The Glamourist (The Vine Witch #2)(65)
Then again, he was not under any influence from her or any other magic she was aware of. The wishing string she’d once used on him to allow her to reclaim her right as vine witch at Chateau Renard had surely run its course. So, if returning to this glittering life of tuxedos and tall hats, fast cars and five-course dinners, was something he wanted, he was in full possession of his free will.
And yet . . . if her position as a vine witch was truly revoked, could she bring herself to live among these feathered and sequined creatures with him, doling out herbal concoctions as a venefica to cure whatever urban ailments they suffered from?
The buoyancy she’d felt after first trying on the dress had deflated like an underdone soufflé as she felt a hand at her elbow.
“Elena, my dear, I’ve been worried sick about you.” Marion Martel hooked her arm fully around Elena’s as if she meant to never let her out of her sight again. “You know it’s one thing for a woman to be independent and go off and do things on her own. I’m a firm believer in equal rights for woman, as you know. Les femmes veulent voter! But, my dear, I think you’ve taken things much too far, don’t you, being gone so many hours a day? Now, come. Let’s join Jean-Paul, who has been waiting patiently for you to arrive.”
“Of course,” Elena said, her mind still troubled by uncertainty and doubt. But then Jean-Paul met her eye, and her heart vaulted, sprung to life by the desire to feel him next to her again and be restored. He dropped his conversation with the gentleman and greeted her with a tender kiss. Afterward he held her in a brief embrace and pressed his lips to her ear.
“I got your message. Thank you for using the old-fashioned method of writing it down.”
She’d sent him a dove at the same time she’d contacted Alexandre earlier, only she’d known better than to expect a mortal to speak to a bird. Instead she’d sent the dove via a transcriber. There was a more than competent word witch who ran a translation business off the roof of the famous arc leading to le jardin. One simply needed to send a little praise along with the original message and the witch was said to feed off the compliment for a week.
They reluctantly parted, then Jean-Paul escorted the two women into the grand dining room of the infamous Maurice’s. The vision of grace and architectural beauty that met Elena’s eye upon entering the room was as enthralling as any magic she had studied or practiced. Overhead, the ceiling hung in a great arching dome of pale-green glass that immediately put one in mind of sitting inside a sunny solarium on a summer afternoon. An artist had even painted fruit-heavy grapevines on the glass to add a Dionysian mural. Jean-Paul smiled when he saw Elena staring up at the grand dome. She gave him the satisfaction of knowing it pleased her as he held her chair out for her. Once seated, she took a moment to admire the other extraordinary features—tables topped in white linen, stained-glass panels backlit by the glow of soft candlelight, and nine painted panels flanked by peacock feathers that surrounded the room, each depicting one of the nine mythological Muses of ancient Greece. Elena could no longer name them all, but their dedication to beauty and art inspired, nonetheless.
“The first time inside always steals one’s breath away,” Marion said with a lift of her chin, though Elena noticed she did not deign to look up at the scene she spoke of, presumably so she might not be mistaken for a dining room débutante.
Jean-Paul squeezed Elena’s hand under the table and leaned over. “You’re breathtaking,” he said, and she swallowed the compliment whole. A moment later an attentive waiter dressed in a black jacket, a bow tie, and a white apron tied around his waist approached the table, offering expensive suggestions to create the perfect epicurean experience. Marion said yes to it all.
As they sat sipping their wine and tasting their first course of foie gras poilé, discussing the latest gossip from the psychic world of Madame Fontaine, a flutter of activity near the kitchen entrance caught their attention. Mild shrieks of amusement from patrons seated near the door turned to groans of disgust as a small grayish green bird flapped its wings over the feathered heads of some of society’s shiniest couples. The tiny bird flew to the high metal rafters of the domed glass ceiling, where it perched to catch its breath among the painted vines. Not three seconds later its white-rimmed eye found Elena. It chirped and jumped off its perch, swooping down until it landed on the white tablecloth beside the plate of half-eaten duck liver. There it hopped back and forth, chirping and pecking at the silverware in obvious distress.
“One of yours?” Jean-Paul asked, scooting his chair back.
“Believe it or not, I think it’s a stray.” Elena leaned forward for a closer look and noted no shadow of spellwork in its eyes. “We don’t generally use songbirds like the ortolan. Too unreliable.”
Marion held her napkin over her face as if afraid of catching a disease from the poor ruffled thing. “Unreliable how, dear?”
“As dinner companions,” she said and placed her hand on the table. She encouraged the bird with a trusting look, and it hopped up to perch on her offered finger.
“Oh, but they’re a delicacy,” Marion said before checking the menu.
Elena excused herself, and with everyone in the place watching her with open faces of astonishment, she walked the bird outside.
She had just finished listening to the ortolan hyperventilate about its escape from the kitchen moments before being plucked and dunked in a vat of armagnac to be served whole to customers when the ma?tre d’h?tel approached her on the sidewalk. She nearly incinerated him to the ground after hearing the bird’s side of things but stopped short when he announced there was a telephone call for her.