Leonie (20 page)

Her plan had grown from that. She would play Monsieur at his own game—it was, after all, a successful one. If he really wanted her, then he would come after her, just as she had gone to him. If he didn’t, well then, she had lost the gamble. She would wait and see, and meanwhile she would decide what it was that she wanted. He had asked her once before, and this time she intended to have the answer ready.

One thing she knew she did want was his lovemaking. She thought of it every night alone in bed, she fantasized it lying in the sea grasses on the Point, she imagined him with other girls, doing things to them, finding the idea exciting, and she stared at herself in the mirror, imagining how she had looked to him, how she had felt.

Bébé was becoming used to the long daily walks around the Point, though often she had to be carried back on Léonie’s shoulder, sniffing contentedly at the sea air as she joggled along. Léonie’s feet were still damp and sandy as they made their way up from the beach to the terrace, and it was Bébé who saw him first, running to him and purring against his legs. Gilles picked her up, watching as Léonie climbed the hill. He could feel the nervous dampness on the palms of his hands and he rubbed them fastidiously on his handkerchief.

She looked up and saw him. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Weren’t you expecting me, then?”

She tilted her head to one side, considering. “You’re such a busy man.…”

He sighed with exasperation. “Is this the tone our conversation is to take then, Léonie?”

“What other tone should it have?”

“I came to tell you that I haven’t changed my mind. I want you.”

“Really.” Her tone was calm, indifferent. She sat down on the steps of the terrace, brushing the sand from her feet. “How could you want a woman with feet as big as this?” she said, waving a toe in the air, laughing.

“I’m serious, Léonie!”

“What do you want me to say? That I can’t live without you? Aren’t you supposed to say that?”

“I can’t live without you.”

She looked at him surprised, searching for the truth. “Are you saying you love me?” she asked slowly.

He sighed, choosing his words carefully. “I’m not sure you know what love is, Léonie. Oh, I know you thought you were in love with Rupert, but you’ve forgotten him quickly enough.” He sat beside her on the steps of the terrace. “I want you,” he said, “because I can’t erase the memory of you from my body. I want to give you things, to make you even more beautiful. I’m known in business as a ruthless man, one who will stop at nothing to gain his ends. But I won’t tell you I love you, Léonie. I want you with passion. Isn’t that better than love? You’ve found out already, as we all do in time, that love is a fool’s emotion.”

Léonie wrapped her arms around her knees and gazed out to sea. What had she expected? That he would come on bended knee declaring his undying love? And was she in love with him? She certainly didn’t feel for him what she had felt for Rupert, but she did
want
him. Despite everything, there was something about him that pulled her toward him, something that she couldn’t resist—that she didn’t want to resist. He was right though. Love was a fool’s emotion. She had fallen into that trap once and seen where it had gotten her. Much better to live without love in the future. They understood each other. “Then it’s a business contract, Monsieur, your terms and mine.”

“Just tell me what you want.”

“I want to become a rich woman. Oh, I don’t mean just your giving me money; what I want is for you to show me how to use money to make more money. I’d like to buy land and property … will you help me, will you show me how?”

She was full of surprises. He had thought she might demand an apartment in Paris, servants, money, jewels, clothes from the best couturier, that she might want to return to the theater, to become a star. But no, she wanted to become a businesswoman! Very well. It would be amusing to teach her—though he doubted the lessons would be successful. The disciplines of business were contrary to her nature—she was too emotional, too volatile, to pay serious attention to the intricacies of finance. He certainly preferred it that way. He wanted a mistress, not a business partner.

“I’ll help you,” he said, taking her hand, turning it palm upward, kissing the soft part in between her fingers.

She curled them around his. “Then it’s a deal? We have a contract, Monsieur?”

“We do,” he said with a triumphant smile.

The cat leapt onto Léonie’s knee, claiming her position, staring at him haughtily. “I can see I have a rival.” He laughed, bringing out a box from his pocket. “I didn’t dare give you this before, in case you thought I was trying to bribe you.”

In the box was a tiny necklace, a thin strip of pavé diamonds. From its center hung a thin gold disc, and inscribed in tiny rubies was the name Bébé. It was as dainty and charming a collar as any cat had ever had and Léonie loved it. “How clever you are, Monsieur,” she said, laughing, “it’s exactly what Bébé would like.”

