Enchantée(66)

She stooped in the hedge for what seemed like hours. Field mice scratched in the leaves nearby, and she tucked her dress closer. She felt it resist; it didn’t like to be cramped. She slapped at midges biting her neck. Behind her, the bushes crackled as Aurélie bumbled in.

“I found you!” She crouched down beside Camille. “Isn’t this a charming game?”

“It might be, if your skirt wasn’t suffocating me,” Camille said as she pushed some of the flounces away.

“What? There’s nowhere else to hide.”

“We’re in the gardens of the palace. There must be a hundred places!” But secretly Camille was glad Aurélie had sought her out.

“And be too far away? I don’t know what I’ll do if Guilleux doesn’t find me. I might expire.” She rested her head on Camille’s shoulder. “I’m so desperately in love with him.”

“He’s certainly besotted with you.”

“You think?” Aurélie sighed. “My husband won’t care, as long as he never hears of it. But it’s hard to be discreet here. Everyone loves rumors and if you are young and pretty—as we are—they’re thrilled if the rumors bring you down. Maman warned me that at Versailles, the men hunt in the forests and the women hunt in the palace.” She peered through the rustling bushes. “Voilà! Here comes Julien. I hoped he was following me.”

Soon the Baron de Guilleux was kneeling under the yew branches next to Aurélie. They grinned at each other. “This is fun, isn’t it?” Guilleux said. “All crushed in together like this?”

Camille laughed. But underneath her smile, the sight of the two of them—pressed close in the underbrush like child-elves from fairyland—made her ache with envy.

“Hush!” Guilleux said. “The wolf will hear us.”

“Look there.” Aurélie pointed out into the clearing. “He’s moving.”

Having left his post by the fountain, the figure wandered off to the right, where he disappeared in the shadows of the trees. Overhead, a nightingale trilled.

“I’ll go, then,” Camille said. “Bonne chance.” She peeled back the branches until she stood, listening, in front of the hedge. Now was her moment. Picking up her skirts, she ran toward the fountain. It was not far, and she was almost there when she heard something crash out of the trees. Then the wolf caught her, grasping her shoulder.

“Got you!” he shouted.

“You sneak!” Camille said, pushing his hand off. “The wolf isn’t supposed to hide!”

Behind her, he was breathing hard. “All’s fair in love and cache-cache.”

She spun around to face him.

He looked as if he’d stepped out of a woodland scene in a play: deep-green suit, a heavy crown of fern and daisies in his hair. In the dark, lace gleamed white at his throat and around the hand he still held suspended in the air. A diamond ring on his finger caught the starlight. When he saw her expression, he laughed, his teeth a flash in the tawny brown of his beautiful face.

It was Lazare.





34


He was dressed like every aristocrat in the palace.

She struggled to take it all in: the suit embroidered in silver that hugged his shoulders like a second skin, its pockets empty of packages or spyglasses. Fashionable breeches ran tight down his thighs; the buckles on his shoes glittered with white stones. Even his cravat—usually a messy afterthought—was snow-white and meticulously tied.

And the drumming thought in her mind: how?

Even his ink-black hair was faintly powdered, she saw now. Apart from his clever, long-fingered hands and his golden skin, he could have been anyone else. Like me, she thought—perhaps he too had disguised himself to come here? A tiny spark of hope flamed to life. She’d thought him a member of the bourgeoisie, but he too might be a thief and a gambler like her, come to prey on the aristocrats.

“You?” she gasped.

“Why not?”

“That’s all you have to say?”

Lazare stared. “Forgive me, have we met before?”

No shock of recognition. He did not see her.

From the time when she first came to Versailles and the Vicomte de Séguin didn’t recognize her, she knew that the glamoire would shield her, as long as the magic lasted. That was what the glamoire was supposed to do. Hide her.

And yet.

She’d been herself with him, in Paris. She’d been someone else here, and until now, she’d managed to keep her worlds distinct. Separate. But Lazare had stepped from one to the other and now she was lost. It was as if she’d marked her path through the woods with bread crumbs, only to find the path utterly gone.

Her snare-drum pulse beat faster and faster, but she willed herself calm.

He bowed, deeply, making a flourish with his hand. “Lazare Mellais.”

“He’s also the Marquis de Sablebois,” Aurélie called as she burst out of the bushes and threw her arms around his neck. “Unlike me, he never mentions his title unless he has to.”

No. He could not be. Not one of them, not Lazare with his lazy smile, his graceful ease. He smiled at Aurélie—a kind smile, a brother’s smile—as Camille’s mind reeled between opposites: revulsion that those hands were ones that could write letters asking for favors from the king, and spinning desire for those same hands, the ones that touched her.