Chapter Four

The next morning, Antoine arrived at the breakfast table like a balloon about to float off. All his thoughts were on meeting Charlotte Devereaux later. Since parting company with her, he'd thought of a hundred things he wanted to tell her. A hundred ways he wanted to kiss her. The post hadn't come yet, but certainly her response would arrive, and he'd be in her company in a matter of hours. Not only for the potential kisses, but he needed to tell her about his title. He hadn't exactly meant to deceive her, but he'd enjoyed the fact that she didn't know. Many women in Paris, if they didn't recognize him, certainly knew the name. Charlotte hadn't. But he couldn't keep kissing her without telling her this most important aspect of his life.

Mother smiled at him as he took the seat across from her. She looked fresh and rested in her dark, high-necked dress. The spread was the same as always: croissants, jam, and coffee. The papers were laid out as usual. Morning light streamed in between the parted drapes. The chandeliers sparkle and cast rainbows onto the solemn landscape paintings that lined the walls. But his father was missing.

"Where's Papa?" Antoine chose the biggest croissant from the platter at the center of the table.

"He's gone to the country estate."

"Oh?" Antoine didn't remember his father mentioning any trips.

"Something's come up. Some opportunity he wanted to look into. He'll be back by the weekend."

That sounded vague, but Antoine was too inflated by his new acquaintance with Charlotte to truly acknowledge it or ask questions. He cut his croissant in half, exposing the buttery layers. And then he asked Mother to pass the jam. He spread on a thick layer and took a bite. What was Charlotte Deveraux having for breakfast?

"We're having dinner at the marquis's house tonight. I'll need you ready to leave by six-thirty."

"Oh." It was like his balloon popped. "I'd forgotten about that."

"You and Louise seemed to get along well at dinner Thursday night," she said primly.

"She seems nice enough."

"Nice enough?" The wrinkles in his mother's brow deepened. "You two had more to say than you've had with any other prospective matches I've hosted."

"Prospective matches? Are we still doing that?" Antoine forced a smile to dull his sharp tone.

"You're not married yet, so it seems we are." She shuddered with exasperation, raising her eyes toward the ceiling as if he were a frustrating child.

"And you want me to enter a courtship with her." What was the rush? Really. It wasn't as if his childbearing years were slipping away.

"That's the idea. Yes. You'll do well not to forget that women of good breeding are getting more difficult to find these days."

The phrase "good breeding" never failed to make him cringe. Entering a courtship with Louise de Montmorency and agreeing to a society marriage like Mother wanted so desperately was the last idea he wanted to pursue. Though this didn't necessarily have to impede the pursuit of other romantic entanglements, something about Charlotte was different. He only wanted to think about her. That's all he was capable of thinking about. Still, his mother had suffered enough in her life. No parent should have to bury two-thirds of their children, and Antoine had witnessed the change in her firsthand. There was a reason that the only wrinkles she had on her face came from scowling and not laughing.

"I'll be ready for dinner in plenty of time."

This wasn't an answer, per se. But it was an escape from the clutches of this conversation. Antoine stuffed the last bite of his croissant into his mouth and excused himself. On his way upstairs, he passed Emile and asked if any messages had come for him. Emile shook his head, and Antoine deflated even further. Why hadn't Charlotte responded to his letter?

In his room, he sat at his desk, pulled a sheet of crisp paper from the slot, and laid it flat in front of him. If Charlotte wouldn't respond, he would write to her again. He picked up his pen and removed the cap. With the chiseled point poised over the paper, he hesitated. He'd give anything to get out of dinner with the Montmorencys.

Something about writing to one woman while gearing up to meet another didn't feel good. He would have to be honest with Charlotte about his situation, but it all felt too new for that conversation. He needed more time.

Even though he desperately wanted to know her, he was also aware of the fact that contacting her, asking to see her again, was incredibly presumptuous. He wished he could be just a man writing to an enchanting woman. But the implication would always be loaded. A note was more than a note, especially to a woman from a different class. There was something unsavory about romantic gestures, even early ones, that could never end in marriage.

But that kiss! He had kissed women in carriages before, but none had ever turned him out like this. He started writing.

?

Charlotte was coming in from a walk when an envelope on the little table inside the door caught her eye. Claire often put letters here if the recipient wasn't at home to receive them. Charlotte recognized the paper and handwriting immediately. She tucked it under her arm and went straight up to her room to read it. Vibrating with anticipation and out of breath from climbing the stairs so fast, she went to her desk for her letter knife, cut open the envelope, and unfolded the paper that Antoine's hands had so recently dispatched. Her heart thumped hard as she read:

Charlotte,

I was disappointed not to hear from you. It cast a pallor on my whole day. And my walk this afternoon felt dull in comparison to the one we took together. It seems Paris and my life achieve full color only in your company. When can we meet again?

