Authors: Melanie Clegg
Tags: #England/Great Britain, #France, #18th Century, #Fiction - Historical
She’d sat at her dressing table the next morning, staring tearfully at her face and hardly able to find the energy to put on her rouge and call for her maid to dress her. She couldn’t believe what had happened, what Charles had done to her. In fact, even months later she still felt disbelief as she wincingly recalled the events of that terrible night.
A well aimed swipe by Georges brought her back to the present and she fixed a bright smile to her face as she walked back to the others, humming as she bounced him on her hip. ‘Where’s Phoebe?’ she called. ‘I thought she was coming to meet us today.’
Eliza shook her head. ‘Perhaps later on,’ she replied. ‘She’s meeting someone.’
‘The fearsome Lucien?’ Venetia asked, raising a pencilled eyebrow. ‘Have you met him, Eliza? He hates all of us with a passion. How typical it is of Phoebe to fall for a bloodthirsty revolutionary.’
‘Typical indeed,’ Eliza remarked grimly, pulling her cashmere shawl closer. ‘Phoebe was always keen to be on the winning side.’
Venetia laughed. ‘Oh, I think she really likes this one,’ she said. ‘He does very little to encourage her, of course but she refuses to be put off by his taciturn manner and glowering looks.’
‘Gracious, is he that bad?’ Clementine exclaimed, still holding Georges on her lap. ‘He sounds terrifying.’
Venetia grinned. ‘He’s worse than you could imagine. Phoebe is doing her best to convert him though and reports that his views are softening somewhat with time.’ She elbowed the younger girl. ‘In fact, you can see for yourself as she appears to have brought him with her.’
They all watched curiously as Phoebe walked jauntily towards them down the shop lined arcade with her arm proudly linked through that of Lucien Delorme. As they watched, he bent his head down to listen to something she said then shook back his long dark hair as he laughed.
‘Goodness, how handsome he is,’ Eliza remarked. ‘He could do with a good valet though. Do these revolutionaries really need to look so untidy? You’d think that some of them had never heard of soap and water.’
Clementine was fascinated though as she watched the young revolutionary walk towards them in his dusty black coat and flamboyant
tricolor
striped waistcoat. The sun caught the gold hooped earrings that swung from his ears above his deep muslin cravat and for a brief, heart stopping moment she was reminded of Antoine as they’d strolled along the Loire that precious day at Mon Clos.
Despite his fearsome reputation, Citizen Delorme was clearly keen to please Phoebe and bowed very civilly as she introduced him to them. For their part, they regarded him with great curiosity and even managed to smile politely when he addressed them with the revolutionary ‘Citizeness’ rather than ‘Madame’.
Phoebe beamed with delight at his side, looking wonderful in a tight bodiced gown of striped
tricolor
silk with a wide muslin
fichu
arranged around her shoulders and a red fine cashmere shawl trailing from her elbows. She’d had her dark hair arranged that morning
by one of the most fashionable Parisian hairdressers and it hung down her back in silky rose scented
ringlets. Around her neck there hung Mr Garland’s cameo necklace, which she wore constantly.
‘How charming you look,’ Venetia remarked to her friend with a smile. ‘Paris suits you, my dear.’
Phoebe grinned and did a little twirl, swishing her full skirts around her. ‘Do you really think so?’ She looked up at Lucien from beneath her long dark lashes. ‘I must admit that I am very unwilling to leave when the time comes. ‘
‘Then stay,’ Lucien said, lifting her hand and very deliberately kissing the inside of her wrist.
Phoebe laughed and snatched her hand away with a flirtatious look. ‘We’ll see.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The lovely classical arcades of the Palais Royal, so serene and elegant during the day were transformed at dusk into a torch and coloured Chinese lantern lit wonderland of pleasure and vice. The dozens of restaurants and cafes that lined the gardens were lit up by hundreds of candles and filled with revellers who drank champagne and sang rowdy songs until the early hours of the morning, before either wending a weary way home, champagne bottle in hand or visiting a favourite girl in one of the brothels that also inhabited the palace.
