The Seven Sisters

by Lucinda Riley

  Without waiting for her mother-in-law’s look of surprise that Bel had actually dared question her judgement, she walked towards the door and pinned on her hat.

  Loen was already waiting there for her. ‘Well?’ she whispered as they walked towards the car.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she groaned.

  ‘Then we shall go to Madame Duchaine’s and if you decide to feign a headache, I will follow your lead,’ Loen said as they climbed into the car. The driver set off, Bel staring sightlessly out of the window, her heart pounding so hard against her chest she felt it might burst open.

  When they arrived at Madame Duchaine’s, Bel and Loen climbed out of the car.

  ‘There’s no need for you to wait, Jorge,’ Bel told the driver. ‘I will be some time. Please return and collect me at six.’

  ‘Yes, senhora.’

  She watched him pull away from the kerb, then entered the salon with Loen.

  Ten minutes later, Bel found herself staring blankly at her reflection in the full-length mirror, her mind in turmoil, while Madame Duchaine fussed around her with a tape measure and pins. She was still in an agony of indecision, her stomach churning. If she didn’t make her mind up soon, it would be too late anyway.

  Madame Duchaine stood up and moved behind Bel, surveying her handiwork in the mirror over Bel’s shoulder. As her beady eyes reached Bel’s face, she frowned.

  ‘Why, you do not look well at all, senhora. You are very pale. Are you perhaps sickening for something?’

  ‘I am feeling a little faint,’ Bel agreed.

  ‘Well, perhaps we should continue the fitting on another day? I think it may be best if you leave and take some rest,’ she said, surreptitiously eyeing her client’s stomach in the mirror.

  In that split second, Bel caught Loen’s eye, and knew her decision had been made for her.

  ‘Yes, perhaps you’re right. I will telephone tomorrow to make another appointment. Come, Loen,’ she added to her maid. ‘We shall leave now.’

  As the two women left the salon and emerged onto the street, Bel turned to Loen. ‘Well, this is it. I must be out of my mind, but I’m going to meet him. Wish me luck.’

  ‘Of course. Just be sure to meet me back here in time for the car to pick us up. And Senhora Bel,’ she added softly, ‘even if you decide you can never be with him again after today, I think you are making the right decision to see him.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Bel walked swiftly through the streets of Ipanema towards Rua Visconde de Pirajá. Twice she turned back in uncertainty, but then retraced her footsteps forward, until she found herself in front of Laurent’s apartment block.

  Yes, she told herself. I will go inside, tell him in person that I can’t ever see him again, just as I did in Paris. And then I will leave.

  Darting inside the entrance, she moved towards the stairs and began to climb them, noting the numbers on the apartment doors.

  When she reached number six, she hesitated, then, closing her eyes and sending up a silent prayer, she knocked on the door.

  She heard footsteps crossing the wooden boards, and when the door opened, Laurent stood in front of her.

  ‘Bonjour, Madame Aires Cabral. Please, come in.’

  He smiled at her, holding the door open so she could walk through it. Closing it behind him, he double-locked it, just in case Monica the maid should make an unexpected appearance. Having finally got Bel alone, he wanted no disturbances.

  ‘What a wonderful view,’ she said nervously as she stood in the drawing room and gazed out over the ocean.

  ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’

  ‘Laurent . . .’

  ‘Izabela . . .’

  They smiled at each other as they spoke at the same time.

  ‘Shall we sit down?’ she asked him, walking to a chair and seating herself, trying in vain to calm her rapid breathing.

  Laurent pulled up another chair so that it was facing hers and sat down. ‘So, what would you like to talk about?’

  ‘I . . .’ She shook her head and sighed. ‘It’s no good. I shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Neither should I,’ he agreed. ‘But it seems that in spite of our determination not to be, here we both are.’

  ‘Yes.’ Bel took a deep breath. ‘I’ve come to tell you that we can’t possibly meet again.’

  ‘That’s what you said in the park in Paris. And look where it got us.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to come here to Rio.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. Are you sorry I have?’

