Chapter 12
It was late enough—or early enough, depending on one’s perspective—that the shops were long closed, but boulevard des Italiens was by no means deserted, with Frascati’s and other similar places still open to pleasure-seeking Parisians.
A small amused smile played about Baudelaire’s lips. “I will see you on the morrow, Beaumont, for a rematch of chess?”
“Aye. Midafternoon, shall we say?”
Baudelaire grinned openly now, eyebrows expressive as he looked from Nate to Isobel. “Not early? But of course.”
Isobel blandly returned the look. Nate said nothing. Baudelaire was altogether insufferable at times.
“But of course,” Baudelaire repeated, just as though Nate had responded agreeably rather than excoriating him with his eyes.
Baudelaire’s own were still lit with amusement.
He leaned towards Isobel, taking her hand.
“Au revoir, Mademoiselle, unless events swiftly conclude as we hope, in which case I must bid you a most heartfelt adieu. Should it be the latter, it will of course be excellent for you but a great loss for myself.”
Isobel smiled. “M. Baudelaire, I am quite easy in my mind that you will nonetheless find someone who will be happy to console you. Perhaps several someones,” she added in a wry tone.
“Your faith gladdens my heart.” Baudelaire dramatically pressed a hand to his chest. “You are the most generous of ladies.”
Isobel rolled her eyes ever so slightly. “And you are the most accomplished of flirts.”
Baudelaire returned her smile and lifted her hand to his lips. “Truly, it has been a pleasure. Half past one?” he asked Nate.
“Or so.”
“Certainly. à demain, mon ami.” Baudelaire strolled off, a young man headed for a night of debauchery and already slightly in his cups.
Even more than usual, Nate was on his guard after the encounter with Oberlin, but he and Isobel encountered no undue interest while waiting for a fiacre to become available for the short journey to his rooms.
He set an arm around her shoulders. For the benefit of others if observed, but also simply because he wanted to. She slid an arm around his waist and nestled closer, tipping her head to rest on his shoulder.
“What is that song?” he asked. Above the ambient street noises, he’d caught that she was humming softly.
Startlement briefly blanked her features.
“I . . . don’t know. I was not aware I was humming till you’ve mentioned it.
” She gave a soft laugh. “It’s not a conscious decision, usually.
I don’t believe I’ve done much of it lately, however.
” Her eyes grew a bit distant. “I was forever doing it as a child. Or singing.”
“It’s why your father called you his nightingale.” Her pet name from Robert Muir’s letter.
“Yes. Even as a young child, if I wasn’t humming, I was singing.
If I wasn’t singing, I was tapping my toes to some melody in my mind.
Part of that I attribute to Maman, who had a beautiful voice, although she only sang among family.
She was too shy for public display.” She tilted her head to look at him.
“I have not caught myself doing it in a long time. And the last time I recall singing . . . It was in Antwerp, comforting wounded men. Not since. It’s always been something I’ve done while I’m happy.
Or was, till then.” She looked down at her hands.
“I have not felt lighthearted for quite a while now.”
She’d lost the ease she’d had while humming. He was responsible for that, and he disliked it. “Will you sing me something now?” Maybe it would ease the memory of the last time she’d sung.
Surprise registered on her face. “I suppose I could,” she said slowly. “I have not sung for anyone in a long time. Do you have any requests?” She smiled, faintly but with less sadness around her mouth.
Music was nothing for which he’d ever gained a great breadth of knowledge, aside from reading texts and the sorts of rousing—and often obscene—songs men sang to keep their spirits up on campaign.
What formal education he’d had did not include music, nor had he sought out any such entertainments beyond regimental affairs in winter canton.
But it didn’t much matter anyway—he simply wanted to hear her sing. “Anything you like.”
“That’s a rather broad directive.” Her smile was brighter this time. “There must be thousands upon thousands of songs in the world.”
“All the same, unless your repertoire includes the ditties soldiers sing when they have been away from wives and sweethearts for too long, I can offer no specific suggestions,” he said drily.
He was rewarded with her dimple. “I cannot say that I have ever learned any of those sorts of songs, so I suppose I shall have to think of something else.” She closed her eyes. Not shutting him out—closing herself into memories? When she opened her eyes again, they were soft, luminous.
