The Last Dress from Paris(32)
“So, aside from the one dress that’s still missing, and the Maxim’s you’ve found—there are six more, is that right?” He’s tossed his phone back on the table and his attention has returned to me.
“Yes, six more, all in my hotel room now, with their accompanying notes. Some of the locations the dresses were worn to I recognize, like a visit to the Orangerie Museum, but others don’t mean anything to me, like Les Halles. But it’s what else the notes say that’s so intriguing. On one she has simply written, ‘The kiss that saved me.’?”
He sits for a moment, taking it all in, maybe feeling the futility of trying to solve the mystery with relatively so little to go on. If only Granny had sent me here while Veronique’s mother was still alive. She could have given us so much more detail and information, facts that Granny is holding back for me to discover myself.
“Oh, who are they, Leon? How am I ever going to find out and connect this to my grandmother?” Please let him say he’ll help a little more. I know I have Veronique, but together the three of us can do this, I just know it.
“You’re going to need a guide. And you’re going to need more time in Paris. I can fix the first one for you, you’ll need to sort the other.”
“What?”
“Where is the next location? What dress comes next after the Maxim’s, and where did A wear it?”
“It’s dress number four, and if I remember rightly, it’s called the Batignolles. She wore it to the Jardin du Luxembourg.”
He looks at his watch, throws some euros onto the table, and then slides his arms back into his jacket. “Okay, I’ve got some catching up on work to do today, but how about I meet you there tomorrow, late morning?”
“Really? You would do that? You’ve got time?” Bloody hell, this is amazing.
“To be honest, no, I don’t really have time, but I’ve been meaning to shoot parts of the city for months, and this will force me to get it done.” Then he pauses before adding, “And something’s telling me there is more to this, and the only way I’m going to find out if I’m right is to join you on your mad romantic chase across Paris, Lucille.” There’s the megawatt smile again.
And I have to be honest, I’m not sure in this moment what I am most happy about. That I’m staying in Paris, or that—even if he’s only doing it for the story—he’s staying with me.
8
Alice
OCTOBER 1953, PARIS
THE BATIGNOLLES
Albert’s side of the bed is empty again when Alice wakes this morning. The sheets are smooth and unwrinkled, obviously undisturbed by his body while she slept. She has no idea if he spent another night working in his office . . . or in someone else’s bed. Her chest rises and then falls deeply with the weariness of thinking about the answer to that.
She lets her mind wash back over the months since they arrived in Paris. She knew the move here would be hard. That Albert’s job would present challenges—new people to impress, making a mark for herself where others were poised to see failure. She just never imagined she would be doing it alone. Does the fault lie in her own naivety, or a cruel manipulation on Albert’s part? In the days when he was not yet sure he’d won her, he painted a picture of a partnership, the two of them masterminding a successful future together. She saw in those months a softer Albert, one whose eyes studied her, whose relief she could feel when she walked into a room to take up her place at his side. He visibly relaxed in her presence. But now, in Paris, it’s as if his ego has ordered that version of himself to stay hidden. Like he’s ashamed of the Albert who once let his fingers frivolously trace across her sun-warmed belly as they laughed together about the chubby babies they’d love one day soon.
The small clock on her bedside table reads eight fifteen a.m. It won’t be long until Anne arrives with Alice’s breakfast. Then, when she’s dressed, she’ll meet Albert downstairs. He has asked to run through the details of several upcoming social events they’ll be hosting, not least of which are the Queen’s birthday celebrations in April next year. With a guest list nudging three hundred, plus Christmas just a couple of months away, there is little time to waste. Once the decisions have been made, it will be Alice’s job to mobilize the staff and make sure the entire thing is hosted to perfection.
She hears Anne knock softly at the door before she steps into the room carrying a small silver tray with Alice’s plate of bacon and eggs and a china pot of English breakfast tea.
“Good morning, Madame Ainsley,” she half whispers, probably imagining Alice is barely awake yet. The room is still in semidarkness, so she places the tray at the end of the bed and then walks toward the double-height windows and pulls back the heavy drapes, casting a cold light into the room. Alice notices how Anne’s eyes flick to Albert’s vacant side of the bed. And then how she deliberately pretends not to notice it. She wonders whether Anne knows things that Alice doesn’t. Does she see and hear things when she is moving around the residence late at night? Would a few quick questions now, in the privacy of her bedroom and with Albert occupied elsewhere, answer whether her husband is a faithful man or not? It’s the uncertainty that feels more unsettling than the answers themselves.