Leonie (23 page)

Léonie stared down at the oysters. Why wouldn’t he take her
with him? She could wait in a hotel suite in Vienna, just as easily as a hotel suite in Paris. She felt the old fear creep around her heart. Maybe he wouldn’t come back to her. She turned, the words on her lips, but caught herself just in time. She wasn’t going to think about it; of course he would come back. And if he didn’t? She steeled her heart against the thought. Wasn’t she protected this time? She had the new house, it was almost finished, and she had money in the bank, though somehow she hadn’t yet gotten around to learning about stocks and shares and how to increase her capital. Monsieur was always so busy and she’d been caught up in decorating the house. She thought longingly of the inn, so white and simple it hadn’t needed anything to make it beautiful. There, she would simply have planted a garden, perhaps added a little pool and some shade trees.

“I have a present for you.” It was another of those long boxes, like the one he’d given her on the yacht. He hadn’t given her any jewelry since then, just Bébé’s collar, and she had felt no need for any, though she’d bought lots of clothes. She enjoyed wearing them because she loved the way they felt, the touch of the fabrics and the way good clothes used her body and made it their own. Breathless with admiration, she stared at the double row of perfect pearls, the large cabachon sapphire clasp surrounded by diamonds and the matching drop earrings. “I was wrong before when I gave you the diamonds,” he said, clasping them around her neck. “A girl’s first jewels should be pearls.”

An image of Rupert flew into her mind, of how he had put that other string of pearls around her neck, lifting her hair, kissing where the pearls fit—he had used exactly the same words. They had been so much in love, and she had been so
young
.

“Don’t you like them? You can take them back if you wish, change them for something else.”

“No, oh, no.” She picked up the earrings and clipped them onto her ears, swinging her head for him to see. “They’re beautiful, Monsieur. Thank you. I shall treasure them.”

What a strange girl she was. He remembered giving jewelry to other women in his life, how they’d grabbed greedily, rushing to the mirror to try it on. He wondered what she would do when he was away. It would be a test—for him, as well as her.

He ate little, preferring to watch her, as she picked up the
fraises des bois
, one by one in her fingers, biting into them carefully, round-eyed with pleasure; oh, she was such a creature of
pleasure. Sometimes he’d watch her through the mirror when he was tying his tie and she’d be lying in bed, curled lazily with the cat, or he’d stare at her from behind the door when she didn’t know she was observed, watching as she fixed her hair, just the way he had watched his mother.

The night had turned to heavy rain as they drove back through the gleaming streets of Paris and the street lamps flickered from the gloom in a halo of rainbow drops as they sat together in the intimate warmth of the cab, not touching each other but aware of the other’s nearness. He took her arm as they walked across the foyer of the hotel, waiting silently for the elevator. As the iron grill clanged shut, locking them into its cage, he took her into his arms, crushing her against him, pushing back her fur cape so that he could get at her breasts, sliding her dress straps from her shoulders until she was naked to the waist, devouring her hungrily as she leaned against the padded wall and cried out her passion. The elevator jolted them to some sort of sense as it stopped on their floor and he folded the cape across her naked breasts as they walked sedately, hand in trembling hand, along the corridor under the curious gaze of the night chambermaid.

As the big doors slammed shut behind them he was pulling off her cape, unclasping the heavy gold belt around her waist, sliding the dress down over her hips, leaving her clad only in thin silk knickers, as golden as the hair on her body—it was all she ever wore underneath. It was the way he liked it. He guided her into the salon. The lamps were lit and the big windows stared uncurtained onto the rain-slick streets. The room was quiet except for the sounds of their breathing and the rain on the windows. He took off his jacket and laid it carefully across the chair as she waited, her hands on her breasts, anticipating his touch. He came over to her, naked and ready, wanting her,
needing
her. She sank beneath his weight into the blueness of the carpet, opening to him unresistingly, accepting his passion as he plunged into her, thrusting hard against her until she fought, scratching his back with demanding nails, begging for more as they rolled together on the rug sweating and crying like animals engaged in combat, striving toward an ultimate goal as if they were never sure that it had been reached.

