by Laurel McKee
This supper seemed like a sort of olive branch on his part, a chance to be with each other, maybe come to know each other a little better. No wonder she was rather nervous.
She felt as if she stood poised on the precipice of some steep, rocky cliff rather than on the threshold of a luxurious restaurant. She was about to jump down into something completely unknown, something she had never seen before.
“May I take your wrap, madame?” a maid asked, as Sophia paused just inside the door of the foyer.
“Oui, merci,” Sophia said, letting the girl take away her hooded cloak. As she turned, she glimpsed herself in one of the tall, gilt-framed mirrors. For a second, she didn’t recognize herself.
Camille had persuaded her to leave off her black for the first time since Jack died and splurge on a new gown from one of the shops on the Champs-Élysées. It was a vivid rose-pink silk, cut low off the shoulders and trimmed with loops of ivory satin ribbon and silk flowers. Her hair was piled high on her head and pinned with more roses. Since she had no diamonds or pearls, she had tied a pink velvet ribbon around her neck.
She looked at the same time like her old self, the Lady Sophia Huntington who danced at London assemblies and debutante balls, and like someone completely new. Someone she didn’t yet fully know, but whom she seemed to glimpse in Dominic’s eyes when he looked at her.
Sophia smiled at her reflection and spun around to hurry toward the dining room doors. It was time to jump, to see what the future might hold if she could dare to be bold again.
Two liveried footmen opened the glass doors for her, and she stepped out onto the top of a short flight of red-carpeted stairs that led down to the main room. It was a beautiful, plush space, a deep cave of dark red velvet and gilt, lit softly by gaslight, that spoke of discreet pleasures and quiet comforts. An orchestra played on a small balcony above, a soft concerto that blended seamlessly with the environment.
Everywhere there was the gleam of diamonds, the soft sound of laughter, the clink of heavy silver on china, and the smell of gardenias and champagne.
It was its own small, luxurious world, and as Sophia studied it all, she could see how Dominic would belong there. Just as he belonged in the theater, or even in her bedchamber. He was changeable, just as she was, and no one space could contain all of him.
“Madame?” The major-domo, a tall, sternly thin man in dark evening clothes, stepped forward with a bow. “How may I assist you?”
Sophia suddenly realized that several of the people seated near the doors had turned to look at her, curiosity written on their faces. She could no longer hide behind her black clothes.
She didn’t even want to hide, not any longer. She wanted to be free to be herself again. Dominic had given her that.
Sophia tilted up her chin and smiled at the major-domo. “I am here to meet Monsieur Dominic St. Claire.”
“Of course, madame. He is already seated, if you care to follow me.”
As Sophia trailed behind the man through the dining room, she noticed other people watching her and heard the soft murmur of their whispers. She nodded and smiled at groups she knew from Camille’s club, and for an instant, some of them looked stunned, as if they had not quite recognized her.
But Dominic knew her immediately. She saw him rise from behind a table tucked into an intimate little corner, and he watched her as she moved closer. For a moment, his face was completely expressionless, his eyes shadowed, and her confidence faltered. Was this going to be the awkwardly polite supper she had feared? The overly-drawn-out farewell to something that had barely begun?
Then he smiled. Not a polite, careful smile, but a wide, piratical grin that seemed to draw them together in their own little secret circle. He stepped around the table and held his hand out to her as she approached.
Sophia slipped her gloved fingers into his, and he raised them to his lips. And suddenly she realized there was nowhere she would rather be than here with him. She knew it was most imprudent to feel safe with him, of all people, but she couldn’t seem to help it. He made her feel fun again; alive again.
“Thank you for meeting me tonight, Sophia,” Dominic said as he drew out a chair for her. “You look very beautiful. Pink suits you.”
“Thank you for inviting me,” Sophia answered. She carefully arranged her silk skirts around her and gave him a smile as he reached for a bottle of champagne resting in a silver bucket. He filled her waiting glass with the pale golden liquid. “I have heard such good things about the Café de Paris. Camille quite raves about it.”
