Chapter Nine
Sandrine loved Sydney Gardens in the winter.
The pathways, statues and flowerbeds were layered with frost, sparkling and silvery in the pale yellow sunlight that peeked through the pearl-grey clouds, and only a few hardy souls were out walking.
She loved the endless green expanse of it, the paths that could lead anywhere at all, the glimpses of the river and the rolling, shimmering city beyond.
In the summer the park was crowded, but in colder months it was almost her own private fairy-land.
Her place to be alone, away from the constant demands of the shop, a place to think.
And today those thoughts were filled with nothing but Alain.
She’d thought she would never see him again, that he would forever be a memory, growing blessedly hazier over the years, until maybe, just maybe, she’d think of him no more.
He would just be part of the old life of Sandrine Jaubert, the life where she had no control.
She was Sandrine Dumas now. Alain had no place in that ‘now’. He only belonged to ‘then’.
But there he was. Suddenly appeared in the now. And Sandrine had a problem. So, so many problems.
She wrapped the high sable collar of her ruby-red pelisse closer under her chin, and tugged the matching little fur hat over her ears as the cold wind swirled past. She tucked her gloved hands deeper into her velvet and sable muff, wrinkling up her chilly nose, and hoped he might appear soon.
The sooner they talked, the sooner they could go back to their lives. Their separate lives.
She had worked so hard to make a life for herself, to build up contentment and fulfilment, security. It was lonely sometimes, that was true, but at least her heart was safe. Now, just glimpsing his face again, all that old hope and passion and pain came right back.
How she had longed to build herself a stout suit of armour to ward off hurt like that!
Meeting him at the theatre, seeing how he had grown even more handsome as the years passed, looking into his dark grey eyes, time seemed to spread out again and cover all else, as if she’d only seen him yesterday.
That was dangerous. She hoped seeing him face to face in the cold light of day, not surprised with his sudden appearance after so long, she’d set things right at last. She would see he wasn’t real, he was just a girlhood dream of hers.
She reached the fountain of the hunting goddess, Diana, and drew in a deep, chilly breath to try and clear her head. The children dashing past reminded her of Marie, of all she had to lose if she made a misstep with Alain.
She heard a crunch on the gravel of the pathway, and turned to see Alain making his slow way towards her.
She saw at once she had been wrong. Even in that bright light, it hadn’t been her imagination at all.
Dressed in a fashionable dark blue greatcoat, his face shadowed by the brim of his hat, mysterious, he was just the same storm on the calm waves she’d made of her life.
The years melted away, dissolving from the edges of the ice-bright day, and she remembered how it once had been. Every moment he had looked at her back then, as if he could read her very heart; every touch of his hand, his fingers dancing over her skin, bringing such sizzling pleasures.
She stood up straighter, drew her pelisse closer around her. She had to build her armour again, be rid of that pain she’d fought so hard to banish from her heart. The pain was closing in tight now, barbed with ice.
Yet when he came closer, when she could feel the heat of him on the breeze, smell his clean, lemon scent, it was so much like it had used to be.
It made her dizzy. Up close, she could see that he looked a little older, just as she did, with faint lines fanning out from the edges of his night-grey eyes.
He was leaner, harder, his gaze cautious, but he was even more handsome. Drat him.
‘Sandrine,’ he said simply. He gave her a little bow, but he didn’t reach for her. He seemed to sense how brittle she felt, how cold. One tiny caress, and she would surely collapse in shards and dust at his feet.
She had to be strong, for Marie. ‘I thought you were in Sienna. Or Nice,’ she said.
She spun around and walked along the pathway, even as she knew she could never run from him.
He fell into step beside her, their strides matched easily, his sleeve brushing hers.
She was fully aware of every small movement he made, of the sound of his breath.
‘I was. And Rome before that.’
She couldn’t stifle the little spark of curiosity. ‘Doing what?’
He shrugged. ‘Just business. And then the Foreign Office called on me for a little errand in Nice, that’s all.’
Which surely meant that, whatever his business was, he didn’t want to talk about it. She’d realised that he might take on some government work on his many travels. So different from the careless young Alain she’d known. More solemn, more watchful.
