Page 10 of Beyond the Lavender Fields
Gilles flushed. He took a rapid drink of his chocolate, but the cinnamon and nutmeg she’d added caught in his throat and set him coughing. If themademoisellehad felt like a hunted animal, she was a tigress, not a doe.
“How did you ...” His throat tickled, and he started coughing again.
“I heard Émile boasting of it when they went upstairs.” Maman examined another tear, this time in a pair of breeches. “I know you and Maxence like to have your fun and that you did not get much of it in your youth while sailing with your father. I wish he had been home more often to show you his respect for me.”
Gilles flinched. “We respect you, Maman.”
She leaned across the table to pat his face. “Yes, you do. And so does Victor. Even Maxence, in his own way. But I think you forget that I am a woman. Do not the others of my sex deserve respect as well, or am I the exception because I bore and raised you?”
Gilles couldn’t look her in the eye. Was it different? The girls he and his brother chased were much younger and sillier than his mother. They played the game as much as he and Maxence did. Mademoiselle Daubin excluded, theylikedit. How, then, were his actions disrespectful?
“I love you,mon fils.” She smoothed his hair out of his face, then slid off the bench.
“Je t’aime, Maman,” Gilles murmured.
“Douse the fire before you go to bed.” And then she left. He listened to her move across the dining room and up the creaking stairs.
Even if she was wrong about most of the girls, Maman had reason on her side in one case. He had known from the start Mademoiselle Daubin was not open to such games, and he should have backed off earlier. Perhaps an apology was in order. His stomach sank at the prospect. Max would harass him mercilessly if he found out Gilles wanted to beg her pardon.
The contents of his waistcoat pocket pressed against his side. He fished out his father’s gift from under his banyan and held it up to the waning candle. It wasn’t an earring at all. He should have known that from its weight. The firelight caught the ridges of little words etched into the simple gold ring.Jamais en vain. Never in vain.
It was Grandmère’s ring, which his father always wore on his little finger.Gilles smoothed his thumb over the calligraphy. Thepoésiering had passed through several generations of his father’s family. Why had Père given this to him, and why now? Was he trying to tell Gilles all those years at sea had been worth it?
He shook his head but slipped the ring onto his little finger. Though he’d loved the sea and the men he’d befriended, he would never count those years as anything but a waste. They made him a stronger man, nothing else. And he could have pulled that strength from any other line of work. Père might have tricked Maman into thinking he was respectful, the best of gentlemen, but he did not fool Gilles or Maxence. If Père respected women as she claimed, then why did he not respect his own men? It was all an act. His way of flirting to keep her singing his praises.
Gilles moved a stool beside the fire. He would apologize to Mademoiselle Daubin and show, at least to himself and his mother, that he was the better man. He poked at the flames, sending them popping and snapping indignantly. Though he stared into the light, he saw only that young lady’s intense eyes—eyes he would have to look into as he bumbled through an apology.
Heaven help him.
Gilles stood at the edge of the cauldron watching the soupy, green-brown mixture roil inside. To his right and left, identical cauldrons, all with a diameter longer than a man was tall, sat in a long line. Two workers watched each cauldron, occasionally using long sticks to stir the oil and soda.
In his ledger, he noted the date next to the cauldron number. Another batch of soap begun. How many more batches would he oversee before he quit thesavonnerieforever?
“Excellent work, Luc.” Gilles closed his ledger.
The man, who had a red cap sticking out of the waistband of his trousers, pushed against his handle to scrape the deep bottom of the cauldron with the paddle end of the stirrer. Faint voices came from the basement, where other workers stoked the fires below each massive cauldron.
“Someday we will not be slaves to this,” Luc muttered. Sweat glistened on his face.
“There will always be a market for soap, I’m afraid.” Gilles leaned against the waist-high brick wall that encircled the cauldron and put his pencil behind his ear. He rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. Even in winter, one rarely needed a coat in the factory. At those times, Gilles wore his coat from the office and immediately shed it when he walked through the workroom doors. With the approaching summer, temperatures within thesavonneriemarched toward stifling, and he’d simply left his jacket on its peg near his desk.
Luc grunted. “Not this finearistosoap.”
There was truth in that. Gilles lifted a shoulder. Even if the aristocracy completely crumbled, as Luc’ssans-culottesdesired, thebourgeoisiewasn’t leaving. Anyone in the same circles as the Daubins would not give up their fine soaps happily. He did not mention this to Luc, however. Though both on the side of revolution, thesans-culottesand Jacobins had widely differing views on how to achieve it. Gilles preferred the enlightened reasoning of the Club to the violence, destruction, and anarchy displayed by the lower-classedsans-culottes, but more and more the Jacobins were forced to rely on their hot-headed counterparts to create needed change.
The worker’s eyes narrowed. “Who is that?”
Gilles glanced over his shoulder. Through the steam rolling off the cauldrons, a wave of white advanced into the factory. A straw hat fitted with violets and a matching ribbon appeared through the soap mists as she approached.
He straightened, tucking the ledger under his arm, and smoothed his waistcoat. What was she doing here? He hadn’t counted on speaking to her now, but perhaps the fates had smiled on him. An apology in a quiet corner of the factory was much better than trying to find a moment during tomorrow evening’s dinner.
“Mademoiselle, I did not expect to see you here.” Gilles hurried forward, locking his most charming grin into place.
Mademoiselle Daubin’s austere expression did not change as he approached. “I am once again looking for my father.” Today she wore one of the gauzy chemise dresses that had curiously come into favor among the wealthier class. Once seen as scandalously unstructured—almost revealing—when the queen had worn it for a portrait, the loose, gathered gown was now touted for its divergence from the rigid extravagance of the old aristocracy. While the Jacobin in him wanted to dislike the style, the man in him could not help but admit it looked well on her.
Gilles bowed. “It is a pleasure to meet you again. I fear your father might have left for theparfumeriealready since he was scheduled to be there at noon, but I will help you search for him if you like.” He offered her his arm before realizing it was rather lacking in sleeve.
She glanced at it and sniffed. “I still do not want to kiss you,” she said under her breath, turning away with her head high.
