Free The Queen's Dollmaker by Christine Trent Page B

same.”
    “But Jean-Philippe,” Claudette protested, walking alongside him on the cobblestones down a narrow street of tightly fitted houses with pink and red flowers exploding from window boxes. “Aren’t the colonists trying to establish a separate country, since they are so far away from England? We live right here with our government.”
    Jean-Philippe was confused, but only for a moment. “It doesn’t matter; the French people must have a voice. Now, little dove, I have just been paid and must treat you to a custard.”
    He took her hand in his arm and lovingly stroked it again. Claudette forgot all about Gamain, the colonists, and the troubles of France. A girl in love has no memory beyond what her beloved has last done for her.
     
    As she lay in her narrow bed now, her memories were blotted out by the dull ache of loneliness and misery that had taken permanent residence in her heart.

7
    As part of Maude Ashby’s ongoing efforts to elevate her family back to the status to which she deemed was her due, she frequently staged parties. At first, she invited neighbors and business associates of James’s, not those who were her true intended target, but a good stepping-stone until her reputation improved. By offering surprise entertainments, such as the time she had a trained monkey performing at one of her social gatherings, she ensured her reputation as a remarkable hostess. Slowly, she was building what she considered her “clientele” at her parties. With each party, she discarded a few people from her invitation list whom she now considered herself having passed by socially, and invited a few new representatives of the elite, whose ranks she desperately wanted to join. Even though she could hardly say that her parties were exclusive and her invitations in great demand, still she kept a restricted invitation list as a way to generate a sense of exclusivity for her events. For several days she had been mulling over an idea for further social advancement, rolling it back and forth in her mind, finally deciding it would be to her advantage, and arranging in her usual fashion to set things in motion.
    She went to James in his study, smoothing her skirt and practicing her best smile. “Mr. Ashby, I think it’s time to have another dinner party. Don’t you agree?”
    James Ashby looked up from his book in surprise. When had Maude ever consulted him about one of her parties? For that matter, when had she last spoken to him civilly, without the veiled reference to his inadequacies as a husband, father, and provider?
    “W-why, yes, my dear, if it makes you happy.”
    She sighed, exasperated. “James, it does not make me happy, but it does provide me—I mean, you—with an opportunity to mingle with the right sort of people. Not only that, I have an idea that will set us apart as unique members of society.”
    As Maude Ashby proceeded to tell her husband of her original idea, certain to gain the respect and admiration of everyone in attendance, James Ashby gazed past his wife at a painting on the wall, already drifting off to thoughts of going to the club the following day with one of his friends, to drink brandy and smoke cigars away from the infernal carping at home.
     
    “She wants you to do what?” Béatrice was incredulous. “But Claudette, Mrs. Ashby does not like either of us. Why does she want you to do this after all of these months here?”
    “I don’t know, Béatrice. But I suppose I am to do as I am commanded, no matter how ridiculous I will appear. I imagine I will have the opportunity to meet all of those interesting people you are hoping the Ashbys know.”
    “If only you could meet someone who could help us get out of here. How I would love to miss just a day of cleaning Nathaniel’s filthy breeches. I believe he purposely wipes bugs and mud on them to make my work especially hard.”
    Claudette hugged her friend. “Well, I don’t know that anyone the Ashbys know would be a friend to us,