Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [106]
“That’s the spirit,” Patrice said, her eyes shining, taking Kelly’s hand. “Didier and I are going to make you legal here: I promise.”
Kelly nodded, still smiling but unable to speak.
“I’m glad to finally meet all of you,” Patrice said to the others. Several of them stepped forward to shake her hand. “Kelly, I want you to know that you’ll always have a place with me, and that Didier and I will look after you.”
“Thank you, Mum,” Kelly said.
“And if you don’t feel like working at the ball,” Patrice said, “I’m sure Lydie will understand. Maybe you need a little time to yourself.”
“I’m sorry,” Lydie said, stepping forward to kiss Kelly’s cheek, wanting to close her eyes so she wouldn’t always remember the look in Kelly’s eyes. Then she and Patrice walked away, leaving Kelly to suffer the disappointment and kindness of her brothers and sisters.
Michael left the Hôtel Royal Madeleine with endings in mind: an end to his time at the clean but impersonal hotel; an end, in twenty-eight days, to the Paris year; and an end to his relationship with Anne. The taxi, a Mercedes with a poodle sitting next to the driver, took him to Anne’s building. He held the key she had given him, knowing he wouldn’t use it; he wished merely to return it, but she wasn’t home.
“Elle n’est pas là, Monsieur,” the plump Spanish concierge said with a mean glint in her eyes. Michael had always felt her disapproval. “Elle n’a pas revenu hier soir.”
“That’s her business,” he said, not wanting to give the concierge the satisfaction of seeming alarmed by the fact Anne hadn’t been home all night.
At the Louvre, the guard stopped him. “She walks again,” he said to Michael.
“What do you mean?”
“The ghost of Catherine de Medici,” the guard said. “She was sighted last night, for the first time in seven years.”
Michael laughed, tapped the guard’s shoulder, brushed past him. He walked straight up the stairs to Anne’s office. On the museum’s top floor, Anne worked in a small room with a circular window overlooking the Seine. She loved telling visitors that in the days of Louis XIV it had been an artist’s studio.
“Anne,” Michael called, tapping at the door. He felt divided by worry for her whereabouts and by the wish to put this meeting off. He stood there a minute; he had just turned his back to the door, started walking away, when he heard footsteps down the corridor. Here came Anne in her wig and an ancient dress; although different from the last one, it was recognizably from the seventeenth century. Her smallness made her seem even more vulnerable, more capable of being hurt.
“ ‘I can already notice his absence,’ ” she said in her Madame de Sévigné voice. “ ‘Yesterday I went to the post office … to see whether he had turned me over to someone else there. I find all new faces, unimpressed with my importance.’ ”
“Anne, were you here all night?” Michael asked.
“That is a question I should ask as well,” she said. “Where were you last night? No longer do you visit or call me …”
“I was at my hotel,” he said steadily, alarmed by her appearance.
“I understand you have a ball to go to.”
“Who told you that?”
“You told me about the ball, chéri. I have always hoped we could go together. We would be the most elegant couple there …”
“Anne, I’m going with Lydie. I’m going back to her.”
“I am not terribly surprised,” she said.
“I do care about you,” Michael said. “Are you all right?”
She laughed harshly. “Did you think I would fall to pieces when you told me?”
“The guard told me he saw a ghost last night,” Michael said uneasily. “Did you sleep here?”
She smiled, saying nothing. He thought he detected something dark behind her smile, and it frightened him. For one moment, he saw her as an evil force, now revealing a side of herself no one had ever seen. Like the moon, rotating as she revolved, she presented only one face to those who saw her. Like the moon, half of whose surface is never seen from earth, Anne turned her other face away.
“Don’t worry about me, eh?” Anne said. “We had a good time together, and I treasure it.