Page 16 of A Most Improper Duchess
He dropped the candle and the light guttered. ‘Take me to the surface,’ he said.
How they clambered up along the narrow winding stairwell, he could not say. They burst into the open. Gasping, like he’d been drowning, Arley gripped an iron bollard and half bent as he coughed through the easing suffocation. He crumpled to the ground, rested his head between his knees, and breathed. Vivianne crouched beside him. She placed her hand on his back.
Embarrassment swirled through him, making his head spin even more. ‘I can’t believe that happened. I can’t—’
‘Chut!’ she said, and in time with her word, she made a little snapping motion with her fingers to silence him. ‘It happens. Maybe we don’t putles Catacombeson your list?’
‘Perhaps a bit much reality for a poor Brit.’
A light smile twisted her lips as concern sunk her eyes. He saw it so rarely that he recognised it instantly. Right now, he was nothing, no one, a man with a pin. Monsieur West had so little to offer. Yet, she cared.
Strong, compassionate and as beautiful as an uninterrupted sunrise—Vivianne Chevalier was the most magnificent woman he had ever met.
Her grin turned indulgent, and she weaved her arm through his and leaned into him. ‘Can you stand? Because you are in luck. Not far from here is something much better thanles Catacombes.’
Still woozy, Arley let her tug him to his feet. She pulled him close against her. She was far stronger than she looked, and he relied on her steadiness to help him keep his balance. His feeble footsteps fell into hers as she led him along the paved footpath. After a few minutes of silent walking, they arrived at the entrance to a garden. Luxembourg Gardens, full of green life and tall trees, children rolling hoops and people stretching on benches in the sun. A tableau of life, so stark a contrast against the streets of death that he now knew wove beneath their feet.
‘So that I know for next time… What upset you? Was it the dark? Or the bones? Or something else?’
He forced a breath of Paris spring, and while his chest at first resisted the cold, slowly, it melded, and relaxed into the freshness. How to explain the jumble? How to explain the emptiness he had felt, and also the twinge of fear that something might happen to her? How death had never been about him, and yet it had shaped his life, not with grief but with expectation?
‘When I was ten, I almost died. I was skating on a pond. It wasn’t fully solid in some patches, although it looked it. I fell through.’ The icy grip, the compression, the piercing needle like shards of ice that had sunk into his body resurfaced in his memory. ‘It’s not often I remember. But when I do, it can be a little… intense.’
It wasn’t that moment that compressed him and made him tremble. After he had been wrenched from the ice, he had been wrapped in blankets and bathed back to warmth and then shuddered in his mother’s arms before the fire. Admittedly, he hadn’t skated since. Hadn’t done so many things since. Not from fear, but because he had fully come to understand that he existed as something beyond himself. As he’d been pulled from the water, the first words he had heard were, ‘Not the duke.’ His governess had been in tears, not for him, but fretting that she’d be dismissed and never find another position. The doctor had been called and entered the house with the grand announcement that he was there ‘to see his grace.’
Only his mother had said his name, Arley.
He was simultaneously so important, and also, irrelevant.
He was still mouthing his words when Vivianne interrupted his thoughts.
‘You felt vulnerable.’
‘Incredibly,’ he replied.
‘And scared, but worse... judged for being scared.’ Her eyes, blue flecked with grey, the same shade as the clouded sky, shone with understanding. ‘I know what it is like to be on display. Not just on the stage, but all the time. The secret is not to hide from it, but push through, until you find the moment where it doesn’t matter anymore. When you remember what made you want to be there to begin with.’ She released her hold and took a few steps forward on the path, before spinning to face him. ‘Take dance. In the foyer, with the patrons and the other dancers and the prima ballerinas, all I can think about is how if I don’t dance well, I may not impress that subscriber who was watching, or I may not be considered next auditions. Like the world hangs on the performance.’
She paused, closed her eyes, and inhaled. The slight tension around her eyes softened, and the tightness around her jaw slackened. ‘Then, they go, and for a small pocket of time, it is just us. All the dancers. All together. And all at once, we remember what we love and why we are there. The air hums with the remembrance.’ She extended her arms into two graceful half circles, in front of her chest, then raised one arm above her head, then the next. ‘On the stage, the lights are so bright we cannot see the audience, only hear them, and then the orchestra starts to play, and they are gone. And the only thing left is the dance.’ She held out her hand, palm up. ‘Dance with me, Arley. Forget the world.’
The sky cracked with a jagged fork of lightning, and thunder rumbled. ‘I think it’s going to rain.’
‘And?’
‘We might get wet. We could catch a cold.’
‘A cold. Is that so terrible? Don’t tell me. You might sneeze yourself to death. Do not worry, I will hide your body and scrub your bones clean and secret you intoles Catacombesso that you can be hidden and on display all at once. And then, in death, you will have peace with the world.’
‘It seems pointless to have peace if I’m dead,’ he said.
‘It does.’ She stretched her hand a little higher. ‘So dance with me, you stupid man. No one will care.’
Rain pattered, his chest rebelled, chill water snaked its way beneath his collar and traced an icy line down his back. Never much used to discomfort, his body railed against the cold and urged him to shelter. He took her hand, and she squeezed him, hard. Umbrellas popped into life around them, a few people gave a light scream then scattered, but Vivianne did not ease her firm hold on his hand.
‘Would you like to waltz?’ She adjusted her stance in his arms, and with a light pull, beckoned him to take the lead into the first few steps. ‘Or maybe a cotillion.’ She released one hand and spun away. ‘Or the polka.’ She twisted back into him. He caught her and moved with her momentum, swaying slightly as he let laughter link them. The light mist over her hair clumped and dampened, a curl clung to her cheek and between them, their damp clothes cloyed and suctioned. Her bodily warmth leached into him. He spun her in a circle beneath his arm, and she pirouetted like she was on stage, her laughter dancing like the drops on the air. He tipped her back, and she raised a playful foot, before he pulled her against him and then her lips were on his.
Like an eternity concentrated into a flash, Arley lost all sense of everything. There was no dampness, or cold, no fear, no life or death or even himself. Just her. Her sweetness. Her grip on his coat. The small of her back beneath his splayed hand. Her lightness.
They broke apart. ‘You thief,’ he said, feigning effrontery. ‘You stole a kiss.’
