Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) (19 page)

“Oh.” She sought somewhere else, anywhere else, to turn her gaze.

“Yes. I hope you aren’t too distressed.” He took her free hand, which lay in her lap, caressing her knuckles with his thumb that was hard with fencing calluses. “Dalliance is the custom in Paris.”

“I see,” she said, her tone pensive.

“I don’t think you do, not if you believe I brought you here solely to expose you to this kind of atmosphere. I only thought you would not like to risk being recognized, as you might be at a more fashionable café.”

“You needn’t explain,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I do trust you.”

He watched her a long moment before he spoke with rough abruptness. “Don’t. Please. It’s more than I deserve. I would like nothing better than to corrupt you completely.”

“But you won’t,” she said, her lips curving into a slow and tremulous smile.

“Won’t I?” He waited a taut moment before answering his own question on a sigh. “No, not without permission.”

His words were an admission in themselves. It was one that should have repelled her. Instead, it thrilled her to the center of her being. He wanted her, he did want her. Yet here was a man who did not seek to impose his will upon hers, made no demands, claimed nothing as his manly right. Did he realize the allure of the vow he had made, know the tantalizing headiness for her of recognizing that the choice of the direction their affair would take was hers?

Their affair. How odd to use such words.

What, then, did she want?

Was it possible that a safe, platonic affair was all she cared to risk? Would she, could she, venture anything more, even with this heat in her blood? Would it change what was between Allain and herself if she did? Was it possible that his view of her was so romantic that he would be disillusioned if she indicated that she desired more?

How complicated it was, so complicated that she felt paralyzed by the warring fears inside her.

There were other walks on other days, as the sittings became no more than an excuse to meet.

They ventured further into the center of Paris. Allain knew the best dressmakers, the finest milliners and most skilled makers of gloves and shoes, and he took pleasure in acting as her escort while she visited these places. His taste was refined, his eye for color and line unerring. He did not seek to press his ideas upon her, however, but rather urged her to develop her own. She had, he said, a natural sense of style, a quiet elegance that suited her to perfection. All she needed was to learn to depend on her own instincts.

He made only one attempt to pay for an item of apparel for Violet’s use. Her refusal was so firm and unhesitating that he retreated at once. In return, Violet did not often buy the things that caught her fancy when she was with him, but returned for them later. It was difficult for him, she realized, to stand aside while she paid for her own purchases.

Allain was amazed at Gilbert’s failure to consult her wishes in the furnishing of their house and castigated him for a dolt for excluding her from the shopping excursions involved. In the next breath, he praised her husband’s cavalier attitude, since otherwise her time would have been spent visiting shops and combing through warehouses and attics with Gilbert, instead of being with him.

They set out one afternoon after a thunderstorm. Water still ran in the gutters and the sky was mottled with gray, but the need to be alone and abroad together made them careless of the wet weather. Allain, poking with the tip of his dress cane at bits of torn, applegreen leaves from the plane trees that were stuck to the damp sidewalk, broke a short silence. “The Comtesse Fourier will be giving a ball in a few days” time. Would you care to attend?”

“I would like it very much,” she answered, “if Gilbert has no other plans. He has been much occupied in the evening of late.”

“The occasion is a diplomatic gala in honor of the recent improvement in relations between France and Belgium. Most respectable, though a little stuffy. I will be happy to serve as your escort if your husband is unavailable.”

She tilted her head a little, looking at him from under the rolled brim of the rather dashing hat of periwinkle-blue straw she wore. “I doubt he would consider that proper.”

“Many married ladies are escorted by gentleman friends. No eyebrows are raised so long as they remain in public view. You might explain this to him.”

The thought of an evening with Allain, even one spent where everyone could see them, was too enticing to be refused. “I suppose you could have the invitation sent, and we will see what Gilbert says.”

He pressed his arm, where she was holding it, closer against his side, and the look in his eyes made her feel that she was equal to any explanation that might be required.

The air was dense with moisture. Violet’s skirts felt damp with it, while their hems were becoming heavy and bedraggled from the puddles on the sidewalk. The light seemed to be growing dimmer.

Allain looked up, surveying the lowering sky. Frowning a little, he said, “Perhaps we should turn back?”

Thunder rumbled in a basso warning. A cool mist swirled around them. A moment later the deliberate and civilized French rain began to fall.

It was too late to return to the studio. Ahead of them was the blue-and-white-striped awning of a café. They increased their pace, making toward it. Then as the raindrops began to pelt down in earnest, Violet released Allain’s arm and picked up her skirts to run. They dashed under the awning just as the heavens shuddered with an enormous crack of thunder. Laughing and breathless, they turned to each other.

Allain took her into his arms, holding her close as the rain drummed on the canvas overhead and ran down in streams to splatter on the sidewalk. Gazing down at her with his face alight and softness in his eyes, he whispered, “Remember?”

How could she forget? Their first meeting. The rain-drenched garden. The pavilion. She smiled up at him until, by slow degrees, her joy became anguish.

It was becoming intolerable, these brief episodes, the stolen moments together, being so close yet so far apart. Violet was perilously aware of how unfair it was to ask Allain to endure it, did not know how much longer she could bear it herself.

