From a Paris Balcony

by Ella Carey

  Marthe clearly chose her own lovers—it was they who had to woo her—and she was not short of offers: carriages, gifts, publicity in high-fashion magazines in return for an hour or two spent in this very apartment. There were calling cards from the press—dates set for Marthe to receive magazine editors here on Rue Blanche. Invitations to charity events, the promise of season tickets to the opera from her many admirers, pleas to join men at Longchamp Racecourse, personal cards from gentlemen all over Europe. Some of the letters held flowers that Marthe had kept, touchingly, pressed between the old papers.

  One admirer compared Marthe favorably to Liane de Pougy—a rival courtesan who Sarah learned in the letter had recently entertained the Prince of Wales. Marthe was presented with diamonds, pearls, sapphires, gold, rubies, and emeralds in exchange for her favors. One gentleman offered her a jewelry collection to outshine that of Carolina Otero, who was famous for entering Maxim’s wearing her entire collection of tiaras, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings at once in a blaze of wealth that was only enhanced by her evening gown with its plunging neckline. Another courtesan, Liane de Pougy, arrived in Otero’s wake wearing a simple white evening gown, with her lady’s maid behind her carrying a velvet cushion on which sat a jewelry box weighted with jewels. Another gentleman promised Marthe his mother’s tiara in payment for dinner at Maxim’s, where he swore they would not be caught out if they were discreet.

  Sarah kept on reading even when she saw the light disappear from underneath Laurent’s door. She could not stop. She was simply going to have to devour the letters in one gluttonous feast.

  There was a declaration of love from Georges Clemenceau, and another from Paul Deschanel, whom she looked up. He was the eleventh president of France.

  By two o’clock in the morning, Sarah had laid the last letter aside.

  There was not one reference to Louisa West or Henry Duval.

  Not a thing.

  If she hadn’t found the letter in her father’s locked box, Sarah would never have thought there was any link between Henry and Marthe at all. But there was a connection. She just had to find it. And somehow, the fact that she had not discovered anything yet spurred her on even harder, because she suspected now that everything between Henry and Marthe had to be hidden.

  In the early hours, Sarah fell asleep, her head resting on the desk. The next morning, she woke in exactly the same spot to the sound of knocking on her door. She stood up, ran a hand over her hair.

  “Sarah, are you okay?” Laurent’s voice resonated into the room.

  Sarah took a glance around the bedroom. Marthe’s letters were arranged on the floor in neat, orderly rows. Sarah had tied up the bundles in turn, careful not to separate them from where they had been kept. They appeared to make some sort of chronological sense and she did not want to upset the order of things.

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

  “Now?” she asked, her nose crinkling up at the very idea of her appearance. The idea of a daily audience with him in her pajamas was not appealing at all. Not that she had even changed into sleepwear last night. She ran a hand down her tousled, day-old dress.

  “I have to go out to meet with the magazine right away. Can we please have a chat?”

  Sarah cleared her throat. Laurent was her roommate. He didn’t care what she looked like. She moved toward the door. Then stopped.

  “Just one moment,” she called, scuttling off to her bathroom.

  “Okay—but I’m running late. It’s late. I want to check how it went with Marthe’s letters. I went out last night and arrived home too late to disturb you.”

  Sarah ran to the basin and took a look at her face. Old mascara rendered her already big eyes huge. Her bob was a mess—she brushed that. Other than that, she swished some breath freshener around in her mouth, brushed loose powder over her face, squirted on some perfume, performed a quick flick with lip gloss, and cleaned up the panda eyes.

  “I hope you found something?” Laurent was calling through the door.

  Sarah faced herself in the mirror. She looked fine. She would take a shower immediately after this, though.

  “Sarah?”

  “Yes.” She zipped back to the bedroom door, slowing down as she neared it.

  She opened the door. Sensed her eyebrows raising in what she hoped was not an impertinent stare.

  Laurent leaned against the door frame, one arm resting high above Sarah’s head. She didn’t move, although she was a little too close, she knew. He stayed put. His eyes looked pained somehow, and she felt her head tilt to one side in response. He cleared his throat.

  “So, anything of interest?”

  Sarah shook her head. “No . . .”

  “Okay. You look exhausted.” He leaned forward. “Look, why don’t you take a break from it, for today, and then work out what the next step forward is? I’m happy to help if I can. I have to rush off. Have a good day, and don’t worry. I think you should push on with it.”

  Sarah ran a hand down her dress. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll work something out. And thank you, I’d love to have a chat about it.”

  “No problem.” He grinned, his handsome face lighting up with genuine warmth. “I’ll see you this evening. I should be back about eight.”

  Sarah watched him leave. For some reason, the thought that he would be back in the apartment tonight was reassuring. She would like to take him up on his offer. She would like to talk to him about what she should plan to do next.

  Laurent was not in the apartment that evening. Sarah fought with irritation at her expectation that he would stick to his word and irritation that she was, in fact, disappointed that he hadn’t come home. After all, she had enjoyed a gorgeous day in Paris—visiting the Musée d’Orsay, wandering across to the Eiffel Tower. She had ridden right to the top. She would be perfectly fine on her own for the evening.

