Page 53 of Drowned in the Pleasure of a Devilish Baron
The team of men created a line, marching together in step to the row of land awaiting their plants. Each only held one plant, cradling them as carefully as one might a baby. The holes, pre-dug into the soil, were about a hand-span deep and doubly as wide, with eight steps between each. At Dubois’s order, each vine was placed tenderly into their holes, and then filled perhaps three-quarters full of soil. Dubois inspected each hole one by one, adding a little dirt here, scooping some out there, and then he and the other men took a few large steps back.
He shouted a word Felix had never heard before, but assumed was French, and a massive wagon, overflowing with something covered in a sheet of burlap, began to trundle slowly up the hill to them. Felix saw the men tie strips of cloths over their faces, and did not have to wait long to determine why.
“My God!” he shouted, as a wave of a ferocious stench smacked him in the face. “What on earth is that smell?”
Dubois smiled a secret little smile, waving the men over. In a smooth movement, each took a trowel. The burlap was lifted off the back of the wagon, revealing a heap of something he could not identify, and they took a scoop each, trickling it gently over their newly planted vines.
The burlap had released the smell further. Felix bent over at the knees, inhaling shallowly, sure he was about to be sick.
Dubois appeared at his side. “You are as green as our leaves, monsieur,” he said cheerfully.
“What—” Felix inhaled. “Is—” he let the breath out, his fields swimming before his eyes. “That?”
“Breathe through your mouth, not nose,” Dubois patted his back kindly.
He pinched his nose shut and took small breaths from his mouth, which did help some. After a few moments, he was able to breathe a bit normally, though he did not dare release his hold on his nose. He looked at Dubois, whose current grin could light the sky.
“That, monsieur, isguano!”
Felix looked at him blankly. “What?” he asked, his voice nasally and pinched.
“It is my secret,” he leaned in close, glancing around as if another winemaker were hovering nearby, ready to steal his knowledge. “Guano.It is an exotic substance, brand new to us, brought to France by my old friend, Alexander von Humboldt, from a land across the sea,” he whispered, drawing a path across the sky with his hand, his eyes very far away.
“Butwhatis it?”
Dubois’s smile widened. “Feces, monsieur. The finest feces from seabirds very, very far away.”
It was too much. That knowledge, paired with the stench that no fingers could pinch from any nose, sent him over the edge, and he lost his breakfast there on the ground with Dubois laughing beside him.
After recovering from his amusement, Dubois fetched a maid with a cold towel and a pint of beer for Felix, who drank and felt more able to handle the stench. Rolling up his sleeves and handing back his glass to the maid, he dove right in.
There’s no better way to get over it than to really dig into it.
Felix strode to the carriage, securely tying a strip of cloth around the bottom half of his face and took up a trowel of his own. He watched carefully as the other men repeated the same motions as before, and when he was sure he had it exactly right, he took a scoop of the foul-smelling substance and followed their lead.
Ensuring that every movement the other men did, he followed, he helped the men fertilize the precious vines, one at a time. He was so intent on copying the moves exactly, he found himself itching his nose when the man beside him did the same. The other men sent glances his way, more and more openly as he continued the work alongside of them, and their murmuring in French grew louder and louder when it became clear that he did not intend to just do one plant and call it a day.
Dubois danced up to him, his face so shocked it made Felix snort a laugh through his nose covering. “Monsieur! Monsieur! What are you doing? The men, they do this work, not the gentleman!”
Felix used the back of his hand to wipe his forehead. “I want to be a part of this,” he said. “This is my land, these will be our vines. I want to learn it all and do it myself. I cannot just sit back and watch the work be done, not when it means so much.”
Dubois lowered his voice and looked at the road, then back to Felix. “But if someone were to see?Quel scandale! A scandal!”
“These roads are empty, no one will see. Besides,” Felix looked at him with a smile, “Don’t you know that people see only what they expect to see? No one will see me working with these men in the fields because it’s not what they would expect to see. Were they to look at the workers at all, their eyes would slide right over me. Besides, if they do try and look closely, the stench of this guano is sure to make their eyes water enough that they’ll quit trying.”
Dubois backed away then with a nod, and Felix could see that he’d surprised and impressed the man. Together, they worked as the sun grew high in the sky and began its route west, and never for a moment did Dubois slack or assume the work was being done correctly. Each individual plant was checked and rechecked, every step was taken slowly and carefully. It was a marvel to see, a marvel to be a part of.
How he wished Sarah were here to see it.
That evening, no threatening letter came. Felix bathed thoroughly twice, still sure the scent of that blasted guano lingered. He was too tired, too pleased from the day’s job well done, to think on it for very long.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“He has not slowed down, even in response to the letters,” the man with the scarred finger growled to the other. “Why will he not heed our warnings?”
His collaborator did not appear bothered, stretching out his legs before him and gazing around the room, as if this conversation were boring him.
“Do you not hear me?” he demanded. “What are we going to do?”
