Miramont's Ghost (13 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A
drienne left the cemetery on the hill and clicked the gate closed. She pulled her cloak around her, wrapped her hands in her muff. The wind was up. It brushed her cheeks with color. Her boots crunched on the icy pellets of snow, and she moved quickly toward the castle. December had come, with a vengeance.

Since the night at the opera house, since her vision of Marie, splattered with blood, Adrienne had spent many hours here. Despite the approaching winter, she came to the cemetery almost every day, sitting near the headstones of her grand-père and her grand-mère. She had begun to speak, silently, in her own mind, to the grandmother she had never known—the grandmother who also had visions. She knew nothing, really, and a dreamy, surreal vision did not seem like enough to make her break her promise of silence to her grand-père. But she desperately wanted one of them to guide her, to tell her how to handle these ominous feelings that were creeping into every corner of her mind.

Adrienne walked briskly on her return to the château. She stepped into the hall, pulled the string of her cloak, and let it drop from her shoulders. Emelie came skipping out of the parlor and danced in circles around the tiled floor of the hall. “He’s coming!” she sang. “He’s coming!” She grinned at Adrienne.

“Who’s coming?”

Emelie stopped dancing. She sucked in her lower lip and let her eyes roll back in her head, as if she couldn’t believe that Adrienne could be so dense. Then she beamed at her sister; her eyes danced. She stared at Adrienne, twisted back and forth. “He’s coming! He’s coming!”

Adrienne rolled her own eyes and walked into the parlor. She moved directly to the fireplace, held her reddened, brittle hands toward the warmth.

“Oh, Adrienne. I’m glad you’re back.” Genevieve sailed into the room, a letter in her hand. She stopped a few feet away. “We’ve had a letter from your father.” Her face held the same impish grin that Emelie’s did, as if they’d both swallowed tincture of mischief.

Adrienne said nothing.

“He’s coming home this weekend.” Genevieve’s smile grew wider. “And he’s bringing guests.” She waited, as if she expected Adrienne to jump with excitement, to guess at who might be coming.

Adrienne stood perfectly still. A tingling sensation started crawling up her spine.

“The Devereuxs will be with him. They haven’t seen this part of the country, and are anxious to get away from the city for a while.” She smiled at her oldest daughter. “I find it difficult to believe that could be the only reason for their visit.” There was a look in Genevieve’s eyes that was new to Adrienne, as if this possible interest in her daughter took her back to her own days of courting.

Adrienne turned back to face the fire. She held her hands to the heat, but pulled them to her sides when she saw how much they trembled. She felt a blush flaming in her face, like a sleeping ember that blazes to life from a sudden gust of wind. Her heart raced. She did not want her mother or her sister to see the color, to notice her sudden nerves.

Genevieve sat down in the wing chair and looked through the letter once more. “Your father says they are a fine old family. Gerard has worked at the embassy for five years now. Your father says he is very capable, very intelligent.”

Antoine ran into the room, Emelie close behind him. He stopped behind Adrienne on the rug and poked at her hair. “Adrienne has a beau-eau. Adrienne has a beau-eau.” His voice had a singsong quality to it. His eyes twinkled with mischief.

Adrienne turned from the fire and reached for his collar. He sidestepped, and skipped around the room, grinning. “I wonder how many babies they’ll have?”

“Antoine, young gentlemen do not behave like that,” Marie’s voice snapped from the table by the window. The drapes were pulled. Adrienne had not seen her sitting there. Four pairs of eyes shot over to the darkened area.

Antoine stopped skipping. He stood behind the divan. He grinned at Adrienne, raised his eyebrows.

Lucie met Adrienne’s eyes. Adrienne tried to read Lucie’s look, across the room, but the governess was mostly in shadow, and she could not.

Adrienne turned back to the fire, gazing into the flames as if they held the key to the future.

Genevieve had rearranged the place cards on the dining room table several times now. She couldn’t decide whether to put Adrienne and Gerard across from one another or next to one another. She finally settled on next to one another, with Pierre at one end of the table and Marie at the other. Genevieve would sit across from Adrienne, ready to help out if Adrienne should falter. And she would put Gerard’s father, Armand, next to Marie. She thought he might be able to keep Marie occupied.

She had cut tuberoses from the greenhouse, and sent Antoine out for pine boughs. She hummed as she made three small arrangements for the table, another for the parlor after dinner.

The younger children, for the first time, were not allowed at the dinner table. They would eat upstairs, in their rooms, Lucie supervising to make sure that Antoine didn’t sneak down the stairs and put pinecones on chairs or whistle inappropriately.

Candlelight danced on the walls, on the china and crystal, on the faces of the six people around the table.

Adrienne kept her eyes on her plate. Years of isolation, of learning to stay quiet, had made her completely uncomfortable around strangers. She had no idea what to say, or where to look. Every bite she took, every swallow, seemed vastly loud to her own ears. She stole glances at her mother, sitting directly across from her, and could tell that Genevieve was enjoying this immensely. Genevieve smiled often; her eyes danced. She met Adrienne’s eyes and tipped her head toward Gerard, as if she could will the girl to speak, to be comfortable in this new situation.

Marie, at the other end of the table, looked regal and at ease. She spoke easily to both Armand and Gerard, who sat on each side of her. “When were you in the embassy, monsieur?” she asked Armand.

“From 1838 to 1872,” he replied. “An exciting time, as you well know.”

“Perhaps you remember my late husband, Jacques Morier?”

