To Sketch a Sphinx

by Rebecca Connolly

Her cousin’s eyes lit up. “Ah! We attend the opera regularly, ma petite, and you shall attend with us! There are marvelous operas in Paris at present, are there not, Victoire? Indeed, we shall attend them all, I daresay.”

  Pratt cleared his throat very softly as Hal added yet another cube of sugar to her tea just to busy herself. She paused, cursed silently, and sat back, cautiously lifting her tea and saucer with her as she stirred the overly sugared mess before her.

  She enjoyed the opera, but hardly in excess. She’d hoped to attend once, perhaps twice, as the Paris Opera was rumored to be the best in Europe. But if their whole interaction with the higher society of Paris was relegated to only the opera and nowhere else…

  She hissed to herself in a sort of scolding, wondering just what her husband would make of that.

  His hand slid to her arm, gently patting as he leaned forward to situate himself with tea.

  Well, there was that, at least.

  If he were truly bothered, surely he would have gripped her arm rather than pat it.

  “I confess,” Pratt ground out, reaching for a small piece of cake alongside the tea set, “I am not one for lofty music, but I can appreciate a well-performed aria as well as any with a working set of ears. Within reason, of course, and provided I am not inundated with an excessive quantity.”

  Perhaps not.

  Luckily for them both, de Rouvroy chuckled. “Never fear, Pratt, I shall devise various opportunities to introduce my beautiful petite cousine to all of Paris. But you shall love the opera before you leave our fair city, I stake my word on that.” He grinned with an almost mischievous air, then turned to his wife. “René would be an excellent tutor for them in the opera, would he not, mon chérie?”

  Victoire nodded with almost as much eagerness as her husband expressed. “Oui! He is always wishing for more of the opera, and he has such elegant friends!” She looked at Hal with bright eyes. “My husband’s son from his first wife, you know. Such a well-behaved young man, and so good to his siblings, even the young ones.”

  “He has enough of them to be sure,” de Rouvroy laughed without shame. “Alas for him and my sweet Agathe, there were only they two for so long, but now…”

  On cue, several small voices cried out in delight from somewhere else in the house, drawing fond smiles from their parents. This was followed by a crash of some sort, followed by loud laughter and the thundering of many small feet.

  Hal exhaled slowly and turned to look at her husband, wide-eyed and contrite.

  He silently met her eyes, his own unreadable, and quietly sipped his tea.

  Chapter Five

  There was much to be said for the benefits and positive influence of a night of excellent rest and quiet solitude upon a body riddled with fatigue and exhaustion. John couldn’t recall what they were, having not had such in some time, but he did hope that this evening would allow him to reacquaint himself with the sensation, if not its privileges.

  At the moment, however, he was allowing a sallow-faced servant to act as his valet. No doubt he was desperate to prove himself to le baron so that he might one day have the hope of serving him as valet rather than attending on the few guests who might come.

  John could not imagine a family with as many children as the baron and his wife had actually entertaining on a particularly regular basis.

  If only John could give the lad some work worth demonstrating to his master.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t care about cravats or waistcoats or any such thing, and until he and Hal ventured out to the modiste who had all of their finery, and no doubt much of their intelligence from the Shopkeepers, there would be very little of interest for Leys to do.

  “Would monsieur like for me to fetch a pin for ze cravat? Pearl would well suit, or perhaps emerald?” Leys asked as he fussed again.

  John shook his head once. “No thank you, Leys.” He craned his head as he examined his appearance in the looking glass, grateful he didn’t own anything so ridiculous as what the valet was suggesting.

  He caught the disappointment in the lad’s face, and a twinge of guilt flared in the pit of his stomach.

  “After a long day of travel,” John went on, as though he were continuing a thought rather than adding one, “I have no energy to attempt finery. The rest of our belongings shall be fetched tomorrow, I believe, and then I shall require much of your opinion, taste, and skills to ensure I do not embarrass myself or my wife among Paris society.”

  The brightening of his erstwhile valet’s countenance did little to remove the guilt swirling in John’s gut, and instead added unto it a sickening feeling of dread that was entirely selfish.

  “Oui, monsieur. Merci.” Leys bowed too deeply for John’s status and practically bounced out of the room.

  Lovely. Now John would be turned into a peacock even if Tilda had managed some restraint in her selections.

  Muttering under his breath, he moved to the side door of his bedchamber and pushed into the sitting room that connected his rooms to Hal’s.

  “Hal!” he called, not bothering to pretend at politeness here in their rooms. Not when he was this tired and this irritable. “Hal!”

  “What?” she replied in a sharp tone from behind the door. “Gracious, Pratt, I’m barely presentable and about to rip my hair out, what do you want?”

  He bit back a snarl and pounded his fist on the door.

  “What?” she hollered back, her voice seeming to crack with irritation. “Come in, for pity’s sake!”

  Rolling his eyes, John pushed open the door and strode in, pausing a step only slightly when he caught sight of the woman within.

  Hal had changed into a gown fit for a ballroom in London, the shade that of palest green, a string of pearls wound around her neck, and while he would doubt the ladies of London would have envied her gown, outdated though it surely was, he’d be damned if he’d find a fault in it. Her golden hair was braided, curled, and piled up in a style he’d never seen anywhere before, but it suited her, and it suited her well.

