Dawn on a Distant Shore (72 page)

But it was the men at
the table who surprised her. The earl, because he studied his guests at length
but spoke so little; and Monsieur Contrecoeur.

He was a man of medium
height, solidly built and muscled, and no longer young. His beard was entirely
gray, as was the mane of hair severely combed back and tied in a queue. His face
was still beautiful--there was no other word for it-- but even in such
perfectly proportioned features, his eyes drew attention. They were wide set
and intensely blue-green, a color Elizabeth had never before seen. Aunt
Merriweather would have found them excessive, and for once Elizabeth would have
to agree. But he had an easy air about him, and a keen intelligence and calm
that were as obvious as the strange color of his eyes and his odd habit of
wearing gloves throughout the meal.

Contrecoeur's English
had only the hint of an accent. "Mrs. Bonner." He focused his unsettling
gaze on Elizabeth.

"Sir?"

"I understand
that you grew up in Devon?"

"I did, sir, at
Oakmere. Lady Crofton is my aunt. Have your travels taken you to Devon, Madame
Vigée?"

"Devon?"
Madame Vigée's head reared back and she looked at Elizabeth down the long slope
of her nose. "There is nothing worth seeing south of London. It is all
cows and peasants."

"Ain't France
south of London?" Nathaniel asked, and Elizabeth hid her smile in her wine
glass.

Madame Vigée pursed
her mouth at him, but addressed Elizabeth. "Despite all its beauties, you
left Devon for the Colonies, madame. How very ... enterprising of you."
Her gaze flickered toward Nathaniel and away again. Elizabeth had spent too
many hours in drawing rooms to mistake her:
You could not find a husband at
home, and so you cast your net in other waters.

"I went to
New-York to start a school," Elizabeth said. "And that is what I did.
I will return to it, as soon as I may."

"A school?"
Madame Vigée's eyes narrowed. "What an astounding thing for a young woman
of fortune and family to do. Did your father not stop you?"

"He tried," Nathaniel
said dryly.

Madame Vigée's wine
glass paused in its path to her mouth. "But who could there be to teach,
in your wilderness?"

"The children of
the village, of course," Elizabeth said. "Quite a number of
them."

Madame Vigée drew
herself up into a disdainful posture. "The poor?"

"I suppose poor
is about all we've got in Paradise. By your standards, anyway." Nathaniel
sent a sidelong glance toward the earl.

But he had nothing to
contribute to the conversation, and Madame Vigée clearly took this for approbation.
She set her sights more firmly on Elizabeth.

"Madame Bonner.
Do you not realize that by teaching the lowest classes to read and write, you take
them out of the station assigned to them by
Providence
and nature? It is
this kind of foolish egalitarianism that is destroying France, madame. Have you
not heard of the guillotine?"

The earl cleared his
throat, and she turned to him eagerly. "Do you not agree, my lord
Earl?"

He considered her for
a moment, and then he shook his head. "No, madame. I dinna. The guillotine
has mair tae do wi' bread than books."

Madame Vigée gave him
a very disappointed look. "So the rabble would have us believe."

One white brow shot up
in amusement. "Are ye callin' me gullible, madame, or rabble?"

The older woman's
complexion went very pale beneath her rouge. "Neither, my lord. You
mistake me. My point was simply that Madame Bonner has taken on a task of
dubious merit. She should have stayed at home in Devon, where she could do no
damage."

Before Elizabeth could
respond to this impertinence, Nathaniel laughed out loud.

Madame Vigée looked at
him as if he had belched. "I amuse you, sir?"

"By Christ, you
do. Here you sit in Scotland, tellin' my wife she should have stayed at home.
I'm right glad she didn't. England's loss was New-York's gain. And mine, to be
blunt about it." And he ran a hand down Elizabeth's arm. It was such an affectionate
and intimate gesture that she blushed to the roots of her hair, but it pleased
her inordinately.

Madame Vigée's own jaw
dropped in amazement, but Monsieur Contrecoeur jumped in before she could
comment.

"I have visited
Devon on business. It is a beautiful place, but it cannot be compared to the
great forests of New-York."

Nathaniel turned to
him with real interest. "You know our forests?"

"My work has
taken me many places," said Contrecoeur.

"Is that how you
met Monsieur Dupuis?" Elizabeth asked in the same polite and disinterested
tone she might have asked him the time of day.

The earl put down his
wine glass with a thump. "The gentlemen are colleagues."

Elizabeth said,
"It is unfortunate that Monsieur Dupuis is too ill to join us tonight. He
expressed an interest in meeting my husband."

Carryck's head came up
slowly, his displeasure clear to see. "I canna allow it. The cancer has
unsettled his mind."

Elizabeth remembered
with great clarity the many dinners like this one she had endured at Oakmere. In
polite society--in this kind of polite society--older ladies might speak their
mind, but the young ones were not to discuss anything of importance, to ask a
substantive question, or to express a real opinion. If a young woman was so
brash as to turn her attention to anything but the affairs of the neighborhood,
music, or needlework, it was taken as a sign of excessive reading, a naturally
intractable disposition, or an indulgent upbringing. Clearly Carryck--and Madame
Vigée--were convinced she was a product of all three.

The old rebellious
spirit that had gotten her through so many years at her aunt's table rushed up
through her.

"It is a very
unsettling disease indeed, my lord, if it gifts him with the knowledge of the Mohawk
tongue while it robs him of his life."

There was a moment's
awkward silence.

Monsieur Contrecoeur
said, "Merchants are by nature inquisitive, madame, and must develop an
ear for languages. I myself learned Huron during my time in Canada. And I speak
French, Polish, German, Italian, and Russian."

"Huron?"
Nathaniel asked, rather sharply. "How do you come to learning Huron?"

