Chapter 17
It took Celine all the willpower located in her body to stay rooted in place when Bastien dipped into the crowd and disappeared towards Jeanne Hugot.
She took two flutes of champagne from one of the passing trays, downing the first in one gulp and twirling the other between her fingers, using it as a distraction.
Bastien had just crossed a line, and then some.
She was having trouble tolerating his ridiculous schemes.
After the incident with the needle, she had thought they had built a bridge over that chasm of petty pranks and bickering nonsense—a bridge made out of the thinnest rope, but a bridge nonetheless.
Now it felt as though Bastien was saying Oops, I guess I forgot to mention, baby vamp.
I haven’t tied my end up properly. Sorry if it snaps and you plunge to the ground.
“He is doing this on purpose. Just because he thinks I told—” Jacques was saying when he suddenly cut himself off. A lock of golden hair fell over his face. He brushed it away with a rapid flick of his fingers. “It doesn’t matter. Are you alright?”
Celine was seconds away from zoning out. She had a feeling Jacques had gone off on a tangent about the bruise, but she was hardly listening. Jeanne was tugging Bastien by his military belt into the darkest part of the hall, and soon they were out of Celine’s sight.
Celine huffed into the glass, fogging the sides.
“Celine? Are you alright?” Jacques repeated, wrestling her attention away from the empty space where Bastien had been.
Celine finally looked his way. A wave of different expressions undulated across his face, as though he couldn’t decide whether to be shocked or offended or concerned at her utter lack of focus.
“Oh, yes. I’m fine.” She shook her head, vivifying her brain to keep up. “I just feel awful for this.” She pointed at her dress. “Me, coming here as Cleopatra, and Bastien as Antony—what it suggests—”
“You are not the one who needs to apologise,” Jacques said calmly.
“I know you didn’t plan this.” His voice might have displayed ease, but his demeanour was betraying him.
His shoulders were tense, his hands fisted at his sides.
“Bas came to discuss something with Grandfather today, and left to go on the warpath.”
Celine chewed on the inside of her cheek. That explained his behaviour. Marginally.
She looked up at Jacques, taking in the purple scab on the corner of his lips. “Are you alright?” Celine touched the side of his mouth lightly, drawing her fingers away when he winced. “Did he really hit you?”
“It’s really fine, my love,” he said, leaning in to press his lips to hers. “With some luck, it will go away before the next race.”
That didn’t answer her question. But considering what was said earlier, it wasn’t hard to guess. And it must have happened before he had switched her costume.
Celine just couldn’t understand the logic behind it. For somebody who had made a big deal about wanting to be friends, Bastien sure changed his mind quickly. It only rekindled her desire for reprisal.
“The night doesn’t have to be ruined entirely.” She flashed Jacques a sweet smile and downed the second flute. “Ana?s is my size, right? Perhaps I can borrow one of her dresses. I will come and find you before dinner, okay?”
Jacques cupped her cheek, locking their gazes for one serene second.
The guests and the music faded away and Celine considered staying.
Why follow after Bastien, when nothing was out of place with Jacques?
When everything was alright, despite the mix up, and they could easily avoid more drama now that Bastien had found entertainment elsewhere?
But Jacques broke their peace with a soft kiss on her cheek. “Don’t be too long, hmm?” Then strode away, leaving her to the brewing storm of her thoughts.
· · ·
Celine stepped out into the pavilion, tracing a procession of fireflies with her eyes as they decorated the darkened sky in an excess of stars.
Having checked almost all of the upper floors of the mansion, save for Monsieur Ménard’s office, and having found not even a piece of lint belonging to Bastien, she had decided to pursue the gardens, where the scent of oranges tickled her skin, clinging to her like a perfumed mist. Music boomed from inside the house and gravel crunched underneath car tires as a few late-comers entered through the gates. But the pavilion remained quiet. Empty.
Save for Jekyll and Hyde, Bastien’s Dalmatians, who were tied to their shared kennel. They whimpered excitedly when they heard Celine approach.
“Poor babies,” she pouted, scratching behind their ears. “Have they tied you out here because of the party?”
Hyde nudged her palm with his nose in affirmation. She gave him a quick kiss on the heart-shaped spot on top of his head.
“You two haven’t seen that insufferable owner of yours, have you?”
She expected them to growl at the epithet—Milady would have certainly hissed—but they simply turned their heads towards the balconies in unison. Celine frowned.
“You two are undoubtedly Bastien’s creatures. I didn’t mean Jacques.”
