“Not exactly,” Lili replied. “At least not from Étoges. It’s rather a long story. Do you have time?”
“For you, my dear, always,” he said. “But perhaps I may exact a favor in kind. I have bones from a South American rodent on the table over there—”
“A gift from Jean-Étienne, I imagine,” Lili said, practicing her resolve not to have unreasonable hopes.
“Indeed.” The count looked at her quizzically. “It’s a bit too difficult for me with my poor, old eyes. I was working on it when you were announced, and I was telling myself to stop before I destroyed it altogether, but as usual I was being rather stubborn about it.”
He sat down on a comfortable armchair directly across from Lili. “I saw Baronne Lomont at a funeral last week, and she said you were coming back in a matter of days from Étoges and that you would be married by the end of the year. She wouldn’t say to whom. Odd—something about not being at liberty yet to publish the bans …”
“If I am betrothed, I am not aware of it,” Lili said icily.
The count stroked his chin and gave her a penetrating stare. “So, if you haven’t been at Étoges, where, pray, have you been?”
“Cirey,” Lili said, waiting to see the name register in his mind. “And Ferney.”
“With Voltaire?” The count’s eyes widened with astonishment.
“Yes, and with my—with the Marquis du Châtelet. Delphine concocted the story that I was at Étoges, but I was never there at all.” Lili smiled. “Apparently it worked, since the whole point was to fool the baronne. I’m sure Delphine will be most delighted.”
“Fool the baroness?”
Lili sighed. “Baronne Lomont told you her intentions, not mine. I went off to see if I could do anything about it, and I discovered—at least I think I did—that I can.” She opened the bag she was carrying and handed the three letters to the count. “I’ve come up with a plan.”
He sat down and read the letters. At first his brow furrowed with puzzlement, but by the time he had read them twice he was chuckling with undisguised glee. “You clever girl!” he said, wiping his eyes. “You are certainly your mother’s daughter.”
He paused, contemplating her for a moment. “Your mother’s daughter, but with a different father than you thought, I presume you realize now.”
“Did you know?” Lili asked, her heart in her throat. Did he keep it from me? Is there anyone I can trust to be truthful?
“No,” he said, to Lili’s relief. “But I can’t say I didn’t know either. I do recall there were raised eyebrows at the time, but it seems to me they were more over her age and her carelessness.” He frowned. “I’m sorry—that was quite thoughtless. In this case, her carelessness turned out to be a wonderful gift to the world. I’d call you predestined, if I believed in such things.”
He searched her face for recognition of the compliment, but Lili was too distressed and confused to smile.
“It’s a rather poor use of the mind to dwell on gossip, especially when it doesn’t pertain to one’s own life,” Buffon went on. “You
were here, the marquis called you his child, and of course the truly important thing was your mother’s untimely death. I grieved for her quite profoundly, for what we all had lost.” His face clouded. “Not knowing at the time, of course, what we had gained.”
Lili puzzled for a moment before realizing the count was referring to her. At this show of affection, the fears and anxiety she had felt since beginning her journey lifted, and words came tumbling out.
“So much of my life I’d just assumed I wasn’t important, that what happened to me didn’t really matter—that my obligations were only to others and that there was something bad in me if I cared too much about myself. Maman wasn’t like that, but Baronne Lomont has been relentless since I was a little girl. When I went to Cirey and found out I wasn’t the marquis’s daughter, I felt worse than I ever had, as if I was nothing more than—” She thought for a moment. “No more than a pesty insect buzzing around the face of someone I had foolishly thought would care. And then—I’m not sure exactly how—my mother’s voice was in my head, telling me that I’d have to matter to myself first, before I could expect anything good to happen. So I got the idea to go to Ferney, and Monsieur Voltaire told me to rely on myself, and if I failed to live well I would have no one to blame but me.”
She sat back, wondering whether she had ever in her life spoken so many words with no more than a pause to take a breath. “I decided I owe it to myself to be happy,” she said, pressing her palms into her thighs with the force of an oath.
Buffon was grinning broadly. “Your mother would be very pleased. And I would only add one thing. You owe it to her too. It’s what she wants for you. And Madame de Bercy also. Go out and conquer the world, or at least whatever little piece of it you choose. Do it for yourself, Lili, and for them too.”
“So you’ll help me?” Lili’s heart pounded with excitement.