  Very well.

  “What?” Hal barked for the third time, drawing his attention to her face, where a scowl sat as prominently as her hair upon her.

  He blinked and forced his expression into something fairly bland. “Let’s get this over with. I haven’t slept nearly long enough to be in a mood for company.”

  “And you think I am?” she shot back. “Look at this monstrosity.” She jabbed a finger to indicate her hair. “Colette insisted that, since I want for a fine gown, my hair must compensate.” She said the word with a distinctly French accent, deliberately mocking the maid who must have only recently left.

  “I like it,” John admitted with a shrug, eyeing it as one might a masterpiece of architecture.

  “Then you wear it and see if it doesn’t make your head ache.” Hal huffed and turned her back. “Now, do me up. I was so vexed with Colette that I sent her out before I was ready for fear of lashing out at her.”

  John stared at the back before him, eyes widening at the open vee of skin below the slightly bowed neck.

  Four buttons, perhaps five.

  He had never done up a woman’s buttons in his life, and here his wife…

  His wife…

  Dammit.

  With a scowl of his own, John closed the distance between them, fingers extended towards the material with a single-mindedness he usually saved for his work. “Surely, it’s not that bad.”

  Hal snorted softly, lowering her head a little, unwittingly bearing more of her neck to his view. “Remind me to have you pull the pins when we retire, husband. Then you may make assumptions on my hair.”

  John exhaled a wry laugh as he fastened her buttons, trying not to twitch every time his fingers brushed skin. Not that there was anything amiss with doing so, it was just…

  Well, it was Hal’s skin he was brushing against.

  He didn’t like her.

  Did he?

  “I see you’ve escaped with a moderately sensible crava
t,” his wife said with a far more pleasant tone. “How did you manage? Even I could see that Leys prefers a peacock.”

  “And I fear he will have one.” John shook his head as he did up the last two buttons. “I may have told him we are fetching our better belongings, and then he may have more to do.”

  Hal nearly hit his head with her own as she tossed her head back to laugh heartily. “You didn’t! Whatever possessed you to say something so absurd?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea, but I regretted it the moment the words escaped.” He nodded to himself with some pride as he finished the buttons, then patted a hand safely on Hal’s shoulder to signal his task was complete. “There. Done up and ready.”

  She grunted softly, turning to face him with a dubious look. “That will depend on what one considers as ready. For the present, I call it awake and dressed.”

  “Strangely, I quite agree.” He offered his arm to her without any gusto. “Shall we?”

  She looped her arm through his and heaved a sigh. “I’ll give you ten pounds if you can find a way to get us out of supper early without scandalizing or offending anyone.”

  John smirked but found himself growing more weary at the thought of an entire meal with the exuberant family of the Baron de Rouvroy.

  “I extend the same wager to you,” he told his wife as he moved them to the door of her rooms. “Get us out of there, and I’ll pay you.”

  “Deal, Sphinx.”

  “Deal, Sketch.”

  They exchanged tired, resolute smiles, then moved out into the ornate corridor in the direction John could only hope was that of the dining room. At the moment, he wasn’t sure which way was right and which left.

  Blessedly, they found the stairs that would lead them down, allowing John to breathe a silent sigh of relief. One obstacle gone, but so very many more to go, and in this state…

  “How does a place look garish even in the evening?” Hal murmured to him as they entered the more public rooms of the house.

  The words made him want to laugh, though he couldn’t do so, and he glanced around to verify them. The same gold and white theme from before echoed the corridors here, the rugs beneath their feet exquisite in their design and expensive in their quality. Finery was everywhere, could not be avoided, would not be ignored. Every piece of art sat in frames that could have graced any palace in the world and fetched a fortune in any market on the streets. And the art itself would likely have done the same, if not better.

  John half expected them to eat off plates entirely made of gold and with utensils encrusted with gemstones.

  “I thought you said that their family title had been stripped,” John said in a low voice, leaning close to her. “Wouldn’t the fortune have also been returned to the Crown?”

  Hal hummed a soft laugh. “One would imagine so, and yet le baron has not seemed to lose a single centime in all the troubles. It’s extraordinary, don’t you agree?”

  John did agree, and he began to suspect…

  He wasn’t sure what he suspected, but the circumstances were all too fortunate in the baron’s favor, considering what had happened within the rest of France. How could anyone succeed in such a way under both Napoleon and the monarchy? The coincidence was too convenient a thing for his taste. He wouldn’t like to suspect Hal’s relations, particularly given they were also hosting them.

  Yet it could not be ignored.

  It was far too early into their association with the baron and his family to have any real foundation for his suspicions, but he would not discount them, either. Something to keep his eye on, and that was all. But what else might he discover during his time here? Finery or no finery, if there was betrayal here, he would find it.

  And that was an almighty if.

  “If half of what I have heard about French cuisine is true, we could be in for a meal of extraordinary delights,” he told Hal as they neared the dining room.

  “If we have nothing but boiled potatoes and bread, I’ll be delighted to eat more than I can stomach,” Hal replied without a thought. “I don’t care what it is, Pratt, because I will not be eating it in an inn or a coach.”

