Chapter 25
Days meandered along in a sunlit haze so idyllic I didn’t realize how many weeks had passed until shops began to fill their window displays with heavy wraps and mink-trimmed muffs. The air grew crisp as summer ceded to autumn.
Other tourists packed up and headed home.
We stayed, not ready to return to reality just yet.
Those weeks together were some of the happiest of my life.
I loved being Raoul’s fiancée. I loved the excitement his friends showered upon us when they learned the good news.
I loved the weight of so many sparkles upon my hand.
But most of all, I loved how happy it made Raoul.
He hummed little melodies under his breath everywhere he went.
He pulled me into impromptu waltzes, twirling me down the boardwalk with an exuberance too heady to check.
He kissed me with a new sort of ardor, tender and promising, hungry and fevered.
He was all smiles and heated glances. I’d never felt so desired, so longed for.
I wanted to bask in the sensation for the rest of my days.
Only when the horse racing season came to an end in late September did Raoul begin to make noises about returning to the city.
“I’ve let too many things pile up back home. I’m certain my lawyers are at wit’s end. They send missives from Richard and Gilles nearly every other day.” He sighed. “They’re always asking for money. More and more. I feel as if I’m bankrolling the entire renovation.”
We were in the breakfast room, enjoying a leisurely, late start to the day. Raoul had a plate of crêpes before him and was knocking back cup after cup of strong, hot coffee as quickly as he could stand it.
“Are the repairs going well?” I asked, curious.
I hadn’t heard any news of the opera since we’d arrived in Deauville.
Meg’s letters gave skimmed-over accounts of life at the Moulin Rouge and her short stint as a model for an up-and-coming painter.
She’d written long descriptions of his little garret apartment in Montmartre but had said nothing of the Populaire.
My own letters to her hadn’t been much better. Though I’d tried writing it half a dozen times, I couldn’t seem to find the right way to announce our engagement. It felt too big a thing to simply put to paper. It needed to be told in person, celebrated face to face.
Raoul took another long slurp of coffee. “Hard to say. I’ll need to schedule a site inspection the moment we get back. And there will have to be a trip to Burgundy. The harvest is soon coming to an end, and Mother would never forgive me if I miss her annual fête.”
The former vicomtesse was an endless source of fascination for me.
After his father’s death, Raoul had allowed her to remain at the ancestral home, running it as she always had.
He preferred to stay in Paris, receiving updates and visiting as time allowed.
But eventually, after the wedding, we would have to take up residence as Raoul assumed the full responsibility of his title.
“I want you to come to Chagny with me,” he said without preamble.
“Truly?” I asked, perking up.
He nodded. “This house is let till the end of the month…Why don’t we head back to Paris after, catch up on a few odds and ends, and then travel to Burgundy? I’m so eager to show you the estate. You can get a feel for its rhythms and routines, start planning out any changes you want to make.”
“Changes?” I echoed, not without a small degree of alarm.
“Of course. New wallpaper or carpets, paint or curtains, or whatever you like. It’s going to be your home now, Christine. I want you to be entirely at ease and comfortable there.”
“But…won’t your mother want to have a say in all of that? I’d hate to pick out something she doesn’t like.”
He tilted his head, staring at me quizzically.
“Christine…you will be vicomtesse. It only matters what you want. And Mother won’t be staying in the main house once we’ve moved in.
There’s a dowager cottage along the southern edge of the property.
It has everything she’ll need and a full staff.
I think it will be quite a relief for her, not having to manage such a large house. Oh, my darling, what’s the matter?”
I shook my head, unsure of how to answer, uncertain of this feeling which had wedged itself under my sternum, growing in size and pressing up, up, up with such force I feared the bone would shatter and lodge its shards into the quivering muscle of my fluttering heart.
So wrapped was I in the heady bliss of imagining our lives together I’d never stopped to consider the particulars of what those lives would really be like.
I would be vicomtesse.
It was a bewildering thought.
I hadn’t the first idea what a vicomtesse did. I truly wasn’t even sure what Raoul’s title demanded of him.
“We’ll live in Burgundy,” I said, stating the one item I felt was true.
Only…only how would that work? The journey from Paris to Chagny was not a quick one.
If I was going to return to the opera, I’d be required to be at rehearsals.
Performances. Costume fittings and diction coachings. Music lessons and—
I blinked.
It would be impossible.
Wouldn’t it?
Raoul did have the town house…Would we stay there while the opera season was on?
Such an enormous change needed to be discussed and planned out, but it felt too big to do so just now.
I wanted to remain in the soft bliss of unthinking and unreasonable love that our engagement had brought about. The real world felt too…real.
“Eventually, yes,” Raoul said carefully, as if softening a blow. “But not just yet. Not now. Though…” He shifted in his seat, looking ill at ease.
“What?”
Raoul’s face screwed up as if the conversation had veered off track and was no longer going according to plan. “We’d want to be fully settled in before any of the children came along.”
Children.
Another thing we’d not stopped to discuss, though even as the thought crossed my mind, I knew it was a foolish one. That was something which would be required of a vicomtesse, perhaps the most important of all her tasks.
Children.
A continuation of the title. A proliferation of Raoul’s upstanding name and lineage.
We hadn’t discussed it because, obviously, children were a given.
