The Rake's Proposition

by Bess Greenfield

  He could see why she needed to believe that, but he wished she hadn’t involved him in her delusion. “If only you’d been more explicit about your concerns in your letter, we might have avoiding this meeting altogether. You can have everything.”

  The woman’s grey eyes bulged with indignation. “You would reject his work as you rejected him? You are even more hardhearted than I imagined!”

  His work. Of course. No wonder the crate was so large. What else would a painter leave behind but pictures? From an early age, Leo had understood that his father’s art was more important than he was. At some point, he stopped looking for attention or approval, and found he didn’t need either one. He could succeed on his own.

  It never occurred to him in all these years that his father couldn’t. Despite his passion and perseverance, he died poor and largely forgotten. To live in the same run-down building day after day, slowly aging, never achieving any sort of status or acclaim for his work must have worn away his self-esteem and sapped his drive.

  Why hadn’t he asked for money? “Did he seem at peace in his last days?”

  “At peace?” the woman scoffed. “To have been abandoned by his wife and child and doomed to die as an unappreciated, misunderstood artist?”

  Surely, that last accusation could not be laid upon his feet as well. “He could have moved to Manhattan. I wrote to him and asked him to visit several times.”

  This was true, but he’d been relieved when his father declined the invitation. It was hard to build a good relationship from a non-existent one.

  “Pah! He would have been miserable there. Americans have no understanding of art.”

  His father had chosen this depressing woman to replace the endlessly optimistic, indefatigable wife he’d lost through selfishness and overconfidence in his own appeal. Such a choice might be considered a self-inflicted punishment.

  The sight of the overlarge crate in the corner depressed Leo, and now he was forced to keep it with him always. No doubt it contained the worst of his father’s work, the unsellable portion, or this woman would have sold the contents and never mentioned the matter.

  Transporting such a cumbersome container would be an extra complication he didn’t need. “I’ll make arrangements.”

  Mademoiselle Arestine tied an apron about her thick waist and armed herself with a broom. “See that you do.”

  He felt sorry for her, but he was also eager to return to Madeleine Lavoie. His spirit lifted at the mere thought of her. His trip to France would have turned out to be a colossal waste of time if he hadn’t met her. It almost felt like fate. He turned at the door. “Do you need anything?”

  The woman his father had left behind didn’t look up from her hopeless task. “It’s a little late for that.”

  * * *

  The moment Mademoiselle Lavoie saw him approach, her face lit up with eagerness for approval, an uncomfortable reminder of her youth and vulnerability. She straightened her back and twisted to the right and left to display her new dress. The full-skirted crimson linen skirt swayed around her long legs. Cream stripes accented the cuffs, hems, and wide lapels. The gigot sleeves of the jacket made her waist look impossibly small while the high-necked embroidered organdy blouse she wore underneath emphasized the slender delicacy of her neck. Even the little straw hat she wore suited her.

  He’d thought her pretty this morning when he’d seen her in full sunlight, her glowing skin devoid of cheap face paint. Now he realized she was actually stunning, and that discomfited him further.

  “You are displeased, monsieur? The fit would have been better if you had allowed us time to make the necessary alterations,” the saleswoman explained nervously.

  “No. Your taste is excellent,” he said, unable to take his eyes from his discovery. “You’ve done admirably with the time limitation I gave you.”

  “I’ve had the rest packed in a trunk as you requested.”

  He nodded absently. In her fashionable clothing, Madeleine Lavoie looked like a proper young lady. Perhaps he should inquire further about her family, her background.

  But the answers she gave might not comport with his plans for her. Then he would wish he’d left the subject alone. What one chose not to say could be more important than what one did say. “Do you like your new frocks?”

  She looked back at him with something suspiciously like adoration. “Oh, yes, monsieur, but I fear Mademoiselle Halpern might have been overenthusiastic about spending your money. I don’t see why any woman should need so many dresses.”

  Her eyes were blue, a deep, riveting shade of cobalt. Just now they were wide with an almost child-like astonishment. He wondered again at her age but chose not to ask that either. “You are not just ‘any woman’. You are going to be the star act at The Elysian if all goes well. Journalists will write stories about you. Photographers will take your picture. You will need to look your best at all times.”

  That frown reappeared. He’d said the wrong thing again. If he tried to compliment her, she was insulted. If he tried to be honest with her, she was hurt. The women he’d known, from chorus girls to society ladies, all knew how to disguise their true feelings. This one was as fragile as an uncooked egg.

  “What if all does not go well?” she asked.

  “It will. I’ll see to it,” he replied with a confidence he did not feel. He hoped he wasn’t making a huge mistake. Some females, no matter how lovely, weren’t meant for the stage.

  She might never be able to overcome her shyness. What would he do with her then? Send her home on her own? Rescind his promises and leave her stranded in a foreign land? He was making himself responsible for her wellbeing. Absolving himself of that would be complicated.

  Her forlorn gazing out the window hadn’t escaped his notice. Clearly, she wasn’t happy to leave her home, no matter what she said. He normally considered all angles of a problem before coming to a decision, but from the moment he’d met her, he’d been acting on instinct instead of practicality.