"The fur trade in
Canada," said Contrecoeur. "I spent a number of years there."

Mademoiselle LeBrun's
expression had not changed through all the table conversation, but she suddenly
woke up from her daydream.

"Maman is in
Russia." She had a very pretty smile in spite of a crooked front tooth,
and it occurred to Elizabeth that she might not be so much bored with her
company as simply shy and homesick.

"I have always
been curious about Russia," Elizabeth said. "Perhaps you can join
your mother there one day?"

"I will. Monsieur
Contrecoeur is taking me with him to Russia to see her. The Russian court is
very civilized," the girl offered, as if Elizabeth had expressed concern.
"They all speak French."

Madame Vigée gestured
to the footman for more wine. "We shall see about Russia, my dear. We
shall see."

Nathaniel took her arm
as they walked through the night garden in a hush punctuated by the soft trill
of crickets and the rustle of Elizabeth's skirts along the path. Even in the
cool dark the scent of the roses and phlox hung heavy in the air. Behind them,
light still burned in the windows of the dining room.

"You let that
woman get to you," Nathaniel said, slipping an arm around her shoulders.
"I thought any minute you'd start quoting your Mrs. Wollstonecraft at
her."

Elizabeth was
irritated still, but this made her smile. "I was tempted, I admit
it."

"I wish you
had," Nathaniel said. "I would have liked to see her face. Now, what
do you suppose that visit's really about?"

She glanced back over
her shoulder. "Monsieur Dupuis."

"You haven't even
laid eyes on the man, but he's on your mind a lot. Is there something you ain't
told me?"

"Nothing
concrete," Elizabeth said. "Just a vague feeling. Which I might have
discounted, if it weren't for Carryck's defensiveness when I raised the
subject."

"Maybe it ain't
about Dupuis at all," Nathaniel said. "Maybe it was the visitors who
put him in a sour mood. I got the idea that maybe the aunt is trying to marry
the young one off to Carryck."

Elizabeth pulled up in
surprise. Such matches were not unknown, and in fact Julie LeBrun was typical
of those young girls of good --but impoverished--family who were often married to
rich old men. Men with lands and titles, in need of an heir. It made some
sense, and she wondered why it had not occurred to her.

"I guess
not," said Nathaniel, seeing her expression.

"No,"
Elizabeth said. "There may be something to what you say, Nathaniel. But a
French woman? And why wait so long, if he is hoping to father another heir? It
has been a few years since his daughter ran away."

"Because he had
high hopes for my father," Nathaniel said. "Or me, or Daniel."

Elizabeth did not like
to think of it, but it was true: Daniel alone would serve the earl's purpose.
The question was, just how desperate was he?

Nathaniel said,
"Maybe it's finally getting through to him that we don't want to be here.
Maybe he's still thinking of his wife. Or maybe he didn't want the trouble of a
girl that young. A man that age--they say with some the urge just goes away."

"Not in his
case," Elizabeth said. "There was a woman in his chambers a few
nights ago. I saw her at the window."

"Is that so? Did
you recognize her?"

"It was Mrs.
Hope," Elizabeth said. "At first I thought I must be mistaken, but as
I look back on it I am more and more sure. You do not seem surprised."

"I ain't, especially.
She's a widow woman, and he's lost his wife. I wouldn't call it unusual if they
take some comfort from one another now and then."

"Curiosity thinks
that Jennet is the earl's daughter."

Nathaniel laughed.
"What else have you two figured out between you when I wasn't
listening?"

"I didn't say
that I agreed with her, Nathaniel. It seems to me unlikely that the earl
..." She paused. "There is a great difference in their ages, and in
their stations."

"You sound like
your aunt Merriweather," Nathaniel said. "You know as well as anybody
that the rules don't count for much when things start to happen between two
like-minded people."

Elizabeth paused.
"It is not so simple as you would make it. Those rules, as you call them, are
still very much in place here, Nathaniel. If they are truly attached to each
other, why have they not married? No, I will tell you. Because it would be a scandal
of the first order for the earl to marry his housekeeper, no matter how well
suited they may be."

"I don't doubt
what you say, Boots. You know this world better than I do. But I'll tell you
this much--if Mrs. Hope bore him a son, he'd marry her right quick. And I'd
wager quite a lot on that."

The truth of this
could not be denied. "You do not know she is at fault, Nathaniel. It might
be--" She stopped.

"That he's
infertile? With a daughter he claims as his own?"

Elizabeth broke off a
sprig of lavender and brushed it against her cheek as she thought. "You
are right, it is unlikely that the fault is entirely his. It does give Mademoiselle
LeBrun's visit a new angle. It would speak to the earl's desperation. If it is
so, I feel some sympathy for Mrs. Hope."

"And for the
earl," Nathaniel added. "It's a high price to pay, turning the woman
you love away because she cain't give you a son. I still don't understand
what's at the bottom of all this, Boots. But I'll tell you this much. Tomorrow I'll
get some straight answers, or we'll leave this place with or without my
father."

They walked on for a
moment in silence. An owl called from the woods that climbed the hill, once and
then again.

Finally she said,
"Where are we going?"

He smiled a little.
"What makes you think we're going anywhere at all?"

She tugged at his arm.
"I know you well enough to tell when you've got a plan, Nathaniel Bonner.
And why else would you suddenly get an urge to see the grounds?"

He sent her a sidelong
glance. "Maybe I just want to be out-of-doors."

"You can be
outside whenever you please, after all."

His expression went
very still, and his whole posture changed. He steered her toward a bench under
an arbor draped with twisting wisteria.

"Nathaniel?"

"Let me rest my
leg here for a minute."

The garden spread out
around them, silver stippled in the moonlight. It was a pleasant spot to sit,
but Nathaniel's unease made it hard to take any diversion in the fine night.