EPILOGUE
A hand on his arm made Leo turn from contemplating the largest canvas in the exhibition, Maeve Among the Vines, to find Liselle standing behind him. His nerves jolted, his memory flashing back to the dangerous moment when he’d told his manager that he and Maeve were getting married, and she had literally bared her teeth at him. But to his relief she was smiling now.
The prospect of making big money from his paintings seemed to have a powerful effect on his manager these days. And if that made Liselle more inclined to relinquish the past, then he had no complaints. Especially since he would be making money too…
‘This is your best work ever,’ Liselle told him with soft satisfaction. ‘Everyone is saying so. Even the critics, and you know how hard they are to please. Sascha is delighted. You already have ten confirmed sales, by the way. And Blanchy is here.’
His eyes widened, moving past her to search the small but crowded exhibition space, already jostling with buyers and art critics and invited guests. Blanchy was Belgian, and one of the biggest art critics on the Parisian scene. If he gave an artist the thumbs up, they were bound to be lauded everywhere. And if he ever gave an artist the thumbs down, their career could be finished in a matter of hours. In fact, someone should probably save everyone a great deal of heartache and simply remove Blanchy”s thumbs...
‘Did you invite him? I certainly didn’t. He hated my last exhibition. He said it was like something from the 90s. And I think he meant the 1890s.’
‘The art of the 1890s was massively influential,’ Liselle pointed out calmly, studying the calculator she’d produced from her jacket pocket, but shook her head. ‘No need to worry. I just left Blanchy looking at that odd little piece, Maeve Distracted. He stared at it for a good five minutes without speaking, then made a note on his phone. When I asked what he thought of it, he said… “Not bad. Not bad at all.” Then he wandered off to look at that one of Maeve in Jean’s café. The smaller piece with the fish in the background.’
‘Maeve Fish-Watching?’ Leo sucked in a breath, trying not to feel giddy with excitement. He wasn’t a young pretender anymore. He was an artist in his prime and he needed to take such successes in his stride. Also, he would soon be a married man, with all the responsibilities that went with that. Talking of which…
‘Have you seen Maeve?’ He had arrived early tonight to oversee the final touches to the exhibition before the launch party for press and interested parties, and hadn’t had a chance to check yet if his fiancée had arrived safely.
With a flicker of her eyelids, Liselle merely jerked her head over his shoulder.
Sure enough, there was Maeve, pushing her grandmother in her wheelchair, accompanied by a slight figure in a grey tracksuit and hoody, the face hidden in deep shadow.
Leo frowned, surprised. Maeve had not expected her mother to attend the exhibition, though she had invited her grandmother, of course. But they must have turned up together, and he could tell by the rapturous smile on Maeve’s face that she was delighted to be able to show them both around the exhibition in person. They had stopped in front of one of his favourite canvases, Maeve: A Study In Blue. It was a portrait of Maeve lying in an immaculate white swimming costume beside the pool in Bordeaux, the dappled light from the water rippling over her body and face, even the costume overcast with it, so that she seemed almost as blue and fluid as the pool itself.
He recalled the day he’d painted that while Maeve posed for him, poolside. They had made love for the first time the night before, almost silently, not wanting anyone in the house to hear them, but with scalp-tingling intensity. And when he’d tried to capture her on canvas the next morning, that knowledge had shone from her eyes, her entire body exuding a bold new sensuality that was the dominant theme of the painting.
‘What does Maeve think of the exhibition?’ Liselle asked lightly, though he felt the weight of a more serious question behind her words.
She knew, better than anyone perhaps, how important it was for him that the woman in his life understood his art and appreciated it. Liselle had been his muse for a few years, though no more. And he still valued her opinion and input into his career. But she was a better person as his manager than she ever had been as his lover.
Now, he was able to look at her in a totally impersonal way and to count her as a friend, nothing more. And Liselle seemed to have embraced that new reality too. Yet they still shared one thing in common, and that was his art.
‘Let’s ask her,’ he said with a smile as Maeve headed their way, pushing her grandmother up the ramp onto the raised platform dominated by his larger canvases.
Her mother, he noticed, had disappeared.
Maeve came to kiss him, and his arm curved naturally about her waist, pulling her close.
‘Hello, darling,’ he murmured against her lips.
Love and desire flooded him, as they did every time they kissed, and he marvelled at how strong the sensations still were. Part of him had been expecting this attraction to fade, especially once she had accepted his proposal of marriage. Instead, it seemed to be growing stronger every day, enhanced by each plan they made for their future together.
‘Not here,’ Maeve whispered, though with a chuckle. ‘Maybe later?’
