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With each passing mile, her spirits sank a notch. It was so each time she came. It reminded her too much of the past.

At least now the countryside was green, the leafy forests of beech creating a dappled effect of light and shadow upon the carriage. After miles of parkland, they at last entered the Grand Avenue leading toward the palace.

A mile or so farther, the carriage drew up before the large golden ashlar stone structure. Canted bay windows at either end balanced out the Jacobean and Georgian mansion.

A pity that since its owner had leased the palace to the Comte de
Provence, the handsome mansion had fallen into decay. The shrubbery needed trimming, flocks of chickens and small livestock squawked and squealed from the parapet surrounding the lead roof, and the overall appearance looked shabby.

The carriage came to a stop at the main doorway. A footman in faded livery and powdered wig opened her door and let down the step.

Two more footmen stood at attention at the door. The butler, whom she knew well, came to greet her.

“
Bonjour
, madame.” He bowed. “Welcome back. Your mother informed us of your arrival. We have put you in your usual suite in the east wing, if that is to your liking.”

“Yes, of course, Monsieur Denfort. My servants will see to the bags. Is my mother about?”

“Yes, in her rooms. Tea will be served at five.”

“Is the Comte well?”

“Yes, my lady, I am happy to report. His gout is not troubling him overmuch. I believe he will make an appearance at tea.”

“I shall greet him then. You will see to my servants, will you not?”

“Of course, madame.”

She was led up the wide staircase and down a long passage to her mother’s rooms. Hartwell House had dozens and dozens of rooms.

The footman knocked at her mother’s door and announced her. She must grow accustomed to the formal pace of things here. It was, after all, a royal court—or pretended to be.

When her mother saw her, she smiled and held out her hands. “Ah, Céline, you are here at last.”

The two barely touched cheeks and drew apart. “Hello,
Maman
. You are well?” She eyed her mother, who was dressed in the older fashion, her brown silk open robe gown displaying a deeper yellow petticoat beneath. She wore a high, frilly lace fichu around her neckline, and her graying brown hair was powdered and covered in a lacy mobcap.

Her mother sighed. “As well as can be expected for one of my years.”

Her mother indicated Céline take the seat beside her on the settee. “How was your journey?”

“Uneventful.” The two exchanged pleasantries after her mother gave instructions for refreshment to be brought up to her.

Céline didn’t worry about her own servants, who knew what to do. Valentine would oversee Sally in the unpacking and making up of beds, the kitchen and scullery maids would make themselves useful in the kitchen. As for MacKinnon, she hoped he would not be at loose ends, especially among so many French people, but doubtless Tom would show him the ropes.

She would go down and check on him—on all her servants—later. But first there was this interview to be gotten over and then tea. She turned to her mother. “Is there anything new?”

“My dear, there is always something new. Our hopes are growing that soon that monster Bonaparte will be defeated. I pray every day that our own Louis will be sitting on the throne that upstart dared to crown himself emperor upon. What conceit!”

Before her mother grew agitated, Céline turned the conversation to more mundane matters. “How is
Tante
Louise?” she asked, naming the close friend of her mother’s who was not related by blood, but whom Céline had grown accustomed to calling aunt.

“Oh—as always, complaining . . . if it’s not gout, it’s rheumatism.”

They talked some more of the various long-term residents of Hartwell House before Céline brought up a less pleasant subject. “
Maman
, I received your request for an advance upon your next quarterly allowance.”

Her mother motioned with her fine hands. “And what of it? Why should I not appeal to my only child if I run short? You have been well provided for. Why should you deny your poor mother anything? I who sacrificed everything for you.” She put a hand to her forehead. “All those years after your dear papa was taken and I was alone in the world, friendless with not a penny after those scoundrels took everything from us—”

Céline sat back, resigned to the familiar tirade against the Jacobins who had appropriated their family’s lands and wealth. When her mother paused for breath, she quickly filled in the silence. “I begrudge you nothing,
Maman,
you know that. What I do object to is having you spend your
generous
allowance on gambling debts. Why can’t you be content with those pensioners who only play for pennies?”

