More Lipstick Chronicles

by Emily Carmichael

  “Thank you,” she said. “It’s been truly magical.”

  They said good night to the maitre d’, who was taking his coffee at the bar. The air was crisp, cold and infused with the mingled scents of pine, cinnamon and freshwater from the St. Lawrence. The streetlights were aided by shopkeepers’ Christmas lights in creating an almost angelic atmosphere. A distant police siren competed for their attention with the clip-clop of tourist-friendly horse-drawn carriages with their sleigh bells and squeaking wheels.

  At the door of the hotel, Jacques kissed her cold, pink hand.

  “Good luck with your fine senator,” he said and bowed so slightly that she might almost have imagined he was making the courtly gesture.

  And then he disappeared around the corner.

  As she passed the front desk, the captain stopped her.

  “There’s a message for you, Miss Titus,” he said and leaned over the oak counter to pass her two small pink slips.

  “Thank you.”

  She waited until she was in her room before opening the messages that she dreaded. The first one, at eight-thirty, was from Mitch: He had missed the flight but would catch one in the morning. The second—at ten-thirty—that she could call him at home anytime, no matter when she got in.

  “Shit,” she hissed. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”

  That having been got out of the way, she dialed out of the hotel. Mitch picked up on the third ring.

  “Honey, I’m sorry,” he said by way of hello. “Usually he has the attention span of a three-year-old.”

  “Some would say that’s an ability to delegate.”

  “Still, I’m very sorry.”

  “I know you are.”

  “I couldn’t get out. I mean, how do you tell the leader of the free world that you need to leave early?”

  “You say, ‘Half the country thinks you’re a buffoon, and by the way, it’s Friday.’ ”

  She said this with just the barest margin of humor.

  “I’ll remember that the next time I’m invited to the White House. But Carole, I’m probably the only Republican who is still speaking to Democrats. I had to be here tonight, if only to keep the tone civil. The president counts on me for that.”

  “I understand,” she said wearily. And she did understand, even more so after dining with Jacques Chancet. “When is your flight coming in?”

  “I’ll be there before you wake up.”

  “And I’ll believe it when I see you.”

  They hung up and Carole changed into yellow fleece jammies. The room was cold—the thermostat was at an arctic 65 degrees—and the down comforter seemed too thin for a gal who was conditioned to temperate Potomac winters.

  It took her a long time to get to sleep.

  She thought she smelled the scent of Ferragamo in her room. Jacques Chancet. What an interesting name.

  Chapter 5

  He’s not here, she thought. I’m stuck in the most romantic city in North America and he’s not here. He promised me he’d be here before I woke up. I’m awake, it’s already nine-thirty—she opened her eyes long enough to check her watch—and he’s not here.

  The phone rang.

  “If you’ve missed another flight, don’t bother,” she grumbled into the phone.

  “Miss?” An unfamiliar voice.

  “Oops, sorry. What is it?”

  “A gentleman here to see you. Shall I let him up?”

  For the scantest second, she thought of Jacques Chancet. He was handsome, he was secure in himself, he was a New Yorker—well, by way of Quebec City—and he was charming.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Mitch Evans.”

  She sat up. And with a pang of guilt that she had even thought of another man, she let out a shriek.

  “Sure, sure, send him up.”

  She slammed down the phone. Threw off the covers and ran to the bathroom. Great, what a time to discover the effects of not getting every smidgen of mascara off the night before. She squeezed a little toothpaste onto . . . Where, oh, where was the toothbrush? Oh, hellwithit, she squeezed the toothpaste onto her index finger and vigorously rubbed her teeth. Swiped a wet washcloth under her eyes, taking away some of that raccoon look. At least she didn’t have the morning-after champagne puffiness. She spat out the toothpaste, spritzed Angel perfume in her hair, slapped her cheeks for color and dashed to the bed before remembering he wouldn’t have a key. She jumped back up, unlocked the door and dove under the covers.

  Oh, sure, the most soigné effect would be achieved by allowing him to caress her into wakefulness. Think what mischief they could make as she drowsily welcomed him! But Carole’s brief indulgence gave way to enthusiasm. So what if he knew just how excited she was to see him?

