CHAPTER FOUR
ELIN
The tension inside Le Champ des Fleurs had reached a point where the air itself felt heavy and brittle, like old glass ready to shatter at the slightest touch.
After Cécile fled the terrace, Madame Lebon had directed her cold fury toward the servants, ordering the silver polished a second time and demanding that fresh linen be laid in the west wing guest chambers—rooms that had stood locked and shuttered since the previous autumn.
I carried a stack of fresh, lavender-scented sheets up the narrow rear passage, my apron stiff with starch, my ears tuned to every distant door that opened or shut below.
I found Lucien Lebon standing near the gun cabinet in the rear hall, holding his heavy leather riding boots in one hand and a half-empty glass of rye in the other.
His dark hair was disheveled, his cravat loosened, and his eyes held a bloodshot, frantic edge that made him look far older than his twenty-one years.
He leaned his shoulders against the carved mahogany casing of the cabinet, staring blankly at the polished barrels of his father's fowling pieces as if searching for something he had lost.
“Did she go upstairs?” Lucien asked quietly as I approached, stepping back into the shadow of the alcove.
“She is in the schoolroom, Mr. Lucien,” I replied, keeping my voice low so it would not carry to the front parlor. “She is very upset.”
Lucien ran a trembling hand over his face, letting out a long, bitter breath that smelled sour with grain alcohol.
“Warren Dewey is an arrogant toad. If my father were half the man he used to be, he would have tossed Warren off the terrace an hour ago. He lets that boy parade around our grounds as if he already owns the deed.” He stopped, his glass tilting slightly, his eyes flicking toward the closed doors of his father’s study down the hall.
“Something is wrong with my father, Elin. Have you noticed it? The way he looks at the roads?”
I kept my posture rigid, my chin tucked, my eyes fixed on the heart-pine floorboards. “Monsieur seems... preoccupied with our guests, sir.”
“Preoccupied?” Lucien gave a harsh, quiet laugh that held no humor.
“He, Dewey, and Reuben George sit in that study like old dogs waiting for a beating. They jump at every creak of the floorboards, every time a wagon rolls down the river road. We weren't always like this, Elin. Three years ago, before the new furniture arrived from France, before father started buying up every acre along the creek, we were an honest house. A quiet house.” He took a deep, desperate swallow from his glass, his knuckles white around the crystal. “And now these strangers—these Fairhavens—are arriving on Nathaniel Vale’s recommendation?”
“Commander Vale was well regarded by the family,” I offered carefully.
“Vale was a naval officer who thought he could play politician,” Lucien spat softly, though his eyes darted nervously toward the passage.
“When he left Virginia so suddenly last summer, my father acted as if the man had murdered his mother. He scrubbed Vale’s name from every ledger in the house.
Now we are throwing open our doors to three of Vale’s most intimate acquaintances?
It makes no sense. Father hated the man by the end. ”
“Perhaps your father merely wishes to avoid gossip, sir,” I suggested gently.
“Gossip?” Lucien’s dark eyes flashed with a sudden, sharp intelligence. “No. It isn't gossip étienne Lebon is afraid of. It’s something else. Something he buried.”
Before I could answer or back away toward the stairs, a soft, dry rustle echoed from the central hall.
It was not the heavy tread of a footman carrying a tray, nor was it the crisp rustle of Madame’s silk skirts. It was a faint, unnatural sound, like dry leaves scraping over cold marble in the middle of a dead winter.
Lucien frowned, setting his glass on a side table with a dull clink. We stepped out of the rear passage into the grand foyer together.
The foyer was empty. The heavy oak front doors remained barred against the stifling afternoon heat, and no servants were in sight.
Yet resting squarely in the middle of the polished mahogany hall table sat the silver calling card tray.
It had not been there five minutes earlier when I carried the linens past the staircase.
Lucien stepped closer, his brow furrowed in deep confusion. “Who put this here?”