Her mother waved a hand scornfully. “You wish me to appear like those beggars!” Her voice rose. “Why you begrudge me the few pleasures that are left in my life! I cannot appear a miserly widow at the table when everyone knows my daughter is the wealthiest Frenchwoman in London!”

“I would wish no such thing. I merely ask you to exercise self-restraint and get up from the card table when your luck runs against you.”

The interview ended badly, with her mother in tears, as Céline had known it would. She finally excused herself with “Do not upset yourself,
Maman
. I shall write you a bank draft.”

After her visit with her mother, Céline was at last free to go to her own suite of rooms, on another floor, removed from those of her mother, who was a permanent resident of the palace.

“There you are at last,” Valentine said as soon as she entered. “You will be late for tea. How was Madame de Beaumont?”

“Fine.” Céline would dearly have loved to sit in an armchair and not do anything for a while, but she knew Valentine would not allow that, so she submitted meekly to being undressed.

“I have laid out the blue Indian muslin with the cream sash. There is hot water for you to wash, if it hasn’t grown cold by now.”

“Very well.” Céline walked behind the cloth screen to wash the travel dust off herself.

An hour later, washed, trussed, and coiffed, Céline left her chambers to make her way back down the myriad passages and staircases
to the main salon, where she knew the old Comte received his visitors in the late afternoon.

When she arrived, there were already several guests and habitués whom she recognized gathered in the marble-floored corridor.

After greetings, they passed into the salon, where they stood or sat about the spacious room with its floor to ceiling bay windows overlooking the parkland while waiting for the Comte to appear.

A quarter of an hour later, he entered, accompanied by his closest retinue of advisors and servants. After he was settled on a velvet settee, Céline approached him. One foot, plagued by gout, rested on an embroidered footstool in front of him. White silk stockings covered thick ankles and calves.

He was almost sixty. His girth filled the settee made for two. Gray powdered curls framed his face. He wore his hair long, in a queue in the back. His face was round with jowls, his nose hooked, his eyes and eyebrows dark, contrasting to his powdered hair.

His eyes lit up in recognition. “
Ma chère
Céline, my child!” He held out a plump, beringed hand.

Céline took his hand and curtsied deeply. “My lord.”

“Come, tell me the news from town.”

A footman brought a chair and she sat beside him for a while, telling him all the news she knew would amuse him.

“And the Regent is still misbehaving?”

“As usual. He hardly dares show his face in the streets for fear of the mobs. But he spends most of his time in Brighton these days.”

“Ah, the seaside. If I could travel, I am sure it would do me good.” He motioned to his foot. “But you see how I am held captive here.”

She murmured sympathetically. “And Madame Royale, I trust she is well?” she asked, referring to the Comte’s niece, the only remaining offspring of the beheaded Louis XVI.

“She is very well. You shall see her for yourself.” He made a motion toward the room. “And the Duc d’Angoulême is here from London. We are all, as you can imagine, looking forward to our return to France.”

“You think it will be so soon?”

“No one can say, but our hopes are quite high now that the Corsican has suffered such reverses on the Russian front.”

After chatting with him a few more minutes, Céline paid her respects to the other members of the royal household. Her mother appeared and took her to greet a few more of her old acquaintances.

A weak tea was served. Céline looked forward to several days of tedium. She doubted she would discover much news of value in this environment where everything was steeped in the past.

After greeting the only people who interested her, she made her way out to the terrace, feeling stifled inside. The gardens, despite signs of neglect, still displayed an air of elegance.

Perhaps she could enjoy some good rides and walks if the weather held. Though it was hard to ride unaccompanied at Hartwell. The ladies usually rode or drove in groups. Since her widowhood, Céline was no longer used to such a formal way of life, where every activity was regulated and overseen.

