Lovely Lillian: Belle Époque Series, #2

By Aster Stillwell

When a good deed goes awry, Lillian Price finds herself at the chateau of Rafael Dumont, the mysterious Falcon, a man who haunts the rooftops of Paris. Though neither of them wants anything to do with the other, they must work together if they are to find Rafael's missing nephew.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aster Stillwell
• Release date: Jun 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215192818

Aster Stillwell

Aster Stillwell is a hopeless romantic who believes everyone deserves a happy ever after. She studied art for eight years, traveling to Spain, Greece, Italy and France to see some of the world’s greatest masterpieces first hand. Her interest in history and art, led her to combine them in her Belle Époque Series. The first novel in this series, Sweet Celeste, won first place in the 2017 Pages from the Heart unpublished historical category. When she is not writing or traveling, she can be found with her husband of twenty-seven years walking along the New England coast with their golden retriever or cooking up meals for her two wonderful daughters.

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title-page (1)

For Mom

First Edition. June 2022

Copyright 2022 Aster Stillwell

Written by Aster Stillwell.

Editing by Caroline Knecht

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means, with the exception of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews, without written permission.

This is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Prologue

CAIRO, JULY 15, 1885

It always hurt, but it didn’t always kill you. Rafael Dumont, having survived more test flights than he had fingers and toes, knew this down to his many broken bones. After the jaw-slamming bump and the whoosh of wind coming from the wrong direction, he had braced for the worst.

The sand saved him.

Ejected sideways from the airship, he skidded across the desert landscape. His shoulder received the brunt of the impact followed by his skin as sand heated by the sun scraped across it, leaving him half-buried.

He lay still, thinking of his heart bursting from its frantic beating. Of remaining buried in the desert sand. Of the end. Always out of reach.

Voices grew near.

Over here, someone said.

Professor Dumont, are you alive?

He took a deep breath and blew the sand from his mouth. How’s Clay?

You’re alive. Hands brushed sand off his body. I should have put money on you this time.

Betting on a man’s death, that’s dark.

I would have bet on your life. Doesn’t matter. The odds were piss-poor. You have the devil’s own luck.

Rafael pushed himself up to sitting. How’s Clay?

Still breathing. They’re carrying him off on a stretcher. The airship is destroyed. For a second, it looked like your thruster might work. Are you sure you should get up?

Ignoring the question and the sand sliding down his body, Rafael got up and strode across the desert to intercept the stretcher. Debris littered the landscape. Clay managed half a smile for Rafael when he approached.

It’s true what they say about you. The devil doesn’t want you. You’re walking away untouched.

The thruster stalled.

That wasn’t it. The—

Now is not the time, gentlemen, said Gerald Ifram, head of the test flight field at Cairo Polytechnic.

We need to record our observations while our memories are fresh, said Rafael.

That earned him a ferocious glare. You have other issues to deal with. Gerald pulled a rumpled letter from his pocket and slapped it against Rafael’s chest. This arrived just before the flight.

Rafael frowned at the weathered envelope. Letters never boded well.

Are they calling you home? asked Clay, an edge of hope in his voice.

Did you have someone send this all the way from France? Rafael clutched the paper. You’ve been angling for my position since you arrived.

I’m the better man for it. Clay’s voice sounded weak.

Rafael didn’t answer. He stopped walking when the seal on the letter caught his eye. The Dumont coat of arms. A letter from his dead brother.

Gerald paused. Bad news?

He tore the envelope open and pulled out the folded slip of paper. Something fluttered to the ground. He ignored it and searched for a signature. None. He turned it over several times before accepting he’d received an unsigned letter—which was barely a letter. Only a handful of words had been scrawled on the slip of parchment.

Gerald stepped to his side. This fell out. It looked like a lock of hair.

Rafael reached out a hand, palm up, while he read the tentative scrawl.

Jean-Philippe in grave danger. Come for him. Noon. Sixth of August—number twelve Rue de la Roquette, Paris.

He reread it.

Jean-Philippe, his nephew, would be nine years old now. Lured back to France at his sister-in-law’s urging, Rafael had met the child as an infant. At the time, the boy had no hair. The light brown lock curled in his hand, an unmistakable Dumont curl. The same loose, looping mop of hair topped his own head.

Is that a love lock? Is some woman trying to get you back to France?

Rafael ignored Gerald. He wished he could ignore the confusion in his head. The message, penned in a hand he didn’t recognize, made no sense. Why would his nephew be in danger? Why would anyone appeal to him for help?

Grave danger.