Clementine had never been to the Palais Royal at night before and pulled her pale blue velvet cloak close over her primrose yellow silk and gauze gown as she peered tremulously into the cafe windows, avoiding the admiring eyes of overly friendly young gentlemen. Ahead of her, Eliza confidently strolled with Venetia and Phoebe on either side - it was the first time she had been here since having her baby and she was keen to enjoy herself as much as possible. The three of them were wearing elaborate spangled and sequinned brightly coloured silk gowns that made Clementine’s dress, that had looked so pretty when she had first put it on look childish in comparison.
Venetia looked back over her shoulder at Clementine and seeing that she was looking alone and forlorn dropped back and took her arm with a smile. ‘This isn’t really your idea of fun, is it?’ she said with a wink as they were hailed by two particularly amorous young men who waved their bottles of champagne at them and made kissy faces.
Clementine shook her head. ‘Not really and, to be honest, I almost didn’t come but I just couldn’t bear the thought of another evening at the Hôtel de Coulanges.’ She longed to say more but stopped there, still unable to find the words to explain what had happened.
Venetia stared at her in astonishment. ‘Are matters really so bad?’ she asked with much sympathy. ‘I thought you were happy together.’
‘We were, at first.’
Venetia sighed. ‘Ah, I know what that is like,’ she said, squeezing the younger girl’s arm. ‘Have you thought about going home to London for a while? I long to go back, just for a few weeks, but the expense...’ She gave a tiny shrug. ‘That isn’t a problem for you though.’
Clementine shook her head. ‘No, the money isn’t a problem but can you imagine my mother’s rage should I turn up on her doorstep again?’
‘Perhaps she would like to show you off to London society?’ Venetia suggested hopefully as Phoebe and Eliza led them into a crowded, dimly lit restaurant. ‘You are Madame la Duchesse nowadays after all - she must be longing to drag you around all the very best ballrooms of Mayfair so that the English aristos can bow and scrape in front of you.’ She grinned.
Clementine laughed as she sat down at the table. ‘You make it sound so enticing. How could I possibly resist being part of such a spectacle?’
She sat quietly and watched the other girls as they drank champagne, tipped fresh oysters down their white throats and roared with laughter at the sallies of a trio of tipsy, sandy haired rich boys sitting at the next table. Eliza laughed the loudest of all, delighted and relieved to be out and having fun again. ‘Not that I don’t love my family,’ she leaned across to whisper to Venetia at one point, ‘but oh, my dear, how stifled I feel at times.’
‘I know,’ Venetia whispered back, reaching over to squeeze her friend’s hand. ‘I know. I wish I could say that it passes, but it doesn’t. Not really.’
After the restaurant, they moved on to a café, where long haired, untidily dressed young radicals drank wine from bottles and shouted earnestly across the chipped and stained tables at each other. Phoebe, of course, was in her element and soon found herself in the midst of a very heated discussion about the suppression of religious houses, while the other girls sipped wine at a corner table and kept a wary eye on her.
‘I don’t understand what our dear Phoebe finds so fascinating about such men,’ Eliza whispered a little sourly. ‘She can’t possibly be planning to marry one, can she?’
Clementine bristled. ‘Why shouldn’t she?’ she asked, a little too loudly. ‘After all, times are changing, Eliza.’
Her sister shook her head. ‘I think that this so called Revolution is just a storm in a teacup,’ she said. ‘They’ll soon tire of all this hotheaded nonsense and juvenile shouting about rights and then everything will go back the way it was before.’
‘As long as we don’t have to go back to Versailles...’ Venetia interposed with a dramatic shudder. ‘The court should have moved back to Paris years ago.’
Eliza looked at her friend. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand,’ she said with a sad shake of her head. ‘You’ve never had a proper respect for tradition or the grandeur of the Choiseul-Clermont name, have you?’
‘Tradition? Grandeur?’ Venetia stared at her then burst out laughing. ‘Oh dear, you really have convinced yourself that you are to the manor born, haven’t you? Dare I remind you that you were once Miss Eliza Garland of Highbury Place?’ She shook her head. ‘You can pontificate as much as you like about the family name and tradition, but
they
will never
ever
forget who and what you really are.’
