Chapter 31
He wouldn’t come between an old man and his only granddaughter. That was the crux of the matter. In his suite, Bleu pondered what he’d told the comte before he’d left his study earlier this morning.
I have overstayed my welcome, Monsieur. Remaining here would cause a scandal for you and your granddaughter which is not my intent.
It has become apparent no man will approach her—court her—so long as I am present.
A ship is leaving Nantes for Virginia soon.
I’ll return to port as soon as the weather clears if you’ll kindly loan me a coach.
He packed his trunk, his relief at returning to North America at odds with his devotion to Brielle.
But he had completed what he’d hoped for by reuniting her with her grandfather.
She had the whole world before her, a far brighter future than any he could offer in America or elsewhere.
Once on board ship there would be plenty of time to decide his own future.
He might well go to Acadie if only to clear his heart and head of her. If he ever could.
For now, he packed and welcomed being preoccupied with the coming journey since it left him little time to dwell on her.
Midafternoon the thunder and lightning cleared though rain continued to pelt down.
Traveling so late in the year was hazardous, and he needed to determine if Nadine was ready to go suddenly or if he’d sail alone provided he found passage.
Sailings were fewer in winter, the seas more dangerous.
Brielle would be unhappy with his leaving, as unhappy as he himself was, and so a letter would spare them both a final, wrenching goodbye.
Taking out ink and paper left him unusually choked and groping for words.
In an agony of remorse, he filled one page, then two.
He’d prayed for the right time, the right words—had the Almighty provided that by keeping Brielle at the Pavillon?
He’d leave her with the one thing he had left from Acadie, a final, heartfelt gift that could be worn this winter. He valued it like he had the Lyonnaise silk he’d brought Sylvie long ago, never thinking Brielle would wear it, too. Removing the fur from his trunk, he left it by his letter.
The few miles to Nantes passed in a blur.
He was strangely weary as if all his carefully stowed feelings since he’d first found Brielle at the crossroads were taking an inward toll.
By the time the lights of Nantes came into view his spirits had sunk to his boots.
But he pressed on, hauling his trunk into the inn, securing the same room he’d had before, and sending a message to the docks about departing ships.
He wouldn’t chance going himself. After dark, thieves, smugglers, and pirates flooded the taverns along the harbor where drunkenness and disorder ruled.
He went downstairs to the dining room, realizing he’d not eaten supper, the rumble in his gut no match for the hollowness in his heart.
Midnight brought a reply. L’Aimable would sail with the tide.
Felicitous timing, that. He consulted tide tables pinned to the wall near the inn’s entrance and awaited a reply from Nadine.
At last it came. She would sail with him accompanied by her uncle and promised to arrive in the morning.
All was falling into place.
Bleu lay down in his lodgings as the inn’s noise faded to a few footsteps and an occasional slammed door.
The public rooms were on the ground floor at the other end of the building, sparing him the fumes of spirits and smoke.
Weary as he was, he couldn’t sleep. Questions spun through his head as the ache inside him widened.
He hadn’t known such misery since his family had been forced from Acadie and he’d stood on shore and watched the rotting transports depart and the British set fire to Acadie’s homesteads.
Tonight he seemed to be coming apart all over again as another sort of anguish tore at him, made up of unmet, unrealized needs and abandoned dreams and all that he’d left unspoken.
Dieu, aide-moi.
Had he not given this matter over to the Almighty? Surrendered Brielle to Him and asked Him to cover her if he could not? Only sheer will kept him from returning to the chateau. This devilish lack of peace gave him no rest.
At last Brielle left the Pavillon and arrived back at the chateau to find Grandfather looking strangely dejected. She kissed both his cheeks, and he embraced her a bit longer than usual, raising her alarm.
“Are you well?” she asked worriedly as a servant took her wraps.
“I’m relieved you’ve returned safely.” He led her into the adjoining salon. “But it is always melancholy when a beloved guest departs. As of yesterday, Monsieur Galant has left.”
