Bal Masque by Fleeta Cunningham Page B

and read the note again. High marks for your discretion, mam’selle. So plans for an elopement have once more gone astray. And you have brewed up yet another recipe for avoiding Papa’s wishes. I’ll look forward to hearing the new version. It’s bound to be more amusing than my other recent communication.
    ****
    “This hairstyle makes me look a fright!” Lucienne cast the bits of lace and flowers aside. Impatiently she pushed Marie’s hands away. “The wedding is tomorrow, and every hairstyle is worse than the one before. I won’t go to my wedding looking like a hag!” She flounced away from the vanity and threw herself into the slipper chair.
    “Now, Chou-Chou, it’s a lovely style on you,” her mother assured her.
    “It’s not. It’s the worst yet.” Lucienne hunkered her shoulders and glowered. The room seemed filled with her frustration.
    “I think you’re overwrought, chèrie .” Her grandmother placed a calming hand on Lucienne’s frowning forehead. “You’ll give yourself wrinkles and ruin your complexion if you keep this up. Perhaps an hour of rest with a cool compress will help.”
    “I don’t want a cool compress,” Lucienne insisted. She tugged the dozen pins from her hair, letting the ebony waves cascade down her back.
    “I think you do, Chou-Chou,” her mother disagreed. “I believe you have a bit of bridal nerves and need a little time to compose yourself. A wedding is bound to have moments of strain. You mustn’t wear yourself out over trifles.” She went around the room drawing the curtains to close out the afternoon light.
    “I feel the strain myself,” Grandmère agreed. “Marie, if you’d make up my tisane, I believe I’ll have a rest, as well.”
    Lucienne glared. “Very well, I’ll rest a while, anything, if I just don’t have to endure another frightful hairstyle with all of you pulling at me. Leave me alone. Just let me be.” She flopped onto her bed in resignation and gathered Ninette close. In moments of stress the black kitten seemed the only one who understood her. At least Ninette was sympathetic to her plight.
    Dropping the netting around her bed, the three women left her, muttering phrases about all brides having these spells and how well everything was going. “We have everything in hand, Chou-Chou. Stop worrying,” her mother said, pausing at the door. “You’ll see. It will all be perfectly lovely.”
    Lucienne waited till they were out of the room, then threw aside the netting. They thought she cared a fig for all their wedding plans. The wedding was far from her concern. It didn’t affect her. How could it? She had her own plans. What mattered was that she hadn’t heard from Philippe. She paced her curtained room in frustration. Dorcas had assured her the note had reached Philippe, and he was alone when he received it. Of course he’d read it right away. He must be as distraught over the changes as she was.
    She rubbed Ninette’s fluffy fur and felt the responding purr. “Surely he understood, Ninette. I was as clear as I could be, given the circumstances. But he hasn’t come. Why isn’t he here, Ninette?” The kitten bumped her head against Lucienne’s hand. Lucienne buried her face in the soft fur.
    Concern alone would have driven her to action if the situation had been reversed. Lucienne put the kitten on the pillows and paced, pausing to draw back sheer window curtains and look down into the grounds. Nothing stirred except the field hands returning to work, Price stalking out of his cottage, and one of the servants coming back from the kitchen building beyond the main house.
    A handful of pebbles rattled against the window on the opposite side of the room. Lucienne bounded across the room and twitched back the curtain. She couldn’t see him at first, until Philippe stepped away from the shadows of the moss-draped trees and she saw him outlined against their darker bark. Without considering the propriety of such a meeting, Lucienne