Enchantée(99)

She could blame Lazare for being in disguise, for not telling her anything, but she wasn’t any better. She could have set aside her disguise weeks ago. She could have been honest.

Sweetly, the clock chimed six times.

The other letter was dirty, stained—a contrast to the sweeping loops of her name across the front. She knew the handwriting immediately: it was from Alain. But how had he known her address? A prickle of unease crawled up her neck.

She did not open the letter yet, but held it in her hand. Weighing it. Remembering who he was.

She unfolded the paper. In the letter, he demanded that they meet to discuss something of great importance. “Why?” she wondered aloud. “What good would it do?”

There was a small fire in the grate; she dropped the letter into it. As she watched, it curled upon itself, first its edges blue with flame, then scorching to black. Gone.

To go to the party for Aurélie, hear her friends’ banter as they sat at the tables and bet higher and higher until there was nothing she could think of but the next card that would be turned, the next number called, and to do it over and over—it would be a relief.

She laid the invitation on top of the writing desk, above the row of pigeonholes, where Papa’s paper bagatelles stood. There was the haughty queen with her towering wig of printed words, the dragon roaring Liberté, the schooner with its sails that proclaimed, It Is Time We Act.

She picked it up, and from old habit, blew at it so that its sails billowed.

What had Papa intended when he’d fashioned the schooner so that these words were emblazoned on its sails? Writing—printing—was a kind of action. But she didn’t think that was what he’d meant. She ran her finger gently along the bowsprit, touched the holes Papa had made for the cannons. She thought of him, how he must have looked when he was caught in the square, hanging the posters that had ended his career. Defiant. Secure in his truth, if nothing else.

He had meant for her to do something.

Lazare might not want to have anything to do with her, if she told him what she’d done with her magic. It wouldn’t be fair, not when she still didn’t know his reason for hiding his noble birth or the reason he went to Versailles.

Bien s?r, Papa’s ghost might have whispered in her ear, there would be consequences, some of them not fair. How else would you know you had done something, if there was no change? No shift in the world?

She set the schooner down, gently.

She’d go to Versailles and find Lazare. Distressed, Rosier had said. Distraught.

And she’d find a way to do something—to tell Lazare the truth about herself.



* * *



She wished she’d seen Sophie before she’d left. There were things she wanted to admit to her, things that she’d been wrong about.

As the gravel crunched in the courtyard below, the horses stamping their feet, Camille worked the glamoire, the blood on the gown nothing to her. Inhaling, she felt the rich rush of magic as the dress embraced her, steadying her, drawing her to court.





51


When Camille arrived, it was evening, the moon a low sliver of silver in the sky, the party only recently begun.

Yet she could not shake the feeling that she was too late.

Untying the ribbons of her cloak, she paused at the open doors of the room. From inside, a thrum of voices and music. Servants were moving throughout the large, high-ceilinged space, lighting silver candelabras on the marquetry tables; two footmen had lit the many-armed chandelier and were hoisting it back up to the ceiling. Beneath it stood four gaming tables covered in green baize—all packed with aristocrats—but around one large table in particular, all the way back against the tall windows, observers stood three-deep. Camille felt the frisson of excitement in the room, a crackle of electricity. High stakes tonight.

As she handed her cloak to a footman, she saw the Vicomte de Séguin make his way toward her around the gaming tables. She thought about how taken with him Sophie had been at the fête galante. He was handsome, it was true: his strange bronze eyes, the long, fine nose, his square jaw, the knowing, arrogant mouth. As always, he was expensively dressed, all the way down to his red-heeled shoes. And rich. But there was something else about him that unnerved her, something that was there but not there. Like a cobweb. Or a smoky blur, like a breath on a windowpane.

He bowed. “Baroness de la Fontaine.”

“Good evening, Monsieur le Vicomte.”

“It was kind of you to come, when I’m sure you have so many things that keep you in Paris.”

“I wouldn’t miss a fête for Aurélie’s birthday.” Camille kept her voice light. “Nor cards.”

“You are known for winning, madame.” He glanced at his ornate pocket watch. “I so enjoyed meeting your sister—such a lovely girl. She is well, I trust?”

Another twinge of disquiet, like the scratch of a needle. “Of course. Is Aurélie already here? Chandon? Is he feeling better?”

Séguin made an impatient gesture. “They are at the tables.”

“I’ll join them, then.” She was about to curtsey to Séguin, when a roar erupted from the large table at the back of the room. Someone shouted, “Bravo, Sablebois!”

Lazare.

She rose on her toes to see over the heads of the people in the room, but Séguin stood in her way.