Dare to Love (48 page)

Millie smiled her pixie smile and admired herself in the mirror across the room. She was as bright and irrepressible as ever, but there was a new sophistication, in both manner and speech, as well as a wry detachment that hadn't been there before. The gorgeous yellow brocade gown she wore embroidered with gold and silver flowers had an extremely low-cut bodice. Her golden hair, arranged in waves with half a dozen ringlets dangling down in back, was very stylish, and her make-up was subdued: lips a pale rose pink, eyelids softly shadowed with mauve gray. The capricious minx had been transformed into an elegant coquette, but the minx still lurked beneath the surface, pert, merry, refusing to take her new affluence too seriously.

“I shouldn't complain about the traveling,” she sighed. “Now that we're back in France it'll be even worse. Paris will be a constant round of parties and theaters and there'll be fights with publishers and collaborators and Alexandre will churn out a couple of more books and then we'll go down to the chateau for a little peace and quiet and it'll be twice as bad!”

“Is the Chateau de Monte Cristo as fabulous as they say?”

“It's incredible. It's like something out of the Arabian nights, showy, ornate, three storeys topped with mansard attics, and has an oriental minaret rising from the facade. A frieze runs around the first storey adorned with the busts of all the great dramatists, including a bust of Alexandre in prominent position. There's a Louis XV salon and an Arab room decorated with stucco arabesques and verses from the Koran painted in gold and bright colors, and—”

Millie shook her head. “You'd have to see it to believe it. The place is a madhouse, swarming with barking dogs and unpaid secretaries and unexpected guests every time you turn around! Alexandre prowls about with a drumstick in one hand and a flagon of wine in the other, dictating to one or another of the poor secretaries who stumbles along after him, and I'm supposed to keep the guests occupied and fight off all the bill collectors! It's absolutely frantic.”

“You seem to thrive on it.”

“Alexandre has been very good to me,” Millie confessed. “I never thought we'd stay together all this time. He's noisy and boisterous and always blustering about, and he's been shockingly unfaithful, and he's kind and lovable and
most
generous.”

“I'm happy for you, Millie.”

“Truth to tell, Elena, I fear we'll come to a parting of the ways any day now. He's got his eye on a tasty little brunette of the Comédie Française, and I think he'd like to move her in. I'll share him with his wife, but I'll be hanged if I'll share him with Mademoiselle Arlette!”

I smiled, and Millie smiled, too, blue eyes atwinkle.

“But I'll have no regrets. Actually, I'm rather tired of all these literary chaps who prattle about novels and newspapers and royalties and sales. I'm in the mood for someone rough and rugged who'll sweep me off my feet and not waste time talking! But I rather doubt I'll find him in Paris.”

“So do I.”

We were sitting on a pale ivory satin sofa. Sweeping pale blue drapes hung at the opened French windows, and sunlight streamed into the room, making silvery flecks on the ivory and blue carpet with its fading pink cabbage roses. I poured tea for us and handed Millie a cup. It was the first time we had seen each other since my return to Paris from Barivna a year and a half ago. I had stayed in the city then just long enough to arrange a dancing tour that had kept me on the move for the past eighteen months.

“It's good to see you again, Millie,” I remarked. “I've missed you dreadfully.”

“I've missed you, too. You've been gone so long! The tour must have been exhausting—England again, half of Europe, and you finally made it to Russia! Was it really as exciting as you claimed in your letters?”

“Very bizarre,” I replied. “Travel by sleds, fur lap robes, gorgeous palaces with colored domes, starving peasants and cossacks, cossacks, cossacks, following me about like bands of wolves, drinking vodka, riding their horses up the stairs and through the halls of my hotel.”

“And the Grand Prince?” she inquired.

“He was a dear—sweet and attentive and very married. The stories you read in the papers were pure invention. He did escort me to several court functions, but there was no romance, not even a mild flirtation. He is in his mid-fifties, not at all the dashing figure the journalists presented in their stories.”

“Shades of Anthony Duke,” Millie quipped. “From all reports, though, it was a wildly successful tour.”

