Intrigued. Bertrice Small

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ de Auriville, my lady,” he answered. “Why do you ask?”

      “I was curious,” Autumn said with a little shrug. “I considered crossing the stream this afternoon but then worried I might be trespassing.”

      “It is a good thing you did not attempt it, my lady,” Guillaume said. “The streambed is very rocky and uneven. Noir could have been injured. I am glad you are so careful with him. He is a fine mount.”

      The very next day the Comte de Cher’s two widowed sisters, Madame de Belfort and Madame St. Omer, arrived at Belle Fleurs shortly after nine o’clock in the morning. With small shrieks of glee they rushed into the Great Hall, chattering nonstop.

      “Jasmine! Mon Dieu, cousine, you have not changed at all! You have the figure of a young girl, despite all those children you produced for your husbands! And your hair! It is still dark but for those two little silver chevrons on either side of your head!” Gabrielle de Belfort kissed her cousin on both cheeks and plunked her plump figure down by the fire, gratefully accepting a goblet of wine from Adali. “Adali, you are an old man. How could this have happened?” She smiled at him.

      “Time, madame, I fear, has finally caught up with me,” he said, returning her smile. “You, however, remain summer-fair.”

      “Very late summer,” Antoinette St. Omer said dryly. “Bonjour, Jasmine. You must cease wearing black as soon as possible. Your skin is too sallow for it. Jemmie, I’m certain, would agree with me. Where is your daughter? We have come to inspect her so we may plan how to help you marry her off. Philippe says she is lovely.”

      “Adali, go and fetch Autumn. Tell her her tantes have arrived.” Jasmine turned to her two cousins. “I have told her she is to call you both tante, as she has begun to call your brother oncle. We are seeking a husband, but first I think Autumn could use a bit of society, for she had none in the wilds of Scotland. By the time she was old enough for it, England was embroiled in civil war.”

      “There will be plenty of festivities at Archambault shortly, and Philippe loves to entertain despite his widowed state. It was really he who planned all the parties, even when Marie Louise was alive. She was best at running the house and giving him his sons,” Antoinette said. While her sister was plump and short of stature, she was tall and spare, with her father’s dark brown eyes, and iron gray hair that was fixed in the latest style of short curls.

      “Oh, yes,” Gaby interjected. “Philippe gives marvelous parties! Everyone in the entire area, and even beyond it, wants to come. Fortunately none of the vineyards is owned by any of the grand nobles, so we have escaped the war, and our young men have remained at home.” She shivered delicately. “War is such a nasty and dirty business. I do not know why men want to play at it. I truly don’t!”

      “Power does not appeal to my sister,” Madame St. Omer said with a wink at Jasmine. “Ahh, here is the child. Come forward, girl, and let me see you. I am your Tante Antoinette St. Omer, and this is your Tante Gabrielle de Belfort.”

      Autumn hurried into the Great Hall to join the three women. She curtsied prettily, saying as she did so, “Bonjour, tantes. I am happy to meet you.”

      Madame St. Omer, who had not sat down since she entered the hall, took Autumn’s chin between her thumb and forefinger, turning her head first this way and then that. “The skin is good, in fact excellent,” she pronounced. Reaching around, she drew the thick braid into her hand and fingered its ends. “The hair is a good color and soft, yet not fine.” Releasing the plait, she stared critically at Autumn’s face. “The bones are good, the forehead high, the nose straight, the chin in proportion, the lips perhaps a trifle wide.” Then she gasped. “Mon Dieu, child! Your eyes are different colors! One is the marvelous turquoise of your mama’s, but the other is as green as a summer leaf. Where on earth did you ever get eyes like that?” Obviously overcome, she sat down, finally accepting the wine the footman had been waiting to give her and swallowing down a long draught of it.

      “I owe my green eye to my paternal grandmother, Lady Hepburn,” Autumn said with a chuckle. “I have always thought that my features, being so unique, would fascinate the gentlemen, tante. Do you know, or have you ever known a girl with such a feature as my eyes?”

      “I have not!” Madame St. Omer answered, “but you may very well be right, ma petite. What others might see as a defect may very well prove bewitching to a suitor. You are shrewd, Autumn Leslie, and that is the French in you!” She turned to her sister. “Is she not lovely, Gaby? We shall have such fun planning her wardrobe. . . .” She stopped, turning back to Autumn. “You have jewelry, ma petite?”

      “I have jewelry,” Jasmine spoke up before her daughter might, and her two cousins nodded.

      “Oh, what a winter it is going to be,” Madame St. Omer said, pleased. “There are several eminently suitable gentlemen who would make excellent husbands for your daughter, ma cousine. Gaby’s late husband was related to one: Pierre Etienne St. Mihiel, the Duc de Belfort. And then there is Jean Sebastian d’Oleron, the Marquis de Auriville; and Guy Claude d’Auray, the Comte de Montroi. These three are the creme de la creme in our area. All have their own estates and are very well endowed financially, so you need not fear they are fortune hunters. Even at court you could not find better matches.”

      “Are they handsome?” Autumn wanted to know.

      “Oui,” her aunt said. “I suppose they are, but ma petite, it is not a pretty face you must consider first, but a man’s character and his purse. Jasmine, ma cherie, have you a priest in residence?”

      “No, ’Toinette, we do not,” came the reply. They were in France now, and she would revert to the faith of her childhood, although such a thing had never made a great difference to her. Still, she had been baptized a Roman Catholic and taught by her cousin, the Jesuit Father Cullen Butler. He had died the year before on her former estates in Ulster, a man in his mid-eighties.

      “Your Guillaume has a son who has just been ordained,” Madame St. Omer told her. “This would make an excellent living for him. You must see to it, Jasmine. Your daughter, I suspect, has been raised a Protestant, n’est-ce pas?”

      “Aye, but she was baptized in Ulster shortly after she was born by both a priest and then a minister,” Jasmine said.

      “But she does not know her catechism, I am certain. If she is to wed a respectable Frenchman, she must be taught these things.”

      Jasmine nodded. “You are right,” she said slowly. “I shall speak to Guillaume immediately. There is a small chapel here in the house somewhere. We will reopen it, and the priest can hold mass each day.” She laughed softly. “How pleased Father Cullen would be.”

      “We will bring our own tailor tomorrow,” Madame de Belfort said. “Autumn must have several pretty new gowns for her visit to Archambault. As I recall there is a storeroom beneath the hall, Jasmine. I will wager you will find the materials your grandmother bought stored away there. If not, we shall send to Nantes for some, but la petite must be shown to her best advantage. There are, after all, other young, unmarried girls in the region who are fishing for husbands. She will have serious competition.

      “Nonsense!” Madame St. Omer contradicted her sister. “There isn’t a girl in the region as beautiful, and certainly not as wealthy. We shall have all we can do, keeping the fortune hunters away and seeing that only the right gentlemen are permitted to court Autumn. I am so glad, cher Jasmine, that you have put this matter into our hands.” She smiled at her cousin, displaying her large, almost rabbbity teeth.

      After the two sisters СКАЧАТЬ