Chapter Seven
‘I absolutely must have my wedding gown from Madame Dumas’s shop! Everyone says so,’ Francoise cried.
‘Hmm?’ Alain barely glanced up from his papers, accustomed by now to his sister’s sudden great enthusiasms. Francoise had always been lively, mischievous, restless, but had only become more so since she became engaged, and her fiancé left for Paris on a diplomatic mission before the wedding.
Ever since she’d left Catherine’s house in Derbyshire (‘too many babies there, mon frère, crying all the time!’ Francoise had said), and come to stay with Alain there had been no end to high jinks.
He had thought a stay in Bath might settle things a bit.
Bath was not precisely in the first stare of high-flying fashion, yet there was plenty to keep Francoise occupied and out of too much trouble.
Shops, theatres, the Assembly Rooms. She’d made plans for them all, but her main concern was building her trousseau.
As a diplomat’s wife, she declared, she had to be a Lady of Style! A paragon of beauty!
Alain would have thought she was well on her way to that, judging by the piles of hatboxes and trunks in their rented house on Milsom Street.
Now, though, her concern was her wedding gown, and this Madame Dumas that everyone seemed to chatter about.
Her shop was apparently so exclusive that one had to have an appointment to even visit, to have one’s name on a long list for one of those magical gowns.
‘Alain!’ Francoise cried. She tossed an embroidered pillow at his head, creasing his papers. ‘Are you even listening? Don’t you care at all? One would think you never missed us one whit!’
Alain laughed as he studied his sister across the sea of hatboxes. She was flopped over the settee, her arms flung dramatically wide, her blue skirts crumpled, not at all like a sophisticated lady in a diplomatic court.
Oh, how he had missed them during his travels, his adventures!
His sweet, funny sisters. From Istanbul to Athens to Venice to Cairo to Marrakech, he’d revelled in their letters, delighted in finding just the right gifts to send back to them.
All his work while he was away, building his career, making his fortune, was for them.
He’d made so many mistakes, hurt too many people. He had to make up for it all now.
And then there was Sandrine, the most innocent of all, the one he had hurt the most.
He sighed and put away the paperwork before him.
When his mother died recently, several years after his father, who had barely made it past Alain’s wedding, he had known he had to come back to England.
Catherine had married her vicar, and did indeed have several babies now, and Francoise was engaged to a man whose work took him travelling nearly as much as Alain, but who had a stellar reputation among the diplomatic circles and who had a glowing future, as well as an obvious adoration for his fiancée.
Alain knew well that the engagement could not have come at a better time.
Francoise would no longer have to be stuck at the house in a little Lake District village where she’d lived with their mother.
Her letters burst with life and frustration.
So here they were, in Bath. After all his years of roaming, of snowstorms and sunstruck summers, he had to think of assemblies and wedding gowns. It was quite wonderful.
But it was so, so far above his head.
‘Of course I am listening, Francoise,’ he said. ‘You want a wedding gown from this Madame…’
‘Madame Dumas! I’ve seen some of the ladies here wearing her creations since we arrived, and I have never seen anything so exquisite.
Such colours, and lines that make all the ladies look so slim and tall!
I know it’s because she is French. You can tell by how elegant every lady looks in her gowns, so unique. ’
Alain shook his head. ‘Francoise, almost every modiste from Lands End to John o’Groats claims to be French.’
‘But she really is! My new friend Adele has met her several times, even has a gown by her, and says there is no doubt she is French. Maman always said a French lady innately knows style and elegance at her very core. She’s born with it.’
Alain thought of Sandrine, the graceful way she had moved, the way she had used colour and texture and line to show her thoughts and dreams. He hoped she’d had the chance to see those dreams come true, as he had seen his.
How he wished he could see her now, but she deserved peace, her own life.
He owed her that. ‘Just like you and Catherine.’
‘So, if I am to be truly elegant, truly make my James proud, I need to stun everyone who sees me walk down the aisle.’