  ‘Yes . . . No . . .’ Bel sighed in desperation.

  ‘You’re married,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Yes. I know that the situation is impossible.’

  ‘Bel . . .’ He stood up from his chair and walked swiftly towards her, kneeling down in front of her and taking her hands in his. ‘Last night, I asked if you were happy and you replied that you weren’t.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘And then I asked you if you still loved me, and you said you did.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Hush, let me speak. I understand your circumstances and how inappropriate and badly timed my arrival here is. And I promise you, if you tell me now to my face to go away, as you did in Paris, I swear I will leave Rio as soon as I can book my passage. You have to tell me what it is you want. Because I think I’ve made it obvious what I want.’

  ‘To be my lover?’ She glanced down at him. ‘Because that is the most I can ever offer you. And it’s not what you deserve,’ she added.

  ‘What I deserve has no bearing on the situation. Fate has decreed that you’re the woman I want. And try as I might, I can’t seem to live without you. Ideally, yes, I’d like to kidnap you right now, put you in my suitcase and drag you off to France so we could live together for the rest of our lives. But I’m prepared to compromise. Are you?’ His soulful eyes were darting across her face, searching it for clues, drinking in her features.

  Bel looked down at him, wondering how she could ever have doubted his feelings for her. He had walked away from his life in France and followed her across the world to Rio, even though he had no guarantee that he would even find her here. And unwittingly, her poor husband had played a part in their reunion. Thinking of Gustavo brought her to her senses.

  ‘What’s past is past,’ she said as firmly as she could manage. ‘And it’s not fair for you to simply arrive here, making me remember, when I had done all I could to tell you goodbye, to try to forget you. I . . .’ Tears came to her eyes and her voice trailed off.

  ‘Ma chérie, forgive me, the last thing I want to do is to make you cry. And yes, you are right,’ he agreed. ‘You told me to go away and I didn’t take any notice. So any fault lies with me and not you.’

  ‘But tell me how I can find the strength to say goodbye to you again?’ She wept despairingly as his arms went around her. ‘You don’t know what it took last time. And to do it again . . .’

  ‘Then don’t do it. Just tell me you want me to stay and I will.’

  ‘I . . .’

  Laurent slowly bent his head and began to kiss her neck, so gently that it felt as though a butterfly’s wing was caressing her skin. She groaned. ‘Please, please, don’t make it any harder than it is.’

  ‘Bel, stop torturing yourself. Let’s just be together while we have the chance. I love you, chérie, so very much,’ he murmured, as his fingertips smoothed the tears from her cheeks.

  She reached for his hand and clasped it in her own. ‘You have no idea how much I’ve longed for you,’ she wept.

  ‘As I have for you.’ He leant towards her and put his lips to hers.

  Bel melted against him, her resolve broken, knowing she could fight no longer.

  ‘Chérie,’ he said as their lips finally broke apart, ‘let me take you to bed. I will accept if you simply want to lie next to me, but I just want to hold you.’

  Without waiting for a response, Laurent swept Bel up from the chair and carried her through to the bedr
oom, placing her gently on the mattress.

  Bel braced herself for a frenzied onslaught, as she’d come to expect with Gustavo, but it didn’t happen. Instead, Laurent lay down next to her and enfolded her in his arms. As he kissed her again, his fingertips tenderly traced the contours of her breasts and her waist through her clothes, until she herself could think of nothing else but the promise of his naked body on hers.

  ‘Shall I set you free, or will you?’ he whispered into her ear.

  She rolled over willingly to allow him to undo the buttons at the back of her dress. Slowly he did so, taking his time to kiss the area of bare flesh that each button revealed, then he slid the sleeves of her dress down her arms. Next came her brassiere, and once that was free of her body and discarded on the floor, he gently rolled her towards him and looked at her.

  ‘You are so, so beautiful,’ he whispered, as she arched herself towards him, her body aching for his touch. As his lips sought out her nipples, a moan escaped her.

