America's First Daughter: A Novel(44)

There are no slaves in France. That was the official policy.

But the specificity with which Mr. Short imparted the legal procedure was not only a revelation, but also a weapon. He must have struggled over whether or not to make the Hemingses aware of their path to freedom. And now I’d have to struggle with it, too. I remember thinking that if he were any kind of a gentleman, he wouldn’t have burdened me with it. Then again, no other man would have guessed it would burden me. “How fares your conscience, Miss Patsy?”

The question drew me back to the night of my discovery, back into my confusion and outrage. “I cannot imagine what you mean.”

His gaze darkened. “In addition to your other cruelties toward me, are we to now add dishonesty to the mix?”

I gasped. “My cruelties? What injury do you imagine I’ve done you?”

The squeezing pang of my heart belied my need to ask. I’d seen the shielded flashes of hurt and disappointment in his eyes, the crestfallen expressions, the false cheerfulness at my coldness. I’d never known before it was possible to enjoy being cruel to a man, and I’d reveled in it.

His eyes didn’t shield the hurt this time but allowed it there plainly for me to see. “You’ve held yourself so distant from me that the only logical conclusion I can draw is that you intend to cause me distress.”

I lifted my chin, though my chest throbbed with guilt. “Why, I didn’t suspect you’d even notice being held at a distance, Mr. Short. You’re known to immerse yourself in your own amusements. Why, not long ago, I saw you pay visit to my dressing chamber at the Hotel de Langeac.”

He paled, as he ought to have. But when he recovered from his shock, he said, “Please believe I meant no disrespect or impropriety.”

“As I’m sure Sally can attest.” This bitter rejoinder escaped my lips before I could stop it, and I regretted it at once.

Especially when Mr. Short only tilted his head in apparent bewilderment. “Sally?” he asked, as if he’d never heard her name. “I waited until she went down for a broom so I wouldn’t be seen.”

I was now equally bewildered . . . and scandalized. “You don’t mean to imply that you came to see me in my private chambers, do you?”

Where he’d been pale, color suddenly flooded his cheeks. “Do you take me for a scoundrel?” And when he saw I might answer that question, he hurried forth to say, “I suppose you must. I’m a bit of one, but not in this. At least, it was in no way my intent for you to ever discover. . . .” He shook his head.

I hadn’t the faintest idea how to react. “Mr. Short, if you weren’t visiting my dressing room to see Sally nor to see me, then why were you there?”

He glanced away. “Ask me again when your father returns.”

He meant for that to be the end of the discussion, but because my heart was pounding against my ribs beneath my stays, I feared my unfulfilled curiosity would kill me. “You speak of my cruelty, Mr. Short, yet you refuse to answer the simplest question.”

“Patsy, leave it be.”

Until that moment, I didn’t know I had the capacity for co ercion, but Mr. Short brought out a great many things in me I didn’t know were there. “Since you’re so concerned that the matter must wait until my father’s return, I’ll simply write him about it. . . .”

Mr. Short turned to me with an expression of astonishment at my threat. “And to think everyone who meets you praises you as such a good-natured, happy girl with the charm of a perfect temper. Everyone from Abigail Adams to the nuns at your convent assure your father that you’re a girl with the utmost simplicity of character.” He gave a rueful laugh. “None of them knows you in the slightest.”

I took instant offense. “I behave as Papa wishes me to behave.”

“And he knows you least of all. You’re his Amazon disguised as an angel.”

This was another insult, or at least, it should’ve been. And yet, I sensed in Mr. Short’s tone the hint of approval. Nevertheless, I became painfully aware that we were quarreling in an abbey under the eyes of gossipy girls. “Thank you for your visit, Mr. Short. You may assure my father that I won’t spend my allowance on fripperies.”

It was a dismissal, so he rose, stiffly. Tipped his hat, curtly. But he didn’t take his leave. “What a mess of this I’ve made,” he murmured. Then, with one gloved hand, he reached into his coat and pulled from some inner pocket a folded note of linen paper. He placed it gently on the seat beside me, and added, almost timidly, “Mercy, Mademoiselle. I beg of you.”

My mind raced with all manner of villainy that might’ve been written upon that paper, but when I opened it, I found no ink at all. Just a blank page, between the folds of which was pressed a glossy curl of ginger. “Is this—is this a clipping of my hair?”

Mr. Short cringed, as if in the greatest mortification. As if he might like to jump the gates and hop out of the convent, escaping into the streets on foot. “You’re most unkind to ask. An angel would’ve spared me the humiliation.”

Of a sudden, my heart pounded even harder and a flush heated my skin. “Then I vow to pretend I know nothing about it.”

He sighed with resignation. “On the day Sally cut your hair, I took this clipping before she could sweep it up. I hope you can forgive my act of petty larceny.”