Bellegarde

by Jamie Lilac, Daniel Henning

Genres: YA Historical Fiction; YA Romance

Synopsis

Ooh la la! A historical rom-com with a modern twist—perfect for fans of Bridgerton, A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, and She's All That.

Evie Clement has perfected the art of avoiding attention as she works at her family’s bakery and dreams of a life where she can trade dusting flour for designing dresses. Her focus is on honing her sewing skills—she doesn’t need to be fawned over by some teenage boy.

Least of all Beau Bellegarde—the playboy of Paris, the second son of the ultra-wealthy Bellegarde family, the most popular guy in their prestigious high school. Others may swoon over his rakish charm and winning smile, but not Evie.

Unfortunately for Evie, Beau needs her. His conniving step-brother has roped him into an impossible bet: turn the biggest wallflower they know into the winning Bellegarde Bloom at the annual Court of Flowers Ball, or lose his entire fortune.

Evie can’t understand why Beau has taken an interest in her, but she can’t help but be intrigued...

Can love bloom in the most unexpected of places?

"The She’s All That historical romance retelling of my dreams! When I wasn’t savoring the lush, descriptive prose, I was eagerly devouring the smart, perfectly paced, heart-pounding romance. There’s no doubt about it: Jamie Lilac makes a sparkling debut." —Brian Kennedy, author of A Little Bit Country

 

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Release date: July 11, 2023

Publisher: HarperTeen

Print pages: 319

Sample

Evie

Some say there’s nothing more beautiful than Paris in the morning, but those people must be watching the sun rise from underneath their silk sheets, and not from a dirty bakery window through half-shut eyes, with flour-coated hands that ache from meticulously placing hundreds of sugared pearls on top of a cake meant for the queen of France.

It’s never sweet enough for her. The strawberry jam is layered perfectly between fresh crème cake and toasted marshmallow, but we’ll still hear about how one of her bites was bland. She’ll place another order, though. And then another. And I’ll continue to be thankful for it. Because without her, without any of the people in the golden palace under the silk sheets, I don’t know what we’d do.

The reason I see the sun rise most mornings, see it peek up over the clockmaker’s workshop, is because if I didn’t, it would mean Mother and Father would have to. And they’ve already got their hands full with afternoon orders and with Violette, whose greatest talent is knowing where we store the extra dough and exactly how much she can scarf down in secret before she gets a stomachache.

I’ve saved a blueberry scone for her this morning, left in the oven for a few minutes just the way my mother taught me—burnt enough that father wouldn’t want to serve it, but not so burnt that it can’t be eaten anyway.

Quincy’s here. His horses always make so much noise, clacking on the cobblestones and rattling the carriage. I’m betting Violette didn’t sleep through it.

“Mademoiselle Evie,” he says, tipping his hat as he approaches our storefront, “got something good for me today?” The horses’ heads are topped with feathered plumes that shed all over the streets, and they only keep adding more. Quincy himself doesn’t have feathers, but if they put one more piece of pizzazz on his outfit, I think he’d be more decorated than the king.

“Always, Quincy,” I say, carefully handing over the heavy boxed cake. The satin bow I tied looks perfect on this one. Mother says I have a knack for it, but so far, tying bows hasn’t proved a useful skill for anything but packaging cakes and putting the finishing touches on my handmade dresses.

Quincy places the cake in the carriage, wedging it between pillows of plush velvet. It’ll be inside the palace gates of Versailles and sitting pretty on top of a crystal stand before the queen wakes.

“Another ball tonight?” I ask Quincy. The queen is always throwing masked parties, inviting every high-status Parisian to be found. Which of course means we’re never invited. But sometimes I like to imagine one of my father’s cakes, or mine, making it to the queen’s soiree, getting to be the centerpiece. I imagine everyone circling around it, admiring the marzipan roses and filigree icing complete with real gold leaf. For a moment, they don’t know that it was made by low-status hands, and they look at it the same way they look at each other.

“No, ma’am,” says Quincy. “This is just breakfast.” He gives me a wink before hoisting himself up onto the coach, and with another tip of his bedazzled hat, he’s gone.

Breakfast. Would that we could all eat cake for breakfast. But, oh, Violette’s scone! It’ll have gone cold by now. I rush inside, stash it in my apron pocket, and tiptoe up the steps to our home.

She’s already awake, as suspected. It wasn’t the horses that got her, though. It was her stupid nightmares.

“You’ve got to stop listening to Remy,” I tell her. “He’s messing with you. None of that stuff is true.”

“But he said it really happened!” Violette squeaks. She rubs her little fists against sleepy eyes. This is where my mother might tell her that Remy, the silversmith’s boy, only tells her those ghost stories because he likes her. But that’s foolish. And I don’t want Violette’s life to begin and end with the silversmith’s boy.

