Chapter 5
Désirée hunched over an escritoire in the corner of her guest chamber, thumbing through the castle lending library’s latest collection of French fashions. The mysteries contained within seemed more crucial to learn than any subject taught in a school room.
Now that she and her brothers were no longer in danger of losing their heads by returning home, the question had changed fromwhat if we never get theretowhat will I do when wedo?
What if they did succeed in reclaiming their land? What if Désirée did have her choice between a life of leisure or an eye-watering dowry? What if Lucien did inherit a title or what if she won the heart of some wealthy French aristocrat, and suddenly needed not just tolookthe part, butbethe part?
She wanted to acquit herself as brilliantly as possible. To make her brothers and herself proud. Even if that meant spending the next year studying every bit of literature or news or fashion she could get her hands on.
A knock sounded on her bedchamber door. “Mademoiselle?”
Désirée turned to face young Hester, who had been acting as lady’s maid rather than chambermaid. Yet another temporary thing in a house full of temporary things.
“Yes, Hester?” Why was she here? It was too early to dress for bed.
“Mr. Skeffington would like to invite you to join him for a glass of wine.”
Désirée blinked. “He would?”
Hester nodded.
“Now?”
Hester nodded.
“In the dining room?”
Hester shook her head. “In the wine cellar.”
Hisprivatewine cellar. His renowned, exaggerated, much-whispered-about utopia of bottled ambrosia, which few had ever seen. The Skeffington wine cellar was rumored to have more French wine than France itself.
“Of course I want a glass of wine,” she managed, despite her scratchy throat.
Hester twisted her hands. “Do you want me to dress your hair?”
Désirée hesitated.Wasshe being invited to a glass of wine? Or was she being invited to share something else entirely? Did he see her as something more than Bastien and Lucien’s little sister?
“Yes,” she said emphatically. “Please dress my hair.”
She wished she had a fashionable gown. Or that they hadn’t had to sell their mother’s jewels in order to avoid living on the streets.
But a serviceable gown with unadorned hair and nothing decorating her earlobes or wrists or neck would simply have to do. It was all she had.
She closed the book of fashion plates upon her escritoire and crossed to the dressing table, where Hester was selecting curling tongs to heat in the fire. How much easier this was when one did not have to curl the back of one’s hair by oneself! Désirée settled into the indicated velvet stool before the looking glass.
“Are you comfortable here?” Hester asked.
It took a moment for Désirée to realize Hester referred not to the plush dressing stool, but here in her new position; here in this house.
“Yes,” she was forced to admit. “Very much.”
After three full days as temporary governess, the strangest aspect of her new circumstances was not one she would have predicted.
The twins were full of energy and curiosity, making lesson times a delight. She took meals with Jack four times a day—breakfast, luncheon, teatime, supper—but never unchaperoned. The children always flanked them. Even having servants at every possible post had taken an embarrassingly short period of time to get used to. Not having to grow her own vegetables or iron her own gowns was a hedonistic pleasure.
No, the strangest part of living in a different home with different rules and different food and different people was having to do so inEnglish.
Before becoming the Skeffingtons’ temporary governess, Désirée had, on some level, believed herself not to be fully French. Having every single thing that happened to her occur exclusively in English made it all the stranger and more dreamlike.
