Landfalls by Naomi J. Williams Page A

not worry, sir.”
    â€œWe’ve put you to a great deal of trouble.”
    â€œNot at all.” She smiled and sat down. “It may be only a misunderstanding. He may have ended up with another family last night.”
    Lap é rouse shook his head. “I know him too well to hope for that.”
    â€œAre you worried he may try to leave the expedition?”
    â€œDesert?” Lap é rouse laughed. “No. That would require some resolve. No, no, he’s probably just found some—” He stopped, not wanting to subject Eleonora to a description of Fr é d é ric’s likely diversions.
    She met his eyes with no hint of embarrassment. “You were eager to return to your ship. I have asked the groom to prepare a carriage to take you back, but would you prefer to wait awhile?”
    â€œI hardly know,” he admitted. “I’m afraid we’ll leave your household with no means of transport.”
    She shook her head. “We have nowhere to go today. And it is only a humble cart. Nothing like your elegant French carriages.”
    He smiled. He could tell her that his life had not involved many elegant carriages; that his family owned only the meanest-looking phaeton and a cramped portable chair that still smelled of his grandmother; that he was not really so distinguished—not like Langle or the La Bordes or any number of the officers who served under him; that he was not a count, not officially, not yet ; that he had not been born a Lap é rouse, the name purchased to make him sound more noble when he decided to apply to the naval school in Brest. But she stood before him, the perfect, aristocratic girl-hostess, expecting him to play his part as the distinguished French guest, and he could not break the spell.
    â€œYou speak French better than anyone in Concepci ó n,” he said.
    â€œOh, the bishop’s French is much better than mine,” she said, but she was smiling, pleased by the compliment.
    â€œDid you learn it at home?”
    She shook her head. “I was raised in a convent school here. Two of the sisters were French.”
    â€œAh.” Could it be through such individuals, he wondered, that the colonists knew so much about France? “Do ñ a Eleonora,” he said, “we were surprised to hear the music of Leclair last night.”
    â€œWere you?” Her girlish mouth turned down into a concerned frown. “Is he not well regarded in France?”
    â€œNo, that’s not it at all,” Lap é rouse hastened to assure her. “It’s only that he was alive till quite recently, and here you are so far from Europe—”
    She smiled archly. “Ships come from C á diz at least once a year filled with news and books.” She leaned a little toward him and whispered: “I have even read Manon Lescaut .”
    â€œHave you?” He could not help laughing and hoped she did not think he was laughing at her, although he was. “Did the nuns assign such texts at school?”
    She leaned away, her lips pursed as if to protect her secrets, but her eyes were still smiling. “They were wonderful teachers. I was there until last year, when—” She stopped. “This house was my father’s,” she said at last, looking around the room with her hands held out, as if the fact surprised her. “When he died, I came here. My husband was a friend of his.”
    Lap é rouse nodded. The revelation explained both too much and too little. Perhaps Sabatero had married her out of consideration for his friend, saving a young orphan from social isolation, from life in the convent, from rapacious suitors. Although it occurred to Lap é rouse that a more conscientious friend of the family might have found a younger, healthier husband for her. Perhaps Sabatero had taken advantage of his position with the family to assume control of his friend’s estate when he died. But no more