Finding Emilie Read online

In spite of herself, she was interested. “Maybe they just don’t want to fall in.”

  “And maybe they’re a little drunk,” he snickered. “I wonder if vapors coming up from the wine are doing that, or if they’re actually drinking from the film around the top of the glass. I wish I’d brought the microscope.”

  Lili laughed. “You can’t bring a microscope to dinner!”

  “How about tomorrow?” He lowered his voice. “I promise I won’t try to kiss you if you come to the lab.”

  Lili stared at him, so wrapped up in the problems of the day that it took a moment to understand what he was referring to. She had already looked at a fruit fly under the microscope and been horrified by its enormous eyes and tiny, clawlike feet. Now she felt nothing but sympathy for the little creatures hovering on her glass. Could they escape or would they just stay there, caught and confused between the forces that attracted and repelled them, until they fell in and drowned, or perhaps flew out and survived a little longer?

  “I’m the one who should be upset!” Jacques-Mars’s angry whisper brought her back.

  “Monsieur Courville,” Delphine said, pulling herself up in her seat. “I can only wish that if I have the misfortune to meet you again, I will at least have the pleasure of being able to see the scar I hope I’ve left you with.” Her smile and lilting tone were at odds with the words spoken under her breath, as if she were daring him to be the one who called the guests’ attention to their argument.

  She caught Lili’s eye and her own flashed with triumph before she turned to speak to Anne-Mathilde across the table. “You’re so far away I can scarcely hear what you’re talking about, but Joséphine seems so amused I’m sure I’d like to know!”

  Temporarily taken aback, Anne-Mathilde looked to her left to exchange a glance with Joséphine, ignoring the dazed expression of the hapless male guest with the bad luck to be seated between them. Recovering, she let out a shrill laugh. “We were just discussing taking another visit to the grotto. I’m so sorry to have missed it, with my wretched headache.”

  Delphine’s face flushed momentarily. “Yes, it’s quite enchanting—don’t you agree, Jacques-Mars?” she replied, turning to him. “Just meant for an afternoon with friends.”

  Jacques-Mars turned away from Delphine and glowered across the table at Anne-Mathilde.

  “Is there something wrong?” Lili turned to ask him, in a voice as rich and sweet as syrup.

  “Not at all,” he said. His brow rose. “If you’d like we can take a carriage there tomorrow. I can show you what Delphine means.”

  Lili fought down the urge to slap him. Pretend nothing is wrong, she told herself. “That sounds quite pleasant,” she said.

  “Really!” Jacques-Mars drew out the word in pleased disbelief, as he darted his eyes at her bodice again. “So Delphine didn’t—”

  “Didn’t what?” Lili raised her voice in mock puzzlement. I’ll plead sick every day to avoid having to spend one minute alone with him. I’ll make my heart give out and die before I let him come near me.

  Jacques-Mars’s nostrils flared almost imperceptibly. “Didn’t tell you how very charming I find you,” he said, giving her a calculated stare. “I shall pursue you until you make good on what I insist is a promise to come to the grotto with me.” The coldness of his eyes and the turn of his lip belied his attempt to make it sound like a simple flirtation.

  Lili picked up her wineglass as a means to look away, gently blowing a fly off the rim before taking a sip. Mon Dieu, she thought as her own invisible storm whirled.

  “Lili.” Delphine leaned forward to look around Jacques-Mars. “The Comte de Beaufort has just told me the most remarkable story about the château.” She looked back at the man seated next to her. “Do tell Lili yourself,” she asked. “I’m sure I can’t do it justice.”

  Honoré de Beaufort cleared his throat and coughed into his handkerchief, examining its contents before looking down the table at Lili. “I told mademoiselle,” he said, with the precise but stuffy articulation of someone certain that no one appreciates the great significance of his words, “that Vaux-le-Vicomte so incensed Louis the Fourteenth that he had the man who built it imprisoned for having a grander home than his own. Died in prison, in disgrace, I’m afraid. Of course the king claimed to have other grounds for what he did. He said that Monsieur Fouquet had used his position as the king’s treasurer to embezzle money, and that’s how he could afford to build the château.”

