“Mesdames?” Mariana finished for him, warming to the subject. “My dear Comte, I understand that you are young and do not yet possess a working understanding ofmesdames, but I can assure you that we—”
“We would be delighted to accept your company, Villefranche,” Helene interrupted, smoothly shushing Mariana in the process.
Mariana bit back the rest of her sentence and acceded. Three abreast, with Mariana in the middle, they began their turn about the room.
They had taken no more than two steps when a dancer approached and stopped before them, a playful light in her eyes. With careful precision, she positioned her arms and feet before performing a series of flawless pirouettes. She was the picture of grace and beauty. A delighted Helene clapped her hands.
After the dancer flounced away to perform for another group of patrons, Mariana turned toward the young Comte at her side. It would be rude to stay silent. “Do you frequent the Foyer?”
“Non,” Villefranche replied, “it is not to my taste.”
Her head canted to the side. “Yet you are here.”
“There are times when a man must act outside his true inclinations,” he replied, one word following the next in a passionate staccato.
Taken aback by his fervor, she asked, “And why would the son of a marquis ever have to act outside his true inclinations?”
Twin patches of scarlet brightened the young Comte’s cheeks, and he glanced away. If she’d known him better, she might hazard a guess that he was flustered.
Unaware of the curious exchange, Helene continued greeting passersby as they progressed through the room.
Villefranche asked, “Have you yet shopped in the Palais-Royal?”
Mariana suppressed a surprised laugh at this conversational turn. This night grew stranger by the moment. “Non,” she replied, disinterest rounding out the single syllable. Nick had been correct about one thing: she derived no pleasure from shopping.
“I shall escort you on the morrow if you like,” Villefranche replied . . . solemnly.
Before Mariana could form a polite refusal, Helene nudged her. “Oh,ma chérie, you must experience the Palais-Royal before you leave Paris.”
No other option available, Mariana replied, “I shall think on it.”
She wouldn’t, of course. She only entered shops out of necessity and with a clear objective. She couldn’t think of a bigger waste of time than an aimless perusal of random wares for sale.
Villefranche leaned forward and caught Helene’s eye. “You could join us for propriety’s sake?”
Helene’s eyebrows lifted. “I am fairly certain I have a previous engagement.”
Mariana suppressed a smile. Helene would take great offense at the very suggestion that she was old enough to play chaperone to a woman of thirty years.
“In that case,” Villefranche continued, “Lady Nicholas, I shall send a messenger for your definite reply on the morrow.”
Without further preamble, the young Comte dipped in a shallow bow before pivoting on one foot and hastening through the arched doorway.
A short, astonished silence followed. “A shame his beauty is wasted on such a dull humor,” Helene said on a wistful note. “I can’t say I envy you your shopping excursion.”
Mariana nodded in polite agreement and looked out across the room. Her eyes snagged upon a fleeting, and eerily familiar, figure. It wasn’t Nick, but if she didn’t know better, she would have thought she’d caught a glimpse of . . . Percy. He’d carried himself with a distinctive angularity.
She blinked, and the phantom was gone. Ridiculous. Percy had been dead these last eleven years. Two witnesses had testified to seeing him cut down at the Battle of Maya and buried in an unmarked grave. Just because Mariana’s own husband had risen from the grave tonight didn’t mean Olivia’s had, too. Plenty of men were angular.
She must leave Paris. But not for Nick. She must leave Paris for herself. Any oblique dangers he might have referenced tonight were insignificant compared to the very real danger she presented herself.
Her marriage to Nick only operated smoothly if neither of them actively engaged with the other, maintaining parallel existences that intersected at appointed times. Yet her actions of the past few days had strayed off course and into Nick’s territory.
While it had been necessary to find him and confirm he remained amongst the living, the matter was now resolved. Yet a pair of questions would quietly persist: When had he become a spy? And why was he missing and presumed dead to the Foreign Office?
She exhaled a forceful breath, attempting to release the questions from her mind. One thing was certain: this wasn’t her mystery to solve, no matter how her curiosity would protest the opposite. She would leave Paris and her unanswered questions behind at dawn.
Nick’s business was no business of hers. This was a refrain she would do well to repeat until she’d put a large body of water between herself and this new Nick who intrigued her all too much.
