Page 107 of Love Beneath the Guillotine
HOW TO ENCHANT A BOYFRIEND IN THREE EASY STEPS
Ashort time later, both women emerged looking primped and prepared, though not half as overdone as Léon and Henry, the latter especially, having got a little carried away in his excitement. Both Souveraine and Catherine felt the times called for some reserve in dress, but no one was going to get the ruby ring off Henry’s finger. He was utterly starved for parties, dying for society, desperate to sink into the very fabric of Paris and work himself in so deeply he’d become an integral part of the city.
The five of them dusted off the family carriage that hadn’t been touched in years, and all four horses at their command were soon hitched up, ready for travel. Henry gave the whip straight over to Émile, not that he needed to use it, since the horses were happy enough to go along at Henry’s word, but the boy felt very important and grown up just there between Léon and Henry.
Léon adored Henry all the more for it. He was natural with Émile. None of it felt like a show. He was all warmth and kindness, this Henry of Paris.
It wasn’t a long ride, and while Léon had been deathly nervous about how upper-class their destination might be, Henry delivered them to the last place he would ever have expected. Up stone stairs, into an alcove, right up to the front doors of a cathedral, where he raised his hand and knocked as though it were perfectly normal.
Léon’s nerves shifted into alarm. “You know I’m not allowed in there. Why would you bring me to a church?”
There was a softness to Henry’s eyes, a blanket Léon wanted to wrap himself in. “It’s not a church anymore, Ange.”
“It looks like a church to me.”
“Pretty, isn’t it?” The doors opened, and a man checked them over with raised eyebrows and a hard expression.
“Henri De Villiers,” Henry introduced himself. “We’ve been invited by Citizen Wollstonecraft.”
The man raised a finger of approval. “Welcome. We’ve been expecting you.” He stood back, pulling the door open for them.
Léon had previous imaginings about what those flickering lights he’d spied through church doors might have illuminated. He’d seen stained-glass windows from the outside. But his breath caught in his throat at the magnificence of the vision before him.
Arches… Léon had dreamed of arches. Up and up, as though he were looking into heaven itself, the ceiling soared. Dizzying. He felt small and overwhelmed, and Henry slid a hand beneath his arm for support.
Léon’s frightened eyes cut across to him, just as dazzling as everything else beneath the light of church candles. “Are you sure?”
“The Church is gone. All the horrible things they’ve done to people, gone with them.” He lifted a hand to the beauty before them. “It’s now a Temple of Reason. You’re perfectly welcomehere. This is the revolution. We don’t believe in any of that, and you’re among friends.”
It was too good to be true. Utterly abnormal. A lifetime of being locked out of the world of human worship, of being shunned by the men who held the hand of God—shunned, by extension, by God himself.
Instead, it was Henry who took his hand and led him into the light. Into the light of a thousand candles. Into a room of smiling and animated faces, a room of conversations and introductions, and Henry laughing and shaking hands with people. Souveraine on Léon’s arm, a glass of wine in his hand, and this room. Exquisite. It was hung about with flags, every cross, every sculpture or painting of God or Jesus Christ covered or removed, and the words ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’ etched into the very stone.
Léon hadn’t noticed Catherine pull away, but he did notice her then, shrill across the wide room. “Souveraine! Come meet Mary!”
“I don’t want to meet Mary,” Souveraine muttered under her breath.
“You can stay here if you want.” Léon patted her arm and offered a smile, but for the first time ever, she didn’t look up at him in lost adoration. She watched Catherine lean close to a striking woman, utterly resplendent with excitement. Souveraine’s blue eyes were like glass, shining and hard.
Catherine’s head flicked across. “Souveraine!”
“I guess I should go over,” she said, then stalked across the room to meet ‘Mary’ with a reserve Léon thought he recognised as jealousy.
“Can I eat that?” asked Émile.
The food, laid out on a huge table, was simple, but it was meat and real bread and fruit and it was plentiful.
“Of course you can,” said Henry, suddenly back at Léon’s side. “Take whatever you like.”
A giddy warmth shot through Léon’s chest at seeing Émile run to the table, where a few other children were picking at the spread.
The touch of Henry’s cheek against his. “There are some people I want you to meet.”
The idea returned Léon to his anxious state, but it was short-lived. He had rubbed shoulders with important men, a multitude of them, in his role as executioner. But in this room, these people treated him like an equal. They knew Henry. They liked him. And he kept Léon within reach, always a hand on his arm or his shoulder, rarely, but occasionally, on the small of his back, and Léon was accepted as his guest.
It was absurd. He was in a cathedral, Émile was eating and talking. He heard a laugh from across the room and saw Souveraine looking perfectly at ease, deep in conversation with Mary and Catherine and another woman.
Léon caught Henry’s sparkling eyes, and realised he really did feel like his partner. For the first time in his life, everything was exactly right. It was Paris, and Henry had been correct all along. His faith in the revolution, his belief in the goodness of mankind, it had brought them here, and it was perfect.
