Star of the East: A Lady Emily Christmas Story (10 page)

Cardinal Mazarin, engaged in a lively conversation with the Lady of the Lake, paused long enough to tell us Miss Lamar had just exited the supper tent, and we soon found her speaking with our host, the duke, who was dressed as the Emperor Charles V. Estella was in a costume so similar to mine that from a distance, we might have been twins. The folds of our Grecian robes fell with the same grace, though hers skewed to the pale green while mine were icy blue. Her headdress had on it a crescent moon lit by electricity. Mine, though not a showcase of our rapidly advancing age, was still lovely, its mother-of-pearl moon surrounded by sparkling diamonds.

Cécile called out to her friend as we came upon her from behind. Miss Lamar turned, a smile on her face, and gave a hearty wave in our direction. Cécile stopped dead.

“You are not Estella Lamar.” She marched towards the woman, her eyes flashing. “What is the meaning of this?”

Our host, perplexed and embarrassed, did his best to placate his guests. “Madam du Lac, I assure you this is indeed Miss Estella Lamar. She took a break from her exploration of the Nile just to be at our little party.”

“I do not think much else could have induced me to leave Egypt,” Miss Lamar said. Her face did not betray her travels. It was lined, as one would expect for someone her age, but there was not so much as a hint of color from desert sun. My mother would have been most impressed.

“I have not the slightest interest in where you claim to have been or why you might want to be here,” Cécile said, “but I would very much like to know what has induced you to pose as one of the dearest friends of my youth. I knew Estella almost as well as I know myself. You look nothing like her—your eyes aren’t even the right color. Estella’s are emerald green and quite unmistakable. Furthermore, she was a good four inches shorter than I. Am I to believe that exploration causes fully grown adults to add inches to their height? Or do your golden sandals have heels of six or seven inches?”

Miss Lamar—or whoever she was—blanched. Her eyes darted nervously and her lips trembled. Cécile moved closer to her and without the slightest hesitation the other woman pushed her away, flinging her roughly to the ground, and started to run. I lunged forward, wanting to make sure my friend, who had whacked her head on the base of a decorative column, was all right.

“This is but a trifle,” Cécile said, blotting the blood on her forehead with a lace handkerchief. “You must apprehend her at once.”

Estella

i

Truth be told, Estella had never much liked going out. Not even when she was a small girl, and her nurse had taken her through the narrow streets of Paris, before Baron Haussmann had torn them up to make way for his grand boulevards, to the private gardens outside the Tuileries Palace, where the emperor invited selected children to play with his son, the Prince Imperial. Estella was far too old to play with the prince, and she had never understood the fascination some people had for gardens. She did not like the way the flowers moved in the wind, as if they were alive, nor could she abide the teeming insects flitting in and out around them. As she grew older, this lack of understanding expanded from gardens to society in general. Why an otherwise rational being would choose to spend the evening in a crowded ballroom or at a tedious dinner party mystified her. All those voices, talking at once, were impossible to understand. She despised it.

Estella’s father, one of the richest men in France, had spoiled her from the beginning, but with complete disregard for her interests and passions. He was older than her friends’ fathers by almost a generation, and had married her mother after the death of his much-loved first wife. Estella’s half-siblings, all four of them, resented their stepmother, but had long since left home and started their own families, making no effort to contact Estella until their father’s will had stunned them into wanting to know her better.

One might easily imagine that a gentleman in Monsieur Lamar’s position had chosen his second wife with little regard for love. Having been made a widower once, he must be forgiven for refusing to risk his heart another time. He was, as he often said, excessively fond of the new Madame Lamar. She was a pretty little thing, petite and curvy, with a quick wit and generous nature, and it could not be denied that her husband felt a passionate attraction to her, at least until the ravages of time began to erode the youthful beauty that he had once found so appealing. He still treated her with care and respect, but Madame Lamar, so many years younger than he, craved adoration, and as her husband could not provide her with that, she insisted on having it from her daughter.