I followed him to the table, my heart suddenly beating a frantic, uneven rhythm against my ribs.
Lying on the polished silver surface was a heavy, cream-colored calling card, pristine, smooth, and stiff. No footman stood near it. No carriage had rolled up the gravel drive. No bell had rung.
I looked down at the crisp black copperplate engraving:
ADRIAN, NICHOLAS AND OCTAVIA FAIRHAVEN
Beneath the elegant printed names, written in dark, wet ink that looked as fresh as if the pen had just been lifted from the paper, was a single handwritten word:
Tomorrow.
Lucien reached out to pick up the card, but the moment his fingertips brushed the heavy cardstock, he drew his hand back with a sharp, instinctive gasp.
“It’s freezing,” he muttered, staring at his fingers as if he had touched a hot coal. “It feels like ice.”
A sudden, sharp draft swept through the closed, airless hallway—a draft so bitterly cold that it made the skin on my arms break into gooseflesh and my breath catch in my throat.
The air did not carry the dust of the Virginia turnpikes or the woodsmoke from the outer kitchens; it smelled powerfully of crushed gardenias, frozen river mud, and something sharp and metallic, like iron scraped against snow.
High above the front portico, through the tall glass transom window, a single blue butterfly fluttered against the glass.
Its wings were an impossible, brilliant indigo.
It beat twice against the windowpane, leaving a faint streak of pale, crystalline frost on the glass, before vanishing into the glaring afternoon heat.
Lucien backed away from the table, his face turning pale beneath his tan. “What kind of trick is this?”
“I do not know, Mr. Lucien,” I whispered, my voice trembling.
The heavy mahogany doors to Monsieur’s study clicked open at the end of the hall.
Monsieur Lebon, Judge Dewey, and Reuben George stepped out, their jackets unbuttoned, their faces red and glistening with sweat. Monsieur held an open ledger in his hand, but the moment his eyes fell upon us standing by the hall table, he froze in his tracks.
“What is it?” Monsieur demanded, his raspy voice tight with a sudden, vicious panic. “What are you staring at?”
Lucien pointed a trembling finger toward the silver tray. “A calling card, Father. It was left on the table.”
Judge Dewey pushed past Monsieur, his narrow face rigid, his small eyes darting around the high ceiling.
He snatched the heavy cream card off the silver tray.
The moment he read the names and the single written word beneath them, the color drained entirely from his face, leaving him a sickly, ash-grey color.
“When did this arrive?” Judge Dewey hissed, his voice dropping into a harsh, terrified whisper as he glared directly at me. “Who brought it?”
“No one, sir,” I said, curtsying quickly, clutching my stack of linens to my chest. “There was no one at the door.”
“Lie!” Reuben George spat, his fat hands shaking as he grabbed the card from the judge’s fingers. “Someone had to bring it! Servants! Check the drive! Check the gates!”
“Be quiet, Reuben!” Monsieur snapped, though his own hands were shaking so violently that the ledger pages rattled in his grip. He looked at the card, then looked up at the streak of frost slowly melting on the high transom window above the front door.
A suffocating, terrifying silence fell over the grand hall.
The three patriarchs stood together in a tight, desperate cluster beneath the grand chandelier, their eyes fixed on that single piece of cardstock as if it were a warrant for their execution.
“They are coming,” Reuben whispered, his high voice cracking with sheer terror. “Tomorrow... they are coming.”
“Get to your room, Lucien,” Monsieur ordered, his voice raw, refusing to look at his son. “Elin, return to Cécile. You will keep your mouth shut about this. Do you hear me? Not a word to your mistress. Not a word to anyone.”
“Yes, Monsieur,” I breathed.
I turned and hurried up the back staircase, my skirts rustling against the dark wood, the bitter scent of frozen gardenias following me all the way to the top landing.
The Fairhavens had not even set foot upon the soil of Le Champ des Fleurs, yet the trap had already sprung.