Something’s happened to my nephew. I must return to France.

PARIS, AUGUST 6, 1885

When the scent of gardenias hit, Lillian bolted for the side door. With any luck, she could slip out undetected.

A moment later, her mother entered through the main door. Her gaze snared Lillian where she stood halfway out of the room. There you are. A voice, sonorous as a church bell, filled the space and froze Lillian. Mrs. Southerly will be calling today.

Arranging a smile on her face, Lillian turned, her hand still clutching the handle, and tried for a pleasant tone. I’m heading to see father and make myself useful. I should be back to greet your guest later.

The sick will be at the hospital tomorrow. Why don’t you skip today’s visit? Gold rings flashed on the hand she reached toward Lillian.

With a side step, Lillian pulled the door open between them. She closed her eyes and blew out air before resettling her smile and tipping her chin up. I was just leaving for Hôtel Dieu. I have my own interests, but...never fear! I’ll be back to smile politely at Mrs. Southerly.

Like round-cut tourmalines, her mother’s eyes flashed. Lil—

The door clicking shut cut off the rest of her mother’s words.

Her heart raced all the way down to the courtyard, where Francis, their coachman, was polishing the already gleaming mudguard of her father’s new coupe d’Orsay.

The carriage fairly sparkles, she said.

Francis spun around, hands and rag behind his back. The carriage, a recent splurge by her father, made the coachman the envy of his peers. Francis made sure to keep it in pristine condition.

She is magnificent, Mademoiselle! A bead of sweat traveled down his temple then vanished in the wrinkles around his eye. Are we off to the hospital?

Suffering takes no breaks, and neither must we.

Francis assisted her up the carriage steps. Would that it did, Mademoiselle. Would that it did.

The coupe tipped to the side as Francis mounted. A moment later, it lurched forward. Lillian slumped back and fanned her face with both hands. Perspiration trickled down her nose; she thrust her jaw forward and blew. Beneath her gown, her drawers clung to her legs. The coach slowed and then stopped.

Muffled by thick wood and silk finishes, Francis’s voice barely reached her ears. A snarl up ahead.

Lillian let out an unladylike huff. She should have brought a book. Now she had nothing to distract her from thinking about her mother.

Sometime after Lillian turned five and twenty, the woman grew obsessed with her finding a husband.

Think of how the right husband could improve your father’s standing. Don’t be selfish; time is not on your side. Good works are all well and...well, good, but they don’t take the place of a family.

The pressure might have always been there, like dust in the air, waiting for sunlight to illuminate it. Or perhaps Lillian’s lie about being engaged to Alexander Bennett had started it. Matchmaking with Mrs. Southerly, Alexander’s aunt, would make Lillian the laughingstock. Charles, Mrs. Southerly’s son and Alexander’s cousin, would be the first to crown her with a jester’s cap. They’d been friends until her lie. Charles would probably still be her friend if Alice hadn’t left.

This was Paris. A lie about love was romantic to most. Even the Americans living there, like her family and the Southerlys, had adopted the French attitude—love makes one do crazy things. Most people thought it romantic. Alice Gordon was not most people. She resigned her post as Lillian’s companion and disappeared without saying goodbye.

Charles had always liked Alice far more than he liked her, and rightly so. Alice was a better person. After Alice left, Charles also seemed to disappear. He and Lillian no longer attended the same social events. Now, their mothers were interfering. 

The coupe picked up its pace. The knot in Lillian’s gut, coiled earlier by her mother and strengthened by memories of Alice, doubled her over. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

There was no way to change her life or be a different person. One could not escape from oneself. If that were possible, she would gladly give up being Lillian Price to be someone else. Someone free to do as they wished, someone unconstrained by family and circumstance.

The coupe came to a smooth stop. A moment later, the door swung open.

I will be here when you are ready to leave, Mademoiselle. Francis helped her down.

She nodded, noting how few people were about for a Thursday. As she crossed the courtyard, the quiet crunch of her footfalls mixed with the gentle drone of bees and the soft snicker of the horses. Francis had slipped them each a sugar cube.

Within the walls of the hospital, all was hushed, as if the bustle of Paris were miles away instead of right outside the gates. The long history of Hôtel Dieu flowed around her, across the courtyard, up the stairs, and through the arched colonnade to the ladies’ changing room.

Inside, light filtered down from high windows, revealing a row of empty benches running down the middle of the space. The click of her heeled boots against the marble floor echoed through the vaulted expanse.

