Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
“Perhaps while you are at my home, I can teach you the English words for the flowers we see.”
She nodded eagerly. “And the words for colors, please?”
“Any word you want to learn.”
She looked absolutely delighted at the possibility. Oh, he was going to miss her terribly when she left Norwood.
He’d promised Céleste not to worry over those future things yet, in exchange for her doing the same. He wanted her to have that peace of mind, and he wasn’t willing to intentionally break his word to her.
His focus needed to be on keeping his ladies safe. As Céleste had pointed out, they were being toyed with. Though those following them hadn’t made another appearance, Aldric was absolutely certain they were not out of danger. He couldn’t let his anticipated loneliness distract him.
Adèle pointed at the horse. “Un cheval.” There was a hint of a question in the word.
Recognizing what she wanted without having to be told was a rather satisfying thing. He smiled down at her. “In English, we say ‘horse.’”
She tried that word a few times, her brow knit in concentration. As they stood there watching the horse, Adèle asked the English words for hay, dirt, rain, wagon, and flowers. She practiced each one over and over.
When Céleste came and stood beside them, Adèle was all excitement. “Tonton Aldric is teaching me English words. I have learned buttercup and horse and—” She thought a moment. “And rain and flowers and . . . other ones.” She smiled proudly.
“How very clever you are, ma poupette.”
Adèle looked to him once more. “Tonton Aldric, I am hungry.”
“We have food in our basket. I think we should all return to the wagon and have a bit to eat.”
She skipped back toward the wagon. Aldric and Céleste followed more sedately.
“I did make attempts to teach her English,” Céleste said. “Jean-Francois wouldn’t permit it. Adèle obviously doesn’t even remember that I tried.”
He felt an urge to put an arm around her, perhaps to even hug her as he had in the field earlier.
That had led to kissing her, which he had decidedly enjoyed.
But he’d been brought crashing back down to earth by the undeniable reality that Céleste had, after that heart-pounding kiss, grown more closed off and a little emotionally distant.
Aldric didn’t think he’d offended her or that she was angry or off-put. She seemed more uncertain than anything. Her hesitancy kept him more grounded in reality.
They enjoyed a simple meal, sitting in the wagon bed, with Adèle regaling them with the many things she’d seen at the farmer’s house and the flowers she hoped to someday see at Aldric’s.
They had everything cleaned up and the wagon bed as it had been the night before.
Adèle lay in the middle near the top, with Céleste’s violin, their shared portmanteau, and the food basket completing the makeshift barrier.
Aldric would miss that when their journey was complete.
Even when he had a very comfortable bed to stretch out in, without having to bend his knees all night long and hold as still as he could so he didn’t bump Adèle awake, he’d miss the way his honorary niece always came closer to him by morning, trusting him so completely.
And he’d miss waking in the morning and seeing Céleste on the other side of the barrier.
It was a dangerous line of thinking, imagining something so domestic. He needed to heed his own advice and not let thoughts of the future cloud the necessities of the moment.
He tested the blanket he’d laid flat to dry earlier. It was still a little damp.
“I can share Adèle’s blanket,” Céleste said. “Then you can use the one I currently have.”
“This one will be dry soon. In the meantime, I’ll keep my coat on.”
Céleste sat on her side of the wagon bed.
Her hair had been plaited loosely. The blanket wrapped around her only added to the excessively familiar feel of their arrangement.
He would absolutely need to send word to Fairfield the moment they reached England so Niles and Penelope could reach Norwood as soon as possible.
If word of this arrangement ever reached the ears of Society in either France or England, they’d both be ruined.
No matter that it was necessary, no matter that they had done everything possible to maintain what degree of propriety could be clung to; it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the perfection Society demanded.
And having the Greenberrys there might be enough to convince Céleste to stay for a while.
Aldric leaned against the wall of his side of the wagon bed, trying to shake off the melancholy hope that seemed to have lodged so fully in his heart.
He wanted what he’d been granted such a fleeting glimpse of but wasn’t sure how to claim it.
He wasn’t sure he even had the right to imagine it.
Céleste trusted him, and they’d worked well together, but when she’d spoken of what her future was likely to be, she’d mentioned finding a position to support herself in England or returning to France.
She’d not even hinted at staying with him. And kissing him hadn’t seemed to turn her thoughts in that direction. He would do well to keep that in mind.
He tucked his chilled hands into his coat pockets. His fingers brushed against his mother’s parcel. In what had become almost habit, he took it out and, as he always did, studied it. It never changed, and yet something in him seemed to expect it to.
“You must think me rather foolish, or rather cowardly, not to have been able to open this yet,” he said, knowing Céleste was aware of what he was doing.
