The comte blew out a puff of smoke. He turned back to the window and stared at the grounds of the castle through the veil of the storm—lands that had been in his family for generations. Below the window, stretching away to the woods, were his vineyards. Chestnuts and cedars surrounded the grounds of the castle, protecting it from the eyes of the villagers.
Despite all the unrest in France in the previous century, he had managed to retain his family’s holdings. He was proud of that: so many other families in the nobility had lost everything, had been forced to flee France. But he had learned, partly from watching his own father, how to negotiate the minefields of political change. When the peasants and locals in the village of Beaulieu had fought against the high taxes imposed by the king, and the tithe imposed by the church, the comte had not remained rigid and unyielding, like so many of his acquaintance. During years of bad crops, he had excused part of their tax obligations to him and his family. He had allowed the villagers to hunt on his lands at certain times of the year, free of charge. He listened to their grievances against one another, or against the church, and helped to negotiate peaceful solutions. He helped to raise money for a school in the village. He never locked himself away—shut up in the riches of his own castle, waited on by servants—or turned a blind eye to the sufferings of the village. He made it a point to walk in at least a few times a week, to speak with those he passed on the street.
And now here he was, at eighty-five years of age, tired of the battle, exhausted by the endless rounds of power struggle and negotiation. The comte stared out the window as rain pelted against the glass. He could see his own reflection, faint though it was in the dim light. And now this. There was one pressing problem that he had not dealt with—one issue that could cost them all dearly.
There had clearly been talk about Adrienne and her stories all over the village for months now. This latest episode, with Adrienne’s outburst at church this morning, and the arrival of Marie, sick son in tow, would only spark more gossip. He knew he should speak to the child, that he should do something to contain her, to teach her to speak only to a few trusted souls. There were only two trusted souls that he knew of, only two who would listen to the girl without judgment or recrimination. Lucie loved the girl; that was obvious. She didn’t seem threatened or frightened by Adrienne’s gift. But a governess was little more than a paid servant, and she had no power to either protect Adrienne from the wrath of others, or advise the girl on politically correct behavior. And he knew that Genevieve had neither the desire nor the skill to manage the situation.
He was the only one who could protect her, and he knew that he would not be around forever. He felt the ravages of his own mortality more every day. Every time he and Adrienne walked into Beaulieu, he was a little slower on the walk home. His breathing was not as deep, not as easy as it once was. He ached, and on days like today, when the air had become cold and damp, he felt his age in every joint of his body. If he really wanted to protect his granddaughter, he needed to talk to her, to teach her, to somehow convince her that it was best to remain silent, to keep the stories she saw and heard to herself.
The comte stared out the window. Rain poured from the skies; thunder shook the glass; lightning flashed across the gray. The memory crashed into his consciousness, carried by that streak of lightning. He remembered the first time he had seen Marguerite. He was thirty-five years old, and he and his father were hunting with Seigneur Teyssier, on the Teyssier estate several miles down the road. A storm had come up, just like the one before him now, and each of the hunters had taken shelter wherever they could. The comte had found a rock overhang, along the side of the hill, and had stood underneath, watching as the water poured down around him.
Marguerite was with her governess. The two of them had been caught in the rainstorm, out riding horses, and had also taken shelter. As soon as the rain had started to let up, they had galloped past him. Both were sodden. But even soaking wet, even in that gray day, he had seen the reddish glints in her hair. She was wearing a cloak of cobalt blue, and the color had popped out against the gray of the day and the copper of her hair. She turned to look at him, as if she knew he would be standing there under the rock, sheltering from the rain. The look that passed between them went straight to his heart. It was as if she already knew him, had expected him to be waiting there.
He mentioned her to his father a few days later—the girl with the reddish hair. His father seemed unaware of the girl’s existence, but as he thought back, he realized that there had been a young daughter mentioned years ago, at the Teyssier household. She had never been allowed out in public, had never even, as far as he knew, been allowed to sit at dinners held for guests at their estate. It was as if she had disappeared from consciousness within a few years of her birth.
Seigneur Teyssier had seemed stunned when Matthieu and his father approached him about a possible union. Matthieu never thought to question it, never thought to wonder why the girl had been hidden away for most of her life. He ignored the warnings from his own father, who insisted there must be something terribly wrong or they would not have kept the girl from society. He had begged his son to reconsider, but Matthieu had thrown caution to the winds. There was something about that young woman in the blue cloak, something about the way her eyes met his, something about that look of knowing, that had arrested Matthieu, had turned him into a captive even before they had actually met. When they met a few weeks later, at a dinner arranged by Matthieu’s family, he was even more entranced. She was quiet, reticent to speak, especially in front of her family, but when she did, she displayed a keen intellect. Matthieu could see that nothing escaped her notice.
