Chapter Eight
‘Isn’t it beautiful, Alain?’ Francoise exclaimed as they made their way into the foyer of the Theatre Royal, with its red velvet and gilt everywhere and a glowing chandelier high overhead casting its light over the silken crowd below.
She even spun in a little circle to take in the lights, the marble pillars, the bright crowd that swirled around them.
Alain laughed in delight at his pixie-ish little sister’s glee.
How he had enjoyed being with her again!
She made him remember there could be some fun in life, which he had forgotten in his constantly moving life, his sea of regrets.
‘Quite lovely. But not half as pretty as you. No building could ever compare, no matter who made your gown.’
‘You are making fun of my enthusiasm,’ she chided.
She took his arm as they moved further into the crowd, towards the staircase that led up to the boxes.
‘I dare say nothing in Bath could match what you have seen on your travels. But after being cooped up so long with Catherine and her brood, watching her so disgustingly in love with Richard and the babies, it all looks like a palace to me. And so many people!’
‘Paris and Florence have many very beautiful sites, it’s true,’ Alain said. ‘This compares well to them, I’m sure. Look at that mural over there! And Mrs Giddings’ acting has admirers even there.’
Francoise sighed. ‘I’m glad we shall see her tonight, then, so I shall have something to talk about when James takes me to London theatres. I should hate for everyone to laugh at his provincial wife!’
‘They would never dare. You are a beautiful French lady, a comte’s daughter. They’ll be falling over themselves to meet you.’
She laughed merrily. ‘Oh, Alain, you are the best of brothers! And quite a beauty yourself, especially with your new haircut and your sun-browned air of adventure. You’re becoming like a character in a novel! All these ladies cannot keep their eyes off you.’
‘Now you’re the fanciful one.’
‘Indeed I am not! Look around at everyone watching you. I have become an excellent watcher of people—there is little else to do in Catherine’s village—and I see very well what happens when I walk down the street with you.
Or into a theatre.’ She gestured around with her folded fan.
Alain studied the space she took in with her gesture, and saw to his surprise it was true.
More than a few ladies perused him over their fans, through their opera glasses.
He laughed and ruefully ran his fingers through his hair until he remembered Francoise’s admonitions not to muss his carefully-arranged curls.
Alain had certainly always admired and liked women, enjoyed their company, their conversation and insights as much as their perfumes and alluring smiles.
He certainly hadn’t lacked for potential female attention on his travels.
Yet somehow, after Sandrine, after kissing her, making love with her, he’d lost that knack for flirtation that once came as easilyy as breathing.
It wasn’t as fun any more. It could not quite compare.
It was true. No woman he’d met over the years, in Florence, Madrid, Cairo, was equal to that memory that was with him always.
That image of her smiling up at him in bed, tousled, enticing.
She’d done something to him back then, cast some spell, and now no lady was quite the same.
He’d so resented being pushed into a marriage before he was ready, but he’d come to see that Sandrine had been pushed into it as well, when they were young and new to the world.
Sometimes he wondered what might have been if they’d met later, had more time…
Sandrine was always there in the darkest, starless hours of a purple-black dusty night sky over Andalusia, in the bitter-sweetness of a coffee in Lyon, the silence of a grand cathedral in Rome.
In the beauty of a sunrise, the smell of a sudden rainstorm.
A stretch of pure white beach leading to a sunset.
Francoise skipped ahead of him, vivid and golden.
If she was a thunderstorm over Livorno, Sandrine had been like a sunset: quiet, serene, pastel-pink.
Deceptive. Layers lurking underneath, bright colours, changeable clouds.
People would never have guessed that of Sandrine Jaubert.
But she really was secrets and mysteries and beauty and art; she needed no one else, for she was all and all in herself as a cat.
Like no one he had ever known before or since.
No wonder his youthful self couldn’t fathom her then. He’d been so sure he’d known what he wanted. But that was wrong. He’d had exactly what was real within his grasp for one instant, but then she was gone and he was alone.
He could never have followed her. He and his family had used her badly, and she deserved nothing but her own life. But it didn’t stop that longing.
