* *
It wasn’t long after that she and Fenella had changed, dressed, kissed a drowsy Sophie goodnight and were stepping out into the dimly lit streets of Paris.
Paris! She was really in Paris. Nothing could tell the world more clearly that she was her own woman. That she was ready to try new things and make her own choices in life. That she’d paid for the follies of her youth. And wasn’t going to carry on living a cloistered existence, as though she was ashamed of herself. For she wasn’t. She’d done nothing to be ashamed of.
Of course, she was not so keen to start becoming her own woman that she was going to abandon all her late Aunt Georgie’s precepts. Not the ones that were practical at any rate. For her foray to the bargain of a restaurant that was Le Caveau, she wore the kind of plain, sensible outfit she would have donned for a visit to her bankers in the City. Monsieur Le Brun had just, but only just, repressed a shudder when he’d seen her emerge from her room. It was the same look she would have expected a member of the ton, in London, to send her way.
Provincial, they would think, writing her off as a nobody because her bonnet was at least three years behind the current fashion.
But it was far better for people to underestimate and overlook you, than to think you were a pigeon for the plucking. If she’d set out for the Continent in a coach and four, trailing wagonloads of servants and luggage, and made an enormous fuss at whatever inn they’d stopped at, she might as well have hung a placard round her neck, announcing ‘Wealthy woman! Come and rob me!’
As it was, they’d had to put up with a certain amount of rudeness and inconvenience on occasion, but nobody had thought them worth the bother of robbing.
And there was another advantage, she soon discovered, to not being dressed in fine silks. ‘I can’t believe how muddy it is everywhere,’ she grumbled, lifting her skirts to try to keep them free from dirt. ‘This is like wading down some country lane that leads to a pig farm.’
‘I suggested to you that it would be the mode to hire a chair for your conveyance to the Palais Royale,’ Monsieur Le Brun snapped back, whiplash smart.
‘Oh, we couldn’t possibly have done that,’ said Fenella, at her most conciliatory. ‘We are not grand ladies. We would both have felt most peculiar being carried through the streets like—’
‘Parcels,’ put in Amethyst. ‘Lugged around by some hulking great porters.’
‘Besides,’ said Fenella hastily,’ we can see so much more of your beautiful city, monsieur, if we walk through it, than we could by peeping through the curtains of some sort of carriage. And feel so much more a part of it.’
‘That is certainly true. The mud certainly looks set to form a lasting part of my skirts,’ observed Amethyst.
But then they stepped through an archway, into an immense, brilliantly lit gravelled square, and whatever derogatory comment she might have made next dried on her lips.
And Monsieur Le Brun smirked in satisfaction as both ladies gaped at the spectacle spread before them.
The Palais Royale was like nowhere she had ever seen before. And it was not just the sight of the tiers of so many brightly lit windows that made her blink, but the crowds of people, all intent on enjoying themselves to the full. To judge from the variety of costumes, they had come from every corner of the globe.
‘This way,’ said Monsieur Le Brun, taking her firmly by the elbow when she slowed down to peer into one of the brightly lit windows of an establishment in a basement. ‘That place is not suitable for ladies such as yourselves.’
Indeed, from the brief glimpse she’d got of all the military uniforms, and the rather free behaviour of the females in their company, she’d already gathered that for herself.
However, for once, she did not shake Monsieur Le Brun’s hand away. It was all rather more...boisterous than she’d imagined. She’d found travelling to London, to consult with her bankers and men of business after her aunt’s death, somewhat daunting, so bustling and noisy was the metropolis in comparison with the sleepy tranquillity of Stanton Basset. But the sheer vivacity of Paris at night was on a different scale altogether.
It was with relief that she passed through the doors of another eatery, which was quickly overtaken by amazement. Even though Monsieur Le Brun had told her this place was economical, it far surpassed her expectations. She had glanced through the grimy windows of chop houses when she’d been in London and had assumed a cheap restaurant in Paris, which admitted members of the public, would resemble one of those. Instead, her eyes were assailed by mirrors and columns, and niches with statues, tables set with glittering cutlery and crystal, diners dressed in fabulous colours and waiters bustling around attentively.
And the food, which she’d half-suspected would be of the same quality she’d endured in the various coaching inns where they’d stayed, was as good as anything she might have tasted when invited to dine with the best families in the county.
But what really made her evening, was to see that the whole enterprise was run by a woman. She sat in state by the door, assigning customers to tables suited to the size of their party, taking their money and tallying it all up in a massive ledger, spread before her on a great granite-topped table.
And nobody seemed to think there was anything untoward about this.
* * *
They had just taken receipt of their dessert when a man, entering alone, inspired a grimace of distaste from Monsieur Le Brun. Her gaze followed the direction of his to see who could have roused his displeasure and she froze, her spoon halfway to her mouth.
Nathan Harcourt.
The disgraced Nathan Harcourt.
Her face went hot while her stomach turned cold, curdling all the fine food inside it to a churning mass of bile.
And the question that had haunted her for years almost forced its way through her clenched teeth in a despairing scream. How could you do that to me, Nathan? How could you?
She wanted to get up, march across the restaurant and soundly slap the cheeks that the proprietress was enthusiastically kissing. Though it was far too late now. She should have done it the night he’d cut her dead, after making a point of dancing with just about every other girl in the ballroom. The night he’d started to break her heart.
He hadn’t changed a bit when it came to spreading his favours about, she noted. The proprietress, who’d merely given them a regal nod when they’d come in, was clasping him to her bosom with such enthusiasm it was a wonder he didn’t disappear into those ample mounds and suffocate.
Which would serve him right.
‘That man,’ said Monsieur Le Brun at his most prune-faced, watching the direction of her affronted gaze, ‘should not be permitted in here at all. But it is as you see. He is in favour with madame, so the customers are subjected to his impertinence. It is regrettable, but not an insurmountable problem. I shall not permit him to disturb you.’
It was too late for that. His arrival had already disturbed her—though Monsieur Le Brun’s words had also roused her curiosity.
‘What do you mean—subjecting the customers to his impertinence?’
‘He does portraits,’ said Monsieur Le
