He took her hand, traced her knuckles with his thumb, and then, drawing closer, brought her hand to his lips.
Camille’s breath caught. She found herself wishing his mouth was … elsewhere. “Don’t you know hand-kissing has been deemed too gothic for this revolutionary age, like wigs and rouge?”
“Or magic?” He raised one dark eyebrow, the one cut by a scar. “Though that hasn’t prevented you from enchanting me.”
“I didn’t intend to.” Though perhaps longing was its own kind of magic?
“I’ll need to study you more carefully to know for certain.”
“Like you were studying the birds just now? Or was it the clouds?”
His gaze traveled like a caress from the collar of her cloak and along her cheek before coming to rest on her mouth. “Not exactly.”
It was like feeling the warm sun on her face. “I’m glad you’re back in Paris.”
“Me too, mon âme. And I am determined to stay. You will become quite sick of me, I’m certain.” Camille was about to say that it was impossible when she heard Sophie coming toward them.
“Lazare! Welcome home!” she called out as she ran lightly down the stairs. Her dress billowed behind her as she kept one hand pressed to her head, to keep her extraordinarily wide hat from blowing away.
Lazare bowed. “I was only gone for five days.”
“To some,” Sophie mused, “five days can seem an eternity. Wouldn’t you agree, Camille?”
The heat climbed in Camille’s cheeks.
Lazare suppressed a smile. “I imagine Rosier is feeling eternity stretch on ahead of him at this very minute. Shall we go?”
Once inside the carriage, Camille took her seat opposite Sophie, who remarked, “I see you’d prefer a different companion on your bench and I wholeheartedly approve.”
“You are hopeless!”
“The opposite, in fact.”
Lazare climbed in and closed the door behind him. He knocked on the ceiling and the horses stepped out and away. Flinging himself down beside Camille, he stretched his legs out in front of him. “A few minutes and we’ll be there.”
“It was kind of you to take us,” Sophie said, “when we might have walked. Perhaps you might tell us why we’re going to the workshop?”
He crossed his arms and grinned. “I really couldn’t say.”
Thwarted, Sophie yanked back the curtain and watched the streets roll by. Lazare shifted so close that his legs tangled in Camille’s skirts. In her ear, he said, “Rosier hopes to—”
“What are you whispering?” Sophie asked. “It’s rude to keep secrets.”
“You want me to break my vow of silence?” He tried not to laugh. “Rosier will have my head.”
Diverting the conversation, Lazare asked them what they had done while he’d been away, and told them stories about the latest crop of foals at Sablebois, and the vineyards that had been planted. As they talked, Camille luxuriated in the joy of simply being next to him again, the late summer unfurling in front of them like a grand map of adventure, her worries fading to a distant hum, inaudible over the carriage wheels whispering soon, soon, soon.
6
At the far end of the lane, a cobalt-blue door beckoned.
Above it, Camille knew, was written in faded letters: L’ÉCOLE DE DRESSAGE. To anyone else, it could very well be a riding school where students cantered around a dusty ring, practicing flying lead changes. But to her, it was a doorway into dreams.
Inside was pleasantly cool and dim. Overhead perched scores of slate-gray pigeons, and a few flapped into the air when Lazare opened the door. The packed-dirt floor was as it’d been when she’d first came to the workshop, but the viewing stand, once filled with failed balloon experiments, had been cleared out. The gaggle of judgmental seamstresses was also gone, though there remained, at one end of the long space, an uninflated balloon and two wicker gondolas, as well as a table piled with books and papers. In the middle of the riding ring stood a small stage, facing a row of chairs. From the way the red curtains bulged, something—or someone—stood behind it.
Questioningly, Camille looked at Lazare.
“Don’t ask me! All I can say is Rosier’s been hard at work.”
Odd. Rosier was hardly one to be quiet about anything.
The curtains twitched and, as if he’d heard his name, Rosier appeared. As always, he seemed to be in perpetual motion. From his coat pocket protruded the stem of the pipe he always carried with him. His clothes seemed an afterthought, as if he were thinking of something much more exciting than what to wear, and without a hat, his light-brown hair curled exuberantly.