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“I was searching for you.” Toussaint replied. “I have been attempting to contact you for some time now,mon Cousin. Although looking as disreputable as I sadly do these days, your man would not allow me entry.”
John shook his head. Carlton was fussy about appearances; he had to be. With John’s lack of funds, the London townhouse had been let to another gentleman and his wife for the Season and John had let go most of the staff except for his mother’s maid, her companion and his own man.
John considered the man before him, for a moment seeing him through Carlton’s eyes. He weighed his own desire for family against a harsh cynicism. He would be a fool to believe the word of a stranger off the street claiming a relation to himself. Yet the familiarity in Toussaint’s face could be found in his own countenance. They were alike enough for their relation to be almost unmistakable to any who cared to look closely. John had hidden his French heritage for so long it was nearly painful to have evidence of its existence so obviously before him.
“Shall I order food,” John asked looking at the man’s haggard appearance, but he shook his head. “Your Mère?” Henri asked. “Lady Collette, is she here in London.”
“No. She has a small cottage in the country.”
“A small cottage,” Toussaint said gruffly. “A lady of her worth. A small cottage.” He shook his head sadly.
“We escaped with barely more than our lives,” John said. “With so many dead, we count ourselves lucky. But you must have a story to tell.” Sir John paused, as they navigated the steps up to his apartment. Once inside, John went to a small cabinet and pulled a decanter of brandy from a shelf. Henri looked like he desperately could use a drink. John knew he could use one himself.
“You do not have wine?” the man asked.
John paused. “No.” He shook his head, thinking of his lost vineyards. Wine was sometimes difficult to come by with the ongoing war, especially champagne. “Do you not like brandy?”
“I prefer to keep my wits about me,” Toussaint said. “One never knows what enemies might be about.”
John hesitated pouring his own brandy and looked at the man sharply. Toussaint’s eyes darted about the room as if searching for an enemy within the empty corners. John had heard that war sometimes unhinged men. Such nervousness would be understandable to a man who was obviously injured, and where else could he have received such an injury, but the war in France. The problem, John was acutely aware of, was on which side of the war, was the man fighting? John felt he knew already and it put him uncomfortably at odds with the man. He sat with his own brandy and gestured for his cousin to do the same.
“May we speak French?” Toussaint said. “You still understand it? Yes?”
“Yes,” John agreed. When the man switched to French, John recognized immediately that his speech was not the cultured language of the aristocracy that his mother spoke. This was an accent made in back alleys rather that ballrooms, and John wondered what had happened to Toussaint after his own parents died. Life could not have been easy. He listened to the man speak, detailing his misfortune in France.
“Had things been different,” Toussaint continued. “We would have spent every summer at Grandfather’s vineyards and would doubtless have attended university together.”
“Indeed,” Sir John could think of no other reply to this statement. He did remember his aunt tearfully telling his mother that the rabble had burned the manor house to the ground along with years’ worth of carefully cultivated vines, while her husband had been in conference with the very men who had been supporting a change in policy. A mob did not differentiate between levels of the aristocracy or political alliances. Anyone with two farthings to rub together was considered the enemy, and heads had rolled. It was a dark and dangerous time. Moreso, John thought, for one so young as his cousin.
“It is indeed, a great tragedy that your mother left her homeland and that you were deprived of such a fine childhood.” Toussaint concluded.
“Fine?” John dissented at last. “The rabble wanted to kill her. Theydidkill most of the aristocracy. Those vineyards ran with blood.”
“The blood of traitors,” the man said passionately.
John was disappointed but not surprised by the man’s allegiances. “Henri,” John said gently, not wishing to provoke the man. “I’d like to help you, but…” He hesitated. “My father was English,” he said finally
“Sir Richard is dead,” Toussaint spat.
“Yes,” John said in a hard voice, tamping down the urge to defend his father. “But I am English.”
“Half.”
Reluctantly John nodded. He didn’t often acknowledge his French ancestry. “Yes, but I was raised here in England. I do not regret my upbringing.”
“Perhaps it is only I who was deprived of the boon companion you would have been to me,” Toussaint continued unabated. “I have often mourned the loss of such companionship, having no brothers of my own.” He sighed sadly.
Sir John nodded. Since his father’s death, he too had experienced the lack of any close family, but he was a realist, and he was not sure that he wanted to invite this man into his life. There was something off about Toussaint, John thought, as he fingered his brandy glass. “However, there does not seem to be much that can be done about it now,” he pointed out, regretfully. “We cannot change the past.”
“True, true,” Toussaint agreed, leaning forward with a peculiarly avid gleam in his eyes. “But there is much we can do to improve the future.Oui?”
“What do you mean?”
“Had you been raised in France, we would have doubtless already been fighting valiantly side by side for several years for the glory of the Emperor. But do not mourn that loss too keenly,mon Cousin, for we now have the chance to stand together for a free France,” Henri stated grandly.
Sir John was struck dumb by Toussaint’s impassioned words and their deadly meaning. “Emperor?” He repeated. He had to clarify, although there could be no other Emperor. “You mean Napoleon.”
“Yes. We can further his cause, by…”
