Enchantée(88)

Unsettled, uneasy, unsure.

That morning, the suffocating weather broke with early rain. Camille and Sophie were at home, doing nothing but relishing the cool air coming in through the windows, when the maid delivered a folded, violet-colored note on a silver salver. “This just came for you, madame. Footman brought it.”

Joy burnished with relief flooded through Camille. At last: something. “It’s from Aurélie!”

“Maybe it’ll be some news about Monsieur le Ballon,” Sophie said. “Then you won’t have to keep flailing around Paris looking for him.”

“Hush.” Camille mock-glared at Sophie. “I don’t flail. I—swan.”

“You swoon. Open it. Or I will.”

Camille unfolded the cover. A small card, shaped like a beech leaf, tumbled into her lap. On it were written a few lines, followed by Aurélie’s flourish. It was a clever invitation, the date and time and place radiating out like veins. In the center it said, Fête Galante, and along the stem was written: woodland dress. “What in the world is ‘woodland dress’?”

“Oh, it’s a masquerade!” Sophie started bouncing on the sofa. “Please, Camille, me, too! Can’t I come this time? I’ll be disguised—no one shall know me.”

Perhaps, perhaps. The waiting and the silence from Lazare was wearing at her. She could not be at peace. Sophie seemed to be drifting from her; Chandon did not answer her letters. She felt isolated, cut off. “The second of July—that’s in three days.”

“Lucky for us, you can work magic and I’m clever at sewing. Three days to us is as a hundred to mere mortals. I see you as a magpie, all black and white. And I will be a pretty little dove. We will be utterly enchanting.”

“I thought you preferred I not go to Versailles anymore,” Camille said, almost serious.

“Can I not change my mind?”

“You’re feeling well enough?”

“I haven’t felt better in ages!”

Camille reminded her, “You haven’t even been presented at court.”

Sophie shrieked with laugher. “Presented at court? Do you hear yourself? And who, may I ask, would have done the presenting?”

Camille glared. “You know what I mean.”

“You were never presented, Widow Fontaine. Nor widowed. Nor even married, come to think of it. As for being too young, think of the queen, when she first came to Versailles from Austria. Thirteen.” Sophie dropped prettily to her knees. “S’il te pla?t!”

She did not wish to see anyone on their knees. With a pang, she understood how Sophie must feel: left out, ignored, forgotten. She’d hope for the best.

“If you insist,” she conceded.

Sophie shrieked with joy. “You are not to worry about anything, ma soeur! I promise to be completely forgettable.”





45


The Grand Trianon shone like a fiery lantern.

And she, a winged creature to its flame.

She’d come for a frivolous distraction from the empty ache of waiting and not knowing. But as she and Sophie entered the colonnade packed with courtiers, the air crackled with uneasy energy.

The revels were underway. Laughing men with antlers branching from their heads passed women masked with feathers or moss, delicate wings harnessed to their shoulders. A costume of organza leaves, a furred bear; girls in the gauzy dresses of woodland sylphs, veils hiding their faces. Some masks were elaborate confections, outstanding exam ples of the mask-maker’s art, but others were simply bands of sheer silk tied behind the head, with holes cut for seeing.

And everywhere, there were eyes. Glinting in the masks’ recesses, stealing glances, searching, appraising. Underneath the masks, crimsoned mouths curved, laughed, tightened. Eyes and mouths and teeth, Camille thought with an unpleasant shiver.

In the whirling revels, she and Sophie were a small, still spot. Sophie squeezed her hand. “Where are your friends? Aurélie de Valledoré? Monsieur Ballon? The other one you’re always talking about, the Marquis de Chandon?”

“Somewhere, no doubt.” Camille tried to shrug off her growing sense of foreboding. “It’s just—there are so many people, and they’re all in disguise. It makes it difficult to recognize anyone.”

Joining the stream of partygoers, they were swept into a long gallery that had been transformed into a wooded grove. Birch trees mingled with boxwood in planters, crowded thickly to make a forest. High above them, dark blue crêpe de chine swathed the ceiling, so that the candles in the chandeliers burned like stars. Green walkways of turf zigzagged across the floor; tame rabbits and deer nibbled at the grass, their long ears twitching. In the trees, finches warbled.

“Isn’t it enchanting, Camille? If Madame Bénard could see this, she’d faint with happiness at how beautifully everyone’s gone along with the theme. Well, except that one there.” She made a moue of distaste. “He’s not wearing any kind of a costume, unless you consider a plume stuck in your hair to be something.”

Camille realized she knew him. “Lord Willsingham!”

Willsingham straightened his cravat and stalked over to them. He wore a strangely flattened wig, pierced with a bent peacock feather. He hadn’t even reached them before he burst out: “Damn me, I’m at the end of the wits! Tell me, my lady, have you seen the marquis? The one with the blond hair?” He peered at her. “Blue, like me?” His French was terrible.