Chapter 26 #2
“What?” Bastien drawled at last. He didn’t bother hiding his annoyance. Chances were, Ana?s had learned everything by now. Even if Celine hadn’t told her, his sister always found a way.
“You do know,” she started, swaying back and forth on her feet.
She looked like an evil Alice from Wonderland, but instead of the blue dress and white frock, she was wearing one of Celine’s designs—a slightly more conservative version of her customary flapper cuts.
“You don’t have to stand out here like a punished puppy, Bas. Pouting does not become you.”
“I was not pouting.” Though he supposed he did look like a puppy: standing behind the glass doors, hidden behind the potted ferns, waiting for someone—Celine—to come outside and keep him company.
Mon Dieu, maybe I am that far gone.
Surely, Bastien Ménard couldn’t be pining after a girl like this. It was beneath him.
“Yes, you were,” she said, pointing a finger at his lips. “Riiiiiiight here.” She reached out her hand slowly to poke his cheek when Bastien whacked it away. He glared.
“If you’re intent on annoying someone, there is a whole room full of people over there.” He nodded at the celebrations commencing on the other side of the glass pane. “Have a pick at them. I am not in the mood tonight.”
Ana?s gave a hmm of contemplation. He did not like the sound of it. His sister’s hazel eyes were twinkling with barely repressed glee. “Now that you mention,” she said, “are you planning an intervention?”
“What?”
“Kidnapping then? Dramatically kissing her in front of everyone? I’m sure you didn’t come all the way here just to stare longingly at her all night long, without uttering a single word.”
So, she knew.
“That is none of your business, Ana?s.” Wanting to get rid of her, Bastien gave her a little shove between her shoulder blades. “You can head back inside now.”
Ana?s didn’t move. She gripped his lapels instead, and dragged Bastien down to eye level.
“Listen,” she warned. There was none of that mischief in her voice anymore.
He sensed a little shiver of unease travel down his spine.
“You may be my brother, but Celine is my best friend. I know there is very little I can say that you will actually listen to, but if you do anything—anything—to put her on that list of women you’ve treated like garbage, I will make sure that the next time you are mentioned in those scandal columns it will be when they lament the untimely and very painful loss of your manhood. Understood?”
Bastien swallowed uncomfortably at the insinuation and tried to release himself from Ana?s’s grasp. How did she get all that in one single breath?
“Worry not,” he sniffled, straightening his lapels. “I’m not standing out here hatching an evil plan. At any rate, I’m not wearing the right suit for that.” Ana?s rolled her eyes. “Celine can make her own choices, there’s no need for an advocate. I’m simply waiting.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Now leave.”
“Do you like her?” She asked abruptly. “Or is it just some weird fascination because she’s taken up with Jacques, no less, and you want to prove something?”
Bastien ground his teeth as he stared at his sister until he felt one of his molars move. That’s what he had been trying to rack his brain over all night, and he still didn’t have an answer.
“I don’t know.” He sighed. “I don’t know, but it has nothing to do with Jacques anymore.”
“Because if you do like her—”
“I don’t wish to talk about this.” Crossing his arms, he leaned against the wall once more, intent on ignoring anything else that came out of his sister’s lips.
“Alright,” Ana?s drawled, lifting a shoulder innocently as she unlatched the balcony door and stepped inside. “But you might want to join us at some point. Celine said the cake would be to die for.”
· · ·
Celine continued to zone out, focusing on a pale petal that had fluttered away from the flower arrangements and had dropped on the floor.
It seemed to her as if not a single minute had passed since her mother had left her.
Across the room, through the balcony doors, she glanced at the geranium bushes in the courtyard swaying gently in the breeze.
She longed to be in their place, to feel that breeze on her face and her arms; to be outside, away from the clinking of cocktail glasses and porcelain plates and elegant silver spoons.
Instead she stood there, caught in the silence of her own mind, while the party resumed on full around her: the appetiser trays were being emptied and refilled just as quickly, the gift pile kept growing, and Celine found herself sinking deeper and deeper into a nervous breakdown with every second that ticked closer to the candle-blowing.
Jacques would then get on one knee; everyone’s eyes would be on them—on her—anticipating the answer. And Celine would say—
“Cheer up. According to what your mother was whispering earlier, you have three more hours to decide.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and blinked.