Halfway down the room, she stopped. Arms bent at the elbows, she undid the small pearl buttons at each wrist. One finger at a time, she removed her damp gloves, laying them beside each other on a shelf within a cubby. Her straw hat, its satin ribbon limp, followed. Next, she unfastened the fabric-covered buttons along each sleeve and down the front of her bodice.

She exhaled as the garment pulled away from her body. Gown and bustle quickly followed. In her shift and drawers, Lillian closed her eyes and rolled her shoulders. Tension fell away like the layers of cloth.

The murmur of voices galvanized her back into action. She covered her hair with a black coif, donned a simple gray bombazine gown made for her visits to the hospital, and slipped a starched white smock over her head before heading to her father’s ward.   

You’re late, my dear. His voice raced down the hall to meet her.

At his side, she kissed his bearded cheek in the French fashion and felt the tangle in her stomach ease. The streets were busy.

His gaze shifted sideways. Did Mother speak with you?

Lillian took him by the arm and led him down the hall, his question hanging between them. About dinner with Mrs. Southerly?

The wrinkles on his forehead deepened. She is considering a sizeable donation to the hospital.

Considering?

It’s no secret she would like to see her son, Charles, settle down.

Lillian held up a hand to stop him. He has no interest in me.

Perhaps because you show no interest in him.

The tension she’d left in the changing room returned. It wasn’t that her parents’ attitudes were a surprise. Many years earlier, she’d overhead her father’s associates at a dinner party saying her father owed his position at the hospital to his wife and daughter’s charm. Ever since she could recall, they’d dressed her up and trotted her out to play the pianoforte and smile at their guests. Many hands had reached out over the years to pat her on the head.

She met his gaze. Why would I do such a thing?

You care about my work here, the reforms I’m enacting.

I do. Does it mean I must prostitute myself for the cause? He flinched, and a pang of guilt cut through the soft armor of her resistance. I will be polite to Mrs. Southerly and pretend an interest in Charles if it pleases you. She forestalled his comment with a hand. The hospital means a lot to me too.

Good girl. He led her further down the hall. You’ll see—

Loud caterwauling halted them near the main staircase. A woman staggered down the hall, a trail of blood in her wake. A nun waddled after her, arms waving in the air. The injured woman’s wide eyes darted between Lillian and her father as she approached the steps. She lurched toward Lillian, wobbled like a spinning top, and collapsed. Lillian knelt at her side. Though her nose wrinkled at the metallic smell of blood, she did not hesitate to place a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

In French, her voice gentle, Lillian stated the obvious: You’re badly hurt.

The woman grasped the hem of her gown. I must go, or they will take the boy!

Please let a doctor attend to you first. When you are well, you can see to your son.

The whites of the woman’s eyes showed all around as she met Lillian’s gaze. With a surprisingly strong shake of her head, the woman insisted, There is no time. The Falcon comes today.

The Falcon? Lillian exchanged looks with her father and the nun who had just reached them, red faced and out of breath.

Her father lifted his shoulders. This woman is hallucinating. Sister Jeanne, did you administer the laudanum as I requested?

She refused it, sir. Tossed the glass across the room and started screaming. Best let her go to her boy.

She won’t make it out of the building. Lillian looked between the nun and her father.

The woman tugged her gown. I must go to Pip. Today is the day.

Lillian gentled her tone. Madam, you are grievously injured. After my father attends to you, you will be reunited with your son.

I cannot leave the boy! The woman clasped Lillian’s booted foot and dropped her forehead to the ground.

Heedless of the blood, Lillian enfolded the woman in her arms. Please calm yourself.

Dr. Price, kneeling beside his daughter, added his own argument. Madam, if you leave now, you risk death. That means leaving Pip forever. Surely—

The prostrate woman turned her face toward him. But the Falcon! The woman persisted, although her shoulders slumped and her voice lost its initial fervor.

Despite having no idea why a bird terrified the woman, or what the urgency was to be with her son, Lillian seized on the opportunity to help. I will fetch Pip for you.

You would do that for a stranger? asked the woman, forestalling Dr. Price’s protestations.

Tell me where to find him so Sister Jeanne can take you back to your room.

Truly?

At Lillian’s nod, the woman tugged at a locket around her neck. Take this. Pip’s picture is inside. You must show the child, so he knows I sent you and it is safe.

Won’t you help with the locket, Sister Jeanne? Lillian extended the chain to the nun.

Sister Jeanne looked to Dr. Price for guidance.

He pushed himself up and rubbed the back of his neck as he contemplated his daughter and the woman wrapped in her arms. His expression dour, he dipped his head. Sister Jeanne unhooked the clasp and held the locket out to Lillian.

