Free Becoming Josephine by Heather Webb Page B

word if I am able,” I said coyly, leaving him to guess my response until the last possible moment. I would hold the reins.
    One evening I attended a play with Marie-Josèphe. She had obtained our seats through her current lover, Monsieur Cotillion, a patron of the theater.
    “I wish my gown did not accentuate my shoulders. I look like a square,” Marie-Josèphe said.
    “Don’t be silly.” I removed my cloak. “You’re stunning.”
    We wore the newly fashionable English muslin dresses that resembled those I had worn in Martinique—the very style for which Alexandre had mocked me my first years in Paris. Their flowing, unencumbered skirts, cap sleeves, and heightened waists flattered my breasts and willowy arms. Ladies no longer suffered the hoops and restrictive corsets of formal brocades. A painting of Queen Marie Antoinette in an informal, flowing gown and straw hat had changed the fashions completely.
    A wave of guilt washed over me. I’d had to borrow from Désirée to purchase my latest gown. My fortune-telling had not generated as much as I had hoped. My spending habits did not help.
    Marie-Josèphe never questioned my spending. “The company we keep is the key to leaving Penthémont,” she said, “to secure your status, to find a lover’s support outside these walls. We must be beautiful and well dressed. It is a woman’s greatest weapon.”
    A woman’s greatest weapon was expensive. Remorse set in as bill notes filled the top drawer of my desk.
    We settled into our seats, our view of the stage unobstructed.
    “Would you like to use a lorgnette?” Marie-Josèphe extended a set of eyeglasses on a long, thin handle made of silver and inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
    “Don’t you want to use them?” I turned the glasses over in my hands. “These are beautiful.”
    “I have another pair.” She pulled an equally beautiful set from her beaded bag. “I refuse to attend the theater without them. You can see the expressions on the players’ faces.”
    I peered through them and gasped. “I can make out the flower stems on the ceiling mural. Oh! And the ladies’ jewelry in the first rows. Look at the ruby pins in her hair! Divine.”
    She laughed. “Now you won’t watch a show without them either.”
    I studied the crowd as we waited for the play to begin. Lovers leaned together. Friends gossiped, raven and blond heads bobbing as they gestured. Thankfully, wheat hair powder was no longer à la mode.
    “Very few men are wearing wigs these days. Have you noticed?” I asked.
    “I prefer the wigs, myself.”
    “Not I. I like to see their natural coloring. And I’m perfectly happy to be rid of hair powder.”
    “The Queen still uses it, I hear.” Marie-Josèphe leaned to my ear so our neighbors would not hear her. “She is criticized for her opulence.”
    “But isn’t that the Queen’s duty? To entertain the nobility in finery?” I didn’t understand the hatred directed at such a poised and elegant woman. She had done nothing but fulfill the expectations associated with her position. “She must be lonely.”
    “Why would you think such a thing?” Marie-Josèphe looked surprised. “She is surrounded by ladies and maids.”
    “In a country that is not her own, without family or friends. Without those who know her heart.”
    She laughed. “You are a romantic, dear Rose.”
    Not a romantic, but a woman made to start again after leaving all behind. I felt sympathy for Her Majesty. I heard she escaped the palace as often as possible.
    To be a queen would not be so grand.
    When the
comédie
concluded Marie-Josèphe and I weaved through the gathered crowd in the vestibule. She introduced me to acquaintances, many of whom invited us for supper. That’s when I saw him, his arm laced through one of a pretty woman. I gripped Marie-Josèphe’s arm.
    “What is it?” she asked. “You’re arresting the blood in my arm.”
    “It’s my husband! I don’t want him to see me.”
    Alexandre turned as if