Chapter 21 #2
Francine frowned, but knew better than to object.
Bastien, meanwhile, propped each of his elbows beside Celine’s head like he had all the time in the world to spend on top of her.
Celine supposed he did. He wasn’t the one who had broken their fall, or being currently crushed by someone twice his size, and judging by the slow smirk that was pulling his lips apart, she imagined he was stalling until her mother managed to get past Francine and found them like that.
And then it would be goodbye Jacques, goodbye fashion house, and goodbye freedom. Forever!
“You know,” he broke off, pushing a stray hair out of her face with a gentleness that sent unsettling shivers down Celine’s arms. “We will need to settle this.”
“Settle what?” she grunted.
“Who fell for whom, obviously. I toppled over, yes, but you touched the floor first. So…” he trailed off. “Should I be the one to give my brother the news, or do you want to take the bullet for us both?”
“You’re lucky I don’t have a bullet right now.
” Building up all the strength she could, Celine thrust her arms against Bastien’s chest and pushed him off to the side.
Then swiftly scrambled to her feet to put as much distance between them as she could.
Even though his weight still rested like an imprint on her.
Every part of her body was sizzling like power lines, charged and magnetised, drawing her towards him.
“So,” Celine propped her hands on her hips. “What was so important that you had to climb two stories for?”
She prepared for his usual banter, readying her own mind to work on a bon mot of her own. Except, Bastien looked like his attention had veered elsewhere.
In fact, his eyes were gazing beyond her shoulder.
“My, my, you sure are big on lace.”
Celine craned her neck around to check what had caught his attention. There—on her bed, spread like a colourful blanket, Francine had laid out all the laundry she had been folding, including Celine’s undergarments.
All the air in the room was suddenly cut off. “T-those are not mine.”
Bastien produced a thoughtful sound. “Is that so?” He raked his eyes over her body next, halting at the visible line of lace on her night gown.
“And I’m assuming that’s not lace either, what you’re wearing right now?
You might want to consider this whole designer thing if you can’t tell your fabrics apart. ”
“Stop staring!” Celine wrapped her arms around herself. “And stop inspecting my wardrobe!”
“So, they are yours,” Bastien went on as she scanned the room for her usual pile of clothes on the corner, but the floor was spotless. There was nothing she could take to cover up. Curse Francine. “I wonder what Jacques would say if he was aware of this particular information.”
Celine’s eyes widened. “If you so much as mention this to him—”
“You what?” Bastien closed in. “Will you ask for another kissing lesson? Or did you exhaust that already and want me to teach you something else? My prowess extends beyond all mediums of passion, baby vamp.”
“Don’t forget that you came to me tonight. Not the other way around.”
“Right, right. I did. Maybe I wanted you to teach me something this time.” Tentatively, he reached out and brushed a hair behind her ear. His fingers ran smoothly through the strands. “How were your kisses with Jacques tonight?” he asked.
“What?” Celine returned hazily.
“Because he told me they were definitely better than before.”
Celine blinked. “What!”
“Oh, relax. Like Jacques would ever come to me to gloat about that. Besides, I don’t think I would have stopped myself from bragging about how remarkable a teacher I am, and then he would have known everything.”
The window was right there. Celine could just push and—
“This is not funny, Bastien.”
“Your face is a little, though. You look like you rose from the grave.” To her surprise, he shook his jacket off his shoulders and draped it over hers. “Here.”
Reluctantly, Celine slipped her arms into it. Now that she wasn’t worried about him plummeting to his death, a sudden impression of awkwardness settled into the room. She had been kissing him not five hours ago. And then she had spent those five hours thinking about that kiss.
Celine shifted on her feet. “Did you come here just to give me your jacket and break half of my ribs?”
Straightening himself, Bastien produced the book he had been holding earlier, and waved it in front of her. That blue cloth cover was…
“My sketchbook!” Celine exclaimed with recognition. “Wh-where did you find it?”
“Turns out Franz only needed a little seducing. Though I can’t be too sure he hasn’t copied—”
One second, Celine was standing there, stupefied by the gesture, and the next she was wrapping her arms around his neck, rendering him quiet for a brief moment.
