“Your gowns are the finest,” Eugenie admitted.
Madame Darbonne and her assistant used pins to bring in the waist and add a touch here and there to the gown, and then asked Sophie to step out of it.
“Monsieur Gauvreau is ever generous,” the seamstress replied.
“Yes.” Eugenie beamed. Her son was her pride. “He has always been so. He has always given Sophie whatever she asked, though as you see, Sophie is not spoiled.”
“It is a shame he never remarried.”
Sophie and the young assistant had moved behind a screen to allow her to dress in privacy.
“Yes. I often wondered why he did not. I know he loved Danielle, but it has been more than twenty years. Such a long time,” Eugenie pondered.
“Perhaps once mademoiselle marries, he will follow suit,” Madame Darbonne suggested.
“Perhaps,” Eugenie admitted.
***
“That is strange, is it not, Grand-mère? That father never remarried,” Sophie asked as they took the carriage home.
“Not really. He was very much in love with your mother. When she died, a part of him died as well. Your father is constancy itself. It is rare in a man.”
“I would not wish him to be alone the rest of his life,” Sophie said quietly.
“Nor I.” Eugenie touched her granddaughter’s hands, which were lying in her lap.
***
The duke had received an invitation to Sophie’s ball and gladly accepted. She did not want to appear rude so she invited Sebastian and his friend Etienne. She also invited his sister Leila in an effort to include the young woman, who had few friends in Paris.
She invited Madame Necker and her husband, Germaine, and Messieurs Marmontel, La Harpe and Comte de Buffon. She knew her grandmother and father would invite many more people but she was happy to include her own friends and acquaintances. Lizette and her father were also included in Sophie’s list of invitees.
It was a week before the ball when she realized her pamphlet had been published, and she learned of it from a most unusual source.
Her grandmother had been out calling upon her friends and had returned with a crumpled-up piece of paper.
“What is that?” Sophie asked as she sat in the salon window seat reading.
“Rubbish. Absolute rubbish.” Eugenie crushed the paper even more and left it on the desktop.
Sophie smiled and heard her grandmother mount the stairs to her room. Sophie left her book overturned and went to the desk. She smoothed the paper out and read the words “Equality for All.”
She went on to read the words she almost knew by heart and felt her own thump inside her chest. Her words were upon the printed page but this time she had taken the next step. She was writing about equality for all, the lavish spending of the court and the lower classes starving while the greedy king dined on pheasant.
“Rubbish.” Her grandmother had rejoined her and nodded as Sophie excused herself.
My god, she thought. What had she done? She noticed her hands were shaking and snatched up her book to calm herself.
***
Dorset watched as Sebastian opened one letter after another and moved to look out over the green park across the street from their office.
“I think these French are absolutely insane,” Dorset muttered.
Sebastian hid a smile. Though he was not overly fond of the French, he found their music, food and women to be extremely enjoyable.
“What now?”
“You think these French would be open to ideas and beliefs, yet I can tell you that is not the case.” Dorset shook his head.
“What ideas and beliefs?” he asked as he sliced open another letter.
“The ideas of freedom and equality.”
Sebastian smiled. “I didn’t realize you supported the Americans. Isn’t that treasonous?”
“Don’t be absurd. The American upstarts were bound to rebel. Who can control a people an ocean away?” Dorset said sternly.
Sebastian couldn’t argue with that.
“No, this is different. These French want equality. They want the excess of their king to cease and a true ruling government,” Dorset said.
“Who has said this?” Sebastian said quietly.
“Some pamphlet I’ve just read being passed around.”
“A pamphlet?”
“Yes. And now I’ve heard some idiot inspector wants the writer found and interrogated,” he said.
“Do you have the pamphlet?” Sebastian asked.
“No, but everyone in Paris is reading it. What a strange country,” he snorted, still gazing out the window.
Sebastian shook his head. She wouldn’t have done it. Surely she would not have gone ahead and written about what he had expressly called revolutionary.
Sebastian thought for several long minutes, staring at the duke’s back, and closed his eyes. Of course she would have. He knew her enough to realize that of course she would have educated herself, become intrigued with the new information and written about it. Damn her.