He sat down again on the filthy sofa as if remembering the past had cost him all of his energy. Unwilling to join him again on the stained sofa or to sit on the unmade bed with dirty sheets, Drew and I remained standing.
“I knew she was having an affair. I never saw them together, but she changed. She was no longer the content woman she’d been. She became someone else entirely so that I barely recognized my own wife.” He stared at the blank wall, his eyes narrowing. “But I took care of that little problem.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He looked at me as if just remembering I was there, as his thoughts moved forward from the past. He shook his head slowly. “She was still my wife, and we had the children together. A man has the right to protect what is his, doesn’t he?”
“Of course.” I tried to sound sympathetic. “So what did you do?”
He shook his head. “I don’t talk about it. I need to find Daisy, so I can say I’m sorry. To beg her forgiveness. And then, perhaps, when it doesn’t weigh so heavy on my soul, I can talk about it.”
Drew cleared his throat. “Did you ever visit her grandmother, the Comtesse de Courcelles, at the Ritz to ask of Daisy’s whereabouts?”
Pierre shook his head. “I was in a Nazi camp during the end of the war, and then a French prison for ten years. When I emerged, the comtesse was gone—either died, or moved, I do not know. Not that she would have ever told me anything. She didn’t like me very much.”
“What of the talisman?” Drew pressed. “Did Daisy ever talk about it, or show it to you?”
“Pfft. It was all nonsense, all that talk of legend. I would have only been interested in the priceless jewels that surrounded it, anyway. This is probably why Daisy never talked about it with me.”
Drew sighed with his own disappointment. “I see. Well, thank you for your time. If you can think of anything else about Daisy or the talisman, we’re staying at the Ritz.”
“How nice for you,” Pierre said bitterly.
We said our goodbyes, but as we were leaving Pierre roused himself again and stood. “If you find Daisy, will you tell her . . . tell her . . .” He stopped, reconsidering his words. “I would like to talk with her. And let her know that even though I know I don’t deserve it, I would like to see the children.”
Before Drew could quell all hope, I spoke up. “Of course, Mr. Villon. I will be sure of it.”
“Merci.”
When we made it outside I had to take several deep breaths to get the stench of despair and neglect out of my nose. I saw Drew watching me. “I know, I shouldn’t have pity on a collaborator. But he wants to see his children. Surely that means there is something redeeming about him?”
“Possibly. Although I’d be curious to know what he did to Daisy’s lover. I have a feeling it wasn’t something nice.” He took my elbow and began leading me in the opposite direction from where we’d arrived.
“Where are we going? It’s a bit late to be caught on this side of town, I think. Perhaps we should head back to the Ritz?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“No? Aren’t you hungry? It’s getting close to suppertime.”
He gave me a grin that seemed quite lascivious. “I already told you, Babs—I’m always hungry so yes, I am. That’s why I made reservations at one of the best restaurants in Paris that happens to be not too far from here.”
“But it will be dark by the time we finish eating . . .”
“Stop worrying, Babs. I promise to get you back to the Ritz safely. But today happens to be my birthday, and for my present I want to take you out for a night of fun. You’ve had a rough few years, without a lot of fun, I think, so here’s your chance.”
I looked down at my jumper. “But I’m hardly dressed to go out . . .”
Before I could finish my sentence, he’d unceremoniously removed my jumper. “There. Now you look even more amazing.” He shoved my jumper into a nearby dustbin, but I stumbled over my complaint as I recognized the appreciation in his eyes as he regarded me.
“But I’ll be cold,” I finally managed.
“Not where we’re going.” His lascivious smile had returned.
“We’re going to hell?”
“Hardly. Just the Moulin Rouge.” He took my arm again and began leading me down the sidewalk. “Have you been before?”
“No. I don’t believe it’s a place one goes with one’s mother and sister, who are the only companions I’ve had on my Paris visits. Besides, my brother Charles told me that there’s an aquarium where naked women swim with snakes. Not really quality entertainment, I don’t think.”
