Page 5 of The Beautiful Ones

Le Champ des Fleurs had been restless for days.

The Lebons spoke the name in the French manner, softening every syllable as if the plantation were an estate outside Paris instead of a struggling property beside the James River. Most people in the county called it Lebon Place. Madame considered that an insult.

I descended the back staircase, lifting my skirts above my ankles. Heat rose from the outer kitchen and rolled through the passageway. The smell of yeast bread, frying ham and woodsmoke made my stomach tighten with hunger.

Dinah stood at the long worktable with flour covering both arms to the elbow. She had tied a blue cloth around her head and tucked her skirts up beneath a clean apron. Two girls worked beside her, one peeling apples and the other separating eggs into a large crockery bowl.

Dinah glanced at me. “She been ringing.”

“I know.”

“Whole house knows.”

The younger girl hid a smile.

I paused beside the doorway. “Has Miss Cécile eaten?”

Dinah’s hands continued shaping the dough. “Wouldn’t touch her tray.”

“Is she ill?”

“She knows who’s coming.”

That explained enough.

Dinah had raised Cécile from infancy and understood her better than anyone. I had been assigned to Cécile only because Madame decided her daughter required a white companion now that she was old enough to enter society. A Swedish contract girl could be dressed neatly and presented as something between a servant and a poor relation. Dinah could love Cécile, bathe her, soothe her fevers and sit beside her through the night, but Virginia society would not permit her to accompany the daughter of Étienne Lebon into a ballroom.

The unfairness of that arrangement had never required explanation. It stood between Dinah and me every morning.

“I will persuade her to eat,” I said.

Dinah kept her eyes upon the dough. “Might let her be awhile.”

Madame’s bell rang again.

Dinah glanced toward the ceiling. “That bell will bring Madame up here herself.”

I hurried away.

Madame Lebon waited in Cécile’s bedchamber, standing beside the open wardrobe with both hands planted upon her narrow hips. She wore a dark green morning dress despite the heat. Not one strand of her black hair had escaped its pins.

Cécile sat before the dressing table in her shift and stockings, staring at three gowns spread across the bed.

“There you are,” Madame said. “Where have you been?”

“Dressing, Madame.”

“You should dress before I need you.”

I lowered my eyes. There was no useful answer.

Madame pointed toward the gowns. “She refuses to choose.”

Cécile watched me through the mirror. Her light brown hair hung loose around her shoulders, falling nearly to her waist. She had her father’s dark eyes and her mother’s fine, straight nose, but the softness in her face belonged to neither of them.

“Miss Cécile?” I asked. “Would you prefer the blue?”

Her lips parted.