Page 24 of Two Wars and a Wedding

Yes, Monsieur de Robecourt was a good bit older than she was, at least forty to her twenty-two, but what did that matter? Her father had been nearly fifty when he’d married her mother.

“That is . . . surprising.” In response to an annoyed exclamation in Greek from her dressmaker, Aikaterini obediently turned so her back was to Betsy before adding, “I’ve never known Charles to take an interest in nursery parties.”

“We’re all of us adults,” said Betsy indignantly. “He came with us to Tiryns too, and Mycenae.”

Aikaterini looked sharply back over her shoulder. “He didn’t mention that.”

Betsy could feel herself flushing slightly. “Well, you know, the scholars of the different schools do tend to go about together. . . . But I was a bit surprised he should want to come with us. He must have seen Mycenae a dozen times.”

“More than that.” Cognizant of the pointed tugs on her hem, Aikaterini turned back around, standing very still. To the wall at the back of the room, she said, “He’s married, you know.”

“He’s . . . what?” Betsy gaped at Aikaterini’s back.

“Married,” repeated Aikaterini. “And has been for some time.”

There had to be some mistake. The way he looked at her. The way he spoke to her. She’d thought he was about to kiss her at Tiryns. Even Ethel had noticed.

“He never mentioned a wife.”

“I don’t imagine he did,” said Aikaterini drily. “But he has one all the same.”

Betsy drew her knees up to her chest, feeling like an idiot. No wonder Aikaterini had called them a nursery party. He’d been being urbane and she—she’d been fancying herself in love. Had she been very obvious about it? Betsy desperately hoped not.

“I ought to have realized he was married.” Betsy pressed her forehead against her knees. “I should have known a man of his age . . . It would be strange if he weren’t.”

“Strange but not impossible.”

Betsy wished Aikaterini would stop being so nice about it. It made it worse. It would be easier if Aikaterini would just mock her as she deserved for thinking a man like Monsieur de Robecourt would pay court to a scrappy thing like her. Alex’s wife, Lavinia, was adamant that no man ever would. Too educated, too opinionated.

“It never occurred to me. . . . My father didn’t marry until late. But that’s different. He was so unworldly everyone wondered he managed to marry at all. But Monsieur de Robecourt—he doesn’t seem like that.”

“No,” said Aikaterini, “he’s not. Charles can be . . . very compelling.”

There was something in her voice that made Betsy lift her head from her knees and squint up at her, but Aikaterini still had her back turned to Betsy. Aikaterini switched to Greek and said something to the seamstress, who sat back on her heels to listen and then started doing something with the fabric just above Aikaterini’s left hip.

Betsy had wondered, sometimes, if there might be something between Monsieur de Robecourt and Aikaterini, if Aikaterini’s was the heart he’d followed to Greece.

But Aikaterini, for all her laughing sophistication, seemed genuinely devoted to her dour Scottish husband. Betsy didn’t understand Aikaterini’s marriage at all. They were such very different people and, from what she could see, led entirely separate lives. John MacHugh was taciturn to the point of grim, a former doctor who now confined his doctoring to the servants and spent most of his time running Aikaterini’s family’s shipping business. He appeared periodically at supper, but almost never for the fashionable teas, salons, and balls to which Aikaterini was escorted by a never-ending crowd of admirers. Betsy had seldom seen them exchange more than a few words. But perhaps it was different when they were together, on their own.

What did she know, anyway? She didn’t have much of a model for marriage. Her mother had died when she was two, and her father had shown no inclination toward remarriage. As for her brother, Alex, and his wife, Lavinia, they were hardly an advertisement for modern matrimony. Betsy had no doubt they were well-pleased with their situation and with each other, but she had no desire to sit on charitable committees while her husband puffed out his chest and basked in his own importance.

And then there was Monsieur de Robecourt. What was his marriage like that he left his bride in Paris while he spent the year in Athens? Did they exchange long letters across the divide? Sonnets and words of love? Long musings on the intricacies of classical civilization?

“Have you met her?” It was like poking at a sore tooth. Betsy knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t quite seem to help herself. “Madame de Robecourt?”

Aikaterini glanced back over her shoulder. “I’ve met the baroness.”

“What is she like?”

“Very comme il faut.” As her dressmaker made swishing motions, indicating she could turn back toward Betsy, Aikaterini abandoned her attempt to be diplomatic. “She’s a frightful snob. She knows all the orders of precedence and will freeze you with offended dignity should you accidentally offer a deeper seat to someone of inferior rank.”

“A deeper seat?”

“Oh, there are rules, you know, about who gets which sort of chair based on the purity of the blood.” Aikaterini looked back over her shoulder at Betsy, her dark eyes dancing with amusement. “One wouldn’t want to offer an armchair to anyone but a prince of the blood. A stool will do for the minor gentry. As for the merchant class, one might as well let them stand if one has to let them in at all.”

Betsy’s grandfather had made his fortune by importing expensive carpets and manufacturing cheap ones. She could still remember the mills in Yonkers, the bustle and smell of them, before her grandfather’s death had freed her father to sell the lot, keeping only the import end of the business, and move to Boston.

But they had never belonged to old Boston, any more than she belonged to old Europe. She was, when it came down to it, an upstart carpet heiress from Yonkers. She had industry seeping through the pores of her skin. The baroness would probably wrinkle her nose at the stench of it.