Before the Storm by Melanie Clegg

having her much hated weekly dancing lesson with a fashionable dance master a few streets away. Sidonie had come to love these few snatched hours of solitude away from the demands of her pupil and the ever present Mrs Garland and so it was a wrench to give some time up to meet Jules, even briefly.  
    Her resentment increased when she saw Jules strolling towards her and realised that he was grinning in a triumphant manner. ‘I knew that you would give in,’ he said as he came up close and took her reluctant hand to kiss it. ‘I knew that you wouldn’t be able to stay away from me.’
    ‘You don’t know that at all, ‘ Sidonie retorted, snatching her hand away. ‘Oh, Jules. You’re engaged to a beautiful girl who adores you and still determined to ruin everything for yourself aren’t you?’ They began to walk slowly along a tree shaded avenue that led towards Green Park and the distant stately elegance of Buckingham House. The sight of a woman dressed in a flower patterned blue cotton gown walking with a fashionable gentleman in a green and black striped silk suit and talking together in French attracted a few curious stares but Sidonie held her head high and pretended not to notice.
    ‘There’s nothing to ruin,’ Jules said with a shrug. ‘Venetia is no fool. She knows what I am like and yet is determined to marry me anyway. I told you once that she is just like me in many respects.’ He looked down at Sidonie, admiring the way that her face was dappled by the pale green light that filtered through the trees above. ‘She wants a husband and I fear that I am somewhat obliged to marry her.’
    Sidonie abruptly stopped walking and looked at him in shock. ‘Obliged to marry? What do you mean?’ she gasped. ‘Jules, what have you done?’  
    ‘I have done nothing,’ Jules replied irritably. ‘Or at least, I have done nothing that she did not want.’ He looked at Sidonie with concern as she turned away from him, her hands pressed to her lips as she fought a sudden feeling of nausea. ‘I am sorry if this shocks you, mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘I had thought, had assumed that you had already worked it all out in that clever head of yours. I told you in Bath that I had no intention of marrying Venetia...’
    Sidonie turned back to him then, her eyes wide with horror. ‘Is she with child?’ she demanded. ‘Is that what this is all about?’ She thought back to the last time she had seen Venetia Wrotham, when she had come to Highbury Place to announce her engagement. She had seemed her usual slender self but had perhaps been a little pale.
    Jules had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘Yes, she is with child.’ He shrugged and gave a nervous half laugh. ‘Please believe me when I say that I absolutely regret everything that has happened. She went to her mother and they came to me and demanded that I marry her or be shamed forever.’ He took off his grey powdered wig and ran his fingers through his short dark hair. ‘Sidonie, I am entirely dependent on the good graces of my father - if word of this was to reach him, he would entirely cast me out of the family.’
    Sidonie nodded, remembering Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul-Clermont very well. He was mocked at the light hearted, flirtatious rose scented court of Versailles as a dinosaur, a crusty old fashioned throw back to a more hypocritical and moral age. However, clearly what was a figure of fun to the elegantly depraved courtiers was a far more serious problem for his offspring, who must live by his rules or lose everything.
    ‘It’s not a bad match,’ Jules went on as he carefully replaced his wig. ‘Venetia is immensely rich and very obliging. It could be a lot worse.’
    ‘Worse for whom?’ Sidonie asked as they resumed their walk. ‘You gain a wife and a fortune but what does Venetia get out of this?’
    Jules looked surprised. ‘She gets to be married and to have a title and to live in Paris. Is that not enough?’ He gave her a swift look that