Nathalie batted her eyelashes in feigned innocence. “Do you think I would do such a thing?”
“Yes!” Both Gabriel and André laughed. Gabriel was about to ask why he had not seen her for several months when he heard her name coming from her friends.
“Nathalie, aren’t you coming with us?” A young woman parted from the circle and walked halfway to where her friend stood. She held out a nosegay of violets as if intended to entice her to rejoin them.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Nathalie answered, waving her away. “Tell them one minute more.”
The woman with the pink dress shrugged and turned around.
“We are all going to Vincent’s for dessert. Please join us.” Nathalie reached out as if she planned to pull Gabriel and André along with her. “We will be able to talk more.” She glanced over her shoulder, and Gabriel’s gaze followed hers. One of the waiting men pointed toward them, his face solemn. Nathalie looked back at him and André. “I need to join them. After all, tonight was a celebration for my returning home.”
“Home from where?” So that explained why Gabriel had not seen her.
“Oh, had you not heard?” She placed one gloved hand on either side of her face and shook her head. “My parents sent me to school in New York. But…” She leaned forward and cupped her hands around her mouth as if telling a secret. “I broke every rule until the school finally sent me home.”
Neither Gabriel nor André expressed shock upon hearing the news of her expulsion. “Well, since I have not horrified you with my behavior, will you come with us?”
André explained that he needed to prepare to return to Paris. Gabriel declined, saying that he would need to open the café soon.
“Then I will visit you there soon, Gabriel. But I doubt I will be allowed to travel for quite some time. So, you”—she swatted André with her fan this time—“will see me when you return. Yes?”
Nathalie didn’t wait for responses. She picked up the front of her skirt and scampered back to the group.
“I do not remember her being so engaging,” André mused as the two continued their walk home.
Gabriel loosened his cravat, ready to exchange the stiff formal clothes for his usual shirt and trousers. “That could be because, at age ten, not many girls are engaging in the way Nathalie looked tonight.”
“I didn’t mean in that way,” said André.
Gabriel raised his eyebrows.
“Maybe I did, but are you telling me you missed her expressive brown eyes, the curve of her lips, the hollows of her shoulders…”
“No, I am certainly not blind to the fact that she is a beautiful young woman. It’s that she is not—”
“She is not Lottie, is that what you were going to say?”
“I was going to say that she is not someone I would be interested in,” Gabriel responded, though he felt the doubt he knew his cousin would hear in his voice.
André did not respond.
“The LeClercs have planned a birthday party for Charlotte. The yellow fever delayed her coming-out party, so they decided that it is time now, since she will be twenty.”
“So, that is it then,” André said.
“Yes, of course.” Gabriel wished he did not see pity in André’s eyes. For years, he had endured this pity from his cousin after Rosette sent his father away. Tonight it agitated him. Would he forever be frustrated in achieving his dreams?
“I understand the desire to have something—something achievable. But Lottie will never be. You knew that from the day we first learned what de couleur meant. And, more importantly, what it did not mean.”
Gabriel saw Alcee, not yet five, sitting on the parlor floor, Rosette’s favorite porcelain bowl filled with water by her side. The little girl held her hairbrush, dipped it into the water, and scrubbed her legs to “make the dirty go away.” Alcee had stopped trying to be white years ago. Maybe he should take a lesson from his sister.
Chapter Nine
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“Why are Charlotte and Justine outside our cottage?” Rosette set the basket she had packed for the orphanage on the side table in the parlor.
“Why are you asking this question?” Gabriel pulled on his light gray gloves. “You know they are not waiting for Alcee.” Had they not discussed Lottie that afternoon in the café, his mother would not be questioning her presence this afternoon. He realized, too late, that any time spent with her now would arouse Rosette’s suspicion.
“On lave son linge sale en famille,” Rosette retorted in her angry-mother posture: one hand on her hip, the other free to wag a finger at him as she spoke. “Now that you have washed your dirty clothes in your own family, why are you dragging them down the banquette for all of Tremé?”