The Honorable Officer (26 page)

“He will drag me down with him,” said the baronesse, uncertainly.

“Since you are not welcome with your family due to your unkindness, you’ll have nowhere to go, will you?” asked Hélène softly. She certainly wouldn’t welcome this woman into her home.

“I was not unkind to them! I did my best to shape them, to make them into gentlemen,” said the baronesse haughtily.

“And one lady,” said Hélène, thinking of her sweet, laughing sister-in-law and the pain in Aurore’s voice when she spoke of her mother.

The baronesse picked up her spoon.

Hélène didn’t feel hungry anymore. “They would have been better off if you had shown them compassion.”

The baronesse smirked. “That’s for sheep and tradesmen.” She turned back to her plate.

Hélène stood up, unable to bear the tension. Her mother-in-law ignored her, even when she said, “At least sheep have families. Sheep have love and mutual protection. When something frightening happens, sheep band together to fight off wolves. Sheep do not die alone, withered, and bitter.”

She lifted her chin and strode to the door, anxious to find her husband. She stepped into the hall, where she almost ran into Jean-Louis.

“What did she say to you?” he growled.

“Her children are ungrateful, and I am a stupid sheep,” Hélène replied. She smiled because she suddenly found it didn’t matter as long as Jean-Louis was with her.

“I shouldn’t have left you alone. I meant only to be gone for a minute,” said Jean-Louis, scowling.

“It’s all right,” said Hélène, stopping him from going into the dining room. “We sheep will be happy together. Where is Emmanuel?”

Jean-Louis raised his eyebrows in confusion. “Up in his room. Throwing his things into his bag.”

“Oh! Did you convince him to stay?” She lifted her skirts and started for the stairs.

“Only for tonight,” said Jean-Louis. “It’s still snowing.”

“He feels guilty,” said Hélène.

“What?” said Jean-Louis, keeping pace with her but not touching her, though she wished he would.

“He thought the rest of you were ungrateful. Now he knows you are loyal and trustworthy. He cannot tell himself your mother was right and your father was wrong for taking him away from her. He loves her, but he loves you, too.”

Jean-Louis stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She paused to look down at his disgruntled expression.

“He’s much like you,” she said, suddenly realizing it. “Not just in looks.”

“What?” he said again, still angry. She didn’t think he was angry at her, but she still had to take a deep breath.

“He put her on a pedestal, and you…” She had to think quickly to come up with someone Jean-Louis had idealized. “You put Amandine on a pedestal. You loved her and thought her perfect. When you found out she was petty and manipulative, you were crushed.”

He scowled harder. Hélène went up one more step to get further away from him. “Emmanuel is sick because his mother’s not perfect.”

Jean-Louis turned away from her, and she almost cried out. She had hurt him. He must hate her.

“At least you knew from the start I am not perfect.” She turned and rushed up the stairs to escape his wrath, her righteous anger burned away by the way she had hurt her husband.

She paused outside Emmanuel’s room to catch her breath. She had run up the stairs and down the hall, which was something she would never have been able to do without eyeglasses. She was indebted to her husband for helping her see clearly. But she had hurt him anyway. She almost ran back down to comfort him, but she was afraid of what he would say.

Emmanuel’s door swung open, and the boy blinked at her in surprise. “I was coming back down.” He stepped into the hallway and slammed the door. “Shouldn’t you have sent a servant to drag me down?”

Hélène stepped back from him. He glared at her, then turned away.

He started to walk along the hallway, not waiting for her. She rushed to catch up and put her hand on his arm. He looked down at her hand and slowed.

“It’s not your fault,” she said.

He glanced at her and then looked forward again.

“My aunt and uncle were horrible to me, but they were all I knew after my parents died.”

Emmanuel was silent, but slowed further.

“I believed what they told me.”

He stopped at the top of the stairs.

“Your mother is afraid of losing you the way she lost the others. Your father thought he was doing the right thing by letting her raise you.”

“He thought I was someone else’s bastard,” said Emmanuel, fiercely. “He didn’t want me.”

She looked up at him in surprise. “You look just like Jean-Louis, just like your father. I suppose it’s hard to tell with a baby…”

“Papa knew Manu was his as soon as he was born,” said Jean-Louis from halfway down the stairs.

