Chapter Thirty-Six
Céleste sent her note to the Beaumonts shortly after breakfast the next morning. She didn’t expect an answer for hours, but she thought it best to set everything in motion as soon as possible.
She pulled on her cloak, tucking it snuggly around herself, and made her way to one of the back gardens.
After an endless stream of days spent confined to a carriage, she was anxious to walk and wander and move.
And she needed a little distance from the house and the possibility of crossing paths with Aldric.
Once we’re in England, we’ll go back to who and what we really are.
There was a poignancy in the memory of his declaration. At Norwood Manor, she felt very much as she had during her first visit two years earlier. Her heart still tugged when she thought of Aldric, still flipped about when she saw him. And it felt just as unrequited as it had the first time.
She knew she hadn’t entirely imagined his tenderness during their journey.
He had come to care for her. He’d felt at least some of the pull she had.
And while he had kissed her in order to convince people of the facade they had assumed, his moments of affection had not been limited to purposeful public displays.
He had changed his mind . . . or something. She didn’t have the fortitude to sort out what that something might be.
“Miss Fortier?”
She turned at the sound of Mrs. Sommers’s voice. The woman was on the garden path very nearly even with her.
She held out a folded missive. “This arrived for you, and as I was planning to walk around the grounds myself, I’ve brought it to you.”
“Merci—thank you, Mrs. Sommers.” She took the note, keeping it in her hand with the intention of reading it once she was alone again. “And thank you for accompanying us these past few days. We would have been in difficult straits otherwise.”
“It seems you are in difficult straits anyway.” Mrs. Sommers smiled a little apologetically. “I have debated whether to be unforgivably bold. It is not my place to offer my thoughts, but I have on occasion been known to ‘forget’ my place.”
Mrs. Sommers had proven herself to have a very subtle wit. She had, during their journey, made quiet and unexpected comments that made Céleste smile, as she did then.
“Lord Aldric is in love with you.”
And that wiped Céleste’s smile away immediately.
“I have seen the way he looks at you when you aren’t aware of his gaze. He loves you, and it is breaking his heart.”
“You have your evaluation reversed, I am afraid. He is breaking my heart.” Why she was confessing as much, she didn’t know. “He is breaking it over and over again.”
“Which is why I decided to say something. I get the impression that Lord Aldric feels he will or most likely already has disappointed you, and so he has pulled back. But his pulling back is a disappointment to you, fulfilling his suspicions. I don’t feel myself in a position to talk to him about this.
But I am hopeful that if you know, there might be some chance of stopping this painful round. ”
“What if he simply rejects me further?”
“I do not think he will.” Her expression was reassuring and compassionate. “Turn a little toward him. Just a little. And I suspect you will discover there is reason not to turn away again.”
Mrs. Sommers left on that bit of encouragement.
Céleste lowered herself onto a nearby bench, pondering, considering.
She had turned to Aldric repeatedly these past weeks, and he had embraced her.
Sometimes he had literally embraced her.
Could this current distance between them truly be not so much a rejection but, rather, Aldric feeling like a disappointment to her?
His most pointed pulling back had come after Adèle was nearly kidnapped. Céleste didn’t doubt he blamed himself for that. It was not difficult to believe that he would think she blamed him as well.
He’d grown more distant again after not having money enough for their passage across the Channel. Then again upon arriving at Norwood Manor and facing the humiliation of his brother’s power over him.
Lord Aldric feels he will or most likely already has disappointed you.
Could he possibly believe that? He was wonderful and remarkable. She was disappointed that he might not love her in return, but that was different than being disappointed in him.
She was still holding the note Mrs. Sommers had brought her, and her gaze dropped to it.
For a fraction of a moment, she worried it would be the same handwriting as the note from Adèle’s book.
She’d spent so much time studying it that she suspected she would never fully clear her thoughts of that worry.
This note proved to be from the Beaumonts.
Dearest Mlle Fortier,
How pleased we are that you are nearby once more. We would be honored and delighted to have you at Eu Plate for as long as you wish to remain with us. Please call on us as soon as you are able so we can discuss the arrangements.
Yours, etc.
M. and Mme Beaumont
She had a place to stay as long as needed. Though she felt a little relieved, the weight on her heart didn’t lift.
