The Chevalier (Châteaux and Shadows) Read Online Free Page B

refused to part with. Cédric’s oldest son, Charles, tall, gangly, and almost a man, walked with them, listening and asking questions. The younger boys, including Dom’s only son, Dario, darted back and forth, chasing each other and the servant boys.
    Dario darted in front of him and jumped up to knock Manu’s hat off. Laughing, Manu clamped one hand down on his hat and shook his fist in mock anger. The boy cackled and raced away. Manu couldn’t remember a time when he was as happy and free as his nephews, especially on a Sunday.
    Manu’s mind, though, kept drifting to the becoming flush on Mademoiselle de Fouet’s cheeks. And to lust.
    ****
    Catherine excused herself after the cold midday dinner. She still got dizzy after too much effort, even though she was much stronger than a few days before. She hoped she was well enough to leave for Paris the next day, as she didn’t think she could ask Monsieur Emmanuel to wait. She did not know how else she was to return to the baronesse without inconvenience to others, unless she waited a week or more to go up with the de Bures family. She worried about the baronesse, too. Catherine hadn’t been able to rise from her bed to wish her patroness a good journey.
    The baronesse was up to something. Their voyage to the country had been a surprise to Catherine. The baronesse hadn’t seemed to have a real purpose, other than to argue with her estranged husband. She had always been honest with Catherine, but this trip appeared to have been a whim. Maybe she had felt her illness coming on?
    Or was it something in Paris they had been fleeing, which the baronesse now faced alone? Catherine frowned in worry. She owed a debt of loyalty to the lady.
    ****
    Manu paced in his own room. He was avoiding his father, who had invited him for an evening stroll in the gardens. After spending a few happy hours in the stables and then kicking and throwing a ball with his nephews, he had pled tiredness and a need to get ready to leave, but was doing nothing at all. He flung himself down in a chair and penned a note to his head groom in Poitou, saying he was going to be delayed by two or three more weeks and to let Pierrot do the haggling if anyone wanted to buy a horse. And not to sell the carriage horses because his brother might want them.
    A knock sounded at his door. His father had cornered him.
    Manu unfroze and took a deep breath. No need for his father to see he’d been dreading a private conversation. “Ah. Would you make sure this letter gets sent to Poitou, please, Monsieur?” He was too bossy and dismissive. “I mean, please have your servants take care of it. I’ll leave them a few coins, of course.” Too groveling. His father could afford to send a message better than he could.
    His father took the letter and tucked it into a pocket. “I have something serious to talk to you about, mon fils.”
    Emmanuel searched his father’s face, wondering what could be wrong.
    “It’s past time you married, Emmanuel.”
    Manu almost groaned. He shouldn’t have been surprised by the announcement, since he was twenty-five and all his older brothers except Henri had married when they were barely twenty. His sister had been fifteen.
    “I haven’t pressed the issue, since I made such a mistake in choosing for Jean-Louis.”
    Jean-Louis’ first wife had been a charmer with a sharp tongue and a penchant for unfaithfulness. Jean-Louis had married her cousin Hélène a few years after his wife died. The quiet, powerful devotion between them had made Manu uneasy when he was younger, but now it appealed to him in much the same way Dom and Aurore’s constant kissing made him wish for kissing of his own.
    “Henri didn’t want to marry. He was supposed to be a priest, if you remember?”
    Manu nodded. Of course he remembered; he wasn’t stupid. His mother had cackled about how the plan had fallen through because Henri hated the monastery and begged to be brought home. Now Henri was living with his