Leonie (38 page)

It was Edouard who had chosen the site, buying it for a song, knowing that one day its value, set as it was facing Copacabana Beach—where long curling emerald waves plumed with white unfurled themselves slowly to crash in a smooth line, bubbling into the soft sand—would skyrocket. Edouard had thrown himself into the plans for the house, busying himself with the minutest details, planning and replanning, seeking perfection in the d’Aurevilles’ new home, as though not allowing himself time to think of anything—or anyone—else. He gave the same energy to his toil in the rubber plantation, buried in the Amazon forests for months on end, sending telegrams from Manaus when he could to let Isabelle know he was all right, and long, loving messages for Amélie. Even now, Isabelle suspected he still carried a lonely torch for a woman
he barely knew and to whose child he was now father. Léonie. What a miracle she had worked on their lives. She had brought them a bounty of blessings by giving them Amélie. It wasn’t only that Amélie brought back tender memories of Charles as a boy—in the way she tilted her head when she smiled, or clenched her fists in determination when she walked, or in her low, bubbling, joyful laughter—but because of her own loving nature and intelligence. And there was no mistaking whose child she was. Amélie was the image of her mother.

Amélie had finally won her battle and was to go to school. Of course, she had wanted to attend the Collegio Pedro II with all the do Santos boys, but she had been forced to settle for a girls’ convent school. And that, thought Isabelle, was the problem. Not for Amélie, but for herself. With Amélie as its center, her daily routine of nannies and governesses had dominated Isabelle’s life. And now, with Amélie away all day, time would hang heavy on her hands. Unless, of course, she went ahead with her plan. The idea had evolved from the compliments of friends. Compliments earned by the faithful Celestine, her old cook from the château, who, with her husband, Georges, had refused to be pensioned off when Isabelle left France. The couple had resisted all of Isabelle’s arguments against their coming to Brazil. Celestine had learned new ways in the kitchens of the do Santos villa, where she had been initiated into the mysteries of Brazilian cooking, with its African origins and its special oils and spices, black beans and chili peppers. There had been other mysteries perpetuated by the do Santos servants that they hadn’t cared to penetrate: the rams’ horns tied to the trees, the strange plants brewed into mysterious potions, the fires lit some nights on the kitchen doorstep—all meant to keep out the devils. “Whatever next,” Celestine had said in amazement as she’d discovered the tiny labels affixed to the jars of preserves and jams. “They’re prayers to keep out the ants!” It never failed to surprise her that such nice people could have such heathen ways. But her cooking, always superb in France, had taken on a new dimension, and the Villa d’Aureville—with its name written in an arch of delicately wrought iron across the immense gates and its guardian griffins from the old pillars at the château—had soon become known as the house that served the best food in Rio, and in the loveliest, most civilized surroundings. An invitation to dinner at Isabelle’s was prized indeed. And, after
all, thought Isabelle, I ran a château with thirty bedrooms for most of my life; what could be so difficult about this idea?

The question was, how would Edouard and Francisco react to it? There was, she decided as she descended the stairs for lunch, no time like the present for finding out!

“I have been thinking,” she said some minutes later as Francisco poured her a glass of pale pink wine, “that with Amélie away so much, my life may become a little boring.”

Francisco’s and Luiza’s dark eyes met hers and Edouard’s quizzical gray ones lit with a smile. What was she up to now?

“I am considering,” said Isabelle clearly, “opening a restaurant. It will be called the Pavillon d’Aureville.”

The office was stifling. Gilles ripped off his jacket and flung it across a chair, and loosened his tie as he paced to the window and gazed out across the leafy abundance of chestnut trees. It was a perfect day in May, perfect for being on the Côte d’Azur—on the yacht, maybe, with a woman, enjoying the sun and the breezes and the freshness of early summer. But with what woman? Oh, he had tried it. There had been women since Léonie, all they did was satisfy the urge of the moment. There was never anyone who fulfilled the
need
.

