“Nine,” Julien corrected flatly.
“But we didn’t have…this,” Viktor continued, waving his hand about the room. “Our home. Our family.”
I thought of all the things I’d learned of Gerard and Dauphine last night and wondered if that might have been a blessing.
Julien drummed his fingers on the tops of his knees. “There’s an old family estate in the north. We were sent there.”
“Marchioly House,” I guessed, then froze. “There was an incident there recently. A fire…” I glanced uneasily at Viktor.
“It wasn’t me,” he said sharply. “I swear it.”
“It was a storm,” Julien admitted. “You know how fierce they can be in spring. Lightning struck the north end of the house. There was some festivity going on in the nearby village. A wedding. Only two of the staff was with us. Brahms—”
“He was a terrible cook,” Viktor quipped.
“—and Sheffield,” Julien continued, speaking over his brother’s interruption.
“Father’s watchdog,” Viktor said. “Our jailer. He controlled the grounds, the gates. He was the only one who had keys for anything. He made sure no one ever came to Marchioly.”
“Or left,” Julien added pointedly, his eyes as hollow as his voice. “In his haste to put out the flames that night, Sheffield’s keys fell from his pocket. I saw them in the hall as we ran for buckets of water…”
“We used the cover of the storm to escape,” Viktor said.
“And you came back here?” I asked, sitting down, drawn into their tale. I could so easily envision the rain lashing at tall windows. I could hear the pops and crackles of embers, could smell the building smoke.
“Where else would we have gone?” Julien asked with a little shrug. “Chauntilalie is the only home—the only real home—we’ve known.”
I imagined the two of them as small boys, wandering around a quiet, lonely estate with only the other for friendly companionship, their faces tight and frightened. It was an impossibly sad tale but one fact poked at me like a thorn, catching on my sleeve and refusing to go unacknowledged.
“I don’t understand why Gerard would have sent his sons away in the first place.”
Silence settled over the room and I had the distinctly uneasy feeling that the two of them were somehow talking to each other without me overhearing.
“They kept their son. Their favorite son,” Viktor finally said, his bitterness evident. With a flick of his fingers, every candle in the room sprang to life, flames jumping to dangerous heights.
“Stop it,” Julien hissed at him, and after a moment, the flames settled down to manageable, soft glows. He turned to me. “From what I’ve been able to draw out from the tutors, our…talents…would have drawn too much attention among the polite company our family kept. Alexander was deemed…palatable.”
The explanation did have a horrible ring of truth. How would Dauphine possibly explain one of Viktor’s outbursts at a society luncheon?
“Which makes me all the more curious…you’ve been around our brother for weeks now,” Julien pressed. “Have you noticed anything…peculiar about him?”
“Nothing.”
He squinted his eyes. “Think about it. Think hard. There must be something.”
“I don’t…I haven’t seen anything. Certainly nothing like either of you.”
Julien sighed. “There must be something. Otherwise there’s no point in you being here.” I started to counter but he leveled me silent with his gaze. “You see ghosts, Miss Thaumas. There’s little use in pretending otherwise. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. These gifts make us more, not less.”
“Yours might,” I said. “Mine could send me to the madhouse.”
Julien shook his head. “Papa would never. It’s the single reason you were brought here.”
“Dauphine wanted me to paint Alex’s portrait,” I protested. “She picked me.”
Viktor tilted his head, peeking around the easel at my work, and made a face. “You’re not untalented but do you really think you were the best choice, out of all the artists out there?”
“Yes,” I asserted, indignation bubbling within me.
The boys exchanged a glance, furthering my irritation.
“I’m a good painter,” I insisted.
Julien tutted his disappointment in me. “There’s no point in being insulted. You’re decent at best. A decent painter who found herself hastily engaged to a duke’s son. Didn’t you ever stop to marvel at the timing? At the coincidence? Surely some part of you must wonder at the speed of courtship, at all the haste preparing for the ceremony?”
Viktor smiled sympathetically. “I don’t blame you for not. We’ve watched you for weeks, parading about in new gowns, new perfume, new silk nightdresses.” I stiffened as he smirked. “You’re a girl far from home. A girl with a dark secret. A girl down to her last florette. It’s easy to look the other way when you’re being offered the world.”
I wanted to protest, but could not.
His words weren’t untrue.
Gerard had never asked after a dowry.
Dauphine had insisted they pay for everything.
She claimed it was a joy gifting her soon-to-be daughter-in-law the very best Bloem could lay before us and I went along with it, as silent and compliant as a paper doll.
They were master gardeners, sculpting me around their wants as they saw fit.
And I, too scared to be on my own, too afraid my secrets would spill out, let them.
A chill settled over me like a bank of icy morning fog.
“Alex loves me,” I whispered.
He did. That much I knew.
Whatever his parents had done, whatever plans his father had set in motion bringing me here, I was sure that Alex didn’t know. Alex had fallen in love with me, truly in love with me.
Not my gift.
Your curse.
Just me.
I clung to that thought, holding it deep in my heart, unwilling to doubt its veracity.
Julien looked unimpressed. “I’m certain he thinks so. But everything, from the moment you stepped foot in this cursed house, has been carefully arranged, impeccably tended. Neither you nor Alexander are anything more than grafted shoots, transplanted roots on Papa’s worktable. He tinkers with everything about him. His house. His plants. His family. Weeding out the imperfections, forcing out more desirable traits. It’s his raison d’être.”
“To what end?”
Julien let out a sigh, as if my incomprehension physically pained him. He raised his pointer finger in the air. “You,” he said, then raised the other. “Alexander.” He merged them together. “One can only assume your union would issue forth a new, distinct set of progeny.”
My mouth went dry as I remembered Constance’s children and just how distinct they’d been. “That’s absurd. And…and we don’t even know if…if Alex…” I came to a flustered halt.
Viktor let out a snort of laughter. “With all you’ve witnessed here, do you really think Gerard Laurent would let a little bit of paralysis stop his plans?”