‘Now there’s a promise… ’
She wriggled free, shooting him a smiling glance to soften her words, and hurriedly introduced her grandmother to Liselle.
While the two women exchanged a few polite remarks, Maeve whispered quickly to Leo, as though having read his mind, ‘My mother couldn’t stay. Too many members of the press here, apparently. She prefers to keep a low profile, she says. And she doesn’t want us to have too much of a public connection, not now I’m going to be staying in Paris.’
He felt a distinct lightening of his mood at her words, for they hadn’t yet decided where they were going to live full-time and he’d been concerned she might choose England. Wherever Maeve went, he knew he must follow. But moving to England would have meant immense upheaval for him, including the handing over of responsibility for his side of the family business entirely to Bernadette, who was capable but still learning the ropes.
‘Paris?’
Her eyes twinkled up at him, catching the relief in his voice. ‘Yes, alright, you win. Paris is the most sensible choice. Besides, I can easily get work here as a teacher of English, whereas it would be far harder for you to adjust to life in a new country. Your English is superb but you’d need to construct a whole new network of art contacts over there. And Liselle would never leave France, and I know how important she is for your career.’
‘Plus, you must remain loyal to your idiom,’ he murmured, unable to resist.
She wrinkled her brow at him. ‘My idiom?’
‘Being sensible,’ he reminded her. ‘I take it you’re not quite ready to ditch the old Maeve in favour of a carefree existence as an artist’s model?’
‘An artist’s wife,’ she corrected him briskly.
‘Of course. I apologise.’ His lips quirked with humour. ‘Yes, you are still…’ He looked at her mouth, tempted to kiss her again. ‘Deliciously sensible.’
She said nothing but arched her brows at him with wonderful hauteur.
Leo would have grabbed her, unable to resist, but Liselle had finished her conversation with Maeve’s grandmother and was looking sternly at him. He also spotted a few photographers snapping candid shots of him and Maeve…
No, this was definitely not the time or place.
Not until the big announcement, anyway.
‘Liselle wants to know what you think of my paintings,’ he murmured, reluctantly taking a step back.
Maeve turned on her heel, taking in the whole exhibition. Her smile was tremulous as she looked back at him. There were tears in her eyes too, but they were tears of joy, or so he hoped.
‘They’re amazing,’ she said in French, turning to Liselle. ‘Quite incredible. I can’t believe I’m the woman in these paintings. I mean, I can see myself… But it still doesn’t seem real. I’m just a schoolteacher from England.’ She threw up her hands. ‘How did I manage to become anyone’s Muse?’
‘Now, Maeve,’ her grandmother said, tutting her disapproval, ‘we’ve talked about this before. Don’t do yourself down. I can perfectly understand why Leo wanted to paint you. And look at this marvellous exhibition. With every painting you’ve shown me, I’ve heard other people exclaiming at his talent and how beautiful these portraits are.’ Her smile was proud. ‘And that’s because of you.’
‘Your grandmother is right,’ he said, perhaps not very modestly, but then modesty was underrated in his opinion. It stopped people from realizing their true potential. And he had no intention of allowing that to happen. Not now that he’d found his mojo again. ‘I couldn’t have produced these paintings and put on this exhibition if you haven’t sat for me and been such an inspiration. I was lost and confused when we met… Now I know exactly who I am and where I want to be.’ He wanted to kiss her again, but everyone was looking their way now. It was nearly time for him to give his speech.
‘Is your father not here?’ Maeve asked.
He thrust his hands into his pockets, suppressing a laugh. ‘I asked Papa to be here but he couldn’t make it, apparently. He sent me a text just as the doors opened. Chanelle has a sudden hankering for Nice, he says. So they’ve brought forward their plan to move there. They went off on the train about an hour ago, on a house hunting mission. I don’t think they’ll be back anytime soon.’
‘Not even for the wedding?’
He sensed relief in her voice and grinned. ‘Yes, I texted him that question too. My father suggested he might be a little busy that weekend.’
‘Oh dear, how very sad,’ Maeve said without emphasis, but her eyes were dancing.
Bernadette came up behind them, with his grandmother and Nonna in tow. The two older women stopped to speak politely to Maeve’s grandmother, who had come round to Chateau Rémy for coffee the previous day.
Bernadette turned to Leo and Maeve, and rolled her eyes with an exaggerated sigh because they were still gazing at each other, smiling secretly as they communicated without words.
‘Erm, sorry to break up the lovefest, big bro,’ Bernadette said pointedly, ‘but it’s time for your speech. Everyone’s glasses have been charged with champagne, as ordered, and the podium is right over there. You don’t want to keep your fans waiting.’
