The Honorable Officer Read Free Page A

on top of his wig, making the valet groan. The carriage stopped and Jean-Louis swung down, his groom behind him, covering his back.
    He tugged his best cloak straight on his left shoulder and adjusted his saber. A thin, aging woman in severe black wool answered his knock. Jean-Louis had a moment of doubt when he did not see the innkeeper. He had only spoken to a man on the way in with his division.
    “Mademoiselle Hélène de Bonnefoi, s’il vous plaît , Madame,” he barked out.
    “Much too early to call, Monsieur,” said the innkeeper’s wife.
    “Ah, but I have not come only to see Mademoiselle de Bonnefoi. It is my daughter I wish to see. She is almost three and is called Ondine. She has blonde hair and her eyes are very like mine.” Jean-Louis brushed a bit of fluff from his sleeve before looking the woman in the eyes.
    She was not timid at all, this woman. She narrowed her eyes and looked him up and down and then stared at his eyes before nodding slightly.
    “They are in the breakfast room, Monsieur le Colonel.”
    She curtsied as he passed, and he bowed in return.
    “My groom will keep watch while we are here. Are there any back doors? My other men are outside in the carriage, watching the street.” The woman’s eyes widened in surprise. “All standard precautions for an officer traveling in time of war.”
    The innkeeper’s wife marched ahead of him, back rigid, to the breakfast room, where his first view of Mademoiselle Hélène took his breath away. She was sitting in a beam of light, smiling down at the little girl who sat next to her on the bench. Her hair glinted gold in the sunlight, and her pink lips parted as she laughed.
    “Mademoiselle Hélène, Colonel de Cantière is here to see you,” said the woman.
    Jean-Louis bowed deeply and raised himself again to find Mademoiselle Hélène curtseying to him and the little girl staring at him, wide-eyed. Mademoiselle Hélène’s features had gone blank, erasing the sunshine and beauty he had witnessed.
    “Ondine, chérie ,” she said to the girl. “It is your papa, come to see us. Get up and curtsey, ma petite .”
    The girl stood up on the bench and bobbed clumsily, clutching at Mademoiselle Hélène for support and reassurance.
    Jean-Louis hadn’t seen his daughter since his wife’s funeral, over a year before. She likely had no memory of him, and yet her mistrust cut him to the heart.
    “Please, Monsieur, join us for breakfast,” said Mademoiselle Hélène in the soft, shy voice that made him want to protect her.
    He gritted his teeth. He was ridiculous. There was no threat here. It was leftover nerves from the battle and a lack of sleep, surely. The long argument with the Prince de Condé to get leave for two days to solve the problem, coupled with the long journey, had sapped what was left of his wits.
    He sat across the table from the lady and his daughter and waved Fourbier to a chair. The innkeeper’s wife entered with a servant bringing bread and jam.
    They ate in strained silence. He complimented the woman on the delightful sausage; it had been weeks since he had eaten properly, even though he knew he ate better than his soldiers. “Well, Mademoiselle Hélène, I would like the rest of the story of how you came to bring my daughter to a war.”
    Hélène looked down at her lap, blushing. “I do not know how I had the strength to do it, but I was so frightened for Ondine. I didn’t feel safe with my aunt and uncle Ferand.”
    “You said there was a fire? And your uncle thought it was nothing serious?”
    “He said it was just a dropped candle, but there was a great deal of smoke under the door of the nursery. And Ondine had not drunk her milk. She did not want it—if a child who is not even three does not want something, there is no point in forcing—and so we gave it to the cat that sleeps in her dressing room.”
    Jean-Louis scratched at his head, confused. He encountered his damned wig, though, and didn’t dare disarrange it