Even as he spoke he saw that the only thing particularly French about her was her accent, an accent the authenticity of which he, a non-native speaker who had spent very little time south of Paris, could ill judge.
“Perhaps she is French—she’s never admitted otherwise,” said Michael. “But given that I learned to speak the Queen’s English from her, I don’t believe so.”
“Madame Durant speaks the Queen’s English,” Stuart said slowly, almost dumbly.
“Better than—” Michael paused. “Better than I.”
He’d meant to say “Better than you or I.”
For some strange reason, Stuart thought of his Cinderella of that long-lost night, her syllables as polished as the facets of a diamond.
Haven’t got any lizards in my kitchen.
Cinderella, too, had worked in a kitchen.
No, impossible. He would have known. He would have known her anywhere, under any conditions.
Would he really? From one night’s acquaintance, after a span of more than ten years, in the dark, while they spoke in a different language?
“What else did you learn from Madame Durant, besides the Queen’s English?” he asked, his tone suitably casual, even as his fingers clenched over his walking stick.
“Continental languages. And how to behave myself in every imaginable scenario involving a member of the peerage, his wife, and his daughters.” Michael chortled. “I believe she once taught me how to give the direct cut. I used to call her the Duchess of Fairleigh Park.”
She had splendid vowels, pure sounds that sang of family trees with roots going as far back as the Battle of Hastings.
No, he was fashioning similarities from thin air. Their bodies were entirely different. The colors of their hair were dissimilar.
Bodies changed. So did hair color. Bertie’s hair had bleached lighter in the summer months and turned more brown than blond over winter.
She always said you were a good example for me.
That comment had always struck Stuart as odd. Now it was surpassing strange, in light of what she herself had said. He usually spoke of you as if you were a horseman of the Apocalypse. How had she managed to form such an elevated opinion of him in the face of that?
“Cinderella.”
“Beg your pardon, sir?”
Stuart had no idea he’d spoken the name aloud. “Cinderella,” he said. “A highborn young woman who ends up in the kitchen, subjected to menial tasks.”
“I think I know that story,” said Michael. “I imagine Mr. Bertram wasn’t quite the prince she’d hoped for.”
Tell me, what’s Cinderella doing in town, without her coach, her footmen, or her ball gown?
It’s obvious, isn’t it? Something went terribly awry at the ball.
Ten years ago, according to the Dowager Duchess of Arlington, Bertie had come close to marrying Madame Durant, but never did. Ten years ago, his Cinderella materialized outside his town house, with a story of a prince turned to toad.
“Have you never asked her for her true identity?”
“More times than I can count. But she wouldn’t tell me anything. And she never speaks of her life before she was seventeen.”
When I was seventeen, I was at the end of my ropes. I had no money, no prospects, and no family, except a baby I loved desperately.
A loud gong went off in Stuart’s head.
What happened to your baby?
He was adopted by wonderful people.
Stuart stared at the young man beside him. The resemblance was not great. But that meant little. He himself had not resembled his mother at all. “Before you left for Rugby, did you see Madame Durant on a regular basis?”
“Yes, sir. Almost every day.”
He was adopted by wonderful people, but I still see him every day.
His heart slowed to a dull thud. What little blood reached his brain pulsed heavy and sluggish in his ears.
“If you don’t mind, Robbins, may I ask you where were you born?”
Michael looked perturbed. Stuart realized that he’d thrown aside all pretense of casualness. He now treated Michael as if the boy were a key witness in the trial of the century.
“In London, sir, I was told.”
“And how old were you when you were adopted?”
“When I was about six months old.”
“You once told me that you remember fragments of your infancy. Do you perhaps recall a trip to the zoological garden?”
Michael jerked visibly. “No. But my mother keeps a box of mementos from when I was a baby. There is an admission ticket to the London Zoo in that box—and neither of my parents has ever visited London.”
Stuart didn’t know whether he was hot or cold. He seemed to have lost all sensation in his extremities. The train whistled, snapping him out of his paralysis. “That is a call for you to board,” he said to Michael.
But Michael now stared at him as if he were the Ghost of Christmas Future. “Sir, could you tell me how you know about the zoo?”
Stuart shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it.
“Sir, please!” said Michael. “Please, I beg you.”
Stuart turned his face away. “It was a story told to me by a woman I met many years ago. She took her infant son to the zoo and later gave him up for adoption.”
“That was Madame Durant?”