CHAPTER TWENTY
Maeve’s head swam under his demanding kiss. She had been so tired and bewildered the last time they’d kissed, her brain had not properly processed the situation. Or so she’d told herself, confused that she had even allowed such inappropriate behaviour from a man she barely knew. Though she knew him rather better now, or felt she did. It was strange, she mused, how a few electrically charged days with one person could leave you knowing them better than people you’d known for months, even years…
Of course, this time she had fallen into a river first. She was soggy and shaken. But the unexpected dunking had left her alert and her brain was working just fine. So it was even more of a shock when she didn’t instantly push him away as she probably ought to have done, but instead linked her arms about his neck and stood on tiptoe to deepen the kiss. Just like last time. Just as though she’d learnt nothing in the interim…
His mouth moved on her persuasively. Goodness, he smelt so good. Clean and male, his aftershave tangy with citrus. While she probably smelt of... No, best not to think of that. Besides, Maeve wanted more, and she never wanted more. That primal urge to go further left her stunned, so that when Leo pulled back to gaze down into her face, she found herself unable to speak. She merely gawped at him as though drunk.
‘I apologise,’ he murmured, still holding her far too close, which rather undermined the whole apology thing. ‘I seem to be making a habit of this. Kissing you, I mean. Not saying sorry. I’ve never been one for apologising if I can avoid it. But in this instance, I probably should. You’re our guest at Chateau Rémy. It’s not right.’
‘I, erm… Yes, I…’
To her relief, as she appeared to have temporarily lost access to the language centres in her brain, she heard a wail above the sound of the traffic, a high-pitched ‘Coo-ee!’-style cry from across the busy road. Baffled, her gaze drifted that way and hooked onto the familiar sight of Madame Rémy and Nonna, seated together at a pavement café only a few hundred feet from the river bank, trying to catch their attention.
‘Erm, your gran,’ she whispered feebly, attempting to pull herself free.
‘I’m… grand?’ he repeated, frowning.
‘Grand? Why would I say you were grand?’ She shook her head, still reeling from his kiss. Her lips felt numb, her body tingling. ‘I said, your gran.’ And she pointed in the direction of his relatives. ‘See? Gran.’
He glanced that way and swore under his breath. His arms fell to his sides, releasing her at once. Sunlight dazzled her once more, free of his shadow. ‘Ah, yes… My gran. Bien, d’accord.’ They began to walk towards the two ladies, who were now waving. ‘I suppose it would be too much to hope she hadn’t seen us kissing.’
Maeve considered that. ‘I take it she wouldn’t be very happy?’
‘I’m more worried she’d be pleased,’ he growled.
Squelching along beside him, Maeve shot a startled look at his face, unsure if she’d heard him correctly. ‘Sorry… Pleased?’
‘What you have to understand is that my grandmother is one of the biggest matchmakers in Paris. Apart from my great-grandmother, that is. When the two of them get together…’ He shook his head in weary resignation. ‘They have been disappointed for years that I’ve refused to settle down and present them with great-grandchildren. The moment I show any interest in a woman – apart from Liselle, whom they both dislike intensely – I think their brains spiral off into weddings and babies.’
Weddings and babies.
She was blushing, and couldn’t seem to stop herself. But oh lordy-lord, That Kiss…
What had his Nonna said on first meeting her? That she would be his Muse? And now she had to face the two older ladies, who had no doubt spotted the two of them canoodling and might expect news of an engagement at any moment. And it wasn’t like that at all between her and Leo. It had just been a kiss. Nothing special. Nothing to report.
They had almost reached the busy road between them and the café, cars zooming along with the usual mad disregard for safety or traffic rules.
‘Wait, they don’t like Liselle?’ Her stupid brain had focused on that interesting nugget of information instead of all the rest, trying to work it out.
He gave a short bark of laughter. ‘And that’s putting it mildly.’ His clever gaze narrowed on her face. ‘You know, I half expected you to slap me for kissing you just then. Or to tell me exactly what you think of me at the very least. You weren’t angry?’
‘It was only a kiss. Goodness, of course not…’ Guilt rose in her like a hot tide, aware that she was lying to herself as well as him. ‘But we’d better not keep them waiting any longer,’ she babbled. ‘They must be so bored, poor things. We’ve been ages. And it’s all my fault.’
Hurriedly, she squelched to the edge of the kerb, and was poised to run across the road in front of oncoming traffic when he grabbed her arm.
‘Hey, what do you think you are doing? This is Paris. These drivers take no prisoners. You’ll be killed if you don’t wait for the lights.’
‘Oh, don’t exaggerate.’