  What was it about her that made him so careless? The nature of his business brought him into contact with beautiful women all the time. He was impervious to the power of beauty. Or so he’d thought.

  There was still a chance to back out now. She looked up at him with those wounded, desperate eyes and he heard himself say, “We won’t have time to go to a restaurant after all. Our train leaves in less than an hour.”

  At the Gard du Nord a porter saw to the loading of their baggage and the crate full of unwanted paintings, and they were soon ensconced in the spacious rosewood paneled first-class carriage of a train barreling toward Le Havre.

  Despite their posh surroundings, the atmosphere between them was anything but relaxing. Some of the other passengers, mostly the older female ones, were watching them with open curiosity. He supposed their manner with each other suggested neither husband and wife, nor brother and sister.

  And the situation was growing more awkward by the second. All his attempts at conversation with Mademoiselle Lavoie resulted in monosyllabic responses, and she avoided looking at him. So he read the paper, or he at least tried, for the better part of an hour while she stared out the curtained window at the passing countryside.

  “What was the other business you needed to settle?” she asked abruptly from the maroon velvet tufted bench opposite his. “You looked troubled when I first saw you at the department store.”

  Her nosy question irked him. What presumption she had! His business was clearly none of hers. He had no intention of answering truthfully, but then he did. “I went to my father’s home.”

  Her large blue eyes lit with interest. “How is he?”

  “He’s dead.” He tried to feel as detached as he sounded, but the pronouncement weighed upon his chest like a stone.

  She looked shocked and saddened by the news. “What happened?”

  Her overreaction was bizarre, but oddly comforting. Maybe she was one of those naturally empathetic people. He realized he longed to tell someone,
to somehow cleanse himself of the guilt and sadness weighing upon him though he knew no one could accomplish such a feat for him. “I didn’t even know he was ill. He was only fifty-four.”

  “So you came to Paris for the funeral.”

  The train clattered as it rounded a bend in the track. “It was held before I arrived. I came to meet with a woman he knew well. I was hoping he might have left some message for me even though we hadn’t been in touch for years.” How strange that this insight should come to him now. “Pathetic, isn’t it?”

  “Not at all.” Again, she looked as though she were on the verge of tears. He wasn’t accustomed to emotional people. In his experience, tragedy and hardship were commonplace, and people were either thick-skinned or learned to be that way.

  They fell silent for several minutes, each absorbed in private thoughts, until a delicious scent brought him back to the present. “Do you smell oranges?” The smell of citrus seemed to follow him wherever he went today.

  A reddish tinge colored her delicate complexion. “That’s my perfume.”

  “It’s unique.”

  “It’s my own creation.” He must have betrayed his curiosity because she hurriedly added, “I used to grow orange trees. Some of the fruit was not fit for consumption so I experimented with various uses and ended up making a perfume.”

  “On the farm.”

  Her eyes grew wide for a moment as if she too were trying to picture the setting. Then she nodded. “It’s my one indulgence. The scent calms me. I hope you don’t mind. I can always wash it off.”

  Citrus wafted through his senses. The effect was anything but calming. His nostrils tingled. His mouth watered. “No need. I’m famished. Let’s have luncheon.”

  They sat opposite each other on tufted velvet seats in the dining car. Mademoiselle Lavoie showed little interest in conversation once their food was served. She consumed every bite of her five-course meal with a seriousness of purpose that told him she’d known real hunger. He should know.

  Despite his decision to leave her past in the past, the mystery of her background nagged at him, and finally prompted him to ask, “Do you have any relatives in America?”

  She kept her eyes cast downward. Bright afternoon sunshine streamed down on the white linen tablecloth. The fine china and crystal between them clattered ever so slightly from the constant vibration of the train. “No. I have no one… And you? Do you have family there?”

  He sensed she would not be forthcoming about her history without a commensurate offering from him. “My mother lives in New York, but I haven’t seen her for a while.”

  “Why not?”

  He drank the bitter remains of black coffee from his cup, mostly to avoid her sudden scrutiny. “I’ve been busy.”

  Her pretty mouth twisted into a skeptical expression that was not remotely attractive. “Too busy to see your mother?”

  The fragile beauty was apparently judgmental as well as intrusive. “What makes you think she’s bothered by my absence?”

  “Isn’t that the way of parents?”

  He didn’t like to think about his mother, and he was certain she was far too busy with her important work at Ardaut House to think about him. Enough questions. So far he was the only one who’d revealed anything, not his intention at all. “From now on we shall speak to each other only in English. I found a grammar and vocabulary book for you in one of the shops near my hotel.”

  That should put an end to her rapid-fire interrogation, and studying would give her something to do besides watching him incessantly.

  “That’s an excellent idea. I could certainly use the practice,” she replied in perfect English with a surprisingly American-sounding accent.

  “Maybe you won’t need to study. Where did you learn to speak with such fluency?”

  Her mouth froze in an awkward position as if she couldn’t think of an answer. “…One of the other girls taught me. I assure you I’m not fluent yet.”

