Glamorous Illusions (21 page)

“Oh? And what is that?”

“A Frenchman.”

After spending the night in the prestigious Ritz Hotel, the next day we went to the massive palace-turned-museum the Louvre. My siblings and the Morgans seemed to be ignoring me, as if still angry that I had even been polite to Pierre de Richelieu, making inroads before them. Apparently, I was only to follow behind and remain as silent as possible. Vivian had grumbled, “So, are we to fill our date book with just any Frenchman who comes along, smiling at our Cora?”

The way she said
our
Cora
, with such disdain, still made my skin crawl hours later. She made it sound as if I were something unpleasant she'd stepped in, clinging to her boot. Every time I felt I had begun to make headway, I seemed to make some choice that again separated us. The group was intrigued to learn more about Pierre and his chateau yet irritated that our schedule had been disrupted.

The bear had assured Vivian that such disruption was not to be the case but reminded her that seizing upon invitations would greatly enhance our experience on the tour.

I sighed, thinking about it. I was tired of worrying over such things. Could we not embrace the tour and one another at face value? Take it day by day? I resolved to do so anyway. And today, before us, was the massive Louvre, housed in the remains of a palace that had stood on this spot for centuries. The sheer size of the building shocked me from the start, and when I learned that the exhibits inside covered more than five thousand years of history, I was overwhelmed all the more. There were thousands of Greek and Roman sculptures. Thousands of paintings, from medieval to modern. When the bear said that there were more than thirty thousand pieces of art in the museum, I could only gape at him, wondering how one could ever take it all in.

But what I found most arresting were the Egyptian exhibits. While I studied a twenty-foot-tall sculpture of a pharaoh, Will came up beside me and stared upward too.

“You like this exhibit,” he said softly. It was more of a statement than a question.

“I thought I'd awakened in Paris this morning, but now I believe I've been transported to ancient Egypt,” I said, not looking at him. Our interactions over the last couple of days had been frustrating, irritating. What was wrong with him? One minute he seemed interested, the next all business. And now…now he was just perturbed. Though I could tell he tried hard to mask it.

Conscious that Will trailed behind, I went to a case that contained a gold-encrusted sarcophagus. I wasn't sure I wanted him following me everywhere all summer. But at the moment, he and Antonio seemed to be my only companions.

“Will we be going to other museums with such treasures?”

“None as vast as the Louvre.”

“That's all right by me,” I said. “It's a bit overwhelming, isn't it?”

“It can be,” he said with a soft smile. He was wearing a dapper lightweight wool suit. But even I could see that it was old; the jacket didn't quite stretch around the breadth of his chest.

I felt a surge of compassion for him—having to keep up appearances with the likes of the Kensingtons and Morgans, while obviously on a strict budget, couldn't be easy. “Which has been your favorite exhibit, Will?” I asked, trying to draw him out, make him forget about the past few days.

“I favor the dinosaurs at the British Museum, myself.”

I nodded in quick agreement as we walked through a passageway that had once stood outside of a pharaoh's tomb. “Those were wonderful. I felt much the same there, standing at the feet of those massive creatures, as I do here. Awed.” I reached out and ran my hand across the facade, wondering about the men who carved it thousands of years before. Who were they? Could they have envisioned their works being here, so far from where they'd lived? “Can you imagine transporting these monuments from Egypt to France?”

“Quite the enterprise,” he said, hands tucked behind his back. His quick eyes seemed to absorb every inch of the sphinx we now studied, as if he were recording it for a sketch later on.

I shifted my eyes to the sculpture. “It's almost as if I am seeing an issue of
National Geographic
come to life.”

He paused. “These artifacts, like the dinosaurs, represent mighty civilizations that once dominated, but then were washed away, buried. We'll run across bits of ancient Egypt all across Paris and elsewhere. She was plundered for her treasures. Napoleon brought some obelisks home that the Egyptians want returned.”

“That's awful,” I said. “Perhaps they should be.”

“Perhaps. Although the Parisians are loath to give them up. They feel as if they belong here now.”

“But they don't. They were stolen,” I said, no longer fully appreciating the artifacts before me. Now they felt like ill-gotten loot.

“When people grow up with something, they tend to feel as if that object belongs to them, don't they?” Will paused by a group of stone monkeys, their faces and tails eroded. “Think about what was on your property in your hometown. What if there was something that had been brought there two hundred years before. Wouldn't you feel as if it belonged?”

I laughed under my breath. “There was hardly an obelisk in my yard.”

“But if there had been?” he pressed.

I considered it. What if the barn hadn't been one my papa built? What if he had somehow stolen it, placed it there? Begrudgingly, I nodded. “I understand the impulse to claim it as your own,” I said. “But that doesn't make it right.”

“Agreed.”

We strolled onward, now past cases with mummies. Never had I seen one, much less so many in one room. But the sight of my half siblings and the Morgans gazing at them made me pause.

Will paused with me, looking back and forth between us.

“Cora,” he said softly, “don't let the Kensingtons and Morgans make you think you must be like them to be one of them. Don't be afraid to be who you are.”

I blinked at him in confusion and irritation, my brow furrowing. “You believe I am afraid to be who I really am?”

“With them,” he said, nodding toward the group ahead of us. “But also with yourself. I think you've stopped examining what has happened to you. The bounty your father has laid at your feet. Your new identity. Taking up with Pierre de Richelieu…”

“Taking up with him?” I sputtered. “We merely met. It was you who accepted his invitation.”

“But it was you who drew us into that conversation at all. As if you felt you had to flirt with him like Vivian or Lillian or Nell might.”

