“She looks well, as if she enjoys her duties with the Hannifords,” his friend had noted. When Julian had added that she is well regarded by English gentlemen, Andre fought the urge to run to London himself and declare himself her suitor. But he had promised her time and when her uncle had appeared before him, Andre had promised him restraint. Then too, between the lines of Julian’s letter, Andre had sensed that his friend was more than smitten with the dark-haired beauty who was the daughter of his adversary, the millionaire Killian Hanniford. If Julian was beginning a courtship of the American heiress, Andre hoped to heaven he got on with it quickly. The sooner Lily Hanniford married anyone, the sooner he himself could appear in London and begin his own pursuit of the widow whose image he could not seem to duplicate in any medium, save his own lusty imagination.
He pushed up from his workbench, hope dwindling Marianne could be in his parlor. “Who calls, Carré?”
“Oh, Monsieur. She says she is your mother.”
“My—?” What was she doing out of bed? And here? She never came to see his works in progress. She wished for only the finished product to coo over. He marched to his basin, poured water from the pitcher and scrubbed his hands free of the sticky clay. Peeling bits of it from his nails, he wiped his hands dry with rough paper. “What is she doing here?”
Carré had only a shrug for answer.
Andre strode for the door. “Get the maid to make tea. Run down to the patisserie and buy two apple tarts, chocolate cakes, something else, anything. And bring the bottle of brandy from the kitchen. Two cups. On a tray. Quickly!”
Taking the three stone steps at a clip, he crossed the foyer to thrust open the door to the parlor. The house was only four years old, three-stories tall, built by him after the Commune and the Prussians abandoned the city in eighteen seventy-one. Compared to his family homes, this house was small, with a coal and wine cellar in the basement, three servants’ bedrooms in the attic, a front hall, a parlor, dining room and large kitchen. But he’d purchased two plots when he’d bought the land and extended the house toward the back where the ceiling soared for two stories over his workshop. Chunks of stone, vats of clay, tubs of elements for plaster lined the bare ivory walls. In the center stood a raw six-foot tall gold-veined marble slab that he contemplated from all angles each morning and night since he’d left his mother’s house in the Rue de Rivoli two weeks ago. All were illuminated by the spectrum of sun streaming through a thick, clear glass sky light. At one end was a set of French doors opening to his bedroom where he slept when he in was ‘in mode’ and creating.
He loved this section of Paris. Montmartre was thriving, full of artists who strived and starved, but it was a rowdy, welcome place to talk about image and beauty, art and the future of expression. It was Andre’s favorite place to sketch, to plan, to create. And not a place the illustrious Princesse d’Aumale frequented.
“Maman!” He went to her as she turned slowly away from the tall windows that faced the street bustling with shoppers and merchants. Taking her elegant hands, he kissed her downy cheeks. “A wonderful surprise. Come and sit. Why did you not send word you were coming?”
She tipped her head and teased him with affection in her azure eyes. “Mon cher, if I told you I would come, you would rush home to bid me stay where I am.”
He led her to the overstuffed Louis Quinze sofa and sat beside her. “You know me better than I do you.”
She slid her hand from his. “Ah-ah. You scoundrel, you need not attempt to take my pulse. I am well.”
He examined her with a critical eye. She wore a walking ensemble of malachite wool that complemented her flawless skin and contrasted with the pure snow white of her hair and brows. This morning, her cheeks were a subtle pink which he happily concluded was not the total result of the application of rouge. Her eyes, the color of an Italian lagoon, were bright, even through her tiny glasses.
The past two years had been difficult for her. She’d suffered and recovered from three weaknesses of the heart, robbing her of breath and energy. Her last episode in January had sapped more of her stamina than the previous ones and her doctor had ordered her to bed for four weeks. In the following two months, she’d regained strength and some weight so that in sunny spring weather, she took a daily carriage ride.
“You came in the landau?” he asked, unable to glimpse which conveyance stood outside his doorstep.
“Oui, our Valmont has the reins. We do not pay him enough.”
