To Sketch a Sphinx - Rebecca Connolly Page 0,19

older than Hal, unless her eyes were deceiving her. Her dark, sable hair was pulled back with fashionable simplicity, emerald ear bobs dangling along the ringlets surrounding them, and while her smile did not bear the same warmth as her husband’s, it was rather pleasant in its own right.

“Cousine, Mr. Pratt,” de Rouvroy intoned with a heartfelt formality, “ma femme Victoire, Madame de Rouvroy.”

Victoire curtseyed effortlessly, her hands cradling a swelling in her belly Hal hadn’t noticed initially. “Welcome,” she greeted softly almost without accent. She gestured to nearby seats. “Please, join us. I will send for some tea.”

“Madame,” Hal protested, shaking her head. “My husband and I have been traveling without stopping since Calais. We are rather dusty, I fear, and your furniture…”

“J’insiste,” Victoire overrode without hesitation, her smile spreading. “The chairs were made for sitting, non? You are not so filthy as to ruin them. You must be exhausted, do sit.”

De Rouvroy chuckled and gestured to the chairs as well. “You should do as she says,” he encouraged. “She is quite fierce in her opinions.”

Hal managed a smile and nodded once. “Fair warning, cousin. I am likely to drift off if I sit for too long in a comfortable place.”

“And I would shortly follow,” Pratt admitted without any of the stiffness she’d expected of him.

“We shall not keep you long,” de Rouvroy told them both. “A bit of nourishment and then off to your rooms for rest and récupération, oui?”

Hal sighed as she moved to her chair, her smile spreading. “Oui. S’il vous plaît.”

Victoire laughed as they all sat. “Ze journey from Calais can be very trying if you have no place to rest along the way. Ze roads alone are très misérable.”

“They are indeed,” Pratt agreed, crossing one knee over the other beside Hal. “Ange here managed to sleep despite them, but I could not.”

“Impressive, cousine,” de Rouvroy praised warmly. “I cannot manage so myself. That road is not so good as the English roads, I think.”

Hal tilted her head as tea was brought in. “Have you been to England?”

“Oui,” came the simple reply. “Several times. Ze roads are better there, but our opera is better here.” He winked with a chuckle as he indicated that they should help themselves to the tea.

“I do hope to see it,” Hal said before she could help herself, stirring a bit too much sugar into her tea.

Her cousin’s eyes lit up. “Ah! We attend the opera regularly, ma petite, and you shall attend with us! There are marvelous operas in Paris at present, are there not, Victoire? Indeed, we shall attend them all, I daresay.”

Pratt cleared his throat very softly as Hal added yet another cube of sugar to her tea just to busy herself. She paused, cursed silently, and sat back, cautiously lifting her tea and saucer with her as she stirred the overly sugared mess before her.

She enjoyed the opera, but hardly in excess. She’d hoped to attend once, perhaps twice, as the Paris Opera was rumored to be the best in Europe. But if their whole interaction with the higher society of Paris was relegated to only the opera and nowhere else…

She hissed to herself in a sort of scolding, wondering just what her husband would make of that.

His hand slid to her arm, gently patting as he leaned forward to situate himself with tea.

Well, there was that, at least.

If he were truly bothered, surely he would have gripped her arm rather than pat it.

“I confess,” Pratt ground out, reaching for a small piece of cake alongside the tea set, “I am not one for lofty music, but I can appreciate a well-performed aria as well as any with a working set of ears. Within reason, of course, and provided I am not inundated with an excessive quantity.”

Perhaps not.

Luckily for them both, de Rouvroy chuckled. “Never fear, Pratt, I shall devise various opportunities to introduce my beautiful petite cousine to all of Paris. But you shall love the opera before you leave our fair city, I stake my word on that.” He grinned with an almost mischievous air, then turned to his wife. “René would be an excellent tutor for them in the opera, would he not, mon chérie?”

Victoire nodded with almost as much eagerness as her husband expressed. “Oui! He is always wishing for more of the opera, and he has such elegant friends!” She looked at Hal with bright eyes. “My husband’s son from his first wife, you know. Such a well-behaved young man, and