CHAPTER NINE
Someone was knocking at his bedroom door. Loudly and insistently. With a groan, Leo rolled over in bed, gathering the sheets about his lower half, and said thickly, ‘Come in.’
He had half-expected to see an angry Liselle at his door. But it opened to reveal Bernadette, carrying a steaming cup of coffee.
He raised his brows. ‘That for me? Very kind of you. What have I done wrong?’ As if he didn’t know…
But it seemed that news of his naked wrestling bout with Liselle had not yet hit the grapevine. For his sister merely handed him the coffee.
‘Uncle Henri says he needs a video call with you sooner rather than later. I told him you were still in bed. But he says it’s urgent. He’s been calling your phone all morning.’ She glanced at the empty bedside table. ‘Where is it?’
Leo frowned. ‘I must have left it in my studio.’ He checked his watch. ‘Damn, it’s barely eleven.’
‘I call that late.’
‘Yeah, well.’ He ran a hand through tousled hair, wondering how much to tell her. What time had he tumbled into bed? Long after six o’clock, for sure. ‘I only got to bed a few hours ago.’
‘Sounds like you had a good night.’
‘Hardly.’
‘Come on, what have you been up to?’ Bernadette perched on the side of his bed, her eyes lively with curiosity. ‘I thought you were meant to be painting Maeve today. Did you forget?’
He sighed. ‘Okay, you might as well know… There was a hiccup.’ He told his sister the basics of what had happened, leaving out some of the juicier details, and saw her eyes widen. He’d expected her to be annoyed, because he knew she liked Liselle. But she laughed instead.
‘Liselle doesn’t mess about, does she?’ She shook her head at him. ‘I have no idea what she sees in you. You’ve been ignoring her for years. But there’s no accounting for taste, is there?’
Luckily, this seemed to be a rhetorical question, so he merely shrugged.
Bernadette gave up prying and got up. ‘Talking of love rivals,’ she added cheekily, ignoring his exasperated look, ‘I’ve just seen Maeve downstairs. She didn’t seem very happy though. Scurried away as soon as she saw me coming,’
‘I’d better get up and apologise to her properly. I should have done it at the time but didn’t want to chase after her. She might’ve thought it inappropriate for me to turn up at her bedroom door after what she’d just witnessed. Or in bad taste.’
Bernadette chuckled. ‘Oh, to be a fly on the wall during that conversation.’
‘Shoo,’ he said briefly, but added as she walked away, ‘Thanks for the coffee, by the way. I desperately need the caffeine.’
At the door, she shot him an odd look. ‘Leo?’
‘Yes?’
‘You’re not drinking again, are you?’
His jaw hardened. ‘Give me a little credit for common sense, would you? I may have the odd drink occasionally, but I gave up my drunken nights when Francis died. As you know well.’
‘Yes, it’s just that… You’ve been having a hard time of it lately. All the stress over the family business. And now this thing with Liselle.’ She paused, studying him thoughtfully. ‘And Maeve.’
‘Maeve?’ He took a sip of his coffee, which was still scalding hot, and grimaced. ‘I barely know the woman. I just thought she would make a good model. Plus, she wanted to help out, so why wouldn’t I accept? There’s nothing between us, so don’t build it up into some grand affair.’
‘Of course not, brother dear,’ Bernadette said sweetly. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Enjoy your coffee.’
He glared at the closed door for some time after she’d gone. Why did everyone in his family insist on creating dramas for him where there were none?
It was ludicrous. Though not, perhaps, as ludicrous as that scene with Liselle this morning. He took another sip of his coffee and realised, guiltily, that he was remembering his former girlfriend’s naked body bouncing against his. The strange thing was, the memory didn’t arouse him. Once upon a time, he might have been tempted to accept her offer of sex. But this morning, he’d been more interested in getting her clothes back on and pushing her out of the door before Maeve arrived.
He had barely thought about that side of life for months, even years. At one point, he’d given up on it, sure his libido had died. All the stress of the family business, Bernadette had said. And she wasn’t far wrong. Stress could kill a man’s libido, couldn’t it?
But the truth was, his libido had been alive and kicking this morning. But not for naked Liselle. No, he had been entirely focused on Maeve instead. Thinking about her, waiting for her, anxious about how things would go…
What had Liselle said about her? That she was dull? Ordinary? And innocent? She was neither dull nor ordinary, and he didn’t know that she was sexually innocent either, which would be unlikely at her age. But she was certainly unsophisticated and inexperienced, because everything about her shouted that. She was like someone from another age. Or in this case, another country. So maybe it was just her Englishness that intrigued him.
