~*~
The next day Mathew was back to Concord. He was exalted he had been asked to be in the caravan to Lexington with Mr. John Hancock and Mr. Samuel Adams, where the latter two were staying during congress. Mathew told me before he’d left that he would show much more sympathy for Mr. Hancock now that he understood better the wealthy man’s broken heart, thanks to his friend, Jacque. Mathew encouraged me to speak about philosophy with Jacque, if I so chose. I nodded and let him kiss me on my lips before he went, hoping it would rub out any and all of my affections for Jacque.
All that day Jacque lent his company and his large Landau carriage so that my sister, mother, and I could tour through the town of Boston. And, no, the kiss had done little to staunch my emotions regarding Jacque.
Before we dined, I rummaged through the inn finding a pianoforte and solitude in a dark room with only one candle for light. Playing music reminded me of my father, and as such I hoped I’d gain fortitude or some kernel of wisdom as how to stop my heart’s meandering to Jacque. I sat, looking at the keyboard, praying for guidance.
“You will play something?” Jacque asked, making me jump and thump at the ivories on the keyboard.
I clutched at my chest, laughed a high-pitched nervous neigh, while I wondered how he’d found me, how he’d soundlessly entered the room, even latching the door behind without my awares. Then I silenced the noise from the pianoforte. Jacque softly chuckled himself.
Further surprising me, he quickly sat next to me. “I’m sorry. I startled you. I keep doing that.”
While shaking my head, the memory of our first meeting invaded, sending quivering blue energy through my body.
“I thought I was alone.” I fingered the back of my neck, wiping the phantom feeling of his hands on me away.
“Non, I am here. You will play something for me?”
His eyelids were ever so slightly lowered. The intensity of his dark oceanic eyes waved into my body, crashed into my heart. Oh Lord, we were alone in a secluded room with me falling even more in blue.
“I recall that you play too . . . Jacque?”
He smiled. “Oui, but it’s been a long time.”
I nodded and looked down at his hands already perched on the pianoforte. “So, you’ll play with me?”
He slid closer—his leg touching mine, hip to hip, elbows just kissing. “A duet, it is, then.”
We found we knew much of the same music, and a duet was easy to choose. Learning each other’s rhythms, our fingers danced on the white and black music-making steps, stirring blazes. We laughed as we created melodies, caressing and feathering each other’s fingers until they seemed to burn with the music. The white keys turned pink and the black glowed like dark red-orange embers. Twice the inn’s girl reminded us that it was time to eat. We paused before we left for dinner, both of us looking down at the pianoforte and our hands so close to each other’s. Had a volcano erupted within my body? When we finally left the small music room, I was certain the pianoforte was on fire.
The French dignitaries sat at a table close to us as we ate our supper. I overheard much of their conversation. They said something to the effect that some French organization planned to finance the Massachusetts’ Militias with more guns, powder, and cannons. Alarmed, I looked at Jacque who was sitting close to me again. He gave me a sad smile and held my hand under the table in response.
Mother and Hannah were discussing how Hannah’s fiancé had finally written a note, letting Hannah know that he had been delayed because of his soldier’s duties. Unfortunately, we had run into many Regulars who had been out strolling through Boston, relaying to us that there was little to do. My sister had the upmost faith in her fiancé, she said with her chin lifted yet trembling. My mother was soft, but trying to reason with Hannah about what kind of a man this Lieutenant Kimball really was.
“They don’t know that you speak French,” Jacque whispered, interrupting my mother’s quiet, calming voice that was trying her best to be both nurturing yet firm with Hannah.
“Should you let them know that I understand them explicitly?” I said sotto voce.
Jacque squeezed my hand. “I apologize for their language. They shouldn’t swear with women in company, even if they don’t think the women can understand.”
“I’m not offended by their imprecations. I feel like swearing right now too. Is France giving arms to my Bay Colony as a loan?”
“Not my government, non.”
I huffed an ironic laugh. “Oh, aye, a supposed French business is gifting arms to my colony. Is that supposed French business backed by your king?”
Jacque’s thumb caressed my own, and instantly I forgot all language, even my own name. Through my stupor, he said, “You are so perceptive. I can guess that the arms are truly from my king. But I’m not privy to that knowledge.
“To be honest with you, I think France still winces from the Seven Years’ War, and would like to see Britain stumble in her walk to glory.”
I swallowed and let what he said filter through. “What you’re telling me is that . . . France is instigating a war?”
