lived too far away for the trip to be practical but his wife’s family had a manor near Mintun and the entire household was to go. For that, several carriages were required, and even with one of Margerit’s new acquisitions pressed into service, space was tight. At first Barbara was grateful that her duties gave her a seat outside, up with the coachman. Another pair of sharp eyes was always useful, though any lurking highwaymen would be better addressed with the coachman’s musket than her sword. But even the one-day’s journey stretched out well after dark. At dusk a bitter wind sprang up, reminding her that Saint Chertrut’s Day brought only the promise of spring, not the season itself. And when Margerit noticed that at every pause she stamped around briskly to loosen up her frozen muscles she insisted that she join the rest in the interior.