“It is a significant thing, having someone you love offer you something long after you think you’ve lost them. That’s not an experience anyone can be prepared for, nor have an established strategy for. That it’s taking you some time to sort it out is understandable.”
His brow furrowed. “Perhaps it’s time I found out what she gave me.” The words emerged somehow as a sigh.
He looked at Céleste, bracing himself for pity.
When, instead, she gave him a pointed look of mingled encouragement and slightly feigned impatience, he actually smiled.
He’d made the suggestion only halfheartedly.
But he unexpectedly found himself ready to follow through with it. She was working miracles for him.
Miracles. Stanley would have approved of that.
Aldric’s fingers trembled a little as he tugged at the twine and untied the knot. He folded back the parchment, one side at a time, with painstaking movements. Even having decided to move forward and be brave, he couldn’t seem to do so without hesitation.
Inside the parcel was another smaller parcel, wrapped in burlap. On top of it was a note. He carefully rested the smaller parcel on his lap and unfolded the note.
I cannot imagine you have been properly provided for. Your subsequent dependence on Crofton will be used against you. I know it will be.
This is not sentimental, nor did it belong to my family.
There is nothing about it that should make it special to you, as it was not overly special to me.
I am offering it to you for only one reason: it is extremely valuable.
It will fetch you a price high enough to—I hate that this is the word I need to use—“purchase” your freedom.
I love you, my Aldric. Never doubt that.
I love you.
Mother
His eyes hovered on Mother. She had been the very best of women, but more than that, she’d been the most incredible mother. Oh, how he missed her.
He very carefully placed the note atop the bag at Adèle’s feet. The little girl was sleeping soundly.
Having opened the outer layer of Mother’s offering, he found opening the interior parcel was easy. He untied it and pulled back the burlap. What he found inside made him gasp.
“Mercy,” Céleste whispered.
It was a necklace of exquisite gems inlaid in gold. He was no jeweler and couldn’t place a price on it in that moment, but even the most ignorant of people would look at this and know that he was holding a small fortune.
“She’s funding my freedom from Crofton.” While he had some guaranteed income from their father’s estate and had, by their late father, been given the use of Norwood Manor, there was still a dependency there.
With this tucked into the safe at Norwood, he would always have a contingency plan.
How had she kept the existence of such a piece from Father?
It would have been taken from her, no doubt.
But she had safeguarded it until Aldric needed it and his father couldn’t steal it.
“She wrote that she loves you,” Céleste said quietly, glancing at the face-up note.
He rewrapped the necklace, tying the twine again.
Even years after losing her, his mother was still looking out for him.
“She told me that often.” He set the burlap-wrapped parcel inside the portmanteau.
“I think she knew my father didn’t even really like me and wanted me to know that she loved me. ”
“I wonder if my mother ever said that to me.” A little tear hovered in the corner of her eye. “My father never did.”
How Aldric wished he were permitted, by any degree of understanding between them and by the rules of propriety, to reach across for her and hold her. “Did anyone ever tell you that they loved you?”
“Henri did. He’s literally the only one.
” Her voice shook on the admission, and Aldric’s heart broke for her.
His mother had told him. The Gents not only showed in everything they did for each other how much love there was between them all, but they were also unafraid to say the words.
Even growing up in the family he had, Aldric had been told by many people that he was loved.
The only person who’d ever said that to Céleste was currently in a great deal of danger. Her frustration at leaving him behind, her panic in the face of the danger he was in, was more than understandable. It was probably even more overwhelming than she’d allowed Aldric to see.
And he’d been impatient with her.
“There are a great many people who love you, Céleste. One of them is sleeping in the wagon bed just now.”
“I think I’ve made strides in bringing her to a point where she likes me, but she is far more fond of you than she’s ever been of me.
” Céleste pulled her blanket more tightly around herself.
“I don’t know why she keeps me at a distance.
I can’t think of anything I’ve done to give her such hesitancy. ”
Aldric thrust his hands into his pockets once more, restraining the need to hold her and reassure her that she wasn’t alone.
“Your brother and his wife are unkind to you. They do and say cruel things. I suspect that they’ve said things to her about you.
They have made her wary. You are chipping away at that, giving the lie to their cruelty.
Given time, she’ll realize it. Children are far more insightful than we usually give them credit for. ”
Her brow knit in an almost perfect recreation of the expression Adèle so often wore. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Play your violin for her a few more times. Music touches people, and it delights her.”
“Music was often my escape. It has been a shield for years.”
“We’re leaving the battle behind. You can put the shield down. Let music be a voice. A way of reaching her, a way of lifting your heart, of finally having a bit of freedom.”
Céleste nodded. “And you have been given your freedom as well.”
I am “purchasing” your freedom.
The future was uncertain, but that future was beginning to fill with possibilities.