“Wildly. There were fantastic crowds everywhere I appeared. I'd like to believe they came to see my dancing, but I've no such illusions. They were attracted by my reputation, not my art. They clamored to see the notorious woman who started a revolution and caused a king to lose his throne.”

“At least it must have been financially rewarding.”

Smiling, I shook my head. “I only wish that were true. Most of the money was eaten up by expenses—traveling, hotel bills, food. Elena Lopez has an image to maintain. She must travel first class, stay at the grandest hotels, eat in the best restaurants. On this tour I paid my own way, and—I'm afraid it was a disaster.”

“You don't mean you're
flat
?”

“Not quite. I was able to lease this house, and there's enough left to live on for a couple of months. But I really have no idea what I'm going to do next. There've been dozens of offers, but I'm not up to another engagement just yet. I still have the jewels Karl gave me. I suppose I could always sell them.”

Millie took a final sip of tea and set her cup down. “Do you ever hear from Karl?” she asked.

I shook my head again. “We—we no longer exchange letters. I saw him once, very briefly, when I was in Nice. He's living there, you know, since his exile. We decided it would be best to—sever all ties. There was such notoriety, and Karl hopes to be restored to the throne one day.”

I paused, and explained, “He has some—very bad spells—he's not very well—but on the whole he's content. He lives in a spacious apartment, surrounded by books and papers and paintings. Several loyal members of his court went into exile with him, and they see that he is comfortable.”

Looking out at the garden, I thought of the poor, defeated man I had seen in Nice, a gentle soul living in the past and clinging to futile hopes for the future. I put my cup down, sighed and smoothed a fold of my pale violet watered silk skirt.

“Strangely enough, I'm still a countess,” I continued. “After the revolution, the new regime acknowledged the validity of my title, although they naturally appropriated my estates and the annual revenue. Legally I'm still the Countess of Landsfeld, for what it's worth. Not much, I fear. I never use the title myself, but the journalists adore it.”

During the momentary silence, Millie took my hand and gave it a tight squeeze.

“It really
is
wonderful to see you again,” she said. “The tour did you good. You look much better than you did the last time I saw you—after Barivna.”

“Older,” I said.

“At peace with yourself, a bit weary, but—healed. You're over it, and that's the important thing.”

“I suppose so.”

“Have you heard from Brence?”

“Not a word. The last time I saw him he was climbing into a carriage in front of the inn. I have no idea where he is or what he's doing.”

“It's just as well.”

“I know. Life goes on.”

“True, and something thrilling is always just around the corner,” Millie said brightly. “Just think, both of us could still be at Mrs. Fernwood's!”

“God forbid.”

“Do you remember that ghastly wallpaper?”

I nodded. “And those endless stairs.”

“
I
remember her wretched cat. It always hissed at me.”

“We were so young—”

We began to reminisce, and I found myself smiling as Millie dredged up half-forgotten episodes, recalling them with high humor as only she could. Time seemed to fly, and suddenly, glancing at the clock, she let out a shriek and leaped to her feet, yellow brocade skirt crackling.

“Lord! I was supposed to meet Alexandre at his publisher's office at six, and it's ten past already! I told the driver to pick me up in front of your house at five-thirty. He'll have been waiting all this time, and Alexandre will be having a fit! If I don't hurry he'll sign another contract just to kill time.”

“You must come back soon, Millie,” I said, walking her to the door.

“I will, Elena. Very soon. I may bring my bags and move in.”

“I'd love that.”

“I've a feeling Alexandre would, too,” she said wryly. “Don't be surprised if I actually do show up with a mound of luggage.”

“It would be like old times.”

“The two of us against the world,” Millie said.

We hugged each other in the doorway, and Millie dashed out to the waiting carriage, waving blithely as it pulled away. I waved back and then went upstairs to bathe and dress. Phillipe was to pick me up at eight to take me to the theater and for dinner afterwards. We had exchanged letters over the past two years, and as soon as I returned to Paris Phillipe had come up from Touraine. I had seen him almost every night since. He was very dissatisfied with his lot as a gentleman farmer, very lonely as well, and I hadn't the heart to deny him companionship.