Andre laughed. “If you pay him any more, he will revolt and move to Tours just to show you he is his own man.”
She let her eyebrows dance. She was in her mid-seventies, but despite her illnesses, she had the vivacity of a coquette of twenty. “He uses all his wages to pay for school for that precocious daughter of his. She finishes with the hatters’ soon and he wants to send her to Monsieur Worth’s to apprentice with the drapers. To audition for Worth, she must produce three chapeaus in different materials. That costs money.”
“I don’t begrudge any of our staff more pay. You and I have enough for ten people. Increase Valmont’s wages. Increase them all.”
She pursed her lips. “I think it useful.”
He heard the pause in her voice. “What are you getting at, Maman?”
A rap came at the parlor door.
“Come in! Ah, yes, Nanette. Merci, beaucoup. Please place the tray here.” His maid-of-all-work scurried in, curtsied and backed out. But she lingered in the shadows in the hall, craning her neck to catch another glimpse of the princesse whom Louis Napoleon had tried to seduce away from her devoted husband, the Prince d’Aumale. “Shall I add a bit of fuel to your tea, Maman?”
‘Fuel’ had always implied aged brandy and his mother enjoyed it. Even her doctor encouraged her to drink it by the cup full.
“Mais oui. I am dry and this conversation requires sustenance.”
“I see,” he said as he poured tea into a Sèvres cup he kept here just for special visitors. He knew she’d come for a specific purpose. She’d never disturb him to have a meaningless tete-a-tete. For whatever her intent, he was happy to lace her tea with the spirits that would relax her. “I would hope you are here to view my latest work.”
“Why else?” she said as waggled fingers at him to be more liberal with the dose of brandy. Satisfied, she put her finger in the air and took the china cup and saucer from his hand. She drank, her eyes closing as she swallowed. “One thing Louvan does is make fine liquor. His politics are a shambles, assuming women can be shut out of his factory and the vote. But we must educate the weak minded, eh?”
He poured straight brandy into his own cup and took a sip.
Another knock came at the door.
“Entrez,” he called and the maid came with a tray of patisseries. “Merci, Nanette.”
He indicated the tray of sweets to his mother. “Shall you have the chocolate mille-feuille?”
She nodded and fixed her gaze on him. “After you’ve taken me back to the studio.”
“You cannot wait to hear me describe my latest, then?”
She waved a hand in dismissal. “You dally. Walk me back.”
“There’s nothing to see,” he told her with a sigh. “I wish there were.”
“You have not been here for two straight weeks and produced nothing. I know you. You are incessant, compulsive, especially when here. You itched to leave Rivoli. You must produce here. So. Tell me no lies. Why is there nothing to see?”
He inhaled. “I have trouble envisioning the final figure.”
“Show me.” She put down her cup and made to rise. She had difficulty.
He offered his arm. “You did not bring your cane today. Why not?”
“Is your arm not strong enough to support me?” she challenged him.
He tsked at her as he led her from the room toward the hall to his studio. “Do you leave it in your bedroom every day?”
Frowning, she pursed her lips. “I did not feel the need. I foresaw no tumbles or missteps.
Now, tell me what you’ve been doing here since you left the house two weeks ago.”
He led her along the corridor, up two steps and opened the massive wooden door to his atelier. The sunlight hit him with warmth.
In the brilliance, his mother grinned. “I adore this place. You did well to sweep this high and wide. Reminds me of Delacroix’s studio near Saint Germain. But your’s has more of what God intends.”
He led her to a bench, wooden but comfortably curved for just such visits by those who wished to linger with him. “I wish God would tell me what He intends because I am, at the moment, bereft.”
Facing the six-foot block of marble, she studied it. “Well at least I see that you know how tall the piece will be.”
“I thought I knew when I bought it months ago. Now, I’m not certain.”
“Is it for your new commission for the city of Paris?”
He walked toward the monolith, his arms crossed. “No. I see another shape for that. The city fathers’ want a heroic piece to symbolize the survival of the city after the Prussians won the war.”