From his desk piled high with papers he picked up the latest report—she was still at the old place, living there quietly, eking out a small living running it as an inn. Why—when she could have everything? She hadn’t even cared when he had taken it all back, she’d sent him the keys to the safe deposit in the bank—his own bank, where he had the master keys anyway—and told him to take back his jewelry. She had left her clothes hanging in the closets—the sable coat and the floor-length blue fox, the gowns from Worth and the negligées from Serrat. She’d ripped the worthless share certificates to pieces and scattered them across the bed, and he had had her name eliminated from the title deeds to all the properties—except one: the inn. Its title belonged to her free and clear and he cursed the day he had given it to her; it was the one thing he couldn’t get back and it had saved her. She had her rufuge, her place to run to for safety.

It was proving impossible to spy on her in such an isolated spot and reports were sparse. She’d been into Saint-Jean to the market, or had been swimming in the morning—the usual things. Sometimes she went into Nice or Monte Carlo and had lunch in a café
and mailed some letters at the post office. She never left them in the mailbox at the top of the lane anymore, so he couldn’t discover whom she was writing to.

He threw the paper back on the desk and paced the floor restlessly. He needed that day-to-day information! He needed to know what she did now that he wasn’t there, now that she had condemned him to loneliness—again. Throwing himself into the big leather chair, he buried his head in his hands. If he knew it would be better, then he could visualize her doing what she did, almost as if he were there, just as he used to at school when he would think of his mother. With her he’d had to imagine it all, invent the scenes and the dialogue, but with Léonie it was real. Oh, God, Léonie, Léonie … come back to me.

Amélie was her one vulnerability, but there was no trace of her. He had combed Europe for the child, following the minutest leads, using top men, but all to no avail. He had started on the coast with the foster parents, but they had known nothing; he had had Caro and Alphonse followed for two years, and Maroc … everyone she knew. He’d even—farfetched though it was—had someone make inquiries at the Château d’Aureville. He had had just a glimmer of an idea that she might take the girl there—ridiculous, of course, to think that a family like the d’Aurevilles might accept a bastard child some woman claimed was their son’s, but then that woman was Léonie. His man had reported that the château was closed and shuttered and that the Comtesse Isabelle d’Aureville—a broken woman since the death of her son—had gone abroad. He was upset by the news of Isabelle d’Aureville; he hadn’t considered Charles’s mother when he’d made the arrangements. He had called off his man at once and tried to forget her.

It always came back to the same thing: Amélie was the key to Léonie. Without Amélie he had nothing, with her he could offer Léonie everything, a home with her child, security—and himself. If she didn’t agree, then the child became his weapon: Léonie would have to come back to him to make sure her daughter came to no harm. And, of course, once she came back, everything would be all right, it would be like it was in the beginning. He could remember that summer when she had swum from the yacht, and afterward fed him plates of shrimp and cheese … no more omelettes, she had said … they had laughed together and afterward he had made love to her. He had possessed her … owned her.

He
had
to find Amélie. The idea came to him suddenly. If he couldn’t trace her, then there was only one way left to get her. Pulling on his jacket, he strode to the door. “I shan’t be back this afternoon, Verronet,” he called over his shoulder. “Something important has come up.”

Verronet watched him go with a raised eyebrow. Monsieur le Duc de Courmont was not the dedicated man he used to be.

–
• 36 •

The envelope looked very official and Léonie balanced it in her hands. There was something ominous about the brown thickness and the pink sealing wax over the flap; it was from a firm of notaries in Paris.

“Bébé,” she called, hurrying through the garden toward the beach. The little cat scrambled down the wooden steps after her as she slipped off her shoes and walked barefoot across the warm sand to a sunny rock and sat there for a while, gazing at the calm sea, getting up enough courage to open it. She shrugged; maybe it was good news. She ripped the envelope open and unfolded the document.

It couldn’t be true! Monsieur must be
crazy
. He was claiming her child as his own; he was going to force her to give him
his
daughter. The court would be told that she was an unfit mother who had given her child away, that she was unwilling to look after Amélie herself and that he, the father, had a legal right to his daughter, that he wished to provide for her and to ensure her welfare.