If I’d expected for him to turn us around at that, I would have been wrong. “Yeah, I’ve seen them. Don’t worry. The snakes can’t get out.”
“It wasn’t the snakes I was concerned about.”
He squeezed my hand against his side. “Oh, come on, Babs. It’ll be fun. You need to let your hair down every once in a while. You wouldn’t begrudge a man having fun on his birthday, would you?”
“No, I suppose not . . .”
“Great. Did you know that more champagne is served at the Moulin Rouge each year than anyplace else in the world?”
“I didn’t know. Although I’m not sure I should drink . . .”
“It’s my birthday, Babs. Just try a glass of champagne to toast my big day, all right?”
“Just one, though.” I fought back the memory of us drinking together at Bar Hemingway on the night we’d met. At least Precious and Prunella wouldn’t be there to keep them coming.
As we headed down the Boulevard de Clinchy, I spotted the iconic red windmill and the bright neon lights announcing the Frou-Frou revue performed twice a night. I’d seen pictures, of course, of the famous cabaret dancers with their frilly skirts and high kicks, but I’d always imagined the whole experience of the Moulin Rouge as being a little naughty. Definitely not the sort of place to which Kit would deem appropriate to take me. So it was with almost a feeling of defiance that I entered on Drew’s arm, determined to enjoy myself.
Tiers of white-clothed tables dressed with red table lamps surrounded the stage. A bottle of champagne was already waiting for us as we were seated near the stage, and as Drew pushed in my chair, he spoke close to my ear. “You’re in for a treat tonight, Babs. I want you to enjoy yourself.”
I felt a warm shiver of anticipation jump along my spine. “But it’s your birthday,” I protested as he seated himself across from me.
“Trust me. Seeing you enjoying yourself will be the best kind of present.”
The waiter poured two glasses of champagne. I was about to make a small toast to his birthday when Drew raised his own glass. “To La Fleur. Without whom we never would have met.”
I didn’t want to toast the enigmatic La Fleur, but I didn’t have a choice. I took a small sip, allowing the bubbles to tickle my nose, then another larger one, hoping to forget all about La Fleur for at least an evening.
When I awoke the following morning, I kept my eyes closed, still feeling the rhythm of the music of the cancan inside my head. I opened one eye, and then the next, aware of two things at once. The first was that I was not in my bed. The second was that I wasn’t alone. I sat up quickly, my head spinning, aware that I was fully dressed except for my shoes. I had an odd recollection of kicking them off to climb onstage with the dancers and Drew pulling me back. But surely that had been a dream?
Drew lay supine next to me, shirtless, but at least wearing his pants and socks. Certainly that meant we hadn’t, well, we hadn’t. The opulent surroundings told me that we were in his room at the Ritz and not still in Montmartre, although I had no memory of returning to the hotel.
He appeared to be sleeping, although he wasn’t snoring. Kit didn’t snore, either, so I must be a good judge at choosing sleeping partners. I allowed my gaze to pause on Drew’s naked chest, at the smattering of gold-tinted hair and the pronounced muscles that moved under his tanned torso as he breathed. My fingers twitch
ed, wanting to reach out and touch that smooth expanse of skin, to remember what a man’s bare skin felt like under my hand.
Instead, I clenched my hands into fists and began to slide out of the bed, being careful not to disturb the bedclothes. I wanted to escape to my own room, to pretend this hadn’t happened, but the need to use the water closet was too urgent to be ignored. I tiptoed across the carpet toward the bathroom, carefully closing the door behind me.
As I turned on the golden swan tap to wash my hands, I looked into the mirror above the vanity. For a long moment I simply stared, not recognizing the woman who looked back at me. Her fine gray eyes were wide and worldly. Knowing, somehow. Me, yet not me. The sleeve of my dress had slipped from my shoulder, revealing one of the new brassieres Precious had helped me select. It was lacy and feminine and lifted me in places where I hadn’t been lifted since before my first child. I leaned forward, staring at the face of this woman who’d experienced life and love and loss. But whose eyes still shone with light. It was the face of a formidable woman. A woman who wouldn’t recognize defeat.
