Page 72 of The Secret Daughter
De Chantonney had actually been Maman’s surname,but in her fearful flight the nurse had changed her surname to Benoît, which did not signal “aristo” the way that de Chantonney did. The terror must have stayed with Maman, because she’d never changed it back.
And while de Chantonney did sound vastly more aristocratic than Benoît, she was still Maman’s daughter, and she would respect her decision, even if the reasons for it no longer existed.
Taking on the de Chantonney name would also mean she was associating herself with a family and place she felt no connection with. The Château de Chantonney was an abandoned ruin, and the grand family who had once lived there was gone. It was all in the past, and she was stepping into the future.
Behind her Marie put the final touches to her hair and stepped back. “Oh, mademoiselle,vous êtes très belle.”
Zoë stood and walked to the full-length looking glass.
Her green silk dress was gorgeous, there was no other word for it. The silk was the exact color of her eyes. It was simply but stylishly cut, with a low neckline—but not too low—and trimmed with dark red piping.
“Knock, knock,” a familiar voice called, and Clarissa entered, dressed in peach silk. “Oh, but you look lovely,” she exclaimed, and Zoë was about to return the compliment when she looked at who was behind Clarissa and froze. Her jaw dropped. “Izzy!”
Izzy, who had been posing in the doorway, laughed and stepped inside. She linked arms with Zoë in front of the looking glass. “Don’t we look perfect?”
Zoë’s breath finally came back. “But your dress is exactly the same as my dress! And our hair, too.” Izzy had instructed Marie to put Zoë’s curly dark hair up into a high knot, with a few loose tendrils about her face and one long ringlet falling to her left shoulder. Izzy’s hair was identically arranged, only her ringlet touched her right shoulder. They were mirror images of each other.
Izzy laughed and pirouetted. “I know. Isn’t it perfect?”
“Yes, but we can’t wear the same dress and have our hair arranged the same. We’ll look like twins. Everyone will talk.”
“Yes, that’s the idea,” Izzy said, laughing. “Everyone is going to be commenting on how alike we are anyway, and so rather than trying to minimize it, we’re going toflauntit.”
“But then they’ll think…They’ll allknowI’m your bastard half sister.” And, by implication, Clarissa’s. The whole point of her masquerade as a French cousin was to prevent that very thing.
“No, they can only guess,” Clarissa explained. “They will wonder about it anyway—your resemblance is too strong for them not to—but if we tried to hide your resemblance to Izzy everyone wouldknowthere was something to hide.”
“But if we flaunt it, it will show everyone that we are proud of you and are delighted at how much we look alike,” Izzy finished. “Which I, for one, am. And so we’ll flaunt it, glory in it, celebrate it! It’s going to be such fun.”
“I don’t know,” Zoë began. “What will your husband think?” Izzy’s husband had always seemed to her to be a stickler for correct behavior.
“Leo? When I told him of our plan, he laughed and said he was looking forward to seeing it.”
“Really?”
“Yes, now don’t look so anxious. We love you and we want you to enjoy yourself.”
Clarissa slipped an arm around Zoë’s waist and squeezed. “Truly, there’s nothing to worry about, my love. Most of the people here are our friends and are looking forward to meeting our long-lost French cousin. And you look absolutely beautiful.”
“Yes, you’ll dazzle—no,we’lldazzle the lot of them,” Izzy said.
There was a soft knock on the door, and it opened toreveal Leo and Race, both looking magnificent in their evening clothes. “Ready?” Leo said. He gave Zoë and Izzy a long look, raking them from head to toe, then nodded briskly. “Perfect.”
“By which he means you all look dazzlingly lovely,” Race said.
Clarissa stepped forward and linked her arms with her husband and Leo. “You and Izzy are to follow behind,” she said, and they stepped out into the hall. Zoë blinked. This was not how she’d expected the night to start, but then neither had she expected to be dressed identically to her sister.
Izzy linked her arm through Zoë’s. “Ready, little sister?” Zoë swallowed and nodded. She wasn’t, but there was no choice. She couldn’t run away now. “Then let’s go. They’re all waiting for us.”
The guests were assembled at the foot of the stairs, all waiting to meet Zoë. Clarissa, with Leo on one arm and Race on the other, went first. Halfway down the stairs they stopped. A hush fell. Then Leo said in a loud voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, my wife and I and Lord and Lady Randall are delighted to present our beloved French cousin, Miss Zoë Benoît.” They stepped aside to reveal Zoë and Izzy standing arm in arm in identical dresses. Izzy raised an arm in a kind of flourish, as if presenting Zoë to the world. Which Zoë supposed she was.
A gasp rose from the audience, then a murmur of exclamations.
“And now we curtsy,” Izzy murmured, and, beaming, she gave a graceful curtsy. Zoë did the same. Izzy reminded her of a ringmaster presenting an act to the circus—with Zoë as the star—and they began a slow descent, with Clarissa and Lords Salcott and Randall acting as a kind of escort on either side.
Below Zoë was a sea of faces, a few she recognized—Lucy and Gerald, Lord and Lady Tarrant, Milly Harrington and her mother, and several of the old ladies whose portraits she’d painted—but most were complete strang— Oh no! A very familiar pair of Mediterranean-blue eyes were glaring at her across the room.
She stumbled, missed a step and might have fallen, except that Izzy was still holding on to her and Race caught her other arm. “Steady there,” he murmured.
