Chapter 20
Brielle nearly held her breath when Sylvie led her into an upstairs bedchamber at Orchard Rest to show her the altered gown.
Of Lyonnais silk, the pale-yellow fabric with its vivid patterned fruits and flowers shimmered in the afternoon’s fading light where it lay across the bed.
Exquisite blonde lace overlay the bodice and sleeve ruffles.
The petticoat was also trimmed in lace, the open skirt drawn up by hidden linen tapes.
Shoes of a matching color waited on the floor with ribbon closures.
Sylvie had even thought of a hand fan, its painted edges lace trimmed.
“Every dress tells a story,” Sylvie told her, examining the hem with a seamstress’s eye.
“Long ago, Bleu returned home in a snowstorm with this fabric in his haversack. Though we didn’t know it then, that was to be our last Christmas in Acadie.
I carried the finished dress with me when the British expelled us as it was my most treasured possession.
But I haven’t worn it since my wedding day.
And it’s much too lovely to be shut away. ”
Brielle touched a sleeve ruffle. “It’s the loveliest gown I’ve ever seen.”
“I couldn’t find anything finer in Williamsburg on our last trip, so I altered it to fit you.”
Brielle touched the colorful petticoat then tried on the shoes. Oddly they fit. Beside them were clocked silk stockings and a pair of garters. “You’ve thought of everything.”
“I’ve some jewelry to borrow if you like,” Sylvie said, clearly pleased. “Pearls from the Galants of long ago.”
Brielle thought of Maman’s jewelry box and the keepsakes she’d never worn as her daughter.
Perfect for a French ball, perhaps, but not a colonial American dance on a remote river few had heard of.
Once again, she wondered why Sylvie treated her more like family, hardly a stranger or even one of the settlement women.
Did Bleu have something to do with that?
The next hour was a flurry of bathing and dressing and attempting a coiffure fit for a fête, curling tongs and all.
The finishing touch was the Galant pearls about her neck.
Standing before a looking glass, Brielle felt she was someone else entirely.
The gown’s history involving Bleu made it even more meaningful.
Joining hands, Amélie, Jolie, and Madeleine danced around her skirts with childish praise. “Si belle, si élégante!”
Bleu waited downstairs, they told her. Turning away from the looking glass, Brielle left the bedchamber and started her descent in the new shoes, lace fan dangling from a lemon-yellow ribbon encircling her wrist. Sylvie kept the girls upstairs, putting finishing touches on their own party dresses.
Bleu stood at the bottom step. When she paused on the landing his eyes went wide.
Was he remembering the snowstorm of long ago?
The long journey the exquisite silk had taken, first with him and then his sister?
The joy she’d had when he’d given it to her?
For once he seemed at a loss for words, but his gaze never wavered as she reached the last step.
“I remember that silk …” he murmured.
“Too lovely to be shut away, Sylvie said.”
He reached out and touched a sleeve ruffle. “And now I’m thinking it wasn’t meant for my sister but you.”
She smiled at the fanciful thought, that long ago he had chosen the fabric for her instead, a woman he had yet to meet. Perhaps the gown was meant to be passed down in the family, from one wedding to the next.
The tender moment was undone by the noisy tumult of his nieces and nephews as Will and Sylvie led their brood out the front door and down the hill, each bedecked in their best, while Bleu followed behind with Brielle, his hand at her elbow.
Titus was already at the river with numerous other children, dressed in the shirt and breeches she’d made him.
The sound of fiddle music and the scent of roasting meat permeated the humid late June air.
In the flickering, dramatic light of the cressets—burning iron baskets hanging from poles—Brielle did a quick count of nearly one hundred Acadians.
What a picture the women made in their colorful dresses adorned with a rainbow of ribbons and streamers.
The custom of Acadie? And a great many wooden shoes.
Sabots, Sylvie said. The men dressed much like Bleu in finely tailored shirts and dark breeches, a few in waistcoats.
Bleu left her side to speak with some of the men while Brielle kept close to Sylvie.
Dressed in green brocade, her advancing pregnancy apparent, she was quick to sit yet greeted everyone graciously, introducing Brielle to those she didn’t know.
Benches lined the south riverbank, and the kitchen house doors stood open.
As the porc was raised from the pit, women set out vegetables and bread of all kinds as well as ale and cider.
“First the feasting, then the dancing,” Sylvie told her as a line formed.
Brielle removed her fan from the ribbon at her wrist and opened it. “Do you often have these gatherings?”
“Once a month, usually, aside from weddings and christenings and such. It’s been our tradition since the settlement’s founding, a rest from our labors and a celebration of God’s bounty foremost.”