–
• 19 •

Caro could see that Léonie was upset by Monsieur’s absence. She never actually said so, but she was quieter than usual and seemed at a loss as to how to fill her time. “We’ll go to Drouet’s salesroom,” she told her one afternoon, “and see if we can find the sort of bed you want—although I’m not too sure what it is you’re looking for.”

“Nor am I,” said Léonie, cheering up at the thought of the bed, “but I’ll know it when I see it.” Monsieur had been gone now for three weeks and she hadn’t heard a word from him, and despite herself she was worried. Oh, she knew he wasn’t in Paris, she was sure of that, so he must have gone on to St. Petersburg. It seemed so far away. God, how she hated
waiting!
I’ll never do it again, she promised herself for the hundredth time.

“At least the house is almost finished,” said Caro as they strolled toward Drouet’s in the early spring sunshine. “When Monsieur gets back, you’ll be able to move in.”

Léonie was suddenly inspired. “I want to move in right away,” she said, tugging Bébé as she paused to sniff the new buds on the bushes. “I want to be there when he gets back. It will all be finished, Caro, and I’ll show him his new home … our home,” she added triumphantly. “I
must
find that bed today, Caro, it’s important.”

Caro looked at her anxiously, she was talking like a new bride, like a girl in love. Did she really know the man she was dealing with?

“Tell me,” she asked casually as they pushed open Drouet’s big glass doors, “have you been having your lessons?”

“What lessons?”

“You remember, you were going to learn how to invest your
capital. Monsieur was going to show you how to buy stocks and shares, and land.”

“I shall start as soon as he gets back,” she announced confidently. “Now that the house is finished, I shall have more time.”

“I warned you once,” said Caro, “that it’s too late at the end of an affair to wonder why you didn’t make sure things were in order.”

“But they are in order, Caro, I have my account at the Agence de Credit de Paris, and the house is in my name. I can have anything I want,” she fingered the pearls at her neck, “but somehow now that I can have it there isn’t much that I do want … except a bed.” Grasping Caro’s hand and tucking Bébé under her arm, she ran laughing down the corridors of the august salesroom, turning heads as she went.

The house was absolutely silent. Léonie walked slowly through the rooms with Bébé pattering uncertainly at her heels, drawing the curtains carefully over each window and turning on lamps. She rearranged cushions on newly upholstered sofas and straightened stacks of books piled on convenient tables, waiting for readers. She had hung the walls of the great salon with a transparent film of silver tissue, so fine that the silk weavers in Lyons had warned her against it. “It’s meant to be the train of some wonderful bridal gown, madame,” the man had said, shocked into disbelief when she told him she wanted hundreds of yards for her walls. “But, madame, it will disintegrate in a few years,” he’d protested.

“Then you shall weave me more,” she had said, dismissing his cries of dismay at the expense. And she had been right, she thought, pulling the silver cord that released the matching curtains, watching as they drifted in soft folds with the subtle glimmer of stars under a veil of fog. She had achieved her aim. The room was theatrical, a backdrop for a glittering cast of people that she would invite. The enormous carpet was a pale dove gray garlanded with flowers in such muted pastels that they looked submerged beneath some translucent rippling lake. The sofas and chairs were covered in heavy slubbed silks in cream and fawn, moonlit gray and charcoal, and the lamps and sconces were silver with pleated peach-colored shades designed to cast warm pools of light. She had arranged bouquets of pale flowers, choosing only those with a heavy scent so that one was aware of their texture and perfume rather than their individual beauty. Cabinets and
tables in rare woods displayed exquisite objects of porcelain and silver. Léonie sighed. Yes, the room was ready. All it needed was people.

She picked up Bébé and walked through the house to her bedroom, touching the immaculate cream-colored bedspread, running a hand across the champagne moiré walls, turning on the taps in her vast rose-colored bathroom, remembering the first time she’d taken a bath in a tub like this, at Caro’s.

It was no use pretending, she thought miserably as she curled up on the big bed. He wasn’t coming. She knew he was in Paris, she’d heard yesterday that he was in town, and she’d had the servants scurrying around making sure everything was in place, preparing a special dinner just for two, to be held in their own new small dining room, with candlelight and flowers. She had waited, eager to see him, waiting to hear his words of approval for their house, anxious to show him his study and the present she’d placed there, with its inscription. She had worn his favorite dress, the barbaric amethyst one that he’d chosen in Cannes with the belt that he had had copied in gold at Cartier. She’d brushed her long hair, flinging it back to float loosely so that he might run his hands through it and grip it, pulling back her head to kiss her. And she had had the Roederer Cristal champagne iced and ready.