  Jacques-Mars sniffed. “He’s the king, after all. Kings do whatever they like. Anyone would do the same, if he had the power.”

  “Tell me, had he embezzled the money?” Lili asked.

  “Who knows?” Beaufort laughed.

  “You must admit, Monsieur de Beaufort,” Jacques-Mars broke in, “that even though the king had the power to do what he did, Fouquet deserved better treatment. If not, what’s the point of loyalty?”

  “The point of loyalty to the king?” Beaufort’s voice rose, and he pulled himself up in his chair. “There doesn’t need to be a point to it. Or are you one of those—”

  “Oh, honestly,” Anne-Mathilde said across the table, cutting them off. “We can hear you discussing politics, and that’s so unpleasant over dinner.” She stuck out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout. “What a great disappointment you are, Jacques-Mars,” she said. “I thought we could count on you to be fun. And you, Delphine,” she added, with a smirk. “Can’t you control him?”

  “I’ll just say one thing more,” Jacques-Mars said. “It doesn’t really matter what should be, only what is. I’d wager that people living on the docks of the Seine have their own neighborhood kings and knaves. One knows one’s place. One should guard against angering those with more power, because they will get revenge whenever it suits them and whether anyone else thinks it’s fair or not. This is true whether they’re a carriage driver or a king—don’t you agree?” Though he addressed the question to Beaufort, his eyes rested on Delphine, before he turned the same cold stare on Lili.

  If Beaufort replied, Lili didn’t hear it. Jacques-Mars is trying to scare me, she thought. And I’m not going to let him. Still, more than an hour later, Lili had scarcely eaten a bite.

  AFTER DINNER MAMAN escorted the two girls across the black-and-white marble foyer toward the Chambre des Muses and its adjoining game room. “We’ll stay for half an hour or so, just to be polite to the duke and duchess,” she said, as they entered a high-ceilinged parlor glittering with gilded mirrors. “Then we’ll plead exhaustion and go to our rooms.”

  As Lili entered the Chambre des Muses, Paul-Vincent saw her from inside the doorway of the game room just beyond. “I’ve saved the trictrac table for us!” he called out. Lili groaned, but Julie gave her a nudge. “Go. It will be better than having to make conversation.”

  The Cabinet des Jeux was in one corner of the ground floor of the house, facing out onto the moat and a grassy slope beyond. Though it was quite small, light flooded through its many windows, making it one of Lili’s favorite places to come to read in the quiet of the morning. Now, however, she was too miserable to notice its charms. She sat down at a delicately carved wood table whose lacquered game board was inlaid with alternating chevrons and pocked with tiny holes for the pegs that kept the score. Within half an hour, Paul-Vincent was doing his best to make light of how hopelessly he was losing.

  Jacques-Mars had been conversing with the Duchesse de Praslin in the Chambre des Muses, but now he came to the doorway of the Cabinet des Jeux and leaned over Paul-Vincent. What he said was too soft for Lili to overhear, but Paul-Vincent got up with a shrug. “Apparently I’m needed elsewhere,” he said, as Jacques-Mars took his seat.

  “If Paul-Vincent doesn’t want to play anymore, I’d prefer to stop,” Lili said, stacking her markers.

  Jacques-Mars reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “Just one match,” he said. “If you win, I’ll do whatever you ask. I’ll even let you out of your promise to go to the grotto with me.
”

  Lili thought for a moment. “One match,” she said, without a hint of a smile.

  They stacked the ivory and ebony disks in their respective corners of the board. “Three and two,” Lili said, moving two disks to the proper arrow marks on the board.

  Jacques-Mars shook the dice cup and threw. “Six and five,” he said, moving his own markers. Turn after turn, they moved their pieces around the board, but after only fifteen minutes, Lili stood up.

  “I believe I’ve won the match,” she announced.

  Jacques-Mars looked at her. “The game?”

  “No, the match. You forgot to call your last score, so it goes to me, par puissance,” she said. “Then, six points each for hitting each of five points in your petit jan, and eight points each for hitting each of five points in your grand jan, six points for hitting your coin de repos, and six points for filling the grand jan by doubles.” She sat back down. “Take your time,” she said, “but that’s eighty-two total points, and since we already have fifteen apiece, I don’t see how you are going to get to a hundred and forty-four before I do.” She shrugged. “And I see no reason to sit here waiting for you to lose.”

