Love Finds You in New Orleans(93)

“Should we send Abram for Dr. Clapp?” Lottie couldn’t determine if Grand-père, sitting across from her, directed the question to Grandmère or to her.

“I’m much better. Just tired, really. I don’t need Dr. Clapp.” Lottie felt uncomfortable about the way they looked at her. She watched Abram light more candles around the room and thought of the brightness of the gaslamps tonight in the opera house. The opera house. Of course. Her grandparents had not questioned her in front of Paul, but no doubt they waited for her to provide some explanation. But did they know Paul’s real intention? Surely not. Her grandfather despised the gambling halls, the people they attracted, and the despair they caused families. And if he did know, then the LeClercs’ finances must be far worse than she thought.

Agnes returned with the coffee service, Rosette behind her carrying a small plate of petits fours and pralines. When Gabriel walked in with a coverlet and placed it over her, Lottie wondered who else in this room owed explanations. Then Rosette, Gabriel, Agnes, and Abram joined her grandparents, and she knew something truly dire must have happened. The fear that had subsided seeped back into her bones, especially because the faces surrounding her were solemn, not smiling.

“What happened?” Lottie waved away the cup of coffee Rosette passed her and sat up straight on the couch. “PaPa?”

He looked at her grandmother. She nodded. “Lottie, your grandmother and I did not expect tonight to end as it did. Whatever you were doing that caused you to leave the opera, I trust you had a reason. We can discuss that later, assuming you want to do so. What we need to talk to you about must be said tonight, before too much more time passes.”

“I don’t understand. Why is everyone else here?”

“Your grandmother and I have spoken little of your father and mother. One reason, the one we have always given you, is that to speak of them is painful. And that is no less true because of the other reason, which will help explain why Rosette and Gabriel and Agnes and Abram are here.” He leaned forward, his elbows on the chair arms and his hands clasped.

“You need to hear your parents’ story,” he said. “Not long after your father met your mother, he came to talk to me. You are very much like him in that regard. You know quite soon what you are passionate about, and you are not easily swayed.”

Agnes nodded. “That sure true.” Abram leaned close and whispered in her ear. “I’m sorry. You go on.”

Lottie resisted the urge to glance in Gabriel’s direction, though she suspected what her grandfather just said had much to do with his presence there.

“Charles loved your mother. She was a beautiful young woman, and though you might have inherited your father’s eyes, everything else about you is to your mother’s credit. But what he loved about her went beyond what most people saw. She was intelligent, an educated woman still eager to learn, charming, compassionate. When I hear ‘joie de la vie,’ I picture Mignon and her obvious joy for life. And Charles was an important part of that joy. I, we”—he paused to look at Grandmère, who had not taken her eyes from his face since he began—“both knew how they felt about each another.”

He sipped his coffee. It pleased Lottie to hear how much her parents loved one another and answered the question she had about the success of their arranged marriage. But surely everyone had not gathered to hear that.

“Yet, still knowing all that, we didn’t want your father to marry Mignon. We—”

“Do you mean he wasn’t the man her family selected? Or he was and you did not want him to be?” Lottie wondered if Mignon’s parents might have felt the same.

She, not her grandfather, suddenly became the center of attention. “I’m confused,” she said. She glanced around the room and felt even more so, seeing their expressions.

“You won’t be in a moment,” he said.

Lottie heard that hitch in his voice. The kind that went along with the difficult things that had to be said. She could not imagine what he was about to share, and the fact that it caused that reaction in him made her less anxious to hear it.

“The reason we didn’t want him to marry her was because… because she was first his placée.”

His words must have sucked all the air out of the room, Lottie thought as she struggled to breathe. She latched onto the front of the sofa, the words “his placée” expanding until they filled the room. Everyone was quiet long enough for rage to replace the shock of her grandfather’s revelation.

She eyed her grandparents and hoped they saw the depth of her anger, the pool of revulsion that filled her stomach. No one in the room reacted as she did. Not even Gabriel. They know. They all know. The enormity of their betrayal ripped apart everything that she thought held them together—trust, loyalty, caring, affection, love.