Madeleine said, “Can’t we adjust the schedule?”
“Why?” Jack asked, returning to the paper.
“I don’t know. Seven seems early to me for breakfast.”
“You’ll become used to it,” he said again.
She frowned at her hands, at her fingers testing out the notes. She thought of rising at six every morning no matter how late the night had gone before, of crossing that enormous bedroom to the bell pull, of getting dressed in the boudoir, and saw in her mind another woman doing all of those things: Ava happy to wake with the dawn, or before it. Ava happy with the schedule, with the moody French chef.
“I just want it to be a little later, that’s all. Will it disrupt the entire household if we push it to eight?”
Jack didn’t look up. “You can ask him.”
Madeleine focused on the keys, the halting lullaby. For the first time in weeks, she wondered what her family was doing right now; if Katherine was at home in the cozy drawing room with their parents, or maybe out at the theater, laughing and having a fine time, not at all worried about having to rise at six in the morning to avoid cold toast.
The lullaby ended. She sat there without moving, her fingers resting atop the keyboard, as the sound of the fire drank up the quiet.
“Madeleine.”
She swallowed, looked up. Jack was studying her with an expression she knew well; she’d puzzled him in some way, and he was going to pick it apart until he understood her again.
That concentration. That scrutiny that pierced straight through her, that boiled through her veins and brought every little insecurity right to the surface of her skin in a hot-and-cold blush.
He said, “How about we try a small reception before Christmas? Nothing too formal, not yet, but maybe a Sunday luncheon for a few important friends? It would be good practice for you for the larger events we’ll host later on, the business dinners and balls and so forth. You’ll have a chance to learn for yourself that monsieur isn’t such an ogre.”
She opened her mouth to agree, found her voice didn’t want to work. So she nodded instead, pasting on a smile. He smiled in return and flipped the paper back up to keep reading.
“We can have diamond rings as the favors, perhaps.”
Madeleine, flabbergasted, found her voice. “Diamond rings? For a luncheon?”
“We’ve done it before,” he said casually. “They were a great success.”
We’ve done it before. We.
Jack dropped the paper once more. “Or a brooch, or a pin. A gold stickpin with our initials intertwined, to formally mark ourselves as a couple. It wouldn’t be difficult to commission. Riker Brothers or Tiffany could do it in a snap. What do you think?”
“I . . . I think that sounds quite brilliant.”
“Good. It’s settled. I’ll have Dobbyn give you a list of who to invite. I don’t think we should go above fifty, not this first time.”
“Of course,” she said, faint.
Madeleine took a few careful breaths, then began a new piece. Clair de Lune, with its deceptively simple beginning.
“Has Vincent gone out?” she asked the piano.
“He told me he’d be dining at his club tonight,” Jack said, and Madeleine nodded again, following her fingers on the ivory and ebony, the honeyed light that flicked, so tricky, across the keys.
*
Vincent’s bedroom was on the third floor, in a secluded corner that overlooked the back of the property. She knew this because she’d asked the butler that afternoon, pretending she was attempting to memorize the layout of the mansion, as it would be far too easy to become lost in these fields of rooms. And at least that last part was true.
She walked quickly, trying to keep her footsteps soundless against the floor, which was sometimes possible （if there were rugs）， and sometimes not （marble and hardwood）。 There were portraits all along the walls she passed, flat dead faces with flat dead staring eyes, but none of them was the right one. It made sense that Vincent had claimed his mother’s image; she should have guessed that if there did still exist a record of Ava in this mansion, it would be secreted in his room.
She did not knock on his door. She assumed it was his; it matched the butler’s description, and when she opened it and stepped inside, it seemed like a bedroom. There was moonlight enough coming in from the windows to make out the sleigh bed, the armoire.
She found the switch for the electric lights. The sudden glare of the chandeliers made her close her eyes, open them again.
Another giant chamber. Silk mandarin curtains, broad Persian rugs. A discarded bow tie had been tossed over the back of an armchair; a top hat sat upright at the foot of the bed. They were the only signs the room was occupied. Every other inch of it was just more of the chateau, rich and cold and spotless.