“You haven’t been here before?” Dominic sat down again across from her. A half-smile hovered around his lips as he watched her.
“I have been too busy working since I arrived in Paris. I haven’t been able to see many of the sights.”
“We must try to remedy that then.”
Sophia laughed. “Are you not busy yourself? Surely the theater keeps you much too occupied for visiting museums and palaces.”
Dominic shrugged, still smiling at her. “There is always time for fun. Life is much too short for all work. Don’t you agree?”
“Once I might have agreed in an instant,” Sophia said. She leaned back in her chair and watched as waiters laid out silver platters on their table. “Until I found I had to make my own coin and learned how time-consuming such things can be. But I’m finding I want some fun again as well.”
A frown flickered over Dominic’s lips as he lifted the silver lids to reveal a succession of rich, aromatic dishes. “Has your life been so difficult lately, Sophia?”
Sophia shrugged. “I told you how it was with Jack. Our lives were constantly up and down in our short marriage. But I do not want to think about that tonight.”
“No? Then what do you want to think about?”
“This wonderful-looking food, for one thing. And the sights of Paris you might want to see. Perhaps gossip as well. Nothing in the least bit serious. Not tonight.” She would have to be serious again all too soon.
Dominic laughed and poured more champagne into her glass. “Very well. Serious topics are banned for tonight. Tell me—have you had time to visit Versailles yet? I understand the restoration work is progressing there…”
As they savored the succession of fine dishes and consumed the bottle of champagne, they talked of the beauties of Paris and of other cities they had visited. Dominic told her the gossip of London she had been missing, and Sophia related some of the funnier tales of her life with Jack, such as the eccentric people she had met in the spas and casinos of Europe, like the Austrian count who always wore his coat inside out for luck and the elderly Russian princess who traveled with a retinue of ten cats.
They didn’t mention Mary’s diary, and Dominic didn’t try to buy it from her again.
Sophia felt ridiculously happy when Dominic laughed at her tales, and as the night went on, she found that she felt more comfortable than she had in a very long time. It seemed she could say any outrageous thing she liked to Dominic, be completely herself, and he wouldn’t be shocked.
And she found she liked him as well. When he laughed like that, she could easily see why he had such a reputation for charming the ladies. Sophia had long thought herself immune to charming men; their charm so often masked a determination to get what they wanted at all costs.
And it was very likely that Dominic was the same. She had seen his streak of ruthlessness, and his potential for a hot temper. He had wanted Mary’s diary from her; perhaps he wanted other things as well, things she knew nothing about yet. But she was enjoying their evening together far too much to worry about hidden motives. Not yet.
“And what was the very first play you appeared in?” she asked as the waiters laid out plates of cheese and pastries and opened a bottle of dessert wine.
“Richard III,” Dominic said with a smile. “I was one of the princes in the Tower, and I had no lines since I only appeared in a vision.”
“You must have been terribly young.”
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��I was seven, and Brendan was five. He was the other prince, and he was terrified. He wouldn’t quit crying on opening night, and our mother, who played Lady Anne, nearly had to break character to get him to stop.” Dominic laughed at the memory. “That was the beginning and the end of his acting career. He’s been working behind the scenes ever since.”
“But I wager you were not scared,” Sophia said. She was sure he was never scared of anything.
“Not a bit. I fell in love with everything about the stage that night. The way the world vanished and became something entirely new as the houselights went down. The way I could become someone else.”
Sophia laughed. “The attention you got when you realized you were good at acting?”
Dominic grinned at her across the table. “I admit that has never been impossible to bear either. To be told we’re good at something we love to do—what could be better?”
“I’m not sure I know what that’s like,” Sophia said wistfully. “The things I am good at, like gambling or causing a scene, have never held much value for my family. Not that it ever stopped me from doing them, of course!”