“Well, I heard that ghosts don’t like anything that smells sweet,” I say, “and we live above a bakery, so they’re never going to come here.”

“Really?” Her hazel eyes grow wide, and it’s so cute that I almost want to laugh.

“Would your big sister

 lie to you?”

She hesitates to answer, looking me over, always the smartest member of the Clément family.

“Well, I’ve got some of the best ghost repellent in all of France right here,” I say, reaching into my apron pocket. She perks up as soon as she smells it, grabbing for it with her stubby fingers. I pull it back, joking with her. “You better not get any crumbs in the bed or else Father might find out.”

“I promise, Evie,” she says. “I promise!”

She’s already inhaled half the scone by the time the clocks chime.

“Gotta go,” I say, mussing her corkscrew curls. We both got our father’s coffee-brown hair and olive skin, but only she was lucky enough to get Mother’s curls. “Be good today.”

Violette gulps down the milk on her bedside table. “Are you wearing that?” She mumbles before wiping her mouth.

“This thing?” I ruffle the apron. “Of course not, silly.”

“Well, I just meant—I thought—” Violette begins, her cheeks flushing a kitten-nose pink, “maybe you could wear one of your new dresses today.”

My mother’s told her. I asked her not to, but she’s gone and done it. And now Violette’s hopes will be up, thinking that in just four short weeks I could actually be chosen as the Bellegarde Bloom at the Court of Flowers Ball. Am I expected to tell her that people like us never win, that we don’t even have a chance? It’ll crush her. So, I say the only thing I can think to say.

“I’ll have to finish them first. You know that baby-pink one with the big bow, your favorite? I stained the bottom of it. I forgot to sweep the floors and I dirtied it right up.”

“What about the blue?” she asks, clearly disappointed.

“Oh, that one, it’s, uh—” I stutter. “The hem on that one fell right out. Yes, I’ll have to restitch it this week. How does that sound?”

I’m successful in my lies because a smile spreads across her heart-shaped face. “Okay,” she says with a nod.

The pink dress is kind of dirty at the bottom, so it isn’t a complete lie, but it isn’t anything a little elbow grease wouldn’t get out. The other, though, the powder blue, has never had a stitch out of place. Even Madame Bissett was impressed with that one.

“I’ll see you after school,” I tell her with a wink.

I know what Violette is thinking. She thinks if I wear some of the clothes I’ve made, the ones with scrap fabrics Madame Bissett gave me or the ones Quincy brought for me, the ones I covet, that maybe the Court will nominate me to be in the running for the Bloom, a title that would surely make me the most desired bachelorette in all of Paris. And maybe the dresses would help elevate me to a status above invisible, but they’d never match up to the couture gowns the other girls will be pulling out this month. Even the best of what we’ve got can’t compete with their worst. And there isn’t a high-status boy in the city who’d pick

homemade over couture.

I decide I’ll tell Violette the truth one day. Maybe when she’s a little older, before she gets to university and gets humiliated the way I did. I’ll teach her we don’t need those people for anything except to buy our cakes.

Josephine is practically racing to school, and I’m almost at a jog trying to keep up. She’s wearing the skirt I made her, the best one she owns, and her round ebony cheeks are streaked with blush. Her tight curls, which are usually tousled together with a few pins and pomade, have now been braided up the back and finished into two puffs like tufts of cotton candy that she’s sprinkled with a shimmering powder. I finally have to ask her what I’ve been wanting to ask for weeks. “What’s up with you lately?”

“Up with me?” she says, never breaking stride. “What do you mean?”

“The clothes and the makeup. I mean, you look great. You looked great before, too. But I didn’t think you were into that stuff.”

“I’m not,” Josephine says, “but Mia Bellegarde is.” She looks back at me and smiles one of her signature mischievous smiles that she’s been giving me ever since we were toddlers.

“I knew it! I knew it, I knew it! I knew she was your type the second she arrived in the city. Why haven’t you told me?”

“I wasn’t sure if it was worth telling yet, and I didn’t want you getting your hopes up for me.”

“So,” I say. I’m walking as fast as her now, drinking in her giddy face. “What’s changed? Did something happen?”

“Well, kind of,” Josephine says. “Yesterday in Monsieur Dorey’s class, she asked if I had a spare piece of parchment, and when I gave it to her, she kind of, well, she did like this.” Josephine reaches over and brushes her hand against mine, her fingers lingering. “She didn’t have to! She could’ve just grabbed the parchment from the other side.”

Now I’m thinking maybe it’s Josephine who has her hopes up instead. She must see the uncertainty on my face, because she starts explaining.

“Look,” she says, “it was different. I know it sounds like I’m reading too much into it or something, but it was different.”

