Pippa shook her head. “Don’t trouble yourself. It’s not—”
“Nonsense.” Odette pivoted in place. “I’m certain Kassamir will have some—what was it?” Her fingertips snapped together, the sound crackling through the air. “Tonic water to remove the stain, as Celine suggested.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“I insist.” Odette took Pippa by the hand. “If you don’t allow me to fix it, then at the very least you must permit me to replace your gown. The fabric is such a lovely . . . voile, isn’t it?” Her features brightened, an idea already taking shape in her mind. “We could go together tomorrow to see my modiste. She doesn’t have Celine’s eye or training, but she’s quite adept at—”
“Please don’t trouble yourself, Mademoiselle Valmont. This gown isn’t worth it. It’s very old. It . . . was passed down to me from a cousin.” Pippa winced at this admission, and something knifed behind Celine’s heart. Clearly it pained Pippa to disclose this detail, and Celine did not have the slightest inkling why.
It bothered her to realize how little she knew about her only friend.
Only an hour ago, Pippa had remarked that they weren’t truly friends. Not yet. It had chafed to hear it then, but Celine could not deny its truth now. Real friends freely shared their thoughts and feelings, their secrets, their fears. In Paris—before that terrible night—Celine had had two such friends, Monique and Josephine. She wondered if they thought of her now. If they worried about her. Questioned where she’d gone.
If they knew she was now a murderess.
After Pippa’s pained admission, Odette kept silent for a time. When next she spoke, her words were gentle. “Please let me help with this, ma choupette.” She took Pippa’s hand again, this time with less insistence. “And do call me Odette. I much prefer when my friends call me that.”
In that moment, Celine decided that—one day—she would like to be friends with Odette Valmont, too. Pippa waited a moment. Then nodded once with a grateful smile. The two young women made their way toward the first-floor restaurant, on a quest to find Kassamir.
Leaving Celine in a den of lions . . . standing beside Lucifer.
DES QUESTIONS, DES QUESTIONS
The moment their friends vanished downstairs, Celine and Bastien shared a glance. A charge hummed through the air, swirling around them like the beginning of a storm.
Their smiles faded the next instant.
A thick silence descended like a cloak about their shoulders. A part of Celine relished it. It felt honest. Absent pretense. In this moment, she could be who she was. It did not matter if she failed to adhere to the social mores of her day. Bastien would not judge her, for he was not a gentleman, just as Celine was not a lady.
His posture relaxed further, almost as if he had come to the same conclusion. He spread his feet and settled into an informal stance. Celine found she enjoyed seeing him in this comfortable light. It made him appear more like a living, breathing person, rather than a subject of salacious gossip. He was, after all, nothing but a young man.
Albeit a devilishly attractive one.
Bastien pushed his lips forward again in obvious calculation. It drew attention to his mouth in a way that made Celine avert her gaze. She swallowed, dismissing a flurry of wanton thoughts. Half of her felt angered by this proof of her attraction. The other half appreciated the stark reminder that Bastien brought the worst version of Celine to the surface. The one cloaked in vice and sin.
Another minute passed in silence. The longer they went without speaking, the heavier the charge in the air grew, until it took on a life of its own, a hooded specter looming above their heads.
Celine refused to be the one who spoke first. Under pain of death. He could wait until the sun rose high in the sky tomorrow morning, for all she cared.
“You arrived to New Orleans recently.” Bastien offered this as a statement of fact, rather than a question.
“A little more than a week ago.” Celine paused, wondering if he recalled seeing her that first evening near Jackson Square. “You speak Spanish.”
He nodded. “Because of my father.”
“Your father was Spanish?”
“No.”
Celine waited for him to clarify, then sighed to herself when he didn’t. Not because she was troubled by his evasiveness, but rather because she understood his wish to thread a needle with every word he spoke.
Yet another similarity.
Vexed by this realization, Celine eased back on her left heel, the toes of her right foot tapping against the thick carpet.
A smile ghosted across Bastien’s lips. “I’m irritating you.”
“You’re enjoying it.”
“I am.” His mouth shifted to one side, again pressed into that maddening pucker.
Silence settled between them once more. Then Bastien took a step closer to Celine, no doubt to see how she would respond. If she moved back, she’d reveal her unease, thereby granting him the upper hand. If she shifted forward, she’d reveal her attraction . . . which also granted the fiend the upper hand.
Celine did not give ground. She was a mountain. A hundred-year-old oak. A tower refusing to bend. “I can stand here forever in irritated silence. It is no bother to me.” She crossed her arms tightly, her forearms winding beneath her breasts, pushing against the boning in her corset. “You can perish wondering what I’m thinking, for I’ll never tell.”
“Likewise.” The angles in Bastien’s features hollowed further. His eyes dipped downward instinctively before he caught them, his jawline flexing, sharpening.
He glanced away.
At first Celine did not understand his odd behavior. She let her gaze drift lower, only to drop her arms as though they’d burst into flame. “If you think I used my wiles to catch your notice like a girl trying to fill her dance card at a ball, then—”
“Whatever I think has nothing to do with you,” Bastien interjected. “My behavior is not your responsibility.”
His response unseated her. Shocked her into silence. She’d never heard such words fall from any man’s lips. Celine’s father had always scolded her for wearing anything that accentuated her figure. Alas, the latest fashions sought to do just that: give life to every line, sway to every curve. Even a lady’s unmentionables were designed to grant her the appearance of an hourglass. Nevertheless, Professor Guillaume Rousseau had encouraged his daughter to wear modesty pieces about her throat and dress in layers, even when the Parisian summers were at their worst.
Bastien took a deep breath, as if he were biding his time. “I made you uncomfortable. I . . . apologize.”