Page 60 of Our Strange Duet

He grinned. “Good.”

In a flash, he removed a lighter from his pocket and caramelized his sugar cube. When the absinthe was prepared, he clinked his glass against mine and swallowed it down in one gulp. “Drink up.”

With a cry of amused outrage, I raised my coupe in a toast before taking a long swig. The champagne bubbles immediately tickled my nose, and I felt the childish urge to sneeze.

“I think about that day a lot,” he went on. “Do you remember what I said that made you win the game?”

“No,” I replied, patting a napkin to my lips. My first lie.

He looked wounded. “Truly?”

I shook my head. Another point for me.

“ ‘You’re not my forever favorite.’ ”

The bubbles went straight to my head, dancing and effervescent and making me feel as lovestruck as I had the first time he’d told me this. I’d fallen for him that day in the attic—hard—and it wasn’t until this moment, hearing those words again, that I realized how little my heart had ever recovered.

What would my life have been like if the Chagnys hadn’t left so soon after? If Raoul’s letters had made their way to me? I could so easily picture a world where our courtship had continued, where Father hadn’t died but had been there to watch it all, to see me fall in love, to walk me down a church aisle—

I stopped such thoughts before they could take root and grow. Wishing for something so pure and wondrous would only cause my heart further grief in the long run.

“I think I might remember that,” I said lightly instead, wondering if this counted as another lie. It certainly felt as if it should.

Raoul’s hand fell over mine, and his thumb played at the long row of pearl buttons at my wrist. Wretched gloves.

“You should know that’s still a lie.”

“I really hope that’s not a lie,” I confessed in a breathless rush. My heart fluttered like the beats of a hummingbird’s wings, and all around us, the air changed, crystallizing like spun sugar. Time stretched, and even though I knew there were hundreds of patrons and performers nearby, I couldn’t see anyone but Raoul.

“Call me on it,” he challenged.

I raised an eyebrow. “Is it?”

He leaned in so close that I could smell the anise on his breath. With a careful sweep of his hand, he brushed loose tendrils of hair over my shoulder so that he might whisper directly into my ear. “You know it’s not.”

His lips grazed the soft skin of my neck, and I startled back, checking to make sure that this wasn’t a joke, that it had not been part of the game.

His earnest expression confirmed it was neither.

“Christine, you know that I—”

“Raoul!” Marcel shouted from the far end of the table. “This one doesn’t believe us about the elephant!” He gestured to Jean-Luc.

“Well, take him up there and prove him wrong,” Raoul snapped, his eyes never leaving mine.

“We get better service when Monsieur le Vicomte comes along,” Marcel joked, and rose to his feet.

The other men followed suit.

“You ladies don’t mind if we take him for just a moment, do you?” Marcel asked, towering above Meg’s chair.

“If you’re not back in a true moment, we’ll be cancanning without you,” Meg flirted, smiling sweetly up at him.

Marcel grabbed at his heart, as if wounded. “We can’t-can’t miss that!” He tapped her nose, and they pulled Raoul from his seat.

He offered me a forlorn wave before joining their line as they disappeared into the elephant.

“Can you imagine how stuffy it must be in there?” I asked with a little shudder. “I mean…I understand why they go up there, but…” I trembled again. “I’d be so claustrophobic.”