“But Maman said…”

“Maman’s belly was enormous only six or seven months after she and Papa had reconciled. What was he to think? She went into labor. She had twins—you were so tiny—and he rushed home to apologize.”

Emmanuel’s face twisted like he was going to cry, and Hélène felt tears pricking.

Jean-Louis came up a few more steps. “Papa didn’t get home until the other twin was already dead. She didn’t stand a chance—she was too small. He held you inside his shirt around the clock and gave you to the wet nurse for feedings. For weeks. Maman wouldn’t forgive him for accusing her. She insisted on taking you when you got stronger. Papa felt guilty for doubting her. She went back to court and refused to see the rest of us. I saw her from a distance at family occasions that she could not miss without looking bad—weddings and funerals. Papa is the one who saw to my uniform when I went into the army and who cried when I left. Aurore is the one who kissed me when I got married and held my hand at my wife’s funeral.”

Emmanuel was leaning against the wall when Jean-Louis arrived at the top of the staircase and said, very softly, “We all wondered about you. We wanted to reach out to you. Aurore wrote to you, but you never wrote back.”

“I never got any letters,” said Emmanuel. “She never told me she wrote, and I’ve been living with her for two years.”

“Dom told her you never read the letters, but she was hurt anyway,” said Jean-Louis.

“Henri doesn’t like me,” said Emmanuel, pushing away from the wall, defiant.

“Henri is afraid you will be cruel like Maman,” said Jean-Louis, almost nose to nose with his little brother. “He is protecting himself. We are all protecting ourselves.”

Hélène put her hands on Jean-Louis’ and Emmanuel’s arms. “And Emmanuel is protecting himself from the horrible things his mother told him about all of you.”

Both men—because Emmanuel was certainly big enough to be a man, even though he was still so young—raised their eyebrows at her with identical expressions. She loved being able to see people’s expressions. She smiled at them. “Your mother has pushed everyone away. She is losing Emmanuel because he sees the truth now. She is in a panic and fighting back.”

The brothers looked at each other for a long moment. Hélène wondered what they were thinking behind their nearly identical faces. She prayed briefly they would forgive her for interfering.

“Do you think she’s done with dinner yet?” asked Emmanuel. “I’m still hungry.”

Jean-Louis nodded brusquely and held his arm out to Hélène. Downstairs, they discovered the baronesse had left the dining room, so they sat down, apologized to the servants, and dined in a thoughtful silence.

Chapter Thirteen

The next morning, they left at dawn for the ride to the lawyers’ offices. It took nearly two hours through busy, snow-laden streets. They arrived to find clerks straggling in, apologizing for their lateness.

“Monsieur Laurier, please,” said Jean-Louis, rolling his shoulders back and holding Hélène’s cold hand against his side more tightly.

Fourbier was at his back, but Jean-Louis couldn’t help but feel exposed.

“What is this concerning, Monsieur…” asked the bored-looking man in black clothing.

“I am Monsieur le Colonel de Cantière. This is Mademoiselle Hélène de Bonnefoi, and we are here concerning her inheritance from her father, who died fourteen years ago.”

The man in black looked up, interest in his sleepy eyes. “Mademoiselle de Bonnefoi? We have had several people asking about you over the last few months.”

The clerk went through a doorway, from which Jean-Louis could hear murmured voices. The clerk came out a moment later and ushered them in.

Monsieur Laurier was probably the same age as Jean-Louis’ father and wore a short white wig. He rose and came around his desk, holding out his hands to Hélène.

“So very like your mother,” he said with a sincere smile. “So wonderful to see you after all these years,
ma chère demoiselle
.”

“Merci, Monsieur,” said Hélène with a little curtsey.

As soon as they were settled in, Monsieur Laurier said, “As I told your uncle a few days ago, your father’s will is certainly valid. And of course, in a few days, you will gain control of the entire thing.”

Jean-Louis shifted in his seat.
A few days ago?

“Of my…of my dowry?” asked Hélène.

“Well, yes, the dowry too, of course,” said Monsieur Laurier, his eyebrows rising in surprise. “Are you planning to marry?”

“Yes, we…” Hélène said.

Jean-Louis squeezed her hand in warning. “We are betrothed.”

Hélène looked at him, her eyes huge and confused, even though they had talked about their strategy on the way there. “Yes.”