  Doubtful. Yet another inconsistency he could add to the puzzle of Madeleine Lavoie. At times she seemed so prim and untouchable he was certain every assertion she’d made about her background was a lie. Then at others he’d catch a glimpse of raw sensuality in the way she walked or smiled or even the way she ate, and he didn’t know what to think.

  Whether it was contrived or unintentional, the contradictions of her nature consumed him. He’d been unable to concentrate on anything else since he’d met her.

  He was not attracted to her, at least not in the usual way. He couldn’t imagine touching her. She seemed so young and pristine with her unguarded expressions and soulful eyes. He couldn’t remember what it felt like to be young or pristine. Being in her presence only made him feel more tarnished by contrast.

  At the moment, Mademoiselle Lavoie, apparently lost in the delights of her crème brûlée, slid a spoon from her plump lips in a lingering, singularly memorable manner. Sterling clinked upon china as she set down the utensil, and Leo awoke from his trance.

  He shifted his posture and combated a tide of lust with memories of cleaning grain silos in Illinois, his ever-reliable cure for unwelcome thoughts of that nature. Suffering weevils in his nostrils served a good purpose in the end.

  So he was kidding himself. What man wouldn’t desire her? He would never act upon it. As a rule, he avoided personal involvement with women who worked for him in any capacity. The idea of taking advantage of a woman in a subordinate position was distasteful to him.

  Though he hadn’t actually employed Madeleine Lavoie yet, the concept remained the same. Seducing a troubled and vulnerable female would cause him complications he didn’t need and substantially lower his estimation of his own character. He was not some lecherous cad who preyed upon desperate young women by luring them to foreign lands under false pretenses.

  But he could see how it might appear that way to someone who didn’t know him.

  He would simply direct his carnal interests elsewhere. There would be a willing woman on the ship. There was always a woman in need of tenderness.

  Chapter Five

  He regretted his offer. Claudine could tell by the set of his jaw after they returned to their seats in the first-class carriage. What had possessed her to delve into his relationship with his mother?

  His past conduct told her all she needed to know about his character. He was a selfish and callous man, indifferent to the feelings of those who loved him. She’d do well to remember that and focus upon her own uncertain future instead of thinking about his past.

  Leo placed his hand on her shoulder as he leaned over and whispered into her ear, “There should be no more questions about my family on the ship, or we’ll never convince anyone we are brother and sister.”

  The warmth of his breath on her neck made her shiver in the strangest way. Disconcerted, she could barely even nod in response.

  They arrived at the port an hour before departure. The scent of brine, tar, and burning coal brought back happy memories of her travels with Aunt Henriette. Fashionably dressed couples and businessmen emerged from fine carriages with servants carrying mountains of luggage.

  Cordoned off to the side of a low white building, far more modestly dressed passengers bearing carpetbags, birdcages, potted plants, and brown paper parcels waited in the hot sun. They looked weary and miserable, and their voyage had not even begun.

  “That’s our ship, there,” Leo gestured to a vast ocean liner in the harbor. The SS La Bourgogne, with its two massive red funnels and soaring masts, stretched out at least a city block long. In all her travels with her aunt, she’d never sailed in such a large or modern vessel.

  Again, she felt the burden of Leo’s generosity. He was spending a lot of money upon her. How would he react if she failed to fulfill his expectations? She was running away to New York with a man known for selfishness and unreliability. He might become disgusted with her and abandon her. How would she survive then?

  “Are you prone to seasickness?”

  She was an
excellent traveller and had been to a dozen countries, but that would not be consistent with the background she’d invented for Madeleine, a simple country girl who’d never ventured outside of France. “I don’t think so. I imagine crossing the Atlantic is taxing.”

  “Not these days, it isn’t,” Leo said, gazing at the ocean liner. “The amenities are state of the art. The entire crossing will only take seven days at most.”

  Along with the other first-class passengers, they waited in a sheltered area prior to boarding. Barrel-chested stevedores barked at each other as they loaded crates and trunks. A shipping line official ran through a list of questions with her and gave her a cursory inspection, deeming further examination unnecessary after a few assurances from “her brother”.

  At the sound of a bugle, the gangplank lowered, and they were soon inching their way forward to board.

  “Leo Barnett, what a lark to see you after all of these years!” an arrogant male voice called. They both turned to witness a hulking man in a gray cutaway morning suit and top hat pushing through the crowd to reach them. With his high-bridged nose, full lips, and square chin, he might have been handsome but for his eyes, large green orbs so devoid of emotion they seemed doll-like.

  He stopped directly before them, so close Claudine could smell his cigar breath. “My word, how many years has it been? I can’t wait to tell the boys at the club. We were all terribly worried after you dropped out. It was rough of you not to keep in touch. There were so many stories about what became of you, each more outlandish than the last. But I always knew you’d turn up someday and have a laugh at all of us poor dopes who bothered to finish out the drudgery of our education. I’ve read about you in the papers a number of times, even thought about looking you up, but you know how it goes…”

  His glassy eyes widened as they fell upon Claudine. “I see you still have excellent taste in females, by Jove.”

  She and Leo both responded to the offensive innuendo at the same time, asserting the false claim of familial relationship with equal awkwardness.