Enchantée(76)

Sometimes the fragile places were impossible to see.

She came to a church and paused in its cool, deep shadow. In her hand she still had the drawing Rosier had given her. Unfolding it, she took care not to smudge the network of charcoal lines.

In the drawing, Lazare was not looking straight ahead, at Rosier.

He was looking at her.





38


Despite her best intentions, Camille could not give up Versailles. For it turned out that even when she had shelter and food and money, those things were not enough.

There were other kinds of hunger.

Weeks and weeks ago she’d told herself that as soon as she could, she would stop working magic. Stop wearing herself thin, stop coming to Versailles. But, as Chandon had foretold, the palace’s magic had fastened its hooks in her and she could not stay away. Versailles was the only thing that eased the gnawing emptiness she was desperate to fill.

In Paris the news was of the National Assembly, which was meeting at Versailles to write a constitution, and of the angry riots that raged as bread prices soared. At Versailles, the talk was of the queen’s lover and the Turkish fashion in hats. She knew it was trivial, fluff and glitter, and she was glad she didn’t have to explain her feelings to Papa. She couldn’t quite explain them to herself, but it was somehow a relief to escape the struggle and striving of Paris for the palace’s glint and flash.

When she entered the lavish rooms set up for gambling, she wanted nothing more than to pack her purse with coins, like sand piled behind a defensive wall. She was remorseless in her card-turning, but not foolish. Changing tables often, she made sure to lose every once in a while, and kept up a constant flow of banter and eyelash-fluttering while remembering to call for plenty of wine for the others to drink. She hadn’t played this hard or ruthlessly in a long time, and as she excused herself from the table, a fig tarte in her hand and the sum she needed—plus more—safely stowed in the seam of her dress, she stumbled, a wave of la magie-weariness swelling over her. A courtier caught her by the elbow. “Are you well, madame? Shall I escort you?”

“Quite well, thank you,” she said, and made her way out of the room. They all probably thought her a terrible drunk. Well, let them. Better that than knowing what she’d really been doing. Savoring the sweet tarte, she went through the glass doors and out to the parterre. It had been a beautiful day when she started gambling but now rain clouds crowded the lapis sky. A summer storm was blowing in.

“Cécile! Over here!” Aurélie stood at the top of the stairs that led to the orangerie, wind tousling the skirts of her pale blue dress. She wore an enormous straw hat that curved around her head like a snail’s shell. Two puffs of white ostrich feathers perched on its crown; between them, a long iridescent feather swooped down to curve along her cheek. From behind the hat, Chandon emerged and waved.

“You’ve had quite a morning,” he noted when Camille reached them.

“How did you know?”

“You seem tired, ma belle,” he said, kindly, but there was a warning in his eyes. What he really meant was that she hadn’t been careful with her magic. Somehow, he could tell.

“As do you, mon cher.” Chandon’s appearance was worse each time she saw him. His cheeks were even more flushed, yet all the time his skin grew paler. More translucent, as if made of glass.

“Bah, I’m fine. We’d been planning to walk out to the Temple of Love—that little folly in the middle of the stream, near the Petit Trianon?” Past the Grand Canal, the clouds had darkened ominously; Chandon frowned at them with the same vexed look he gave to people he found unbearably dull. “But the sky is being troublesome.”

“Are you worried about your hat, Aurélie?” Camille asked.

“Don’t you adore it?” She tipped her head to show off the back. “There’s a girl at Madame Bénard’s who designs the most divine chapeaux. I wonder if I should become her patroness. What if her hats become le dernier cri and it’s like the chandler and I have to wait in line?”

Camille smiled to herself. She could not wait to tell Sophie.

“It’ll be fine,” Chandon said. “The others have gone to find umbrellas.”

No sooner had he said this than Foudriard—and right behind him, Lazare in his fir-green silk coat, with his night-dark hair—appeared at the edge of the lawn, having come from the palace’s east wing. In each hand they carried an umbrella.

Lazare waved, the flash of his smile against the amber of his skin dazzling.

Him.

Everything to do with Lazare was a tangled skein of questions she could not answer, full of her own tightly knotted doubts. But amid that confusion there were also things that had happened, things she told herself were real: the music box, the kiss at Notre-Dame, the balloon. How angry he’d been about Alain. And how strange he’d been when she’d asked about Versailles.

Yet, the truth of her heart, despite all of this confusion? That gnawing emptiness lessened when she saw him.

“Something’s happening!” Lazare shouted as he ran toward them. “Hurry!”

“What?” Aurélie said peevishly. “I had my heart set on visiting the Temple of Love.”

Foudriard pulled up, breathing hard. “But this is important! France is changing.”