  A murmur rose up in the Chambre des Muses, as word spread that Lili had just gotten the highest score anyone had heard of in a single trictrac move, and that the points had been defaulted to her by an inattentive opponent.

  “Go back to school, young man,” Honoré de Beaufort roared, “and don’t tell anyone a young lady thrashed you so soundly.”

  Jacques-Mars’s face flushed purple. He swiped all the game pieces to the floor and got up so abruptly that Lili had to steady the delicate table to keep it from toppling over. “Wait a minute,” Lili said, watching his shoulder slam into the narrow doorjamb as he left the room. “I want to claim my prize.”

  Jacques-Mars whirled around and stared at her.

  “You said you would do whatever I asked,” Lili said. “I want you to take off that bandage. Let’s see what hurt you.”

  He took a step back in surprise. “I can’t,” he said, turning hooded eyes toward Delphine. “It’s far too unsightly for the ladies.” He cast his eyes around the now-silent parlor. Everyone was frozen in place, watching.

  Julie stood just inside the door. Her hand tightened on Lili’s shoulder so severely that she cried out. “We’re leaving,” Julie hissed. “Now.”

  Lili whirled around to look at her. “But—”

  Her words died when she saw the look of horror on Maman’s face. She got up and followed her into the foyer, on a path cleared by guests whose puzzled faces she was too bewildered to notice.

  “WHY DID YOU do that?” Julie spun around to face Lili when they were safely back in her dressing room. The mottling of her cheeks was visible even under her makeup, and her voice was hoarse with fury.

  “I wanted to expose Jacques-Mars,” Lili wailed, terrified at seeing Maman so angry. “I hate him. I wanted people to know what he’d done.”

  “And who would have paid the price for that?” Julie demanded.

  Dumbstruck, Lili recalled what Jacques-Mars had said. It doesn’t really matter what should be, only what is. Those with more power will get revenge whenever it suits them and whether anyone else thinks it’s fair or not. Suddenly she pictured the scene in the Chambres des Muses a completely different way, and putting her hand to her mouth, she turned to Delphine. “Mon Dieu! I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” Delphine asked. “Then everyone would know what he—” Her eyes grew wide. “Mon Dieu” she whispered. “Everyone would know.”

  “You girls know less than you think about the world,” Julie said, her voice beginning to calm. “And I suppose I’m largely to blame for that, protecting you the way I have. But now you know there are people who make a game of other people’s lives, and—sad to say—some of them are very good at it.”

  She sniffed with contempt. “You’ll find people like Anne-Mathilde de Praslin and Jacques-Mars Courville have a great deal of company at court, and”—she shook her finger at them for emphasis—“you are going to have to be far more careful whom you trust. You’ll end up wishing you’d never started any kind of game with people like them, because they’ll choose the way it ends, not you.”

  “So if someone says, ‘Let’s go riding,’ I shouldn’t go?” Delphine asked.

  “Consider who’s asking. You already didn’t like Anne-Mathilde—for good reason, I might add. And I think it is best to assume that some young men will take whatever they can get young ladies to part with.” She looked at Lili. “And that includes very young men too.”

  Lili felt her face grow hot, but if Julie noticed, she said nothing.

  “I think that being a widow with young daughters doesn’t help matters,” Julie went on. “I doubt this would have happened if Jacques-Mars knew there would be an irate father to contend with.”

  What about my own father? Lili wondered. For a moment she pictured an older man striding into a room. “Who has compromised my daughter’s honor?” he would say to the astonished crowd. Lili brushed the idea aside, because she had no idea what he looked like, and it hurt less not to think of him at all.

  Maman turned her back. “Help me out of my dress,” she said. “The corset hook is over there on the table.”