He raised his brows at her wild gesture. ‘All right, you’ll be seriously maimed if you run in front of those cars.’
As though to demonstrate the truth of that, the next few cars to pass them did so in a blur of speed, engines roaring.
Breathlessly, she peered down the road. ‘There are traffic lights?’
Almost on cue, the cars coming towards them ground to a halt. Though she noticed the drivers still revved their engines impatiently at the lights, as though dying to mow someone down.
‘Yes, we Parisians do occasionally allow pedestrians to cross the street without fear of death. But you have to hurry.’ He ushered her across before the traffic could start moving again. Safely on the other side, he trod purposefully towards his grandmother’s café table, kissing this elegant lady on the cheek and then bending to kiss Nonna too. ‘I’m sorry we took so long,’ he told them in French, ‘but I’m afraid there was an accident… Maeve fell in the river.’
Madame Rémy, who had leant forward to embrace Maeve, as the French seemed to do at every possible opportunity, pulled back to study her in horror. ‘Mon Dieu… I wondered why your hair was wet. And Bernadette’s lovely dress. Oh, and your shoes too.’ She pointed to one of the empty wicker seats at their table. ‘Please, join us. How did this happen?’
With an uncomfortable smile, Maeve sank damply onto the seat. Was she really going to be forced to relive that epic humiliation?
‘It’s quite a long story,’ she begun reluctantly.
‘Her hat blew over the side of the boat,’ Leo told them succinctly, ‘and she fell in the river trying to retrieve it.’
Okay, maybe not that long a story, Maeve thought, throwing him a strained look of gratitude.
‘Mais quelle horreur! You need a hot chocolate after such an ordeal,’ Madame Rémy said sympathetically, and turned to look for the waiter.
‘Thank you, no, we don’t have time,’ Maeve told her, jumping to her feet again, far too wound-up and nervous to settle. ‘If we don’t leave now, we’ll be horribly late arriving at my grandmother’s place.’ Maeve ran her fingers through damp, frizzy hair, and despaired. ‘I don’t suppose you have a hairbrush I could borrow, madame? Or maybe a comb?’ she whispered to Madame Rémy. ‘What a nightmare. I must look a complete mess.’
As Leo helped Nonna to her feet and took her arm, supporting her along the street, Madame Rémy fished a comb out of her bag and handed it surreptitiously to Maeve. ‘You don’t look so bad,’ she said politely. ‘Perhaps just a bit… windswept.’
Following Leo and Nonna at the older lady’s leisurely pace, they crossed a narrow side street and wove carefully between tourists past a range of bustling cafés, restaurants and shops.
Despairingly, Maeve dragged the comb through her hair, wishing she had a mirror. Her shoes were still squelching, though not as loudly, and her sodden dress still clung to her thighs in an embarrassing manner. But at least there didn’t appear to be any more weed in her hair.
‘Thank you for waiting,’ she whispered to Leo’s grandmother. ‘I half expected you to have gone home by now.’
‘We were perfectly comfortable, enjoying a drink beside the river. Anyway, Leo warned us you would be late, so I called Agathe and let her know we would be delayed. So you don’t need to worry she’ll be angry.’
Maeve sagged with relief, her breath going out in one long sigh. She had been worried about that, there was no point pretending otherwise. Indeed, it felt as though she’d been holding that breath tight in her chest for ages. And why on earth had she behaved so recklessly before, almost dashing across the embankment road in front of rushing traffic?
That wasn’t like her at all.
She had always been a sensible pedestrian who waited at the crossing point for the lights to change, refusing to move before it was safe to do so.
Clearly, there must be something wrong with her brain at the moment. The signs were all there. Falling in the river. Kissing Leo twice. Trying to cross a road and forgetting to check she wasn’t about to be squashed flat by speeding Parisian rally-drivers…
‘Are you alright, my dear?’ Madame Rémy asked quietly, her brows tugging together in concern.
‘To be honest, I’m not entirely sure.’ But Maeve forced a smile to her lips. It wasn’t anyone’s business but her own what was going on inside her wacky, messed-up brain. ‘I suppose I’m just worried about this meeting,’ she admitted, and that wasn’t a complete lie, even though her fears were more amorphous than that. ‘I didn’t even know I had a grandmother before this trip. That is, I didn’t realise she was still alive and living in Paris.’ Shyly, she glanced at Madame Rémy. ‘You said you used to be friends… What’s Agathe like?’
The older lady thought about that for a moment. ‘Agathe… Yes, we were friends. Though that’s going a long way back.’ Her smile was guarded. ‘She’s a difficult woman.’
Maeve’s heart sank. ‘How so?’
