Flushing at the memory of her stolen kiss, Camille slipped on her dressing gown and joined him on the sofa, tucking her legs up underneath her. Faint city sounds of fishmongers and knife sharpers amid the din of horses’ hooves drifted into the room and those everyday sounds made what had happened between them seem very real.
As she settled down next to him, he tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. “What will happen if I can’t stop staring at you?”
“We won’t be able to leave this room,” she said, surprising herself with her daring. “Not that I would mind.”
On the low table sat a large oval tray, crowded with plates of sliced bread, rich butter, a crystal pot of the pear jam Madame Hortense made from the trees in the courtyard, rich and summer sweet. There were also a few small apples in a silver bowl, a pot of hot chocolate and another of coffee, steam drifting from its spout. Tucked under the tray were the latest newspapers.
“How did you get her to bring so much food? The most I ever get is coffee and a crust,” she said. “And I am hungry this morning.”
“I must have certain powers of persuasion,” he teased. He removed the poker from the fire, checked the bread, and slid the perfectly browned piece of toast onto a china plate. “Here’s a bigger crust for you, my sweet.”
He certainly did have powers of persuasion. As she busied herself over the breakfast tray, pouring herself a cup of coffee and spreading butter and jam on her toast in the English way, she felt happiness like sunlight radiate through her. Lazare, here, in her room, was a joy. The flex of muscles in his neck and chest as he held out the poker, the careless ease of him lounging on her sofa … was he watching her as much as she was watching him?
“Alors,” she said, trying to ignore the heat rising in her cheeks. She must at least attempt to behave like a normal person, a person who could think of something other than that. “Tell me everything about your trip. You traveled first to Lille?”
He nodded. “Lille is pretty city on a river; from what I could tell, they hardly think of themselves as French and don’t care much for the revolution. It was a relief, in a way, not to have so much attention on us. One day we made a flight west, toward the coast.” His face went dreamy and far away. “The landscape wide and open, as if it could never end. Then there was the Channel at the horizon, bigger than I could have imagined.”
She’d seen etchings in Papa’s books of the narrow arm of the Atlantic that separated France and England. She imagined something like the Seine, but broader somehow. “Tell me about it?”
He sat forward. “Camille, it was like nothing I’ve ever seen. The sea was wide and gray, cut with thousands of tiny waves. Stretching out in every direction, like the sky. And beneath the surface, it’s said, are deep caverns and valleys, like we have here on land, but they are full of fish and … sea monsters.”
She laughed, and gave him a little push with her foot. “Not those!”
“Oh yes, those. Though I can’t promise they’ll be there when we fly over.”
We? “Is that a promise?”
He smiled, the heat of it dazzling. “Soon, I hope. You would love it. With my long glass, I could see dolphins racing alongside a schooner’s bow. They were … so free.”
She sniffed the air. “Is something burning?”
He turned suddenly to the hearth, where the toast was charred. “Merde!” He pried it off the poker and tossed it in the flames. He watched as the pieces crisped to black, then crumpled, the center caving in. He was silent for a long time.
“Lazare? What’s wrong? Was it the flight? It sounded so beautiful, but—”
“What if we went to London?”
“You’re feeling restless?” She thought of Paris’s crowded streets, its tilting buildings and grand houses. London was larger, a vast and sprawling city, completely unfamiliar. “Have you tired of our city?”
“I love it because it’s where you are,” he said simply.
First the magic lantern show, then the trip to Lille, now London … she tried to be brave. “But Paris is full of ideas and balloons—”
There was a discreet knock on the door, and Camille tensed.