They both looked at Monsieur Laurier, who was suddenly looking quite stern. “Now listen here, de Cantière…”

“Colonel de Cantière. I prefer it,” said Jean-Louis, stiffening at the challenge.

“I am sorry your wife died, but don’t you think that marrying her cousin… I never had the impression you were interested in the manufactory. It seems a little desperate.”

Jean-Louis looked at Hélène, whose whole face was bunched in thought. She glanced at him, and this time she squeezed his hand.

She took a deep breath. “Monsieur, I was told everything was sold to pay my parents’ debts.”

Laurier scowled. “Of course not. There were some carriages and horses and such that we sold, but everything else has been managed by us and by the bank, in your name. We’ve followed your instructions as best we could.”

Jean-Louis sat forward, his anger evident.

Hélène put her hand on his arm, calming him only slightly. “My instructions? I am sorry, but when did I write to you most recently?”

“Just two weeks ago. You sounded, ah…you sounded quite upset about something. You said you are thinking of becoming a nun and then asked if everything could be sold as soon as you turned twenty-four, in case you had not taken orders by then, so we have been scrambling to find buyers for you. Your shares in the company, though, have to be offered to your uncle and Monsieur Ménine first.”

Jean-Louis’ heartbeat was pounding in his ears. “May we see the letter?” he asked, his voice a low growl.

The lawyer, startled, scrabbled through some papers on his desk and pulled out a letter, which, standing, he handed to Hélène. His gaze darted over Jean-Louis in defiance.

She glanced over it quickly. “It’s not my handwriting.”

“But it’s the same as…well, as it has been since you were about sixteen,” said Laurier. “Here. Here are the others. You only wrote once a year or so, of course.”

He pulled out a small stack of letters and set them on the edge of the desk in front of Hélène. Jean-Louis took the last letter from Hélène’s hand as she picked up the whole stack and began to leaf through them.

“None of them are in my handwriting. I think it is my aunt’s hand. Some of the early ones look like Amandine’s. I have never written you. The last time I had any contact with you, I was fourteen, and my uncle made me wait in the anteroom. Your clerk gave me a candy and a hot cup of coffee. I felt very grown up.”

“He said you were shy and had been sullen lately,” said Laurier. “Which was why you didn’t acknowledge me.”

She stared at the lawyer. “I wasn’t allowed to take my eyeglass out of my pocket. I didn’t see you, Monsieur.”

There was a long silence. Jean-Louis’ mind whirled with the ways he would exact revenge on his former in-laws. His in-laws again.

Hélène’s voice squeaked. “And the house?”

Jean-Louis stared at her. She had never mentioned a house.

Laurier’s eyes went round with shock, his mind obviously racing. “It has been cared for and rented out. A few months ago, when the last people left, we asked you if you would like for us to find new tenants. You said—someone said—you meant to sell it when you turned twenty-four. You—they mentioned the nunnery at that time, saying you had decided to never marry.”

Hélène’s eyes got even larger, and Jean-Louis fumbled for a handkerchief as tears spilled down her cheeks. She smiled hugely. “My mother’s house.”

There was another long silence as she wiped away her tears. Jean-Louis wanted to hold her close and kiss them away.

Suddenly, the lawyer began to dig through the box of papers. He pulled out another stack of papers and smoothed them on the table for a moment before saying, “Ah, most of the principal of your parents’ investments is intact. We’ve been rolling the dividends back into other investments, except for your allowance.” He named a rather large sum. Hélène gasped.

Laurier sighed and scratched his head, making the wig slip. “You haven’t had the allowance, either.”

“No, Monsieur,” said Hélène. “Though my aunt and uncle gave me room and board and a governess, and sometimes a little money.”

“They had the money for your care and education separately. And the extra amounts you requested for dresses and special treats and such,” said the lawyer, holding up the handful of papers. When neither of them leaned forward to take them, the man banged the stack suddenly on his desk, stood up, and paced away.

He turned back with a fierce expression. “Your father was a friend of mine, Mademoiselle. I have failed you. I am… I should be disbarred. We fought together in the army, before the Fronde. We had both sold out by then, merci à Dieu. He was my first and best client. He helped me get started here, and I supported him when his family, an impoverished junior branch of the de Bonnefoi family, turned their backs because he married the daughter of a factory owner. Nearly fourteen years, and I have never once come to see you or spoken to you directly. I should be hanged for gross incompetence.”