For this gracious gesture, I forgave everything. Her cruel laughter and frivolity—these were the larks of children. We were both women and mothers now, and I wanted, with all my grateful heart, to accept the queen’s kindness. Unfortunately, now more than ever, I felt it was important to be worthy of the prominence to which my family had risen. “I would not wish to miss a moment of our national celebration, but if Your Majesties would see fit to stop in front of the H?tel de Noailles on your return so that my husband might pay respects, I would consider it a great favor.”
“Of course!” said the queen. “In fact, you shall ride with me at the head of the procession. It is my wish and command.”
I had no right to ride ahead of those much above me in rank, but I said, “Then it is my honor to obey.” What a torment it was, every farewell that evening, every last spark of fireworks. Each moment an eternity. As grateful as I was to ride beside the queen in her carriage, the wheels simply could not turn swiftly enough. As the horses clopped down the Rue Saint-Honoré, I saw a crowd gathered at our gates, and when our carriage came to a stop, a tall figure in uniform emerged.
Gilbert! I was blinded by tears. It was everything I could do not to leap out of the carriage. I sat upon my hands, trembling with the effort at self-control until, after the heartfelt meeting of the queen of France and the nation’s returning hero, she said, “Go embrace your wife.”
A moment later, the carriage door on my side flew open, and there he was. Somehow, impossibly, more dashing and elegant—holding his hand out to me. It had been nearly two years since I’d seen my husband last. Two years of letters. Two years of loneliness and fear. And when I took his hand to exit the coach, our eyes met and a thousand unspoken words passed between us. He had returned to me before in the cloak of darkness, in the privacy of our rooms. This time, all the world was watching, and I understood somehow that he was no longer mine. At least not mine alone.
He belonged to the world.
Thinking this, my step faltered—and I fell, for the first time in my life, into a swoon. Gilbert caught me round the waist, lifting me into his strong arms, cradling my head against his chest as he carried me into the house. And the last things I heard that night were the cheers of the crowd, and my husband’s murmurs of love.
EIGHTEEN
BEATRICE
Paris
May 2, 1915
Amidst bandages and bromides at the American Hospital of Paris, where Miss Sloane and I volunteered, a shockingly tall French officer in leather riding boots strode past the beds, and I recognized him at once as Lieutenant de LaGrange. He stopped before Miss Sloane and offered a bouquet, his hand actually trembling. He seemed, in that moment, so wonderstruck that one might think her white nurse’s apron was the most dazzling beaded chiffon. For her part, poor Emily nearly swooned, having not expected her suitor’s leave to come through for another two weeks.
They stared as if they’d never met before, which made a strange kind of sense. Miss Sloane was no longer a wealthy heiress on holiday, but an angel of mercy come to deliver relief to his beleaguered country. And LaGrange was no longer a forgettable French nobleman with a possible interest in her father’s money, but now a seasoned veteran officer in dark blue coat and red pantaloons.
She blushed when he kissed her hand and held her fingers to his heart. The attraction between them sparked so hot that we were obliged to take some fresh air. Which is how I found myself strolling behind them on the nearby river walk, in the unlikely and entirely unsuitable role of chaperone.
I wondered how swiftly I might abandon my post as guardian of Miss Sloane’s chastity, and whether or not she would notice. Since the disastrous luncheon in which I’d asked my husband for a divorce, I was in no mood for romance, even once removed. Thus, I’m afraid I was a little impatient when, on our way back to dress for the opera—which had recently been reopened in defiance of bomb-dropping zeppelins—Emily asked, “Isn’t he wonderful?”
At my frown, her expression fell.
“Or am I imagining he’s wonderful?” she asked. “Women do that. Women like my mother. They imagine all sorts of fine qualities in a man that don’t exist. They lose all sense and become selfish and hurt people. I never want to be like that.”
“You’re nothing like that,” I said, sorry for dampening her spirits. “Besides, your baron does seem rather wonderful.”
The baron wasn’t as wonderful as my nephew, of course, but he’d fought like a lion in the Battle of the Marne. He had the right to carry himself with a swagger, but he’d adopted an old-fashioned stiffness that bespoke duty and honor. And having spent the better part of his youth in America, where his father had owned a gold mine, he was a forward-thinking young man who listened intently to everything Emily had to say, seeming to treasure her intelligence above all.