“Tell me please not another winged victory?”
“We have enough of those, don’t we?” He placed his hand on the cool white surface.
“Certainement. Europe is full of them.”
“I see a woman free of her chains.” No sooner had he said it, than he narrowed his gaze on the stone and perceived an outline he’d not envisioned before.
“I grow tired of waiting for you to tell me, Andre.” He sensed that his mother rose from her seat and moved toward the table where his clay figures sat in clusters. “Andre? Andre, look at me.”
“Oui, Maman.” He turned to see her holding up the figure he’d been sculpting before Carré came to tell him she’d arrived. “What is it you said?”
She held the figure up to him in her palm. “This. Who is she?”
“A woman I met months ago.”
His mother arched her elegant white brows.
“She is American. Delicate in form but hardy in spirit, like a willow bending to the wind.” He hesitated to tell his mother more. She grew eager to see him wed begetting an heir to take the titles that graced her life with riches and obligations. Encouraging him to go out in society often to find a woman equal to his erudition, his mother had expressed her disappointment with his progression of mistresses. Andre had learned not to exaggerate the depths of any of his affairs. “She fascinates me. Has done, since I first spied her in a cabaret last autumn.”
“This gives me no idea of her. Yet—” she said as she turned in a complete circle, her hand out to denote the dozens of other clay figures on the tables and shelves, “—I see no facial features. Only the lift of a delicate jaw. Why is that, Andre?”
“I recall her essence. I sculpt that.” He pulled off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I should stop trying. The compulsion destroys me.”
“How well do you know her?”
“You are too perceptive, Madame. In practicality, I know her hardly at all. I go by instinct and so I imagine who she is. What she was as a girl, a young woman, a wife.”
His mother’s face fell. “She is married?”
“A widow.”
“Bon.” His mother caught a long breath. “Well, we will be grateful for that. Take me to the bench, mon cher. Good. Good.” She settled onto the wood. “What else must I know?”
“There is not much to tell.”
“Of course, there is, Andre. You have not been yourself. You do not sleep well. You walk the floors and the gardens. I thought when you left the house in Rue de Rivoli and came here, you might find solace in the work. Do you?”
He was not sleeping well here either. Every night, he dreamt of one incarnation or another of Marianne Roland. He’d startle, rush to a sketch pad but her vision evaporated into air.
“I take that for ‘no.’ You released Collette Namours. You have no other woman to your bed, or so I hear. You do not eat well. You’ve lost weight.”
“Maman—”
“Let me speak. For months, I have watched you, Andre, and it is my penchant not to interfere. You were always one who knew his mind. As a child, impetuous but with desire. Stubborn but with cause. I have not seen you want for a woman you did not win. Is this American widow more than a model for your work?”
“I have more hope than substance, Maman.”
“Why are you not pursuing her then? Erasing the mystery? Filing the void? This is not like you to wait and ponder if a woman is worth your attention.”
”I promised her I would wait until a proper time to court her.”
“Court her? So, it is as I presumed. She could be more than a petite chou.”
“She will not come to me for more than one night.”
His mother laughed heartily, a trilling sound.
He grinned, shaking his head. “I’m serious, Maman. These Americans are intriguing creatures.”
“Stubborn?”
He snorted. “As if they invented it.”
“More’s the pity,” she said.
“Or my advantage. If…if I can ever gain her company for long enough to press my advantage.”
“And do you have one? Does she like you?”
“Oh, never doubt. She does. Surprising as it is to her and shocking as it was to me that first night and the second, even the third, the very sight of her sets me to flame.”
“You have seen her only three times?”
He nodded. “Too few.”
“And your work suffers for the lack of her.” His mother smiled. “What must she suffer for the lack of you?”
He hadn’t considered that. But as he pondered it, he wondered if Marianne did feel the lack of him. If she did even in some small way, it might connote that there was more for them than one hasty affair. More than that was what his heart had hoped for for months.