I returned to the bedroom, quietly moving past the bed toward the door.
“Are you back for some rompy-frumpy?”
I jumped at the sound of Drew’s voice. I slowly turned to see him lying on his side facing me, a sly grin on his face.
“It’s rumpy-pumpy,” I corrected, my mouth lifting in an involuntary smile.
He raised his eyebrows in question.
“No, I’m not. Unless . . .” I indicated the bed with my chin, hoping he’d understand what I meant.
He shook his head. “No, we didn’t. Although it wasn’t from lack of trying. You tore my shirt to shreds trying to take it off me. I thought it best if we slept it off before we did anything . . . rash.”
I nodded, relieved and disappointed at the same time. “Yes, well. I should go.”
He held his hand out to me. “Don’t.”
I looked at his hand and then his eyes, both telling me to stay. I remembered the woman’s reflection in the mirror, my reflection, and smiled. I reached behind my neck and slid down the zipper of my dress, letting it fall to my ankles, revealing my new undergarments. And when I saw the look on Drew’s face, I finally understood their purpose.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Aurélie
The Château de Courcelles
Picardy, France
April 1915
There were so many bits of her body she had never quite understood the purpose of until now.
Aurélie lay curled up against Max on the narrow camp bed, in the drowsy peace of the dark room. Her head was pillowed against his collarbone, and she knew she ought to feel exactly what Hoffmeister had called her, a German officer’s whore, but she couldn’t muster the energy.
She didn’t feel ruined; she felt as though she had always been here and always should, with Max’s chest rising and falling beneath her cheek, flesh to flesh beneath his scratchy blanket.
Out of the darkness, she heard Max’s voice, just above her head. She could feel the words before she heard them, feel them reverberating in his chest. “Would your mayor marry us?”
“Acting mayor,” said Aurélie. “The real one’s gone off to war. Wait. Did you say marry?”
Max raised his head slightly, looking down at her. “But, of course. You will marry me, won’t you?”
Aurélie scrambled up slightly, or as much as she could in the narrow space between Max and the wall, the movement causing all sorts of interesting things to brush against each other. She really hadn’t thought. Not of marriage, not of consequences, not of anything beyond the moment. “But you can’t marry me.”
Max wiggled up slightly against the pillow. “Is it because I am not a Catholic? I had thought, in France, one could marry by civil ceremony.”
“Well, yes, one may. But there are other concerns—for one thing,” Aurélie said, falling back on the easiest excuse she could think of, one that didn’t involve complicated questions of loyalty and honor, “you haven’t asked me.”
Max gently curled a strand of her hair around his finger. “I had assumed, since you compromised me . . .”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Aurélie, blushing, and very glad he couldn’t see it. She shoved her hair back behind her ears. It felt very louche, the feeling of her own, unbound hair against her bare back. “You did a fair bit of compromising on your own.”
“Well, then,” said Max, as though it were settled. “I would get down on my knees, but I seem to be in want of trousers.”
“Don’t,” said Aurélie hastily. “The bed would be very cold without you.”
“Also the stones of the floor,” said Max. “But I would happily freeze my knees for love of you.”
“I don’t believe love requires such tests as that,” said Aurélie absently. Max was stroking her bare arm and it was very distracting. “But, really, Max! How could we possibly marry now? It’s not because you’re not Catholic”—there were dispensations for that—“or because you haven’t proposed properly,” she added, just in case he decided to try the frozen knee approach after all. “Did you think what people would say? Hoffmeister would use it as an excuse to have you court-martialed. And my people—they would think I had betrayed them.”
That was the real reason, and they both knew it. The Demoiselle de Courcelles was a symbolic figure, more so than ever after her very public defiance. Her argument with Hoffmeister at that first, horrible dinner had already become legend. Local gossip had turned her exploits into something more than they were, making her a latter-day Robin Hood.
