Mon Dieu. Did Papa think Mr. Short a lecher? I burned at the indelicate warning. Indeed, I was too mortified to speak! Did he not recognize the hypocrisy of chiding other men for destructive affairs?
My gaze dropped to fists clenched upon the dining table, and Papa patted my balled-up hand. “If Short doesn’t secure the position he desires, we mustn’t let him take it too hard, Patsy. An American too long in Europe loses his knowledge, his morals, his health, his habits, and his happiness. I’d entertained only suspicions of this before, but what I see since coming here proves it.”
Having never heard my father speak even indirectly in criticism of Mr. Short before, a hollow pain took up residence in the center of my chest. “You think so ill of him?”
“To the contrary. William has my warmest and most fatherly affection. And I want nothing but the best for all my children.”
OUR EVENINGS WERE FILLED WITH VISITORS and Papa himself drafting in frantic, coded scribblings for Lafayette a charter of rights that should serve as the new constitution for France. It seemed too fraught a time for carving hearts and initials into trees, especially since I felt keenly the need to question Mr. Short.
Alas, my father kept him too busy. On the day the Third Estate officially declared themselves the National Assembly, and the clergy voted by small majority to join them, we heard cries of “Vive le Roi! Vive le Assemblée Nationale!”
That was the same day Marie came to call, bringing with her a little black miniature poodle with fluffy balls of fur upon its head and paws and tail. Every Parisian of standing kept at least one dog for a pet, it seemed. Seated in a circle beneath the rising golden sun painted overhead, we tried our hand at embroidering with tambour needles, working to embellish one of my new dresses with pearlescent beads. Truthfully, only Sally had any talent for it, and my mind was on Mr. Short.
“He’s asked for my love,” I finally confessed.
Polly beamed with excitement. “Have you given it?”
My shoulders fell. “How can I? He’s always at Versailles.”
Marie set down her needle. “Then we must go to him there.”
“You and I, alone?” I asked, wary of such an adventure.
“Bring your sister and Mademoiselle Sally, too. There’s room in my carriage. . . .”
Polly groaned. “In this rain? I’d rather drink hot chocolate.”
Marie huffed. “To think I came out in this rain just to see you and your sister, you sweet little wretch! The rain is auspicious after such drought. Besides, better for you to be out in fresh air instead of imprisoned in this house.”
We were not, of course, prisoners, but I hadn’t attended a ball with Marie since the night of Mr. Short’s return. In truth, the social scene in Paris had collapsed under the weight of its politics and the official mourning for the poor little dauphin, who died of consumption and left the queen in despair.
Sorely tempted, I asked, “What reason could we possibly give for going to Versailles on our own?”
Marie smiled, mischief in her eyes. “We’ll go on the pretense of paying a visit to Madame de Tessé at her chateau.”
Few women were more engaged with the happenings at Versailles than Lafayette’s elderly relation. I’d never been allowed to attend her salons, but Papa said she was a Republican of the first feather. And we often drank tea with her, so Papa couldn’t possibly raise an objection to my taking her a small harvest of American curiosities from our garden. . . .
Still, as much as I longed to see Mr. Short, I hesitated, and Marie’s gaze turned playfully stern. “Come now, cher Jeffy. You cannot be timid in matters of love!”
It was decided then. Sally helped me into a gown appropriate for court—jet-black in keeping with mourning customs and in sympathy with the commons, who were still obliged to dress in their dark mark of inferiority. There was no time to don the elegant hedgehog-style wig I’d been saving for such an occasion. Besides, the rain outside would only ruin it and natural hair was now in fashion, so I donned a bonnet, then off we went.
“We’ll never find him,” I fretted. “Half of Paris is at Versailles. In the throngs of thousands, where will we even look?”
“At your papa’s elbow,” Sally said as we settled into Marie’s carriage. “Your father stands taller above the crowd than anyone excepting perhaps Lafayette.”
Marie nodded in agreement, then shrugged. “Besides if we don’t find Short, what of it? The king and queen are at their palace at Marly, and I suppose we’ll arrive too late for mass, but we’ll have a fine day of it in the Hall of Mirrors.”
Alas, we had quite underestimated the rain. It drove against the carriage windows in sheets, flooding the streets and sending our wheel into a river of filthy water in a ditch. There was nothing for us to do but abandon it to the coachman, gird ourselves under umbrellas, and run back to the house, with Marie’s dog yapping at our heels. In full sprint, blinded by the rain, I reached the corner of rue de Berri and the Champs-élysées, and crashed into a man standing there.