André sighed. “How about we agree not to talk about your uncle? You’re here now. With me.” He let that last part settle for a moment, enjoying its sound. “I propose a toast: to your freedom.”
Sophie nodded her assent. “All right.”
“Though you do strike me as too young to be a widow.”
Sophie stared at him a moment, her face turning serious. “That’s because I was too young to be a bride.”
“How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
She made no reply, and André felt foolish for asking such an obviously rude question. His cheeks grew warm.
She leaned forward, propping her arms on the table. “Let me guess. You, Monsieur Valière, are twenty-five?”
“Twenty-three,” he answered, pleased that she had seen him as more mature than he actually felt. “And it’s ‘Captain Valière,’ mademoiselle.”
“Oh, I see.” She laughed, nodding. “Captain Valière.”
“I will guess—you are eighteen?”
“And you are smart,” she chuckled, “guessing such a low number. That’s the way to a woman’s heart indeed.”
“But you can’t be much more than eighteen?”
“I’ll be twenty in a few months.”
“Then I wasn’t so far off the mark.”
She looked at him, the smile sliding from her face. “I was fourteen when I was married.”
He grasped for words but found none.
“You look as horrified as I felt,” she said, lowering her gaze to the table.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” André stammered. “It’s just, well, did you…did you at least…love him?”
“Love him? Ha! I barely knew him. I’d met him once. He himself was widowed, and his children were older than I was.”
The attendant appeared, refilling each of their wineglasses.
“The union was not to be long-lived, I’m afraid,” Sophie continued once the waiter was gone. “The Comte de Vincennes died just three months after making me a countess. Miraculously, there were no children produced by the short marriage.”
André felt his cheeks flush, and he looked down at his now-full wineglass.
“In spite of what you might suspect”—Sophie spoke, drawing his gaze back toward her—“my husband did not perish at the guillotine. No,” she sighed, “poor Jean-Baptiste died of nothing more glamorous than old age after a life of dissipation. I think it was the gout, in the end. At least, that’s what he most often complained of.” She paused, clearing her throat, blinking away some unspoken memory before turning her focus back across the table toward André. “He did, however, leave me with a very dangerous surname, as my uncle reminds me often.”
André, responding to either her candor or the wine, or both, asked, “But why were you forced, at such a young age, to marry such a sickly old man?”
She peered at him, her lashes fluttering with a teasing gaze. “You seem to be a smart man, Captain André Valière. I’ll give you one guess.”
“Money?”
“There you have it.”
André nodded, understanding, as they both fell silent.
Eventually, she spoke. “Come now, how about you, Captain Valière?”
“What about me?” André shifted in his seat.
“How many hearts have you broken? A dozen at least, I’d imagine.”
He shook his head.
“Fine, perhaps you are the more reserved type,” she continued, peering at him intently. “Two?”
Again, he shook his head.
“One?” she asked, the surprise becoming apparent in her voice. When he didn’t answer, she leaned forward. Now it was her turn to be shocked. “None? Not even one lady for a handsome captain?”
André shook his head, noting with a twinge of delight that she had called him handsome. Nevertheless, he hurried to explain himself against her incredulity. “I had the good fortune of not being married off to an aged widow, but rather attending military school before the old order fell apart.”
Sophie let out a humorless laugh, her gaze remaining fixed on André, steady and appraising. When she spoke, her voice was soft. “No heartbroken lovers for a handsome young officer—well, aren’t you full of surprises, André Valière?”
He found this remark curious, but Sophie continued to stare at him. Several moments later she sighed and said: “Shame you didn’t come along sooner. It seems that you had the noble title that would have satisfied my impoverished, dying father. And then I might have had a husband who survived. And one whom I could have actually liked.”