‘See Lady Petersham over there, Alain?’ Francoise said, bringing him back from the cloud-quiet of his regrets and into the crowded theatre.
It seemed even more teeming than before, and Alain and Francoise were jostled ahead towards the glass door leading to the theatre itself.
‘And Mrs Butler, in the green and gold gown? I heard they have been asking about you most particularly.’
Alain examined the ladies she pointed out. They were indeed pretty, with admiring smiles and little nods, and he wondered if some of his old confidence was coming back with a bit of practice. He laughed at himself.
‘A woman could be Aphrodite herself, Francoise, but you do forget one thing…’ he said.
Her lips pursed. ‘There is a Madame la Comtesse. I do not forget.’
‘Yes. I am a married man.’
‘Yet you will not bring her here!’ Francoise lowered her voice to a whisper.
‘And I doubt any of those ladies watching you now would try to drag you down the aisle. A bit of fun with a companion you like could do you some good. Or show you what you should do, if you can get it through your wooden head! Surely we can worry about heirs and such later.’ Her expression softened.
‘I only want you to be happy, Alain. Whatever that takes. You deserve it.’
But he feared he did not deserve it at all. He’d thrown away a chance for happiness, and now it was always beyond his reach.
He would not ruin Francoise’s fun evening for anything at all with his dark thoughts, so he took her arm again and led her onward. ‘Refreshments before we find your friends? Lemon squash?’
‘I’d rather have champagne,’ she said with a laugh. At Alain’s shocked glance, she laughed even harder. ‘I am a grown lady now, Alain, an engaged lady! I can have champagne, and that is what I want.’
‘Anything you wish.’ Alain felt such a pang at the reminder that his sisters were grown now, and he was older, too.
As they joined the queue for refreshments, Francoise found a few of her new friends and moved away with them, chatting and laughing. Alain took their glasses of champagne from the footman, and turned to look for her through the crowd.
He found her instead.
Despite the press of the people around him, he could suddenly see only one person.
The light from the chandeliers, sparkling silver-white, collected around her.
She wasn’t the tallest lady there, or one of the golden beauties who were the latest fashion.
She was of medium height, though she seemed taller, more slender than was stylish, her willowy angles set off perfectly by a gown of dark pink edged with black velvet, simple and stark.
She stood with her back to him in the center of a most animated group, her head tossed back on a laugh.
The shallow little vee at the back of her neckline showed the creamy skin of her shoulders, the gold bracelets at her upper arms. She barely seemed to move, the most graceful little shift, a sip of champagne, a flutter of a feathered fan, yet somehow she seemed to rise and float.
Her hair, dark with a faint red sheen, was piled high in almost unruly waves, as if they might soon tumble down.
One long curl swung against her white throat and she tossed it back.
Against the frills and lace of the other ladies, she looked like a forest nymph, elegant and effortless. And strangely familiar.
A forest nymph.
The champagne glass Alain was raising to his own lips froze. No. No, it could not be her, that was not possible. She was surely somewhere far away, and all his thoughts of her were simply summoning her up in his mind. Everything was set in a whirl of confusion, hope, dread.
She glanced back over her shoulder as if she sensed his attention.
Luckily, she did not seem to see him yet, and he had a moment to cover that first, freezing shock, to put the glasses down on a nearby table before he dropped them.
It was her. Sandrine. His wife, right there in the same room.
Even after all the years apart, all those imaginings and dreams, he’d hoped, known, he would find her again. Just not now, not here.
He slid back into the shadows at the edge of the space so he could watch her for just a moment more.
His young bride had been so pretty, but this Sandrine, almost five years later, was a goddess.
Filled with sophisticated elegance, beauty, perfection.
And yet, behind all that perfection was a new coolness.
A guarded air, a watchfulness Sandrine had not possessed.
Her old sweetness was not there. That easy smile of such sunshine-warmth was gone and he longed for it.
Longed to run to her, throw himself at her feet, summon up that heat he’d once so craved.
A gentleman joined her, and kissed her hand. She smiled at him, and it was obvious they knew each other. Alain felt a stab of jealousy he had no right to when he saw it.