His mother put her hand atop his and squeezed. “The days grow long, mon bonheur. Summer will be upon us and the nights will be made for soft whispers. Why do you not find reason to go to her? Take your life and your opportunity in your hands? What can it cost you to learn?”
Ten days later he had no cause to speculate on costs. Julian had written to him with news that he and Lily Hanniford were to be married within the week. Andre was to come for the festivities.
That afternoon, Andre hired a public hack to drive him down to the house on the Rue de Rivoli. When the butler opened the door to him, the old man grinned. “Bonjour, Monsieur le duc. We are delighted to have you with us.”
“My mother? Where is she?” he asked as he handed over his hat and cape.
“In the music room, Monsieur.”
“She is well?”
“Very well indeed. She has told us you will soon be very well too. A new commission. A new reason to create.”
Andre laughed. His mother had a way with words. “Oui, she is correct.”
“Tea, Monsieur?”
“Oui, but of course. Brandy, too. And please tell Pierre I wish to see him after I talk with my mother.” Up in Montmartre, Andre never dressed formally and did not require his valet’s services, but Pierre would be vital to dressing him well in London as he tried to impress Marianne Roland.
“Certainly, sir.”
Following the strains of one of Chopin’s piano concertos, Andre took the stairs up to the main floor in quick strides. The old hall smelled of polish and beeswax. The green and white checkered marble floor sparkled juxtaposed to the ruby papered walls. He pushed open the door.
His mother inclined her head in recognition of his arrival, but as was her wont, she continued to play. An expert pianist, his mother could perform miracles with her long fingers hitting all the trills and impossible chords. Seizing the chance to absorb her talents, he sat in one of her overstuffed chairs smiling while she finished.
And then she spun to examine him with a mother’s knowing look. “You’ve brought me good news?”
He rose to walk to her and kiss her on b
oth cheeks, his exuberance spilling out of him as if he were six. “What you longed to hear.”
“You go to London?”
He leaned an arm on the grand old Pleyel. “I leave Monday.”
“You’ll bring her back?”
“As soon as I can.”
She rose from her piano stool. “I expect to be introduced.”
“You shall.”
“She will be a joy to you.”
“You cannot know, Maman.”
“I see the way you look when you speak of her. I note upon your face the thrill of meeting her again. This is no infatuation, Andre.”
Wrestling with that truth no longer, Andre knew it was impossible to live rationally or even productively without seeing Marianne Roland once more. In London, he would woo her and win her or give her up completely.
Chapter 5
June 7, 1878
No. 110 Piccadilly
London
Marianne winked at Lily and grinned. “Take one more look. Then we absolutely must go down. We don’t want your father to call us on the carpet before the ceremony.”
Nora, Lily’s maid, fluttered about, looking for Lily’s white gloves and chattering about losing them.
Lily widened her eyes at the bottle Marianne had tucked into her skirts. They’d both had a few good nips this morning and Nora, busy as she always was, had spied them at it. Marianne was certain that the servant would try to turn it to her advantage.
Lily rolled her eyes. “Nora, I wonder if I accidentally put the gloves in my trousseau case? Check there, would you?”
“Right you are, miss.” The maid paused to stare, then sniffed, but lumbered off toward Lily’s dressing room.
In two short steps, Marianne tucked the bottle of brandy into Lily’s wardrobe and shut the door with a click of the latch.
Lily bit her lip and swallowed a chuckle, then gazed once more in the cheval glass. Her soft blue eyes clouded with doubt.
Lily’s wedding to Julian Ash, the marquess of Chelton, required a bit of Dutch courage. After all, Lily had not planned to marry him. Not soon. Not ever. But she and he had been caught alone in his country house by his parents and Uncle Killian. The scene, Lily had recounted later, was ugly. Uncle Killian had demanded Julian wed her and quickly. Chelton, fortunately, was ready to do the right thing. Lily, unfortunately, had no say in the matter.
Daring Widow: Those Notorious Americans, Book 2 Page 9