reading a book. She’d switched strategies from this morning, now employing passive-aggressive indifference in her attempt to dissuade me from this path. “Don’t fret.”
“I’m not fretting,” I said, smoothing my lace gloves over the rich blue velvet of my dress. The bodice was both tight and low, revealing the slight curves of my breasts, which were amplified by the added padding. It was one of my new gowns, and I could not help but admire the sleeves, snug to my elbow and loose in a spray of lace that hung to my wrists. The crinoline puffed the skirts out from my hips, the velvet slashed to reveal the lace petticoat beneath.
My shoes were matching brocade with ribbons that wrapped around my ankles, and I wore sapphire and diamond earrings that Sabine had deemed a perfect match to the dress. She’d fixed my hair so it was up, a few curls left loose to frame my face, and rimmed my eyes with kohl and tinted my lips.
A knock sounded at the door, and I leapt up. “I’ll answer it,” my mother said, rising far too slowly for my tastes and then ambling toward the door. “Good evening, Monsieur de Montigny,” she said. “Please do come inside. Winter is truly upon us.”
“How is your hand?” Tristan asked, but whatever she answered went unheard in my ears as I adjusted my dress for the umpteenth time. When I glanced up, he had rounded the corner with her, and our eyes met.
His disguise was in place, eyes grey instead of silver and skin altered to a duskier, more human hue. But all else was the same, and even if he had made himself unrecognizable I still would have known it was him. I loved him; so much so that my chest felt tight and my breath short, and everything else in the room seemed wan as a faded painting.
“Mademoiselle de Troyes.” He smiled, glanced at the floor and then back up to my face. “Memory, it would seem, is a pale comparison to reality.”
“How charming he is!” My mother clapped her hands together and we both twitched. “Best be off. You don’t want to be late.”
Once we were outside, I said, “Marie’s ladies were talking about you at rehearsals today. Of a certainty, she knows you are in Trianon. And if she knows, so does Anushka.”
“Good,” he said, although it seemed as if he hadn’t really heard me. I gripped his arm above the elbow as we walked down the slippery steps, uncertain of the state of his wrists and knowing better than to ask.
“I meant what I said,” he added. “You look beautiful tonight. That dress…” he trailed off.
“I’m supposed to be trying to seduce you into giving me all your money.”
“Trying?” He laughed. “You have succeeded, and in doing so, quite driven thoughts of anything else from my mind.”
“Your focus on our task is admirable,” I said, but secretly I was pleased.
“If I am distracted, it is your fault. You have been my undoing since the day we met.”
The coachman opened the door to the carriage, and Tristan helped me inside.
“Good evening, Cécile,” Monsieur Bouchard said, his loud voice filling the small space. I’d met him several times previously, as he was a subscriber, and the nephews sitting next to him as well. “Good evening,” I replied. “I understand I have you to thank for giving Monsieur de Montigny an excuse to see me tonight.”
“Glad to oblige.” The older man winked at Tristan as the carriage started forward. “I wanted proof that he wasn’t all bluster and that you two truly were acquainted.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, smiling up at Tristan. “We met in Courville this summer. I was ever so pleased when he decided to join society in Trianon.”
“And from now on, I shall go to Cécile with all my questions,” Bouchard said. “She is far less taciturn than you, Montigny.”
I laughed. “He hoards his secrets like a miser does his coin, I’m afraid. I spent all summer trying to pry them out, and I’m quite certain I barely scratched the surface.”
“For good reason,” Tristan replied. “It gives me an air of mystery. If I told you everything, I’d risk you realizing that I’m really quite dull.”
“I doubt that,” I said, then the carriage hit a dip in the road, bouncing me sideways against Tristan.
“Steady!” Bouchard shouted, banging on the wall. “Curse these roads. Something needs to be done about them.”
Except I didn’t curse them at all. Even through the layers of