Later, when Matthieu and Marguerite had been married a few months, Matthieu had learned why she had been hidden away, why Seigneur Teyssier had done his best to keep her out of the public eye. Her visions, her stories, just like Adrienne’s, had been cause for alarm, and her father had made sure that none of that talk would leak out to the surrounding countryside. As Marguerite learned to trust her husband, she began to talk about the things she saw. She told him that their first child would be a dark-haired daughter. She warned him to stay away from Paris one fall, and they learned weeks later that there had been a riot with several people killed. They agreed to keep her visions to themselves, and they had done their best to guard her secret.
For the most part, they succeeded. There were occasions, relatively few, when the comtesse would drift off, and come back with some startling new story that somehow managed to leak out. She told him about the family in Clermont who was forced to leave the country, forced to leave their possessions, because the father had argued with the village priest. She asked him to send their cook, Edith, home to Nice, knowing that the woman’s mother was on her deathbed and would not live another month. There were times when servants overheard, even the rare occasion when a servant would come to her, asking for help. Edith was one of those. She had been dreaming about her mother, had come to Marguerite and asked if Marguerite could help—if there was anything that Edith should know.
It was when Marguerite became pregnant with Genevieve that the trickle of gossip turned into a raging torrent. The comte felt the wind rush out of him at the memory, and he dropped into the chair beside the window. Even now, over thirty years later, the memory had the power to knock him to his knees.
For months, she had begged him, trying to convince him that they should try again. She wanted so much to give him a son. He was reluctant: she wasn’t strong to begin with, and the loss of their son a few years earlier, and two previous miscarriages, had sapped her of strength. What worried him most, though, was her state of mind.
When their boy died, at only ten months of age, she had grieved in a way that left him frightened, alarmed at what might become of her. They were both torn, but Marguerite had become sullen and quiet, sometimes completely unapproachable. There were days when she didn’t bother to take care of herself—days when she sat in her chair by the window, staring out at the grounds of the estate. She would not dress; she would not allow the servants to do her hair; she would not eat. It had taken more than a year before she came back to herself.
When Marie had turned twelve, and was leaving for another term at the convent school, Marguerite started in on him with full force. Didn’t he want a son, an heir, to pass the estate to? Marie was getting older; Marguerite was getting older; the time was now. She pleaded with him, almost desperate for another baby.
And it was true, the things she said. He very much wanted a son. He worried about what would happen to the Challembelles estate without a male heir. He often wondered if Marie could handle such a huge burden. So when Marguerite came to him one morning, and told him that she had had a dream that the baby was a boy, and all would be fine, he believed her. He wanted to believe her. He looked into her eyes, and saw the flame of her desire. He heard what he wanted to hear—that they would have a son. He believed her because he wanted to believe her.
She was only a few months into the pregnancy when he saw the change come over her. She refused to confide in him, refused to tell him that she had begun to have visions about the baby. He would find her sitting in some darkened corner, and when he asked her what was wrong, she would whisper that it was only the normal queasiness of early pregnancy.
She was halfway through her term before he learned the truth. December had fallen on the countryside with lead-gray skies and shrieking winds and bitter cold. Marie was home from school. She had asked to bring a friend with her for the holiday, and Madeline Fortier had joined them at the chateau. Her father was a duke in Brioude; the families were slightly acquainted through the comte’s work in Paris.
Matthieu had found Marguerite, sitting in a chair by the window in the greenhouse. Tears were streaming down her face; her shoulders shook. He knelt before her. “Marguerite, what is it? You have to tell me.”
She pulled her hands away, and covered her face. She rocked back and forth in the chair. She shook her head. “No, Matthieu . . . I cannot.”
His anger boiled at her refusal, and he raised his voice to her. He stood up. “Marguerite, this has been going on long enough. What is wrong? What are you keeping from me?”
Her shoulders stiffened, and she dropped her hands from her face. Tears had left trails across her cheeks; her eyes were those of a wounded child.
The comte regretted his harsh tone almost immediately.
“You want to know? You really want to know? So that you can be as miserable as I am?” Her eyes blazed with fire when she turned to look at him.
He felt as if the world had started spinning too quickly, as if he were about to fall. Suddenly he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know. But watching her like this—more disheveled and emotional than he had seen her in years—could not be borne. He forced himself to take a deep breath. “Yes, Marguerite. I want to know.”
She turned her face away from him. The low gray light turned her tears into luminous gray pearls, sliding down her cheeks. “The baby is a girl. A girl . . . with yellow hair.”