He refused to let her stay at the inn another night. “Leave everything,” he commanded, “you don’t need anything. Now you can buy whatever you like.”

Léonie returned to the white room just long enough to pick up the Egyptian statues.

“To remind me of my past,” she explained quietly, putting them safely in her bag.

She said good-bye to the Frenards, thanking them for everything. “Take care of the inn,” she said. “I’ll be back. It will always be my home.”

They dined alone on the yacht, sitting out under the stars on the top deck, sipping Roederer Cristal champagne while Léonie picked tentatively at salmon and asparagus, ignoring the tempting mound of
fraises des bois
.

This is the first time in my life that I have been nervous with a woman, Gilles thought. I have exactly what I set out to get and now I’m unsure of myself.

What is he thinking? wondered Léonie. He’s so quiet. My God, can he have changed his mind? Now that he’s got me, maybe he doesn’t want me!

Tension crackled between them. He stood up suddenly and went to the speaker. “Cast off, Captain, we’ll make our way along the coast to Cannes.”

There was a sudden flurry of activity as sailors appeared on the lower deck, and from below came the quiet smooth chug of powerful engines. Gilles watched restlessly. Why didn’t they move quicker? He needed the bustle and activity of the boat to cover the growing silence between them. There, that was better.

The yacht slid from the harbor, past a dozen others already twinkling with lights as the deep blue dusk began to fall, and then
they were out to sea, dipping with the slight swell, picking up the cool evening breeze. Léonie felt herself relax. She lay back on the divan under the awning gazing up at the emerging stars.

Monsieur stood over her, watching.

She held out her hand to him. “I want you,” she said softly. She had grown up.

–
• 15 •

Léonie swept into the shop on Monsieur’s arm as though she owned the place. “Bring whatever madame wants,” he commanded, and they leapt to do just that. The smart shops of Cannes were only too honored to serve Monsieur le Duc and Madame.

She sat on a tiny stiff sofa while models paraded every kind of garment. There were dresses for morning and for afternoon, dresses just for taking tea, robes for the time between tea and supper, and evening gowns of such breathtaking brilliance that she gasped. “Oh, they’re all so beautiful,” she whispered to him, “I don’t know how to choose.”

He called over the vendeuse. “Kindly advise madame on what to choose.”

“Of course, sir.”

Léonie waited eagerly to see what she would show her. “Of course, when we return to Paris you’ll go to Worth,” Monsieur said.

Worth! He was the best couturier in Paris. Caro went there. What would Caro think of her now, she wondered, running off with one man and coming back with another? If she was even speaking to her—she had never written. She felt sad thinking of Caro. But now Monsieur would help her, he would explain everything. She glanced at his thigh, next to hers on the sofa, his firm, hard thigh. She touched it with tentative fingers; he glanced sideways at her and their eyes met. She removed her hand with a smile as the vendeuse returned.

“I think these colors would suit madame.” The models paraded again, showing simple skirts in white banded with brilliant colors for mornings and fluttery afternoon dresses in cool silk in sea colors—blue, aquamarine, and jade—with pretty belts twisted and tasseled with beads. For evening there was a dress of cream-colored
lace, woven with a gold thread, tightly waisted and full in the skirt with a ruffle of lace on the deep neckline, and a barbaric-looking dress that hung from the shoulders in a soft fall of fine pleats of the supplest amethyst silk, held loosely at the waist by a belt of thin golden discs.

“You must have that,” said Monsieur suddenly, “it’ll be wonderful on you.” She looked at him in surprise as he called over the vendeuse. “Madame will have all of them,” he instructed, “and kindly make up the last one in other colors, anything that will suit her. Oh, and take that belt to Cartier—I want it copied in gold.”

“Yes, sir. Naturally it will be more beautiful in gold. And now perhaps madame would like to choose the accessories, and be fitted for the models?”

“Take care of madame, then,” he said firmly, walking toward the door, “give her whatever she wants. I’ll be at the Café Cézar, Léonie, when you’re finished. Enjoy yourself.”