  She scarcely noticed the slippers she stepped on and over, the robe laying forlorn on the arm of the upholstered club chair and the housekeeper in the hallway just beginning her morning rounds.

  She clobbered him on the landing. Her arms around his neck, he lifted her long legs to straddle his waist. Their kiss was long, hard and sharply focused.

  “God, it’s good to see you!” he said.

  She made to stand but he stopped her.

  “I like this,” he said.

  He carried her back to her room, past the housekeeper who tried not to stare.

  “Sir, you forgot your bag,” the housekeeper noted as Mitch nudged the door open with his shoe.

  “I’ll get it in a minute,” he said. “Or in two minutes,” he added as he strode to the bed. “Or maybe I’ll just leave that thing in the hall until it gets stolen. Because, baby, I’m not leaving this bed for a long, long time.”

  “But the door,” Carole warned.

  He stood up, regarding her languid pose with a familiar glint in his eye. Then he walked over to the door, throwing off his suit jacket and pulling his tie free from the collar of his shirt. A shirt which, by the way, soon fluttered to the floor.

  Lord, it was wonderful to have a man who was such a delectable treat to watch! His skin was lightly tanned, as if the sun just licked him. His muscles swelled at all the right places and what little body hair there was gave the appearance of gold dust.

  There were advantages to a younger man, Carole sighed to herself.

  He swiped his belt out from his pants and regarded her lazily.

  “Those p.j.s are cute. But you don’t need them.”

  “Shouldn’t we take our time?”

  “Honey, there’s no time to take our time. I’ve missed you.”

  She rolled over, pretending indifference. A rough tug at her pant legs, and her bottom was bare. An instant later, he was on top of her, his naked flesh pressing against her, his elbows on either side of her, supporting his weight.

  He might be smart—hell, he was smart. He could digest a government agency budget for breakfast, make a five-minute speech that would clarify a hundred pages of a State Department policy briefing, talk with an R & D genius with the same ease as with a disgruntled voter. But this genius seemed lightweight when compared to his true expertise—her body. He knew every secret place, every neuron that begged to be kissed and stroked, each pleasure zone that needed his attentions. And just when a kiss or caress would, by repetition, lose its power, he explored new territory.

  She had never known a man so interested in making her beg for more. Oh, those groupies and staffers and agency wonks who wanted him so badly—if they only knew that on top of being handsome and charming and smart and funny, he was . . . well, his apartment would be besieged with women.

  He leaned to one side to caress her hip and while he seemed to focus his attention on telling a funny anecdote about the vice president’s bumbling attempts to charm the attendees of the previous days’ meetings, his true self was devoted to only one cause.

  “And then he said, ‘Let me quote you some statistics I uncovered in the Government Accounting Office’s latest report on the matter’ and that’s when the senator from South Carolina told him to go to
hell.”

  Carole laughed.

  “Come here,” she said, shifting her body to face him. “No offense, but I don’t give a damn about government.”

  “Funny, I don’t either.”

  The first time, she was still wearing her pajama top, and he hadn’t even gotten his shoes off. The second time, they had managed to remove all their clothes but only because they thought they were going to take a shower. And the third time, they made it as far as the shower.

  “We missed breakfast, you know.” Carole was supremely content, but her stomach was starting to growl.

  “What kind of place doesn’t have room service?” Mitch complained. “Could you get my garment bag? I don’t think I should go out there in my towel.”

  Ten minutes later, they were dressed for sightseeing. Carole realized with a start that it had been several months since she had seen Mitch in jeans—suits, with the occasional tuxedo, were now his everyday uniform. With his blue plaid flannel shirt, the barest sliver of a red T-shirt peeking out from the collar, he looked like a handsome version of any American tourist.

  “We can see the fort,” Carole said, putting just the slightest coat of mascara on her lashes. She was vain about her lashes and her legs, her two best qualities as far as she was concerned. She didn’t need blush today, and her lipstick—Estée Lauder’s Nightlife—seemed a little too harsh in the morning light. Instead she slicked on a little sheer gloss. “Next, we could go to the Musée de la Citadelle. It was built by the—”

  “Can we not have an agenda?” Mitch asked. “How ’bout if we just walk out the door and be surprised?”

