Girl in Bath Page 2

  “Derassen, is that you, my friend?” Salis asked.

  Jonathan nodded.

  “Where is Madame Derassen tonight? Does this poor girl beside you not know you’re married?”

  “I can only guess that my ex-wife, Madame Caron, is tucked tidily at home knitting her rosary beads. And, believe me, this poor girl beside me knows it very well.” The drunken crowd laughed uproariously.

  Salis began focusing more feigned ire on some patrons, to which the crowd whooped and laughed. It was his regular bit and you wouldn’t attend if you were the sort to be easily pricked.

  Finally Salis introduced a poet who recited a lengthy collection of poems. Then he returned to the stage.

  “And now, for your pleasure, Minette.”

  Monica stepped onto the stage and Jonathan peered intently to see her better. In the painting she was soft, used, wanton, and sly. It hadn’t done her justice. Standing before him now she was poised and impenetrable. Lovely. Straight as a blade and tall. Never had he seen a woman so tall. The sleeveless, gold brocade dress she wore hugged her trim curves, and was striking against her peaches-and-cream skin, dark chocolate hair and eyes. There was something in her gaze he couldn’t fathom exactly but wanted to.

  Yet her beauty was nothing when compared to the voice that broke into the room when she began to sing. She started small and grew smaller still, but her voice was so strong and sure, he was certain she could take down a wild boar with the needle of it. This was a sign of any singer with true talent. It was rich and crystal clear, only the pure cream of her voice. And it poured over him, over everyone in the room, as they sat spellbound.

  This was no mere barmaid who was playing at singing, but a true and rare talent. Her physical presence went far beyond the searching look in that devastating painting. And her musicality was like nothing he had heard before. She didn’t merely hit her notes, she remade them.

  Then her eyes slid to his and warmed as the corners of her mouth curled up. When the song was coming to a close, he sat forward as if he could draw more from her even as she pulled back. His hands came together without any thought. He wanted more. And he would have it.

  “She’s good,” his sister declared. She had an eye and ear for talent as true as any man’s.

  “Yes.”

  When Monica finished her set, Jonathan went in search of Salis.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about her? Why have I not seen her before?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Salis replied. “And she’s only a Sunday night girl. The only night she can sing, I believe. She is delightful, isn’t she?”

  “More than that.”

  He knocked on the dressing room door. “Minette. Are you decent?”

  “Just a moment, monsieur.”

  The door opened and Monica stood in her gold dress with something calculating in her eyes. To the other girl in the room he nodded toward the door and she scurried out. They sat together on the divan. Woodenly at first, for it certainly wasn’t appropriate, then they settled into it, as if their closeness should be a perfectly natural thing.

  “You’re a talent, Mademoiselle Fauconnier. It is mademoiselle, is it not?” He knew very well.

  “It is. And thank you, monsieur.”

  “Minette—the star of the sea. Are you a star amongst the sea of performers in this district?”

  “I think so,” she said without so much as a breath of hesitation.

  There was his dilemma, for he thought so, too. The businessman in him would see her on stage when his greatest experiment—which had to succeed—the Moulin Rouge, opened later in the year. But the man in him would see her in his bed where no other man could get to her.

  “Tell me, how did you come to be Monsieur Talac’s figure model?”

  She smiled tauntingly. “Are you in love with me, monsieur?”

  “Any man who’s ever looked upon that painting is and if he says otherwise, he’s lying. But I think you already know that, don’t you?”

  Her mouth was ajar for the briefest moment and he loved that he could knock her off her proud pedestal.

  “Perhaps you might secure the services of Monsieur Talac,” she said. “After all, it was his keen eye and deft hands that rendered me.”

  “Talac did indeed capture something in your eye. But it was that something, that…desire that is entirely you.”