A filigree gold heart the size of a macaroon swayed in the air. Lillian palmed it, flipped the clasp, and studied the small portrait inside. Dark, mischievous eyes looked back at her from a face haloed with loose curls. Lillian bowed her neck, and the nun fastened the chain and let it drop.

As soon as the weight settled against her chest, Lillian turned back to the woman. Where will I find him?

Number twelve Rue de la Roquette.

Lillian helped ease the woman into Sister Jeanne’s arms. Although she had no idea how to get there, she gave one quick nod of her head. Francis would know where it was.

I will be back with Pip shortly.

Dr. Price reached a hand to stop her. What of this falcon? Has there been any news of aggressive birds?

She placed her hand over his and squeezed. An exaggeration or a folktale. Even a large falcon could not carry off a child. Help this woman so her son does not find himself an orphan.

His lips pressed together, Dr. Price accepted Lillian’s kiss to his cheek. Be careful...and quick. You’ll need time to prepare for tonight.

She tossed him a wink before she hurried down the stairs. You won’t even know I’m gone!

When she neared the ladies’ changing room, she slowed her steps. Changing back into her gown would waste precious time. Without breaking stride, she untied the soiled smock and hooked it on the doorknob as she strode by. She crossed the courtyard in half the time as before, arriving at the carriage buoyant. 

Francis, taking in her hospital attire, tilted his head to the side. Has something happened?

While she explained their mission, Francis’s head started to pivot back and forth. It started with a series of subtle movements of his chin, which at first barely shifted and eventually grew wider and wider. By the end of her explanation, his head swung violently from side to side, and his hands slashed at the air.

No, no, no. It is too dangerous! He jabbed a finger in her direction. Rue de la Roquette runs through the shantytown east of the city. You will find nothing there worth rescuing—only hovels where the poorest struggle to survive.

She waited until he’d finished before speaking. Her tone, reasonable, dulcet, settled like a blanket over his anxiety. I made the woman a promise. If it is truly as awful as you say, we must rescue this boy.

He gave another shake of his head. It is dan—

A child depends on us.

You cannot go there. You are far too...too lovely—

That is hardly a reason.

Your father—

I have his blessing. He is going to save the mother’s life. She placed a hand on his arm. Help me bring her son back to her.

Francis’s head hung low. I don’t like this.

Bringing her other hand up to his arm, she squeezed. Thank you!

"Aargh—swear to remain in the carriage. Let me fetch the boy."

There is a special place in heaven for you, Francis. From the depth of my heart, I thank you.

Although he refrained from complaining, Francis’s frown grew deeper as he handed her up the carriage steps. A moment later, the coupe moved through the congested streets toward Rue de la Roquette, with Francis’s grumbles matching the sound of the carriage wheels on cobblestones.

*****

Crouched atop a roof ledge in the slums of Paris, Rafael scanned the streets below for a boy. He already had half a dozen boys. Today he would find his nephew—had to find him—for today was the sixth of August. The appointed time in the note he’d received.

Jean-Philippe in grave danger. Come for him. Noon. Sixth of August—number twelve Rue de la Roquette, Paris.

He slipped a hand in his pocket, where he kept the envelope. Jean-Philippe’s hair was between the folds of the letter. That tangible bit of his nephew haunted him.

After the failed test flight that had landed Clay in the hospital with a broken leg and a concussion, Rafael returned to the stack of unopened letters from his solicitor in France. He should have been reading them.

While he’d been focused on aerodynamics and flight, Lucas had been lost at sea and declared dead. A year later, in late June, his brother’s wife died, making Rafael guardian of a child, an unwelcome complication to his life.

Jean-Philippe would be nine years old. Rafael knew what being alone at that age, even if only metaphorically, felt like. So, for the first time in almost a decade, he returned to France. He would establish his cousin, Augustine Harvey, as the boy’s guardian. Then, conscience clear, he could return to Egypt. At least Clay wouldn’t be hounding the administration for his job while he was away.

First, he must find the boy. Second, eliminate the grave danger. Arriving two weeks before August sixth, he’d scoured Rue de la Roquette for his nephew. Everyone in number twelve denied knowing the boy. In his search, he found other boys alone on the streets and offered them shelter. Rue de la Roquette was in a ramshackle, impoverished section of the city—they all accepted.

After two full weeks with no sign of Jean-Philippe, and living in a rented room surrounded by his cousin Gus’s filth, Rafael longed for Egypt and wondered