He flicked the last plum peel into the flowers edging the path. Juice dripped from the knife and fell onto the ashy gravel in tiny dark spots.
“Adieu then, Baroness.” Something raw flickered in his eyes. “Patiently or not, I’ll be waiting.”
Camille bowed and ducked into the hedge, clutching the ball in her hand.
What had just happened? The Vicomte de Séguin had suggested—marriage? Some kind of partnership? But why would a magician need a partner, a partner who was also a magician? For she felt quite certain now that Séguin suspected—if not knew outright—that she, too, was a magician.
She’d thought magic a simple thing, once. Magic was the way one turned useless scraps into useful coins. It was difficult, and it hurt on the inside to work it, but it was manageable. Now magic seemed a vast and trailless continent, only one very small part of its landscape familiar to her. There was so much she did not know.
Nothing seemed right: not Versailles, with rot crumbling at its edges; not Séguin, with his watchful eyes and his talk of invisible traps and magic; not even Lazare, with his lazy smile, willing to bestow a kiss on a baroness he hardly knew. In the space of one bright afternoon, she was in grave danger of her disguises failing, the boundaries between her two selves collapsing.
She had to be more careful.
By the time she’d finally made her way through the yew hedge, her friends had advanced down the lawn. They seemed tiny next to the wind-ruffled hedges, beneath the wide dome of washed-blue sky. They were as painted figures in a model of Versailles, placed there by some larger force. And just as easily knocked down.
Lazare must have wandered off in search of his ball, for she could not make out anywhere his lanky shape, the ink-black of his unpowdered hair.
The dress shifted restlessly against her skin.
As she watched, Chandon hit his ball squarely, though not very far. The effort made him double over, coughing. The raspy sound echoed toward her.
Aurélie rubbed his back. A breeze caught at her skirts and then, as if she could feel Camille’s gaze, she tipped her hat back and waved.
“Hurry up!” she shouted. “You’ll miss your turn!”
41
“Viens ici,” said Sophie, her blue eyes sharp with concern. “I want you to come here and really look.”
“I’m reading,” Camille replied, carefully turning a page in her copy of Les Liasons Dangereuses so as not to reveal how it trembled in her hand. Late afternoon light warmed their sitting room at the Hôtel Théron; Fantôme lazed in a golden splash of sunshine, licking his paw. To be a cat, she thought, and not have to worry about being caught out as a fraud, or a magician. A simple, snare-less life.
“I’m very serious,” Sophie said.
Camille lay her book down over the arm of her chair. “You won’t leave me alone until I do, I suppose?”
Sophie said nothing but waited, with her hand on her hip, next to the large mirror above the fireplace. Camille was exhausted, la magie-worn—and she suspected she knew what Sophie wished to show her.
“Come,” Sophie said, waving Camille closer to the long mirror. It reflected back at them the salon’s wallpaper and curtains, the unlit chandelier.
“What is it?” Camille said, warily.
“Stand by me, and look at your reflection.”
Camille did as her sister asked, fixing her attention on the mirror’s curlicued frame.
“First me. The more money we have, the better I look,” Sophie said. “See?”
Avoiding her own reflection, Camille looked at Sophie’s. Her sister’s blond hair gleamed with health. There was a pretty flush in her round cheeks and her blue eyes shone brightly. “It’s true. You’re very pretty,” Camille acknowledged.
“And you?”
“I don’t wish to analyze myself at the moment.” She pulled the collar of her robe around her throat, over her collarbones. “I’ve only just woken up.”
“Camille,” Sophie warned.
Reluctantly, Camille shifted her gaze from Sophie’s reflection to her own. If she didn’t look too closely, she did resemble herself. The dusting of freckles across her nose, her serious gray eyes, the copper lights in her hair. She was no longer as gaunt as she used to be and the hungry tightness was gone from around her eyes. “Well enough.”
“Truly?”
She’d seen it enough in Chandon to see its shadow in herself.