  His hand moved slowly across her perfect, flat stomach as he raised his head from her breast and looked at her, his eyes seeking permission to go further. She gave it with her own, and he carefully undid her suspenders and rolled down her stockings, each brush of his fingers against her flesh sending electric currents of longing through her. Finally, she lay completely naked in front of him.

  Breathing heavily, he paused for a moment, surveying her body.

  ‘Forgive me, but I want to sculpt you now.’

  ‘No, I . . .’

  He silenced her with a kiss. ‘I’m teasing you, my beautiful Bel. All I wish to do is make love to you.’

  Soon, he was also naked and as she chanced a shy glance at him, she saw how beautiful he was too. His body covered hers, and finally, after making sure she was ready, he entered her. As her own body accepted him willingly, ecstatically, she suddenly understood what it was that her mother had been describing.

  Afterwards, as they lay languidly in each other’s arms, she gave in to the urge to touch him, to caress every centimetre of him, to discover his physical being. And she was eager for him to do the same to her.

  Although she tried not to, as Laurent dozed next to her later, Bel could not help thinking of the contrast to the couplings she’d endured with Gustavo. How could the same act elicit such a startlingly different response from her mind and her body?

  She understood then with sudden clarity that Laurent had been right when he’d said she shouldn’t marry Gustavo. For nothing could ever change the fact that she didn’t, and wouldn’t ever, love her husband the way he loved her.

  The revulsion she felt towards him physically was not his fault – he was not a bad man, a tyrant who didn’t care for her. If anything, he cared too much and wanted to show her in the only way available to him.

  ‘What is it?’

  Laurent had woken, and was gazing intently at her.

  ‘I was thinking about Gustavo.’

  ‘Try not to, Bel. No good can come of it.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand,’ she sighed, and rolled away from him onto her side. She felt his hand caress the soft contour of her hip, then slide into the valley of her waist. He pulled her towards him, so that they lay curved into each other’s bodies as one.

  ‘I know, ma chérie, I know. It’s a terrible, terrible mess. And we must both do all we can to shield your husband from it.’

  As his hand moved upwards to cup her breast, she sighed with pleasure and wriggled luxuriantly against him. All thoughts of Gustavo were forgotten as Laurent made love to her again, and she was transported to realms of pleasure that she’d never visited before.

  Afterwards, Bel too dozed contentedly until she jumped awake and saw the time.

  ‘Meu Deus! I must leave. My driver will be waiting for me at Madame Duchaine’s,’ she gasped in panic, scrambling out of the bed. She collected her clothes, which were either twisted in the sheets or strewn on the floor, and dressed as fast as she could. All the time, Laurent watched her quietly from the mattress.

  ‘When will I see you again?’ he asked.

  ‘Not tomorrow, for I must make an appearance at the church where I’m helping with the making of the mosaic for the Cristo’s outer-self. But maybe on Monday?’ she said as she hurriedly tidied her hair, then pinned on her hat and moved towards the door.

  Laurent was immediately by her side, encircling her in his arms.

  ‘I shall miss you, every second.’

  Bel shivered as she felt his nakedness press against her. ‘And I you.’

  ‘Until then, ma chérie. I love you.’

  Bel glanced at him one last time before walking out of the door.

  38

  Over the next few months, Bel floated through the days on a wave of heightened emotion. It was as if her life before that afternoon in February at Laurent’s apartment had been no more than a dull, grey existence without meaning. Now, when she woke up in the morning and lay thinking of Laurent, every part of her body tingled with adrenaline. The blue of the sky beyond her bedroom window seemed almost dazzling in its brightness and the flowers in the garden exploded before her eyes in an exotic kaleidoscope of colour.

  As she walked down the stairs each morning to breakfast and took her place opposite the pinched, disapproving face of Luiza, she’d think of Laurent and allow a secret smile to form on her lips. Nothing could touch her, nobody could hurt her any longer. She was protected and inviolate, simply through the love the two of them shared.

  However, when she was unable to visit him at his apartment for a few days, Bel would plummet down to the depths of despair, torturing herself with visions of where Laurent was, what he was doing and who he was with. An icy fear would beset her, freezing the blood in her veins and making her shiver, even though the burning sun still forced sweat onto her brow. The truth was that he was free to love anyone he chose. And she was not.