To marry the enemy would be to betray everyone who believed in her, who clung to her legend for hope.
“I see,” said Max, and the worst part was that she was fairly sure he did. Aurélie braced herself for reproaches, but all he said was, “After the war, then.”
“Yes, after the war,” said Aurélie, but it hurt a bit to say it, to pretend. Because surely this war would go on forever and there would be no after. Or he would go back to Berlin and realize that he had been mistaken in her, that she was just another souvenir of Paris, like a pressed flower or a theater program, a remembrance of a time that had been rich and calm, before the world went mad.
“We wouldn’t have to live all the year in Berlin,” said Max, and she realized he meant it seriously, quite seriously.
Aurélie drew her knees up to her chest. “Where, then? Paris?”
“If you like.” There was a slight pause. “Would you like?”
“I never felt truly at home in Paris.” She had always felt large and awkward next to her mother. “I’ve always thought I would live in the country someday, with a house full of dogs.”
“Only dogs?”
“Children, too, I suppose.” There had never been a husband in her imagining. Or, rather, there had, but he had been in the background, largely absent. “And motorcars, of course.”
“I never had a dog,” said Max. He stretched his arms above his head, finding a more comfortable spot on the pillow. “They made my mother sneeze. But I always wanted one.”
“What about a half dozen?”
“Large or small?” inquired Max.
“Large.” Aurélie thought for a moment. “Although I do rather like King Charles spaniels.”
“And wolfhounds?”
“Of course.” Her father had always had wolfhounds. Clovis was the last of his line. When she thought of Courcelles, it was of the feel of fur between her fingers, the hot moisture of a large tongue licking her cheek.
As if he could tell what she was thinking, Max said, “We could spend summers here. If your father would allow us.”
Aurélie looked down at him, at the dim outlines of his face in the darkness. “If he sanctions the match, you mean.”
Max sighed and pulled her down beside him, into the crook of his arm. “I’d like to think, had there been no war, there would have been nothing to which he could object.”
“He did approve
of your grandfather. He doesn’t approve of many people.” Aurélie rested her head on Max’s shoulder, trailing her fingers across his bare chest. Such an interesting and alien thing, a male chest, rising and falling with his breath, lightly fuzzed with pale hair. “And if my father refuses his blessing? Will you elope with me despite his objections?”
Max’s voice was very quiet in the darkness. “Oughtn’t I to be asking that of you?”
Aurélie’s fingers stilled on his chest; she could feel the weight of the silence pressing around her. It wasn’t just marriage he was proposing now. He was asking if she would defy her father, her people, to follow him.
“My father left me.” In the dark, in the quiet, with Max’s arm around her, it was easy to speak honestly, to speak the truths she wouldn’t even admit to herself. “Not once, but again and again and again. He would miss me, I think. When he remembered me. But I’m not sure he would. If he objected to our marriage, it would not be out of concern for me, but for what people would think—of what you are. Not who you are, but what you are.”
“German,” Max supplied for her.
“He would be wrong,” said Aurélie, coming to a conclusion and knowing it was right. She could feel Max’s breath release. “If the war were over and our countries were at peace, then, yes, yes I would run away with you. They do have lakes and meadows in Germany, haven’t they?”
“And ducks and drakes and wildflowers,” he said, and kissed her.
It was, Aurélie thought, rather a good thing to be ruined. It meant one could be ruined again without suffering any awkward twinges of conscience. She now began to understand why so many of her mother’s great friends were fallen women, and why they seemed to so enjoy being fallen.
Some time later, some rather long time later, they nestled together in sweat-damp sheets. As if there had been no break in their conversation, Max said, “I don’t only live in Berlin, you know. My mother needed to stay in town, to see specialists, but my real home is in Prosen, in a town called Rydzyna.”
All the Ways We Said Goodbye Page 32