Sometimes she’d catch a glimpse of herself at Versailles, reflected in a mirror or a window, and be struck by how thin her skin seemed. The way a chemise would wear away to holes, the more it was washed. Or the way a piece of paper, scraped over and over to remove old ink, slowly became translucent.
Ghostly. Spirit-thin.
“It’s because I was at court last night. It takes time to recover from the glamoire. It’s always been that way. As you know.” Which was true, as far as it went. The aching weariness in her bones, the sensitivity of her skin, the slaying fatigue were as they had been the first time she’d gone to Versailles. But now there was something more. It took her longer to recover her strength, as if the glamoire took more from her than it had in the past. It had a constant hunger.
“I’ll stop la magie soon. I’ll even stop going to Versailles,” she said, though it didn’t sound as convincing she’d hoped.
Fantôme pressed against Sophie’s skirts and she picked him up. “Do you go to see your friends?” she asked. “Chandon, Aurélie, Foudriard? And the other one, Séguin? Do you see him very much?”
“Not very.” The less that was said about Séguin, the better. “Bien sûr, it’s my friends. It’s hard to give it all up.” When she’d first pulled up to Versailles in her rented carriage, she’d been determined to hate it. Instead, the palace had sunk its million tiny claws into her—and offered her the unexpected freedom of being someone else. “It gives me so much, Sophie,” she faltered.
“And it takes.”
Sophie didn’t say it, but Camille could almost hear her think it: it doesn’t just take from you. It takes from both of us. Out of the corner of her eye, Camille saw Sophie turn something in the palm of her hand. Something violet. A card. A folded letter.
“Is that from Aurélie?” Camille gasped, reaching for it. “Were you were hiding it from me?”
“I was waiting for the right moment,” Sophie conceded. “Take it.”
Camille broke the seal. Aurélie’s note was a baroque scrawl of loops and dashes.
“What does it say?” Sophie asked.
Camille read aloud: “It says, ‘The Paris Opera. Tonight! We have a box and miss you terribly—’”
Sophie’s smile wobbled. “How lucky you are! A night at the opera.”
It did feel like a bit of luck. Beneath her weariness, she felt the itch of magic under her skin, the whisper of the dress in her ear, but she didn’t want to go back to Versailles. Versailles felt haunted, strung with snares in which she might get caught. And she felt like a fool after the way she’d behaved the last time she’d seen Lazare.
The opera in Paris would be perfect. Safe.
“I think I’ll go,” Camille said slowly. “Though attending the opera without working a glamoire is not an option, not tonight.”
And if she were being completely honest: perhaps not ever.
Sighing, Sophie set the cat down. “If you insist on going, make your dress a pale, sea green. And don’t put too much powder in your hair—it’s no longer done in Paris.”
“Thank you, ma chèrie,” Camille said, embracing her sister. As she did, she felt again a wave of fatigue sweep over her, the magie-sickness.
“Camille, you’re shaking,” Sophie said. “Why not stay—”
She shook her head. She did not wish to stay at home to rest. She knew that as soon as she worked the glamoire, the tiredness would disappear. “Off I go then.”
As she rang for the maid to order the carriage, Camille’s gaze snagged on the little music box balloon, sitting silently on the writing des
k.
“Why can’t you let yourself love him?” Sophie said, quietly. “Lazare being a marquis—how can it matter so much? I hate to disabuse you of your high-minded ideals, but they’re our people, too.”
“It’s not that.” She struggled to explain. “How can I trust him? When we played paille maille, he asked me what kind of tune my music box plays, as if he were reminding himself of a girl he gave a music box to”—Camille’s voice wavered—“a girl he’s in danger of forgetting. And then he called me baroness and gave me these looks.” As if he had forgotten Camille.
Sophie’s smile curled. “I thought looks were what you wanted?”
“Not like that! This is serious! Sophie, what if there’s something about the baroness that reminds him of the real me, so much so that he’s fallen for her instead? She’s prettier than I am, more sophisticated, with a better wardrobe and more money—”
“Why would those things matter to him?” Sophie said. “He likes you.”