‘She’s a very private person.’ Madame Rémy paused. ‘She never married, you see.’
‘Sorry?’
‘My apologies,’ she said hurriedly, looking embarrassed. ‘It’s none of my business. I really shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘No, please, I was the one who asked.’ Maeve swallowed, startled by this unexpected new information about her family tree. ‘So you mean, my mother was… illegitimate?’
Madame nodded slowly. ‘These days, it’s barely worth mentioning. So few young people care about the sanctity of marriage. But back in my day… Well, it was a serious problem for Agathe when she found herself pregnant. Not least because she couldn’t carry on working and earning a living.’
Maeve frowned as a memory came back to her. ‘My father once said that my grandmother had been an artist’s model when she was younger. But I always assumed that was a family myth.’ Maeve handed back the comb. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Madame Rémy returned it to her handbag, her expression distracted. ‘Yes, Agathe was a model. Like me, in fact.’
‘You?’
‘Oh yes. That’s how we knew each other, of course. We were both part of the same close-knit circle… Artists, models, critics, writers… We both sat for various artists. And not always wearing clothes.’ She chuckled at Maeve’s widening gaze. ‘Oh, we lived rather wildly in those days. But when poor Agathe fell pregnant, she tried to go back home and her parents disowned her. They were strict Catholics, you see.’ She shrugged. ‘Things fell apart for her after that. She finally managed to share an apartment with a friend. But she never worked as a model again. It was such a pity because she really was very beautiful… The artists loved her.’
‘But what about the baby’s father? My grandfather? Why didn’t he - ?’
‘I’m afraid he couldn’t help. You see, he was a married man. An artist she’d often sat for. And not French.’ Madame Rémy sighed when she saw Maeve’s horrified expression. ‘I’m sorry. This must be hard to hear. And really, I should have let Agathe speak to you herself. It’s not my story to tell.’
‘No, I’m glad I know at least the basic facts. Thank you. It helps me feel more prepared. You say my grandfather wasn’t French, though? Was he English, then?’
‘No,’ Madame Rémy said with a grimace. ‘He was Russian.’
‘Goodness.’
So her grandfather had been a Russian artist. And already a married man when her mother had been conceived. What a mess that must have been.
But that made her… What, a quarter Russian?
The thought was so alien, Maeve fell silent, feeling a little lost and bewildered. Then she realised that Nonna, walking very slowly with Leo just ahead of them, had stopped before a tall, stately apartment block that she recognised at once as the one from her mother’s old photograph.
Again, she felt a sickening jolt of nerves and struggled to control them. Her chest tightened as she gazed up at the familiar balconies and rows of shuttered windows that she’d studied so often…
‘Oh, I think we’re here,’ she whispered.
With a reassuring smile, Madame Rémy squeezed her shoulder and then rang the bell for Apartment One, clearly the ground floor flat.
A crackling female voice spoke over the intercom, asking who it was. Maeve got the shivers just listening…
Was that her grandmother?
‘C’est moi, mon amie,’ Leo’s grandmother told the disembodied voice, and a second later the door buzzed open.
Maeve followed the others into a high, echoing hallway with a steep flight of stairs and a large set of postal lockers to one side. Its stone-tiled floor gleamed from a recent cleaning. The door to the ground floor apartment was to the left of the entrance, and as they approached, it was opened.
‘Bienvenue,’ a woman’s voice said, low and guttural, but as Maeve stopped, anxious to see her grandmother for the first time, she saw a wheelchair in the doorway, a woman sitting in it, wrapped in a cardigan with a tortoiseshell cat curled up on her lap.
The woman had a shock of silvery hair, huge blue eyes – almost identical to Maeve’s – and pale, powdery cheeks. Her bright eyes searched for Maeve and fixed eagerly on her face.
‘Ah, it’s you at last,’ she cried in hoarse English, ‘my granddaughter. Your name is Maeve, yes?’ She beckoned her inside the apartment, hurriedly wheeling backwards. ‘Come in, Maeve… Come in, please… I am delighted to meet you at last, ma petite.’
As Maeve hesitated in the hallway, now horribly nervous, her hands clasped tightly together, her pulse thundering in her ears, the others stood back, allowing her to enter first.
‘After you,’ Leo murmured when she didn’t move, gesturing her inside.
She couldn’t even look his way, too afraid to meet his eyes in case he was looking sympathetic and it made her break down. Oh, what had made her dream this would be a good idea? Her father had always said the French side of the family was trouble and best left well alone.
She supposed it was far too late to run away.
And where would she run to, anyway?
Maeve took a deep, unsteady breath, and followed her grandmother into the elegant old apartment from the photograph.