‘Aha! Versailles! You see, it is exactly as I said,’ Madame Montmartre replied, sitting up to show off her silk ruffle shirt to its fullest advantage and making Lu Lu stare. ‘When you were in my shop,’ the modiste continued conspiratorially, ‘I thought to myself, this lady who does not wish to be married, she is giving me a message though her brilliant designs’—Sophie glanced at Lu Lu, aware things were starting to get a little awkward—‘and then when I met yourLord Rotherby, who I could tell was not going to takenonfor an answer, I understood…et voilà, here I am.’
Sophie blinked, feeling sure she’d missed something.
‘Pardon?’ she asked faintly.
‘I am here, to rescue you.’
For a second, there was no sound other than the wind barrelling across the sparse heathland, and some muffled laughter from within the coach.
‘Et maintenant, you do not have to marry your Lord Rotherby, no matter how handsome he is and how many filigree masks he buys– though that is always nice of course– for you can joinla révolutionwith me.’
Sophie blinked, knowing she ought to say something, but failing entirely. It was one thing choosing life in a provincial town as a dressmaker, and quite another to be strong-armed into a band of fashionable revolutionaries.
Thankfully, at that same moment, the barouche pursuing them barrelled over the hill at what Fred would have called a spanking pace. Madame Montmartre responded immediately, rearing up on her horse while brandishing her pistol in the air.
‘And now, I will show you what truefraternitélooks like!’ she exclaimed. ‘I will intercept this murderous gentleman and find you again in Chartres, wheremes amis, we will arrange everything,oui?’
Then she galloped past without a backward glance, while the driver cursed and urged his horses forward.
ChapterTwenty-Two
LADYBIRDS AND PEACOCKS
Several cold hours later
‘You couldn’t look less like a revolutionary if you tried!’ Lu Lu said placatingly. ‘Not that you wouldn’t look divine in a pair of those revolutionary breeches, though,’ she added through a layer of blanket.
Sophie nodded, cold reality far outweighing any thoughts of revolutionaries or their breeches. Dawn had brought the very sobering realisation that not only did she care very much about the outcome of the duel, she’d also kidnapped a monstrous gentleman and incited an excitable revolutionary to murder too. The sum of this was a stone-cold fear that not even a dawn glow over the fabled town of Chartres could appease.
She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the nausea that had arisen since she’d admitted the true likelihood of Horace’s success when it came to his guvnor’s duel. If Rotherby had won, and the viscount was killed, she would have lost a sister; and if Damerel had done as he’d sworn and run a sword through Rotherby… Sophie clutched the sides of her seat until her knuckles turned white.
Miserably, she watched as the tired horses pulled them towards the approaching town, acknowledging that leaving Versailles and leaving her guilt were two very different things entirely, and whether Rotherby possessed a heart or not, she had most certainly lost hers.
‘We only know true love when we face its loss,’ Lu Lu said mournfully, side-eyeing Sophie. ‘But my Dominic knows he must not kill any of your family, so it is more likely he has let the viscount kill him,non?’ she added, patting Sophie’s hand.
Sophie responded with a very strange groan.
‘But of course we must wait for news before thinking of our widow’s weeds,ma chérie,’Lu Lu continued rapidly, ‘And in the meantime, we must rid ourselves of the greatstupideand eat, for everything is always better after coffee and pastries,non?’
Sophie tried to smile. It had been a long night for them all and Lu Lu hadn’t once complained at having been dragged into an entirely fresh scandal not of her making.
‘Try not to assume the worst,ma chérie,’ she said, slipping her arm through Sophie’s as the tired horses trotted past the impressive façade of the cathedral Notre-Dame de Chartres.
‘We will return to Paris afterle petit déjeuner, and face everything together,oui?’
Sophie nodded wanly, but the truth was that Sir Weston had been quite correct. Not only was Lu Lu a widow, and therefore not subject to the same rigorous standards as a debutante, there was also the fact that if there had been a duel to the death at Versailles, all of Paris would now hold her responsible. And the more she thought about a world without the scandalous Lord Rotherby, the more she felt like shooting both the lecherous Sir Weston and the rude coach driver, who’d been singing to himself for at least an hour now.
Sophie cast a look around the sleepy courtyard entrance to Chartres’s Hotel de Montescot,the only hostelry open to travellers,before nodding at a sleepy young ostler.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, climbing down as though she’d aged a hundred years since Versailles.
The pan-faced ostler nodded, though his round eyes said everything about the appearance of two grand Versailles ladies, atop a common hire coach, at dawn, at the Hotel de Montescot.
Inhaling deeply, Sophie yanked open the coach door and discovered Sir Weston sprawled across the seat, as though settled in for the week.
‘Madame Dupres and I have bespoken a parlour for breakfast,’ she threw coldly. ‘What you do now is entirely up to you.’
Then she turned and stalked inside to warm herself by the comfortable parlour fire, only to find both the coach driver and Sir Weston at her door a few minutes later.