Antoine

Charlotte placed the letter into the back of her journal along with the first. She hadn't written Antoine back, and she wasn't going to now. After his letter arrived and Nadine revealed his identity, Charlotte swore Nadine to secrecy and closed herself in her room. She furiously wrote two scenes involving a sneaky, underhanded man, even though they didn't seem to fit in any of the stories she'd been working on. While many women might have been thrilled to attract the attention of such a wealthy and powerful man, she was not. Not at all.

She couldn't fall for a man like Antoine. And she had to treat their encounter as a minor indiscretion, not a life-altering kiss.

All that charm about her being his favorite writer, all those devastating smiles. He probably did this to women all the time. She'd fallen in with Paris's biggest flirt! Well, she may have been caught up for a moment, but she was no longer ensnared by his designs. Although writing him and telling him off would be more mature and direct, she felt silence in this case better communicated her disappointment.

She wished her friend Marie were here. The only person who knew about Antoine was Nadine, but she was busy with work and Charlotte had barely seen her since she delivered enlightenment with that first letter. Charlotte didn't want to tell any of her other housemates about him—not because she didn't trust them, but because she didn't want to make it any bigger than it already was. She wanted her feelings for Antoine to be over. Past.

Antoine's third letter arrived the following morning along with one from a paper Charlotte was waiting to hear from. Charlotte was in her room when Vanessa brought them up. Unlike Nadine, Vanessa passed the mail to Charlotte without seeming to notice the quality of the paper.

"Everything okay?" Vanessa said. She was dressed for work in one of her dark suits and an understated straw hat. "You've been quiet lately."

"Oh. Yes." Charlotte looked down at the envelopes. The one from the paper was larger and thicker than the one from Antoine, containing her manuscript, either marked up with editing suggestions or rejected and returned. "This is a response to a story I sent, so I suppose I'm a little nervous."

"Do you want me to stay while you open it? I know how hard rejection can be as a writer," Vanessa said. "I have a meeting, but I have a minute if you need a friend."

"I'll be okay. But thanks."

Vanessa smiled and left Charlotte with her two letters in her hands. She wasn't sure which one to open first, but she also knew the one from the paper could possibly contain good news. She cut it open and read what amounted to a very kind rejection of her work and a request that she send something else in the future. This was disappointing, as she'd hoped this story might fund another month in Paris. But she still had time to try and place it elsewhere. She set that letter down.

Antoine's handwriting on the other stirred all the memories of him that she'd been trying to settle. The way the light had fallen on his smiling face that afternoon by the river. The way it felt to walk next to him. The pressure of his mouth on hers. The feelings were still so powerful, even if they could never move her to be with him.

Charlotte, my dear, for a long day I have been stalking messengers in hopes of a word from you. I fear the worst—illness, injury, all manner of disaster. But I know most likely that I may have unintentionally angered you, or that something has set you against me, whether true or false. Or that I may have presumed. My instinct is to send flowers—massive amounts of them. Tulips of every color. But I fear making it worse. In any case, I would prefer a dressing down to silence. Please, Charlotte. Write to me.

Presumed. That was the operative word. Everything about their situation was based on presumption. Charlotte was guilty of it too, presuming he was a regular man, and now presuming his intentions were less than honorable. They hadn't talked about any of this, and she had no idea what he was thinking in those regards. If he was thinking about it at all. Were her presumptions preventing some other truth from being revealed?

More likely, and this was perhaps what she feared most, her presumptions were only a few steps ahead. Not responding was better than leading him to think that she might be amenable to that. She didn't even want him to ask. She couldn't let him think she'd be open to the idea of being his mistress when she wouldn't.

Charlotte didn't feel superior to the people who chose that lifestyle. The only reputation she was prepared to attach to her name was literary in nature. But the way her housemates gossiped, it seemed almost everyone in Paris was either a mistress or had one, and no one cared about marriage or bad taste or broken hearts. Here she was again presuming.

Antoine hadn't asked Charlotte to become his mistress, and she wasn't going to give him the opportunity. She wanted to remember their little encounter in its pure, passionate state, contained in that cab and unspoiled by reality. A flame extinguished before it could catch and burn everything in her life down. A flame that could burn on forever in her imagination as perfect and intense. Charlotte put Antoine's third letter in her journal along with the others and went down to see if lunch was ready yet.

