Celine gaped at her. “I do not!”
“I have as good as raised you, Celine LeBeau. Try as you might, you can’t hide anything from me,” Francine concluded. “Just now, you smiled each time you said his name. I was young once too. I knowstuff.”
Celine didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh at Francine’sstuffor protest again when—
Thwack.
“What was that?”
They turned their heads towards the phonograph simultaneously—even Milady’s ears perked at the sound—but it didn’t come from the music.
Thwack.
“Don’t tell me—”
Francine nodded, an expectant smile playing about her lips. “I think it’s coming from the window.”
“Probably a bird,” Celine dismissed, shuffling her feet between the folds of her blanket. She munched down on another forkful of cake. “It will go away on its own. No need to romanticise every little soun—”
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
Placing the cake on her bedside table, Celine hoisted herself up from the mattress begrudgingly. She winced as her feet hit the cold floor, but her blood was beginning to boil a little and she didn’t feel the iciness of the tiles immediately. Tilting her head upwards, as if to seek divine guidance, she shuffled with great reluctance towards the window. “I swear if it is a Ménard, please let it be Jacques or Anaïs—”
In the empty driveway of the LeBeau residence, Bastien stood with something that looked like a book underneath one arm, while he prepared to throw whatever it was he’d been tossing at her window with the other.
Annoying demon, indeed.
Celine sighed, still looking upwards. “The one time I need you to be on my side.”
She supposed God was enjoying this too much to reply. Throwing one of the panes open, she stuck her head out to furiously whisper: “You have officially lost it, haven’t you?”
Bastien halted mid-throw and flung what he had in his palm into the bushes. She realised with a lag that it was a cherry pit. Three more were stuck on the sill.
Where the hell had he found cherries in April?
“It is my lady!” Bastien whisper-yelled.
Celine plucked one of the pits and chucked it at him. “Are you insane?”
“Celine LeBeau, you murder romance.” Stealthily, he dodged a rapid procession of cherry pits. “Don’t be hostile. Come open the door, I need to give you something.”
Unbelievable. The daylight hours were not enough for Bastien Ménard to torment her, now he was intent on plaguing her nights too.
“Who is it?” Francine asked, slowly approaching the window. She didn’t wait for Celine’s reply before she scuttled closer and peered at Bastien. Her eyes widened. “Well, you certainly have madeprogress, Mademoiselle.”
Celine scoffed softly. Even Francine was taking Bastien’s side. “Just go make sure neither of my parents have heard him. And you,” she turned to Bastien. “Go play Romeo under some other girl’s window.”
“I told you I have something for you. Just toss me a rope and I will climb up.”
“I assure you, Bastien, if I had a rope, it would be to strangle you with it.”
He tapped his foot on the pavement, looking around for something. Under the moonlight, she could see a twinkle enter his eyes when his vision landed on what he was searching for.
“Don’t you even dare,” Celine warned. “You will fall and crack your skull open.”
“I appreciate your worry, darling”—Bastien grunted as he latched onto the drainpipe that ran along the side of the house—“but I’ve done this plenty of times before.”
“Who said I was worried about you? I’m just not particularly big on overworking the staff to scrape brain matter off the driveway.”
