Chapter Eleven
“What do you suppose the marquis needs to talk to Henri and Nicolette about?” Céleste might just as easily have been speaking to herself as to Aldric.
“I haven’t the first idea. And I confess my thoughts are a little too filled with the mess Jean-Francois has entangled all of you in for pondering much else.”
Her mouth set in a fierce line. “I could strangle him.”
“I am excessively relieved to hear you say that.”
She looked at him with an understandable expression of confusion.
“I have been more than a little frustrated at how accepting you have seemed to be of his behavior,” Aldric explained. “I have not known you to be mousy, and yet I have not heard you object to his treatment or ask for help in thwarting him.”
“In my defense, I do know he’s being horrid, and I do object. But I’ve also found that pushing back makes things worse. I am choosing my battles, General. And that is not a strategy that is always easy to embrace.”
“Believe me, I know. Choosing my battles with my father usually meant keeping mum while he hurled insults and belittlements at me.”
“Our father was similar.” She flicked open her fan as they walked on. “He terrified me. I was too afraid to strategize while he was alive. I did my best to avoid him, and when I couldn’t, I dedicated myself to simply surviving.”
“Henri and I very quickly discovered in each other sufferers of similar fates where our fathers were concerned. I am sorry you claim membership in that club as well.”
“I am glad he found you.” She set her free hand on his arm, another unexceptional gesture that his heart responded illogically to. “Henri was miserable at home.”
“So were you.” He gently shifted her hand so her arm threaded through his, unsure where the impulse had come from. “You still are; that is obvious.”
“I think my favorite moments are those rare times when I am at home and Jean-Francois is not. That seldom happens though.” She moved the tiniest bit closer to him, evidenced by the fact that the breeze she created with her fan now rustled the lace of his cravat.
Her nearness was further evidenced by the hurried clip of his pulse, but he ignored that.
“Jean-Francois requires that I participate in a constant whir of activity.”
Heavens, how could Aldric have been so oblivious? “I am setting too swift a pace for our walk and have continued it far too long. You need to rest.”
She began to object but then seemed to think better of it. “I likely should sit down, even for just a few minutes.”
“We’ll make our way toward the Colonnade. You can sit there and rest for as long as you’d like.”
“How many times have you been to Versailles?” she asked as they walked on.
“While my mother was still living, we visited France quite often. And we came here several times on every trip. She had friends at Versailles whom she missed.”
“I imagine they missed her as well. Everyone who spoke of her at the soiree did so with fondness and admiration.”
“She was universally loved. Almost. My father never managed to love her, but I don’t know that he ever loved anyone.” That he was speaking so openly of his family with Céleste was yet another surprise in an already surprising day.
“I realize what I am about to ask is rather prying, and you might in the end simply tell me to worry about my own concerns,” Céleste said, “but I have no doubt that you have come to Versailles for a specific purpose, and that purpose isn’t wandering around with your friend’s sister.
” There was enough amusement in her pointed gaze to twitch his lips upward.
“If you were to tell me what it is you need to accomplish here, then I might manage to be a help rather than a hindrance.”
She was prying a little, and yet he didn’t mind. That was almost as strange a reaction as the flip in his heart when she’d smiled at him.
“I haven’t even told the Gents why I needed to come to France,” he said.
Céleste nodded. “This is clearly a very personal matter. I won’t press you to explain, but please at least tell me if I am making your task more difficult or complicated.”
As easily as that, she intended to honor his desire for privacy, be as helpful as possible, and do what she could not to impede an effort he’d refused to tell her about. It was very charitable of her. “There are times when you put me firmly in mind of your brother.”
She raised a single eyebrow. “If I were a gentleman, I would call you out for that.”
Aldric laughed quietly. “Not that brother.”
“Ah.” She didn’t keep her amusement as fully tucked away as he did. “In my defense, knowing full well how remarkable Henri is, I did not for a moment assume I reminded you of him.”
“We all feel that way about our Archbishop.” Henri had been given that sobriquet very quickly after joining their brotherhood. “Only Stanley was as altruistic as Henri.”
“But I have never heard Stanley described as having been ‘saintly,’” Céleste said.
Aldric grinned. “Certainly not.”
They passed under a marbled arch and into the Colonnade, a perfectly circular courtyard nearly two hundred feet across, encircled by a marble wall made of thirty-two identical, connected columned arches.
Four of the arches were the entrances to a courtyard.
Centered beneath all the others were matching fountains; a single spray of water sprang upward from every one of them.
At the center of the circle was yet another exquisitely carved statue, this one a depiction of the abduction of Persephone from Greek myth.
There was not a single inch of Versailles that was not elegant and majestic.
“I had forgotten how lovely the Colonnade is.” Céleste looked around with obvious pleasure as they slowly made their circuit of the courtyard.
“And I had forgotten that, beautiful as this spot is, there are no benches for sitting on.” He was not proving a very reliable strategist just then. “We can find another place to stop, though that would mean walking farther.”
“I don’t want to leave so beautiful a spot yet.”
He didn’t know if she was attempting to spare his pride at having made her walk to a place where she could not actually rest or if she truly felt equal to continuing to be on her feet. Either way, he found himself reluctant to argue with her.
