The mockery was gone from his expression. “I…I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
“I would not let you hurt me.” She turned away from him. “I’ll be in the garden when you’re ready to go back to the ship. When do we set sail for Cannes?”
“We don’t.”
She turned back to face him. “We’re not going back to Vasaro?”
“We’ll leave from Marseilles to Paris. If we go back to Cannes, there’s every chance François will have persuaded the representatives to impound theBonne Chanceand seize the cargo.” He grimaced. “I won’t take that risk. I’ve already lost eight ships to the republic.”
“Won’t the ship be impounded in Marseilles?”
“The ship won’t dock at Marseilles. We’ll anchor off the coast and go ashore by longboat with our baggage and the statue.”
“You’re taking the Wind Dancer to Paris?”
“I want it with me. No one would suspect I would keep the statue with me.”
“And where does theBonne Chancego from here?”
“To Charleston harbor in America to rendezvous with the rest of the fleet.”
She stared at him thoughtfully. “You planned all of this before you left Paris.”
“One must think ahead.” He smiled. “And speaking of planning ahead, what name shall we choose for my son?”
She gazed at him in bewilderment and, for the first time, uncertainty. Jean Marc was clever, relentless, and had decided on a plan of action that could sweep her from the course she had set if she weren’t equally clever and determined. “Impossible.”
“A strange name, but if you insist, I shan’t raise any objection to your—”
The closing of the door behind her cut off the rest of his words.
The broom had been harvested and now the fields of Vasaro burst into bloom with hyacinths, cassias, and narcissus. Violets, too, came into flower but not in the fields. The deep purple blossoms loved the shade, and the beds lay beneath the trees of the orange and olive groves, where the picking had to be done many hours before dawn when the scent was the strongest.
On the second morning of the harvesting of the violets François stood by the cart watching the pickers move with their lanterns through the grove. The flames of dozens of torches lit the shadows and black smoke curled upward to wind around the green leaves of the sheltering trees.
“Isn’t it wonderful?”
He turned to see Catherine coming toward him, mounted on the chestnut mare.
“Why didn’t you stay in bed? Both of us needn’t be here this early.”
“I was too excited. I had to be in the enfleurage shed yesterday and didn’t get to watch the violets being picked.” Catherine’s gaze searched the grove and found Michel, who waved at her. She waved back and turned to François. “Isn’t it beautiful? The lanterns and the darkness and the flowers.”
He smiled indulgently. “Beautiful. Enfleurage?”
“Michel didn’t show you? You’ve been spending so much time together I thought he would have taken you there.” Her face lit with eagerness. “Good. I’m glad he didn’t. Now I’ll get to show you. Come with me.”
She kicked her horse and sent it at a gallop toward the stone sheds behind the manor house. The cool night wind tore at her hair and she felt a wild exhilaration soaring through her. She heard the sound of hooves behind her and François’s low laugh. She reached the stone building behind the maceration shed, slipped from the horse, and turned to face François as he reined in. “Light the lantern,” she said breathlessly as she tied her horse to the rail before the door.
François dismounted and lit the lantern hooked tohis saddle. A broad smile creased his square face and his eyes were alight with an exhilaration matching hers. “What next?”
She threw open the heavy door of the long shed and preceded him into the darkened work room. The shutters of the windows were shut, the air close, and the scent of violets immediately enveloped them with heavy clouds of fragrance. The shed was empty; it was too early for any of the workers to be sitting at the tables where wooden frames of glass plates were stacked.
“I like this way much better than maceration. It’s gentler somehow.” Catherine moved to the first long table. “They smear these glass plates with oil and then scatter the petals over them. Then they leave them in the cool darkness for two or three days to give up their souls and then—”
“Souls?” François asked, amused.
“That’s what Michel calls the scent.” She tapped the frame. “Then the wilted petals are taken off and new ones are put on the glass. It happens fifteen or twenty times before the pomade is ready to store away in crocks. The yield is very small but the scent is terribly intense. Much more powerful than the souls taken by maceration or distillation.”