Something dark and unreadable flashed in Dominic’s eyes before he turned away to slide a slice of strawberry gateau onto her plate. “What did you do when you were seven?”
“When you were making your stage debut? I hardly recall,” Sophia said with a laugh. “Crying to nanny because my brother broke my doll, perhaps. Or escaping the nursery to creep out and watch my parents departing for a ball. It was one of the few times I could catch a glimpse of them, and my mother always looked so beautiful.”
“You didn’t spend much time with your family?”
Sophia shook her head. “You seem to know rather a lot about my family, Dominic, so you must know my father is the brother of a duke. My parents were always very busy with their social duties.”
“My parents have always been busy as well, with the theater and their business concerns. Yet they always had time for their children.”
“Then you were very lucky. It’s a good thing for children to know they’re loved and accepted for who they are, and not…” Sophia suddenly turned away, blinking against a rush of unexpected and unwelcome tears. She didn’t want to think about her family, or the past. Not tonight. “Tell me more about the theater! I sometimes think I should have been an actress.”
She popped a bite of the creamy cake into her mouth and smiled. His eyes darkened, and he leaned across the table to catch a tiny spot of cream from her lower lip onto his fingertip.
“You would be a sensation on the stage,” he said hoarsely. “There would be sold-out houses every night just to see you.”
Sophia couldn’t breathe as she watched him taste the cream. It was almost as if his mouth touched her own skin, as if he took her in his arms and pulled her against his body. “My—my family would die at the scandal. A duke’s niece treading the boards!”
Dominic laughed and reached out to slide his hand over hers. It was a quick, impulsive gesture, even more intimate for its casualness. “Do you care what they think any longer?”
“I shouldn’t. We have been done with each other for so long.”
“Then you should go on the stage, if that’s what you want. There are fortunes to be made there for the right people.”
“And you think I could be the—right people?”
“Sophia, I think you could do whatever you set your mind to. You are obviously a determined and brave woman.”
Brave—no one had ever called her that before. Beautiful, headstrong, willful, foolish, all those things. But never brave. It made her feel suddenly shy, as did the intent gleam in Dominic’s eyes as he looked at her. As if he really saw her.
She turned away to study the dining room. Over the course of the night, the crowds had lessened, but the wine was still flowing along with the sparkling laughter. The orchestra played a lively dance tune, and it made Sophia want to take Dominic in her arms and dance around the room with him. To move and laugh, and never stop.
Suddenly a new group of arrivals appeared on the red-carpeted stairs, and Sophia’s attention was caught by one of them. It was her cousin Elizabeth, a delicate, fairylike figure in sea-green silk and pearls. She was laughing with the man who stood beside her, and Sophia was struck again by the difference in Elizabeth. Her silent diffidence of years past was gone, and she seemed more alive. Lighter.
Perhaps Paris had such an effect on everyone, Sophia thought. Or at least on Huntington women. Here, with a sea between them and their family, they could be free.
Elizabeth caught sight of Sophia and raised her gloved hand in greeting. She glided down the stairs and across the room to Sophia’s table.
“Sophia, my dear, how lovely to see you again,” Elizabeth said as Sophia rose to greet her. Dominic stood as well, and Sophia sensed him watching them carefully.
“It is good to see you as well, Elizabeth,” Sophia said. “I would have thought you had left Paris by now.”
“I am returning to England in a few days, from Calais aboard the Mary Louise. I am getting in all the fun I can before then!” Elizabeth said with a curious glance toward Dominic.
“Elizabeth, you must remember Dominic St. Claire from the theater,” Sophia said. “Dominic, this is my cousin, Elizabeth, Lady Severn.”
To Sophia’s shock, Elizabeth suddenly turned very pale. She swayed a bit on her feet, and Sophia held on to her arm for fear she might faint.
But Elizabeth stood up straighter and gave Dominic a shaky smile. “Mr. St. Claire, of course. I enjoyed your performance immensely at the Theatre Nationale. I didn’t recognize you at first off the stage.”