Ana?s had sprang up on her unannounced, standing there all Cassandra-like.
She was framed by the vine and cherry blossom wreaths Madame LeBeau had ordered for the hall, dazzling in the dress Celine had made for her tonight.
She had picked a beautiful apricot fabric from the ones Adalene Reneau had stored in her studio, which Celine had immediately thought was made for Ana?s.
“Do I look that terrified?” she asked, checking herself. “Is something out of place?”
There were too many people in the room, too many eyes on her, and too many mouths that would talk afterwards. And maybe paranoia was making her antsier, but she felt as though they were all tossing glances over their shoulders, squinting at her, then resuming their whispering.
Ana?s shook her head. “Everything is fine, Cel.”
Good. That was good. Celine took a deep breath.
“However, running away together is still on the list of options,” she offered, slipping her fingers through Celine’s and giving her hand a tiny squeeze.
She must have seen Celine’s attention had veered to the courtyard.
“Bas never finished his driving lessons, but I’m pretty sure I can get us halfway across Paris without crashing into anyone.
Well…without crashing into anyone twice. ”
Grateful for the moment of reprieve, Celine squeezed her hand back. “I wouldn’t mind a dramatic exit.”
Despite the jokes, Ana?s was hovering about awkwardly, shifting on her feet. Celine’s throat tightened.
“About what we talked…” Ana?s broke off. Did she regret her words? Had she realised over the week what Celine had actually done? That what she had confessed to her was bigger than a gossip that would fizzle out in a couple of days?
“It’s not too late,” she said, “to change your mind. No one else but your parents know Jacques will propose tonight, I asked. You can talk to him right now. He might even thank you for it—he’s been hyperventilating since we left the mansion. There is a high chance he might pass out any time now.”
That made two of them.
Celine craned her neck to check on Jacques. He looked more nervous than she felt, glancing at his watch every few seconds. He deserved to know everything. He deserved so much more than what she had been giving him.
Her chest started to itch.
All hearts are the same, Ana?s had said.
You cannot force them to feel something they don’t, just as you cannot force them to change.
Wasn’t Celine the living proof of that? She had tried bending and twisting her heart to follow the trajectory she wanted and Love had obstinately redirected its route, like an arrow with a mind of its own.
She brought a hand up to her chest as if to rub the choking sensation away.
Maybe she was overreacting. This had been the plan all along.
She had known to expect it—all morning leading up to now she had sat at her vanity, staring at herself in the mirror, acknowledging this—she had known she would have to say yes.
Well, she had known, until Bastien had meddled with her mind and stolen her ability to judge.
He might have stolen even more than that.
“You really think I should?” Celine asked, her breath coming up short. What was it with her tonight?
Ana?s shrugged. “Ménard for Ménard. What’s the difference?”
An entire world, Celine thought. But now that Ana?s had mentioned him, she achingly noticed his absence. Bastien hadn’t come.
Celine did not try to hide her disappointment—not to herself, at least. Her cheeks were still frozen in that mannequin expression of false delight they had held all night. She doubted Ana?s had detected any physical signs of that pang deep in her heart.
Smile. Her mother’s voice rang in her mind.
Celine obeyed.
Perhaps it was for the best that Bastien hadn’t come.
Perhaps it meant something: that he really wanted to open the studio only as partners.
That the second kiss had been just an accident.
That maybe she had wanted it more than he had.
And that maybe it had meant nothing to Bastien, but for Celine it had been paramount.
She swallowed uncomfortably. Was the room becoming hotter?
“Unless,” Ana?s was saying. Had she been talking all this time? “You have changed your mind about Bastien. I can’t really tell with my brother, he rarely confides…”
Unintentionally, Celine tuned her out. Other thoughts were crowding her mind, slowly pushing a headache against her temples. Her breath trembled as she exhaled deeply. She clenched her hands into fists at her sides.
All the anxiety and the lies she had stuffed herself with were smothering her, and if she were to spend one more second inside that room, smiling, pretending, Celine would crack.
Her thoughts turned sharply on the first door that led outside.
“I need some fresh air,” she breathed, and before Ana?s could speak, Celine snatched her shawl from the back of her chair and slipped nimbly through a set of double doors.