  There was no reason Laurent had to tell her if his plans had changed since this morning. He had just been being polite, letting her know what was happening, that was all it was.

  At eight o’clock, Sarah looked around the apartment. Normally, she would have reveled in the opportunity to spend an evening surrounded by Marthe de Florian’s beautiful things. But it was warm outside. And she was in Paris. Twilight was only just starting to settle in, and that lent an even more romantic feel to the air—that half-dimmed light that was filled with a sense of quiet—before the magical dark-velvet evening ahead. Sarah moved to the window in Marthe’s sitting room and threw open the set of double French doors that led out to the wide balcony over the street. Sarah stood out there for a moment, reveling in the warm Paris air. The restaurants in the street had just opened, and people, dressed for dinner, strolled up and down, looking for places to eat.

  She lingered, enjoying the view from the balcony, and the sense of possibility that an evening in Paris could bring. Then she went to her bedroom, put on a little black dress and a pair of strappy patent-leather sandals, sprayed her favorite Jo Malone, and walked into it, to be enveloped by the enticing mist. She changed her earrings. Even though Steven had bought them, she still liked them and had decided to keep them. It was no good letting go of every last piece from her history. Diamonds, Sarah had decided, could be an exception when throwing things from a troubled past away.

  Once she was out in the street, she looked up and down. Suddenly feeling a little vulnerable, alone in Paris, she decided to head toward Le Bon Georges, the restaurant that Laurent had chosen for her on her first evening in the city. After all, some of the restaurants around Montmartre looked as if they were fully geared for tourists, and she didn’t want to get caught in a trap. She had made an effort and if she was going to eat alone, she was going to eat somewhere lovely.

  The waiters, in typical charming French style, remembered her. Of course they did. She was led, with great courtesy and aplomb, to the exact table she had occupied the first time she came. A complimentary glass of champagne appeared a
few seconds later, and after a few sips, she sat back to read the menu.

  Two hours later, having enjoyed a melt-in-the-mouth meal of legume tart, roast shoulder of lamb, and crème caramel, Sarah decided it was time to wander back to the apartment. She strolled back slowly, admiring the pretty lamp-lit streets, until she reached Marthe’s stunning old building. She stopped at the entrance. Lights shone from every room in the apartment. So. Laurent was back. Glad that she was wearing one of her favorite dresses for once, Sarah took the elevator up to the top floor.

  She slipped her key in the lock. The kitchen was lit up, but no one was inside. Sarah poured herself a glass of water. Jet lag was starting to kick in again. The wine she enjoyed with dinner had made her sleepy, and now all she wanted to do was rest. After she said goodnight to Laurent. She was going to have to talk to him—to someone—in order to come up with a plan about Louisa. Laurent, or Loic—they were both so helpful. But for now, yawning was taking over and the thought of her comfortable bed was delicious. Loic and Cat had spared no expense in furnishing the apartment, and Sarah couldn’t wait to snuggle into the gorgeous surroundings.

  She moved through Marthe’s sitting room. The beginnings of the next portrait that Laurent was working on sat on his easel. It was strange, looking at his work when he wasn’t there. There was almost something eerie about the just-started piece. The confident face of one of the models whom Sarah had met stared out of the picture at her. She was no doubt famous here, Sarah thought, worthy, most probably, of a front cover on Vogue, if the magazine was sending her off to be painted by the likes of Laurent. Sarah moved on toward Laurent’s bedroom. And stopped with her hand resting on the handle. The handle would not turn. The handle was most definitely locked.

  Unmistakable sounds did not drift out of the room—they resounded. Sarah closed her eyes and stood there. It was as if she were paralyzed. What was she supposed to do? Knock? Interrupt Laurent during what was clearly a very unsubtle tryst? A huge sense of disappointment rushed through her system, which was ridiculous, so she pushed it away. Sarah decided that the only thing to do was to wait until they had . . . finished. She must be practical. Logic told her that he would realize that she would need to go to her own room sooner rather than later.

  Sarah moved back into the sitting room, still frowning at her own sense of disappointment. And questioning herself. Had she wanted to see Laurent while she was wearing something strappy and almost French?

  The evening had become cooler and her little black dress afforded her no warmth. It was a dress for hot summer evenings, for dancing on well-lit terraces with crowds of people, for strolling through Paris with a man who would lend you his jacket. Would that ever happen to her again?

  She had often found herself thinking the same thoughts. Would she ever fall in love again? She had thought she loved Steven. She was sure she had, once. It was just that trying to equate the new Steven, the new cold, cheating husband whom he had turned out to be, with the man she had married, the man with whom she had thought she would spend the rest of her life, was not only a difficult task, it was something that still caused her stomach to turn.

  Now she closed the curtains, pulled the window closed, drew the wooden shutters, and clipped them together, with what she hoped was a bit of a resonant thud. But this didn’t make the room any warmer.