He hadn’t come. She had waited all night. And then all morning and afternoon. And then she’d sent the servants away, telling them to take the next few days off, that she would pay them anyway. She was only glad that Maroc was not yet there to witness her humiliation.

She was alone in the great house. Just she and Bébé, who watched her with eyes of love, comforting Léonie with her warmth. She ran the bathwater, throwing in a handful of fragrant salts, steaming the air with jasmine and green-growing scents, and then she lay back in the water with her hair floating around her and wondered again, what should she do?

He smelled the jasmine as he came up the stairs, stopping with a shock of recognition as he remembered the boy hiding behind his mother’s dressing room door. Putting the parcels he was carrying carefully on the bed, he walked to the bathroom door. Bébé stared at him from the chair but didn’t move. Léonie was stretched out in the tub, her eyes closed. She hadn’t heard his step on the soft carpets. He closed the door and went back into the other room,
glancing at the silken hangings with a smile. He opened the large box and pulled out the fur, tossing it casually across the end of the bed. And on top of it he put the papers, scattering them equally casually over the bedspread. He went into his dressing room, inspecting the narrow iron campaign bed, the sort that had been used by generals on the march to battlefields—this one had the twin bees of Napoleon emblazoned at the head. He had stipulated that she must find him a bed like this, like the one he had at the house on the Ile Saint-Louis that had come from his father’s room. The walls were gray linen and the rug a caramel color. He liked its simplicity. She had understood what he needed.

Léonie wrapped a towel loosely around her and trailed, still wet, into her bedroom. Bébé trotted after her, leaping onto the bed sniffing cautiously at the fur, then curled up on it comfortably. Léonie stared at the bed, the fur, the papers. She picked one up. Securities, the envelope said. Putting it down, she lifted Bébé off the fur and touched it hesitantly. It was tawny and rich and infinitely soft. She ran, still holding it, into his room, trailing the towel and the fur, her wet hair shedding drops of water as she threw open the door. He was leaning against the window, arms folded, looking out into the night. He turned his head as he heard her.

“You’re back,” she said accusingly.

“So it seems,” he answered dryly.

“What’s this?” She lifted the envelopes.

“Those are the stocks and shares I promised you.”

She dropped the towel and tore them open, examining their contents. The European Iron and Steel Company, she read, a thousand shares, her name across each one. And the de Courmont Automobile Company—the same. Her hand trembled. Why did he do it? Why did he torture her and then give her exactly what she wanted? Why did he make her so insecure and then make her dreams of security come true?

He walked over to her and picked up the fur. “Are you glad to see me?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She turned her head angrily, avoiding his eyes. “I heard you were in Paris yesterday.”

“I was here the day before that, but there were things to be taken care of, and naturally I had to see my family.”

“Naturally.”

“You’re all wet.” He touched her damp arm, brushing off the
drops with his fingers, and then he turned the rich tawny fur inside out, wrapping her in it, closing the fur onto her still-wet flesh, rubbing it against her, drying her with it. He carried her over to the narrow bed and tossed the sable coat across it, lying with her, crushed together in the intimacy of the small bed. She smelled of jasmine and wet fur and he began to kiss her.

She awoke hours later, still crushed beneath him on the narrow iron bed, his head nuzzled against her breast. “Tell me,” she whispered in his sleeping ear, “tell me that you love me.”

He’d rolled over, instantly awake. “Don’t be ridiculous, Léonie,” he said, walking toward the bathroom. “We had this discussion once before. I explained my feelings for you then. They haven’t changed.” She heard him turn on the taps and the tub beginning to fill and then she threw on a robe and ran down the stairs. She opened the door to his study and crept in the darkness to the desk, feeling for the little silver desk set, her present to him with its futile, childish inscription. She ran back upstairs clutching it to her breast and then she hid it at the very back of her armoire, where it would never be found.