30. Letter

Chapter thirty

Letter

T he next day Gyles' eyes were tired as a factory worker's. He had not been able to sleep until the Comte Dammartin's carriage returned Louisa halfway through the night. And then, after that, he had tossed and turned on his pallet in the servants' quarters until the cock's crow. It was none of his business how cosy Louisa chose to be with her cousin, but he could not trust the fellow and liking him was out of the question.

Louisa stayed late abed. Then she breakfasted in her room. Cosette, who had attended to her mistress when she returned home, informed Gyles that milady's appearance at the salon had been a triumph. Every man there had been eating out of her hand.

Gyles spent the morning in a foul mood. Why had he even come to Paris with Louisa Lymington? Far from being on the fringes of the French elite, she had fallen on her feet like a cat into the cream of Parisian society. Her cousin might be a danger to her, but it was a danger that Louisa was courting.

Gyles thought of all that he had left behind to come here—his mother, his writings, his transplanted rosebush. He had not even given instruction for how to care for it, and now it was no doubt withering away in the Kendall House carriage yard.

"Cosette," he asked, "how do I post a letter in Paris?"

"A letter?" said Cosette, her little ears burning with curiosity. "And to whom would Monsieur Pebble be writing?"

"Home," said Gyles vaguely. He listened attentively as Cosette explained where the nearest post-house stood. "Merci beaucoup."

"Voilà!" she said proudly. "You will speak French like a Frenchman before I have done with you."

After he had finished the chores that Madame Laurent set for him, Gyles sat down to write a quick note. He blotted it, sealed it, and then headed out of doors.

"Where to, Monsieur Pebble?" asked Jacques, pulling his pipe from his mouth as Gyles walked past the carriage house. As the only two male servants of the house, they shared the quarters above the stables. Gyles had become as close to the quiet coachman as was reasonable for an English gentleman and a French domestic.

"The post-house."

Unlike Cosette, Jacques had no questions about the identity of Gyles' correspondent and uttered only a single comment about the inadequacy of the French mail system. "Don't expect a quick response."

"Aye, I imagine the blockade stops most ships from moving between our ports." Gyles did not understand the complete politics of shipping, but he hoped that since he had been able to travel between Plymouth and Morlaix, a letter might be able to travel the return route.

Jacques nodded toward the carriage. "First, I take you to the post-house. Then, we go shooting."

"No, no, I'll walk," said Gyles, declining the offer. They had gone shooting half a dozen times now, in a half-frozen field outside the city, and still there was no noticeable improvement in Gyles' aim. Perhaps he was destined to be a poor shot.

Jacques grunted and went back to oiling the harness. He had allowed Lady Louisa to paint her own Dammartin coat-of-arms on the doors of his coach, but the vehicle and the horses still belonged to him, and he prided himself on keeping it in prime condition. The air had turned bitter cold this morning as the season of winter neared. Gyles rubbed his hands together as he walked, keeping a brisk pace to keep the blood flowing through his limbs. He wondered how cold it was across the Channel at Kendall House in the courtyard where his rosebush sat.

At the post-house, he delivered his letter to the attendant, and then turned to hurry back to the Champs-élysées. His step was arrested, however, when he caught sight of a Frenchman he knew. It was Monsieur Dupont, with his curling black moustache, the agent from the bank whom Louisa had engaged to manage her affairs. Dupont shifted his weight from foot to foot as he waited in the square, no doubt even colder than Gyles as he did not have the benefit of brisk movement to warm himself. Gyles almost saluted the man out of instinct but caught himself in time. A footman had no place greeting those above him in society.

Before he passed by, he saw someone else salute Monsieur Dupont, however. It was the Comte Dammartin, pink as a tulip in a primrose coat, mincing across the cobblestones in his skin-tight buff pantaloons. Monsieur Dupont's face lit up to see the count, and the two men disappeared into a nearby eating house.

Gyles frowned. How peculiar that Louisa's agent should also be a colleague of her cousin. Perhaps the bank dealt in the new house of Dammartin's money as well? Or perhaps the meeting stemmed solely from their mutual connection with Louisa?

Gyles was aware that he did not have the skills to eavesdrop on fluent French-speakers, even if he was surreptitious enough to enter the eating house undetected. He could pursue the matter no further at this moment. He had no intention, however, of forgetting this coincidence, and it gave him an even greater suspicion and dislike of Louisa's dandified cousin.

He hurried home, wondering if Louisa would be awake and needing anything from him. Despite her chilly exterior and seeming lack of gratitude, he was almost certain that she felt his presence as keenly as he felt hers. Last night, when he had placed the cloak about her shoulders, a finely tuned frisson of awareness had passed through both of them. No matter how fiercely she scorned his help, she was not immune to him. He had seen her breath catch in her throat as his fingers brushed against her neck, and it had taken all his willpower not to stare at her in that voluptuous bottle-green dress.

Fool though he might be, he would stay in Paris as long as she needed him. Even if the blockade that she had placed around her heart never lifted. Even if the wall surrounding her affections was always impossible to climb.