  She stood on the spot, hideously awkward, hearing talk now, a confident woman’s voice. Fast French. Nothing she could understand. Then a response, much quieter than the female tones. Sarah bit her lip. He sounded intimate, close. It was the sound of a lover’s voice. Again, she had to stop herself from wondering what was going to happen in her life.

  She moved to Marthe’s chaise longue. She could fall asleep on her feet, given a chance. She had to sit down.

  She perched on the edge of Marthe’s infamous piece of furniture, pushed away thoughts of Marthe’s antics right here on this chaise longue, and heard the voices, again, through the bedroom door. His, soft, gentle. Caring. She closed her eyes. And tears started to build up, slipping through her eyelashes, falling silently onto her cheeks.

  She didn’t know why the thought of him with someone else mattered. After all, he had most likely only been kind to her today out of a sense of responsibility because she was, in effect, Loic’s guest. But, somehow, she had thought of him as a different person than who he clearly was.

  Loic had warned her.

  What had she been thinking?

  The sounds from the bedroom started up again and Sarah slipped her shoes off, lying back on the chaise longue. She had just enjoyed his company, that was all. And the thing was, it was the first time in months she had really enjoyed the presence of any man. She had holed herself up in Boston, not going out, except to the odd film with her girlfriends, shocked from the loss not only of her husband, but of both her parents, reeling from the fact that she was, suddenly, all alone.

  She rested a hand on her forehead. Her thoughts started to become more blurred. There was no way to know what was going to happen tomorrow, let alone in the more distant future. She just had to stop worrying about that. Closing her eyes, she sensed that delicious drifting, away from everything—off into sleep.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Paris, 1894

  Louisa’s wedding was a sea of white dresses, white bouquets, white kid gloves, white silk stockings, and white satin slippers. Henry presented her with a set of diamonds and pearls the night before the ceremony—a necklace, a bracelet, a tiara, and earrings. Louisa wore a sixpence for luck in one of her shoes. Everything was perfect, a painting with every brushstroke in place. Only one thing was missing. None of Louisa’s family were there from Boston.

  As she passed through Ashworth village in the Duval ceremonial carriage, she waved at the locals who had lined up for a glimpse before she walked up the aisle. The village church that she had passed the first day she had gone riding with Charlie had been turned into a blooming version of itself. Flowers and palms cascaded on pedestals under every stained glass window, and the pews dripped with roses.

  After the wedding breakfast at Ashworth, she and Henry took the carriage, along with six white horses for luck, to the train station for the trip to Dover and the continuing journey on to France. Henry had organized the honeymoon. And Louisa could not contain her excitement at going to Paris.

  The only poignancy was that she had to say farewell to Meg as she embarked on a grand tour of Europe with Guy. The fact that she would not see her close friend for several months while she travelled with Guy was a mixed blessing—Louisa was happy for Meg but she couldn’t help but sense that she was waving good-bye to the last vestige of her life in America. And she felt that now she was facing her new life, completely alone.

  After the wedding breakfast, Charlie came and stood by Louisa’s side. He leaned down, kissed her on the cheek, shook Henry’s hand, and then told his parents he was going back to work. Louisa had watched him stride away and had ignored another strange pang as he disappeared.

  Now it was her first night in Paris. And she was alone in the vast Duval residence.

  Henry had, almost immediately upon their arrival, gone out.

  Louisa had to admit that she was entranced by the Duvals’ Paris house. It was on Ȋle Saint-Louis, overlooking the Seine. A grand gateway on Rue Saint-Louis en l’Ȋle led to a square courtyard surrounded by two-story buildings. The top floor of one wing contained a gallery, on either side of which were various formal salons, while below was a home filled with treasures. There were paintings and porcelain, along with flowers, family photographs, and small, intimate pieces that would all bear witness to old friendships and infatuations that had affected generations of the Duval family.

  Henry had insisted that Louisa rest after the long journey from Ashworth. She had accepted this. She was tired, but now as she sat in the dining room having dinner by herself, she wished she had gone out, wished he had come back to dine with her. She had thought he was just going out for the duration of the afte
rnoon. What was more, she had to stop herself from dwelling on the fact that he had not invited her to accompany him at all.

  Two footmen stood in attendance in the otherwise silent, empty dining room. The long mahogany table was decorated with an elaborate silver candelabra that had been lit for Louisa’s sole benefit. Tiny candle flames shone out through the open windows that overlooked the Seine, sending flickering light onto the trees outside, their leaves almost touching the old window panes.

  The sounds of people strolling and laughing outside drifted up through the darkness into the room while Louisa stared at her entrée.

  She had lost her appetite.

  The maid had taken great care with Louisa’s appearance, not seeming to consider that she was dining alone. Louisa took a sip from her wineglass. She had barely picked at her food—salmon and pheasant and venison were all laid on as if she were going to eat for twenty, but all she had been doing was sitting in a carriage, then resting in her gold-leaf bed. Her appetite was nonexistent. She yearned to go out for a walk.

  After what she decided was a decent amount of time to sit there at the table, Louisa placed her gold cutlery back down on her porcelain plate. The clink of it resonated in the silence. One of the footmen almost jumped. He took her food away. The other footman was behind her faster than she could move to stand up.