‘You’re looking washed out, Annette,’ Agathe said one night. ‘As soon as this wedding is over I think you should move in with Madame Leclerc. You can still come daily into Belair until your time, but you need to rest a little.’

‘I will, after the wedding,’ agreed Annette, for indeed she was feeling inordinately tired, ‘but I’ll be fine until then and you’ll need me here.’

She’d been right. The Belair kitchens had been busy for the previous week as pies and patties were made, meat marinated ready for the ovens, and syllabubs and creations built of spun sugar created by a master chef, Antoine, specifically employed to prepare the feast for the wedding breakfast. Adèle Paquet, the St Clairs’ cook, had been angry that preparation of the food had not been left to her, but as Monsieur Antoine took over her kitchen, she had become more and more relieved that such a banquet for more than sixty people had not been her responsibility. The kitchen servants had peeled vegetables brought in from the kitchen garden; had chopped and mixed and stirred all that Antoine needed for his exotic dishes and his delicate sauces.

The preparations had risen almost to fever pitch, with the arrival two days ago of Captain Georges St Clair and his family and Madame’s sister Madame Clémentine Gilbert and her husband Edouard adding to the excitement.

Rosalie and Emile’s son Georges and his family occupied their usual three rooms on the first floor: one as a night nursery for the children and their nursery maid; one as a day nursery; and the last, a large apartment with a view out over the drive, as a bedchamber for Georges and his wife, Sylvie. Despite having been wounded in the civil war some years earlier, Georges was still a serving officer in the army, and though he now had a wooden leg and walked with a stick, that did not stop him from keeping his men up to scratch. Most of the time he was stationed near Versailles, and though he and his family had lodgings in a small village outside, he was often away from home. He had received special leave to be away for a week to attend his sister’s wedding, and as always he and his family were warmly welcomed by those below stairs.

Monsieur and Madame Gilbert, bringing a maid and valet, were another matter altogether and their arrival was greeted with far less enthusiasm. Clémentine Gilbert was nothing like her sister but fussy and demanding, her bell was forever jangling in the kitchen. Her husband, a small, petulant man, was never quite satisfied with anything and continually found fault where there was none.

‘And that,’ Madame Sauze confided to Annette as the bell rang yet again and Madame Gilbert’s maid, Claudy, scurried upstairs to answer it, ‘we can well do without.’

The only person missing, Rosalie had thought sadly as the family had gathered the previous evening, was Marcel. Marcel, her younger son, killed during the civil war in Paris six years ago. Georges and Marcel had found themselves on opposite sides, but they had joined forces to keep Hélène safe throughout the strife. Rosalie loved both her sons and thought of Marcel with great sadness on family occasions, but Emile, horrified that Marcel had been a Communard, never spoke of him, allowing the general assumption that he had died fighting with the French army.