Page 49 of Chateau Reverie

‘No,’ she says. ‘I. . . It makes it difficult. It makes it all more difficult.’

He stares at her, and another firework goes off, casting red and gold across them. Genevieve does not look up to see it, and neither does he.

He knows. He has known since the bridge. He has known since he saw the dancers onstage, saw the colour of their hair, the screaming face behind a mask of thorns.

‘What shall I call you, then?’ he asks her gently. ‘I will not return to mademoiselle. If not that, if not Genevieve—then what?’

‘Kiss me once more,’ she says.

She is obviously deflecting, but he can’t deny her. This time, she is more desperate, more insistent—she pulls them down, down to their knees, and he goes willingly. They fall together. Leander pushes her back so that she is against the ground and he is above her, hands planted on either side of her shoulders. Her hair spills across the grass like ink; her eyes glitter with the light of the fireworks, skyscapes in miniature. As he looks down at her, the Château blooms meadowsweet around her shoulders, sprouting exuberantly in bursts of white flowers. She does not notice. She takes his lapels and arches her back, pressing into him. He hisses a breath of pleasure at the contact, and he is feverish with her, insensate. They need to stop. He knows too much for them to continue. And yet—and yet.

‘You can have me,’ she says. ‘If you wish. We could go to my chamber.’

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. ‘I. . .’

‘You do not want me?’

‘Of course I want you. Is that not obvious?’

He sees another firework reflected in her dark eyes: this time, a strident blue, rolling across her irises like a tide.

Leander rolls off her. She follows reluctantly. They sit side by side on the grass. Genevieve bashfully plucks a spray of meadowsweet from her skirt.

‘Leander,’ she says.

He looks at her; she’s so uncertain, her head tilted and her expression somewhere between a frown and a smile. In her other life, he thinks, there must be so many men desperate to hold her as he has, so many dancers vying to take her in their arms. If she had not come here, one of these men—these ordinary men—might have eventually made her very happy.

‘I know,’ he tells her. ‘I know who you are.’

Another firework goes off. She opens her mouth to speak, but she makes no sound.

‘I can’t call you Genevieve,’ he continues, when she doesn’t reply. ‘Because that isn’t your name, is it?’

She closes her eyes. Her lashes tremble over her cheeks, as if she is asleep.

‘What is your name?’

‘I can’t forget,’ she murmurs. ‘It is my heart’s desire, written upon the invitation, burnt and promised. Until I win, I cannot.’

‘On the staircase yesterday,’ Leander says, ‘you didn’t call me Claire, did you?’

‘No,’ she says numbly.

‘You were correcting me. You were correcting me, because I called you Genevieve.’

‘Yes.’

‘Because your name is Claire,’ Leander says. ‘You are not Genevieve de Vienne. You are Claire Marchand.’

Eighteen

The death of Claire Marchand occurred on the third day of June in the year 1790—what would be now known as 13 Prairial, according to the calendrier républicain. It happened with a smashed window, a turning handle, and a cruel laugh; it happened quickly. Claire always tells herself it happened quickly.

They had switched clothes. It was a common enough precaution for fleeing nobility: Genevieve had tried to prevent it, had refused to put Claire in danger’s path, but Claire had insisted. She told Genevieve that she would not come with her unless they did so. The argument they had conducted over the issue was less an argument than a stage play of grief: shrieking and weeping, tugging at each other, wailing like mourners. But eventually, Genevieve had acquiesced. Claire had always been more stubborn than her.

And so they left Versailles, already half abandoned—those obstinate enough to remain left sitting coldly at their golden tables, their cruel expressions reflected in the mirrors on every wall. To them, the great loyalists, Claire and Genevieve were nothing better than faithless traitors who could not keep their trust in the enduring might of the old regime.

They shakily placed their things into the carriage and took their seats. Now the scene was set, the actors in their costumes: Claire in an overlarge yellow silk gown, edged with lace flowers, gaping slightly over her chest; Genevieve in dark pink linen and a white kerchief. Claire knew her lines perfectly, in the event they were apprehended. I am Genevieve Célestine de Vienne, daughter of the comte. I am the owner of this carriage. The woman is merely my maidservant.