Zoë swallowed. Her heart was racing. What was Reynard doing here, of all places? He was a vagabond, a rootless artist.
Yes, and she was an unfairly dismissed French maidservant. Oh God.
She continued down the stairs, presenting what she hoped was a serene visage. Izzy was talking in a hurried undertone, pointing out various people, but Zoë didn’t take it in. She’d forgotten about the multitude of eyes watching her. She was only aware of one pair of Mediterranean-blue eyes, only this time his expression was as cold as the North Sea.
Oh lord, what was she going to do? More to the point, what washegoing to do? Would he make a scene? And how did he get invited? Everyone here was supposed to be a friend. Was he invited? By whom? And why?
The swallows in her stomach had turned into crows.
Had he found out who she was, or was he here by coincidence and as surprised to see her as she was to see him?
Three more steps to go.
How on earth was she going to handle this? The only thing she could think of was to feign illness, and she did feel slightly ill, but only since she’d spotted Reynard. She couldn’t do that to Izzy and Clarissa and their husbands. This party had been arranged especially for her. She couldn’t let them down.
But if there was a scandal…that would be worse.
She prayed silently for Reynard to be an illusion. Or to disappear. Spontaneously combust. Anything.
He disappeared from sight as she reached the floor, and people crowded forward to be introduced to her and to exclaim over her and Izzy’s extraordinary resemblance.
Izzy was loving every moment of it, telling everyone the story they’d agreed on. “Yes, isn’t it amazing? Of course, we always knew there was some sort of cousin in France—one of Papa’s cousins married a Frenchman—but so many people simply disappeared during the Terror, we had no idea whether any of our relations had survived. And of course, Papa was never one for keeping contact with family. But by some miracle, one relative escaped Madame Guillotine and later gave birth to our beloved Zoë. Lord and Lady Thornton found her for us in France, and looking at her, you can see why we had no doubt that she was related. She could easily be my little sister, couldn’t she? Even my twin.”
She and Clarissa took Zoë from group to group, endlessly repeating variations of the story. Luckily Zoë’s shock at seeing Reynard was taken to be shyness by most people. A few wondered whether she spoke English, and tried some French on her. She responded, of course, in English, which caused relief and congratulations on her pretty accent.
Several times she told the story of how her mother was smuggled to safety during the Terror. She didn’t say how or to where and allowed people to assume it was to somewhere in France. And any halting in her recitation of the tale was ascribed to emotion—which it was; she was fretting about Reynard.
Where was he? What was he doing?
Finally it happened. She looked up and saw him plowing through the crowd toward her with a grim expression on his face.
She took a deep breath and braced herself.
“Ah, there you are, Foxton,” Leo said as Reynard reached them. “You wished to meet my aunt, didn’t you? Allow me to take you to her. She doesn’t like crowds, so she’s settled in the library. Come along.”
“Oh, but—”
“You’ll have plenty of time to meet Miss Benoît, but my aunt keeps early hours, so if you wish to meet her, now is the time.”
Zoë breathed again as, with ill-concealed reluctance, Reynard allowed Leo to take him off to meet Lady Scattergood. There was really nothing else he could do without being rude to his host. She would have laughed if she weren’t so nervous.
“Aunt Olive,” said Lord Salcott, “I’d like to present Lord Foxton, who has been scouring London in the hope of meeting you. Foxton, my aunt, Lady Scattergood.” He bowed and withdrew, no doubt to see to the rest of his guests.
Julian mentally groaned. It wasn’t untrue, but saying it so bluntly gave entirely the wrong impression. Julian bowed over the old lady’s hand, murmuring a greeting.
She was thin, almost scrawny, but was draped with a multitude of large multicolored silk scarves, several of which threatened to drip off her narrow shoulders. Seated in a large bamboo chair shaped rather like a peacock’s tail, she was holding court with a collection of other old ladies seated in a semicircle facing her.
She lifted a lorgnette and trained it on him for an uncomfortably long time. “Scouring London for me, were you, sirrah? And why was that, pray tell?”
Julian didn’t want to say that he was actually searching for Vita—Zoë—so he said the first thing that came into his head. “I believe you are a friend of my grandmother.”
“Indeed? And who is your grandmother?”
“Lady Bagshott.” Several of the other ladies tittered as if they knew something that he didn’t.
“Bagshott?”She snorted. “She’s no friend of mine.”
“Oh? I understood you were friends when you were young.”
