“We were pleased to learn you visited Brighton,” Amber told Giselle in just as fine French. She had grown up with Gus as an informally adopted child of Gus’s Aunt Cecily. “And so, of course, when Gus and I arrived in Brighton the other day, we sent around a note to invite madame to join us for dinner.”
“I had other commitments,” Élisabeth said. “But I am glad you are here today.” She squeezed Giselle’s hand. “Tell us, when did you arrive in England?”
“I’ve been here since the autumn.” Giselle did not wish to be specific and reveal precisely when or how she had arrived. “I had to leave France. I could no longer bear the prejudice against those of us who had been friendly with the Bourbons.”Or those of us who object to the new dictatorship of Bonaparte and his bullies.
“I understand,” Élisabeth added with sorrow lining her pretty face. “Only a few managed to transcend the old allegiances. Lady Ashley and Lady Ramsey succeeded.”
“For a while,” Amber put in.
“Because of our Aunt Cecily,” Gus added, “Amber and I were untouched for many years.”
The ladies’ aunt had been fortunate in many attachments she formed. Notably, when she was sent to Carmes prison after her lover, the duke, went to the scaffold, she lived in a cell next to a young widow, Josephine Beauharnais, now Bonaparte’s wife and the Empress of France. The two women remained fast friends, and Cecily, a rich widow of a British earl before she met the French duke, benefited from the relationship.
Amber winced. “Gus’s and my fortune changed with the cancellation of the Treaty of Amiens in ’03 and the fact that Gus and I married prominent Englishmen.”
Gus took Amber’s hand and smiled sadly. “Fouché and his second-in-command had us in their sights.”
“René Vaillancourt.” Élisabeth pronounced the name of the deputy director of security with disdain. “A hateful man. I despised Robespierre and his crowd of evil doers, but this Vaillancourt… Ah. I knew him when young. An assassin in the Croix Rouge Quartier. Even then, he was beautiful. Tall and suave, handsome as only evil can be. He hunts his foes mercilessly.”
“We know.” Amber formed the words quietly.
Élisabeth caught a breath. “He has murdered so many of my old friends…”
Giselle clutched her hands together.Mine, too. My vintner and his wife. His four children. For the sin of opposing Bonaparte’s wine taxes.She shifted in her chair, the memory painful, sharp as a knife to her throat. Her brother had been detained by this scourge and sent to his death. So too her sister Lisette, whose only crime was a dazzling beauty and an attraction to a man unworthy of her. So she died, painfully, tragically, as he and his friend, Vaillancourt, used her so mercilessly for their pleasure.
Giselle put a hand to her forehead, her heart pounding and the memory of Lisette’s punishment tearing at her and upsetting her stomach.
“Is your Aunt Cecily still in Paris?” Élisabeth asked of Amber and Gus.
Giselle set her teeth and put herself here in this friendly atmosphere. She licked her lips and recalled the question Élisabeth had asked. Yes, she had heard that her friends’ aunt had helped Madame Le Brun escape Paris. Giselle believed the rumor. The countess, much like her lover, the old Orleans, had spirited many away during the Terrorand afterward.
“She is,” Gus said with a definite frustration. “We’ve urged her to leave continuously, but she refuses.”
“She has lived there since she was sent by the prince regent to the old Duke of Orleans.” Amber did not look pleased to say it. “She loves her house and adores her friends, including many who are in favor. She will not go. Sad to say.”
Élisabeth sighed. “I was about to paint her portrait years ago, but she refused, thinking it would look poorly to spend money on art when the revolution was the topic on everyone’s lips. The old duke supported the national conventions and even Robespierre. For a time. But then the tide turned, and Orleans too was arrested and sent to the guillotine.”
Gus shifted in her chair, frowning and uneasy with this topic. She had known the old duke and liked him very much. “Aunt had no desire for a picture then. She was very much in love with the duke, and his loss took much life and laughter from her.”
“Let us speak no more of sad things,” Amber encouraged them with a soft smile.
“Exactly,” agreed Élisabeth, then she turned to Giselle. “I must know,ma petite, if you still draw and paint.”
Giselle took the question as a natural one from the lady who had taught her much about the art she pursued every day. But she would be selective about what she told her. “I do. Lately, I tend to sketch, drawing with pencil or ink. I use watercolors here in England. They give an ethereal quality to my works that I appreciate.”
“Ah, oui. I understand your turn to pencil and watercolor. I have tried repeatedly to use oils here in Brighton. But the air is too humid. I cannot get the right mix to any shade I want. I have met a few old friends who live north in London. The Comte d’Artois, LouisXVI’s brother, and my old friend the Comte de Vaudreuil are among those living here. Both demand of me new portraits. But I have discouragedthem unless we can all go farther north, where the air is cooler—and my oils can mix!”
“I do agree,” Giselle said with a nod. “Oil does work best for portraits.”
“Ah, mais oui.” Élisabeth looked at Giselle. “When you come to London, I will take you to visit Vaudreuil. He thought you so talented when a child, and he will be so pleased to see how lovely you are as a mature woman.”
“Merci beaucoup.” Giselle had to thank her for the compliment, but she disliked Comte de Vaudreuil. He was a noted roué of obscure sexual practices. So notorious was Vaudreuil that Giselle’s husband even thought him dastardly, a man to be avoided. But Vaudreuil was condemned by many for other vices. He was so friendly with Marie Antoinette that he covered her infatuation with a German count.
Influential, too, to King Louis in finance, Vaudreuil led the king into heinous debt that the Crown could not repay. Many said Vaudreuil’s only good deed was that he encouraged many artists, schooled others he thought worthy, and bought their works, albeit at ridiculously low prices. He packed up many of them when he left Paris in a rush the day after the Bastille fell. He had the bad taste to brag now about their immense value. To say one good thing about him was that he was a generous benefactor to artists like Élisabeth. Some even said the two had been lovers.
“But I do not wish to intrude, Élisabeth.”
“Nonsense. He loved you as child.”
