Blushing, Mme. Blanchet shoved the gothic novel onto the wrong shelf.
“This woman is one of your best patrons,” the cobbler told Sybil. “I think she wears out her shoes on purpose, just for the excuse to pick up the newest title in the lending library.”
“You have me confused with…” Madame began, then trailed off as she grabbed the half-boots from the cobbler. “Au revoir.”
“Please, don’t leave without your book!” Sybil pulled it from the shelf and held it out. “This is one of the most exciting volumes in the set. The necromancer of the Black Forest has the ability to raise ghosts and the hair on the back of your neck. There’s a haunted castle, larceny, a dungeon, a macabre ritual, death, a daring escape… and that’s just in the first part. As the epistolary sequence of harrowing escapades begin to convey the ghoulish machinations of—”
She shut her mouth with a click of her teeth, cringing in mortification. There she went again, waxing on about her favorite books to someone who might not possess any interest at all—or the ability to understand complex English vocabulary about esoteric topics. Hadn’t Madame just said so? Sybil should have kept the conversation to bonnets and gowns, rather than try to force a Gothic novel on a French modiste incapable of enjoying it.
Mme. Blanchet’s dark eyes looked at the book with longing.
“It is for you,” Sybil said in delight. “You won’t be disappointed. I promise.”
To think, they had something in common! They both enjoyed books… written… in English.
Was that the trouble? Everyone knew aspiring modistes like “Mademoiselle” LaChapelle pretended to be French in order to seem more authentic and exotic.
Madame Blanchet was supposed to actually be French. If she had mastered English as a second language—Sybil and most of her bluestocking friends could read in at least four—Madame Blanchet would not have reacted with panic at being caught browsing a library. The modiste’s Parisian origins must be as fictional as the gothic novel in Sybil’s hand. This twist would shatter the romantic image the ton held of “Madame” Blanchet.
“I won’t tell a soul about your wonderful English,” Sybil whispered. “And I’ll make sure to bring volume three next week.”
“You have divined the truth.” Madame moaned. “It cannot be borne. I shall summon a hackney carriage and never return to this neighborhood again.”
“You will when you wear out those shoes,” said the cobbler. “I’ve seen schoolboys who keep their boots in better repair.”
“No need for a hackney,” Sybil said quickly. “I’ve a carriage waiting at the corner.”
Not her carriage, of course. It was a loan from reading circle member Lady Eunice, whose father collected conveyances like spring flowers. But the coach’s provenance was neither here nor there.
“Take the book,” Sybil coaxed, “and then let me take you wherever you need to go. Please. It would be my honor.”
Madame hesitated, then snatched the volume from Sybil’s hands and tucked it beneath her olive pelisse in the blink of an eye. “Rapidement, before anyone sees.”
Before someone saw Mme. Blanchet with an English novel, or before passers-by glimpsed the glamorous modiste with drab Sybil?
It didn’t matter. Sybil had started a conversation! If she could keep it going, she would prove to herself that she would be fine at the ball. She wouldn’t clam up and shrink into the shadows. The gown, the evening, the long years of scrimping and saving would be soon worth the effort.
Their driver needed no more direction than Mme. Blanchet’s name. Lady Eunice and her mother exclusively wore Madame’s handiwork. He ferried his refined mistresses to and from the modiste’s shop dozens of times every Season. They, like many of their fashionable and moneyed peers, would accept no substitute.
What would Lady Eunice say when she found out—
But of course Sybil couldn’t tell her. She’d just promised to keep Mme. Blanchet’s secret.
Sybil’s stomach burbled with a mix of guilt and excitement. She’d never kept a secret from her reading circle before. All of the most adventurous moments in Sybil’s life had been with her best friends. They’d helped the notorious Wynchester family in several clandestine, justice-seeking escapades. The ladies had even dubbed themselves the Heist Club after joining forces with the Wynchesters to recover stolen jewelry.
Philippa—the leader of the weekly reading circle, and now a Wynchester herself—refused to acknowledge the group’s new name. She claimed the reading circle had no title at all. But Sybil loved the idea of belonging to a club. And what could be more thrilling than a heist?
Sitting next to Mme. Blanchet was perhaps a close second. Sybil realized with chagrin that she’d been too moonstruck to speak for several moments, and was wasting an unparalleled opportunity to converse with the famed modiste.
“Is it true your schedule fills years in advance?” she blurted out.
The modiste inclined her head. “I employ more girls every year to help with the sewing, but I am the only one who designs and cuts the pieces. Once a woman has donned one of my creations, she tends to remain a client from then on. There are no openings.”
That made sense. Sybil had never heard of anyone voluntarily giving up access to Mme. Blanchet’s genius. On the rare occasions Madame had refused to continue working with a problematic client, the gossips treated the rejection like a scandal of the first order—and then scrambled to try and take her spot.
Mme. Blanchet pulled a small leather journal from her reticule. “If you’d like to be on the waiting list, you can reserve a spot for ten guineas per season.”
Sybil nearly choked on her own tongue. Ten guineas per season! Just to have one’s name on a list! Ten guineas was the same price as an Almack’s subscription, and Sybil didn’t have one of those, either. The gown she’d commissioned from Mlle. LaChapelle had cost half as much, and even that had been dear.
