The Secret Life of Lady Julia by Lecia Cornwall Page A

the crowds hemmed the vehicle in, and no one paid any attention to the coachman’s orders to move aside. The city was mad with the celebration of the Feast of St. Louis. Wine, song, and laughter flowed freely through the streets, even if the coach did not.
    Julia’s eyes strayed upward to the gargoyles that adorned a church. The devilish faces grinned down at them, more puckish than wicked to her eyes, but Dorothea recoiled. “How frightening!” She gasped as grinning faces danced past the windows of the coach, singing. “They look as ugly as the gargoyles, and the buildings are so black, so dirty!”
    To Julia, the people looked happy, celebrating the end of two decades of war. The gargoyles looked like they were laughing at the celebrations, as if they wished they could descend from their perches and join the fun.
    Soot and grime had indeed curled up in the nooks of statues, embedded itself in the carved doorways, but the windows and balconies were decked with flowers, and the sky above the city was the bluest Julia had ever seen. There was color everywhere, red, blue, and yellow, even in the black silk of the Seine.
    She pressed her face to the window of the coach and gaped like a tourist. “My grandmother used to say that every city had its own charm, like a woman, or a handsome man. There is a unique scent, a particular flavor, a distinctive color to the light, which gives each place its own special magic and makes you fall in love with it. She said the first thing to do when you arrive in a new place is to smell it like a rose, find the scent of it.” Dorothea kept her handkerchief firmly over her nose.
    Julia smiled sympathetically, but to her Paris was a marvel, a grand old lady who might have seen better, brighter days, but still enjoyed life to the fullest nonetheless. She took a deep breath. She could smell garlic and fresh bread, and the heady perfume of the flower market as they passed. There was wine and sweat and darker odors too, of course—the smell of life.
    Dorothea cried out as several urchins climbed onto the coach and peered boldly into the windows. “C’est Wellington?” she heard one ask, but they dropped away, their faces twisting with disappointment when they realized the coach carried only two ordinary English ladies, and not the famous Duke of Wellington.
    “They’ve gone now,” she assured Dorothea. Outside their little sanctuary, the merriment went on, with everyone making the most of the celebration. Julia supposed the fact that Napoleon had been sent into exile on the tiny Island of Elba, and a Bourbon king sat once more on the throne of France, was secondary to the people’s joy that the fountains ran with wine instead of water.
    The British delegation was here at the express invitation of King Louis XVIII. He had spent the last years of the war in luxurious exile in the English countryside, and now, restored to the French throne, he wanted every foreign lord, officer, diplomat, and aide to don their finest dress military tunics and most elegant evening clothes to attend the gala celebrations.
    As a mere servant, Julia would not attend formal events unless Dorothea intended to go and needed her company. Even then, her place would be in the shadows, watching from the sidelines. But at the thought her dancing days might be over, she still longed for the pleasure of seeing great events unfold. Someday, she’d tell her son about these heady days of celebration.
    Except Dorothea refused to leave her room to attend the balls and dinners, and Major Lord Ives went alone.
    He told Dorothea and Julia all about the parties over breakfast each morning. While Dorothea could not bring herself to go out, pleading the fact that she was still in mourning, she wanted to know every detail.
    “Tell me what they are wearing in Paris now,” she begged as Julia poured the tea and tried to contain her own eagerness to hear Lord Stephen’s response. It had been many years since Paris fashions were