“With all my heart,” he replied. “But I think we can wait a few minutes to begin plotting. If you are up for a walk, there’s something I’d like to show you in Jean-Étienne’s garden—a development I think you’ll find most interesting.”
* * *
SHE TOOK HIS
arm as they strolled the Jardin de Roi, down a treeshaded path Lili recalled from memories that seemed both impossibly distant and as fresh as summer rain. “Did Jean-Étienne send a letter with the bones?” she asked, hoping she could take whatever followed with the equanimity she had vowed.
“No.” The count turned to her. “Let’s sit for a moment,” he said, motioning to a bench. “We’ve been so busy getting caught up about you that I haven’t told you the news.”
News? The count’s solemn face set off an explosion of fear in Lili’s mind. Jean-Etienne’s married. What else could it be with such a look? Or worse. He’s dead. Drowned at sea. Poisoned by some plant. Broken at the bottom of a cliff in the Falklands.
“Lili,” the count said. “You remember Francine Thibaudet, his betrothed?”
“How could I forget?”
“Well, it seems as if Jean-Étienne was gone a little too long.” The count smiled wryly. “Apparently she took up with a cavalry officer, and when she—when she needed to be married quickly—Jean-Étienne was on the other side of the world. Since he’d been gone for several months already, her situation had obviously been none of his doing.”
Lili’s heart slammed so hard against her ribs she wasn’t sure she could take a breath.
“The family had no choice but to break the engagement and marry her off quickly to whomever could be persuaded to take a less than virginal bride in return for a hefty share of the Thibaudet fortune,” the count went on. “She’s off already, living somewhere in Bourgogne with her new husband.”
“So Jean-Étienne is—” Lili’s head swam. “Free?”
The count nodded. “And, I might add, quite the richer for the experience. A broken engagement can be quite lucrative for the one not at fault. It’s a business contract, like any other, with considerations
of real value. So he is now at liberty to marry the woman of his choice, and I am quite certain he knows who that is.”
Unreasonable hopes will make you unhappy. Lili remembered her mother’s words. But reasonable ones? Lili’s heart shook off its burden of restraint, like a winter of snow sliding from a roof. “Is he—” she stammered. “Does he—”
“If you mean, does he love you, I think the answer is decidedly yes.”
She leaned in against the count on the bench, too overwhelmed to say aloud what perhaps it was now safe to acknowledge: I love him. Can it be possible to get what I haven’t even dared to hope for? “I feel dizzy,” she murmured. Buffon gave her knee a fatherly pat. “We’ll rest, then, before I tell you the rest.”
There was more? Lili sat up, her head instantly cleared. “No,” she said. “Please go on.” She gave him her best attempt at a smile. “I can always faint later.”
The count laughed. “Well, if you think his misery at his engagement could not be surpassed, I assure you, when I told him I heard you were betrothed, it was far worse. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a young man with a grimmer face.” He waited for his words to register.
The development in the garden? Lili’s eyes widened. “He’s back?”
Buffon’s face broke into a huge grin. “And about to receive some very good news.” Lili didn’t wait to hear. Holding up her skirt, she ran down the path.
“
JEAN-ÉTIENNE?” HE WAS
kneeling over a shrub, finishing a graft. He looked up at the sound of her voice.
“Lili!” A grin exploded over his face as he jumped to his feet, but it just as quickly faded. “How delightful it is to see you,” he said stiffly, brushing his hands on his work trousers. “I’m afraid I’m far too dirty to greet you properly.”
Lili’s heart sank. Why was he being so distant? Hadn’t the count just told her how he felt? Then it came to her: he’d been principled
when he was betrothed, and he would be just as principled now that he thought she was.
“Jean-Étienne, I—” Tongue-tied and shaking, Lili put her hand over her mouth.
Buffon had come up beside her and put an arm over her shoulder as her eyes flooded with tears. “If perhaps I may interject?” he said. “I believe Mademoiselle du Châtelet has something important to tell you.”
“I—It was a misunderstanding. I’m not engaged.” Without knowing exactly how it happened, her arms were around him. “You’re not lost to me,” she whispered, feeling her hot breath on his neck.
“Lili …” They swayed together like branches of a tree when a breeze sweeps away the staleness of too long a spell without rain. When he pulled away, she saw that his face was wet.
“And you’re not lost to me,” he said, wiping away her own tears with a touch so soft her knees trembled and a hoarse sob broke loose from her throat.
