Page 46 of The Paris Trip

Leo turned, restless, and began pacing the room. He had planned to spend the afternoon making a start on preparing a canvas based on the sketches he’d taken last night. But his head was in a mess now.

His father had betrayed his mother. Not once but many times. He had wounded her deeply, and Leo could never forgive him for that.

Certainly his grandfather had never done so, throwing his son out of the house and warning him never to come back if he valued his looks. Sébastien had laughed in his father’s face, pointing out that there was nothing he could do under French law, since it did not permit a child to be disinherited.

In the end, everything had been left jointly to Sébastien, Henri and his grandmother, though her frail health meant she was unable to do much beyond nominally sign off on the annual accounts and sit on the company board.

Then his father had left Paris with barely a glance in young Leo’s direction.

His mother had never recovered from the failure of her marriage. A short-lived affair had left her with Bernadette, but a new baby had only seemed to exacerbate her depression. Before Bernadette was even a year old, his mother had lost her bloom and turned inwards.

His mother had killed herself in the winter Leo had turned eleven.

He paused before the window, staring out into the enclosed courtyard garden. Sun glinted off windows, half blinding him. He was breathing fast and shallow, his mood volatile…

Maeve was out there, seated on a lounger in the shade, flicking through a magazine. She was barefoot, wearing the same sleeveless summer dress from yesterday. One of Bernadette’s loans, of course.

He wondered what kind of clothes Maeve would ordinarily choose to wear. Nothing so colourful, he suspected.

The basic jeans and tee-shirt ensemble she’d been wearing when they first met had been pedestrian at best, drab at worst. Yet he guessed that understated styles probably suited her better than anything more exotic. More brash colours and patterns might overwhelm her quiet persona.

He flashed back to their impromptu kiss on the attic landing – though it had been more than just a kiss, given the urgency of his desire at the time – and again battled a sense of disbelief that he could have done something so stupid and ill-advised.

She had kissed him back, though.

What did that mean?

He grimaced, pushing such pointless speculation aside. He desperately needed to outline his first painting today and get her back into the studio as soon as possible. And in daylight this time. It was all very well working under electric lighting when there was no other choice, but he wanted to capture the soft glow of summer on her face…

‘When do you think they’ll arrive?’ he muttered.

His grandmother hesitated. ‘Well, the newspaper says they were married last weekend in St Tropez, so it’s likely they’re in Paris already. Which means Sébastien could appear on the doorstep at any moment, bringing his new bride with him.’ Her voice trembled. ‘Today, perhaps? Or tomorrow.’

Leo’s hands tightened into fists at his side. ‘Then we’ll have to be ready for them, won’t we?’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

‘I need you to put these on, if you don’t mind.’ Leo deposited a pile of clothing in front of Maeve, a strange look in his face. ‘Don’t worry… I’ll step outside while you change. I’ll get us some coffee, how’s that?’

‘You don’t happen to have tea, do you?’ Maeve asked, verging on desperation after days of coffee drinking. ‘With a dash of milk?’

Leo pulled a face. ‘I think we probably have tea somewhere in the house. And milk. But I can’t guarantee that it will taste anything like what you think of as “tea”.’

‘As close as you can get it would be fantastic, thank you,’ Maeve said, aware of a ridiculous desire to fall on her knees and beg for tea. ‘Addiction is a funny thing, isn’t it?’

‘Hilarious.’

‘Am I being intolerably British?’

‘Not at all,’ he said politely. ‘Get changed. I’ll do my best to produce some drinkable tea.’

Once he’d gone, Maeve’s troubled gaze dropped to the clothes he’d left in front of her. They were very, um, colourful. She picked them up and examined them at arms’ length. The material was flimsy, screaming orange and scarlet… Some kind of robe? Plus what appeared to be a matching headscarf or bandanna. And a pair of dangly earrings. Thankfully, they were clip-on, for although she wore studs in her ears, she didn’t fancy sticking second-hand earrings in there.

It was like putting on clothes from a childhood fancy dress box. Or picking a bold new look and reinventing herself.

Why on earth did he want her to wear these? Presumably he had some vision in mind for his painting. But it wouldn’t be a vision that matched up to her personality.

Well, she had agreed to help him out in return for bed and board, so it would be mean-spirited now to back out. Hurriedly, she pulled off the summer frock that Bernadette had so kindly lent her, which was tighter-fitting than all the other clothes in her meagre store. Then she cautiously wriggled and shrugged her way into the brightly-coloured robe that he wanted her to wear, all diaphanous, multi-layered folds, like a fairy costume or something out of a pantomime.

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