Though he suspected her body was also fairly intriguing. Because he’d started to wonder, almost as soon as he’d seen her, what her lips would taste like and how she would look after making love…
So that put paid to the dead libido theory.
Somewhat heartened by this, Leo finished his coffee as quickly as was humanly possible, given its extreme temperature, and stumbled into the shower to wash off the night’s endeavours. Dried paint was streaked across his hands and forearms, even one cheek. He was surprised that Bernadette hadn’t commented on it. But he’d noticed her looking at him strangely.
No doubt his sister was trying to be discreet. They all hoped he would start painting again, after all, but he’d snapped at them so often when they enquired about his artwork that she was probably afraid to raise the subject.
He had to stop doing that. Snapping at people. He had to become a better person. It had been three years since Francis died, and it was time he stopped complaining about the responsibility he’d felt unable to evade. A responsibility he had never wanted and didn’t particularly enjoy – apart from the wine-tasting, which had its moments. But his life was what it was, and he needed to grow up and stop pining for a past he could never hope to retrieve.
In time, he might even become dull and sensible, like Maeve.
Leo threw back his head and laughed as the water cascaded over him. Dull and sensible? Him? Never in a thousand years…
Returning his coffee cup to the kitchen later, he was taken aback to find Maeve sweeping the tiled floor, an apron about her waist, her hair hidden under a blue head scarf that he vaguely recognised as belonging to his sister.
A sudden vision flashed through his head, leaving him transfixed… A portrait of her in apron, headscarf and kitchen clogs, going about some homely task, maybe with a toddler tugging on her skirts.
He was shocked by the way his imagination was leading him. His portraits had always been of women in wild, provocative poses or making political statements. He’d never been interested in what some people called ‘kitchen sink’ portraiture, considering that old-fashioned and disrespectful to modern women.
As for painting Maeve in an apron, cooking or cleaning, with a child in tow…
Talk about regressive imagery.
If she could read his mind right now, he thought grimly, she’d probably hit him with that broom, and quite blamelessly.
‘Good morning.’
She jumped at his soft greeting, jerking around to stare at him. Light from the kitchen window illuminated the turn of her cheek, a few strands of blonde hair peeping out from under her headscarf.
Hurriedly, to cover his growing fascination with her, he asked rather brusquely, ‘What are you doing? That’s not your job. You don’t have a job, in fact. You’re a guest.’ He took the broom away from her, just in case she was moved to use it as a weapon later on. ‘If the floor needs sweeping, I’ll sweep it myself.’
As the words left his mouth, he cast a swift glance about the place, hoping not to find it did indeed need sweeping.
But it was spotless, as usual.
She did not protest but looked back at him with her chin raised, folding her arms. ‘I told you yesterday, I want to help out around the chateau in return for board and lodging. It’s not right simply to lounge about, enjoying your hospitality for the next couple of weeks.’ A slight colour came into her cheeks as she added in a stilted voice, ‘Besides, it looks as though the painting thing isn’t going to happen. Not after what I saw this morning.’
He gripped the broom handle tightly. ‘That wasn’t my fault. She threw herself at me.’
Now she swung her head to stare at him, incredulous laughter in her face. ‘She threw herself at you? In the nude, no less? My goodness, you must be a regular Tom Jones.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Tom Jones, the Welsh singer? You must have heard of him.’
‘Vaguely.’
‘Women used to throw their knickers at him when he was performing on stage.’
He blinked, and started some incoherent sentence that petered out long before he’d worked out what he wanted to say.
There was a scathing smile on her lips as she went on, ‘Although it looked as though Liselle had skipped the knicker-throwing part and moved straight to what comes after.’
‘It was a mistake. Liselle thought… ‘
She raised her eyebrows when another sentence foundered hopelessly on the rocks. ‘Yes? What did she think?’
‘It was a misunderstanding, okay? Not that it’s any of your business,’ he finished defensively.
‘In general, I’d say yes. But when I’ve been asked to be in a certain place at a certain time, and turn up to find you rolling on the floor with a naked woman, then it absolutely is my business.’
Leo winced inwardly; he could hardly argue with that.
Carefully, he put the broom aside. ‘All right, yes, that’s fair. And I apologise, even though I wasn’t to blame. I shall ask Liselle to apologise as well.’
‘Oh, please don’t! Not on my account.’ She grabbed a damp cloth and began wiping down the kitchen surfaces in a furious manner.