“I’m sorry,” she said, embarrassed by the coarseness of the sound. “I hope I’m not turning into a frog.” She stepped back, trying to make a joke of it by giving him a crooked smile.
“No,” he said, facing her and taking both her hands in his. “You will always be the fairest in the land.”
Buffon gave a gleeful laugh. “And I suspect the evil fairy in the story is about to lose her power.” Enjoying the moment, he rocked backed and forth between his heels and toes, clasping his hands behind his back. “My dear boy,” he went on, “I think you have captured the heart of the cleverest girl in all of France.”
“Not yet,” Lili said. “I haven’t freed myself of Baronne Lomont yet, and apparently she’s decided I’m getting married this month.” She shrugged and gave Buffon a wan smile. “Although no one but herself seems to know to whom.”
“But what uncle said about your heart?” Jean-Étienne asked. “About my capturing your heart—?”
Yes, yes, yes. She wanted to say it again and again, to cry it out to every rooftop in Paris and to the heavens themselves, but suddenly his arms were around her and his lips were on hers. So joyfully she thought she might explode with happiness, Lili said yes with no words at all.
EXCEPT FOR THE
small group of servants who remained in Paris while Ambroise and Delphine were at Étoges, Lili was alone in Hôtel Bercy that night. Her candle cast a pool of light as, unable to sleep, she roamed the house. Here was the bed where she and Delphine told stories, the stair railing where she had stood to listen to the guests in the salon, Maman’s sitting room where she and Delphine practiced their curtseys, the parlor where Delphine had been married. The bedroom where Maman died alone, to protect them.
How full the mind could be! Some days were for saving every last detail—days like the one she had just passed. “Tell us how you and Papa fell in love,” her children might say someday.
“Well, we were both supposed to marry someone else, so we tried to pretend we didn’t care. We both went away for a while, and when we came back everything had changed. We were both free to admit how we felt, and …”
The swirl of images and the rush of feeling in her head and body were the real story. How Jean-Étienne had taken her up in his arms, how they buried their heads in each other’s necks and wept until their shoulders were wet. How their lips came together as if they were always meant to do just that. How the sensation traveled down her body to a place deep in her groin where a feeling awakened in her she had not known before and that she wanted to feel again. How she had a glimpse of what her mother meant when she said that people must make their own happiness. How when they turned around and saw Buffon in the distance, walking back alone to the house, they knew that sometimes time really does stop, at least in one spot in the Jardin de Roi.
Memory was a strange thing. The coach ride from Bar-sur-Aube had receded in one day to nothing but a few aching bones and unpacked bags, but as she stood in the dining room of Hôtel Bercy, wishing she could conjure up Maman to tell her the news, it seemed as if the scent still lingered from her handkerchief, ready to catch Lili’s tears just as it did after all those painful childhood visits with Baronne Lomont.
Baronne Lomont. “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Lili whispered into the candlelight. “There’s no happily ever after yet.” Giving the silent room one last look, she went up to bed.
THE DOORMAN’S GREETING
at Hôtel Lomont was cool and perfunctory. “This way,” he said, leading them to the parlor. Baronne Lomont was sitting with a man Lili did not recognize.
“May I introduce Monsieur Brillat,” she said after Buffon bowed to greet her. “From the tenor of your note, I thought it advisable to have my lawyer present.” Lili’s heart fell as her hopes for a quick victory evaporated.
“This is unexpected,” the count said, “but if mademoiselle agrees, it is quite all right with me.” He gave Lili a reassuring look, and she nodded, speechless with apprehension. “Mademoiselle du Châtelet has just returned from a trip to Cirey,” the count said after they both sat down.
Baronne Lomont’s eyebrows arched. “Cirey?”
He nodded. “While she was there, she met with the marquis on several occasions—”
“This is extraordinarily deceitful behavior, Stanislas-Adélaïde.” The baroness’s eyes flashed like a sharpened sword as she turned to look at her.
Lili’s heart slammed against her tight bodice. “I’m sorry for that,” she said, reaching up to touch her fingertips to the spot where the prism lay hidden under her dress. “But I believe it was also wrong of you to keep me from meeting him when it turned out he was most welcoming.” Mostly when he thought I was someone else, she
thought, but I’ll keep that part to myself. “I believe you should have encouraged it. He is, after all, a part of my heritage, is he not?”