Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [93]
“I know,” she said.
“I wanted you to come,” Michael said. “You know I did.”
“Yes,” Lydie said. Here she stood in the Salle des Quatre Saisons, at a celebration of Michael’s work—their reason, after all, for coming to France—and she could speak only in monosyllables.
“Let’s go over there,” Michael said. “I’d like to introduce you to Charles Legendre.”
Lydie smiled at him. “I’d rather not meet him right now,” she said. “In fact, I’m about to leave.” She felt tempted to stay, but sticking to her original plan made her feel more in control.
“Aw, Lydie,” Michael said.
She smiled again, at the idea that such a dashing guy, so elegant and European in style, could say “Aw, Lydie.”
“You sound just like a country boy,” she said.
“I have to stay,” Michael said. “I’d like to come with you … where are you going?”
“I’m going to walk home. Will you tell the d’Orignys for me?”
“Yes,” Michael said. And although it had been too awkward to kiss her hello, he kissed her good-bye.
Exiting the Louvre, Lydie knew she wouldn’t have left if she thought there was a chance Michael would go home with Anne. She wondered what Patrice had been talking to her about. The history of the Marais, probably. Turning right to walk home along the Seine, she discovered that she didn’t care. Hardly at all.
Patrice had the uncomfortable sense of not simply praising Anne Dumas’s work, but of gushing. “I’m positively captivated,” she said, for measure. She cast a sidelong glance at Michael and Lydie, felt unhappy to see that they were looking in her direction.
“What ‘captivates’ you?” Anne asked, dimpling.
“Oh, the way you make those seventeenth-century women seem so modern. I feel absolutely d’accord with them.”
Now Anne frowned. “You cannot possibly feel d’accord with all three. When they were at such obvious odds.”
“It’s true,” Patrice agreed. “The noblewoman, the courtesan, and the murderer. Which is your favorite?”
“Madame de Sévigné, of course. Though I admit to a certain fascination with Ninon de Lenclos. By the age of thirty, Ninon was famous as an intellectual and as an advocate of women’s rights. Her opinions in matters of sex and religion were totally avant-garde. Members of the King’s court frequented her salon.”
“But Ninon stole Madame de Sévigné’s husband,” Patrice said, watching for Anne’s reaction. She could not stop imagining Anne in bed with Michael. She was so adorable, with those tiny features that all seemed somehow upturned: her nose, the smiling corners of her eyes, her bow mouth with the sensual lower lip. Her full hair, brushed up and held in place with a silk headband, was expertly tinted to look sun-lightened. Her rose suede miniskirt was too short for this season, but Anne had the girlishness to carry it off.
Anne waved her small hand in a scoffing manner. “She could have had any lover,” she said. “Men were terribly suspicious of Ninon, you know. Louis XIV had her watched by spies—a feminist in seventeenth-century France was dangerous, indeed. Especially one with as many eminent lovers as Ninon had.”
Patrice recalled an anecdote presented by Anne in Three Women of the Marais. Cardinal Richelieu offered Ninon nearly a million dollars to become his mistress. She declined “because if he pleased me, the sum would be exorbitant, and if he displeased me, the sum would be insufficient.” Patrice felt somewhat daring, like a spy herself, engaging Anne in a conversation about love in the seventeenth century while Lydie was over there talking with Michael. She glanced across the room, to see how it was going, but Lydie was gone.
“Oh,” she said, frowning.
“Pardon?” Anne said.
“Wasn’t Ninon racy?” Patrice asked.
“I see that you are watching the McBrides,” Anne said bluntly.
Patrice looked around, in case she had missed them. But they definitely had left. No, there was Michael, without Lydie, talking to Didier at the buffet table. “I was thinking of joining them,” Patrice said, now feeling awkward. With her uncanny perception, Anne