“Oh, Bébé,” she whispered, “I thought we were safe, after eight years I thought maybe he had forgotten … how could I have been so foolish?” She glanced back at the papers in her hands. What was she to do? There was no way that the court could make her tell where Amélie was, and anyway, she didn’t know. She’d never heard a single word from the d’Aurevilles; a precaution she had insisted on, fearing that Monsieur would intercept her letters and trace Amélie through them. Now she knew she had been right, for at least she couldn’t perjure herself when she said she didn’t know where Amélie was, and she would say no more than that. Except, of course, that the child wasn’t his.

She picked up Bébé and sat the cat on her knee while she
thought. Monsieur must have realized that she would say the child was someone else’s; could he really be prepared to go through with it? Was he—Gilles, Duc de Courmont—really going to give Paris the gossip it would love, let the world know that his mistress had cheated on him, that he wasn’t enough to satisfy a woman! Oh, she would humiliate him all right, she would make him look a fool. She had learned how to play him at his own game.

“If only I’d found the evidence, Bébé,” she murmured. “I could accuse him of Charles’s murder, but there is no evidence. He was too clever for that.” She and Caro and Alphonse had tried their best to break the barrier of silence that surrounded the case in Deauville, but it had proved impossible. It had all been done too quickly, no one knew anything. There was just a physical description of the man on the boat given to them by the other yachtsmen: a burly man with sparse reddish hair, an oddly small head on a large body, running to fat, and he knew about boats. The description of Charles’s assassin was engraved on her mind. Alphonse had hired detectives to search for the man, but without any luck.

She brushed off her skirt and, picking up Bébé, wandered barefoot by the edge of the water. The inn, gleaming white under the cloudless May sky, was truly her home, her refuge. She would have been content bringing up Amélie here, watching her grow. It would have been a simple life. “But we’re not meant for a simple life, Bébé,” she said, kissing the cat’s little pink nose. “We must go back to Paris and fight. The only trouble is that the fight will take money, and we have none.”

Paul Bernard studied the two women at the table by the window. Pale sun filtered through the long net curtains, throwing into relief Léonie’s dominant profile and her mane of hair. She looked from this angle like an image from some ancient coin. But the dress was quite wrong. Oh, it was expensive and fashionable, discreetly navy blue with a white collar and tiny pearl buttons, but Léonie needed something flamboyant, extravagant—she had a natural ostentation that would turn heads whatever she wore, and in the right outfit she would be more than just beautiful, she would be stunning.

She had come a long way from the little girl he had met on the train, running away from Masarde. She was even more beautiful now at twenty-eight than she had been at sixteen. She was the talk
of Paris. He could see heads turning in her direction even here, in the smartest restaurant, whose clientele were almost immune to gossip and scandal, it being such a part of their daily lives.

He lit a cigarette and sat back, watching her. He had seen her twice on stage, the first time as the showgirl La Belle France in feathers and leotard—he remembered those long legs. Then the second time, when the horse had created such confusion and she’d almost lost her balance—and her top! He had tried to find her afterward but it had been impossible. He could have taken her then and made her a success, he’d known from the first moment on the train that she had what it took—all she needed to learn was the craft—and now her prospects were even better. Everyone in Paris already knew her—she was both a celebrity and a notorious woman. The man in the street read about the proud sexy mistress of a duke, and the woman read about the desolate young mother who had been forced to hide her child from a cruel lover—each one seeing exactly what he wanted to see in her. Either way they would flock to a theater just to get a look at her. He wondered if she would do it—it was worth a try. He’d send a note across with the waiter.

Paul Bernard—the name was familiar. Léonie read the note quickly. Of course, the man from the train! Had she ever repaid him the money he’d lent her for the extra train fare? He had played a small but important part in her life—if she hadn’t met him, she would never have gone to Madame Artois, would never have worked at Serrat, never have met Maroc or Caro and Alphonse—and Rupert. And Monsieur. She might never have had the joy of Amélie.

“I must see him,” she said to Caro, “though I don’t know what he wants; probably just to say hello to the scandalous woman of the year!”