‘You could wear a potato sack and everyone would be stunned.’ The one time Alain met James in London, to hear the young man’s plea for Francoise’s hand, he thought he’d rarely seen anyone so infatuated.
James and Francoise had looked at each other as if there were no one else in the world, had secret smiles, little jokes they shared.
It was enviable indeed, something he’d once longed for himself. Something he’d almost had, if only…
He shook himself out of his thoughts and focused on his sister.
Francoise smiled now, that tiny, soft, dreamy little grin she got whenever she thought of her husband-to-be.
‘He is the most darling man in all the world! But I want him to feel like the luckiest man ever, to see the envy everyone has for him to possess such a wife. It would help him so much in his career, to have a wife everyone finds charming.’ She punched at the pillow next to her.
‘But they say it would be impossible to commission such a gown for at least a year, Madame Dumas is so busy! Everyone wants one of her gowns. I’ve already waited so long for my wedding. ’
Alain’s heart ached for the sadness he saw in his sister’s eyes, the longing to begin her new life, her new family.
He remembered such feelings too well. He sat down next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she leaned against him.
‘What about Madame Lescaut? Or Mrs Fisher? I hear they are fashionable. Or that modiste who made Catherine’s gown? ’
Francoise frowned. ‘Catherine is a country vicar’s wife now! And she is such a great beauty, it doesn’t matter what she wears. I need all the help I can find.’
‘That is not true at all, nor does James think so,’ Alain protested. ‘You are very beautiful. Very French.’
‘My sweet brother.’ Francoise kissed his cheek. ‘How I missed you.’
‘And I missed you. More than I could ever say.’ He held her close, wishing the long years he’d been away from his family could be erased.
Now he had what he’d so restlessly sought: security for his family.
His parents had been comfortable in their last years; Catherine was able to marry the poor vicar she loved.
And he had work that made him useful, that gave him a purpose.
He wished he could atone for his treatment of Sandrine, tell her of what he’d seen, what he regretted.
But where was she? ‘But I am here now, and we will make sure you have the most beautiful wedding ever. There are many fashionable dressmakers out there; we will find just the right one.’
Francoise sighed. ‘There are. But there is real magic in Madame Dumas’s gowns. I just want James to be so proud of me on that day.’
There was such sadness in her voice, something subdued that was not like his mischievous sister at all. He only wanted to make it right for her, make everything right. ‘Then we must see what we can do. Where can I find this Madame Dumas?’
‘Really, Alain?’ Francoise sat up straight, hope lighting her eyes. ‘You will help me?’
‘If I can. If you promise no more pranks!’ He feared his sister was quite as naughty as she’d ever been.
She solemnly clasped her hands to her heart.
‘I vow it! Oh, Alain, I only want a wedding that is romantic and grand. Like the ones Maman used to tell us about, of royalty at Versailles! Catherine’s wedding was so tiny, barely a ribbon or a flower.
Not since yours have I seen—oh!’ She clapped her fingers over her mouth, her eyes wide and cheeks pink.
‘Oh, no. I am so sorry. I should not have mentioned it.’
Alain took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Everyone had very carefully not mentioned Sandrine or that short-lived marriage since he’d returned to England.
He’d told everyone she preferred to live in France with her mother until they could be properly settled, but he sensed they had never believed that.
And he’d also spent years trying not to think of it, but it was always, always there, in the back of his thoughts, filling his soul.
Not a day had gone by, whether he was in Istanbul or Venice, that he did not remember Sandrine.
Didn’t see her smile, hear her voice—low, musical, touched with a faint French accent.
Not a day he didn’t want to talk to her, share something with her of the wonders he’d seen.
Not a day he didn’t miss her, miss her artistic way of looking at the world around them. Not a day he did not regret.
He’d once been a rash young fool, handed a rare pearl he couldn’t even begin to appreciate, and now she had vanished beyond all his attempts to find her.
Aside from a few scattered messages over the years, left with his attorney in London, assuring him she was well and nothing else, he didn’t know where she was or what she did.