Turn a little toward him. Just a little.
As if fate meant to force her to make this decision before escaping to Eu Plate, Aldric passed nearby in that moment, walking down the path edging the garden, with Roderick and Adèle each holding one of his hands.
The time had come to be brave.
Céleste rose and made her way toward them. Aldric spotted her as she approached. He seemed happy to see her, which gave her further courage.
“We have visited the conservatory and are now off to see the outdoor flowers,” he said.
“Look, tante Céleste.” Adèle held a sprig of purple flowers up for her inspection. “Love-in-a-mist.” She looked to Aldric and received a quick nod. “Love-in-a-mist,” she repeated the English name with confidence. “It looks like a star, just as tonton Aldric said it would.”
“It is the same shape as candlelight at night,” Céleste said to Aldric. “Although I suspect it only looks that way to me.”
“You have described it as a burst, countless rays in all directions.” Aldric studied Adèle’s cherished purple flowers. “That must be very frustrating.”
“Except now it will make me think of your flowers. Love-in-a-mist. That seems almost a fitting name. Attempting to see by candlelight is a lot like looking through a mist.”
Adèle tried to force Roderick to smell her flowers. He refused but clearly attempted to do so without being entirely rude. What an interesting pair they made.
“What was it you said the flower was symbolic of?” Céleste remembered they’d discussed the topic during their flight from France, but she couldn’t remember the particulars.
“Contradiction,” he said. “That we don’t always know if something will save us or hurt us; uplift us or rend our souls.”
Heavens, that was terribly prescient, considering the topic she was about to introduce.
“I need to talk to your uncle for just a moment,” Céleste said to Roderick, speaking English as she didn’t know how significant his grasp of French was. “Could you play with Adèle while I do? I promise I will not keep him long.”
“Adèle won’t want to be away from him,” Roderick warned.
“I know. She loves her uncle Aldric.”
The sweet look Roderick gave Aldric testified that he loved his uncle too. She hoped Aldric saw it and recognized it for what it was.
Roderick took Adèle’s hand and told her he wanted to show her a hole in the stone wall that had an old bird’s nest in it. He also assured her they would come directly back. That seemed to convince Adèle, and she walked away with her new friend.
“What is it you need to talk to me about?” Aldric asked.
Céleste squared her shoulders and turned to face him. “I am going to ask you a question, Aldric, and I need you to answer truthfully.”
He nodded, but she wasn’t certain he understood how very in earnest she was.
“Whatever you say, I will assume it is the whole truth, that you haven’t demurred or held back, that you aren’t attempting to protect my feelings or yours, that I can take you at your word. Whatever you say, I will believe it to be the entire truth for the rest of my life.”
At last, the gravity seemed to settle on him. This was her opportunity.
“The Beaumonts have written.” She held up their note. “I am on my way to call on them so we can make arrangements for me to remove to Eu Plate.”
The briefest show of sorrow flashed through his expression before he tucked it away. Oh, how she hoped his honesty, when she asked what she was about to, would reflect that rather than the dismissal she’d received from him of late.
“If not for your brother having seized Norwood Manor, or if Niles and Penelope were here already, would you want me to stay?”
His gaze grew more intent and more focused. Her heart pounded. She didn’t dare even breathe. Was he weighing his response? Trying to find the courage to tell her whatever the truth actually was?
“I need to know,” she whispered. “Whatever the truth is, I need to hear it.”
He reached out and lightly touched her cheek. “If not for those things, mon ange, I would plead with you not to go.”
Mon ange. My angel.
“Then why do you keep pushing me away?” Her voice broke a little on the question.
“Because you deserve better.” He dropped his hand.
Lord Aldric feels he will or most likely already has disappointed you. Mrs. Sommers had hit at the heart of the matter, it seemed.
“I am going to walk to the Beaumonts’ now,” Céleste said. “I’ll return at some point this evening to gather my things and say goodbye to Adèle. And to you, if you’ll let me.”
Again, that flash of sorrow touched his expression. But he let it linger longer this time.
“But while I’m gone, Aldric, ponder this.” Where her courage was coming from, she couldn’t say, but she refused to push it down. “I have loved you for seven years. I think I deserve to finally be loved in return.”