“Of course,” I murmured. What else could be said?
Yes, I love you and would do anything for you, but what about my career? Children will have to wait until I’ve sung in at least half the major European opera houses?
It was laughable.
But I didn’t feel amused.
“Of course…we have plenty of time for all that,” Raoul said, smoothing his hand over mine. “There’s no rush. I rather…I rather enjoy Paris, if I’m being honest.”
I nodded cautiously.
“But…you’ll love Burgundy, I’m certain of that,” he went on, trying to return us to the happy state we’d enjoyed before reality had begun to make itself felt. “I’m so looking forward to showing it off to you.”
Raoul’s hand on my shoulder was a warm weight, gently prodding me back to consciousness.
“Darling, you need to wake up. We’re nearly there.”
I scrunched my eyes, ready to burrow into the crook of his arm, when I suddenly remembered where we were. I sat up with a startled gasp and, with wide eyes, peered out the windows.
The carriage ride to Chagny had taken hours.
We’d left Paris in the shadows of predawn and plodded southeast, journeying through vineyards and villages so picturesque they looked manufactured, like scenery built for the stage.
The sky had been a quiet gray throughout the afternoon but now darkened with the promise of impending rain.
We traveled down a long road flanked by twisting beech trees. With most of their leaves fallen to the ground, they looked oddly ominous, like the curled fingers of an anxious woman wringing her hands in despair.
“It’s quite a lovely drive in the spring and summer,” Raoul assured me, and I wondered if he was feeling as nervous as I was.
Ever since our talk at the breakfast table, so many weeks ago, I’d felt as if my days were numbered, soon to be forever classified as the time before or after I met his mother.
I had vague memories of seeing her that summer in Deauville, always from afar, across the racetrack or reflected in the mirror of a café. She’d been a strikingly beautiful woman, with lustrous blond hair, the same shade as Raoul’s, and a delicate heart-shaped face.
“Oh!” The drive had opened before us, revealing a grand chateau.
It rose three stories high and was made of ivory-colored stone.
A surprisingly blue roof topped the manor, giving it the impression of a gentleman wearing a jauntily perched hat.
One side boasted a pointed turret, like something from a fairy tale, and the other wing had an octagonal tower, much wider, with enormous circular windows filled with intricate lead tracings.
It made the estate feel whimsically distinct. “Raoul, it’s wonderful.”
He smiled fondly at the manor, and I could so easily picture what he must have looked like as a little boy, running about the estate. Had he used the turret as a lookout while playing pirates? Did he ever swim in the large fountain out front?
All too soon, the driver pulled up alongside said fountain, and Raoul hurried out, leaving me temporarily behind.
The grand double doors opened, revealing a retinue of staff who bustled out into the cold.
They bobbed and curtsied to Raoul before shouting instructions to the coachman and unloading our trunks from the back of the carriage.
“Mother!” Raoul cried, all but racing up the wide stone steps to the woman who had only just now peeked out into the falling dark.
Though years had passed since I’d last seen her, I would have recognized Laurienne de Chagny anywhere.
She embraced Raoul, then took a step back, appraising him with a look of pride. She cupped his cheek and murmured warm words I could not hear, turning to guide him inside the house.
When he pointed back toward the carriage, back toward me, she frowned.
Part of me shriveled under her confused displeasure, and I was instantly aware of my sleep-mussed hair and my travel-tired clothing. My skirt looked as wilted as I felt. Had Raoul not told her I would be arriving with him? Had he not told her anything about me?
My engagement ring, usually such a happy weight upon my finger, now seemed like an anchor and chain, dragging me, down, down, down, to certain death. There was nothing in the way she stared at our carriage to suggest she welcomed my presence here.
Raoul returned to retrieve me, pulling open the doors and letting in a blast of chilly air that was somehow warmer than the dowager vicomtesse’s reproachful stare.
“Mother is so excited to meet you,” he said, wholly oblivious. “Come, come!”
Raoul helped me from the carriage and led me up the steps. The chateau was even more impressive as we stood before it, and it took everything in my power to not tilt my head up, looking like the slack-jawed simpleton I knew Raoul’s mother must believe me to be.
“Vicomtesse,” I said in greeting, and fell into my best and deepest curtsy.
“Dowager Vicomtesse,” she corrected, and the edge in her voice was as sharp as her angled eyebrows.
“Of course,” I said, falling into a second curtsy.
I dipped my head low, praying she’d not noticed the flush of red staining my cheeks.
“It’s an honor to meet you. Raoul has…” I paused, suddenly unsure if I should have referred to him so informally.
“He’s told me so many wonderful things about you. ”
When I dared to glance up, I found her expression wholly unreadable. “I’m so glad one of us has been well informed.”
“Oh, come now, Mother,” Raoul said, offering his elbow to speed us inside. “I wrote ages ago saying we were coming.”
“You,” she corrected. “You said you were coming.” She threw a glance over her shoulder to me. “Forgive my surprise, child. I’ll have the staff make up a room for you once we’re all settled.”
I nodded, daring to believe I’d misunderstood the situation. She didn’t dislike me; she disliked surprises. Now that she knew I’d be here for the visit and everything was settled, all would be well.
She frowned once more. “Close the door behind you. You’re letting in all the cold air.”
I hurried after them, hopes plummeting.