The door swung open, and I broke off mid-note, my hands grasping for the bedposts to keep my balance. But before I could regain an ounce of composure, my mother strode in.
“Cécile!” she snarled, but I cut her off before she could start into me.
“Mama!” I flung myself against her, burying my face in the fur collar of her coat. She smelled like perfume, cigar smoke, and spilled wine, but I didn’t care.
“What’s happened?” she demanded. “Has someone hurt you?” Her strong arms pushed me back, face pale as she examined me. “Well?”
What to say? The truth was impossible—even if I could tell her, after the way I’d just acted, I’d sound like a raving lunatic. “I woke up afraid,” I mumbled, looking away for shame of how childish I sounded.
“A bad dream?” From the tone of her voice, my mother agreed with my assessment of my behavior.
Wiping tears away with the back of my hand, I nodded.
“Stars and heavens, you will be the death of me!” She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, and only then did I notice how disheveled she was. Her hair was loose of all its pins and the kohl rimming her eyes was smeared. “For a dream you wake the neighbors. Ahh!” she grimaced. “Not just the neighbors, half the dogs in the city were caterwauling along with you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re a fool of a girl.” She shook her head, her eyes blurry with something—likely wine, though it could have been absinthe. Or worse. Her hand reached for me so suddenly that I had to stop myself from jerking away. “You’ve been crying.”
Warmth filled my chest, my heart convinced I’d heard a note of compassion in her voice.
“You shouldn’t, you know. Some girls look pretty when they cry and can wield their tears like a weapon against men. But you aren’t one of them. Instead of wrapping them around your finger, you’ll send them running.”
The warmth fled, and my mutinous bottom lip began to tremble.
Her shoulders slumped a little. “Heaven knows, that’s why I never shed a tear in public.” Letting go of my face, she took my arm and pulled me toward the door. “It’s freezing in here. If you catch cold, you won’t be able to sing. And if you can’t sing…” Her mouth pressed out in a little pout. “Well, the neighbors might well be pleased.”
I steadied her arm as we walked down the stairs together. “Build up the fire a bit,” she said. “I will make us something hot to drink.”
I mindlessly stirred the coals and added wood to the fire, my mind all for Tristan and what could possibly be going on in Trollus. Where was he now? What were they doing to him? And worst of all, what was I going to do about it? The promise I’d made his father felt like it was crawling through my veins, a separate living thing that had found its way inside me against my will.
“Sit with me.”
My mother had returned to the great room with two steaming cups in her hands, the faint smell of mint and chamomile drifting through the air. I settled next to her on the well-padded settee, tucking my chilled feet underneath me to warm them. She waited until I was settled to hand me a cup, and for a long time we both silently watched the fire. It felt comfortable and warm, and for the first time ever, the austere townhouse felt almost like home and Genevieve almost like a real mother. I clung to the feeling, letting it drive away the black thoughts threatening to overtake me.
“Where were you?” I asked. The water clock showed the time as five in the morning. I hadn’t slept for more than an hour. That I’d fallen asleep at all was astonishing.
“The Marquis’ salon.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, revealing her profile. In the firelight, I could see little crinkles were starting to form around her eyes, black little lines where the kohl had caught in them. “Some gentlemen he conducts business with are here from the mainland, and he wanted them well entertained.”
I hesitated, a question that I’d been dying—but also afraid—to ask burning on the tip of my tongue. “What exactly does that mean?”
She turned her head to look at me. “What,” she asked, raising one eyebrow, “do you think it means?”
“That you sing?” I ventured, because that was what I hoped. I might have been born in the morning, but not yesterday morning. I’d heard the gossip and the rumors, and though he’d never outright explained his dislike, I believed that was why Fred refused to have much of anything to do with her.
“Sometimes.” She set her steaming cup down on the table. “But mostly, I talk.”
Not what I’d expected her to say. I took a large mouthful, burning my tongue. “About what?”
“Everything. Anything.” She pushed out her bottom lip. “Women of the nobility, or at the very least, of quality, are limited by propriety in what they can discuss. I am not.” She pointed a finger at me. “Neither are you. And that makes us far more desirable company than any of their wives.”
I started to look away in discomfort, but she caught my chin. “That is why I sent tutors for you in the Hollow, Cécile. Because for you to succeed in this world, you must not only be beautiful, you must be educated, clever, and above all things, you must be interesting.”
Her eyes searched my face, and I got the impression that I was supposed to say something. Except I didn’t know what. All these things she thought I should be were fine qualities, but I didn’t like the idea that their only purpose was for the entertainment of rich men.
“The Marquis keeps us in very fine style,” she continued. “He pays for all this,” she gestured around the house, “and for everything you have, for everything you know.” One finger coiled around a lock of hair, her eyes intent. “But I am not getting any younger, and soon he will tire of me and look for a replacement. You could be my successor.”
I pulled my chin out of her grasp and looked at the fire, everything becoming clear. That was why she’d wanted me educated, trained, and brought to live with her in Trianon. Not because she wanted her daughter close, but because she wanted insurance that she’d be kept in the style to which she’d grown accustomed. To live off the coin I could secure by being interesting.
“The Marquis must not have much regard for you if he’d put you aside for aging,” I said coldly. I watched, waiting for her eyes to light up so that I’d know my barb had sunk deep.
Instead, she smiled and lifted her chin. “Such is the nature of men, Cécile. They will keep you only so long as there isn’t something better within their reach; then they will discard you. Best you hear that from me now than learn it the hard way later.”
The smoke from the fire made my eyes burn and water as I took in her words. “Papa didn’t discard you.”
The room seemed to shrink, sucked in and made small by the silence.
“Is that what you think?” she whispered. “Is that what he told you?”
The truth was, my father never spoke much of it at all. It was Gran who’d told us the story of how we’d come to be in the Hollow, but I knew as well as I knew the back of my own hands that my grandmother was no liar. It was my turn to lift my chin. “Are you saying it happened differently?”