  She looked at herself in the mirror. Lord, when was the last time they hadn’t had a schedule?

  “You’re right,” she called out. “Good idea. But breakfast. I’ve got to have breakfast.”

  They walked out onto the street, newly fallen snow powdering the cobblestones. The church bells chimed twelve times as they followed the crowd into the Rue de Tresor, where the market was teaming with crafts, from stained-glass animals to watercolor vistas and beaded jewelry.

  “I think we’re talking about lunch,” Mitch said. He guided her into a café, where they ordered baguette sandwiches of thick bacon and soft brie. The Saturday newspapers were displayed near the door and Mitch began to ask for the New York Times and then abruptly changed his mind.

  “No papers au jour d’hui,” he said to the owner, who made a face at Mitch’s savaging of his language.

  After lunch, they walked through the Quarter, and decided to stop and attend a mass at a church too quaint and inviting to resist—though neither Mitch not Carole were Catholic. The church was nearly empty, but the priest offered mass with the passion and enthusiasm one would expect if he were facing a full house. Carole and Mitch sat huddled in the pew, listening intently to the sermon and the readings, watching as the few parishioners made their way to the front of the church to take communion. On their way out, Carole and Mitch stopped to thank the priest, who welcomed them warmly. Before they knew it, he was guiding them to a spot behind the sacristy, where they were shown the relics of long-dead saints.

  “And here are the registries of every parishioner since our founding,” the gray-haired priest said, and he pointed with pride to the two gold-leaf and leather-bound tomes that listed every baptism, marriage and death of his flock.

  “You know, I was never baptized.” Carole realized too late that she was thinking out loud and glanced apologetically at the priest, as if he were of a mind to disapprove. “My mother wasn’t anything, really. I used to think that was so cool, so smart. Not being bound by anybody else’s ideas of what God is like.”

  The priest discreetly appeared to be interested in wiping some dust off the protective glass case.

  “And now?” Mitch asked.

  “Now I don’t know how parents teach their kids right from wrong without a little help,” Carole said.

  “I think we’ll do a good job.”

  She glanced at him sharply.

  The priest coughed self-consciously.

  “I must prepare for the next hour’s mass,” he said.

  “Thank you, Father,” Mitch said.

  When they stepped out onto the square outside the church, Mitch put his arm around her.

  “You said we will,” Carole said. Her words came out in puffs of fluffy white vapor.

  “Will what?”

  “That we will do a good job.”

  “Well, we will. Carole, we’re going to be great parents. You’ll be a natural mother. I know you think your mother wasn’t a good role model but . . . oh, boy, I blew it. I can tell. Your muscles are tightening. What’d I do now?”

  “I’m not so sure about kids.”

  He took her hand and while she had the instinctive urge to deny him this, she couldn’t.

  “I want kids, honey,” he said. “I’ve always said that. I hope you do, too. I’m pretty certain you do—even if you don’t consciously think about it.”

  “Mitch, let’s not talk about this.”

  She slipped out from under his arm with apparent nonchalance.

  “I overreacted, I know,” she said. “Just a little jumpy. That book kind of scared me.”

  “Now I look at a book like that and I see a beautiful thing. It’s life, Carole—births and deaths and marriages. It’s the thread of life that makes up the past and future. I’m not scared, Carole. I want to marry, be a father, become part of a book like that. I want to be part of that book with you.”

  Oh, my God, she thought. It was said. It was out in the open. The lifetime commitment words. And she had two choices: respond seriously or brush it off.

  Luckily, Mitch was good at guessing what she’d prefer.

  “In fact, we can go back to the hotel and start a family right now.”

  “Too sore,” she said, affecting a light tone.

  He looked disappointed, but quickly recovered.

  “Hey, we never got down that street, did we?”

  They walked on the cobblestone sidewalk, pausing at a chocolaterie window rich with an intricate display, an entire town made of chocolate.