Her measurements, her designs, her patterns—all of them were inked within its pages. And he had retrieved them back for her. “Bas, I—”
“I know, I know. You love me, I am incredible, sooooo handsome and charming, and you will be grateful for all eternity,” he gloated. “What else?”
“I wasn’t aware you possessed a compassionate bone in your body,” she teased.
“I don’t,” he returned obstinately, peeling her arms from his neck. “One of my bones just malfunctions sometimes, that is all. So don’t let it get to that pretty little head of yours.”
“Do not stress,” she said exasperatedly. “Much appreciated as it is, your sudden heroic deed isn’t nearly sufficient to inflate my opinion of you. You are still a pig.”
“Good. I—”
He was interrupted by the sound of Madame LeBeau’s voice ringing through the house clear as glass. Bastien and Celine held their breaths and listened intently to the conversation that was transpiring downstairs.
“What do you mean rescheduled?” Madame LeBeau screeched.
“Y-you see, Madame,” Francine stammered. “Mademoiselle thought it was better—”
“Well, what does Celine know? It’s not like she had been helping with the preparations.” There was a brief pause, then: “I suppose we cannot do anything tonight. We’ll call the store manager again in the morning and tell him it was a misunderstanding.”
And just like that, she went on discussing the menu for tomorrow’s lunch.
“What was all that about?” Bastien asked when the argument had receded.
“Maman had scheduled a cake tasting for my birthday party the same day as our next challenge. I told the manager our entire family was suffering from a terrible case of smallpox and we couldn’t make it. I doubt he’ll even let the operator connect the call tomorrow out of fear of contagion.”
“Over the telephone?”
Celine shrugged. “I might have exaggerated it a bit. You are invited, by the way.”
“I never knew you were so cunning, Celine LeBeau.”
“One of the many things those magazines fail to mention.” Celine eyed him as Bastien moved around her room, picking up random trinkets, turning them over in his hand, then placing them down again.
Even Jacques hadn’t looked at her things with such fascination.
She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “I told—” she started and he looked over at her, placing her perfume bottle back on the vanity.
Celine cleared her throat. “Jacques—I told him about you being my model.”
Bastien did not reply. Instead, he wandered over to her bed, where Milady was snuggling into the covers, and cautiously petted her.
“He is not going to say anything, if you’re worried about that.”
“That’s not it,” he mumbled.
His voice had grown soft. Celine remained where she stood and hid her hands into the sleeves of his jacket. Something had overcome his features that she couldn’t pinpoint.
“Are you doing alright?” she prompted, true concern creeping into the question.
“Monsieur Ménard’s masquerade, Maison Baudelaire…
you have been acting off recently. More than usual.
” Bits of information floated around in her mind, but they were pieces that didn’t fit together no matter how many times she rearranged them.
“Did something happen with your grandfather?”
Bastien was avoiding her gaze. “Would you look at that,” he pointed at the box and the smushed icing on the top, “the cake apology worked.”
“Do not sidetrack.”
“I appreciate the concern, but it is not your issue to fix, Celine. I’m sorry I made it so.”
“Well…” Celine picked at her nails. “You wouldn’t intentionally muck up the competition, would you? I mean, you went out of your way to find my sketchbook and bring it back, I’m assuming what happened wasn’t intentional.”
“It wasn’t.” His fingers halted on Milady, resulting in an irritated meow. Bastien pulled his hand back. “The competition was an accident,” he said, finally looking up at her. “I should have taken it more seriously, I’m sorry.”
Celine sat beside him on the bed, taking Milady onto her lap. “What happened then?”
She could tell he was hesitating by the way his foot tapped restlessly on the floor. She nudged him to confess.
“Grandfather disowned me. The night of the party.”
“What?” Out of all the things that had crossed her mind these past few days, she had never guessed disownment. “Surely he wouldn't go that far.”
“He has already kicked me out,” Bastien went on drily. “I doubt it's that much harder to cross a name off a list.”
It didn’t excuse what he had done, but the way his situation had unraveled made her heart ache. Disowned. For Bastien to actually admit this to her…