Hearing the name, Jekyll lowered his head, ignoring her. Hyde followed suit.
“Petulant babies,” Celine muttered, rising to her feet once again.
She took a deep breath of the night air, held it for several seconds, released it, and sat on one of the pavilion benches.
It did nothing to soothe her irritation.
Her left hand fell to her wrist, fidgeting with the silver bangles stacked on her arm, until she pushed them up and mindlessly started scratching the soft skin there.
Truth be told, she wasn’t sure what had driven her to be headstrong about this. She could easily brush it off, chuck it up to a bad night, and pretend it had never happened. She could blame it on the champagne Bastien had drank, or whatever else had possessed him to send her the Cleopatra costume.
Bastien was simply…being Bastien. But a prickling sensation kept roaming beneath her skin, separating it from the muscle in the most unbearable way, and it wasn’t dissipating no matter what Celine tried.
If anything, it intensified the longer she tarried by the pavilion.
Bastien had probably left the party entirely with Jeanne. Celine would only be wasting time if she kept looking for him. Time she should be spending with Jacques.
Deciding to return inside, she let the silver bangles slide down on her wrist again when she heard a rustle of skirts behind her. Celine stopped. She listened harder for the sound to repeat itself. When it did, it was followed by a soft sigh.
“Someone will see…” It was a female voice, trailing off into the night.
“Let them,” came the reply. “It will only make their dinner more interesting.”
Celine stiffened. That one was Bastien’s.
Craning her neck, she peered behind one of the pavilion’s white pillars. The faint colour of blue skirts swished in the breeze.
No. It wasn’t the breeze that was moving them.
Bastien’s hands were buried deep into the folds of Jeanne’s dress, peeling the layers away one by one.
Celine quickly looked away, pulse ratcheting.
She couldn’t make up her mind if she wanted the earth to split open and swallow her whole, or some other natural disaster to strike and whisk her away from there.
To her dismay, her throat involuntarily produced a gasp that ricocheted through the pavilion.
“Did you hear that?” Jeanne asked, pushing Bastien away for a moment.
Celine froze.
“It was probably just a vermin,” Bastien replied. “Now focus, chérie.”
A vermin! A ver—
Celine cleared her throat, intentionally this time, drawing out a peeved groan from Bastien.
He poked his head out to look at her.
“I’m starting to believe you actually have a penchant for spoiling my fun,” he muttered, taking his sweet time meeting her gaze.
He looked dishevelled from head to foot: his brown locks tousled, his toga awfully wrinkled, the golden circlet he had on earlier entirely missing from his head.
Celine caught sight of it on a bush by the garden gates, glinting under the moonlight.
“Isn’t your boyfriend getting lonely, baby vamp?” he taunted, despite Jeanne’s presence. “You should get back to your depressing party, Celine, and let us enjoy ours out here.”
“I don’t think so,” Celine replied. She eyed Jeanne. “Your mother was looking for you. Do you want me to tell her you are out here, traipsing the gardens half-dressed, or do you have a better story?”
Jeanne paled. She glanced at Bastien like he would care enough to manufacture a lie for her. “She won’t do that, will she?”
“Beats me,” Bastien drawled with a shrug. “Celine is full of surprises. For one, I didn’t know she was a voyeur.”
Heat flared up Celine’s cheeks. Barring the occasional flirting and obscene banter, Bastien had yet to say something this malicious to her.
“What is wrong with you tonight?” she snapped, her voice steady, albeit flat.
“Leave,” Bastien told the other girl. “Jeanne, leave.”
Jeanne scoffed. “You are not serious!”
“Leave,” he repeated. “Before I tell your mother what I was doing to you just now.” Letting her go, he grasped Celine’s wrist, tugging her closer until she settled into the space that Jeanne had previously occupied. She staggered forward, her palms pressing against his warm chest.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Celine demanded. From a distance, she could hear Jeanne’s heels sink mutedly into the grass as she scuttled to return inside the mansion. Celine prayed she wouldn’t run into Jacques.
“Resuming the fun you just interrupted,” Bastien muttered. Without warning, he drove her further up against the pillar, so that the marble dug into her bare back. “Jeanne and I had planned such a fun night. I suppose you will suffice now.”
He spoke in such a way that Celine felt his breath caress her cheek, the faint touch of air almost sensual. The champagne smelled sweet on his lips.
“Let go of me,” she hissed. “You’re drunk.”
He did not relent. “I’m not that drunk.”