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The air is warm and sweet, and somewhere a distant clock strikes the midnight hour. Candles burn low across the terrace, filling it with wavering golden light. Torches shimmer in the manicured gardens and illuminate the well-kept hedges, the surface of the magnificent fountains that bubble nearby with gentle sprays of water. The guests have retired to their carriages and guest quarters, floating on a haze of expensive wine and decadent desserts. The scent of it lingers still, rustled by the soft summer breeze; notes of sweet, dark wine and jasmine and spices and bergamot.
Maria-Eleanor inhales deeply, hints of buttercream frosting and beeswax from the candles sweeping into her senses. She watches a flame teased by the gust of wind until it’s snuffed out and sighs. Around her is the lonely, quiet aftermath of one of Francois’ infamous garden parties: the servant staff flitters about, speaking in hushed tones and clinking emptied wine glasses and their finest patterned china littered with crumbs and swirls of leftover chocolate mousse. A stray ostrich feather flutters in the grass, a casualty from a noblewoman’s elegant high roll. Beatrice Potts had just darted across the terrace five minutes prior, inquiring after a pale pink silk shoe found among the hedges.
Maria-Eleanor’s fingers knead through her son’s sunshine curls, her gaze pulled toward the gardens painted in blue shadows, her mind even further away. Adam had fallen asleep half an hour ago, his head nestled in her lap surrounded by a pool of indigo silk, the rest of him sprawled across one of the terrace steps where they sit. His mouth is open slightly, his breaths quiet and even. Her sweet angel, her baby is all of five years now—she wonders where the time could have possibly gone—and had spent the evening on his best behavior, sneaking desserts behind his father’s back.
Leaning down, Maria-Eleanor presses a kiss to his forehead. She sweeps a thumb over the swell of his cheek, still round with baby fat. Adam sighs in his sleep. Safe. Happy.
“Shall I take him to the West Wing for you, Madame?” Plumette’s voice draws her attention away from Adam’s serene face.
“No, that’s quite all right,” she answers, and pushes Adam’s hair away from his forehead. “He seems content here for now.” Maria-Eleanor smiles. “Thank you for keeping him out of trouble this evening, Plumette…I know it’s not an easy task. Be sure to tell the rest of the staff that you should not let the leftover wine and desserts go to waste.”
Plumette bobs a small curtsy, and the candlelight catches the shimmer across her cheekbone. Her grin is bright. “Of course, Madame. Bonne nuit.”
“Sleep well.”
The torches are extinguished, shrouding the gardens in darkness. Noises and voices fade in and out—a giggle that can only be Plumette, chased quickly by Lumiere’s rich laughter and a cork being sprung from a bottle; more clattering of dishes and expensive silverware; a dissonant note plucked accidentally from a violin string.
Maria-Eleanor finds him in the weak light that spills across the terrace. His leather violin case, worn and beloved, snaps shut before he rises to his feet. He cuts a fine figure in a linen suit just a shade darker than her gown—she thinks he’s done it on purpose, even if he won’t admit to it aloud—and has already lost his coat and wig, assembled in a neat pile on top of the closed violin case. He catches her eye as he tugs off his cravat and stows it into a pocket.
“Finally asleep,” Chapeau remarks.
“Blissfully so, it seems,” she agrees. Adam’s fingers curl, taking in a fistful of gorgeous blue silk.
As if by instinct, Maria-Eleanor leans into Chapeau’s side once he settles next to her on the step, her hip pressed to his. Her stomach flutters a little when his hand rests on the small of her back and the warmth of his long fingers prickles down her spine.
“And you?” he asks, this time in his native French. Chapeau takes her chin between her thumb and forefinger so that their eyes meet, then brushes his thumb along the curve of her jaw. She feels his gaze on her, studying, and she lets her eyes close so that she can revel in his gentle touch. “You seem so far away, chérie.”
“Francois is entertaining a mistress for the night,” she says in a whisper. “I discovered them earlier, in the hedges. He had a hand up her gown—and he’s fortunate that Adam did not see it. I suspect the shoe Mrs. Potts recovered from the gardens may belong to her, whoever she is.”
“I am sorry.” His hand finds hers and their fingers lace together atop his knee. Instinct.
“I’m not,” she laughs. Maria-Eleanor looks at him pointedly, and somehow a smile manages its way onto her lips. “I can hardly claim my own loyalty. But you would know all about that, wouldn’t you, Monsieur Chapeau?”
He ducks his head, and the blush that creeps onto his face makes her smile wide and bright.
“The longer my husband finds himself occupied, the better. I’ve no reason to be resentful or bitter about his affairs. Not anymore.”
“I am glad for that,” Chapeau admits. “He’s made you miserable enough, if you don’t mind my saying.”
She nods. “And I’m glad for you.” She holds his fingers tightly between her own. “I keep thinking of all that might have been, if we could just…leave this place. I know it’s quite foolish, but there are moments where I find myself growing tired of secrets. I wish, for once, that we could just…be. I think of it more than I ought to, you know.”
Chapeau lifts their entwined fingers and kisses her wrist. “I dream of it.”
He says it so quietly that at first she thinks she’s imagined it. “The three of us. Running off to the countryside as my parents once did, long ago.” Maria-Eleanor lifts an eyebrow, and Chapeau gives her a crooked smile. “Surely we could not dream of leaving young Adam behind.”
His dark gaze flickers to the boy asleep in her lap, safe and loved and calm. “In dreams…” he trails off, his eyes wandering to the gardens. Chapeau’s voice breaks, ever so slightly. “In dreams he is my son.”
Maria-Eleanor hears the beat of her heart in her ears, so loud that he might’ve heard it. “He should be,” she hears herself whisper back. “You love him more dearly than his own father, and Adam adores you.”
She reaches out, taking his cheek in her palm, drawing him closer. His breath hitches, ghosting along her collarbone as it so often does before they’ve kissed. More than five years’ worth of secret kisses, stolen moments in the dark of corridors, alcoves. Whispered endearments and notes slipped between pages of books. Meaningful glances across rooms, time spent perfecting wordless conversations. Nights entwined with each other, mornings tangled up in bed linens and slow, lingering touches. Always and forever a secret.
Her lips hover over his, their noses brushing. The scent of his perfume is cloying, strong in her senses. “I love you, Emile.”
She whispers it against his lips before dragging him into their kiss, gently, slowly, eagerly. More than five years’ worth of secrets and this is the first occasion where she’s whispered the hardest one she’s had to keep. The most devastating and beautiful secret of them all.
Maria-Eleanor parts from him to take a breath. He holds her face in his hands. “My heart belongs to you,” she tells him. “Forevermore.”
He kisses her again, chaste but lingering. “My heart has always been yours.”
They stay on the terrace until long after the last candle has gone out.