Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [120]
“It’s nearly morning,” she hissed at him. “You must go.”
“Hanh?” Choufleur muttered. “Let them discover us . . . What does it matter if they know?” He turned onto his back and flung his arm across his eyes.
“Not now.” Nanon shook him again. “Not yet. Go now.”
Choufleur sat up abruptly, swinging his feet to the floor, giving his head a sharp shake, left and right. He swiveled toward her fluidly, wrapped his hands around the back of her neck and the base of her skull, and drew her half-falling across the bed, into a long, deep kiss. With the release, he spoke, rather curtly. “You’ll come with me. Tomorrow, to the north.”
Nanon said what she had planned to say. “I will not leave my child.”
His hesitation was informative. A moment of silence passed, then he stood up, paced to the door, turned back toward her.
“Then we will take him. Very well.”
Nanon said nothing. A little blue light filtered into the room, so that she made out his silhouette but not his face. She heard Paul breathing in his cot.
“And if you remain here with him, what?” Choufleur’s laugh was dry as ash. “He will live as the bastard son of a blanc.”
Nanon, sitting upright with her hips swathed in a tangle of sheet, put her palms over her breasts and lowered her head. She did not know how much of this posture he could discern in the dim light.
“Believe me,” Choufleur said, now with a pleading note, almost. “Come with me now, and we will wipe away everything that has been before.”
Still she would not look at him. “How am I to know what to believe?”
“Make ready,” Choufleur said, decidedly. “We leave tomorrow, before dawn.” He moved to the door. She felt a change of air as it opened and shut, but he made no sound at all in going out.
Elise arose at her usual hour, dressed, ordered coffee, and awaited developments. When she heard Paul’s voice, she put her head into the corridor and saw Nanon, groggy, her face puffed up with sleep, handing the boy over to Zabeth before falling back into her bedchamber. Une nuit de délices, Elise imagined, feeling herself well satisfied. She breakfasted with Sophie and Paul. Tocquet and Choufleur had already gone out, Choufleur pausing to make her an ornate little speech whose general drift had been that, owing to his carriage’s need of some minor but time-consuming repair, he hoped to lay claim to her magnificent hospitality for one more night.
She passed the morning in the supervision of one household task or another, unable fully to fix her mind on any of these. Nanon did not appear till afternoon, floating dreamily onto the gallery as Tocquet and Elise were finishing a modest lunch of cold chicken and fruit. The day was still and suffocatingly hot, the sun swollen at the height of its arc. Pushing his plate away, Tocquet wiped his forehead and grimaced, then went to lie down till the heat should abate. Elise remained at the table, watching Nanon sip grapefruit juice. The colored woman did not seem to look at her, though perhaps she was spying, through her long black lashes.
“And how did you enjoy our Colonel Maltrot?” Elise said suddenly.
Carefully chosen, her words seemed effective. Nanon looked up involuntarily, her eyes widening for an instant before she regained her composure. Then her eyelids lowered, slowly. She did not speak.
“I find him interesting,” Elise went on. “It’s plain he is an educated man. Of talent, possibly, and certainly of strong will. Does he not look splendid in his uniform? One supposes also that he must be a man of means, judging from his manners, and the buttons on his coat.”
“I did not suspect that you could admire such a man as he,” Nanon said languidly.
Her emphasis was very slight, barely perceptible.