Léonie’s spirits soared. “Very well,” she decided, “we must begin with lingerie.” It was a field in which she was expert, and she knew just what to choose. Then there were shoes and bags and gloves, and she just adored the hats—big straw ones with streamers, and bunches of flowers, and lacy ones for grand occasions. She chose a hat to go with each outfit. And shoes in the softest kid, that matched exactly the tiny bags that went perfectly with the dresses.

With a sigh of complete satisfaction she marched out onto the promenade clad from head to toe in new things: her underwear was sea green crêpe de Chine, her stockings were a thin cream silk, her dress was cool fine lawn in aquamarine, and her bag and shoes were a pale cream leather, matching the wide straw hat that perched uncertainly on her boisterous hair. She felt
wonderful
.

Gilles smiled as he saw her walking haughtily behind the head waiter escorting her personally to his table, casting regal glances from side to side as heads turned to watch her. She was magnificent!

“Well?” she asked, unable to resist a small twirl in front of him.

He threw back his head and laughed out loud. “Dazzling,” he announced, “you are
dazzling!
”

They cruised up and down the coast, lingering at Menton and Nice and Monte Carlo, so that she might wear her new finery and be suitably admired on his arm, or anchoring off the little fishing
village of Saint-Tropez, so that they could dine barefoot at the tin-roofed café on the beach that cooked the best lobster on the Côte d’Azur, with lashings of fresh garlicky mayonnaise. Or merely lazing on the yacht, when she would wake late to find he had been up since dawn, working in his study, and she’d persuade him to go for a swim with her, climbing down the rope ladder over the side to a special little platform where she dived and cavorted, swimming under the clear sea, eyeball to eyeball with tiny fish. He swam as he did everything else, excellently, with clean smooth strokes that drove him through the water in a straight line and back again to the boat. “You just don’t know how to play,” she called, frolicking around him, splashing him with water as he sat on the diving platform. “You’re simply taking the required amount of exercise … come back in and we’ll play!”

She raced him, losing hopelessly, laughing with the effort, and then they stretched naked on the privacy of the top deck, while the sun dried them off and rewarmed their sea-cooled skin.

Lunch was simple, though she refused to let him eat omelettes. “Never again,” she commanded, enjoying her new authority. “You will eat something different every day.” And they did, though it might be just fruit and cheese, or a mound of shrimp fresh from the bay.

And, of course, they made love, if that was what you could call their trembling driving union. It was moody, intense, adventurous, and always it was wild and overwhelming. It was never, never tender.

–
• 16 •

Caro had heard the rumors. It was impossible not to. Paris was abuzz with the story. “Do you really think it can be
our
Léonie?” she asked Alphonse over breakfast.

“I’d be willing to bet on it.” He buttered his toast neatly and took a bite. “I was there the first time they met, at your birthday party.”

“I didn’t even know that they
had
met.”

“It was strange, now that I think of it. Gilles seemed to make a point of coming over to be introduced and then he said he had to leave.… Just said hello, and went. Knowing de Courmont, he probably fancied her then and saved her up for when he had the time.”

“Really?” Caro was thinking. “Alphonse, do you remember that night at the Cabaret Internationale when there was the disaster with the horse? I always had the strangest feeling that it wasn’t just an accident … that Gilles had set it up. Could that be true?”

“But why would he go to such lengths—Gilles can get almost any woman he wants.”

“But what if,” said Caro thoughtfully, “what if he wanted Léonie and she already belonged to Rupert?”

“Then it seems all he had to do was wait.”

“I wonder …” said Caro, pouring his coffee. “I wish she’d written to me. I feel responsible for all this. I hope she’s happy with de Courmont, but I can’t imagine how … she’s such a child, Alphonse. Don’t you think we ought to do something about it?”

“Caro, she ran off with Rupert. That wasn’t the act of a child, she was a young woman in love. And now that Rupert is married,
she’s moved on to de Courmont.” He shrugged. “It happens a thousand times.”

“Yes,” sighed Caro. She knew that was true.

“Anyway, they’re back in Paris,” said Alphonse. “They arrived yesterday and he’s installed her in a suite at the Crillon. Apparently they’re living there pretty openly, despite Marie-France.”