The next day, Charlotte received another rejection on a story and a letter from her friend Marie back in Vernon, but no letter from Antoine. Again, the day after that, no letter. She was disappointed, but certain that she'd made the wise choice. Better for things to end like this than drag it out and let it grow into a huge emotional mess. She had stories to finish and send out. She needed to focus on work.

?

Charlotte's cab rolled to a stop in front of a mansion in the eleventh arrondissement. She thanked the driver as she exited the carriage and turned to look at the place. It was more a house than an office building, but next to the stately front door was a plaque that read: The offices of La Fronde. Inside was even more homelike with potted palms and floral drapes, unlike any other office Charlotte had seen. It was both welcoming and awe inspiring.

The young woman at the reception desk greeted Charlotte and showed her to another, larger room. They passed four desks arranged in a square. Three of the desks were occupied by other women, two of whom looked up and smiled to acknowledge Charlotte and one who seemed so caught up in her work that she didn't even notice. These women weren't here to socialize; they were changing the world for women one paper at a time. Charlotte took the spare desk that sat off to the side and faced a window.

"Let me know if you need anything," the receptionist said.

"Oh, yes, is my editor here? Anais Blanchet?"

"Yes. Her office is upstairs." She nodded toward a staircase at the back of the room.

As the receptionist left her, Charlotte considered knocking on her editor's door now. They'd never met in person, even though they'd exchanged several letters. And Charlotte had another story in her bag that she hoped Mademoiselle Blanchet would want to publish. But then she decided it would be better to type everything first, so she could hand her the story that was due and suggest the new one at the same time. She got straight to work, feeding a clean sheet of paper into the machine, lining it up, and setting her hands on the keys.

For the first two installments of her series, Charlotte had typed her handwritten drafts on her father's machine in the bookshop office. Mademoiselle Blanchet had offered to let her use one of their machines when Charlotte moved to Paris. This was Charlotte's first time in the building, and her first time seeing the famed publication up close. Everyone knew La Fronde as an extension of the publisher Marguerite Durand's outsized personality and feminist spirit. Charlotte had been relatively ignorant of Durand and La Fronde until Vanessa, who worked at a different publication, filled her in. Almost everyone who worked there, from the front desk to the loading docks in the back, was a woman. All the writers and photographers and artists were women, and they published articles and stories about the world from a distinctly feminine perspective. And they covered more than clothing and gossip. This was revolutionary in publishing and business.

Charlotte typed away, making final adjustments to her sentences as she went. She wasn't the fastest typist, but she liked the sounds of the machine and the weight of the buttons under her fingers. Someday, hopefully soon, she'd have one of her own sitting on the desk at Madame's. All the while Charlotte worked, she didn't see one man.

She stopped only to shake out her hands and when Marguerite Durand strode through and caught every eye in the place. She was a stunning woman, dressed in a pale gray suit with a ruffled pink blouse underneath. Her hat, which she was unpinning as she walked through, had pink and orange feathers.

When she'd typed the end, Charlotte stacked her pages against the table and stood up. Two of the three women at the desks had gone, and the fourth desk was now occupied by another serious-looking woman a little older than Charlotte. How was it that every woman in Paris managed to look so sophisticated while Charlotte felt so simple in comparison? The woman smiled, nodded at Charlotte, and then returned to her typing. Charlotte followed the stairs up to a narrow hallway that was papered in a colorful floral pattern. Both sides were lined with office doors that were painted green. When she found one with her editor's name, Charlotte knocked.

A muffled "Yes?" came from inside, and Charlotte stepped inside. The dark-haired woman with glasses smiled expectantly from behind her desk. Anais Blanchet, based on her letters, was a stickler about commas and had a masterful way of pushing Charlotte's writing in small ways that made it so much better. Charlotte didn't have to meet Anais Blanchet to know she admired her, and she didn't want this last installment to be the last thing she wrote for her either.

"Oh, Charlotte, come in and sit," Mademoiselle Blanchet said when Charlotte introduced herself. "I didn't know that was you out there typing. Please call me Anais."

The office was small, but it had a big window looking out over the courtyard. Her wide wooden desk was clean and uncluttered aside from a typewriter and a stack of newspapers. There was an abstract pastel painting in a simple frame on the wall and a low shelf filled with books. When Charlotte handed her the typed pages, Anais said, "So this is it, then?"

