Love Finds You in New Orleans(5)

“Oh, you are so right,” said Justine. Lottie watched, almost blinded by the glow of gratitude on her friend’s face. Rosette could have sweetened her pralines with Justine’s smile instead of brown sugar. “I think I left it on the sofa in the parlor.”

But before Justine could place a slippered toe toward the house, Grand-mère held up her hand. “Wait. I can send Agnes to retrieve it.”

“Agnes is helping Rosette. I can fetch it for her,” Lottie said, aware too late that retch could have replaced fetch and sounded equally offensive.

Justine immediately averted her eyes. Grand-mère looked composed, but disapproval tightened her jaw and Lottie knew this would not be the end. As she’d gotten older, she’d become more aware of social distinctions, but she still couldn’t understand her grandparents’ attitude toward their slaves. Abram and Agnes filled the well of Lottie’s earliest memories. Their firm, warm grasps as she skipped between them on their way to buy croissants at the French Market…her giggles when Abram scooped her up and twirled her around as an antidote to Grand-mère’s harsh words…and always, the familiar smell of chicory and gumbo filé when she rested her sleepy head against Agnes’s neck as she was carried upstairs to bed.

It wasn’t until Lottie grew older that the differences were explained to her: gens de couleur libres were the free people of color who carried papers to prove they weren’t slaves bought and sold at market. Slaves like Agnes and Abram. But then, even some free people of color owned house slaves. Ownership of someone else just did not make sense to Lottie. It was exactly the reason, too, that Lottie dreaded the day she would have to marry. She didn’t want to be a wife owned by a man.

Lottie knew her grandmother’s pinched face had more to do with Lottie’s tone than her offer. Disrespect was not tolerated, of course, which likely accounted for children being “seen and not heard” in many households. Once Lottie had overheard her grandmother telling her dressmaker that she wondered some days if children shouldn’t even be seen. Today, Lottie wished she could be both invisible and mute. When will she notice that her own granddaughter’s head is bare?

In that suspended moment, she hoped she could issue an apology before the waves of her response crashed against the wall that was her grandmother. Lottie attempted to look and sound more penitent than she felt. Softening her voice, with her eyes cast down, she said, “Please, forgive—”

The sudden presence of Gabriel silenced her. He turned briefly to Lottie and murmured, “Excuse me,” then faced Grand-mère and Justine. Dressed simply in the dark blue trousers and white shirt he wore when he helped Rosette in the café, Gabriel lowered his head to avoid a tree branch posing no threat to the women. “Here is your bonnet, Mademoiselle Dumas,” he said, holding out the handcrafted lace bonnet as if he had placed it on a silver tray. His voice reminded Lottie of the velvet dresses she wore in the winters—elegant, yet comforting in its warmth. It could have belonged to a man twice his age. When they were younger, Gabriel had told Lottie he was glad God gave him that voice. It made him seem older and better able to provide for and protect his mother and sister after his father left them.

Justine placed the bonnet over her wilting curls and chirped, “Why, Gabriel, what a kind gesture.”

He nodded then turned his attention to Lottie’s grandmother. “Madame LeClerc, my mother and I would like to leave some pralines for you. A little lagniappe, as it were, as thanks for allowing Agnes to spend time with us.”

“Of course, of course,” she said and waved her hand as if to dismiss him, yet all the while glaring at Lottie.

“Perhaps…” Gabriel blinked in that honey-eyed innocence Charlotte recognized from years ago. The one he’d use to avoid Rosette’s wrath when he’d been mischievous. He looked at Lottie and ever so slightly nodded his head. “Mademoiselle Charlotte could make the selection and then retreat to the house, having no bonnet herself.”

To hide the smile about to make its presence known, Lottie held her hand over her mouth and feigned a slight cough. Were it not for the weight of the situation, her skirt, and his status, she might have hugged Gabriel. But the wiry boy who taught her how to pull crawfish out of ditches had disappeared inside the muscular young man who stood in front of her today. Hugging this version of Gabriel could, if she allowed herself, take on more meaning than friendship. But her future would be shaped by society and her grandparents. And it didn’t include Gabriel.