“I believe you!” And I do. Or, at least, I believe that’s what she thinks. But it doesn’t matter, because Jo hasn’t been this enraptured by anything in a really long time, and whatever it is, I’ll take it, even if it means my best friend ends up with a Bellegarde. “So, is that why we’re about to be at school before everyone else, or what? The soles of my shoes are wearing out over here.”

Josephine stops so abruptly that I trip over her feet and almost go tumbling to the cobblestones, but she anticipates it and catches me. Two halves of the same brain, her mother always says.

“Okay,” Josephine says. She lowers her voice to a whisper as a group of snickering

ninth-year girls passes by. “I wanted to keep it a surprise, but . . .”

“Spit it out, Jo!”

“Okay, okay.” She takes a deep breath. “Rumor is Rachelle is breaking up with Beau this morning.”

“What?” I gasp. I can’t help myself. Rachelle LeBlanc and Beau Bellegarde are king and queen of the school. Their parents probably already have their wedding planned. There’s no way they’re breaking up.

“It’s true. Apparently, Rachelle met a baron when she was in the Loire Valley, and word is she’s over Beau now.”

I sigh. “Of course she did.”

“It’s supposed to happen in the courtyard this morning,” she says. “I think everyone in school knows by now. Well, everyone except for Beau.”

Beau Bellegarde. Rachelle is terrible, but it might be satisfying to see the look on his face when she does it. He’s the most notorious ladies’ man at the university, probably even worse than his half brother, Julien. Before Rachelle, it felt like Beau had a different girl on his arm every week. And the stories I’ve heard, well . . .

“Beau’s going to be shocked,” I say.

“He might be shocked, but I don’t think he’s going to be too upset. Grace says he’s been standing Rachelle up left and right lately.”

I shake my head. “No. No way. He wouldn’t do anything to risk his relationship with her.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s—she’s her! She’s the prettiest girl in school, and she’s got more money than almost anyone at the university. Did you see the emerald ring she wore last week? That could pay our rent for years. Maybe a lifetime.”

Josephine’s brows scrunch together. “Yeah, but she’s also the most wicked girl in school. All of those things—money, beauty, power—they don’t make her a better person. They don’t make anyone a better person. It’s just stuff.”

“Well, they seem to make life a lot easier for people,” I tell her.

She shrugs. “Maybe. For a while. But not forever.”

“Wait,” I stop. “Why’d you want to keep it a surprise from me, anyway?”

Josephine grins. “Well, it’s just, you know—Beau.”

“Okay? What about him?”

“Oh, come on, Evie, you know I’ve always wanted the two of you to get together! And imagine, you with Beau and me with Mia. We could be family!”

“You have really lost your mind, Jo.”

Josephine is laughing hysterically. “I know, I know. But you used to have a huge crush on him!”

“I was seven! And you act like you don’t remember what they did to me—what he did to me.”

Josephine exhales. All these years later, she still feels bad about not being there when it happened. “I understand,” she says, “but you know

 that I don’t—”

“You don’t think Beau had anything to do with it,” I finish her sentence, mocking the way she says it any time the incident has been brought up in the past. “I know. But I still think he’s just as bad as the rest of them.”

She rolls her eyes and locks her arm in mine.

We’re at school now, and I’ve never seen so many people here before class. Word has definitely gotten around because everyone’s eyes are trained on the line of carriages arriving in the courtyard.

Even without the carriages, it isn’t tough to tell who comes from which side of town. It follows us. The kids from mine and Jo’s side are the ones with the slumped shoulders and faint dark smudges under their eyes, borne from long nights or early mornings working to make enough money to get by. The kids that arrive in the gilded carriages always look fresh, well rested, and bright eyed. We may go to the same school, but we’re still worlds apart.

Rachelle arrives first, her platinum hair barely powdered, padded high, and finished with a ribbon that’s been woven like a crown surrounding her soft curls. She’s flanked on either side by Lola and the Chastain twins.

Rachelle LeBlanc is everything I’m not. Where she’s long-legged and tall, I’m a can’t-reach-the-top-row-of-a-bookshelf kind of height. Where she’s filled out, her curves exactly placed where the boys want them, I’m flat-chested and awkward. And where she comes from a long line of wealth and status, I, well . . . don’t.

Josephine leans over to me. “You think she’ll even want to be the Bloom anymore or you think she’ll just wait for the baron to propose?”

“How do we know she’s actually dating a baron?”

“Grace claims to have seen them at the opera house together,” Josephine says. Grace talks a lot, but she’s usually right.

“Well, baron or not, there’s no way Rachelle would ever let someone else win the title of Bellegarde Bloom. She’s lived her whole life for that moment.”