For the evening, I wore a lovely gown of deep blue velvet and my hair, falling in long, lustrous waves, was held back by diamond clips.

Phillipe, who arrived at the stroke of eight, was resplendent in a dark plum-colored suit and a white satin waistcoat embroidered with flowers in black and maroon silk, his white silk neckcloth neatly arranged. He was thinner than he had been in Barivna, which made him seem even taller, and there was a wistful look in his clear blue eyes. With his cleft chin, his virile, aristocratic features and rich, wavy silvery-brown hair, he was strikingly handsome, an admirable escort.

“Punctual as usual,” I remarked.

“One of my failings, I fear,” Phillipe replied.

“Failings?”

“I'm always punctual, always polite, always considerate. In a word, frightfully dull.”

“Nonsense.”

“I'd like to be rakish and bold, arrive two hours late, snarling and making masterful noises. I'd like to be mysterious and mercurial and fascinating.”

“I've had my share of fascinating men,” I informed him.

“So now you're content to be squired about by a dull young man from Touraine who spends most of his time supervising tenant farmers, keeping track of livestock and investigating fertilizers to determine which will insure the best results.”

“Nonsense. I consider myself fortunate to have an escort who is so attentive and charming and—quite the nicest young man I know.”

“‘Nice,'” Phillipe said. “That's almost the same as dull.”

“Phillipe—”

“Sorry,” he said. “Just teasing.”

Phillipe smiled his warm, engaging smile that I had found so winning the first time I met him and, taking my arm, escorted me down to the waiting carriage.

The warm night air was fragrant with the scent of chestnut blossoms. As we drove through the streets of Paris we talked lightly of inconsequential things, but I could see that Phillipe was preoccupied, though striving valiantly to conceal it. I realized that his discontent went much deeper than I had suspected and had been growing steadily ever since his father insisted he return to Touraine to manage the family estate.

The theater was ablaze with lights, and elegantly attired couples poured into it. After helping me out of the carriage, Phillipe paid the driver and took my arm again. People stared as we passed under the marquee and into the plush blue and gold lobby. Because of the episode in Barivna and the tour that followed, Elena Lopez was even more famous than ever, and according to the newspapers Phillipe Du Gard, wealthy young aristocrat, was only the latest in a long line of lovers. Phillipe had been rather embarrassed by the stares and the newspaper stories at first, but after a few days he stopped paying attention to them.

Dozens of pairs of opera glasses were turned on us as we took our seats in the box. I was relieved when the house lights dimmed and the blue velvet curtain rose with a soft rumbling noise. The play was a revival of Hugo's
Hernani
, the thundering melodrama that had been a
cause célèbre
when first performed two decades earlier, revolutionizing French drama. This production was performed to the hilt, flamboyantly done with high color and excessive verve. I found the raging histrionics a bit tiresome, and Phillipe sat with elbow on bannister, chin in hand, immersed in thought, paying not the least attention to the tumultuous drama being enacted beyond the footlights.

As we were making our way down the grand staircase after the final curtain, I heard boisterous cries of “Elena! Elena! Wait!” The staircase was crowded, the chandeliers dazzling, and at first I couldn't tell where the noise was coming from. Then I saw the three young men pushing their way down the staircase from the upper balcony. I could hardly believe my eyes. Hans waved. Eric smiled broadly. Wilhelm cheered, shoving past a group of humbly dressed young people who blocked his way. I felt a great rush of elation as they hurried toward us like a tribe of American Indians.

Phillipe and I moved on down the grand staircase to the lobby, and the boys joined us a moment later, after almost knocking down a plump matron in white satin. Hans threw his arms around me. I kissed his cheek. I kissed Eric and Wilhelm as well, ignoring the stares of people moving past us. Poorly but neatly dressed in dark suits, flowing white collars and colorful neck scarves, wearing their hair much longer than they had in Bariyna, they looked properly Bohemian. Hans' fingers were ink-stained. Eric's sleeve had colored chalk marks on it, and Wilhelm looked as though he were suffocating in his too-tight suit.