Elodie reached down under the bed and pulled out a plate arrayed with enough slices of bread and cheese for us to share.
I threw my arms around Elodie’s shoulders and squeezed. Elodie laughed again and pulled back, gesturing to the dresses piled up on Maman’s rocking chair.
“I finished nearly all the alterations. I think there might be one or two dresses left, but you should have enough to carry you through the competition.”
When Elodie returned to the bed, I grasped her hands tightly. “You’re amazing,” I said. “Truly. I would be lost without you.”
“I brought you bread and cheese and mended your dresses,” she said skeptically, but I could see a faint blush coloring her cheeks. “I don’t know if I would call that amazing. And you wouldn’t be lost without me, clearly. Not if the dauphin is already inviting you on a royal hunt. You’re taking care of yourself just fine.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to get through the last year without your support, Elodie. After losing Papa, I don’t know what would have happened if you and Marius hadn’t been there for me. And after Lady Françoise’s passing . . . well, you are the only thing keeping me together. That’s why I’m going to do everything in my power to get you out of here. I hope Lady Catherine didn’t treat you too terribly today.”
“I hardly saw her. I spent the entire day in the sewing room, working on the dresses. If I can manage to keep this pace up, I should be finished in no time. But, Cendrillon,” Elodie said worriedly, “I hope you’re not just competing in the competition for my sake. I want you to do this only if you want to marry the dauphin. I can take care of myself. Lady Catherine isn’t going to hurt me. I’d still be able to find work somewhere even though she’s tried to damage my reputation. It would be awful if you were trapped in a marriage you didn’t want because of your worry for me.”
“I’m not just doing it for you,” I said with what I hoped was a reassuring smile on my face. “Prince Louis has changed since we first met him. He’s kind, funny, and courteous. The perfect gentleman. He would be a good husband. Freeing you, and myself, from Lady Catherine’s clutches is just a bonus. And if I marry him, he can force her to give me my inheritance.” I was so convincing, I almost convinced myself.
I pulled a piece of bread off the plate and held it out to Elodie. “Why don’t we start eating, and then we’ll go through the dresses and make sure they fit.”
Elodie still looked a little uncertain, but she took the bread from me and began piling it up with slices of cheese. I’d gotten much better at lying since living with Lady Catherine. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t want Elodie to worry about me.
I couldn’t risk Lady Catherine or Severine hurting Elodie— especially if they found out about her and Alexandre. I was doing what was best for us both. And marrying Prince Louis wasn’t a death sentence. Everything I said about him was true. He had changed. I’d just neglected to mention that there was another royal brother who was also taking up a not-insignificant place in my thoughts.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Far ahead I could hear the Grand Veneur’s squire blast his horn three times, sharply: the stag had been spotted. Through the trees I could see flashes of the hunters’ colorful coats, red and blue among the greenery. I wished I could join them, that I could feel the pounding of the horse’s hooves beneath me, the wind rushing in my hair, follow the baying of the hounds. Instead I was jolting along in a small creaky carriage with Diane and Anna de Medici, who was (as it turned out) the dullest person I’d ever met, despite her famous family. The ladies were not permitted to hunt. Just to observe. To witness the dauphin’s prowess and coo over his kills.
As I watched my rivals primp and preen over lace and bows, curls and lace fans, it occurred to me that it was possible to hunt without horse and saddle and hounds and weapons. To hunt a different kind of prey altogether.
Next to me in the carriage, Diane was trying to chat with Anna about the competition, about mutual friends, about her home in Tuscany, and even about the weather, but to each question Anna only said, “No,” or “I couldn’t say,” and flicked her fan over her face impatiently.
Perhaps she wished she’d been assigned to ride in the other carriage, with Princesse Henrietta and Duchesse Maria Anna Victoria, who were leaning together and whispering. Gossip among the girls in the competition had it that Princesse Henrietta was the dauphin’s current favorite, and it had seemed, before he rode off that morning to begin the hunt, that he did spend more time speaking to her than the rest of us. “Mesdemoiselles,” he’d said, his arm resting on the side of the carriage nearest Princesse Henrietta, “I promise not to leave you to your own devices for too long.” He’d given the princesse a long glance, and then followed the sound of the horns into the trees.
I watched the English princesse and the Hapsburg duchesse with interest and wondered if the quality of their gossip was better than ours or if Anna was simply an ambitious social climber who had no interest in girls from less exalted families. It was no surprise to me that the higher nobility preferred to stick close to their own kind, though I wished more than once to have the opportunity to learn from the princesse and the duchesse about their families, their countries—to know whether things were better there than in France, or even different. Different enough for people like me.
I’d barely made it out the house that morning. Perhaps as revenge for Severine not having been invited to the hunt, Lady Catherine had woken me and demanded I perform several chores before leaving: First, I had to help Elodie carry several heavy pieces of furniture up the stairs, including a heavy chest and an enormous clock; then I had to dig up potatoes for supper, enough for nearly a week’s worth of evening meals; and then she had me scrub the entire staircase top to bottom because (she said) I had soiled it by perspiring too much when I helped Elodie carry the furniture. She stood over me the whole time to make certain I didn’t rush the job either. I suspected she was trying to make me late to the hunt so I’d be left behind, or else so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, much less hold a tantalizing conversation with the dauphin.
In the first case, it hadn’t worked. I had arrived with two minutes to spare, even if I was still tucking pins into my hair when the carriage stopped. In the second case, though, I began to fear her scheme would eventually find success. As the sun mounted the sky toward midmorning and the air grew hotter, I began to feel my eyelids droop. The stimulating conversation of Lady Anna didn’t help matters in the least.
“I hope there will be lemonade with luncheon,” she was murmuring, mostly to herself. Luncheon was hours away, a picnic that had been prepared for the entire hunting party in a cool grove near a pond. She turned to Diane. “Do you think there will be lemonade?”
Diane, who by then had given up trying to make friends with Anna, managed to eke out, “I couldn’t say,” without a hint of sarcasm, bless her.