“I’m glad you had a good time at the play, Lady Severn,” Dominic answered politely. “Do you often attend the theater in London as well?”
“Not as often as I would like, but I mostly lived in the country while my husband was alive. I hope to be in London more now.” Elizabeth suddenly bit her lip in an uncharacteristic show of uncertainty. “Tell me, Mr. St. Claire—is all your family in Paris with you?”
Dominic’s brow creased with a small, puzzled frown, but he answered in that same smooth, polite tone. “Only my sister and one of my brothers. My other brother, James, recently returned home.”
“I see,” Elizabeth said. “You must miss your family when you are not with them.”
“I do. But work sometimes takes us away from each other.”
“Of course.” One of Elizabeth’s companions called to her, and she turned back to Sophia with a smile. “I must go now, Sophia dear, but I hope we’ll see each other again before I leave Paris.”
“I hope so, too,” Sophia said.
As Elizabeth gave her a quick hug, she whispered in Sophia’s ear, “And if you want to return to England with me, you need only let me know.”
Then Elizabeth was gone, hurrying away across the dining room, and Sophia slowly sat back down.
“So some of your family do speak to you,” Dominic said.
Sophia glanced across the table to find him smiling at her. “Only Elizabeth, and only because she is here where no one can see her.” She looked over to where Elizabeth sat with her friends. “It’s most strange…”
“Strange?”
“Yes. Elizabeth and I were friends when we were girls, but after she married we hardly spoke. But she came to see me a few days ago, and now she is being very sociable tonight.”
Dominic poured the last of the wine into her glass. “What did she want when she came to see you?”
To tell me I should find a new husband to suit my family, Sophia thought. But she could hardly say that to Dominic, the very last man who would suit her family. And the last man she should ever marry.
She sipped the wine, sorry to see their evening drawing to a close. It had seemed almost—magical. “Just to say hello, I suppose. It’s been a long time since we saw each other.”
Dominic nodded, and a few minutes later, he took her arm to lead her out of the dining r
oom. By the time she found her cloak and they stepped beyond the glass doors into the night, it had ceased raining, and the moon was peeking out from behind the gray clouds. The damp streets seemed to glisten under the gaslights, and the air smelled cool and clear. Sophia drew in a deep breath to clear away the wine and the sheer intoxication of just being with Dominic.
“Shall I see you home?” he said. He raised his arm to hail a cab, but Sophia caught his hand in hers.
“Let’s walk for a while,” she said. “It’s such a lovely night. It seems such a shame to waste it.”
Dominic frowned and glanced over his shoulder, and Sophia feared he was remembering how he had been attacked on the Paris streets. “Just to the end of the street?” she said. The fashionable Boulevard Italiens was crowded with people leaving the restaurants and cafés; surely there were no footpads there.
Dominic nodded and took her arm. Sophia leaned against him and smiled.
The street that housed the Café de Paris was lined with fine restaurants and glossy shops, all of them blazing with light and life even so late at night. Sophia paused to examine the beautiful window displays, the furls of richly colored fabrics, the feathers and flowers of fashionable hats, the luscious chocolates and pastel macaroons of patisseries. They were all lit like fabulous jewels, sparkling in the night.
And it all seemed even more beautiful, more exotic, with Dominic beside her.
At the end of the street was a bookstore. Unlike the other establishments, its window display seemed slightly dusty and shabby. New volumes from England lay on a green cloth, their brown leather covers subdued. As Sophia peered through the glass, she saw that the place appeared dark, except for a ray of light far in the back recesses.
Across the glass scrolled faded gold letters—Books and Fine Stationery, M. Petron Proprietor.
“Monsieur Petron’s!” Sophia exclaimed. “Camille told me about this place. It’s quite the secret. We should go in.”
“A bookstore?” Dominic said, laughing. “At this time of night? You did not quite strike me as a bluestocking, Sophia.”