The memories she rarely indulged in London always thrust themselves into her thoughts when she came to Hartwell. She could never forget her mother’s role in breaking up the one and only love she had experienced in her twenty-eight years. Stéphane Delacroix.

Céline had met the young French cadet during the brief peace, when she and her mother had returned to Paris, her mother hoping to regain some of the family’s wealth lost during the Revolution.

Céline believed her mother’s hatred of Bonaparte had as much to do with his government’s unwillingness to return her husband’s ancestral home as for political reasons.

Céline had been introduced to the handsome cadet at the home of one of her mother’s friends. Possessing neither the title nor wealth to satisfy her mother’s ambitions, Stéphane had been rejected out of hand as a suitor. With Valentine’s help, however, Céline continued to meet Stéphane in secret. When her mother discovered it, she cut short
their stay and brought Céline back to London posthaste, unmindful of Céline’s threats, hysteria, or sullen silence.

Hostilities between the two countries had soon resumed. Once back in London, her mother had used every penny she had for Céline’s coming out, impressing upon her the need to make a brilliant match.

“You have looks and charm,
chérie
. Use them to advantage, if you don’t want us both to spend the rest of our days eking out an existence in some milliner’s back shop.”

As the season advanced and no suitable young gentleman proposed, her mother had paced the floor, wringing her hands. “You must do more to encourage them. You cannot stand looking such a tragic figure, as if you are already in decline. You must put yourself out.”

But Céline found it impossible to behave lively like the other debutantes that season, when her heart was broken.

The memory of her emotional state at seventeen only drew a shudder of distaste from her vantage of eight-and-twenty. Older and wiser, she could only feel pity for that green girl who had shed so many useless tears.

Valentine had been her lifesaver, the one who arranged a secret correspondence for her and Stéphane.

But her mother had not given up. With no young men coming up to scratch, she had fixed her sights on an older man, someone for whom her daughter’s youth and beauty would outweigh her lack of dowry sufficiently to extract a proposal of marriage.

After carefully taking stock of the wealthy bachelors past their prime, her mother had selected the Earl of Wexham, a widower with a vast fortune. It mattered little that he was three times Céline’s age.

When Céline balked at having to entertain the old earl, her mother’s anger had given way to palpitations and swoons. She had taken to her bed, crying out that Céline would be responsible for her death and blaming her for their precipitous return to England before she could regain their family’s wealth and ancestral home. Céline had countered that she’d rather do anything than sell herself to a man she found repugnant.

Things had been at a stalemate, her mother refusing all food, when Céline had received news of Stéphane’s death. It was Roland who had written to Céline. Stéphane had fallen at the Battle of Ulm in Bavaria, a national triumph for Napoleon, a personal tragedy for her.

Valentine had held her in her arms as Céline sobbed, her dreams and hopes shattered by one simple sentence.
Fallen in battle, a hero’s death, but he is no more . . .

Valentine had been her only confidante. She was the one who’d made her get up in the morning; dressed her in the finery her mother insisted she wear, when all she wanted was to wear black; lectured her that she must smile and go on no matter what she was feeling inside.

“You must think not only of your own survival but of your mother’s. What will become of her if you should succumb to self-pity? You will find yourselves on the street,” she spat, her eyes filled with a venomous light as if she had firsthand experience. “You think you are the first girl to fall in love and lose her young man? Bah! You will survive a broken heart—but you may not survive the streets,
ma chérie.
In a few years your body will be broken—and then you will wish for a wealthy man to offer you his hand—but you will find only those who will take from you without a wedding ceremony!”

In the end, Céline accepted the earl’s marriage proposal. There seemed little choice. Only later did she discover the hard bargain her mother had driven, extracting a generous marriage settlement for her only child.

Old enough to be her father—even older than her own father would have been—the earl had been, nevertheless, unfailingly attentive and kind to her during his courtship.

Innocent that she was at the time, she was lulled into believing that a paternal figure like the earl would make no demands on her as wife.