He stood there, gazing at her, hit by a wave of shock that things could be so different from what he had believed for several months now. “But . . . I thought you said . . . I thought you had dreamt . . .” His mind clouded with questions.
She turned to him, suddenly calm. Her shoulders no longer shook, but the tears continued to glimmer on her cheeks. “I lied to you, Matthieu. I never had a dream about the baby. I never had a vision that it would be a boy. I lied to you.”
He felt as if he had been kicked; his air escaped in one quick rush. “Marguerite, you know how dangerous this is . . . what the doctor said. How could you lead me to believe . . .” Anger made his voice sharper than he had intended.
“I wanted to try, one more time. I wanted to give you a son. I know how important it is to have a son to take over the estate. There was always the chance that the baby would be a boy, and I . . .” She stopped and exhaled. “I wanted another baby. I needed another baby, after . . .”
Matthieu raised his hand and rubbed it back and forth on his forehead. He was trying to absorb it all, but he had believed, absolutely believed, that they were going to have a son. He had taken her words about the dream at face value, having learned many years ago that her visions could be trusted. But now this—there had been no vision. His mind fought its way through this new information. She had lied to him, and the deception suddenly made him question everything he thought he had known about her. He stared at one corner of the room, not aware of what he was seeing. He raised his hands to his mouth and nose, breathed into them for a moment, trying to quiet his racing heart.
At last, he took a deep breath and turned to face her. “It doesn’t matter, Marguerite. It doesn’t matter. A baby girl is still a baby . . .” His voice broke off. His assurances sounded hollow and false, even as they left his mouth.
She looked at him, calmer now, as if telling him the truth had lifted some of the burden she had been carrying. “But it does, Matthieu. It does matter. I lied to you. I used my”—she paused, searching for the word—“my vision . . . to get what I wanted. Without thinking of what it might do to you . . . to Marie.”
They stared at one another. Even then, even at that moment, Matthieu had known that things would never be the same for them, that a dark cloud had descended on their marriage and would never lift.
Marguerite turned her head, looking toward the room where Marie and her friend were engaged in a game of chess. “What kind of person am I? I have failed you both. As a wife, as a mother. As a person.” She turned to look at him again. “My whole life . . . I’ve been . . . defective. My father hid me away. Made me stay in my rooms.” He could see the depth of her despair.
“And now I am having visions about the baby. Matthieu . . . the baby will live. She will be fine and healthy.” She stopped, watching as understanding dawned in his mind. “But I will not.”
His breath caught; he shook his head. “No. No. This is not possible. What are you saying?”
She winced, both of them aware of the accusation in his voice. She turned to look out the window once more, avoiding the shock and fear in his eyes. “I can see it, Matthieu. My eyes are closed. I can see my body laid out: my skin very pale . . . almost gray. There is blood everywhere.” She turned back to face him. “I will not live to help you raise this baby.”
He stared at her, his mind fighting to push away every word, every image that she laid before him.
“I’ve ruined everything.” Tears flowed down her cheeks. “It was bad enough, everything I’ve put you through, with the real visions. And now this. I lied to you. And nothing will ever be the same.”
He had tried to swallow his own anger at what she had done, to go to her, to reassure her, but she had pushed him away, shaking her head, her face sloppy with tears. She turned and fled from the room.
The comte exhaled slowly, his eyes back on the storm outside the window. He could remember turning, the tension still thick in the air of the room, and seeing the dark eyes of Marie. She and her friend Madeline had been in the next room, playing chess, when they had heard the shouting, the beginnings of the disagreement. He remembered looking into the eyes of that other girl, the girl who would go back to her family and tell them about the crazy woman at the Chateau de Challembelles. He well remembered how the story had traveled the countryside, quickly coming back to the village of Beaulieu. And he remembered turning his gaze to Marie, shame and embarrassment written in every line of her features. In her eyes burned something even worse than shame and embarrassment, something that made him cringe even now, all these years later. Marie fairly vibrated with anger.
Adrienne looked so much like her grandmother. Not just in the coloring, the copper-colored hair and blue eyes, but in the way she walked, in the way she held her head slightly tipped, her chin pointing to the left, whenever a vision came to her. He felt a lump rising in his throat, and his eyes burned. He would do anything to protect this little girl, anything to keep her from the gossip and stares of the villagers.
But lock her away? Kill her spirit and force her to stay hidden and quiet? Like so many times over the past year, he pushed the thought away from him. Not now. Not today. He could not, would not, do anything just yet. He swore to himself that he would deal with this. Soon.