Enchantée(42)

“You’re building a different kind of balloon?” Camille asked. “For the Alps?”

“We are,” Lazare said, slowly. “The first balloon—the one you rescued—is a hot-air balloon. This one,” he said, tapping the drawing of the smaller balloon, “is a hydrogen balloon.”

“Is it better?”

“Good question,” Armand said, reluctantly. “The balloon would be smaller, because the air—which we would make here, in the workshop, before bringing the filled balloon to the launch site—can get much hotter. And you don’t need to have a fire in the chariot, or fuel. You can’t, in fact. You’d explode. But it’s less easily controlled. I’m not sure it can sail the Alps, as Lazare wants to do.” Armand stared at her through his smudged glasses, as if daring her to ask another question.

“Imagine sailing over the snow-topped peaks, Armand! But as Rosier said, it takes money.” Lazare smiled ruefully.

“Speaking of money,” Rosier said, “I have been trying to convince Lazare that a poster will not ruin our honor nor create any difficulties. As a printer, I’d like your opinion.” From a table he grabbed a sheet of paper where he’d sketched the poster’s layout, with the words TRIP TO THE HEAVENS marching across the top, the balloon’s gondola at the bottom. “What do you think? Your professional opinion?”

Camille took a breath. It was awful.

“You don’t like it?” Lazare asked her, hanging on Rosier’s shoulder.

“It’s just—the way it’s arranged could be better. If you put the balloon at the top, there? That gives a feeling of space. If your printer could do it, the title could even curve around the balloon. But if not, you put the words here,” she said, pointing to the left side of the page. “That’s where the viewer’s eye will naturally go—after looking at the balloon, of course.”

Both boys were staring at her. “What?” she asked. “You don’t like the idea?”

“It’s not that at all,” Rosier said. “It’s perfect. I’ll take it to the printer’s now and get them started.”

The ladies looked up from their sewing. One of them tsked again at Camille.

“I suppose I should go, too,” Camille said, though she didn’t wish to.

“Au revoir,” Armand called from the desk. He didn’t want her here, either. And Lazare? The time had passed too quickly, but as he walked with her to the door, he said nothing about her staying longer.

“Au revoir, then,” Camille said.

Lazare leaned against the doorjamb, his face thoughtful. “Thank you for coming, mademoiselle. I hope you enjoyed the tour of our failures. Or our dreams, as Rosier would call them.”

“They are your dreams, and I love them. It felt like home here, a little. Which is nice, especially,” she added in a rush, “when one’s home doesn’t truly feel like home.” Instantly, her cheeks flamed hot: why on earth had she said that? She was making no sense.

His long, elegant fingers had found the loose button and this time, he snapped the thread and twisted the wooden button free. He spun it in his fingers, around and around. “That’s a kind thing to say about a bunch of failed experiments taking place in an old riding stable that still stinks of manure.”

Camille laughed. “You’re quite welcome. Adieu then, monsieur.” She put her hand on the doorknob. She didn’t want to go but she couldn’t think of anything else to keep her there.

Suddenly the button spun out of Lazare’s fingers, hit the floor, and rolled to a stop by her feet. Camille stooped to pick it up.

“I’ve got it,” said Lazare, dropping to his knees next to her.

So close.

Camille scooped the button off the floor and held it out. As he reached for it, the tips of their fingers touched. The shock of it was like grazing her fingers against a hot stove. He was so improbably close, all tawny skin and black lashes over his impossibly brown, gold-flecked eyes. For an unbearably long moment, they held hers, while she tried to remember to breathe, and then he was standing, his hand under her elbow, helping her up.

“I should be going.” Before she made an utter fool of herself.

“One moment—mademoiselle?”

Camille stopped. Waiting. “Yes?”

He lowered his voice. “Your bruise—you’ve had no trouble since? With the person, I mean?”

She pictured a drunk Alain, slumped over the dirty table at the Palais-Royal, her money gone and her dresses in the hands of those filthy girls. “Not at all.”

“Grace à Dieu.” He sighed. He tapped his fingers distractedly on the doorjamb. “There’s something else. I’ve been thinking of a way to thank you for saving the balloon. And for saving me, and Armand, of course, though sometimes I wonder if he’s worth saving. In any case. There’s something I have in mind.”

“Oh?” Camille’s heart started thumping ridiculously again.

“It’s a surprise.”

Secrets were heavy, unruly things. But it was impossible to resist his smile, the way one corner of his mouth rose higher than the other. “I’m intrigued.”

“Where shall I find you, when it’s ready?”

She winced. Once again, the thought of Lazare Mellais coming to their bare apartment on the rue Charlot was unthinkable. That might very well undo this new thing, as if the shadow of her life were to spill into this sunlit space. “Might I come here at an appointed time, instead?” she asked. “Wouldn’t that be easier?”