  “Amen to that.” John forced a smile on his face. “Why does smiling hurt?”

  Hal snorted once as she did the same. “Because you are so out of practice.”

  “Ah.”

  Entering the dining room, they found the family all there, including the children, and all seated before the guests had arrived.

  Odd.

  “Mes cousins!” de Rouvroy called as he caught sight of them, pushing to his feet with an eagerness that seemed uncalled for, considering the shortness of their acquaintance. “Please forgive us our informality. The children, you know, could not wait.”

  John could easily forgive the children; the question was why they were present at all.

  “Of course,” Hal murmured, her hand shifting almost awkwardly on John’s arm.

  “I see,” de Rouvroy said with a small smile. “You disapprove of children at the table with adults?”

  John shook his head at once. “No, not disapprove…”

  “Surprise, then,” the baron corrected. “For no doubt it is surprising to the genteel of the English to allow such noise during the evening meal.”

  Several rounds of giggles sounded from the table, and de Rouvroy turned to grin at them and put a shushing finger to his lips.

  “Surprise would be a better description,” Hal admitted, laughing herself. “I myself was not permitted a seat at the supper meal until I was twelve and could behave myself with decorum.”

  “And that, ma petite, is something which saddens me greatly.” De Rouvroy gestured grandly to his family and stepped back to do so. “For what is the proper decorum of a child? Is it not to explore life and find joy in it? To give those of us who have lost some of our youth and exuberance a chance to revisit it? Why should we be so formal and expect them to ignore their natural inclinations when it will leave them all too soon?”

  It was an extraordinary statement, especially for a member of the peerage, no matter which kingdom had bestowed it. No parent John had ever met in Society felt that way, even the best of them. Especially not while entertaining guests, though there was no telling how a family would behave in private.

  John was a man of reserve and formality, one might say, though he could not admit to especially strong opinions on either subject. He simply saw no reason to alter what was accepted as proper behavior, nor to make any adjustments on his part in order to stand out. Indeed, all he had ever wanted from the times he was forced to attend in public circles was to blend in; to be as unobtrusive as possible.

  Had he been that way by nature, or had the rules and traditions of English society made him so?

  What a question to ask himself now. A simple family supper and he was questioning his own nature?

  He must have been more fatigued than he thought.

  “And we are not all assembled, you know,” de Rouvroy continued when his guests had nothing to comment. “René and Agathe have not yet come down, but they will presently. May I introduce you to the young ones in the meantime?”

  “O-of course,” Hal stammered, still as locked in her position as he was.

  “Ici, mes enfants,” de Rouvroy instructed, gesturing up.

  Five little ones popped to their feet, the youngest unable to be seen above the level of the table. Her siblings helped her to stand on a chair, and she grinned at now being so visible to the rest.

  “First is Sophie,” the baron informed them, the tallest girl with the darkest hair curtseying prettily at her introduction. “And beside her is Aimée. Our son is Paul, and then is Clara, and Marie.”

  The youngest did not so much curtsey as jump on the chair upon which she stood.

  There was something to smile about in that.

  De Rouvroy gestured again, this time for them to sit, and they did so without complaint or dramatics, though they did giggle as before.

  “Oh, d
amn, did we miss the introductions?” drawled a decent imitation of an English accent from behind them.

  John and Hal turned as one, parting briefly as they did so.

  A dark-haired man with a startling likeness to the baron stood there with a pretty girl of perhaps sixteen, fair where her brother was dark, though the resemblance was unmistakable.

  “Monsieur Pratt, Madame Pratt, may I present my son and my daughter? René, Agathe, this is Monsieur Pratt and our cousin Henrietta. Her maman was Marguerite, daughter of my uncle Claude.” De Rouvroy looked at Hal with fond indulgence, even as the couples greeted each other with the deference politeness required.

  “Enchantée, cousine,” René said with a smile not quite as warm as his father’s, though certainly warmer than polite.

  “Merci,” Hal murmured, looking a bit uncomfortable, which was not surprising after the day they’d had.

  Mademoiselle de Rouvroy barely smiled at all as she looked at them, and only slipped her arm from her brother’s and moved to the table, snapping off some command in French to her younger siblings, who did not seem the least bit perturbed at her tone.

  Perhaps they were accustomed to an ill-tempered older sister.

  Odd, though, for such a warm and congenial man to have a daughter as such. There was no accounting for personality, opinion, or willfulness, though. John’s own brother was willful and impudent, while no one would ever accuse John of being so.

  “You must forgive my sister, monsieur,” René said as he stepped closer, his smile turning apologetic. “She does not take well to strangers, and I fear she is out of temper with our father at present.”

  “Not at all,” John assured him as they moved to the table. “We are intruding upon your family home and are entirely at the mercy of your family’s generosity and graciousness. Nothing to forgive, I can assure you.”

  René nodded in receipt of the statement. “Merci, monsieur. So good of you to say.”

  Then, nodding at Hal, he left them and moved to sit beside his youngest sister, whose name John had already forgotten, and was rather amiable with her given the discrepancy in their ages.