He owed her that freedom and peace, after everything.
But oh, how he longed to see her just once more! To look into her jewel-green eyes and tell her, show her, how very sorry he was. How he had changed, and if there was just one more chance…
What would he say? How could he ever persuade her he was sorry for his heedless behaviour? There was really no way he could make up for such stupidity.
He realised he’d been silent too long, lost in the past, in regrets, when Francoise nudged his shoulder. ‘I am sorry, Alain. I didn’t mean to make you sad.’
He kissed her cheek. ‘How can I be sad, when my beautiful sister is about to take the courts of the Continent by storm?’
Francoise giggled. ‘Not just yet! James is just an adjutant right now. But one day he is sure to have his very own consulate.’
‘With you to help him, how can he help it?’
‘I know, yes? But, Alain, have you not talked to Sandrine all this time? Tried to make things up with her? She did seem so nice.’
He shook his head. ‘I owe her whatever freedom she desires. I, and our parents, used her shamefully for her parents’ fortune. I do receive messages sometimes that she is well. That’s all she owes me.’
‘But Catherine and I liked her so much. She was sweet and funny. We wanted to know her better.’
‘Sweet and kind. Yes, she was.’ He still dreamed of her laughter on cold, quiet nights, her smile, the fire in her when she spoke of art.
‘We were shocked you parted so soon.’ She leaned closer and whispered, ‘Was it because of Danielle Aurac?’
Alain looked at her in shock. ‘You know of her?’
‘I know you were once infatuated with her. Who could blame you? She was so beautiful. And the way you looked at her…’ She frowned at him. ‘I was young, but I could see it. I know our parents would never have countenanced such a match.’
‘No, they would not. They seemed to think we were still at Versailles.’ And now, with all those years behind him, all that experience and study and thought, he couldn’t be sure they were wrong to protest after all.
Danielle had married her Lord Darby, a wealthy man years older than herself, and gone away with him to his country estate.
Since Monsieur Aurac had died and the school was sold, Alain never heard of her, not even through his friend Louis and his new wife. So many disappearances in life.
Now, when he did think of Danielle, he remembered that heady, youthful infatuation, the excitement of her great beauty and mysterious manner.
But it was all behind a veil, a haze of anger and regret.
The realisation of so much wasted time. The way that youthful blindness had cost him the fledgling marriage he might have had with Sandrine.
The time with Danielle felt like a play he had seen once, a farcical scene that had happened to someone else. Far away.
‘None of that matters at all now, Francoise,’ he told his sister, and it was true that it did not. Danielle and Sandrine were both gone. And he was a different man. ‘What matters now is finding a way to get you into madame’s salon, if that’s what you really, truly want.’
Francoise clapped her hands in glee. ‘It is! Oh, Alain, if anyone can get us in there it is you. No lady has ever been able to resist your gorgeous face.’
He laughed, and was afraid he felt a blush heating his cheeks. He ducked away before she could see and tease him about it. ‘Not now. I look like a pirate after all my travels. I need a shave and a good tailor.’ He ran his hand over the rough whiskers of his jaw.
‘You are a rather fuzzy bear at the moment,’ Francoise conceded with a laugh. ‘But that is easy to remedy. I know what you must try. I just need to find a way…’
Alain did not trust that gleam in his sister’s blue eyes. It always meant trouble was imminent. ‘What is it?’
‘Adele invited us to join her family in their box at the theatre, and they are friends with Madame Dumas! She is sure to be there. I’m sure you could gain an introduction, if you tidy up your hair and beard a bit.
Between us we can surely persuade her we would be the best of customers.
That I am in dire need of help only she can give us. It will be easy!’
Alain was not at all sure. He was also not yet ready for proper Society on the scale his sister desired; he was too caught up in business now. But Francoise’s face was alight with hope, and he couldn’t bear to disappoint her.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘The theatre it is.’
She hugged him in exuberant delight. ‘Oh, Alain, cher frère! It will work, I am sure. Now, whatever should I wear to the theatre?’