The Ruins of Lace Read Online Free PDF Page A

flounce to them at all. But seeing that pair brought to mind her cool, gentle touch and the way her hands always seemed to be dancing along to the rhythm of her words.
    But Maman ’s hands had been stilled when she died of lung fever. And her cuffs had been entombed with her. She lived now only in my dreams.
    Such sweet, though fleeting, dreams.
    I watched as my seven-year-old self entered our guest’s chamber, shuffling through the rushes on the tips of her toes. I saw her kneel beside the visitor’s trunk and slowly open the lid. I heard her gasp with delight at the magnificent treasure nestled inside.
    She ought never to have done it.
    She knew she had no right to inspect a visitor’s belongings. And there had been many visitors to the château through the years, many guests stopping for a night, as was customary, or even a week’s lodging on their way to or from Bordeaux. So many nobles with their sparkling coats and shimmering gowns.
    But this visitor was different.
    He was a noble, to be sure, a count. And he was the most beautiful person that young girl had ever seen, with shiny locks of dark hair falling in curls past his shoulders, and rings glittering from his fingers. He wore blue rosettes on his heeled slippers, and a hat that was both larger and floppier than her cousin, Alexandre’s. He was all dark and very tall.
    He’d caught the little girl’s gaze a time or two as he talked in the entrance hall with her papa, but he had promptly disregarded it. And then he had proceeded to ply her papa with news from the court. Though she had asked after the Queen, the man told her women were of little importance, and her papa had hushed her. When she drifted from the hall, neither of them noticed. It was that which had driven her to the guest’s room. She wasn’t used to being ignored. And becoming a woman like her maman was the only thing she’d ever wished to do.
    She was quite sure the guest wouldn’t like her looking over his things, and that’s exactly why she had done it.
    But now, she paused at the trunk with her fingers hooked over its edge as she stared at the lace.
    The bishop had worn this sort of cuff when he said Mass on Easter day. It spumed from the cuffs of his alb like a froth on fresh milk. She stretched out a hand toward it…should she?
    I watched as she bit her lip in thought.
    In that gossamer world of dreams where time twists and space shifts, I was everywhere and nowhere at once. I saw the back of her head, watched that mass of golden ringlets tremble as she reached into the trunk. At the same time, I saw the glint of longing in her eyes as her hand hovered above the lace.
    The two cuffs were set into a bowl made by a pair of gloves. As she slid a hand beneath them, they released their perfumes of jasmine, orange blossoms, and carnations, scents so cloying she almost gagged.
    Perhaps they would dissuade her…but no. I felt tears of frustration prick my eyes.
    The little girl merely coughed, took in a deep breath through her mouth, and turned toward the lace once more. The scents had done nothing to deter her. But though she wanted to touch the cuffs, though she was prodded by a nearly irresistible frisson of desire, she did not. Not at first, in any case. But soon, the inevitability of what must happen began to invade my dream.
    I tried to call out. I tried to make that young girl stop. To turn, at least, and listen for one moment to reason. But she would not be swayed. She would not be swayed because of what she saw. It was so…beautiful. So lovely. A yearning to hold it, for just one moment to possess her mother once more, took hold of her.
    You must not do it! Even in my dreams I felt that old, familiar weight of despair. I felt, again, the loss of all the lovely things we possessed no more: the tapestries and the Turkey carpets, the collection of enameled boxes and the jeweled crucifixes, the pairs of silver candlesticks. All of those humble comforts that had been luxuries to us,