“Left? In such stormy weather?” The bottom dropped out of her stomach. “What do you mean?”
“He has gone to Nantes and is preparing to sail to Virginia if he hasn’t done so already. He left you a letter—”
“Grand-père!” Her voice broke. She looked frantically at the clock as if she could stop its ticking. “Why did you not talk him out of it?”
“Ma chère …” His aged face had never looked so sorrowful. “He thought it wise to go for many reasons and I could not prevent him.”
Rushing from the room, she hardly heard him, a sick panic shadowing her as she sought the staircase to Bleu’s rooms. Where had he left the letter?
Why had he left her?
Suddenly an entire ocean separating them seemed a chasm too deep. If he’d truly gone—if she couldn’t reach him in time …
She burst into his empty suite as if her haste could somehow help the situation.
His treasured scent threaded the air though the room was empty of all his belongings.
There on his desk lay an open, unsealed letter—and a black sable muff and cape, the fur so glossy it shone like onyx.
Had it come from Canada? Of his own making?
She lifted the letter, her tears spattering the black ink. She let them fall, not wanting to take the time to dig for a handkerchief. His slanted letters reminded her he was left-handed. Writing, he’d said, had never been his forte.
Ma belle Brielle …
My beautiful Brielle. Her crushed heart seemed to stop.
This is not how I wanted to say goodbye, but I doubt I would be able to leave you in person so this must suffice. Please accept this gift of my hands and heart, a black sable muff and cape from my beloved Acadie instead of the miniature you wanted painted of me.
Accompanying you to France has been the greatest joy of my life.
Non, it began before that, when I first found you at the inn in the foothills.
I knew even then you were made for finer things.
I had never seen so lovely and gracious a woman, a true beauty, nor one more deserving of regaining all you have lost.
Now that I have played a small part in reuniting you with your grandfather I can go more easily, if not let go easily. There are a thousand things I would rather say than farewell, but life is far from a fairytale no matter how much we wish it. Au revoir.
For now and always, I remain your ever devoted
—Bleu
When dawn broke after a near sleepless night, Bleu was already on his feet and dressed, shouldering his trunk as he went below. The gifts he and Brielle had chosen for Sylvie and her family waited in another large trunk in the inn’s foyer.
Nadine and her uncle were at the entrance, their own baggage in a hand cart. Upon loading his own, the three of them left the inn together after exchanging a terse greeting. Yesterday’s stormy weather had vanished. The clear if cold day failed to lift his spirits though it made for fine sailing.
“Where is Brielle?” Nadine asked, the question arrow sharp.
“She’ll remain in France with her grandfather,” he replied, keeping his eyes on the sun as it poured over a confusion of warehouses and shops and quays.
Vessels of all shapes and sizes—merchantmen, frigates, brigs, corsairs, even the nightmarish slave ships—and a host of scents, not all of them savory, assailed them as orders were shouted in French and Breton and languages he’d never heard.
L’Amiable’s captain greeted them and recorded their names on the manifest as a cabin boy came to collect their baggage.
A three-masted merchantman, its square linen sails taut in the wind, the ship bore a small number of cannons mounted on the upper deck, a figurehead and decorative elements on the stern marking the ship’s home port.
The tide was rushing in, swelling the activity in the harbor as ships readied to weigh anchor.
While Nadine and her uncle went below deck, Bleu watched sailors climb the rigging and all deckhands make ready to depart.
Bound for French-held Louisiane, the vessel would first dock in Virginia—York Town—before making its way along the coast further south.
He stood by the railing and faced the immensity of the ocean, back turned on Nantes as the wintry wind beat at him and frothed the water into a restless rhythm.
They weighed anchor earlier than planned, the creak of the vessel pronounced as it left its moorings.
His heart, torn and now broken, seemed to plummet to the harbor’s bottom.