"That's it. The dramatic conclusion."

"Well, I'm excited to read it. We've had a lovely response from readers."

"That's nice to hear." Charlotte recognized her chance. As hard as it could be to put herself out there and pitch her work, she knew she needed to take advantage of every opportunity she got. "I have another story, a shorter one, that I was hoping you'd also consider."

"Oh good. Yes, we'd love another story from you. Do you have it with you now?"

"I typed it on your machine after I finished the other one. I hope you don't mind." She passed the stack of pages across the desk.

"Not at all." Anais quickly looked over the top of the first page, where the title and Charlotte's name and address were centered on the page. She nodded approval. "I can't read it now, unfortunately. But I'll look at it tonight."

"Of course," Charlotte said, barely containing her thrill that she could sell another story to a publication she was so excited about being a part of. She'd been reading it daily since she arrived in Paris, and had fallen quite in love with it. She'd recognized all the names on the doors. After watching everyone in the office all morning, she could easily envision herself a regular here, borrowing the typewriter, existing and working among such smart and dedicated women. She wanted to know them all.

"Have you met Marguerite yet?"

"You mean Madame Durand?"

"Yes," Anais said, nodding as if a person as prominent as Marguerite Durand was accessible to a person like Charlotte. "I think she's still here, and I know she'd love to meet you."

"She would?"

"Let's go see if she's still around." Anais rose from her seat and Charlotte followed her back out into the hallway. They walked to the end, where a door that looked like all the others stood ajar.

Anais knocked on the jamb and stepped inside. This office was three or four times the size of Anais's and decorated like a comfortable drawing room with landscape paintings in gilded frames, a colorful plush carpet, and potted palms. Madame Durand was seated on a striped chaise longue with her feet tucked under her skirts and a newspaper in her lap. She uncurled herself and stood when Anais introduced Charlotte.

" The Charlotte Devereaux. It's lovely to finally meet you." Madame Durand held out her hand to Charlotte. "Your stories have had everyone in my salon talking for weeks."

"I'm so flattered," Charlotte said.

"I don't have much time before my next meeting, but please sit for a moment."

Charlotte and Anais settled onto the couch across from Marguerite. Her blonde curls were arranged in a pile on her head, and she's removed her ornate hat.

"Charlotte brought me another story to consider for the paper," Anais said.

"Oh, that's good news." Madame Durand's eyes glimmered with kindness and genuine interest. She asked Anais something about another story that they were working on. Charlotte watched them the way she'd watched the other ladies all morning. She'd seen enough business interactions at her parents' bookshop to know that most of the time business was conducted by men. Madame Durand was older than both Charlotte and Anais and strikingly beautiful in a way that Charlotte assumed a woman could only grow into. She was impeccably dressed and styled, feminine in every way, and still running her own widely read publication. Charlotte continued to be impressed, but also enlightened. Why couldn't everywhere be more like this? After her side conversation with Anais concluded, Madame Durand turned to Charlotte. "How long are you in Paris?"

"I'm not sure yet, but at least through July."

"How wonderful. Paris is lovely in summer. Where are you staying?"

"In the eighth, in a women's pension on Rue de Fortuny."

"That's wonderful." Madame Durand apprised Charlotte again. "I have loved your stories, you know. Absolutely loved them. You must come to my salon this Wednesday evening. So many people want to meet you."

"I can't imagine why," Charlotte said modestly. She was still getting used to the idea that people were reading her work and having opinions about it.

"Well, you're the provincial young woman who managed to make us all stop and think. And laugh!"

The receptionist came in then, with a stack of mail under her arm and a tray of coffee and madeleines balanced on her hand. "Marguerite, your two o'clock meeting is here."

"Give me just a minute and then send him in." She turned back to Charlotte. "Please come Wednesday. After dinnertime. I'd love to have you, and you'll meet enough people to keep you busy the whole time you're in the city."

Charlotte got a little jolt of pleasure from Madame Durand's insistence. It felt good to be wanted. And an invitation like this could definitely help her career. "I wouldn't miss it."

"Good! Now, mademoiselles, I must shoo you out. I need to win an argument with a man."

They left Madame Durand's office as a gentleman with a self-satisfied air was going in. Anais walked Charlotte back out to the reception area, and before they parted ways, Charlotte asked her if she'd be at Madame Durand's salon.

"Not this week, but I've been a few times before," she smiled warmly. "It's mostly society people. So wear your best dress and be ready to join in the discourse."