  “Hunger, Monsieur Derassen. A desire to eat when the day is done. And to perform. That’s what you saw. If you think otherwise…”

  Propriety be damned, he slid closer to her, his mouth mere inches from her perfect cupid’s bow lips, the lower one lush and shiny in the center, just begging to be kissed. “I know otherwise. You’re hungry, mademoiselle, for all that you say. And something more, I think.”

  Abruptly she stood and walked to the door. He had to be careful if his reputation preceded him.

  “What are you doing now your set is done?” he asked.

  “It’s late,” she said, her hand falling on the doorknob.

  “Not so.” He walked to her. “Come and have a drink with me. You’ll meet my sister. She’s a good, honest sort.” Though he hadn’t known it consciously, this was why he’d had the forethought to bring the painfully prim and proper Marie-Thérèse.

  She smiled tightly.

  “Come on.” He took her gloved hand in his and the warmth of it there seemed so right that he looked at it, then she did as well.

  “You must come!” Marie-Thérèse called out the door of the carriage. “Tell her she must come, Jon.”

  Monica had joined them for one drink that became four as they watched the remaining performers close out the night. And though he knew she was a young woman of humble means, she gamely carried her end of the conversation—music and art and literature, even politics and, most surprising of all, horse racing. Marie-Thérèse had been gape-mouthed as the singer had countered her prediction that Bull Dog would break his maiden on the short course at Boulogne next Sunday. He’s a firm middle-distance colt, Monica had said, predicting that Kildare loved the sprint and the soft conditions expected after the rain forecast for later in the week. Rarely did people surprise him, but this woman did.

  Now this. After insisting they drop her at her doorstep, she had directed their driver to this modest house more than a block away from her address. He knew exactly where she lived, and was beginning to think he wanted to know her from the inside out.

  They stood at the random doorstep, his sister no doubt watching.

  “Thank you for the escort home, monsieur.”

  Her cheeks were flushed. From the drinks or perhaps something else. He took a small step closer, caging her in with his body and breathing in her faint scent of orange blossoms. “I would feel better had we dropped you at your actual address, mademoiselle.”

  Her eyes darted around as she fiddled with her skirt.

  “It isn’t far,” she admitted.

  “I know.”

  She seemed to vibrate with a magnetic energy that drew him to her. He wanted to place his hands, his mouth, his whole body on her. Gently he clasped her arm. “May I see you again?”

  “You’re very kind, monsieur.”

  He smirked. “I’m not kind.” She smirked, too. “And I promise you, you would be doing me a great favor.”

  The flickering gaslight warmed the arch of her brows as they furrowed.

  “I’m flattered, monsieur. But I haven’t much time to indulge in that sort of thing.”

  He considered her deft answer even as he wondered when last he’d been turned down. He dared to place his hand on her back and her breath hitched. Then he drew it slowly down until he pressed his palm lightly to the gentle curve where her back met her bottom. What he wouldn’t give to move his hand lower.

  “What does that mean?”

  “If you know where I live, then you know where I work. I’m not complaining, mind you. I’m happy to have a position and a place to live. But the life of a blanchisseuse is not an easy one, monsi
eur. The hours are long. The Sabbath is my only free day and I spend part of it rehearsing for Le Chat.”

  “But you must come with us to Boulogne next Sunday. To see your Kildare take the 1,000-metre.”

  “He’ll get on just fine without me.”

  “Shall I? How shall I get on without you?”

  “I think you get on just fine. And even if I could, I haven’t anything to wear. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “Is that all?” He brushed the back of a hand down her cheek. “A thing easily remedied. I’d be happy to buy you anything you’d like.”

  “You misunderstand. You needn’t give me gifts.”

  He nuzzled his nose, his beard, his lips across her face, so close to her lips they nearly brushed. He heard her breath getting high and tight and felt her chest rising and pressing into his. But she didn’t pull away.

  “You wouldn’t want to disappoint my dear sister, now would you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Good,” he said, before placing a feather-light kiss on the column of her neck. “I’ll call on you.”

