Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) (18 page)

“Please—” she protested, her voice no more than a thread of sound.

“I didn’t mean to distress you. It’s just that I never dared think that you would come to me. I hoped, but no more. And I thought that I knew every pore of your face and individual hair on your head, but I was wrong. You are more beautiful than I imagined, yet more elusive. Suddenly I’m afraid to begin painting you, afraid there will always be more and more that I have failed to see.”

Her face was flaming and she couldn’t breathe. The wine in the glass she held trembled across its surface. She could not speak for the tightness in her throat. She did not know what she had thought might come of this meeting, but it was not this declaration. She would swear it.

“Forgive me,” he said on a swiftly drawn breath as he set down his wineglass and got to his feet, turning to place a hand on the tall mantel that was just above his shoulder height. “I didn’t intend to say these things — I meant to be calm and courteous and only a little gallant. You’ll think I’m insane.”

His perturbation seemed to ease a little of her own. “No,” she said in low, vibrant tones, “but I am not used to hearing such things said aloud. I don’t know how to answer you.”

He looked at her over his shoulder, and the warmth of his smile was like an embrace. “There is no need to answer. You are not responsible for what I feel or what I say in my ramblings. But come, drink your wine. Then we had better begin your sitting before I say something we may both regret.”

This passage between them set the pattern for the sittings that followed. Allain behaved toward Violet at all times with deference and exacting courtesy relieved by flashes of caressing humor. The compliments he made her in a constant flow caused her cheeks to burn, yet were so detached, so applied to the work he was doing, that she could not take exception to them.

He placed her on the dais each afternoon, arranging the folds of her dress, adjusting the position of her head, her hand, or her shoulder with gentle touches whose heat seemed to linger for hours. His nearness at such times made it difficult to breathe, and impossible to meet his gaze. She wondered if he ever noticed the way the fabric of her bodice trembled with the beating of her heart, or if he knew that the reason she could not relax as he instructed was because she felt so exposed under his intense scrutiny.

Perhaps in the attempt to ease her tension, he talked of many things, bits of gossip about clashes of temperament in the art community and rumors of intrigue at the court of Napoléon III; tales of the mismanagement of the funds for the rebuilding of Paris, or stories of the heroic efforts in the preparations for the war in the Crimea. He spoke of problems already with the royal marriage, less than a year and a half old, caused by the emperor’s penchant for trying to conquer every attractive woman he met.

He spoke so easily, with such humor and so much tolerance for the weaknesses and mistakes of others, that Violet began to look forward to their conversations with the keenest of pleasure. His attitudes and opinions seemed to match her own as perfectly as could be expected of another human being. There was something infinitely seductive in that meeting of the minds.

One day, after almost a month of sittings, they were speaking again of the empress.

“I saw Eugénie driving in the Bois du Boulogne yesterday,” Violet said. “She is so striking with her auburn hair and deep blue eyes, so truly lovely, that I can’t believe the emperor would look at another woman.”

Allain, concentrating on the canvas in front of him, did not look up as he answered. “There can be no doubt that he loves her; as ruler of France he might have looked higher than the daughter of a Spanish count and an American woman. They say, in fact, that Louis Napoléon tried to make Eugénie his mistress, but was so charmed by her refusal that he offered marriage instead. However, for some men who gain power, the chase is paramount, more important even than love. Louis Napoléon requires further conquests to allow him to revel in his feeling of power.”

“It seems a weakness to me,” Violet said slowly, “to need the sense of power so badly.”

A shadow passed over Allain’s face, leaving it somber. “Agreed,” he said. “It can become an addiction as destructive as absinthe.” A moment later he glanced at her with amusement rising in his eyes.

“I hear, though, that Eugénie is not inclined to accept her husband’s philandering without a struggle. She is supposed to have bribed an old crone who was once maid to another empress, Joséphine, for the recipe for a perfume known to have been used to retain the favor of the first Napoléon.”

Violet shook her head with an answering smile. “How do these things become common gossip?”

“Servants will talk, and of course the empress could not go herself to speak to Joséphine’s old maid.”

“I suppose. But this perfume, how could she possibly expect it to matter, what could be in it to make her think it would be beneficial?”

“Who can tell? Something exotic, perhaps. The tale told by the old maid is that the perfume was brought to France from Egypt by Napoléon himself. Supposedly, his soldiers unearthed it from an unmarked tomb which he was told was that of Cleopatra, along with a tablet which proclaimed it the source of great power because it contained the oils used in the secret rituals of the priestess-queens of Isis who ruled in the days before the pharaohs.”

“And has the perfume helped Eugénie?”

“It’s too soon to tell, I think, but she has great hopes.”

Violet shook her head. “I can’t see why she should. The first Napoléon was not precisely known for his faithfulness.”

Allain hefted the brush in his hand. “And yet, Joséphine was his supreme love for many years, a woman older than he, with bad teeth and no great reputation for faithfulness herself, one to whom he wrote thousands of letters protesting his devotion. He might never have divorced her at all if she had been able to give him a son. It makes you think, doesn’t it? But the amazing thing is that he didn’t wear it himself; they say he practically bathed in scent every day, especially the combination of bergamot, lemon oil, and rosemary known as Hungary water, eau du cologne.”

