“Of course I care about you, Cendrillon. I’ve loved you like my own since the moment your mother first handed you to me when you were a newborn babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. It hurts that you think I don’t care about you. But that’s my fault.”
“Why didn’t you come to Papa’s funeral?” I asked, harshness still seeping into my voice even though some of my anger was starting to dim.
“I’m sure you realized that I cared about your father as more than a friend. Am I correct?”
I nodded slowly. “I thought you and Papa were going to get married. And I saw the way he looked at you. He never looked at anyone else like that.”
“That’s sweet of you to say,” she said, her smile sad. “I also thought that he loved me. I certainly loved him, and I was going to tell him the night of the ball, but I suddenly felt ill and had to go home. The next thing I knew, he was marrying Lady Catherine. I was devastated. Please don’t take this as an attack against your father, because it’s not, but his marriage to Lady Catherine Monvoisin broke my heart. And then he died, and everything became so much worse. I wanted to go to his funeral, but she was going to be there. It was too painful for me to grieve Michel and see Catherine. To have to speak with her. It was cowardly on my part. I regret it to this day.”
I scooted closer to her on the bench and squeezed her hands tighter. I couldn’t blame Lady Françoise for not going to Papa’s funeral. It hurt that she wasn’t there, and I was so angry about it for so long, but I understood why she couldn’t. If I were in her shoes, I don’t know what I would have done.
“I don’t blame you for not coming to Papa’s funeral,” I told her.
She opened her mouth to object, but I ignored it and forged ahead. “I don’t understand why you never came to see me.”
Lady Françoise’s voice was firm and her eyes pleading. “I could not be more sorry. After Michel’s passing I took some . . . time away from court, to visit family in England. I haven’t been well. I just got back last month and only found out that you were still living near Versailles after speaking with our friend from the market.” She looked a bit fragile, almost brittle, and I worried for her, especially since I had just found her again.
“Where else would I have been?” I said, looking out the carriage window.
“I heard that you were sent to stay with your aunt. I wrote you letters at her address. I’m surprised she didn’t send them on. If I’d known you were alone with Lady Catherine, and certainly if I’d known how horribly she treated you, I would have insisted that you come live with me.”
My heart jumped at the thought of living with Lady Françoise, but what she said about my aunt didn’t make any sense.
“My aunt? Maman’s sister? She died six years ago. Papa was the only family I had left.”
Lady Françoise looked as if she might faint at this news. “Oh, ma chérie! I had no idea. At court, everyone said you’d been sent to live with your aunt. I never thought to check whether it was true or not. Who would have started that kind of rumor?”
I had a guess. Could Lady Catherine have started the rumor so that Lady Françoise didn’t go looking for me? So she could use me as free labor without anyone’s bothersome concern for my well-being getting in her way? I wouldn’t put it past her.
“But I did send you a letter before I left for England, and that one went to the château. Didn’t you get it?”
“No. I never got any letter.”
Lady Françoise gasped. She wiped her brow. “How strange. I wasn’t sure of your aunt’s address, having heard nothing, so I sent it to the château instead. I had hoped that Lady Catherine would send it on.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, I knew. If Lady Françoise said that she sent me a letter, then she sent me a letter. It was lost either accidentally or on purpose, and I was fairly certain it was on purpose.
I hugged Lady Françoise tightly. I’d been so angry at her for so long, but that was all over now. She’d loved Papa and was grieving for him too. It was clear to me that Lady Catherine had destroyed the letter.
“I’m just glad you’re here now,” I said, breathing in the comfortingly familiar scent of her jasmine perfume.
“I won’t leave you again. I promise,” said Lady Françoise, her arms tightening around me. “We’re family. We’ll look out for each other.”
For the first time since Papa died, I was filled with hope for a future that I’d only been dreading.
Chapter Eighteen
“I would very much prefer not to wear my hair in a fontange,” I said, dancing away from one of Lady Françoise’s maids, my hands covering the top of my head protectively.
“Why not, my lady? It would look so lovely on you, and it’s quite in fashion,” she said, a pile of wires and lace cradled in her arms like a baby.
“That is kind of you to say, but truly, I would prefer almost any other hairstyle.”
Just looking at the materials brought back memories of Severine screaming in my ear because I’d accidentally pulled her hair or pricked her with a pin while trying to wrangle the towering ornament into place atop her head. I shuddered at the thought.
“Fine,” the lady’s maid said with a sigh, dropping the wires and lace onto a blue velvet footstool. “Will you at least allow us to style your hair a little?”
“Yes, of course. I mean it when I say any other hairstyle. Just not a fontange. Thank you,” I said awkwardly.
I felt out of place in Lady Françoise’s boudoir. It was all so luxurious, with marble walls, blue velvet furnishings, and gold accents. Her toilette table was covered in gold, silver, and crystal bottles that looked as if they would shatter at the slightest touch, while a large mirror covered almost the entire length of one wall. A chandelier dripping with crystals hung from the ceiling. The candlelight that reflected through the crystals was dappled and gentle, as if we were standing in a shady glen in the forest and not a lavishly ornate boudoir.
After I took a lovely bath that was drawn for me, filled with the most heavenly oils, Lady Françoise sent three of her lady’s maids to help me prepare. Now I was sitting in my underthings and a silk robe, waiting for the seamstress to finish the alterations on one of Lady Françoise’s dresses while the maids completed the rest of my toilette. Their enthusiasm was intimidating. The maid with the fontange materials looked so upset at my refusal that I almost wanted to apologize and relent. Almost.
“Don’t pout, Marianne,” the second maid said, coming up behind me, grabbing my shoulders, and forcefully leading me back to my seat at the vanity. “We can put her hair up in a chignon. You love those.”