A Sitting in St. James - Rita Williams-Garcia Page 0,1

his grasp! He went about finding her.

At that time Bayard was but thirty-five. His suntanned face made him stand out among French men on the streets of Paris, but where he was not fair and handsome, he was virile and formidable.

He found an inn, a bath, and suitable clothing. Not attire so grand he’d look like a mongrel in a poodle’s collar.

Bayard wisely dispatched a person who could inquire further among social circles he was not comfortable in. It was still dangerous. The blood of King Louis XVI hadn’t satisfied the people. The Terror and revolutionary thirst were in the air. Blood. Blood. Blood.

But what of the girl? Thirteen. Perhaps an improvement upon her mother? It didn’t matter. Bayard Guilbert was fixed on his new object. This girl. She would compensate him for what he had been denied in his youth. Second, her French blood, her association with the very thing he despised, the aristocracy, would erase his humble background, and his children’s children would never be denied entry into society or looked down upon. Yes. He would have her.

1793

Bayard paid a poor farmer handsomely for a perfect head of cabbage. Perfect in color, size, and shape. He then cut the head from its neck in one clean blow and sharpened the hardened neck’s rim with his knife. He hired a broker of sorts and gave the man instructions on how to present the gift. She is a child; she would like a gift and a game. He had his broker purchase a satin box from a fancy milliner. His broker asked no questions and placed the cabbage in the box with its neck facing up and tied it neatly with a wide satin ribbon. A note, dictated by Bayard, and improved upon and handwritten by the broker, was to be given to the girl. Bayard Guilbert possessed neither persuasive charm nor social grace and couldn’t risk frightening the girl with his illiterate scrawl and his gruff manner; he relied solely on the broker to obtain his life’s object.

A brief meeting at the convent where the girl had been deposited was arranged between her and the broker. The sneer the girl gave the broker said this meeting wouldn’t be long or an easy one. The broker smiled anyway, introduced himself, and asked if she was Sylvie Bernardin de Maret Dacier of the Bernardin de Maret vineyard.

“I am,” she snapped. She looked down at the box in his hands. “Is this from the Family?” she asked of the box. He noted she wasn’t demure or hopeful, like a poor child, but that she had asked assuredly, if not accusingly, with the scrutiny of a grand inquisitor.

“No, mademoiselle,” he said. “I am here for Monsieur Bayard Guilbert, who sends you this gift.” If it was Bayard’s design to enchant this Sylvie Bernardin with the box, he had miscalculated. The broker extended the box to her and then laid it on the table, since she wouldn’t take it from his hands.

“Hmph,” was all Sylvie said. She untied the ribbon, lifted the satin-covered lid, and peered down her small but pointed beak of a nose at the cabbage, still green and perfect. She looked at the broker and placed the lid back on the box, dismissing him with dispassion. “Good day, monsieur.”

“Mademoiselle,” the broker said. “You are too hasty.”

“Hasty? I’ve given you more than you or your master can repay. Even now, I overspend my courtesy.”

She turned to leave, but he rushed ahead to block her exit. He had counted on the money Guilbert promised, and this snit of a girl was not enough to keep him from it.

He bowed before her, clasping his hands. “Humblest of all pardons, Mademoiselle Bernardin de Maret Dacier. My master asks that you closely examine the contents in hand. I beg you, mademoiselle. It will be the worst for me if you refuse.”

She was miffed, but it was also true that she was bored, having been confined for nearly two years in the convent for her safety and separated from her dearest friend, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte.

Sylvie huffed through her nostrils, a sign she had relented; removed the lid from the box; and took the cabbage head. Her expression of impertinence and boredom hadn’t changed.

The broker read her face and spoke quickly. “My master only asks that you run your finger swiftly along the cut stem.” He demonstrated the gesture in the air.

Sylvie huffed again, fluttering her eyelashes before doing as the broker had demonstrated. She ran her finger swiftly