Would it be so wicked if the next time she touched him, he did not stop her?
He cleared his throat. “I suppose the answer depends on whom you ask.”
Her eyes were clear and steady. “I am asking you.”
“Then here’s a lesson for you,” he said. He looked toward the sunrise. “The only person to ask is yourself.”
By the time Gwen woke, sunlight had conquered the molded ceiling. It put the time at well past noon. The smell of eggs seeped inside from the sitting room, growing steadily stronger, as if they’d started to rot.
She had a fuzzy memory of Elma shaking her awake for breakfast and saying, “We have an appointment at Laferrière at ten o’clock, dear. Why on earth are you still abed?”
Oh, no. Gwen pushed herself upright against the headboard, recalling the full extent of it now.
Thanks to her grogginess, she’d not thought to lie to Elma about what had happened last night. Elma had been furious. For the first time in Gwen’s memory, she had lifted her voice. Gwen could not recall the full extent of the lecture, only that it had touched on hoydens, irresponsible bounders who encouraged them, and the horrors of rabble-rousing more generally.
She also recalled the crack of the door as Elma had slammed out of the suite.
She clamped a hand over her eyes. She should apologize, of course. She did not think she could bear having Elma angry with her.
But it would be a lie if she said she regretted a single thing about last night. Even falling asleep to the sunrise had seemed romantic! Cozy beneath the covers, she’d fought to keep her eyes open as long as possible, concentrating on the singing feeling inside her, the wild giddy thrill of everything that had happened. Remember this, she had thought. That I can feel this way! So light and unworried. I never knew it before.
A knock came at the door. Michaels, her lady’s maid, poked her head into the room. “Mail and the newspaper, miss.”
The number of letters surprised her. She flipped through them as the door closed. One from Caroline, who probably wanted expatriate gossip. Another from Belinda, who had been entertaining her by proposing ever more novel forms of persecution for Thomas. Lady Anne had sent a note; her daily condolences were beginning to smack of schadenfreude. The Earl of Whitson paid me particular attention at the Flintons’ ball last night, she wrote. Everyone says I am likely to wed before the end of the season. Of course, my only regret would be your inability to attend.
What a clever way to be disinvited from one’s bridesmaid’s future, imaginary wedding!
The fourth letter bore an unfamiliar, starkly angular penmanship. When she opened it, she discovered it was from Alex.
Her heart skipped a beat. He had thrown a petal at her this morning, on the banks of the Seine, and when he’d laughed, the sound had stolen her breath. In the golden light of early morning, he had looked impossibly handsome. But also younger—friendlier, somehow—and more playful, too. He had looked, in short, like somebody who might be speaking to her as an equal.
She had not wanted the night to end. She had wanted to keep walking with him along the river. He’d been as much a part of her intoxication as the wine she’d drunk at Le Chat Noir.
Gwen, he had written, I hope this letter finds you in no lower spirits than did the sunrise. I write to you in lieu of a call because of a pressing appointment with the Peruvian ambassador. However, the contents of this note are no doubt too indelicate to be safely committed to paper, so I hope you will recognize the trust I place in you by committing them to ink. I ask you to destroy the letter after reading it.
In short, I have a proposition for you. But first, it will require an explanation of my main cause for visiting Paris . . .
By the time she’d finished the letter and cast it into the fire, she was a-thrill again with all the excitement of the evening before. What a wicked and marvelous plan he proposed! And to think that he would ask her, of all people, to help him!
But why not? He needed her help. What a novel and remarkable idea! He needed her. He would never have won that invitation by himself, and he could not go to Barrington’s country home without her.
She wrote her reply immediately, ringing for Michaels to arrange its delivery. After the door closed again, though, it occurred to her that one small fly marred the ointment: Elma.
Elma would forbid such adventures. Indeed, Gwen had no doubt that Elma was complaining of her right now. Lady Lytton, the wife of the English ambassador, was a particular favorite of the Beechams’, and Elma was slated for lunch with her in the Palais-Royal. I brought her all the way to Paris, Elma would be complaining over oysters, and now she refuses to accompany me anywhere. Indeed, this morning she refused to leave bed.