Enchantée(81)

She’d gone too far. She needed to be more vigilant, to maintain somehow the distinction between her two selves. When she first came to Versailles, she’d never dreamed that she would need to create a self so different from her own. If she’d thought at all about it, she’d imagined the baroness would be like her own self, but better: perfected by the glamoire and polished by etiquette.

And of course, she thought, as she shoved through a break in the hedge, she’d never dreamed Lazare would be here to witness it.

Her ball had come to a stop at a rose bed. She was so intent on grabbing it and making it back to the game that she did not hear anyone approach until she stood up and found the Vicomte de Séguin standing in front of her.

Camille stiffened.

“Bonjour, madame,” he said, smoothly bowing. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Camille curtsied, the threads in her gown agitating against her skin. “Monsieur le Vicomte.”

As always, the Vicomte de Séguin appeared supremely confident, dressed in a costly, dark-blue suit: everywhere there could be a gold thread or glass bead, there was. Though it had not rained in days, and the garden paths billowed with dust, his clothes had not a speck on them. A thread of richly scented cologne hung about him, frankincense and cold marble, and under it, the faint smell of smoke. The skin on her neck prickled.

Magician.

Séguin works so much magic he positively reeks of it.

What did a magician like him do with his magic, when he was already so powerful, so rich? Certainly not pretend to be someone else, as she did. As far as she knew, Chandon used his magic for cheating at cards, but what Séguin did with his, she could not guess. A small voice inside her said: perhaps you do not want to know.

“Surprised to see me?” he said.

“A little.” She showed Séguin her ball. “We were playing paille maille on the other side of the hedge. I missed my shot.”

“Or you were fated to see me today.” He raised a perfect eyebrow. “Despite my not being invited to play.”

“I’m sorry—I didn’t know.”

“It’s nothing new,” he said, as if regretful. “Sometimes I say the wrong things. Do the wrong things. It’s not always easy to be oneself, n’est-ce pas?”

“No, it isn’t,” she agreed. She was torn by the desire to get away from him with his unnerving stare, and not to reveal that he unsettled her. “What do you have there?”

Séguin opened his hand: in it was a fresh plum. In the dappled light, it glowed a deep amethyst. “I spoke to the king just now, in his fruit garden. He loves to see what his gardeners grow at Versailles. He yearns for the simple things, did you know?”

She shook her head. On the lawn, the others were waiting. “I must be getting back.”

“Stay a moment—it won’t take me long to peel this.” From his pocket, he removed a knife. Camille flinched. Setting the blade to the fruit, he remarked, “Remember when we played cards, when you first came to court? You never took me up on my offer to help you with the traps.”

“I didn’t find them to be so terribly dangerous after all.”

“Oh?” His knife gleamed as he tossed a peel into the rose bed. “Some are so finely woven you cannot see them, like magic. Court gossip has you engaged to half a dozen people. I thought I’d missed my chance.”

He was jesting—wasn’t he? “Hardly. I much prefer to keep control of my money. Husbands tend to get in the way of that.”

His bronze gaze flickered over her face. “And if you could guarantee that wouldn’t happen, would you marry?”

Camille took a hesitant step backward. This was not at all what she’d expected. “Monsieur—”

“You and I, for example. We would be magnificent together.”

Two magicians, was that what he meant? “And how is that?” she asked, pointedly. “When I am only a simple baroness from the provinces?”

His thin lips twisted into a smirk. “Some things are more than what they seem, aren’t they? The way sand becomes glass. A piece of grit becomes a pearl.”

Transformations.

As close to saying magic as one could come without speaking the word. Séguin must suspect she was a magician. And he wanted her to know that he knew, and that he thought her magic a prize.

Something he wanted.

Her dread was paralyzing, a rush of icy water before drowning. She tightened her grip on the ball in her hand. “I’m sorry to say, monsieur, that as much as I’d like to be, I’m not any of those things.”

A half-laugh, as if he couldn’t believe she’d deny it. “One bit of advice, madame.”

“Is it about the traps?” she said, as lightly as she could.

He inclined his head, as if to say yes. “I’ve learned that the worst thing at court is to be seen.”

What a strange thing to say about Versailles, where not to be noticed was to be forgotten. Doomed. “Everyone at court wishes to be seen. Isn’t that the point?”

He shrugged. “Coming out of the hedge as you did, fetching your ball, and returning to your game before I could see you—it was like a game of hide-and-seek. As if you’d wanted to remain invisible.”

That was exactly what she had wanted. Instead she stood there as if compelled, paralyzed like prey under his golden eyes, watchful as a hawk’s. All-seeing. As if he were telling her: even in your glamoire, you are not invisible to me.