Josephine grabs my wrist. Beau’s carriage has just arrived.

Beau’s half brother, Julien, is the first out. He’s good-looking enough, broad-chested and icy blond, but his pale white nose is always pointed to the sky like he’s just smelled something foul. Next is Beau’s cousin Mia. She’s shy, with raven-black hair down to her ribs. I glance back at Josephine. Her eyes don’t leave Mia.

Last out of the carriage is Beau Bellegarde. His resemblance to Mia is uncanny—bushy-browed and tanned. He’s dark-haired and sharp-jawed, handsome in a way you never quite get used to. But every time I see him, I see the face of the boy who was staring into mine the day everyone laughed at me. Handsome or not, his face only makes me angry now.

Everyone has stopped pretending they’re not staring, and now they’ve given in to full-on eavesdropping as Beau swings his arm around a particularly cold-looking Rachelle. It’s about to happen, and he has no

idea.

Beau, with his smug smile, like nothing in the world could possibly touch him, probably thinking we’re all looking at him because we’re so obsessed with him. And then there’s Rachelle, dating a baron but still wanting to get chosen as the Bloom at the Court Ball in hopes of maybe catching a bigger fish like a viscount or even a duke if she’s lucky enough. They have everything they could ever want, and it still isn’t enough.

It might feel good to see one of them lose something.

 

Beau

She’s still mad about last night. It was an honest mistake. Nights spent at the château—an abandoned mansion where university students throw elaborate parties—almost never go to plan. Last night after we left the château, I crashed out at Dre’s and forgot all about meeting up with Rachelle at the Gardens. She’ll get over it. She always gets over it. And when she sees what I have for her, last night will be a blip. It’ll be nothing. But she pulls away when I try to give her a hug.

“You okay?” I ask, but before she can answer, Julien busts through the group, sizing the Chastain twins up.

“My, my, my, Darcy,” Julien says. He runs a hand through his slicked-back hair and bites his lip as he looks her up and down. “You do something different to your hair this morning?”

She glares back at him. I’m laughing because he’s the biggest idiot I know, and he’s been trying to get in with the Chastain twins for years. This must be his new tactic.

“Well, I don’t know what’s different about you,” Julien continues, “but if you keep looking like that, none of these girls are going to have a chance at winning Bellegarde Bloom.”

She steps forward, eyes locked with his, and grins. “I’m Diane,” she says. She points to her sister. “That’s Darcy.”

“Well.” Julien coughs. “I guess that’s what’s different about you, then.” Even Julien has to laugh at himself. He never gives up, even when he’s clearly defeated. Though not so defeated this morning, because Diane, or is it Darcy—truth be told I can’t ever seem to get it right, either—lets him plant a kiss on her hand anyway.

He leans back to me and Dre, grinning. “Can you smell it, boys?” He lifts his chin and inhales. “The Court Ball is in the air.”

He’s right. Almost every girl in the courtyard is at least a little more dolled up than usual. They’re wearing their best, looking their best, and admittedly, I don’t mind it. Even Rachelle’s got on a diamond pendant I’ve never seen. Probably something her grandfather gave her. Don’t know why she’s trying to impress, though. She’d still win Bellegarde Bloom if she wore a burlap sack. She doesn’t need diamonds. Which reminds me.

“I’ve got something for you,” I whisper to her, but she’s inching away from me. She has that look on her face, the same annoyed one she gave me when I asked her if she’d go with me to the shops to see the new printing press at St. Clair’s. The necklace I bought her isn’t diamonds, but it’s from De la Croix, so it will cheer her up fine.

Rachelle frowns. “Actually, Beau, I need to talk to you about something first.”

Here we go. I’m going to get an earful about last night. I laugh a little because she sounds so serious and there’s nothing about Rachelle that’s serious. “What’s wrong?”

She twirls a finger through her curls. More new jewels there, too. “This isn’t working anymore.”

“Excuse me?”

“The two of us. It isn’t working anymore. Don’t you agree?”

I might be imagining it, but it’s like everyone’s gone quiet. Dre and Lola have stopped locking lips long enough to breathe. Even Julien has stopped heckling his latest victims. Instead, they’re all looking at me. I stuff the De la Croix box back into my jacket pocket. She can’t be serious. “Sorry, what?”

She folds her arms, unaffected. “It was fun. But it’s time to go our separate ways. You understand, don’t you?”

I’m stunned into silence, my mouth hanging open. I look to Dre, but he just throws his hands up. Lola’s chin is resting on his shoulder. Did they know about this?

Rachelle isn’t at a loss for words. “Oh, Beau,” she keeps going. “It’s not like we were going to get married.”

Get married? Of course we weren’t going to get married! I’m not sure I could imagine anything worse. But I’ve put too much time into this. ...