Mère stiffened on the bench beside her. “Bonjour, monsieur. Can I assist you?”
Julienne snuck a glance just in time to see the intruder bow. He, as most other fashionable men these days, was dressed à l’Anglais, in simple breeches that molded to muscular legs, an unadorned waistcoat, a well-tailored but unembroidered coat. He had doffed his hat, revealing hair of a warm brown, bound at the nape.
Something tickled the back of her neck. L’espoir. Which proved her a fool yet again. Why should she hope? There was nothing left to hope for—she was trapped in this web life had woven for her. Promised to a man she didn’t want, who couldn’t claim her yet was too influential to be refused.
Non. No hope rested in the stranger who had surely not been what he seemed anyway.
A stranger who had been just as tall as the man before her proved to be upon straightening. With shoulders just as broad. A chin just as strong, though little else had been visible beneath his mask. This man, though, had a face clearly discernible and handsome enough to warrant the way her heart sped. He certainly carried himself as a noble, with confidence and poise in every line.
So had the man from the masquerade. But his voice, his accent…
Julienne clasped her hands together, the pressure of fingers upon fingers the only way to school her wayward thoughts. She would not dwell on the stranger—not that one nor this. Even if the first had spoken to her very soul on their walk, and if the one before them now tempted her to flutter her fan and play the coquette just to earn a smile.
She was too old for such nonsense.
But he smiled despite her lack of fan fluttering, and dimples winked out on either side of his mouth that made her glad she sat, for surely they would have turned her knees to melted wax.
The man placed his cocked hat back upon his head. “Merci, madame. I have need of nothing and only stopped because of how familiar you look. You must be the daughter of the marquis de Valence, n’est-ce pas?”
That quickly, Mère went from stiff and cold to warm and friendly, ushering him nearer with a wave of her hand. “Oui, I am the comtesse de Rouen. You know my father?”
The man inclined his head and smiled again, those dimples wreaking havoc on Julienne’s heart as he came a few steps closer. “Does anyone at Versailles not know him? Though I confess I am at my chateau more often than at court.”
“And you are?”
He bowed again, though not so deep this time. “Charles Mercier, the comte d’Ushant.”
Julienne kept her brow from creasing, but only barely. There, as he said his name…that accent. So very slight—her mother certainly didn’t seem to notice it, given the way she preened and held out a hand—but it was there. Just as it had been that night.
Was it possible? Was this man, the comte d’Ushant, the man from the masquerade? The very question made her pulse redouble and her palms go damp. It couldn’t be. It was her imagination again, surely. A bit of rebellious, unreasonable hope. Nothing more.
She’d nearly convinced herself when he looked over and caught her eye. Then she nearly choked on the air she had just drawn in.
Mère cleared her throat. “Have you met my daughter, Julienne? The two of you seem as though you are trying to place each other.”
He extended his hand, and her fingers moved of their own volition toward his, though higher reason said she ought to withhold them. But before she could command her mutinous limb back to her side, her fingers settled on his palm. Warmth washed over her, just as it had done that night. That unexplainable yearning to wrap her arms around him and beg him to take her away from here filled her.
Ridiculous.
His dimples made no appearance now as he held her gaze. “I believe we shared a dance at a masquerade some months ago, non? I did not learn your name at the time, of course, but I remember your eyes.”
A dance. Simple words, yet she read so much more in his own eyes. Didn’t she?
“Ah.” Mère smiled even as she settled her gaze upon their still-touching hands, reminding Julienne that she ought to have pulled her fingers away already. Yet cold swept up her spine when she obeyed the silent command. “My Julienne is indeed unforgettable. The duc tells me so regularly.”
Julienne swallowed against the acrid taste in her mouth, but it would not go away. As she watched, the light in d’Ushant’s eyes dimmed, as though a lamp were being trimmed. “Your husband?”
Julienne raised her chin. “No. I am not married.”
“He is her fiancé,” Mére said, not so quickly that it would sound pointed, but not so slowly as to allow even a moment of hope.
Hope again—such a foreign thing to be coming up so often.