“We saw. With Miss Beaulieu,” Luc replied.
Hector did not realize until then that the girl had given him only her first name. He had not bothered to inquire further.
“Beaulieu?” he managed to say.
“Surely you’ve heard of them. Gaétan Beaulieu. She is his cousin,” Luc said. “You have not met Gaétan?”
“I haven’t had the pleasure.”
“You must. He has the most magnificent wife imaginable, the most beautiful woman in all of the city, Va—”
“Valérie,” Hector said, interrupting him.
“Yes. You do know them, then?”
“We both had the chance to meet Valérie before she was married to Gaétan, when she was in Frotnac,” Étienne said, maneuvering Luc by his elbow and turning him around. “Luc, why don’t you dance with Mari? She’s our cousin and looks quite alone.”
Luc glanced at a young woman standing by a mirror, the picture of a wallflower. The youngest Lémy made a face as though he had swallowed a lemon. “For good reason.”
“Go on, Luc. It is your burden as a gentleman.”
“She is a third cousin, and you know Mother keeps buzzing in my ear about her, driving me to madness,” Luc protested.
“The more reason to dance with her,” Étienne pressed on with a voice that allowed no further reproach.
The younger man let out an exasperated sigh but went in search of the lady.
As soon as his brother was at a prudent distance, Étienne spoke, his voice low. “You should not consider it. Not even for a moment.”
“Consider what?” Hector asked. Antonina Beaulieu hovered not too far from them, milling about a small circle of people. He wondered if Gaétan resembled her. He’d not seen a picture of the man. Did he sport that dark hair and the long fingers that might have belonged to a pianist? Beaulieu! A thrice-damned Beaulieu.
“Don’t act the fool. Valérie Beaulieu. You lost your head for her,” Étienne said.
“Ten years ago,” Hector said coolly, attempting to conceal any emotion in his voice.
“Ten, but I still recognize that look,” Étienne assured him.
Hector did not reply, his eyes following the movements of Miss Antonina Beaulieu across the room. He made up both an excuse and his exit after that.
CHAPTER 2
Nina could not say that she was truly taken with Loisail. The possibilities the city offered were exciting and it was a lively place, but there were many rules she did not understand, many people whose names she could not remember, all the protocols and details only the seasoned resident could grasp. Furthermore, she missed her mother and her sister. She missed her home, which was not as elegant as her cousin’s but which struck her as more inviting. She missed her beetles and her butterflies and was horrified when she considered all the species she would not be able to collect that spring.
But despite her homesickness, Nina understood that this was a great opportunity. The time spent in Loisail would allow her to refine her ways—there was no place as sophisticated and modern as Loisail, they said in books and newspapers—and it would permit her to make valuable connections. Most of all, the city might yield a suitable husband.
She knew well the kind of man her mother expected her to marry. A fellow from a decent family, with an excellent reputation and a generous amount of money at his disposal. It was all good and proper to marry a viscount, but when he came with a withered estate in dire need of repair, the coat of arms lost its luster. Nina’s sister, Madelena, had wed a respectable physician and a member of the neighboring Évariste family. It had pleased their mother, but Nina thought their tale lacked romance. Madelena and her husband had played together since they were children. Everyone assumed they would wed. Madelena’s husband hardly even really courted her, knowing the answer even before he asked.
Nina dreamed a different outcome. The romantic novels she had read imprinted on her the notion of a dashing suitor. She’d read of men who inspired women to blush prettily, who made their hearts hammer in their chests, who could cause a girl to swoon. She’d read, yes, but never experienced it. Montipouret offered her only the well-intentioned neighboring boys from the Évariste estate and the serious, subdued Delafois. Boys who neither caught her attention nor were keen to court her. The city, though. The city could yield the chance of romance. Here, dramatic duels and great affairs took place. Or so she’d been told.
While her mother was expecting only a suitable match, Nina was hoping for the romance of a lifetime followed by the grandest wedding imaginable.
She’d had no luck. Young, cosseted, she wished for someone dapper, like the men in her books. Didier Dompierre was the only boy who had made any serious attempt to pursue her, and Nina could not possibly picture him in a romantic light.
But that morning, as Nina dressed with the assistance of Lisette, the lady’s maid Valérie had assigned her, she thought maybe her luck had changed: she could not get Hector Auvray out of her head.
He’d danced three dances with her. Three! Surely that meant something. She might have asked Lisette for reassurance on this matter, but the maid was prickly and resented being pressed into service of the youngest Beaulieu on account of Nina’s restlessness, which often manifested with the levitation of objects across a room. In particular, Nina misplaced shoes. A single shoe would wind up on a side table, the mantelpiece, or some other place. Nina didn’t intend to do any of this, it was a tic, but that did not mean Valérie screamed any less at Lisette, taking it out on the poor maid.
Lisette adjusted the collar of Nina’s dress and made sure her hair was impeccable—Cousin Valérie was particular about her hair. Nina was running late, what with her daydreaming, and the maid huffed. Valérie was also keen on punctuality. Nina made her way to Valérie’s room as fast as she could, almost tripping in the process. She knocked twice.
“Come in,” Valérie said. She was still in bed, her hair undone, and in a robe, but she looked practically perfect, as was always the case. Her room, too, was all for show, resembling the displays at the department stores downtown.
“Good morning,” Nina said. “Lisette said you’re not feeling well.”
“It’s another one of those dreadful migraines.”
Valérie had just had a migraine the week before, the night before the De Villiers’ ball. Secretly Nina had been pleased that Valérie decided to stay home. Valérie’s attention to detail, her rules and demands, was stifling. When they went out in public, Valérie expected the world of Nina. She was very different from Nina’s older sister, who tended towards the protective.
“Should I head to the park on my own, then?”
This was one of those city customs that Nina did not understand even though Valérie had explained it to her. It was of the utmost importance that twice a week between the hours of nine and eleven they walk or ride around the nearby White Park, which was one of the largest parks in the city. The point, Valérie said, was to be seen. All the notable women in the city would—at least once a week—take a leisurely excursion through one of the popular green areas. Valérie scheduled her visits with rigor and chose the mornings because to stroll in a park in the evening, she confided, would be invariably crude. In the evenings a lady should be attending a party or a dinner, heading to the theater or the opera, not walking around in the semidarkness. Nina, who caught fireflies in the twilight hours during the summer, could only nod.