Armand studied the air in front of him for a minute, his white eyebrows knit together. “The ambassador to Russia, at one time, I believe?”

Marie nodded, obviously pleased.

“Yes, yes. I remember him. He had a gift, that young man. The gift of holding his tongue. I think some of the younger men do not understand how valuable that can be.” He smiled at Marie, sipped his wine. “They haven’t grown up around so many fine examples of men and women who lost their heads for speaking their minds.”

“Indeed,” Marie replied. “Diplomacy has much more to do with restraint, I think, than with speaking.”

Gerard cast a sideways glance at Adrienne. “Did you enjoy the opera?” He kept his voice low, allowing Marie and Armand to continue their conversation.

Adrienne did not look up. “Very much,” she murmured.

“Such a beautiful opera house. The sound carries very well, I think. Have you been often?”

Adrienne shook her head. “No. No, unfortunately, we don’t often get to Paris.”

Gerard turned slightly and looked at her directly. “That’s a shame. I had hoped to see more of you there. You looked as if you were completely lost in the music a few weeks ago. As if you were absorbed in the story.”

Adrienne flushed. Was that what he was thinking, when he turned to look at her that evening? She raised her eyes and met his own. They were brown and kind. She stared at him for a moment and dropped her eyes back to her meal. She stole a glance at her mother, across from her. Genevieve was radiant. She sipped her wine and smiled at her daughter and the handsome young man beside her.

After dinner, the group moved to the parlor. A fire blazed in the fireplace, and Lucie had brought Antoine and Emelie down to join the others. Stefan poured brandies and coffees for the men. The perfume of the tuberoses and pine boughs on the table competed with the men’s cigars, the aromas twisting together.

“You must hear my daughter play,” Pierre said. “She has a very light touch on the pianoforte. Lovely, actually.”

Adrienne looked up from the divan, a cup of coffee balanced on her knee. “Oh, Papa, I . . .” Her hands had been trembling all evening. She knew there was no way she could play with anything resembling her usual acumen.

Lucie noticed her look of panic and stood. She held out her hand. “Come, Adrienne. Let’s do one of the new duets from
Hänsel and Gretel
.”

Adrienne put her coffee on the table and took Lucie’s hand.

Armand caught her gaze, his blue eyes twinkling. “Oh, that would be lovely. My wife used to play, may she rest in peace. I have so missed music in the house—the sound of a woman’s voice.”

Adrienne smiled at him and curtsied. He reminded her so much of her grand-père, she felt she would do almost anything for the man. She and Lucie sat down on the bench, and Adrienne stared at the keys for a moment. They moved into the prayer, from act 2, their two voices soaring into the height of the parlor ceiling.

Gerard stood back by the window. The curtains were pulled and his face obscured in the dim light. Armand moved to the side of the pianoforte, smiling wistfully, his eyes focused on some long-ago memory. Pierre stood slightly behind him, brandy snifter in his hand; the tip of his cigar glowed red.

Marie sat in the wing chair next to the fire. Adrienne could see her, behind and to the left of Armand. For one brief second, a single picture flickered in Adrienne’s mind, a picture straight out of her vision at the opera house a few weeks before: Marie, turning slowly, her dark dress splattered in blood.

Adrienne’s fingers faltered on the keys. The image disappeared as quickly as it had come, and she dropped her eyes to the keyboard, forcing herself to focus on the notes of the piece. She felt as if everyone were staring at her: Marie, in her chair by the fire; Armand, standing next to the pianoforte; her father, standing close beside him. Adrienne’s fingers stumbled once again; her voice wavered. She forced herself to keep going.

When they finished, she looked up, horrified by both her vision and her errors. Armand stood, clapping enthusiastically. “Brava! Brava!” Adrienne sighed heavily, relief flooding through her that the song was over and that Armand could be so kind. She couldn’t help but smile at him. She found herself falling slightly in love with him, with his enthusiasm and appreciation, with his eyes that were so like Grand-père’s. For a moment, she felt safe and protected, as she had when Grand-père was alive. For a moment, she forgot about Marie.

She did not turn to look at her father for several heartbeats. When she did, her smile dropped. Her father was staring in her direction, but it was not Adrienne who had captured his attention. His eyes were glued to Lucie. Even as he sipped his brandy, and complimented the fine performance, he looked at no one but the governess.

“That was lovely,” Gerard said, stepping out from the corner. His voice was very soft.

Adrienne turned to look at him. She met his eyes, as she had a few times at dinner, and in the warmth of his gaze, she forgot everything. She forgot her vision of Marie; she forgot the strange look in her father’s eyes; and for a moment, at least, she forgot how badly she had hammered the song. She forgot the tension, the fear, the intense sensitivity that she felt in every nuance, every glance, when Marie was present. There was nothing at this moment but that glow in Gerard’s eyes, the way his voice wrapped around his words. For several seconds, Adrienne let herself fall into that embrace.

“Yes, quite so.” Armand placed his brandy snifter on the table. “But it’s getting rather late. I hope this hasn’t been an imposition.”

Adrienne looked again at the older gentleman and felt all the gratitude she used to feel when Grand-père moved to rescue her from some uncomfortable situation. “Thank you, sir,” she said, rising from the bench. “It was no imposition at all. I’m afraid I must be more tired than I thought—I seemed to have misplaced a few notes.” She curtsied toward Monsieur Devereux. “Please forgive me.”

Armand waved his hand. “On the contrary, young lady. It was absolutely beautiful.”