Enchantée(61)

The bell in the nearby church began to toll. “It’s time.” Camille took a deep breath. “Let’s knock.”

A maid showed them into the quiet house. In the grand entrance hall, a floor of patterned marble led to twin staircases circling to the second floor. On a side table, peonies curved from a vase. A clock ticked somewhere upstairs.

“May we see the rooms?” she asked the maid.

“Of course,” the maid said as she led them up the stairs to a set of double doors. Fishing a key from her pocket, she flung them open. In the salon, sunlight streamed through windows and bounced off the high ceilings. The sofas and chairs were freshly upholstered in pink florals and stripes; they perched on plush Savonnerie carpets. She longed to reach down and run her hand through the carpets’ dense pile. Off the sitting room, the two bedrooms were less grand, but just as comfortable. Sophie trailed behind the maid, her hand pressed over her mouth in astonishment.

Downstairs, Madame de Théron emerged to greet them. She was probably close to sixty, wide, and along with her powdered wig, she wore a bright circle of rouge on each cheek. She cast slow, careful looks over their dresses, shoes, their bare hands. Camille resisted tucking them away in her skirts.

“You liked the rooms?” Madame de Théron said finally.

Sophie curtsied. “Very much, madame.”

“The rent is thirty louis?” Camille held out a bulging purse. “Here’s two months’ worth.”

“Hélas!” Madame de Théron shook her head, back and forth, back and forth like a pendulum. “I wish I could accept payment from such lovely young ladies, but I cannot! Such a shame! There is, as it happens, someone ahead of you. She liked the rooms very much.”

Suspicious. “But she did not take them?” Camille asked.

The old lady waved her hands. “Not yet. She wasn’t prepared—financially—to fall in love with my little rooms.”

Madame was lying, Camille knew suddenly. The other woman—if there was one—hadn’t come with ready money. And here Camille stood, holding out two months’ rent to Madame de Théron. If they didn’t need the rooms as much as they did, Camille would have snapped. As it was, she tempered her speech. “If she changes her mind, madame, you will let us know, won’t you?”

“Of course, of course,” she said, all politeness. “I will send a boy to fetch you back.”

Once they were out in the street, Camille took Sophie’s arm. “Come, I’m sure she’s watching from behind the curtains.”

Sophie squirmed. “How could Aurélie be so wrong? Didn’t she say Madame de Théron had found no one to stay with her?”

“Aurélie was not wrong.” Camille led Sophie down the street, away from the windows of the H?tel Théron. “We were seen through, that’s what happened. Madame needs money but she doesn’t want ours.”

Sophie frowned. “But we’re nice people. What could she possibly object to?”

“She wants money, but more than that, she wants a good name. Quality. Which apparently we can’t offer.” Camille had witnessed enough snubs at court to know what this was: all kindness on the surface, silk over unyielding iron.

Sophie managed a smile. “Don’t take it so hard. It doesn’t matter. There are other rooms, other places.” She was working hard to conceal her disappointment, but Camille saw it—a little downward tug of her mouth.

“It isn’t fair, or right,” Camille said. “We have the money, we played our roles. Why shouldn’t we have it?” She had worked so hard to reach a place of safety, only to see it snatched away. H?tel Théron had everything they needed. Its walls were high, the iron-studded gate unbreakable. Unslip-throughable. There were maids at the doors and gatekeepers to keep out Alain.

“What about another house in this quarter?” Sophie asked. “There have to be other widows with too many rooms.”

“They’re all the same,” Camille fumed. “Aristos who think they’re better than everyone else because an ancestor fought a battle in the thirteen hundreds or because their grandparents did a service for the king. With their duels and their titles, they think they’re above the law. It’s ridiculous.”

As they walked slowly down the street, Camille’s mind raced through the possibilities. There had to be a way. She simply needed to find it. She might write again to Aurélie. She might try to find something in their own neighborhood. It wouldn’t be as nice, but it would be elsewhere—at this moment, an apartment’s most important quality.

Sophie had come to a stop and was staring at one of the houses on the street. “Do you recognize that one? It seems so familiar but I can’t think why.”

Right away Camille knew the one Sophie meant: tall and severely elegant, with menacing black ironwork below the windows. The curtains were drawn, just as they had been before. She’d hoped never to see it again. “Grandmère once lived there. I visited her almost two years ago. With Papa.”

Sophie’s voice was small. “I didn’t know that.”

“You were only thirteen, Sophie. I was the age you are now.” Papa had known what the visit would entail, and he had spared Sophie the anguish. Camille had known to do the same, and said nothing.