  Delphine worked on the dress in silence while Lili watched, relieved that Maman seemed her usual self again. “That’s better,” Julie sighed, as the stays loosened and her skin broke free. “And I don’t blame either of you for being furious enough at Jacques-Mars to want to harm him, but take my advice—” She slipped off the bodice of her dress, and after laying it on a chair, she stood before them, her voluptuous curves visible beneath her chemise. “Women make perilous friends, since some of the most intelligent ones find their best outlet is intrigue,” she said, slipping on a dressing gown. “And men have their own risks. They have strong drives you may not yet fully appreciate.”

  Lili and Delphine exchanged glances. Eradice’s buttocks. The man disappearing inside her. The wild looks on their faces. Julie noticed and arched her eyebrows. “Perhaps you know a little more about this than I realize?”

  Lili shifted her feet. “A little, Maman.”

  “Well.” She smiled in amusement, watching the two girls squirm. “That will have to be a conversation for another time. You’re going to need men as you go through life, and you’ll have to use charm to get their services, and even more to keep them. Part of that charm lies in not forgetting that even the mildest of men has that rather strange-looking thing between his legs that you apparently know more about than can be gleaned from statues of naked gods in fountains.” She arched her eyebrows and looked at each of them in turn. “His fondest wish is that you will let him use it, regardless of how he tries to make it seem otherwise, and your charm lies largely in keeping those wishes alive but unfulfilled.”

  She gave Delphine a tender smile. “You, my darling, have perhaps a bit too much natural flirtatiousness for your own good,” she said. “And you, precious Lili, must care about having a little more. But more than anything else, you both must value the absolute treasure you have in each other.”

  Delphine found Lili’s hand and laced her fingers through it. Julie noticed and smiled. “Emilie and I had a bit of what you have, but I was enough younger—and so much in awe of her—that we could never be equals. But you two are going though life as sisters. Almost twins, since you’re the same age. You must promise me that you will always protect each other—hopefully more wisely than Lili tried to do today, but with no less passion.”

  “Oui, Maman,” they both said, turning to look at each other. The girl with the pushed-up breasts, still tightly contained in her corset, wearing a wig now comically askew, was in some ways the same Delphine Lili had always known, but in others a stranger she might never understand again. But that didn’t matter. The world seemed suddenly full of bad things that might happen, and all Lili knew was that she loved Delphine fiercely.

  “Ou
i, Maman,” Lili repeated, not sure exactly what such promises might entail.

  “Oui, Maman,” Delphine murmured in return.

  THE OCTOBER breeze picked up the red and amber leaves and sent them dancing in gentle swirls across the grass of the Luxembourg Gardens. Voltaire shivered in his light frock coat. “Not long now, until we’re forced indoors,” he said.

  “My dear, Monsieur Voltaire,” Emilie chided. “I haven’t noticed you fretting about being indoors if it’s in bed.” She reached over to stroke his cheek.

  Voltaire looked around. “You should be more careful, Emilie. You’re a married woman—and a mother!”

  “God gave me a soul that cannot hide or control its passions. That’s my excuse—I’ve told you so already.” She reached up to stroke his cheek again, turning her face to his and parting her lips just enough to reveal the tip of her tongue. “And it took you, my love, to make me feel so hopelessly—and helplessly—myself.”

  “But still—”

  “Quiet! If you become any more tiresome, I will kiss you right here, in front of everyone.” She stopped and turned to him, stamping her foot in a teasing ultimatum.

  “And if you don’t behave”—Voltaire mocked her gesture with his own stamp of the foot—“I will force you to listen to another little verse I have written for you.”

  “Oh!” Emilie clapped her gloved hands. “Please!”

  Voltaire unfolded a single sheet of paper and cleared his throat.

  “Why did you come to me so late?

  What was my life before?

  I searched for love but found only illusions,

  Only the barest shadow of what has been our joy.

  You are pure delight,

  Absolute tenderness.

  What pleasure it is to be in your arms.”

  Voltaire refolded the paper and put it back in his jacket. “You must swear an oath you’ll never tell anyone I write such doggerel.” He patted his pocket. “And just to be sure, I’ll burn the evidence as soon as—”

  Her lips caught his before he could finish. She kissed him deeply, and after briefly pulling away, she kissed him again, teasing his lips apart and exploring with her tongue. “Umm,” she said, putting her hands on the back of his pants and pressing his hips to hers.