  ‘Mon Dieu, chérie,’ Laurent had sighed as they had lain together in his big mahogany bed a few days ago, ‘I admit I’m finding it harder and harder to share you. The thought of him touching you at all sends shudders through me. Let alone in the way I just have,’ he’d added as his fingers lightly brushed her naked breast. ‘Run away with me, Bel. We’ll return to Paris. No more hiding, just endless hours filled with good wine, good food, talking, making love . . .’ His voice had trailed off in a whisper as his lips had covered hers.

  Thankfully, at least, her mother-in-law had unwittingly played a part in keeping her lover near her for the time being. As she’d promised to, Luiza had introduced Laurent to many of her rich friends in Rio, who were shown Bel’s sculpture and wanted to immortalise their own family members in a similar fashion. Laurent was currently working on a commission of a chihuahua, beloved by its wealthy owners. In essence, her mother-in-law had become Laurent’s patron, and the irony was not lost on Bel.

  ‘Not exactly the kind of work I want to be doing,’ he’d admitted to her, ‘but it keeps me out of trouble when you’re not here.’

  So, on the afternoons when Bel was unable to steal away, Laurent would chip away at the block of soapstone that Luiza had acquired for him from a mine-owning relative of hers. Luiza’s suggestion that Bel should volunteer to help clad the Cristo in the thousands of mesh sheets of soapstone at the Igreja da Glória had provided a perfect alibi for her absence from the Casa. And as her own hands closed around the smooth, cool triangles of the same material that Laurent was working on, the feel of it would comfort her.

  It was only Luiza who noticed her comings and goings to and from the Casa, as Gustavo was spending more and more time at his club and arriving home before dinner stinking of alcohol. Bel’s husband rarely enquired about her daily routine.

  In fact, thought Bel as she put on her hat and Loen went to call Jorge, the family’s driver, these days Gustavo hardly noticed her at all. In the past four months since her affair with Laurent had begun, the attentiveness he’d shown her at the start of their marriage had disappeared complet
ely. Although at night, as she joined Gustavo with trepidation in the bed they shared, he’d still attempt to make love to her, more often than not the process ended with him being unable to perform. Bel had deduced that this must be due to the fact that most of the time he could hardly stand upright before he climbed into bed. And on more than one occasion, he had passed out cold in the very act of trying to enter her. She’d roll him off her and would lie next to him, listening to his drunken snores and smelling the sourness of his breath, which seemed to permeate the bedroom. Most mornings, she’d be up, dressed and breakfasted before Gustavo had even woken.

  If his parents noticed their son’s drinking problem, they did not allude to it. The only time Luiza probed her daughter-in-law about their marriage was to ask if there was any news of a grandchild yet. She would then sniff in displeasure when Bel assured her there was not.

  Given her passionate physical relationship with Laurent, Bel was continually anxious that her body – which had not responded to Gustavo’s initial frenzied attempts to produce an heir – might succumb to Laurent’s gentle touch. And in fact, it had been her lover who had seen the worried frown creasing her forehead one afternoon and had explained to Bel how it was possible for her to attempt to avoid conceiving a child. He’d described to her the workings of her body in a way her mother never had, and told her how to watch and feel for the times when she was most likely to conceive.

  ‘It’s not fail-safe, chérie, which is why so many of us Catholics continue to have such large families.’ Laurent had smiled at her ruefully. ‘But there are ways that I can play my part too when you are in the danger time.’

  Bel had looked at him in wonder. ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘There are many artists like myself in Montparnasse who have wished to indulge in a little fun, but not end up being pursued by a woman claiming she is carrying our child.’ Laurent had seen her stricken face and moved quickly to put his arms around her and pull her to his chest. ‘Chérie, sadly, things are as they are for the present, and I would not like to see you compromised. Or any child of mine brought up by that excuse for a man that is your husband,’ he’d added. ‘So for now, we must take care.’