Estella needed no convincing. Her mother was a vision of loveliness and told the most exciting stories. Nurse was boring as anything, so Estella took to hiding in a nursery cupboard as often as possible. Monsieur Lamar might have found this odd had it ever been brought to his attention, but as he never ventured to the nursery and didn’t speak to the nurse when she brought Estella down for her daily quarter of an hour visit with her parents, his daughter’s peculiar habits were wholly unknown to him. Madame Lamar thought Estella’s cupboard charming, and ordered the nurse to fit it out for the child so that it might be a more comfortable hiding place. Nurse removed the lowest shelf, covered the small floor with a soft bit of carpet, and placed a child-sized stool in the corner. In the opposite corner, Estella stored a little silver box covered with engraved flowers, given to her by her mother to house treasures. When Madame Lamar inquired as to why the box remained empty more than a year after she had presented it to her daughter, Estella explained that as she was unable to capture the stories her mother told her, there was nothing precious enough to go inside. Madame Lamar could not have been more charmed and suggested that Estella start telling stories of her own to the dolls Monsieur Lamar gave to the child every month.

Until then, Estella had never taken particular notice of the dolls with their porcelain faces and elaborate dresses. Now that her mother had anointed them as
Worthwhile,
Estella looked at them from an entirely new point of view. She chose the ones she liked the best, preferring ones with eyes the same hue of emerald as her own, and allowed these favorites to sit in her cupboard with her. Her mother had erred in only one way, by suggesting Estella could invent wonderful stories. Why would Estella even try when she already knew by heart the best ones? She told her mother’s stories to the dolls, over and over. They proved a good audience.

Madame Lamar happily indulged the child until she reached an age when moving in society became necessary. When Estella resisted attending parties and dances, her mother offered no sympathy. Madame Lamar wanted to be adored in public, and if her husband was not up to the job, she believed her daughter ought to rise to the occasion. Estella had no wish to disappoint her mother, and when she realized what it was her mother required, she did her best to satisfy her, but the girl proved too awkward to be of much use. Madame Lamar longed for her to shine socially, to be a belle, to have the brightest and best men in France vying for her affections, all the while noticing that the young lady standing before them could never have been so remarkable if it were not for her extraordinary mother. Estella was to be Madame Lamar’s crowning glory.

This, alas, was not to be. Estella rarely made eye contact with anyone other than her mother. She never knew what to say to men when they attempted a flirtation. Once, at a ball, she started to tell one of her mother’s stories, one Estella had repeated often to her dolls, and was crushed when the group around her burst into laughter. Cécile du Lac, a young lady her age, whom Estella’s mother had coaxed her time and time again to befriend, stepped forward and scolded the group.

“If you ingrates are incapable of realizing Mademoiselle Lamar is telling you something of great importance to her, you do not deserve her company.” With that, Cécile took Estella by the arm and marched her out of the room and into the grand hall of the house. “They are reprehensible, the lot of them. Is your mother insisting that you, too, marry? I hate the very idea of marriage, but can no longer avoid it. You must come to my wedding next month. I can promise you copious amounts of champagne.”

That had cemented their friendship, although Estella had never quite managed to admit to Cécile that marriage wasn’t the only thing she wanted to avoid. Cécile had taken her up, and for now that would suffice to satisfy her mother. When, soon after the wedding, Cécile’s husband died, Estella used her friend’s grief to persuade her mother that after witnessing such tragedy she should be allowed to wait a little longer before entering into an engagement of her own. Her mother never need know Cécile did not miss her husband in the least, and by the time Estella would have had to start taking seriously her parents’ efforts to see her married, the issue had become moot. Typhoid took them both from her in the span of a single week.

Also by Tasha Alexander

And Only to Deceive

A Poisoned Season

A Fatal Waltz

Tears of Pearl

Dangerous to Know

A Crimson Warning

Death in the Floating City

Behind the Shattered Glass

The Counterfeit Heiress

Elisabeth: The Golden Age

About the Author

Photograph by Charles Osgood

Tasha Alexander attended the University of Notre Dame, where she studied English and Medieval History. She and her husband, novelist Andrew Grant, divide their time between Chicago and the UK.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

STAR OF THE EAST. Copyright © 2014 by Tasha Alexander. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Cover design by Crystal Ben

Cover photographs from Shutterstock.com

eISBN 9781466873674

First Edition: October 2014

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to
[email protected]
.