Chapter Fourteen
‘This is the house,’ Alain said, pointing ahead to the rented place he must share with his sister.
Sandrine studied it, suddenly quite nervous.
It wouldn’t just be her and Marie any more, not even just her and Marie and Alain.
With Francoise, the wider world would begin to know, begin to see the little family she’d worked so hard to keep safe. What if it all went wrong?
Yet it did not feel wrong. The walk had been a delight, with Marie skipping along beside Alain as he told her stories of his travels.
She swung his hand between them, peppering him with questions, chatty and accepting as if nothing had changed.
That walk, in fact, had been been filled with some of the most wonderful moments she could ever remember.
The three of them together in the sun, Marie’s giggle like music on the breeze.
Sandrine thought of his gift, the brilliant pigments he’d seen in a faraway market and thought of her.
He’d looked at her sketches, marvelling at them, understanding them and what they meant to her, what they meant to the ladies she wanted to help, the world she wanted to make.
He’d seen her. And in that moment of closeness, of memory, tested by distance, the past melted away, leaving only a quiet, unspoken possible promise.
He hadn’t forgotten her when they were apart!
Yet there was fear, too. So much had changed in that time. So much more was at stake. She had to step very carefully.
‘Will you have that tiger there in the garden?’ Marie asked, twirling towards the stone front steps. ‘The one you saw in India?’
Alain laughed, and Sandrine heard there the echo of the young, carefree man she’d once met in a ballroom and fallen headlong for. ‘I fear he could not come to live with me… I only glimpsed him.’
‘In the jungle?’ Marie squealed.
‘Yes. Where the air is warm and damp, and smells like spices.’
‘Would I like it there?’
He studied her closely, as if evaluating. ‘I am not sure. Could you ride on elephants? Carry packs through the forest?’
‘Yes!’ Marie cried. ‘Well, a small one anyway. But I am sure I could ride an elephant.’
Sandrine laughed, suddenly filled with such sparkling delight as she watched the two of them together, Marie’s small hand in Alain’s.
Their two dark heads, so similar. Tenderness washed over her, held her softly in its grip.
It was delicate, not burning with passion or trembling with desire, but steady, warm, and deeply devoted. Terrifying.
Marie didn’t seem to have any such fear.
She dashed into the house with Alain, Sandrine trailing behind them.
It was not a large hallway, but warm and inviting, filled with the scent of flowers.
A carpet in glowing jewel colours spread under their feet, obviously brought back with Alain from his travels with her gift of pigments, and a large portrait hung over the staircase.
Two people in the glorious brocades of decades past, staring down at their granddaughter with astonished painted eyes.
‘Who is that?’ Marie asked, climbing up on a stool for a closer look.
‘Those are my parents,’ Francoise’s voice said from a doorway. ‘So they are your grandmère and grandpère. It was painted when they were young and lived in France. I think you must be Mademoiselle Marie.’
Sandrine turned to look at Alain’s sister. Francoise seemed a little nervous in that moment, just as Sandrine was herself. The young woman smoothed her skirt, tucked a curl behind her ear. She watched Marie with wonder in her eyes, and a little caution.
Marie gave her a little curtsey, as Sandrine had taught her. It was pretty indeed, a graceful movement that would not have been out of place in the chateaus of those people in the portrait, and Sandrine thought she might burst with pride. ‘I am Marie. How do you do, Madame?’
Francoise smiled, that sudden sunburst so similar to Alain’s.
She hurried forward with her hand held out, her engagement sapphire gleaming.
‘And I am your tante Francoise. I’m so happy to meet you at last!
Will you come into the drawing room? I have some caramel cakes all the way from Paris that I think you might like as much as I do. ’
Marie happily took Francoise’s hand and followed her, the two of them chattering about their favourite sweets. Sandrine stepped closer to Alain and whispered, ‘I hope your sister was happy when you told her? Not too shocked? Or angry at me?’
Alain quirked a smile down at her, one she could not quite read. He was maddening that way. ‘Shocked, of course. But also very excited. She does love children; she shares a delight in the world with them, a joy of little discoveries. I am sure you need have no fear of Marie being with her.’
‘I do not fear it.’ She did not fear Francoise, how could she?
The girl had always been kind and charming, and clearly Marie already liked her.
She just feared hoping again. The fear of hope was such a fragile, bittersweet thing, a longing so intense and shadowed by the fear that it might all slip away.
But there was only one way ahead now. Forward.
She gathered up her parcel of sketches and followed Alain towards the drawing room.
‘She will love your ideas for her gown, too,’ he said. ‘She could find no one else to make her look so magical on her grand day.’
He sounded so sure, so confident in her skills, it gave her confidence, too. She’d dressed many brides, but somehow this one seemed the most important of all.
Marie sat on a pale yellow settee with Francoise, the two of them pouring tea and chatting as if they had known each other for years and years, had never been apart.
‘Maman, Tante Francoise tells me she once had a doll called Laure, who has dark curls like me, and I might play with her later if I am very careful, for she is French.’
‘That is wonderful, petite,’ Sandrine managed to murmur, afraid she might cry.
She watched Alain sit with them, watched Marie carefully pour him a cup of tea.
Marie was quite like a young lady now, in this scene Sandrine had never dared to dream of before.
This vision of a family. Bittersweet tenderness ached inside her heart, filled with longing even as it comforted her.
Time was fleeting; she had this now. Could she be brave enough to find a way to hold on to it?
Francoise glanced up and smiled with delight. ‘Sandrine, Alain says you have the most beautiful ideas for my gown! Shall we look at them?’
‘I can help you choose the ribbons, Tante Francoise,’ Marie said confidently. ‘I do it all the time.’
Sandrine watched from the nursery doorway as Alain tucked the blankets around Marie, folding her in safe for the night. She had cajoled him into reading her not one but two of her storybooks, wrapping him neatly around her darling finger, but now her eyelids were heavy.
His eyes were soft, filled with wonder and pride as he watched her, as if memorising every tiny detail.
‘Will we get marzipan at Mollands tomorrow?’ Marie murmured.
‘Yes, of course. And lemonade, too,’ he said. ‘But I think now it is sleepy time.’
Marie nodded, and snuggled her doll close. But as Alain rose to leave, she clutched his sleeve. ‘You will come back?’
‘I will,’ he said simply, all the world in those two words.
He followed Sandrine out of the nursery and down the stairs to the drawing room, the two of them silent as she lit a lamp against the night outside. There were no words she could think of to express the depth of her feelings in that moment.
She didn’t know what else to do, so she just followed her instincts. She went to him and kissed him. The taste of him, like dark chocolate, the way his mouth felt on hers, the way his body moved against hers—it sent her back and back in time, to the blurry wanting of their wedding night.
His hands closed over her shoulders, and for a moment she feared he might push her away. Then he groaned, a wild sound deep in his throat, and his arms closed around her to drag her to him so there was nothing between them at all.