“I’m afraid he won’t, not if he knows who I am. What I do. He dislikes magic, even more than you do.” Camille understood why. She often felt the same way about it, with its gruesome tithe of blood and sorrow. The way it wore at her, until she felt as though she were less and less Camille, and more and more magic. Illusion. If he disliked magic, how could he like her? “I’m afraid. Things haven’t worked the way I’ve hoped very often.”
“You’re in love, that’s all.”
“Is it that obvious?” Camille picked up the balloon and turned its tiny key. It began to play its lilting, melancholy tune.
“It is,” said Sophie. “And you know what? Take my advice: kill off that baroness sooner rather than later.”
42
But not tonight.
Once she arrived, she was certain: better to be at the opera, where life was a giddy, spinning top that ran on rumor and innuendo, on desire and lust for all that sparkled, than perplexed and wondering in her rooms. This evening, Camille and Aurélie shone; as they climbed the stairs to Chandon’s uncle’s box in the balcony, people bowed low and remarked on them behind their fans.
Aurélie tucked her hand around Camille’s elbow and squeezed. “I can’t believe you haven’t seen Mozart’s opera yet! The Marriage of Figaro isn’t even his latest. There’s a newer one, if only I could remember the name.” She waved to a friend as they merged with the crowd streaming upstairs.
“Isn’t the opera based on a play? I think my father saw it.” Camille remembered how much he’d liked it, especially the speech Figaro the servant makes to his master, the count, about how nobles were born into everything they had, while servants had to use their wits to survive. Sophie had asked, Are we noblemen or servants? And Papa had answered, We are neither. We are citizens.
“Lucky him! That play was a scandale,” Aurélie said in a stage whisper as a grand duchess passed them in a froth of yellow silk. Aurélie’s head followed her for a moment before snapping back to Camille. “Did you see her? In the daffodil-colored gown? Talk about scandal! Her husband and her lover dueled over her—and the duchess was ecstatic when her husband won! Who ever heard of such a thing?”
Camille tried to smile.
“I wish you’d tell me what’s troubling you.” Aurélie missed nothing. “You’ve been so strange lately.”
“It’s nothing, ma chèrie,” Camille said. “Séguin won’t be here, will he?”
Aurélie raised her dark brows. “He hasn’t been bothering you?”
Camille nodded to the Comte d’Astignac and his party as they passed them on the landing. She dropped her voice. “In a way.”
Aurélie stopped dead. “He hasn’t proposed?”
“Not really—he never said the words.” Camille bit the edge of her nail. “He said everything but.”
“Oh là là, when did this happen?”
“When we were playing paille maille and I went to find my ball.”
“Did you give him any hope?”
Camille shook her head. “It was strange—I was so frightened. How can one be afraid of someone about to propose?”
Aurélie squeezed Camille’s hand. “You were right to be careful. He’s ridiculously proud and treats a refusal like an unscrubbable stain on his honor. I don’t know what it is with these boys. Probably something they get from their fathers. In any case,” she went on, as they reached the top of the stairs, “you were right to tell me. I’ll keep Séguin away as much as I can.”
It was his magic that unsettled her most, and even Aurélie couldn’t help with that. “Will the Baron de Guilleux be here tonight?”
“I hope so,” Aurélie said with a smirk. “Is there anyone you’re hoping to see?”
She was as relentless as Sophie. “Let’s find the box.”
There were many people Aurélie had to greet and the orchestra was already playing the overture when they found it. Over the door hung a crimson curtain that Aurélie lifted with her fan as she went in, beckoning Camille to follow. The little room that opened out to the stage was like a jewel box, the seats plush, a small candelabra illuminating the walls.
“Oh, look who’s already here,” said Aurélie as they swept in. With a clanking of swords and bumping of shoulders, Chandon and Foudriard stood up. Both were all smiles, but Chandon was pale, as if he’d been up for days.
“Lovely to see you both,” Aurélie said. “Where’s Guilleux?”
“He sends his regrets, mon étoile,” Chandon said. “Something with his frigate and a storm at sea?”