  Mitch pointed across the street. “Hey, a jewelry store. Let’s go in. You can help me shop for a very special woman.”

  “Who?”

  “Some dame who’s got a birthday coming up.”

  The twinkle in his eye gave him away.

  “Mitch, my birthday’s not until February.”

  “Can’t start too early. I was thinking earrings.”

  Earrings. Safe relationship jewelry.

  “And a matching necklace.”

  Still safe.

  They entered a cozy little shop with a display counter lined with black velvet. Diamonds, some loose and others set in gold and platinum, glistened alluringly. Lengths of pearls—pinks, whites, South Seas blacks, freshwater grays—tumbled this way and that. Carole studiously avoided the cabinet in which single diamond rings were housed and instead, made an appreciative murmur over the colored gems.

  “Pearls,” Mitch said. “Ah, sir, could we see this one right here?”

  An elfin-sized man with a face like a dried apple had appeared from a back room.

  “Certainly, monsieur.”

  Carole was presented with a long, lustrous strand of white pearls.

  “Too beautiful,” she cried.

  “Try them on,” Mitch urged. He tugged off her jacket so that her slim turtleneck was exposed.

  She worked the clasp and put the pearls around her neck. The shopkeeper adjusted the counter mirror so that she could see her reflection. She couldn’t stop smiling—what woman could resist feeling like a princess in pearls?

  Her eye caught Mitch’s mischievous grin.

  “Beautiful,” a softly seductive voice said.

  Carole startled, looked at the back room door, and met the eyes of Jacques Chancet.

  “Oh, dear,” she said.

  “What a pleasure to meet again,” Jacques said, stepping
forward from the back room door. He wore an impeccably tailored black suit and an ivory turtleneck. She thought he might give her a kiss on both cheeks, but he confined himself to a pleasant handshake. “And monsieur, you must be Senator Evans.”

  Mitch was too much of a gentleman, or perhaps too secure about himself, to display a nanosecond’s hesitation. He held his hand out to Jacques, smiled and told Jacques that he wasn’t sure they had met before.

  “We haven’t,” Jacques said. “Mademoiselle Titus was so kind as to take pity on me last night when I couldn’t find an empty table at the restaurant. We shared a meal and she told me how she looked forward to your arrival. You seem to be two very busy people who are right to avail yourselves of our Quebec hospitality. If we could only persuade more Americans to do the same . . .”

  Mitch nodded with a pleasant smile. “Absolutely.”

  “But I forget myself. My name is Jacques Chancet. I’m a jewelry designer. I work out of New York. Some of my creations are even sold by this gentleman, who has taught me so much. Monsieur DeLaCroix.”

  The elf beamed.

  “Would you like to see Monsieur Chancet’s latest pieces?” he asked.

  “We’d love to,” Mitch responded eagerly.

  Carole slipped the pearls off and handed them back to Mr. DeLaCroix. Couldn’t Mitch feel her tension? And yet, what did she have to feel tense about? She hadn’t done anything wrong, anything untoward. She had had dinner with a gentleman. But for some reason, she didn’t like being near him just now and it was with a vaguely sickened feeling that she allowed herself to be ushered into the back room, an office with a desk on which was strewn a staggering array of jewels.

  You’re being silly, Carole. This isn’t high school.

  “This is such an honor,” Mitch said. “Thank you so much for showing us all this. Her birthday’s coming up in February. Do you have anything special you’d like to show us?”

  “It’s all special,” Mr. DeLaCroix said.

  “Mitch, I don’t feel like . . .”

  “Honey, this is beautiful. Check out these earrings. They’re perfect. What kind of stone is this?”

  “It’s a pink sapphire,” Jacques said, sitting at the desk. Mr. DeLaCroix brought in another chair for himself and used the faintest gesture to urge Carole and Mitch into a buttery leather love seat. “Pink sapphires really make a woman’s face glow. They’re wonderful for evening. But don’t forget to look at these canary diamonds. The yellow will set up a beautiful contrast with your dark eyes, mademoiselle.”