The song, when she began it softly, was nothing he understood. Or rather, he couldn’t comprehend the Gaelic words, but the words were unnecessary when the tune itself carried such emotion. There was sweetness to it and a sense of yearning. Maybe some melancholy as well.
And her voice . . . It wasn’t that he doubted her when she’d told Baudelaire that she had a talent for song, but even someone like himself without a musical background could appreciate that she had a true gift.
It wasn’t only her voice: The expressiveness of her face was part of the whole.
He drank it in even as he remained watchful of their surroundings.
When she finished, she smiled a touch self-consciously.
“Lest you ask, I do not know if that ballad has a name, but I will tell you its substance. It’s a very old song, sung from the point of view of a woman whose sweetheart went off to some unnamed war and never returned.
She’s remembering their early love and the anticipation of the life they would share, now lamenting the future that will never be.
She vows to remain faithful to his memory for all the rest of her days.
I’ve loved the melody for many years and learned it by heart when I was far too young to fully grasp its message.
Now . . . It’s far sadder than I realized as a child. Terribly sad, in fact.”
He said nothing because her silence was a thoughtful one, as though she was choosing her next words carefully.
“I hope that she’s wrong about the last part,” she said softly.
“The poets say that first love is the sweetest when one is in its grip and the most bitter when it’s ended.
But I hope the girl in that song has not truly closed herself off to the prospect of future love.
” She laughed. “Listen to me, treating this as though it happened in truth. You must think me quite fanciful.” She looked down, brushing at her pelisse.
He shook his head, although with her head bent she likely missed it.
“I was in the Rifles for nine years. That story is not a new one so long as there are conflicts that send men far away from home to kill one another. There were undoubtedly plenty of men in the regiment who were sustained by the belief that they had just such a faithful girl awaiting them at home. And ever after, should death claim them.”
Isobel tipped her head to the side, her eyes meeting his.
“I appreciated the romance of it as a girl. As a woman on the other side of it, that seems to me a selfish sentiment. The surviving loved one is forever shackled to grief should it happen. Jamie did not wish it for me. If I had been the one to go first instead, I would have hoped for him to find contentment with another woman in time. No, more than contentment. Love.”
He signaled to a fiacre driver approaching the stand, ready to pick up new passengers. “Surely new love need not diminish the one lost.”
“Perhaps all is not lost for that girl in the ballad.” Isobel shook out her skirt, ready to step into the fiacre once it stopped. “I hope so, anyway.”
He hoped so too. Only it wasn’t of the girl in the song he’d been thinking.
The short ride to his rooms was a quiet one. Isobel did not speak. Lost in thoughts, perhaps. Or memories. He hoped he hadn’t set off melancholy ones, asking her to sing. And she’d chosen which song to sing. He’d meant to thank her for it, but the conversation turned before he’d had a chance.
She sat beside him in the fiacre rather than opposite. In the dark, he slid a hand to hers. She turned hers palm up, fingers slotting into his, and leaned her head against him for the remainder of the ride.
Once in his rooms, she set about lighting the oil lamps. “You are quite different from one another, you and M. Baudelaire,” she observed brightly, determinedly so. “I wonder that you work so well together.”
He hung up his hat. “One might argue that it helps that we are so dissimilar. Baudelaire brings certain assets to bear. My own are quite different.”
“Oh yes, he quite openly advertises the excellence of his assets.” The smile was in her voice with her face turned away.
His own mouth lifted in return.
“It is rather impossible to take seriously anything he says,” she continued, “but I suspect it is but part of a carefully crafted facade. And you do like him, despite your differences in temperament.”
“He makes it difficult to do otherwise.” This, drily.
She laughed. “Yes, he does. That you trust him as a partner in matters more serious suggests he is far less frivolous than he appears.” She laughed again at his noncommittal noise.
Lamplight gleamed in her dark hair and on the plush velvet of her pelisse.
Humor still in her voice, she added, “You may both keep your secrets. I do not seek to uncover them. But I like M. Baudelaire as well. Am I allowed to ask if you met with success tonight in whatever brought you to Frascati’s? ”
“We had success of sorts. Did you learn anything from your conversations?” He tracked the slide of kid glove over satin and velvet as Isobel absently stroked a finger over the trim along the front of her pelisse.