Aurélie made an impatient sound as she dropped into a chair. “Not only do I have to manage it so that my husband doesn’t come to court but also, apparently, I must manage the weather. Sit with me, Cécile?”
Camille tucked herself into a spot between Aurélie and Chandon. Chandon kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her hand. His skin was dry, and feverishly hot.
Aurélie shook out her fan. “How warm it is! Such a crush!” Beyond the box’s ledge, the theater was filling up: a mix of nobles, wealthy Parisians, commoners standing on the floor. The place thrummed with excitement. “All because the opera’s in French, I suppose.”
“French?” Chandon groaned. “It’s in Italian. Despite your pretty face, you really are a barbarian. Did you never have a handsome Italian music master?”
“I suppose you did?” Aurélie cracked her fan on his arm in mock indignation. “Maman would never have let a handsome Italian enter the house! Besides, who needs to know what they’re saying? It’s all about the feelings, n’est-ce pas?”
“Hush, you loudmouths,” said Foudriard over the last notes of the overture. “It’s starting.”
All around them, people quieted. Beyond the constellation of blazing chandeliers, the curtain slowly swayed open to reveal a half-furnished room. The servant Figaro was kneeling on the floor, measuring stick in his hand, while his fiancée, Susanna, arranged her wedding bonnet.
Camille shifted closer to Chandon. “How are you?”
He smiled wanly and batted his eyelashes. “In love, as always.”
“Not that. Are you any better? You still look so—”
“Awful? Don’t I know it. No longer can you call me the dashing Marquis de Chandon.”
“This is serious! Aurélie said she’d send her physician to you. Why not see what he says?”
“No physician can help me, my sweet. I’m too far gone.” He put his mouth next to her ear. “It’s too much magic.”
“Then stop,” she said, her voice low.
“It’s not easy to do, is it?” he said pointedly. “And it’s not for my own sake, which makes it harder.” He put up his hand. “No more, please, I’ve come to be distracted.”
She wished he would let Aurélie—or herself—help him. But if he wished to speak of something else, she could at least try to cheer him up. “Will you tell me what’s happening as we watch the performance?”
“Of course, ma petite. There’s not much I love more than the opera.” And he was true to his word.
At every important moment, Chandon explained what was happening or what the aria was about.
Camille watched in rapture. The problems of the characters were so familiar, but the singing elevated their concerns, their foolishness, and their heartache until those things felt larger than life—which is how feelings felt. Too big for speaking, they could find their perfect shape in song.
At the end of the second act, after the singers had hidden in closets, jumped out of windows, and come in and out of every door on the stage, the curtain dropped and Chandon stood up, clutching his throat.
“Foudriard and I must get some air,” he croaked.
“Do, darling,” Aurélie said, concerned. “You look terrible.”
It was true. Now that he’d confided in her, she could see it: too much magic. From where she sat, the fine shaking in his hands that came from working sorrow was all too obvious.
“It’s a suffocating tomb in here, that’s why.” Holding onto Foudriard as he went out, Chandon promised to send in some lemonade.
The audience came alive at intermission, people standing up, some waving at their friends. Men left their boxes to call on friends or family sitting elsewhere, food was brought in. Peering at the crowd through her opera glasses, Aurélie spotted the ambassador Thomas Jefferson, in his drab American clothes, and the chandler’s apprentice.
“What circles that chandler moves in, eh?” Aurélie said, gleefully. “Nothing can keep him down!”
Camille cringed. If Aurélie only knew she was sitting next to a printer’s daughter, an apprentice less experienced than the chandler she laughed at, what would she say? Camille asked, “May I borrow your glasses?”
Once Aurélie handed them over, Camille could spy on the commoners, drinking wine and chatting. As fine as everything was in Chandon’s box, she’d have given anything to be down there with Papa. He would have loved this.
Aurélie tapped Camille’s arm. “I think I see someone we know. On the left.”
Camille moved her glasses up and over. “Where?”
“The box where someone’s stood up. Isn’t it the Marquis de Sablebois?”
Enchantée Page 25