‘I certainly don’t,’ he agreed, only belatedly noticing Maeve’s tension. ‘What is it, cherie? What’s the matter?’
‘Oh, Leo… ’ Maeve gripped his arm, her smile vanishing. ‘Do you really think it’s wise to announce our engagement tonight?’ she whispered furiously in English. ‘It’s bad enough having everyone staring at me in these paintings, but the media will go wild once they hear that. You told me I would be anonymous, remember? Instead, my name seems to be on every single one of these paintings!’
‘I told you, being upfront about our relationship is the best way to deal with the press attention,’ he assured her. ‘There’s already been so much speculation since that photo of us at Jean’s place. Besides, if we’d tried to keep things quiet, not saying anything, one of them would have been bound to find out another way and make everything a thousand times worse. This way, we control the narrative.’
Liselle was nodding. ‘Yes, let me handle all the publicity for you, Maeve,’ she said calmly. He was glad that she’d come to terms with the news that they were going to be married. Although now Liselle was trying to turn it to their advantage, he sensed they might need to take their honeymoon somewhere far away, to avoid it turning into a media circus. Like the Arctic Circle, perhaps.
‘Ah, you see,’ Nonna said in French, jabbing a bony finger in Maeve’s direction, though her smile seemed friendly enough, ‘I told you, didn’t I? You are perfect. The perfect Muse for our Leo.’ She pointed significantly at one of the smaller canvases where he had painted Maeve almost – but not quite – nude, seated with a modesty-preserving lapful of flowers, a position which she had complained about constantly at the time, claiming the flowers were cold and prickly and probably had insects crawling all over them… ‘I told you this would happen. Now you give Leo good babies, hein?’
Liselle inhaled sharply at this, pursing her lips.
Bernadette snorted.
Maeve muttered something in return that he didn’t catch, not looking particularly gratified by this suggestion.
‘Nonna, please…’ Leo cleared his throat and put a hand over his mouth to hide his grin, pretending to scratch his upper lip.
Judging by Maeve’s expression, she wasn’t fooled.
‘You’re up.’ Bernadette handed Leo a fresh glass of champagne and nodded him towards the podium. ‘Good luck.’
Liselle tapped her glass with a pen to get everyone’s attention. Quickly, the noisy hubbub of chatter died away as Leo strolled towards the podium.
‘Thank you all for being here tonight, my friends, and for being among the first in the world to view these paintings of my new exhibition.’ Leo looked across at Maeve, who was nervously gulping down the champagne she’d been handed instead of waiting for the toast, and smiled. ‘Before I go on to talk about the inspiration behind this exhibition, and to thank all those who helped it happen, I would like first to introduce you to the woman who sat for these paintings. The woman you’ve been admiring as you’ve walked around the room. The woman who has graciously agreed to become my wife.’
A ripple of excitement ran through the room at this announcement, but he ignored it.
Leo raised his glass of champagne in a toast, his heart flooding, love trembling through his voice as he finished triumphantly, ‘I give you… Maeve Eden, the love of my life.’
‘Maeve,’ most people responded, drinking her health, while others used their phones to snap pictures of the two of them.
The photographers set up a barrage of flashes, calling to Maeve to look their way and even to get up on the podium next to him.
‘Come on… We want to see the happy couple together!’
Maeve’s blush deepened at the shouts and whistles, but when he beckoned her forward, she didn’t refuse, despite her obvious reluctance to be the centre of attention. As he put an arm about her waist, she raised her glass to Leo, even though there was only half an inch of champagne left at the bottom of the glass, and shyly murmured, ‘I love you, Leo.’
I love you.
He had intended to keep his cool up to that point. To remain theelusive and enigmatic Leo Rémy he had always been in the past at exhibition openings.
But Maeve had never actually said those three little words to him before, even though she had agreed to be his wife. He’d hoped maybe those feelings would come in time, so hadn’t mentioned it, fearing to have that conversation and be wounded by a cool, offhand answer. But Leo had wondered if she felt the same as him, especially once they’d made love. He’d thought perhaps she was still too ‘sensible’ to believe in love.
So, when he saw her mouth those special words, his heart swelled, his breath tangled in his throat, and it was all he could do not to abandon the podium and seize her in his arms in front of all these people. Because nothing could be more perfect than his life at this precise moment.
Except perhaps the pitter-patter of tiny feet – or, more likely, ear-piercing wails emanating from tiny but powerful lungs – in the corridors of Chateau Rémy, assuming they were ever blessed with children.
Nonna would be pleased, he thought with an inner chuckle.
But that was a thought for the future.
‘I love you too, Maeve,’ he whispered back to her, raising his glass again, and the paparazzi went wild.
THE END