“Did Lady Donata not accompany you?” Gabriella asked me with a final glance out the door to the now-empty coach. “Nothing is amiss, I hope?”
“Not at all. If you cease for one moment, I will tell you. I came to see Emile.”
Gabriella’s dark brows rose. “Emile? Ah, I see. He has been very worried about Claude. Not bad news, I hope?” Her voice quavered with worry.
“No, indeed. Claude by now should have been sent home, if Vernet is reasonable. But I must?—”
I broke off as a middle-aged woman, a little plump, with faded, once-golden hair, hurried out of a chamber in the back of the house.
“Gabriella, who has come?” she asked in French.
She stopped short when she saw me, her skirts swirling with the momentum. She regarded me with blue eyes that had once ensnared me with their wilting entreaty but now held hard suspicion.
“Captain,” Carlotta said stiffly.
I had already removed my hat, and now I bowed. “Madame Auberge. Forgive me for disturbing you. I came only to speak to Emile, as he was not at home.”
“Oh.” Carlotta regarded me with a mixture of bewilderment, rancor, and disdain. This was her territory, her patch, as Brewster would say, and I was the invader.
“It is about Claude and the murder,” Gabriella said quickly. “Mama, let us go and fetch Emile. I’m certain that what the captain has to say is important.”
“You go, Gabriella.” Carlotta stood her ground. “Do, child.”
She spoke French with some defiance, as though indicating she’d left her English origins behind her forever.
Gabriella, after a hesitant glance between us, hastened off toward the dining room, where the family must have just finished their meal.
I recalled the layout of the house from the brief call we’d paid when we’d first arrived. Donata had taken over that visit, behaving every inch the aristocrat. The servants of the house had rushed about trying to make her comfortable, while she took in everything with her cool assessment. Carlotta had been as caught up in the servants’ undertaking, determined to prove her home worthy of a great lady.
Donata confided to me later that she’d adopted the arrogant persona on purpose, so that Carlotta would be distracted and not try to create any sort of scene with me. I’d warmed that Donata had put aside her own discomfort with the situation to keep our visit amicable.
Now, there was no one in the hall except Carlotta—my first wife—and myself.
“Are you well?” I asked, falling back on rote politeness.
“As well as can be expected,” Carlotta answered, still firmly in French. “Why have you come? Gabriella will stay home tonight. She has been gadding about too much of late. You took her to a soiree where a man was murdered, for heaven’s sake.”
The years fell away, and my impatience with Carlotta returned full force.
“He was not murdered at the soiree,” I said angrily. “But on a bridge in the city. It had nothing to do with the gathering, or me.”
“You are always rushing into danger,” Carlotta returned. “I shudder whenever Gabriella ventures to England. She comes home with hair-raising tales of your exploits, and you surround yourself with villains. I have decided—she will stay in this house until the wedding and visit you no more.”
I’d hoped the time apart from Carlotta would have curbed my temper, but it was not to be.
I advanced on her, my stick thumping on the slates. “She is my daughter. Not to mention a grown woman, able to visit whomever she pleases. Once she is Mrs. Devere, she can go where she likes.”
“Perhaps, but until then, Gabriella will stay under our roof. Besides, the major and I believe it might be best if she postpones the wedding, what with this scandal of Claude’s arrest. Or perhaps doesn’t marry Emile at all.”
Carlotta emphasized the word major, pointing out that her new husband outranked me.
“You’d make Gabriella miserable because Claude was imprudent?” I asked in amazement, though I lowered my voice, not wishing Gabriella and Emile to overhear. “I highly doubt that Claude committed this murder, and the gendarme captain doubts it as well.”
“He was arrested. I’ll not have my daughter associating with criminals.” Carlotta’s disparaging glance told me she considered me in that category.
“If you restrict her to young men who have never been rash then she will likely never marry. In any case, it was Claude who was arrested. I doubt Emile has sowed a wild oat in his life.”
“Does it matter?” Carlotta snapped. “I won’t have her marry into an undesirable family. Perhaps you do not understand that.”