I shook my head in embarrassment. Who was he to judge me so? I hadn't been flirtatious, merely friendly. “That was not my intent,” I said, gritting my teeth.

Will looked me in the eyes, then shrugged. As he edged away, moving toward his uncle, I hoped he felt the darts my gaze shot at his back.

“Haven't we seen enough?” Felix was asking the bear. “I don't know about you, but I could stand a nice nap under the sun about now.”

I shook off a shiver of frustration and again fell behind the group as they agreed to leave the Louvre. Everyone asked different things of me. Andrew and Vivian wanted me to fade into the woodwork and hopefully out of their lives altogether; Hugh wanted me to return his romantic overtures; Felix had an idle interest in me, but I suspected it was truly idle; Nell and Lillian saw me as a novelty, like a doll grown tall, walking and talking; the bear saw me as a receptive student; but Will apparently saw me as something else. What? An actress, a chameleon?

I wanted to stop and get down on my knees and hold my head in my hands. Cry. Because there was some measure of truth to that; I no longer knew exactly who I was. I hadn't really known—ever since Wallace Kensington rolled up our drive. I'd known, once. At home, when Papa was well. At school, studying.

Such memories seemed like something I'd experienced years ago, not months. Try as I might, I couldn't imagine being back there now.

Will was right. I was changing. I'd changed already. Fundamentally. It was more than my last name. Deep within, I'd turned. The question was, in what direction? What did I want out of all of this? When the summer was through, when I left this group of people, was it merely the memories and a promise of a teaching credential that I'd take with me? Or did I want to discover something more, something else about myself?

I thought so.

Help me, Lord. Help me find what You would have me discover. More of You. More of myself. More of my future.

“Cora?” Felix asked, holding the door. “Are you coming?”

I flushed, realizing I'd fallen quite a bit behind and he'd been waiting on me.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Fine, thank you. A cup of tea and bit of sun would do me well too,” I said.

“Indeed.”

We left the museum and went outside, where four motor carriages were awaiting us.

On a whim I asked, “Felix, do you ever wonder what your life might've been like had you not been born a Kensington?”

He let out a low chuckle, and his blue eyes met mine. “I try to keep my mind from anything so onerous. In fact, I try to keep my mind from anything of consequence at all.”

“Oh,” I said, taking his hand as he helped me into the back of the nearest car. Nell was on the other side, fanning herself, her round face bright red. He climbed into the seat beside me, and I inched toward Nell. I didn't know if it was my imagination or if she huffed as if we were intruding upon her space, when she was taking nearly half the seat.

Will slid in next to the driver, and our convoy moved out into traffic on a broad street. I thought about what he'd said, his supposition that I was trying too hard to blend in rather than be myself.

“Felix, if nothing strikes you as being of consequence,” I said to him, “how do you apply yourself to your studies at university?”

Will's neck and shoulders became more rigid, and belatedly, I realized I'd asked a question that might disturb him. Felix laughed, his handsome face splitting into appealing lines of merriment. “If at all possible, I try not to apply myself there, either.” He gave me an appraising look from the corner of his eyes. “The family name grants me a certain leniency. Father makes a handsome annual contribution to the school, you see. And I am a fairly adept rugby player, which earns me a little more grace. Anything else is gravy.”

I stared at him, and he laughed, reaching out to touch my chin with his knuckle. I hadn't realized my mouth was hanging open, and I blushed furiously that he'd caught me. “Relax, Cora. You'll enjoy such things yourself, in time. Such is the power of the mighty Kensington name.”

“Perhaps,” I mumbled, looking straight ahead at the turnabout we approached, a massive Egyptian obelisk at its center.

I turned my attention to the passing traffic of buggies, wagons, handcarts, touring cars, and bicycles; then, as we turned, I looked up at the buildings, admiring one fine storefront after another. Did Pierre de Richelieu shop here?

Will had been wrong about the attention I'd given Pierre—I genuinely thought him charming—but he was right about my attempts to win over my family and their friends. I was trying to fit in too much, with a family who believed they had the right to claim what they wished, when they wished, simply because they were rich. They'd never considered anything else, of course, because they'd always been rich. Had always had things their own way.

As we drove down the lovely Avenue des Champs-Élysées—where countless couples were out strolling, all in finer clothing than I had ever seen in my life—I knew I didn't want to waste this opportunity. Mama had urged me to come, even knowing what the Kensingtons represented, good and bad. And God had allowed this to happen for a reason. The way I'd come into the world had been less than ideal, but I'd been blessed by the way I'd been raised. I was stronger than any of my siblings, as well as any of the Morgans. That I knew, deep within. I could use my strength to stand among them. To be me.

Felix nudged me. “Why are you smiling?”

“Am I?” I looked him in the eye—the same clear blue as mine—and smiled more broadly. Neither the Kensingtons nor the Morgans would ever put me in a corner again. I'd be one step ahead of them, beginning with Pierre de Richelieu.

“Ahh,” he said slyly. “It's a secret.”

“A secret?” Nell asked in a high-pitched voice. “Tell me!”

“Sorry,” I said, feeling no true remorse as I thought about telling Pierre who I was. If he wished to cast us out, at least we'd know before we were settled into more sumptuous rooms. It mattered not to me—if he was as superficial as the duchess in England, I didn't really care to spend more time with him anyway.

Because I'd decided. To make the most of this trip—to do as Mr. Kensington had asked. To live as if I deserved it, as if I belonged here. To embrace my identity anew. To concentrate on what defined me and ignore what did not.