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I know that this chapter and the last are quite short - next few will be longer and action-packed!
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Chapter 47
Raoul
I sat with Meg at the kitchen table and shuffled the deck of cards, each decorated with silver and gold paint. Extravagant - as Philippe's funeral this morning had been. Janelle had stayed with Meg as I'd gone with the twins on the hour-long journey back and forth from the cemetery close to the estate. I'd blocked most of it out already. Vague recollections of his coffin lowering into the ground, of weeping distant relatives and service staff dressed in black, still bobbed upon the surface of my mind here and there. And I remember clearly asking our lawyer if I needed to return to the estate immediately. He'd said no - that it was my house now and I could come and go as I pleased.
I'd asked Meg if we shouldn't go there instead - it was sufficiently far away from whatever killer was lurking. But after Emma Rougeaux turned up dead, and her mother was still nowhere to be found, she insisted that she wanted to stay here. Her mother could turn up any moment.
And to add to that, the detective finally got back to us, telling Meg that Christine was not with Jules Bernard. Not dead - at least, no body to be found. Just not where she was supposed to be.
At that, she really wanted to stay put. She barely wanted to move from the couch from hearing the news.
"All right," I said. "They're shuffled." And I dealt out the cards, half to her, half to myself. "A game of war. We both place down a card. Whoever holds the better card takes both. The two is the weakest, and the ace beats all. You cannot look at any of your cards, and you must pull from the top. Ready?"
Somber, but present, Meg nodded. She took her cards and placed them neatly before her. Outside, lightning struck far away, but it was enough to briefly illuminate the black night beyond the high kitchen window.
"All right," I said, "go."
We both placed a card face up. She had a Jack, and I had a seven. I nodded once for her to take both, and she did.
"You know, it didn't occur to me the date until Janelle mentioned it today," she said. We laid down two more cards. A ten versus nine, in my favor. I took both. "It's the last week of August."
"Yes." A six and king. She took both. "Yes, I know." Which meant school would start soon. Good Lord, did I even want to attend? It had been more for something to do than a necessity - I'd already been to school and had been far ahead of my class. Anything more was educational frivolity, I supposed. I liked school, but now I had an estate to run.
"That means that the masquerade is on Saturday," she said. "The theatre is taking off rehearsal to have a ball." She chewed the inside of her lip. A nine and king. She took both. "I won't be able to attend."
I blinked at her, noting with sudden sadness the disappointment in her expression.
She misread the look in my eyes and went a bit pink. "I know you must think it terribly silly of me to be worried about something like that while everything...everything else is going on. It is silly. I know it is. I shouldn't be upset about it at a time like this."
"I don't think it's silly."
She went still. "You don't?"
"No. You want normalcy - a distraction. A dance would be perfect for that." I paused, thinking, then put the cards down. I held out a hand to her. "Come. We can dance now."
She looked at my hand in surprise. "You know how to dance?" A pause, then a shake of her head. "Of course you know how to dance. You're aristocracy."
"Actually," I admitted, "I've no idea how to dance. An instructor tried to teach me over the years, but it seems I've two left feet." I shrugged. "You'll have to make up for both of us, Mlle. Prima Ballerina."
Her mouth tilted up in a smile. "Unfortunately, I only know ballet. Not ballroom dancing."
"Then we will figure it out together."
I pulled her to her feet. There was no music, of course, but that was fine. We found a comfortable position in which her hands rested on my shoulders and my hands were at her waist.
No idea what I was doing, I merely rocked from side to side. She smiled at the motion, and I felt that I was doing at least something right.
"This is the sort of dancing I miss," she said softly.
I cocked my head. "What do you mean?"
"Easy dancing. No expectations. Just...moving for the joy of it."
I blew out a breath of pleasure through my nose. "I'm glad you're enjoying it."
"Are you?"
"Very much so." I was. Really was.
A pause, the only sound our feet shuffling on the ground. "I've always wanted to go to the summer ball," she said. "I was too ill to attend last year's masquerade. And the year before that, I wasn't yet part of the company. And as I was only fourteen, my mother insisted I not go - I think she was worried I'd be harassed by older men."
"Understandable."
"But...hopefully next year." She looked away thoughtfully. "This is the first time I've ever had a dancing partner." She giggled. "I suppose I should learn how to ballroom dance if I want to attend the ball, yes? I always just assumed that the man would lead, but now I know not all men can actually dance..." She grinned.
I smiled in return. "This is the first time I've had a dancing partner, too."
Her face softened. She seemed to step in a bit closer at that.
"You must have been dying to dance," I said, "having been away from it for a while."
She shook her head. "No. Not the sort I had to do onstage. All things considered, actually, I'd rather dance with you alone than for an audience of hundreds of cheering Parisians."
I wanted to kiss her then. So badly.
But I refrained. I merely sighed and stepped in closer too. She didn't back away.
We stood there in the lamplight for nearly an hour. Or two. Or four. Or ten. A hundred. I didn't know. I didn't care.
For however long it was, we stood in each other's arms.
And rocked back and forth.