And she—well, of course she was no longer that same naive girl. She’d had such ideas then of how her life would unfold! Now she was a businesswoman, a mother. She couldn’t afford to melt for Alain d’Alency again. Couldn’t lose her armour.
‘Then why Bath now?’ she asked. ‘How dull it must be after Cairo and Athens!’
‘Dull is exactly what I hope for now. Italy has its charms, but peace and quiet isn’t usually among them.’
Sandrine sighed. Her thoughts at that moment could not be called peaceful at all. ‘Peace and quiet we have here in spades, I assure you.’
‘Is quiet a benefit to your salon?’ he asked curiously. ‘I know little of the fashion business, but I would imagine parties and gossip papers and such would be its life-blood.’
‘And you would be right. Bath is not London or Paris, but it does attract many ladies of fashion who are always wanting to be stylish and dashing, to be originals. There is not much competition here, and I can learn all the subtleties of my business.’
Find her own peace. That was what she’d worked so very hard for. She couldn’t let it go now.
‘So you came here to Bath after, well, after we parted, and opened your salon?’
Sandrine laughed. ‘I hadn’t the first idea how to run a business then!
I persuaded another modiste, Madame Feydeau in Brighton, to take me on as an assistant.
I worked from dawn to dusk to learn all I could about design and business, such as accounts.
I was able to live off my grandmother’s inheritance, and when this shop in Bath came up for sale it seemed as fine as anywhere else. ’
He watched her very closely as she spoke, as he always had, paying attention, listening with an interest few men showed to women’s conversation. ‘Your gowns, especially your wedding gowns, seem to be very à la mode. Everyone talks of them. Francoise is wild to have one for herself.’
‘Your sister?’ She remembered his beautiful, kind sisters, who had welcomed her into their home as their brother had not been able to truly do.
‘Yes. She is to marry a diplomatic adjutant, which means she feels she must be seen as extra-fashionable. She is in despair that you seem to have a lengthy waiting list.’
She laughed again, delighted to hear her reputation was growing. ‘I do. But bring her to see me. I remember her; she was so pretty and energetic. Like a pixie, or an elf. She must be very lovely indeed now. I’m sure I could do something special for her.’
‘She would be in your debt. And I would be in your debt. Or, should I say, even more in your debt.’
She glanced at him, startled at his solemn tone. Had he suffered pangs of guilt, regret over the years, as she had? ‘Oh, Alain. We have no debts between us; we have both done what we chose in life, thanks to the bargain we struck.’
And he had given her the greatest gift of all: Marie. She had to tell him—wanted to tell him—but how?
They walked on in silence, the sea of the past between them, stormy, roiling, uncrossable.
‘Where shall you go next?’ he asked at last, as they came to the stone expanse of a bridge. ‘Surely your business will grow beyond Bath. To London, maybe?’
Sandrine bit her lip uncertainly. She had confided her most treasured plan in no one, not even Jane, her trusted seamstress, or Mary Campbell. Somehow, though, it felt as if she could tell him. Maybe it was that careful, sincere interest in his eyes that lulled her into feeling safer.
‘I would really like to open a shop in Paris. On Rue de la Paix, maybe. Something achingly elegant, with every luxury, offering the most daring of gowns.’ She’d sat awake so many nights, sketching, dreaming. France seemed to call to her, to match with her visions, her ambitions.
He tilted his head as he considered this. ‘Paris?’
‘Yes. You must think me quite fanciful. I barely remember France from my childhood, and we were cut off from Paris for so long. But when I visited there last year, something in it just seemed to—to fit. Perhaps I am still more French than I thought!’
Alain was quiet for a long moment, studying the ice-choked river thoughtfully.
‘Paris is longing for elegance now, for beauty. Ripe for new businesses. Maybe if nothing was available on the Rue de la Paix, you could find a smaller salon near by. Begin with a small, select client list, très exclusive. Like your wedding-gown waiting list. Only a few special people can have them. Whet their appetites, just as you have here. Walk in the Jardin du Luxembourg, or ride in the Bois de Boulogne in your finest creations—you are your best advertisement. You are your gowns, your style to be emulated. No one could be more elegant.’
Sandrine laughed, and felt the heat of her old girlhood curse, that blush, flood over her face. How his approval had once mattered so much to her! She couldn’t let it do so now.