  Chapter 3

  Gabby was folding and feeding water-soaked clean linens through the mangle, which Monica steadily cranked.

  “What time did you get in last night?” Gabby asked.

  It was one of Gabrielle’s better days. Her voice and gait and color were strong.

  “Late.”

  Gabby pulled the wrung linen from the mangle and handed it to another woman who stood on a step stool to hang it from the drying rack that soared into the beamed ceiling. The drying linen hung in perfect white and ethereal rows as the gentle breeze of the open window moved through them, so that they seemed like dove’s wings fluttering and not the hardest labor of their hands.

  “M-hm. Why so late? If Salis kept you for another set, I hope he paid you for it.”

  Gabby sometimes played piano at Le Chat Noir and loved to talk performing. But Salis had a regular piano player and only allowed Gabby at Monica’s begging. And she did beg. Because she felt so guilty.

  Eighteen months before Monica had uprooted Gabby from the only home and family she’d known since Gabby was barely more than a girl. With a few francs and positions open at Madame Pelletier’s blanchisserie, Monica had to leave. Either that or the dream she had cultivated since she was a girl would wither on the vine. Gabby had insisted, come what may, on going with her.

  Before she could remember, Monica could sing, her little voice always strong and clear. Singing in the church choir fed her, but not nearly enough. Soon she began singing at cafés for smiles and applause, then francs. She was home when she was on stage, and as she grew older, it was a warmer and more comforting place than the only other home she had. As soon as she was old enough, she came to Paris with a small amount of money and an impossible dream.

  The Montmartre of her girlhood had been a hilltop village of vineyards and cherry tree orchards, windmills and gypsum mines. When she returned after thirteen years in Rouen, it was transformed. The agrarian butte was now a metropolitan place, brimming with workhouses and cafés, dance halls and ateliers. Whole streets and entire families had moved. It was a bewildering change. Until she met Gabrielle Thomas.

  Kernel-small and fierce as a fist with a cutting wit and a deep fount of knowledge on the city’s players, Gabby had ushered Monica into early auditions and associations as if her penniless patron. Days later Monica had moved in with her and her brother and their friend. She found a comradery in their dreams and struggles. They cursed and cried and laughed together. Three years she’d been happy there in their peculiar family of friends.

  Lately, on Gabby’s worse days, she even considered crawling back to Aubrey. Not for herself. God, no. There weren’t enough sweet fucks and sweeter francs to do that. But she would do it for her friend. Gabby needed the friendships on Cortot and had faded since they left. Gabrielle was talented in her way, but had forsaken her talents for Monica’s. You really have something, she’d said. Instead, she would be Monica’s sister. Her steadfast support when she had none from any other quarter. In that she’d always shined.

  So it was that Monica hesitated to answer.

  “Well?” Gabby prodded. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Monsieur Derassen came to see me.”

  “He did? To hear you sing? Why didn’t you tell me? And did he love you? Did you get an audition? Tell me you got an audition. What am I saying? Of course you did.” She squeezed Monica’s arms fiercely. She did have some vigor today. “Oh, what shall I wear for opening night with all those fine gentlemen from the Rive Gauche?”

  “I didn’t get an audition.”

  “You didn’t? He didn’t like you? Was it the wine you spilled? You promised him you weren’t that ungainly, right? You do have long legs, but you’re never awkward. He should be lucky to have your legs for his high-kick lines. What did he say? Did you talk to him? Tell me everything.”

  “I will if only you’d stop talking. He called me ‘a talent’ and asked about my stage name, if I thought I was a star.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said yes.”

  “You are,” Gabby said with a bite in her voice. “And everyone in this city will know it soon.” She paused. “So he came to Le Chat to see you. Called you ‘a talent.’ Wait. Where were you when he called you a talent?”

  “In my dressing room.”

  “With Marie.”

  “Marie left,” Monica said after a pause.