“Perhaps Cleopatra’s scent was too sweet and womanish for him?”

Allain smiled at Violet. “It’s always possible, though I somehow connect rituals with the smell of incense in a cathedral, woody compounds such as cedarwood and sandalwood. A quirk of mine, I expect.”

“You seem to know a great deal about scents,” she commented, her tone inquiring.

“I have a friend who is a perfumer on the Rue de la Paix.” He picked up a little shell-pink color on his brush and carefully stroked it on the canvas in front of him.

“Ah, I suspect that is where you heard of Cleopatra’s perfume.”

“Lately, yes. But I knew it long ago, from my mother.”

“Really,” she said, intrigued. “And how did she happen to have it?”

“As a gift from my father. And like Joséphine, my father had it from Napoléon himself.”

“He knew him well?”

How odd it seemed, to speak so easily of so legendary a man. To Violet, Napoléon Bonaparte had always been a hero. He was viewed in that light by most people in New Orleans, in spite of the ignominy of his ultimate defeat. For a short few years it had seemed he would bring back the glory of France, just as it appeared that Napoléon III might do the same now.

Allain inclined his head slightly in agreement to her question, though his manner was abstracted as he stared at the canvas before him without offering to apply more paint. He said, “The scent, and the rather complicated directions for assembling the many different oils that go into it, was presented to my father as a token of friendship. But that was when he and Napoléon were young men, nearly forty-seven years ago, a long time in the past.”

“Your father fought with Napoléon, perhaps?”

A brief smile came and went across his face. “My father admired him extravagantly in the beginning, but opposed him in the end. There were many who did so.”

He put down his brush and palette, then wiped his hands with deliberate movements on a rag dampened with turpentine. Setting it aside, he moved toward her with lithe grace. He seated himself on the dais at her feet, turning to place one booted foot on the edge of the low platform and to rest his arm on his bent knee.

“Madame,” he began, then stopped. His eyes, more gray than blue in the cool northern light of the windows, were wide and vulnerable as he searched her face. The openness of his expression touched something deep inside her, so she felt a strange mingling of pain and pleasure and loss of will.

“My name,” she said quietly, “is Violet.”

“Violet,” he repeated with soft satisfaction. He drew a slow breath, which swelled his chest, then began again in quiet tones. “Madame Violet, you must know that your portrait is nearly finished.”

She swallowed a little. “I knew it could not be long before it was done.”

“I might, had I wished, have made the last stroke a week ago. I could do it now.”

It was an admission that took her breath; it was, in fact, nothing less than a declaration. With it he had placed himself in her hands.

She said softly, “Could — could you?”

“The question is, shall I?”

His voice was even as he spoke, without further appeal. It was her decision. If she said yes, then he would accept his dismissal. He would complete the portrait, and the sittings would be at an end. And if she did not?

“I suppose,” she said slowly, “that there is no great hurry.”

The gladness that sprang into his face was like a shout. It crinkled the skin around his eyes and curled into the corners of his mouth. He made no movement toward her, yet she felt the warmth of his elation engulf her like a storm. She could not prevent the smile that rose into her eyes in return.

“Madame Violet,” he said in stringent entreaty, “will you walk with me, then, since I have no work to occupy the afternoon? Will you stroll out on my arm while we pretend that we are simply a man and a woman in search of air, and perhaps, someplace to sit quietly and take a glass of wine?”

Did she dare? What if someone saw and reported it to Gilbert?

Oh, but how could she refuse when everything inside her longed for the pretense he suggested, responded in barely contained joy to the suppressed passion she sensed inside him?

She couldn’t.

“Yes,” she whispered, “I will.”

VIOLET AND ALLAIN LEFT HIS HOUSE
by a side door to avoid being seen by Hermine, who was sitting again with the housekeeper; the two women had become close friends, since they both enjoyed less than robust health and had a similar variety of complaints. Violet was not certain the maid would inform on her, but Hermine had been Gilbert’s nurse as a young boy, and there was no point in placing unnecessary strain on her loyalty.

It was a magical afternoon. Wandering away from the
Ile de la Cité,
Violet and Allain strolled along the Right Bank of the Seine. They talked of many things, though there were also times when they fell silent to gaze at each other. There was no purpose to their meanderings, they paid no attention to how far they walked. It was enough that they had escaped, together.

The feel of his arm under her fingers, the restrained power of the firm muscles beneath the sleeve of his shirt and coat, made Violet’s heart beat high in her throat. The brush of her skirts against his trousers seemed incredibly intimate, as if her clothing carried some extension of her own acute sensibilities. She was so aware of him, of his upright bearing, his gentle glances, and the stringent control he maintained in his manner toward her that it was nearly unbearable. Regardless, she never wanted this walk to end.

As the afternoon shadows grew longer they found a café at the edge of a garden with a table shaded by a plane tree. The cast iron of the table and the chairs was cold. The chill seemed to creep inside Violet, in spite of the
café au lait
Allain ordered for her with her wine to combat it. As she looked around her it appeared that the tables near them were all occupied by courting couples; they had that air of absorbed attention for each other about them. She said something about it to Allain.

His smile was wry. “Look closer,” he said.

As she followed his recommendation she saw that most of the women were younger than their escorts, though there were a few couples where the lady appeared older and decidedly more prosperous.