“Very good.” She smiled her approval. “Though I warn you, Miss Blythe.” She stepped back, arms wide and chest lifted. “You are looking at the alternative.”
I grinned. “I accept.”
Her throaty laugh bounced through her shoulders, lightened her lovely face. “Youareunusual. In a good way.”
“Tell me, then, how can I do it? How will I stand up against that sort of money?”
She rubbed a small section of blue-velvet curtain between her fingers, as if ensuring its thickness, then unhooked the gold braided tieback and released it with a whoosh of heavy fabric. “It’s never about how much or how long, but howwell.” She walked along the length of the stage, pulling the released curtain along behind her.
I ran to keep up, admiring her stride.
“Always maintain marvelous posture, even in little things—smaller roles, backstage conversations, darning a pair of shoes—make beauty and elegance a way of life, even in the mundane moments, and they cannot help but notice you shining in your little corner. Give them something stunning to look at in every second. Then go and audition for a leading role and win it.” She smiled, her cheeks folding into long dimples. “Now, bring me that chair, if you would.”
I considered the woman who lived out her own suggestion quite well, gliding from one task to the next with poise to rival the queen. I carried the wooden chair to Mama Jo. “Who was Delphine Bessette’s?”
She blinked at me, fingers curling around the top of the chair I’d brought. “Delphine?”
“Who sponsored her rise to fame?”
“Why, she had several, I believe. There was a marquis for a time and a nobleman from Surrey. I cannot remember all their names. I heard rumors of foreign royalty once too, but I couldn’t be certain. I’m sure there were plenty more. She was quite popular.”
“What about Marcus de Silva?”
Her eyebrows rose. “Her partner? He hadn’t any money to speak of, I’m sure. Not the way all those wealthy patrons did.”
“Perhaps he felt a bit jealous, then. They were partners, after all. He might have even felt some affection for her.”
“Quite a romantic notion, but nothing could be further from the truth.” Her smile was patronizing. “They danced well together upon the stage, but that was all. Besides, he had fallen in love with this other young woman and Delphine had her share of men. She would not be persuaded to settle on any one of them. Even her partner.”
I gripped the back of the chair and lifted my chest against the pain twisting inside. “My story, I’ve decided, will be quite different in many ways.”
She leveled a knowing smile toward me. “A fine ideal. I do hope you get your wish.”
I’d see that I did.
She turned to go but stopped where the curtain met the brick wall on the side of the stage. “Ella, try not to worry yourself over Philippe Rousseau.” She looked at me with compassion. “He does this at times. Disappears without explanation to anyone. Like a cat, he will come back when he needs to, and the ballet will go on.”
I couldn’t put my finger on what concerned me, but I felt it keenly. Was it a disappearing Philippe or my disappearing father? Perhaps the odd picture that was forming about my mother.
She patted my hand on the back of the chair. “You have a good nature, and you feel deeply. Most ballerinas have forgotten how, especially when they dance. Don’t change too much, ma petite.” Then she was gone.
I couldn’t shake the heaviness and utter confusion as my thoughts swirled. I fetched my wrap and hurried home, where I dropped to the floor and searched every inch of that wardrobe for the red shoes. They had to be here—it was a fanciful notion, thinking he’d stolen them. All of this was in the past, long over.
But at last I had to admit they were gone, one way or another. I sat back on my heels with a sigh. The more I glimpsed my parents’ story, the parallel track I was nearly forced onto, the more confusion clouded my way forward. Ihadto pierce it with truth. I left my chilly flat and headed south, my head swirling with thoughts of Philippe, my eyes keenly peeled for a glimpse of him in the dying light.
In a pint-sized flat over a confectionary in the square, Lucy Kimball’s withered frame nestled back against her rocking chair until it was almost lost in the cushions. “One must be cautious around such a man.”
Time slowed here. She gave the chair tiny shoves with her boot as she gripped the arms and tipped her head back to remember. The fragrant air of the confectionary below billowed around me, wafting all the way up to us from the shop, and I drank in its familiarity.
I looked at the delicate face of the woman who always seemed to know everything. What I knew of faith, the bits of common sense gathered in my head, all came from this tiny frame with the delicate features and faded strawberry-blonde hair. She’d once been my mother’s governess, and though Mum had grown and both of them had quit her parents’ house, Aunt Luce, aswe called her, had never completely abandoned her post. Then she had become, in a way,mygoverness.
“He was a dark horse, that ’un. Always disappearing, never letting anyone know what went on in that mind of his. Never could abide questions. That’s the sort who always has something to hide, eh?”
In a quick moment of disconnect, I couldn’t remember if she was discussing my father or Philippe Rousseau. But of course, she didn’t know Philippe, and I had asked her about Marcus.
“Have a hot drink, lass?” She rose and grabbed for the little side table, then limped toward the kitchen.
“Have you hurt yourself?”
