Sophie nodded as she picked up her teacup.
‘On one condition,’ she said, eyeing Lu Lu intently over the rim of her chocolate.
‘Mais oui, ma chérie,’ Lu Lu beamed with a flourish, ‘please, just name it.’
‘Let there be no more mention ofles mathématiques!’
ChapterSeventeen
REVOLUTIONARIES AND RUMOURS
The following day
If Madame Marie-Louisa Dupres was suspicious about the slim parcel Sophie clutched to her chest the following day, she was far too distracted to mention it. And once they reached the shop of Madame Montmartre,modiste to Parisian gentility, she was much too enraptured by the dove-grey cloak with ermine trim in the window to loan it any special attention.
Indeed, it was only when Sophie continued to carry it with her into the tiny shop that Lu Lu looked at her slightly askance, though it soon became clear that Lu Lu hadn’t beenentirelyhonest about the Versailles ball either.
‘I have heard it called many things already,’ the petite modiste chattered, gathering and pinning a fine cream satin in swathes around Sophie’s waist. ‘A ball, asoirée, anassemblée…it is not easy, you know, for many families will be absent…’
She paused and eyed them from beneath her long, perfectly pared eyelashes, giving Sophie a sudden image of the tiny Frenchwoman at the head of a baying crowd, a torch in one hand and a tape measure in the other.
‘Yes, indeed,’ Lu Lu agreed carefully. ‘It has not been that long and I understand the King has called it acommémoration,whichseems a sympathetic approach,n’est ce pas? Though I believe Versailles will always be amuseumnow.’
‘Mais oui,’ the modiste said with a brief nod. ‘In truth, it is hard to envisage otherwise. Despite the restoration of the House of Bourbon, there are too many ghostsat Versailles.’
The modiste’s eyes gleamed again as Sophie listened, unable to help comparing this visit to her last in Bath. All she’d had to think about then was an impromptu parasol fight, not a ghost palace scarred by revolution, bloodshed and turmoil. She turned to observe herself in the gilt-edged glass, suddenly homesick for her sisters and afternoons by the parlour fire.
And yet she could not deny the skill of the petite modiste either.
She turned to the right, and then the left, admiring the new satin gown Lu Lu was insisting upon. It was cut in the new Romantic fashion, with her waist cinched in, her skirt a wide bell, and with gigot sleeves cut so wide that she looked more a heroine from one of Sir Walter Scott’s novels than Miss Sophie Fairfax of Knightswood Manor, recently disgraced. It was everything she tried to capture in her own designs, and so much more flattering than her old Empire-line gowns.
‘I can just imagine a pelisse to go over this,’ she suggested quietly, when Lu Lu disappeared to take a closer look at the dove-grey cloak.
‘Mais oui? Quelle couleur?And how high the waistband?’ the modiste asked through a mouthful of pins, stabbing a mannequin with considerable violence.
Sophie reached for her package of pelisse designs.
‘Well perhaps… like these?’ she replied, spreading them out on the modiste’s small threads table.
For a few seconds the modiste said nothing, and merely gazed at Sophie’s careful designs, reworked over several evenings, in the back of one of Lu Lu’s old sketch books.
‘These are good, non?’ She frowned, pinning a wrapped satin rose on Sophie’s bodice before adding another lace frill to one of her sleeves. ‘I have a cousin in Rouen who designs for several English ladies,’ she added, with a curious glance, ‘though she has never mentioned clients presenting theirowndesigns before.’
‘Well, they aren’t for me, exactly,’ Sophie replied, feeling a faint flush start to creep up her neck, ‘but I was just wondering if you might be interested…’
‘Mais oui, oui, don’t worry, I understand!’ the modiste replied urgently, sweeping up all Sophie’s designs as footsteps approached. ‘I have to say, your artistry’—she paused to tap Sophie’s designs—‘is very impressive.’ Then she winked again, quite deliberately. ‘I will study these as a matter of urgency and let you know.Et maintenant, how did you find the cloak, Madame Dupres? Is she not a beauty?’
She spun to face Lu Lu as Sophie stared, certain her first attempt at finding employment had not gone as intended at all.
‘Ah, you looktrès belle, Sophie!’ Lu Lu exclaimed, still wearing the cloak.
‘It is too expensive,’ Sophie mumbled, wondering what the etiquette was for reclaiming personal sketches from a volatile revolutionary.
‘La! We do not count cost for Versailles,’ Lu Lu reprimanded. ‘You are my guest, and besides, the gown is entirely suited to the occasion. Now for the domino, if you please, Madame Montmartre? I will draw the curtain so we may see the two together.’
Sophie watched as the modiste swiftly wrapped a voluminous black silk cloak around her shoulders, before fitting a theatrical mask to the upper half of her face. The effect was quite magical, despite everything, and she suppressed a small thrill as she stared at her reflection.
‘Exquisite,’ a low tone offered suddenly.
