Moonlight Over Paris(64)
“Who are his people? Apart from being Americans, that is.”
“Didn’t Helena say?” Sara answered. “His father is Andrew Clement Howard the Third. The steel baron. We may not have an aristocracy in the States, but if we did Sam’s family would belong to it. I mean, they aren’t old money—I think the fortune only goes back a century or so—but along the way they married into the old guard. Sam is as blue-blooded as an American can get.”
It was a good thing Helena was sitting down; otherwise she’d have found herself on the floor. How had she not known something so important about him? And what did it mean that he had never told her the truth?
“Helena—what’s wrong?” Sara asked. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t. He never said a thing. Did you know?”
“Yes, but only because we know his parents. Perhaps he simply assumed that you knew.”
“Of course I didn’t. He never talked about his life in America. And when he did, it was ordinary stories. The food you eat at Thanksgiving, how he misses going to baseball games—that sort of thing.”
“Don’t be too upset with him,” Sara advised. “After all, nearly everyone here has some kind of story. Even you. Has anyone ever questioned your decision to live as Miss Parr and not as Lady Helena?”
“No, but it’s just so surprising. If his family is that wealthy, why does he live like a church mouse?”
“Because he lives on his salary from the paper,” Sara answered. “He hasn’t accepted anything from his family for years.”
Helena felt dizzy, as if she’d just imbibed an entire pitcher full of champagne cocktails, and her heart was pounding with something that felt very much like fear. Sam had seemed so different, so free of all the smothering constraints and expectations that had shaped so much of her life, and to discover that he, too, was part of that world was almost more than she could bear.
It would have been so easy for him to tell her the truth. The night they’d been caught in the rain, for instance, she had asked about his family, and he’d said he didn’t wish to talk about his life in America. He had told her nothing—yet she, like a fool, had gone ahead and blithely emptied her heart and soul into his hands. She had told him everything, and he had responded with prevarication, half-truths, and silence.
A comforting hand touched her shoulder. “The men will be waiting for us,” Amalia said. “Do you want to go home? Or are you fine to go back to the table?”
“We should go back to the table. I’ll be fine,” she fibbed, not wanting her sister to worry.
“Good for you,” said Sara. “And remember that Sam hasn’t changed. He’s the same man he’s always been.”
“I know. It’s simply a great deal to take in. That’s all.”
She stood, her legs a little shaky, and Amalia rushed over to embrace her. “Save your thinking for later. Now is the time for cocktails and jazz music and dancing.”
Back at the table, Helena pushed aside her soda water and gulped down two champagne cocktails in quick succession. They proved very efficacious at redirecting her attention, and so when Sam got up to leave not a half hour later, explaining that he had to return to his office, she managed to say good night without drawing any undue attention to herself.
The rest of the evening passed in a blur. étienne suggested they move on to a dance hall in Pigalle, which prompted Sara and Gerald to say a reluctant good night. “We’ve a long drive home to St.-Cloud tonight, and neither of us is an enthusiastic dancer,” Sara explained. “It was so lovely to see you again, Amalia.”
The dance hall was perfect: just seedy enough to feel exciting rather than dangerous, and so crowded that it didn’t matter at all if one knew the steps to the dances being played at a blistering pace by its band. étienne bought them a round of absinthe, which Helena was fairly certain had been illegal for some time, and she drank down her glassful as speedily as she dared. It tasted almost exactly like the licorice sweets she’d loved as a child, though less sweet, and if she hadn’t been wary of its alleged hallucinogenic effects she’d have had another.
She and étienne and Amalia danced without stopping for hours, and only when the band took a break at two o’clock in the morning did her sister plead exhaustion. “You and étienne have class tomorrow, and I’ve a long train journey ahead of me.”
Amalia was right, of course, though it had been heaven to listen to the music and dance and let every last one of her cares melt away. étienne found them a taxi, threatened the driver with dire consequences if they didn’t reach home safely, and kissed both of them, though chastely, before disappearing into the night.
They were home by three in the morning, and though Helena wanted nothing more than to flop into bed she took the time to change into a nightgown and hang up her Vionnet gown properly. She was rubbing cold cream into her face when her sister knocked at the door.
“Would you mind if I came in and slept here?” Amalia asked.
“I’d love it if you did.”
And so they curled up alongside one another in Helena’s big bed, and Amalia talked about her little boys, and Helena talked about her friends and her work, and presently they fell into an easy, gentle silence, both of them close to sleep.