I forced myself to tamp down my anger. “I assure you, Donata will be giving them the rough side of her tongue.” I touched my fingers to Gabriella’s chin, and she reluctantly raised her gaze to mine. “Emile is a fine young man, and everyone in town speaks highly of his family.”
“The Deveres are in trade, and the people here tonight are aristocrats. Their families fled when Lyon was besieged by the Parisians.” Gabriella’s eyes sparkled dangerously. “Emile’s grandfather was executed after Lyon’s surrender, and his father and uncles nearly were as well. Emile would not even be here if the revolutionaries had succeeded. The Deveres sacrificed themselves for this city, while the fathers of these ladies and gentlemen hid themselves until it was safe to emerge.”
I hadn’t heard the extent of the tale, though Fernand had hinted that things had been difficult for the Deveres when Lyon had resisted the extremes of the revolution. An army had been sent to suppress them, besieging the city for months.
Executions after Lyon’s surrender had taken place in the large plaza first with the guillotine then with simply shooting into crowds. The executions seemed random, with counterrevolutionaries and royalists dying alongside common workers and moderate, middle-class gentlemen.
“It is easy for those who do not suffer to judge,” I said. “I’m not certain what advice to give you, Gabriella, except to remember that the Deveres are good people, and to ignore those disparaging them. It does not matter what ignorant fools think.”
“Do not resort to fisticuffs, you mean?” Gabriella sent me a brittle smile. “It is difficult, sometimes.”
She was very much like me, I thought with a frisson of satisfaction. “It is indeed, but we should behave better than those who toss about insults, uncaring who will be hurt by them.”
“That is why I am apologizing for being ungracious,” Gabriella said quickly. “I’d rather return home than stay at a ball where I am unwelcome, no matter how elegant the house.”
I understood perfectly—thinking of the gentlemen who’d all but sneered at me in the withdrawing room—but I wanted to soothe her. “If the comtesse herself did not want you here, I wager even Donata would not have talked her into inviting you. The other ladies are guests, just as you are, aren’t they?”
“I suppose that is true.” Gabriella took my arm again. “With you by my side, Father, we will face them down.”
“That’s the spirit. Now, I know from experience that Donata might be some time. Will you give me the honor of entering the ballroom with me?”
“Of course.” She sent me a brave smile. “I will recover my temper, I assure you.”
“Do not bother. You have no need to bow your head and apologize when an aristocratic lady insults those you care for.”
“I can be civil, however,” Gabriella said, her moroseness fleeing. “That is better, is it not?”
I patted her hand, and we started courageously for the ballroom.
Before we’d gone far, we were startled by a loud screeching from the lower hall.
“What on earth—?” Gabriella asked in alarm and hastened to the staircase, me behind her. Together we peered over the balustrade.
Below us, on the ground floor, several footmen were trying to prevent someone from storming into the house.
“Unhand me,” a female voice in irate French came to us. “I demand you admit me, at once. Send for the comte. He will tell you.”
I recognized, to my astonishment, the vibrant movements and sleek dark hair of Signora Ruggeri, the woman who’d run for her life in the town square that very morning.
Chapter 4
The footmen at the base of the staircase tried desperately, and aggressively, to shove Signora Ruggeri back out the open front door.
Other guests joined us at the railing, ladies and gentlemen gaping at the scene below. Some guffawed at the signora’s struggles, and one woman uttered a few unflattering words about her character.
Watching Signora Ruggeri imperiously demand entrance into the house of her lover, where she clearly was not wanted, I could not help but feel some pity for her.
I could see that she wanted very much to visit the comte on her own terms—to be treated as his equal—but she never could be. The same aristocrats who looked down their noses at the Deveres had no use for a commoner mistress trying to push into their world. Her place was in the shadows or the scandal sheets, they’d remind her, not in the comte’s home.
Signora Ruggeri managed to break past the footmen and gain the foyer. The majordomo grabbed her by the arms and pivoted her around. Her screeching began once more, incoherent screams of rage tinged with fear.
That fear touched my protective instincts. Fernand had warned me against interfering, but no woman deserved to be so roughly manhandled.
I started down the stairs toward the fray. Gabriella did not call me back, which meant she understood my need to help.
I’d taken only three steps downward when crowd above me abruptly quieted. I turned to see what had caught their attention.
Comtesse Lejeune herself swept along the upper hall and past her guests to the staircase. I’d not yet met the comtesse, but I knew it was she by the way everyone melted aside for her, regarding her with awe.
