A Free Man of Color - Barbara Hambly [21]
January shuddered. He knew several who would resort to just that, accompanied by massive purges and a heavy dose of calomel—salts of mercury—for good measure.
“You think they’ll accept a physician of color?”
The sword master appeared genuinely surprised. “It is of no concern to me what they accept. Jean Bouille is my student. The American shall accept your ministrations or die of his wounds. Which, it is of little interest to me. May I count upon you, sir?”
January inclined his head, hiding his amusement at the extent of the Prussian’s imperial arrogance. “You may, sir.”
Mayerling produced his card, which January pocketed, and accepted one of January’s in return. Mayerling’s said simply, Augustus Mayerling. Sword Master. January’s was inscribed, Benjamin Janvier. Lessons in Piano, Clavichord, Harp, and Guitar. Underneath the lines were repeated in French.
“I can’t find her anywhere,” wailed Marie-Rose at twenty minutes until midnight, coming up while Minou was flirting with Hannibal across the palmettos that screened the dais on both sides. Henri had returned to the respectable purlieus of the establishment with promises to be back in time for the tableaux; even the senior M. Peralta, pillar of rectitude that he was and assiduous in his attentions to Euphrasie Dreuze, had been back and forth several times.
By the way the old man was watching the lobby outside the ballroom, January guessed he had no idea where his son was. The boy was only seventeen. If he’d sent him home or banished him to the Théâtre he wouldn’t be watching like that.
And Euphrasie Dreuze, quite clearly aghast at the possibility that her daughter might have whistled at least some percentage of the Peralta fortune down the wind, was like a pheasant in a cage, flitting in and out from ballroom to lobby in a fluffy scurry of satin and jewels. January dimly recalled his mother telling him that Etienne Crozat, owner of the Banque Independent and stockholder in half a dozen others, had paid Euphrasie Dreuze off handsomely upon his marriage. Her concern might, of course, stem entirely from care for her daughter’s welfare, but the woman’s reputed fondness for the faro tables and deep basset were probably the actual cause of the increasingly frenzied look in her eye.
When the Roman, Jenkins, returned from negotiations downstairs, he, too, loitered around the lobby with an air of searching for someone, but at the moment January couldn’t see him.
“It’s just like her,” sighed Minou, as Marie-Anne, Marie-Rose, and one of the Ladies of the Harîm—shedding an occasional peacock eye in her wake—scampered off after the next waltz to make another canvass of the courtyard. “I asked Romulus to check the gambling rooms, but even Angelique wouldn’t have gone down there. Maybe vanishing like this is part of her plan.”
“No woman wears a getup like that and disappears before the tableaux vivants,” Hannibal pointed out. He turned away to cough, pressing a hand briefly to his side to still it, and the candlelight glistened on the film of sweat that rimmed the long fjords of his retreating hairline.
“No,” retorted Minou. “But if she’s not back in another few minutes Agnes is going to have to fix her daughters’ hair, and everybody knows Agnes is just dreadful at that sort of thing. And now we can’t find Clemence either. If Henri comes back and so much as speaks to another woman, have a waiter slip some mysterious potion to him to render him unconscious, would you, p’tit?”
“You’ll need a sledge to get him home.”
“I’m sure Monsieur Froissart will oblige. Why does everything have to go wrong at these affairs?” She fluttered away again, sleeves billowing like white and gold sails.
“I don’t know why she’d take an hour and a half at it,” said Hannibal, plucking at the strings again, and turning a key. “Any of the girls down in the Swamp—the Glutton or Railspike or Fat Mary—can have you begging for mercy inside five minutes. Seven, if you’re dead to start with.” He coughed again.
“Maybe that’s the reason