‘There are things about Liselle and me that you don’t know… And I can’t elaborate.’
‘I didn’t ask you to.’
He had no idea why he still felt this burning need to paint her. If he could simply walk off and forget… But he couldn’t. And it had been so long since he’d felt anything akin to this urge, he couldn’t let the chance slip away.
‘Let me make it up to you,’ he said, leaning against a kitchen cabinet, watching while she worked. Though there wasn’t much for her to do. Bernadette was a conscientious worker and kept the place immaculate. ‘I still want to paint you, Maeve.’
‘Sorry, bit busy right now.’
‘I didn’t mean immediately. I have a call to make, anyway.’ He frowned, battling frustration. Why wouldn’t she even look at him? Surely it couldn’t be Liselle’s nudity that was still making her blank him? ‘Ordinary’ she might be, compared to the wilder elements of the Parisian artistic community, but she didn’t strike him as that much of a prude. ‘Please stop cleaning.’
‘I like cleaning. It keeps me fit.’
He sighed. ‘Okay, next time I’ll come and fetch you to the studio myself. If that makes you feel more comfortable.’
Maeve paused in her hurried, overly dramatic wiping and turned to glare at him, her eyebrows arched. ‘No thanks. Not if I’m expected to take all my clothes off and engage in… in floor exercises with you.’
Now she was mocking him. He gritted his teeth, managing a smile in return. ‘Ha ha. You know that’s not what was happening this morning.’
‘Oh, I know.’ She snorted, returning to her task. ‘Trust me, I know.’
‘Let me take you out to dinner,’ he said suddenly, and grabbed her by the apron strings while she was still turned away from him. She protested, clearly outraged that he”d dared touch her, but he unfastened her apron with ease, throwing the damn thing onto the counter. ‘No more cleaning. You’re our guest,’ he reiterated firmly. ‘Besides, there are some things I’d like to talk to you about which I can’t discuss under this roof.’
‘What kind of things?’ she demanded, her face flushed.
‘Come to dinner with me and find out. My cousin Jean runs a café at the end of this street. We can eat there.’
Maeve kept her back firmly turned away while she washed and dried her hands. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Monsieur Rémy.’
‘Oh, we’re back to Monsieur Rémy, are we?’ He sucked in a breath, thrusting his hands into his pockets. ‘Dinner. Eight o’clock tonight. I’ll come and find you. My treat.’
‘Well, it can hardly be my treat. I haven’t got any money.’
He frowned, surprised. ‘I thought your bank was going to transfer funds to you here in Paris?’
‘Yes, but the thing is…’ She shuffled, looking uncomfortable. ‘I don’t actually have much in my bank account at the moment. This trip to Paris wiped out my savings and I’m not paid again until the end of the month. They agreed to send me a few hundred, and I’ll probably collect that at some point. But I’m worried about going too far overdrawn.’
‘I see.’ He felt sorry for her. What an appalling situation to be in. No wonder she was unhappy about accepting what she saw as charity from them. ‘In that case, could I lend you some money? Just so you’re not completely without funds.’
She looked appalled, her eyes flying to his face. ‘No, thank you,’ she said in strangled tones. ‘I wasn’t begging when I said that about my bank account… I was just trying to explain.’ She stumbled over the words, her expression mortified. ‘Oh, I wish I’d never come to Paris. This whole thing has been excruciating.’
‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ he said deeply, and meant it. ‘Because if you hadn’t come, I would never have met you, and never felt this incredible urge to paint again.’ He paused, very aware of her watching him, surprise in her face. He couldn’t say much more. It would be too humiliating. But he felt something extra was required. ‘As my grandmother was no doubt eager to tell you yesterday, it’s been rather a long time since I picked up a paintbrush. But I can tell you more about that at dinner. If you’ll come?’
She hesitated, and then said reluctantly, ‘All right, yes. I would like to hear more about your painting difficulties.’ Her eyes widened and she clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Sorry, that came out all wrong. I meant, I’d like to hear more about your work in general. I love art,’ she added shyly. ‘Though I can’t paint for toffee.’
‘Toffee?’
She laughed open. ‘It’s just an English expression… It means I can’t paint at all. I don’t have an artistic bone in my body. But I do love looking at paintings.’
He studied her, wishing he knew why this sensible, unshowy Englishwoman was so intriguing to him. Or how he could get her to relax enough to come back to the studio.
I do love looking at paintings.
Perhaps that would be a place to start… Talking about art, finding common ground, assuming they had any.
‘Eight o’clock,’ he repeated, and went in search of his mobile.