And in that exact moment, a man, dressed in workman’s clothes, slipped inside the Colonnade. He carried pruning shears in one hand and a wooden bucket in the other. Shears. A gardener, then.
“Pardon me a moment,” Aldric said to Céleste and crossed toward the serendipitous arrival.
The gardener dipped his head in acknowledgment when Aldric neared him.
“Would your family name happen to be Chauvin?”
The man shook his head. “But there’s quite a few working here from that family.”
“I need to speak with a member of that family who would have been employed here at least fifteen years ago.”
“Marcel Chauvin’s been here thirty years at least,” the man said. “Are you needing to see him urgently?”
“Yes, actually.”
“I’ll find him and bring him back here.”
Céleste wasn’t so far from them that he could be certain she hadn’t heard the exchange. She likely thought him odd to be searching out a gardener. But she’d chosen earlier not to pry and, he hoped, would continue to do so.
She shifted her gaze from the carved depictions of various Roman emperors above the columns to the statue at the center of the Colonnade. She didn’t quite hide her yawn. He really ought to have taken them to a place with benches.
“Let’s find somewhere for you to sit,” he said, crossing to her once more.
She shook her head. “You need to be here when the gardener returns with Marcel Chauvin.”
She had overheard.
“I have no desire to see you laid low by unnecessary exertion,” he said.
Céleste offered him a soft smile, and his misbehaving heart fluttered again. “You are taking great pains to ensure my well-being.”
“If you collapse in exhaustion,” he said, “Henri will never forgive me.”
Her expression froze a little. “Henri.” A tight smile pulled momentarily at her features. “Of course.” She took a quick breath. “I truly am not on the verge of fainting. Even if I were, Henri is, as we pointed out, something of a saint. He would forgive you.”
She resumed her walk, her gaze on the carvings once more. But her posture was not as relaxed; her air was not as peaceful. Was she upset with him? Why? He’d thought they’d passed an enjoyable afternoon.
Céleste didn’t look back as long minutes passed. Neither did she allow her exploration of the Colonnade to bring her back toward him. He had no further clues as to her displeasure when, more than a quarter hour later, the gardener returned with a man of the older generation.
Here, at least, was something he understood and knew how to approach. Aldric moved with determined steps to them.
“You are Marcel Chauvin?” he asked.
“I am. What can I do for you, monsieur?”
Aldric had committed to memory his mother’s instructions.
He pulled from his pocket the miniature of himself and his mother, painted not long before she passed.
“My mother was Clothilde Guillaume. She told me to find a member of the Chauvin family at Versailles. She instructed me to show you this painting and tell you that I am Lord Aldric Oliver Benick, that she was indeed my mother, and that she sent me here to retrieve a parcel left in the care of your family many years ago.”
Marcel smiled, revealing a mouth only half full of teeth but eyes filled with kindness. “She was a good woman, your mother. Everyone who knew her thought so.”
“She was remarkable,” Aldric acknowledged.
“When Armel told me a gentleman of obviously very high standing was asking for a member of my family who had been at Versailles for years, I thought you might be the son of la Duchesse de Hartley come to Versailles at last.” He pulled from one of his large pockets a parcel wrapped in thick burlap and tied in a double bow.
The man held it out to him. “She left this for you, my lord.”
Aldric accepted. “Thank you for keeping this safe all these years.”
The man offered a deep and respectful bow. “La duchesse was good to us. Versailles has not been the same since she left.”
“The entire world has not been the same since she left.”
After another quick bow from the two gardeners, who then departed, Aldric was left holding this last offering from his mother, unsure what came next.
His eyes darted between the miniature still in his hand and the parcel in the other.
He’d not even known six weeks earlier that this gift was waiting for him, yet obtaining it felt like the culmination of a lifetime, like a moment so many small moments had been leading to.
The thought of opening the parcel felt like losing the last moment he would have with his mother.
“I think I will make my way to the Apollo Fountain,” Céleste said.
He’d all but forgotten she was there. He managed a quick response. “I haven’t seen the Apollo Fountain in years.”
“You needn’t accompany me. You need a moment with your mother.” Her enormously insightful comment, offered with such a deep level of understanding, nearly upended him. Nothing ever did.
Aldric looked at her. While her expression was one of sensitivity to what she knew of his situation, the aloofness that had swept over her before the gardener’s return was still firmly in place.
She was upset with him, and he had no idea why.
He’d not said anything unkind. He’d been considerate of her health. They’d had a pleasant conversation.
It ought to have continued to be a perfectly amicable afternoon. Instead, she was nettled for no obvious reason, and he was left trying to navigate that while simultaneously sifting through the emotions that always accompanied thoughts of his mother.
He couldn’t manage both. At the moment, he wasn’t certain he could manage either.
Aldric tucked both the painting and the parcel into his pockets, each taking up nearly the entirety of the one it was placed in. He set his shoulders, pushing back emotion and sentimentality.
“Let’s go see if there are any benches near the Apollo Fountain,” he said and motioned for her to lead the way.
He would open the parcel when he returned to his lodgings. Perhaps. His father had taught him many lessons beyond how to be afraid. Being in that man’s family had given Aldric ample opportunities to learn how to hide his pain.
He would simply do so again.