Eliza flushed. ‘I haven’t got above myself, if that is what you mean,’ she replied stiffly.
‘And I don’t need
you
to remind me where I come from.’
‘Stop it.’ Clementine clumsily stood up and shoved back her chair. ‘Please, just stop it. We all agreed once that we could only make a success of being in France if we all worked together and now look at us.’ She picked up her fan and cloak. ‘I wish that we had never come to Paris.’
Venetia reached out and took her hand. ‘Do you really wish that, Clementine?’ she asked with a searching look. ‘It’s not too late, you know. Once you’ve had a son, perhaps the Duc will look the other way...’
Clementine pulled her hand away. ‘I am not like that, Venetia. I don’t condemn you for what you do with Eugène but that way of life, that path is not for me.’
Venetia shrugged, not at all insulted. ‘As you wish.’ She sighed. ‘But don’t go now. You never go out any more and said yourself that you don’t want to spend the evening at home. We promise to talk about something different if you will only stay.’
‘Don’t be such a fool, Clementine’ Eliza snapped, slamming down her glass of wine. ‘When will you stop behaving like a petulant child?’
Clementine stared at her sister. They’d never been close but now it felt like a vast and yawning ocean lay between them. It had briefly occurred to her to confide in her sister about her marriage but she saw now that it was impossible as Eliza would never be able to comprehend her feelings. ‘I’m not a fool,’ she said quietly. ‘Not everyone shares your delight in the grandeur of old family names and bowing and scraping at Versailles.’
‘I see that this hasn’t prevented you from taking a post at the Tuileries,’ Eliza pointed out, not quite hiding her jealousy that her younger sister still had a position at court, whereas she had yet to attain one.
Clementine shrugged. ‘I did so to please my husband,’ she replied. ‘I can assure you that it was not for my own benefit! Have you been to the Tuileries lately? It’s nothing but a gilded prison and none of us take any pleasure in being there.’
‘If you say so,’ Eliza retorted, turning her face away to signify that the conversation was at an end.
They left the café shortly after that, prising a pink cheeked Phoebe unwillingly away from her circle of admirers. ‘What would Lucien say?’ Venetia whispered to her as she pouted and said goodbye to them.
Phoebe laughed. ‘He wouldn’t care. We don’t own each other, you know!’ She took Venetia’s arm as they walked along the busy lantern lit arcade to Madame de Saint-Amaranthe’s famous gambling club,
Cinquante.
‘How lucky we are to live in the most beautiful city in the world at such an exciting time,’ she exclaimed. ‘Perhaps I will marry Lucien after all...’
Venetia stopped dead and stared at her in surprise. ‘Has he asked you to marry him?’
Phoebe grinned. ‘Maybe.’ They swept into the lavishly appointed mirrored entrance hall to
Cinquante
, where a liveried footman, an echo of a rapidly vanishing era, was waiting to take their cloaks and then escort them to the gaming tables in a dimly lit
salon
upstairs. The play was presided over by Madame de Saint-Amaranthe herself, a beautiful if rather too highly rouged blonde with a low lisping voice and a husky laugh. She and Venetia were old friends and they smiled and waved to each other across the room as the latter settled herself down at a table and pulled out a velvet purse with an air of optimistic determination.
‘Is madame’s daughter, Emilie here?’ Phoebe leaned down to whisper. ‘I’ve heard that she is the most beautiful girl in all Paris and am agog to see her for myself.’
‘She is by the window,’ Venetia whispered back with a vague wave of her hand towards a frankly gorgeous redheaded girl in shimmering pink silk. ‘It’s not fair is it?’
Phoebe stared at Emilie de Saint-Amaranthe in amazement. ‘Is she betrothed?’ she asked. ‘I hope so, for all our sakes. No wonder Lucien keeps talking about her.’
Venetia laughed. ‘I think that every man in Paris is obsessed with Mademoiselle Emilie at the moment,’ she replied. ‘I’m sure it won’t be long before she is married off to the highest bidder - especially now that her fond
maman
is putting it about that she was fathered by the Prince de Condé...’