The Marriage of Opposites
Page 49

Frédéric ignored the others and managed to walk up to the lady of the house and introduce himself. He could imagine what a fool he must have seemed to Mr. Enrique when he spoke of her as if she were an old woman. He’d been warned that she was not what he expected. He managed to introduce himself and to say surely she must have received the letter stating he would be arriving from France.
“My goal is to help you in any way I can,” he assured her. “S’il vous plaît, permettez-moi de vous aider.”
The widow stared at him. His accent was perfect; careless and elegant. She laughed and said, “Before I’m dressed or after?”
He realized she wore a chemise and a petticoat, not a white dress. He could not quite remember her name, but then the African woman called her Rachel—a familiarity that never would have occurred in France between mistress and servant. He recalled what he’d read in the files he carried with him. Rachel Pomié Petit, born in St. Thomas, daughter of a well-respected shop owner named Moses Pomié, married to his uncle Isaac when she was not much more than a girl.
The children had gone back to the business of getting ready for the day. The older boys continued to stare at Frédéric, uneasy, perhaps because he was not that much older than they, but the younger ones paid him no mind. He felt surrounded by mayhem, the children finishing their food, the maid, who was called Rosalie, clearing up as best she could, shouting out instructions that the children more or less ignored. Frédéric could see only the woman before him. The rest faded away, sinking out of his line of vision. He would always think of the scent of molasses from the store downstairs when he thought of this day, the morning when he fell in love with a woman who had seven children.
“I had Rosalie go down to the boat to meet you yesterday, but you weren’t there,” Rachel told him. His posture was so straight, not like that of the men in St. Thomas, who slouched in the heat. He stood the way she imagined all men in Paris did, with a natural grace. “I thought you’d changed your mind and stayed in Paris, which made me think all the more of you.”
“You’ve been there?” he said to engage her in a conversation that might make them less uncomfortable with their situation, more social, if that was possible.
“Not quite yet.” When she laughed she looked like a girl to him, no older than himself, though she was, technically, his aunt, and seven years older. The amount of time that Jacob had served to win his Rachel in the Bible, though each year had seemed like a day because of the love he felt for her.
“Well, I’m flattered that you thought of me at all,” he said. “I didn’t want to disturb you, so I imposed on your clerk and spent the night in your parents’ house.”
“How quickly you moved in to what was once ours. You’ve come from Paris to this dot in the ocean to claim what belonged to my husband and my father, and, if the laws cared anything for women, to me.”
There was color rising in her face and throat as she spoke. Clearly she resented him. She had begged Isaac’s family in France to trust her with the business, and in response they sent this tall young man who stood in her kitchen, surprised by everything he encountered. It was as if a heron had flown in through the window and then had frozen, shocked by the peculiar manners of humankind. Rachel studied him more carefully now, for he was equally strange to her. His Parisian accent, the way he ran his hand over his brow when he was speaking, his eyes, which appeared to change color depending on the light. Despite his youth, he seemed commanding in some way, comfortable with himself in the way she assumed a man educated in Paris might be. She’d seen him from her window and had immediately known he was the one. The man who’d come to take over her life. She’d taken note of how good-looking he was, how French in character he seemed due to his extreme composure. Well, face-to-face, he was no longer quite so composed. He plucked at a thread on his shirt. Rachel recognized his jacket and trousers. You’re wearing my cousin’s clothes, I see.”
“Am I? They’re only borrowed. I’ll give them back, of course. Certainly I’m not a thief. I assure you, I’m here to help. Nothing more.”
This wasn’t entirely true. The Petit family in France was claiming what was legally theirs, half of the business, and they wished it to prosper, so he was there for reasons other than assisting her, no matter how he claimed to be at her service. He was here for the family. Now that he stood before her, he felt somewhat pained by the legal arrangements he was sent to oversee.
“Keep the clothing,” the widow told him. “My cousin won’t be returning. He’s wise enough to stay in Paris. But please excuse me while I find my own clothes.”