Love Finds You in New Orleans(31)

Though he didn’t have much time to spare, he could pass by his father’s law office and still arrive home without delaying Rosette. Gabriel mentally played out the scenario at his father’s office. He would explain that the tailors hadn’t revealed Jean Noel’s identity, but that he had come to the conclusion himself. If they could not spend time together today, they could arrange another. For if there were ever a time he needed his father, it was now.

He stopped and waited for his insides to stop trying to break through to his outsides. Just as he started to exit the fiacre, his father stepped out of the office then turned and closed the French shutters over the door and long windows. Gabriel paused for a moment, not wanting to call out his father’s name and yet giving him time to finish. Gabriel had started to cross the street and was a few feet behind when he saw his father wave to a woman and a boy about Alcee’s age, who both waved in return as they walked to meet Jean Noel.

Whatever Gabriel’s father had intended to accomplish by paying for his wardrobe, seeing him with his other son could not have been his intention. At least he hoped not.





Chapter Thirteen

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Lottie found a dead mouse on the steps outside, which meant Henri couldn’t be far away. After the first time this happened, she had grown less repulsed, eventually realizing that in his cat brain, he thought he’d delivered a treasure.

Today, the prize showed up at the steps leading to the gallery. She swatted it with her foot into the flower garden. Henri sauntered from alongside the house, stretched as easily as bread dough, and arranged himself close enough for Lottie to be able to scoop him up. She did and carried him inside, where she could hold him while she rocked in the same chair her grandmother had rocked her father. The faint needlepoint flowers on the seat and back showed the years of use, and the mahogany rails were almost as worn as the arms. Sitting in it, Lottie imagined a gentler version of Grand-mère. A mother cradling her child—her father—and it served to comfort her. Especially during times like these when her sole comfort came from ignoring the future that awaited her.

Henri turned around twice on her lap then settled into a round, furry patchwork pillow of brown, black, and white. “Where will you deposit your mice when I no longer live here?” He lifted one eyelid and turned his head to the opposite direction, either bored or bothered or both. Lottie looked down at him. “I’ll continue to pet you, even though you are being quite rude. It is possible that I could take you with me. Maybe you should reconsider.”

“Are you having a conversation with that cat?” Justine closed her parasol as she walked up the steps into the gallery. Startled by Justine’s entrance, Henri leaped from Lottie’s lap, snagging threads in one of the lace cuffs on her sleeve and leaving a collection of hair scattered over her pale yellow dress. He darted around Justine’s plaid skirt, which elicited a yelp from her, and then fled down the stairs. “Why do you want that thing near you?”

“Well, you did surprise us both,” said Lottie as she brushed the cat hair from her dress and examined the loose threads hanging from the lace. She rummaged through the sewing basket next to the chair, found a pair of scissors, and snipped off the loops that Henri had created in his flight. “There. Good as new,” she said, tossing the scissors back into the basket.

Before sitting, Justine scrutinized the seat of the chair across from the rocker. “That will only cause the lace to unravel more,” she warned. “And is that one of the new dresses made for you?”

“Yes, it is one of the ‘Lottie gets a husband’ dresses.” She held out the cotton lawn skirt to show the rosettes spilling down the center of the dress. “I actually like this one. It’s rather simple, like me. With the exception of this.” She pointed to the white lace collar that ruffled around her neck and was joined in the front by another lace rosette. “But since Agnes will be walking with us to class, I imagined Grand-mère thinking this the perfect dress for a promenade.”

Justine rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I don’t know if you are being serious or silly. I doubt she would consider walking to Monsieur’s house an opportunity to stroll just to be seen. Perhaps on the levee in the evenings…” Her voice trailed off as she tapped her mouth with her forefinger and, as she often did, looked off into some space she supposed the answers hid. The quirk served her well during lessons when she stalled for an answer, making it appear as if she’d forgotten it when she didn’t know it in the first place.