Jacque shrugged. “I do not know the full intentions of my king and his cabinet of counselors. I know that on the one hand his majesty smarts at a war that ended when he was but a child. On the other hand, Louis is very fond of you British Americans. He likes your vigor and strength.”
I smiled and felt my own hand tuck more securely into his. It was as if someone else had reign over my body, for I could not pull away from him.
Jacque’s eyes seemed to be as glassy as Hannah’s had been last night. He poured glass after glass of white wine for himself, trying to top my mother, my sister, and my cups, but he had been the only one keeping up with his serving. He turned to look at the men sitting close to us, laughing now about how American women loved to snatch—my translation may be off, but something I vaguely understood to mean making love, except without the love. They were intoxicated as well. Jacque sighed and looked back at me. “Perhaps, I could convince you to become a spy with me, hmm?”
I swallowed wondering how much was jest and how much was the wine.
“I’m drunk,” Jacque admitted in a coarse whisper. He looked surprised to find himself in his condition.
“I will confess at this table my darkest secret, Violet, while your sister is angrily telling your mother to keep to her own business. Do you want to know the secret that I try to keep hidden even from myself?”
He held onto my hand with both of his. One of his fingers grazed the inside of my wrist. “Your skin is so pale, yet you work outside.”
“I keep myself covered, otherwise I’d burn from the sun. I get freckles anyway.”
“Do you already have freckles? I see a couple on your shoulders.” His gaze felt like fingertips, feathering along my collarbone. “They are so pale of color too. Do you have blue blood in you?”
I slowly nodded and glanced at my mother.
“Yes, I remember now.” Jacque gave my hand a squeeze, then swept the back of his fingers against my wrist, causing flames to erupt low in my belly. He continued speaking without noting how where he touched, midnight blue danced on the inside of my skin. “Your mother, from Puritanical aristocrat blood, fell in love with her poor Scottish tutor, your father. What a love story. I find, now, that I quite like to hear happy love stories.” He closed his eyes and slightly shook his head. Opening his burnished blue eyes, his jaw clenched and unclenched, then he cleared his throat. “But we were talking about something else.”
I nodded again. “You were going to tell me a secret.”
“Tell you a secret, indeed. A secret that is almost criminal.”
I couldn’t tell if he held one of his tiny mischievous smiles, or if his face, although momentarily, fell in dark grief.
“Criminal?”
“Oui. It should be a crime, criminel. You see,” he paused for a long moment, then leaned into my arm, letting his nose touch my cheek as he whispered, “I a
m not a good man, not at all.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding on a quiet chuckle.
“I am.” He argued. “I am a horrible, horrible man.”
I shook my head, smiling. “No, you’re not. I haven’t known you for very long, but you are anything but a horrible, horrible man.”
“I am. My heart is . . . not good.”
“Do you mean literally? Do you have health problems?”
Jacque barked a loud laugh, making my sister and mother stare for a moment at him. But then Hannah began to tell my mother how men of our younger generation were more lax with courting rituals, but it did not mean that the man was any less polite for being more modern.
Jacque leaned into my ear again, this time letting his nose caress the spot of skin behind my ear, turning me on fire. “I have told you before, chére, that I don’t have any health problems, save for not dying when I should have years ago. I should have never met you. I would have never known what—” Jacque leaned away suddenly. His face contorted in what looked like pain, but a second later he coated his features in cold stone then said after he sipped more of his wine, “Yes, I will make you a spy, Violet. Like my mother was.”
“Your mother?” Yes, that’s what I asked. I couldn’t keep up with Jacque’s spinning, circulating, tornado of a conversation.
He nodded and intertwined his fingers between mine. And the world stopped. The rest of the dining room disappeared. I saw only Jacque smiling at me.
He opened his mouth, and the world spun too quickly again.
“Oui, my mother was a spy for her country. She was very patriotic. She married my father for her king.” Jacque mumbled something that sounded like Henry, but then kept talking. “You see, the king thought there might be a coup and the masterminds of it were the nobility. He was right too. He was ahead of his time to get a spy to watch within the ranks of nobility and aristocracy. So my mother married my monstrous father. She died when I was ten years of age. I still miss her. Did I tell you, you remind me of her? Her determined spirit? God, I’m drunk. Don’t you think it’s a stroke of genius to make you a spy? Yes. Yes. Oui. Mon Dieu, je suis ivre.”