The Last Dress from Paris(79)
“Oh, who knows what she thinks. I suspect she will have told herself either that we are no longer seeing each other or that some sort of understanding has been reached with your husband. I certainly haven’t bothered to provide the details for her.”
Alice’s throat tightens, like a small stone has lodged itself there. Surely Madame du Parcq is not that easily diverted? She hasn’t presented herself as the kind of woman who would simply move on and let her son make his own decisions. He must know that.
“You think she doesn’t know about us, what’s really going on?” Alice asks tentatively. “She’s accepted it was just one kiss on that one evening?” Alice can’t keep the panic from rising in her voice. That all seems so unlikely to her. But now doesn’t feel like the right time to raise all this. Not when she knows she will have to dress and leave soon with no idea when she’ll be able to see Antoine again.
“Can we please not waste our time together talking about what she may or may not know? I really don’t care, Alice.” Antoine takes a small box from the wardrobe and hands it to her, his face glowing with happiness. “Do you like them?”
She opens the lid and discovers a selection of beautiful wooden tree decorations. Ballet dancers, candles, wreaths, stars, and drums, all carefully wrapped in old, discolored tissue paper.
“They belonged to my grandmother. Apparently I was obsessed with them as a child, so they came to me when she passed away. I’ve never felt the need to get them out before, but this year I want to.”
“They are precious.” Alice lifts one of the ballet dancers from the box. Her arms and legs are gracefully extended like she is about to land an impressive jump. Her flared tutu is painted gold, and she still has the gossamer ribbons of her ballet slippers snaking up her slender legs. Alice holds it in her hand, and a thousand thoughts about her childhood, her marriage, the kind of woman she has become all collide at once, and she starts to quietly sob.
“None of it is real, Antoine. None of this can last, and I can’t bear it.”
He grabs hold of both her arms and firmly shakes her. “Yes, it can! Don’t even think it. Of course we can be together. I’m ready, Alice. I’ve told you, you can move in here today as far as I’m concerned.”
They have been over and over this. But she will say it again, hoping this time Antoine will listen.
“We must wait for Albert’s anger to burn itself out, to at least subside beyond its current fever. Please.” She wipes her tears on the back of her hand, keeping Antoine from losing patience now her priority.
“Why must he dictate everything?”
“He isn’t dictating this, is he?” She strokes a hand along Antoine’s face, reminding him that she is here now, with him, exactly where she wants to be.
“We need a sign, Antoine, something that tells me we’re no longer his priority, that we’ve been replaced by another one of his late-night distractions or a crisis at work. It won’t be long. One will come. In the meantime, I will do as we planned. I will start to look for some work, perhaps something at the Sorbonne. And I’ll begin to bring some of my things here. Small things that are important to me but that he won’t notice are missing.”
“It’s not enough, Alice. I want to be with you properly, I want to marry you!”
They both pause. Antoine looks just as shocked by what he’s said as she is. Why? Because he doesn’t know how she’ll react? Or he wasn’t expecting to hear himself say it? Alice stays silent, but her emotions are exploding inside of her. She wants to scream yes, a thousand times over. She wants to rail at the unfairness of her life never colliding with Antoine’s before Albert’s. She wants to forget every responsibility she ever signed up to and run off with this beautiful man to somewhere they’ll never be found. To distill her life down to the simple love story she wants it to be. But her lips stay clamped shut. She needs to hear more from him. Is that a proposal? Or an exaggeration of the pleasure their bodies create together? A hint of what he sees in his dreams, in their future beyond Albert, if such a thing is even possible.
“If two people are meant to be together, then they will be. Do you really think Albert can stand in the way of that?” He shakes his head vehemently, and she watches as he delves back into the box and pulls out a favorite decoration.
Alice’s gaze drops to her wedding ring, and she thinks how much happier she would be if Antoine were the man who had put it there. Maybe she has been overthinking this. Maybe Albert is just a man on borrowed time, one who is soon to realize that despite all his plotting and dictating, his wife has disobeyed him every step of the way. And maybe she can face up to that reality, too, with Antoine firmly by her side.
* * *
? ? ?
By the time Alice steps back into the residence an hour or so later, she feels like heading straight back to bed. But rest will have to wait. She is due in the library in fifteen minutes with Albert, Anne, Eloise, Patrice, and their head chef to advance discussions about the Queen’s birthday celebrations they will host.
As planned, the residence has been transformed overnight with a thousand glittering Christmas decorations. Their appearance is late, but Alice just couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to direct the job. Everywhere she turns, there is a reminder in the branches of the Christmas trees and the glowing lanterns that line the staircase of how joyful this month should be—and how impossible it is for her to feel that way while she is splitting herself in two.