Unable to sustain the dark pain that shadowed his eyes also, she turned her head. Through the gray haze of rain, she saw the figures of two men huddled under the inadequate protection of a chestnut tree. As the rain grew harder still they broke and ran toward a housefront just down the street, where they crouched in its projecting doorway.

Violet’s eyes narrowed as she tried to see through the rain. She had noticed the two men earlier, dawdling along behind Allain and herself. They did not have the look of gentlemen out taking their leisure, and still less that of merchants going about their business. There was something furtive about them in their dark, nondescript clothes and their idleness.

“Those men over there,” she said to Allain in low tones. “I think they may have been following us. Do you suppose they are thieves?”

“I very much doubt it,” Allain said. His voice was grim, though he barely glanced in the direction she indicated.

Something in his manner disturbed Violet. She looked up at him, saying quickly, “You don’t think they mean us harm?”

“Who can say?” He answered with the smallest of shrugs. “Anything is possible.”

“Oh, but surely not. It is broad daylight after all.”

“Don’t upset yourself,” he said, smiling a little as he smoothed his hands along, her silk-clad upper arms. “I expect those two wretches were only enthralled by how lovely you are. Believe me, I well understand the impulse to become your shadow.”

He was, she thought, trying to distract her, to spare her anxiety. “More likely they are only traveling along in the same direction.”

She was apparently correct. When the rain stopped and she and Allain set out for the return to his studio, the men trailed behind them only a few streets before they were lost from sight.

Gilbert, when the promised invitation to the ball arrived, was highly gratified at the notice accorded them by the Comtesse de Fourier. He would not dream of missing such a grand event, he said; his relatives, he was sure, would consider it quite a coup when he told them. He was astonished, however, that Massari should be on the comtesse’s list; he would not have thought such an important hostess would have a mere artist among her acquaintances.

It did not, apparently, occur to him to wonder how their own names had become known to the lady.

So elated was Gilbert at the prospect of the gala that he suggested Violet order a new ball gown, one with the deep, lace-edged flounces of the current mode. Blush pink, he said, would meet with his approval. Violet feigned pleasure and enthusiasm and promised to make the gown her project of the morning. She did not tell him that her ensemble had not only been already chosen while in Allain’s company, but was already due for a fitting. She was becoming far too good at dissembling.

Gilbert had been dressing to go out as they discussed the occasion. He dismissed his valet and stood adjusting the set of his coat across his shoulders and the exposure of his shirt cuffs below his coat sleeves. He studied her for a moment where, already dressed for the day in a gown of blue-and-cream-striped lawn, she sat at the secretary-desk penning a description of the day before in her journal.

“This artist,” he said, “he isn’t becoming too familiar, is he?”

She looked up with her pen poised in her hand and an eyebrow lifted in surprise. “Why,” she said, “what can you mean?”

“His offer to squire you to this ball seems presumptuous, to say the least. I’m not sure I care for it.”

“He has been the complete gentleman,” she answered. “No one could be more respectful than M’sieur Massari.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. I would be even more relieved to be told that this portrait will soon be finished.”

“It progresses slowly, I agree, but it’s really useless to try to hurry an artist.” She tried the effect of a whimsical smile.

“It’s as well he’s being paid for the completed work rather than by the day. I’m sure these sittings are growing tedious for you.” He gave her an intent stare.

Violet was aware of the heavy beating of her heart under her rib cage. She thought of the two men who had been following her and Allain. Perhaps there had been something in it after all; perhaps Gilbert had sent them. She raised a slim shoulder and let it fall again before she answered. “I don’t mind. I have nothing better to do with my time.”

“The man is an accomplished flirt, quite the Casanova,” her husband went on, his words ponderous. “He has had more than one passage with sword and pistol on the field of honor for the sake of his amours, or so rumor has it. You must be careful not to let your head be turned by him.”

Violet had suspected Allain was a favorite with the ladies, but it was distressing to hear it confirmed. It was also an indication of her hopeless state that she was more concerned about Allain’s past than about Gilbert’s suspicions. She said, “I’m sure there is no danger.”

“Are you? It seems to me there is not the respect there should be for marriage vows here, that more wink at them than keep them. I would not like to see you drawn into such a trap.”

“Really, Gilbert—”

“I would not mention it, but you have been different of late. You have gained that certain look of the Parisian in your dress, but also, it seems to me, in your manner. You must not go too far.”

Violet gave him a long look. “And you, Gilbert? What of your evenings at the restaurants and theaters?”

“That is not at all the same thing.”

“Possibly not, but it makes your reproaches seem strange.”

“I am not a young man, Violet; I know this full well. To come to Paris at my age, after years spent in a backwater, is difficult; there is much I feel I have missed. However, this has nothing to do with you.”

“I must not question your escapades, but you are free to accuse me?”

His frown was heavy as he stared at her. “You would never have said such a thing to me before. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

“Everyone changes,” she said.

“Yes, unfortunately. But I don’t accuse you, Violet, I only warn you. I realize that youth calls to youth, that I am not, perhaps, as handsome or as gallant as some, but I am still your husband and a jealous man.”

Violet could find nothing to say to that, either in protest or in reassurance.