  Gabby chewed her lips. “You were in your dressing room. Alone. With Monsieur Derassen.”

  “Yes. But nothing happened.”

  Gabby shook her head as if Monica were a complete innocent.

  “Don’t shake your head at me. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Do you?”

  “Not every man is like Aubrey.”

  “No. Monsieur D is worse. He moves Tout-Paris with a wink and a word. And money. He has so much money, I can’t even begin to imagine.”

  “You’re making something out of nothing when I promise you, nothing happened.”

  “So what did happen? You were late because of him, so tell me.”

  “He wanted me to have a drink with him. And his sister.”

  “His sister.” Gabby rolled her eyes. “You mean his mistress.”

  “No. It wasn’t Madame Kohl. Her name was Marie-Thérèse and she had the very same distinctive auburn hair as he.”

  “M-hm.”

  “Yes. He does have a lot of sisters,” Monica insisted.

  “He does. Seven, perhaps?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “You had a drink with him and his sister.”

  “A few.”

  “How many is ‘a few?’”

  “Three or four.”

  “Wine or absinthe?”

  “You know me. I can’t think clearly with the green fairy. Wine, purely wine.”

  “Good, because you have to keep a level head with him. And never, never let yourself be alone with him. Never again.”

  “I don’t think we need to worry about my reputation. Aubrey did more than enough to ruin that. I might as well be in the demimonde for all the good he did me.”

  “But you’re not. And you needn’t be. Not for Aubrey, who couldn’t afford you anyway. And certainly not for Monsieur D. He’s dangerous, I hear.”

  “You don’t really believe those rumors, do you?”

  “You don’t? After all, they weren’t born from a few careless whispers, but a divorce complaint so detailed in its decadence it would make the devil himself blush.”

  “I don’t know if I believe it. He doesn’t seem the sort.”

  Monica couldn’t explain how safe she felt with him. When they were alone, sitting improperly close, when he nuzzled her, not a sliver of fear. But something else. Something, despite what she told him, she wanted.

  “What does ‘the sort’ seem like?” Gabby asked. “He’s violent or he’d still be respectably married and we
both know it.”

  That was the word around town, the true teeth in the bite of those rumors. For it must have been truly something to warrant one of the first divorces in France in nearly a century.

  “Still, I don’t think he’s as menacing or powerful as you think.”

  “Girls.” Madame Pelletier rushed in with two full carafes of white wine. Routinely she furnished wine with feigned beneficence, when they all knew it dulled the bite of labor.

  “I have the best news.” She filled a glass for each of the women and raised hers. “Inexplicably, an investor from le Fauborg has taken an interest in this blanchisserie. Can you believe it? Some effort, he said, to better the working conditions. To shorten your hours and raise your pay. If you begin your work day at five in the morning, you are to end your work day at five in the afternoon. The. Afternoon. Can you believe such a thing? I cannot. He doesn’t seem to have any head for business, but I don’t care. His frivolity is our gain. His investment, well, it has made us.” She clinked their glasses so hard the wine splashed on their hands.

  Gabby leveled Monica with a cynical look as they took a sip.

  Monsieur Derassen’s carriage pulled up at six that evening.

  “Did you invite him here?” Gabby asked, her arms folded across her chest as she watched him alight.

  “No.”

  “I don’t believe you. Your ambition will get you hurt and worse than your heart. You can’t work if you’re hurt.”

  “We don’t even know what he wants. He could be here for Madame Pelletier.”

  Gabby rolled her eyes. “No one comes here for that bitch.”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  Madame Pelletier trilled outside their door as she knocked. “Mademoiselle Fauconnier, you have a visitor,” she sang.

  Monica opened the door to the madame’s bug-eyed delight.

  “Ah, Monsieur Derassen,” Madame Pelletier drew out his name as if puzzling over the pronunciation, though everyone in the city knew the name and he was almost certainly her mysterious new investor, “is here to see you, my dearest girl.”