The Keeper of Happy Endings(23)

Rory navigated the crowded bistro tables in the courtyard, scanning faces until she realized she had no idea who she was looking for. In her excitement, she’d forgotten to ask Ms. Roussel how to recognize her. Then she remembered her mother’s mention of burns. Presumably, there would be scars.

The heady aromas of chocolate, cherries, and rich dark coffee greeted her as she pushed through the front door. The line at the counter snaked nearly to the door. Rory sidled past, peering around the dress box. Families. Tourists. Students bent over textbooks. But no one who fit her invented image of Soline Roussel, who she now pictured as a fragile octogenarian with burn scars and an uncomfortable gaze.

Her eyes suddenly connected with those of a woman sitting alone near the back of the shop. Her dark hair was swept up in a glossy chignon, and she wore a smart suit of crimson knit, with black velvet cuffs and shiny gold toggles running down the front. At her throat, a checked scarf of red, white, and black was arranged cravat-style and fastened with a pearl stickpin. She looked startled as their eyes met, as if briefly struck by a wave of panic. After a moment, she seemed to compose herself and inclined her head ever so slightly.

Rory shifted the box to her hip and made her way to the table, not noticing until the last moment that there was a mug and plate in front of the empty chair. “I’m sorry,” she blurted. “I thought—”

“Miss Grant?”

Rory recognized the voice from the phone, smoky and low. French. But she was so young—late fifties, perhaps older, but not much. And absolutely beautiful with porcelain-pale skin and a perfect red bow of a mouth. Not a scar to be seen. “You’re . . . Ms. Roussel?”

“I am.” She gestured with her chin toward the empty chair.

Rory set the box on the corner of the table and took a seat. She couldn’t stop staring.

“I took the liberty of ordering you a little something—as a thank-you.”

Rory glanced at the table, where a mille feuille and a café au lait sat waiting for her. “Thank you. I love their pastries. But you really didn’t have to, Ms. Roussel. I was happy to come.”

“Soline, please. You have questions, I’m sure.”

Rory blinked at her, caught off guard by the matter-of-fact invitation. She had no idea how to begin.

Soline seemed to sense her awkwardness. “Your name is Aurora. A beautiful name. In France we say Aurore. It means goddess of the dawn.”

Rory couldn’t help smiling. It sounded so lovely when she said it. Not matronly at all. “I go by Rory,” she said sheepishly. “My mother hates it.”

Soline’s lips twitched, the flicker of a smile. “Mothers like the names they give us.” Her smile faded as her gaze settled on the dress box. “You opened the box, yes?”

Rory ducked her head. “I did. I’m sorry. I was just so surprised to find it. I couldn’t imagine why . . .”

“Ask what you want to ask,” Soline prompted when Rory went quiet.

Rory was surprised by her abrupt tone and by the fact that she hadn’t so much as touched the box. Instead, she sat stiffly, her hands folded primly beneath the table, as if braced for an interrogation.

“The dress,” Rory began tentatively. “It’s one of yours?”

“Yes.”

“And the other . . . things?”

“They belong to me as well.”

“The dress is so beautiful, like something from a fairy tale.” She paused, not sure how to proceed. “It looks . . . brand-new.”

“It is new. And very old.”

“You mean it was never worn.”

Soline dropped her gaze. “Oui.”

The single word posed more questions than it answered. Why had the dress never been worn? Infidelity? Or a tragedy of some sort? She thought of the letters, all penned by grateful brides who’d received the fabled happy ending. But it seemed the owner of the fairy-tale dress had had no such luck. Why?

“I read some of the letters.”

“Did you?”

Rory nodded. “The ones that were in English. I couldn’t read the others.”

“The recent ones were written to me. The others are from women my mother sewed for a long time ago, back in Paris.” She paused, swallowing as she looked away. “She died not long after the Nazis came. When people heard the news, the letters started showing up.”

“And you kept them all these years.”

“To remember her by, yes. And to remind myself that once upon a time, there were happy endings in Paris and that my mother played a part in a few of them.”

Rory laid a hand on the box. “With dresses like this one?”

She managed a thin smile, not quite bitter but almost. “No fairy tale is complete without a proper dress, chérie.”

“But not just any dress,” Rory pressed, sensing evasion in the response. “A Roussel dress. There’s something special about them, isn’t there? Something that makes them lucky?”

“Drink your café, Aurore. Before it gets cold.”

Rory lifted her mug obediently. “I’m sorry for prying. I’m just trying to understand what I read. All those grateful brides with such amazing turns of luck. And they all seemed to be thanking you, as if somehow you’d made it happen. I know what people used to say—my mother told me—and the letters seem to be saying the same thing, that your dresses are . . . magical.”