Sweet Piracy by Jennifer Blake Page B

Estelle exclaimed in rapt enjoyment of the prospect.
    “It will be a soirée of perhaps three dozen guests, with dancing and afterward, a supper,” Tante Zizi said firmly. “Mam’zelle Caroline can play—”
    “And I—” Amélie inserted.
    “If only we could be sure the Marquis is not already engaged for the date we choose.”
    “There is one way to be certain. Ask!”
    Estelle looked at her great-aunt with bright eyes. “I — that is, Amélie and Mam’zelle Caroline and I — could drive over to Felicity tomorrow to discover if the Marquis and his cousin are free.”
    “No,” Tante Zizi said.
    “No, no!” her mother cried.
    Caroline set her mouth in a firm line. “Under no circumstances will I lend countenance to a visit to an unmarried gentleman in his living quarters. No circumstances whatsoever.”

4
     
    PREPARATION FOR THE soirée went on apace. Madame Delacroix’s enthusiasm held while the guest list was drawn up and the invitations written. When the missives were placed in a ribbon-bedecked basket and given into the keeping of a groom to be carried from house to house in the district, Madame took to her bed. Not even the tidings that the Marquis would be delighted to put in an appearance on the night in question could bring more than a feeble smile to her lips. Summoning Caroline, she casually laid the burden of the entertainment on the governess’s shoulders.
    Amélie proved unexpectedly helpful. Beneath her quiet exterior she had an intensely practical nature. It was she who organized the maids into a work force which thoroughly cleaned the main reception rooms of the house, cleared the salon of all furniture, and polished the floor with beeswax for dancing.
    Caroline concentrated on the menu, relying heavily on the seafood that was in season and fresh vegetables. Her rapport with the huge woman who presided over the kitchen was excellent, and she suffered no qualms over the food the guests would be offered.
    Estelle, at her own request, had charge of the decorations. She would tell no one precisely what she had in mind in the way of beautification, but she went daily to the garden to the rear of the house to check on the progress of the blooms under cultivation. The elderly gardener, in expectation of seeing his domain denuded for the party, usually disappeared at the sight of Mam’zelle Estelle. On no account could he be persuaded to tell her which of the blossoms might be expected to be at their peak in a week’s time; this, he said, would be a betrayal.
    Estelle grew daily more incensed with the old man and more anxious that the quality of the decorations would not adequately reflect the skill of the person responsible. The afternoon before the day of the dinner party her fears crystallized.
    “Mam’zelle! Mam’zelle Caroline, where are you?”
    Caroline, finding a few minutes free, had taken five-year-old Mathilde out onto the gallery for a lesson in her letters and the English language. She looked up in expectation of no less than a domestic disaster when Estelle came bursting from the house.
    “Mam’zelle, you cannot refuse me, you must not. Say you will come with me to the forest to find the magnolia, the fern, and ivy to make splendid the salon for tomorrow evening.”
    “Oh, Estelle, do you really think—”
    “But yes, certainly, Mam’zelle. The house will look like the abode of the gens du peuple with only a few straggly bouquets. I desire the grand effect, the luxuriance, of much, much greenery. There shall be garlands on the bannisters of the steps, magnificent edifices of flowers in the entrance, sprays of blossom on the fireplaces, and masses of ferns and sweet-smelling boughs in the corners of the salon—”
    “My dear girl, we cannot cart the entire outdoors into the house,” Caroline protested.
    “But we may bring a little inside to fill out the miserable blooms from the garden?”
    “The miserable blooms” included roses, poppies, and lilies, plus the foliage