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The marquise was far too sophisticated to stiffen; instead, she threw Jemma a sweet, roguish smile. “And I adore those delicious little flowers on your gown, duchess. I can certainly understand why you keep your panniers so small…when a woman has been gifted with such an ample bosom, large panniers inevitably make her look like an hourglass. Or a haystack. Your skill in dressing is so admirable!”

“Do you intend to pay us a long visit?” Jemma inquired.

“Ah, one travels to escape the ennui of life,” sighed the marquise. “In truth, without your entertainments to enliven Paris, it is a tediously puritanical place.”

Another hit, Jemma thought. Not as potent, though. There was something a little tired about the marquise, as if she had lost interest in the verbal fencing matches, the flares of witty comments, that had shaped her days in Versailles.

In fact, now that Jemma looked beyond her face powder, she saw that the marquise’s cheeks were rather gaunt.

Jemma slipped her hand through the marquise’s, an action she would never have taken in Versailles. She waved off Madame Bertière. “The marquise and I will take a turn or two and allow everyone to admire us. ’Tis an act of great kindness on my part, given the marquise’s elegance will so put mine in the shade.”

Previously, the marquise would have laughed in a way that indicated her complete agreement. Now she said nothing. It was almost unnerving.

They walked through the crowd, lowering their chins at acquaintances. Jemma made her way unerringly toward the ladies’ salon. They entered to find three chattering debutantes, who wisely fled. Jemma turned to the attending maid. “I am feeling quite faint. Please stand outside the door and make certain that no one enters.”

The maid whisked herself through the door.

The marquise sat down heavily, as if the weight of her enormous panniers dragged her to the ground. She had aged from the woman Jemma knew two years ago, the woman who snapped and laughed her way through the French court, grinding insouciant courtiers under her jeweled heels, making—and destroying—a lady’s reputation with one mocking glance.

She had never been a nice person. But all the same, she had been a strong person.

“And now,” Jemma said, sitting down opposite her, “are you quite all right, Madame la Marquise? You do not seem yourself.”

The marquise started to laugh, her response to everything. But it broke off, and the sound that emerged sounded like a violent hiccup instead. Jemma waited.

“Have you seen my husband?” she finally asked. Her voice was hoarse.

“No,” Jemma replied. “He is not in London, to the best of my knowledge.” She hesitated.

But the marquise intervened before she could think of a tactful question. “He left. He followed une femme to England. He said it would be a brief visit, some weeks. It has been eight months.”

“I did hear such a rumor,” Jemma said cautiously.

The marquise had a delicate lace handkerchief clutched in her hand. For a moment Jemma thought she was going to start tearing it apart, ripping it to shreds like a madwoman in a play. But no: she opened her hand and let it fall to the ground.

It lay on the floor, crumpled, and their eyes met over it. “That is how he treated me,” the marquise said. “Like a piece of dirty linen, to be thrown to the side after it has been soiled.”

“Oh—”

“I must find him. I must.” There was some sort of suppressed rage about her that made Jemma twitch, and long to leave the room.

“Do you wish him to return to you?” Jemma asked.

“That—that salaud! Never. But I want to tell him to his face what sort of man he is. I want to tell his petite amie what sort of woman she is. I want—I want to—”

Jemma reached forward and put a hand on her arm. “Forgive me,” she said gently, “for my impertinence. But what will the conversation change?”

The marquise raised her head. “He left me.”

Jemma suddenly remembered that the marquise was the daughter of a duke, and connected to French royalty. She looked, in that moment, like a queen whose subjects had inexplicably snuck away and crossed a border to another kingdom.

“He had no right to leave me!”

“Men are prone to extreme foolishness,” Jemma said.

“He has humiliated me in front of the court. He has—he has caused me great distress.”

For the marquise, Jemma thought that was probably close to saying that her husband had beaten her in the open marketplace.