Chapter Thirteen #2
‘Most certainly.’ Secrets were as much a modiste’s stock-in-trade as ribbons and lace. She’d heard shocking gossip nearly every week in her salon, and not a breath of it left her. Especially not her own scandal.
‘I suppose the lesson is that a leopard never truly changes its spots. If only I could have persuaded Evelyn to commission her gown from you! She needed all the good fortune she could get.’
‘Don’t we all?’ Sandrine murmured. Especially when it came to men with a past. But she knew what was the right thing to do now.
They had to tell Marie the truth. She had to take a deep breath, leap, and trust Alain would be there.
No matter how hard it would be. She glanced up and found him watching her across the room, a puzzled, concerned look on his face.
She smiled, and held up her hand to indicate she was well.
‘And so you are my papa?’ Marie studied Alain’s face carefully, closely. She was a most matter-of-fact child, taking the astonishing news they had just told her in her stride. She made him think of his sisters in that way.
He glanced up at Sandrine, who gave him a little nod.
He had not been at all sure when she said it was time, but he had promised to follow her lead.
Now it seemed she had been right, and he had to seize this moment.
‘Yes, I am,’ he managed to say around the lump in his throat.
‘I never meant to stay away from you so long, ma petite.’
She nodded solemnly, the pink ribbon in her curls bobbing. ‘You had a great deal of important work to do, in very faraway places.’
‘So I had, yes. But I will not leave you again. I shall do all the things papas do.’
She tilted her head as she studied him, frowning. ‘Such as what?’
‘Er…’ He tried to think. His own father had seldom seen him at all before Alain was twelve or older, and his work never brought him into the orbit of families.
‘Play in the gardens with your hoop,’ Sandrine prompted.
‘Yes!’ Alain agreed eagerly. ‘We shall play in the gardens, and float boats on the river. Go to Mollands for marzipan, if you like. Whatever you want.’ And someday, he supposed, he would have to examine possible suitors and do things of that sort, which made him long to scoop her up and hide her away protectively!
But, as Sandrine had said, one step at a time.
‘I do like marzipan. Maybe you will tell me about the places you’ve been? We’ve looked at some on the maps.’
That he could do. ‘I certainly will. And show you some beautiful objects from all over the world.’
‘And I will have brothers and sisters, as my friends do?’ Marie said.
Alain felt his face grow hot, and he dared a glance at Sandrine.
Her cheeks were quite pink as well, and images flashed through his mind of their wedding night, the way her kisses tasted of honey and champagne, the sweetness of her perfume, the way they moved together so perfectly.
If he could only taste that again, feel that way again…
But there were fears now, as well. If their hearts became involved, if all fell apart so painfully all over again, it would not just be the two of them hurt.
It would be Marie now. He looked down at her, a tenderness and protectiveness like none he’d ever known flooding over him. He had to protect her above all.
Sandrine seemed to feel the same, as she turned to swipe at her eyes before briskly clapping her hands and smiling brightly at their daughter. ‘Marie, chérie, why don’t you run upstairs and let Mademoiselle change your frock? We must go and meet someone.’
Marie jumped up, laughing. ‘Who is it now, Maman? I can’t wait!’
‘It is your auntie, my sister,’ Alain said. He thought of how he’d told Francoise the news last night, her astonishment, her nervousness, her teasing. You, a papa, Alain? I cannot wait to see this! Do you think she will like me? ‘Your maman is making her wedding gown.’
Marie twirled around, and Alain was sure Francoise needed have no fears her niece would like her.
Marie had the same exuberance and delight in surprises that Francoise possessed herself.
‘I have an auntie? And a new gown, too? I do love being with Maman while she works; she lets me help with the ribbons.’
She dashed towards the stairs, still laughing, and Alain ducked his head for a moment.
He was afraid he might start crying, overwhelmed by how much things had changed in only a few moments.
Sandrine seemed to understand; she moved away, nervously smoothing her gown before she gathered up a pile of sketches from a desk.
Alain collected himself and put on his usual careless smile.
‘Are those the sketches for Francoise’s gown?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I do hope she likes them. I thought she might enjoy this hem…see, it makes me think of the waves of the sea. She’s rather like a lovely mermaid, isn’t she, with that bright hair and the way she laughs, how delightful she finds everything? Rather like Marie.’
‘Yes, I thought the same thing. How much Marie is like my sisters.’ He came to stand next to her, studying the images.
He knew little of ladies’ gowns, except when one looked inexplicably lovely on one lady and horrid on another, but he knew Sandrine knew the magic of how that worked.
He could see these gowns were like no others he’d seen at theatres or balls or gardens—they were extraordinary.
They seemed to speak of their own tales, their own worlds.
Mermaids, yes, and forest-fairies as he’d once thought of Sandrine. Goddesses and empresses.
She seemed to be nervous at his silence, his awestruck quiet at the sight of what she could do. This was not simple dressmaking, as so many dismissed it. It was art.
‘I—I thought she might like this neckline, the way it swoops just here. It’s unusual, I know, but I think it would suit her quite well.
She has such a bright spirit, like quicksilver.
I wonder if she might even like this silver silk I found last year?
I bought a bolt even though I didn’t know what to do with it.
’ She showed him a length of shimmering, silvery-blue cloth, like something he himself would have been enticed by in an Eastern souk.
She was right, it was like a mermaid, like his sister.
‘It’s just been waiting for the right creation.
But if you think she would not like this… ’
‘She will love it,’ he said quietly. ‘How could she not? You will make her look like magic. Your work—it’s astounding.’
She laughed nervously. ‘I hope I am good at it by now. I’ve worked on it so much!’
‘No, I mean—it’s like nothing else I’ve seen.’ He thought of the parcel he’d brought with him, had carried with him so long, never sure when, or if, he could give it to her. ‘I have something for you.’
Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘For me?’
‘Wait here.’ He hurried across the room to where his valise sat on a table and took out a small, paper-wrapped parcel.
Sandrine watched him, curious. He handed her the package, and the look on his face was fascinating, a blend of adorable boyish shyness, uncertainty, pride. She weighed it in her hand, wondering what it could be.
‘It isn’t much,’ he said. ‘But I saw them in a tiny shop in Marrakech, and I thought of you. Of the way you once spoke about art, about colour and movement and seeing the world in new ways.’
She smiled, remembering that conversation in the conservatory when they had first met.
It felt so long ago, but so close now, too.
She unwrapped it, and found an array of powdered pigments tied up in cheesecloth bundles.
Blues like deep sapphires and pale skies, butter yellow, crimson and scarlet, grass-green. So vivid they glowed.
‘They are so beautiful,’ she gasped.
He smiled in relief. As if she would not have liked them! ‘The man in the shop said the colours are especially prized for painting tiles for mosques. They are made with rare dyes, very precious. Perhaps you could use them on silks as well!’
She studied him. She thought she might see hope there, hope like that which she held deep in her own secret heart. Hope as in maybe and what if…?
‘You were far away, yet you thought of me?’
‘How could I not? Oh, Sandrine. I so often heard your words when I saw a glorious sunset, or the light on ocean waves, and I wished…’ He broke off, a rueful smile on his lips.
‘Wished what?’ she whispered.
‘That you could see it, too. That I could hear what you thought of its beauty. Maybe you can use these to bring a bit of it to life.’
Sandrine held the parcel close, afraid she might start crying with longing. ‘I will.’
Marie called to them, and she could say no more. But just knowing that even when they were apart he had remembered her, thought of her work, made her feel lighter.