Sabine Broussard was first in line, reminding Brielle of Bleu’s refusal to return her to Acadie. At the sound of his voice, Sabine looked back at them, unsmiling. Uncomfortable, Brielle pivoted toward Bleu who now stood so close she caught the Castile soap scent of him.
His gaze lowered to her throat. “You’re wearing the Galant pearls.”
She fingered the necklace, warm against her skin. “Sylvie is as bighearted as you are.”
“Bighearted? My sister just evicted me from her house.”
“What?”
“I’m now in mine, rough as it is. But the staircase is nearly done.” His voice held an enthusiasm she’d not heard before, even regret. “It doesn’t curve quite like yours in Philadelphia nor is there an angel in an alcove—”
She put a finger to his lips to shush him. “There needn’t be.”
He smiled and her hand fell away. Their close rapport was garnering attention and not only Sabine’s. Suddenly shamefaced, Brielle moved forward in line, turning away from him.
Her attention swung to desserts on a far table. “Tarte à la rhubarbe? And gateau à la mélasse?”
“You make me want to finish my kitchen,” he said behind her.
Suddenly sweets were the furthest thing from her mind.
She was all too aware of him—and Sabine—and the notice being paid her in her Lyonnais silk gown.
Sabine left the kitchen house, her head held high like an Acadian queen while Brielle suddenly felt an imposter, a tavern maid, trying to fit in and find her place.
If Virginians were said to be the finest dancers among His Majesty’s colonials, surely the Acadians weren’t far behind them.
Bleu’s lesson in the orchard helped smooth Brielle’s steps and nerves.
Once supper had settled, he claimed her for the first dance, a lively reel, and though she didn’t step it perfectly she learned quickly and didn’t repeat her mistakes.
Bleu partnered with Sylvie next and then Sabine while Brielle danced with several men she didn’t know as the clock ticked toward midnight.
Winded and exhilarated, she wanted nothing more than to be away from the melee and alone with Bleu.
But he seemed to have forgotten about her, talking and laughing with his fellow Acadians when he wasn’t dancing, sometimes disappearing altogether.
When Sabine vanished, too, Brielle felt a qualm.
What was the gist of their relationship?
Titus sidled up to her and gave a charming little bow. “You look pretty tonight, not all worn out like you did at the tavern.”
Amused by his honesty, she sat down on a bench facing the river, patting the seat beside her. “How good it is to be worn out from a fête instead.”
He nodded as he turned his back on the swirl of dancers. “I just want this frolic to be over so I can return to the river. Bleu’s going to take me fishing again tomorrow after I help him put up shelves in his kitchen.”
Ah, the kitchen, in need of her own special rhubarb tart. She felt a bone-deep contentment thinking of the clean, whitewashed space, followed by an ache that it might someday belong to someone else instead.
“Look at this hook and lure he made.” He dug into his pocket then held it aloft in the flickering light of the cressets. “He took one of Mrs. Blackburn’s sewing needles and bent it to shape, then carved this lure of willow and stained it in the dying shed. Now it only needs a feather to finish.”
Brielle studied it, impressed. “You’re becoming quite the fisherman. I even heard you’re helping build a stone weir upriver.”
“I’m making a reed weir for streams, too, but first Bleu taught me to swim.”
Had he?
Titus eyed her curiously. “Can you swim?”
“I cannot but perhaps Bleu can teach me, too.” The idea of being reduced to smallclothes in the middle of the river suddenly held great appeal. “I’ve not even ferried across the Rivanna yet.”
“I have.” His small chest swelled with pride. “Jean-Marc, the ferryman, said he might take me on as his right hand.”
Suddenly Titus seemed far older than his eight years. So many interests and plans he had while she bounced from one task to the next, never sure of herself or what she did, including the next step.
“I’m glad you’re happy here and of help.” She draped an arm about his shoulders and hugged him close. “Our old life overmountain seems like it never was.”
They sat in the shadows in companionable quiet as the fiddle music showed signs of waning, a few people departing as the full moon rose in a cloudless sky.
Coming up behind them unawares, Bleu took a seat on the bench, Titus between them. “Ready to return to the cottage?”
Brielle met Bleu’s eyes briefly, not minding a whit that Titus was already on his feet, his mind clearly on the morrow and a good night’s sleep. She got to her feet as Bleu, without a lantern, simply led them on the path he’d walked so many times before.
When they reached the cottage, they said goodnight.
Titus disappeared inside, and she followed only to reappear on the porch and watch Bleu climb the hill to his house.
Was he sleeping upstairs there? Somehow that seemed to suggest his staying in Virginia, assuaging her unsettled heart.
Only his handsome house deserved a name.
What would it be?