When I took off my blindfold, I worked on the images for a little while and then flipped over the page and did swatches of Mrs. Gould’s coloring. Last, I did a finer drawing of her face, concentrating on her eyes, nose, and lips.
She was in her early thirties, with dark blue eyes, a thin upper lip and full lower lip, and blond hair twisted up to show off her ears, which boasted huge teardrop pearls. There were more pearls, two ropes of them, around her neck, disappearing under the neckline of the pink satin dressing gown she’d worn for the sitting.
“May I see?” she asked when I put down my paintbrush after a very exhausting two hours.
“I’m sorry, no,” I said, with a smile. “It’s too rough now. You won’t like it at all. I need to refine it and show you a more finished portrait, and then, if you like it, you can buy it.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Didn’t Sebastian explain?”
“Not to me, perhaps to my husband.”
“Oh, yes, perhaps. The way I work is that there is a fee for today. But because these aren’t typical portraits, my sitters aren’t obligated to buy the finished paintings.”
“Do most of your sitters buy them?”
“About half.” I told a white lie so I wouldn’t sound as inexperienced as I actually was.
“And what will you do with the painting if we don’t buy it?”
“My brother will destroy it.”
“Why wouldn’t I want what you’re going to paint?”
“Mrs. Gould, did your husband tell you what kind of paintings I do?”
“Not really. Or maybe. I just remember he said you were all the rage.”
Sebastian had obviously lied to Mr. Gould—a bit of publicity spin to secure our first commissions.
“Well, I paint people’s secrets.”
“What do you mean? Are you psychic?”
“Something like that. I’m good at reading people.”
She rose gracefully, aware of her every movement, and came over to where I sat. For a moment, she examined what I’d drawn. Suddenly, the flighty, refined woman disappeared. Eleanor Gould stared down at the drawing and erupted into raucous laughter.
“You’ve captured me perfectly, Mademoiselle Duplessi. I’m sure my husband will find the painting much to his liking . . . I just doubt very much he’ll ever show it to anyone.”
“Why is that?”
“You’ve painted our seduction. While he was married. While his first wife was summering in Newport. He found me in a restaurant, slaving away as a waitress, and spent all of June, July, and August turning me into someone presentable. That’s the bedroom in the home they owned on Lake Michigan, down to the color of the bedspread. That’s us in his marriage bed moments before his wife returned early from her summer sojourn and found us there. Just moments before.”
Eleanor Gould smiled. “And not by accident. He’d arranged for her to find us. She’d refused to grant him a divorce, no matter how much he offered and however hard he pleaded. But he knew that the one thing she couldn’t stand would be to have her reputation ruined. So he had a photographer there, and the big flash you painted is when the photographer captured my husband’s first wife’s face upon seeing us in bed. And that was that. He got his divorce, and I got a husband.”
*
“Yes, I remember Mrs. Gould,” I said to Sebastian now.
“Well, she is back in Cannes. She has her daughter with her and wants you to paint both of them.”
“I told you I can’t.”
“Will you just try? You’ve already seen her worst secret. That’s why this is perfect. You won’t have to be afraid of what you see.”
I thought about it for a moment. Swirled it around in my mind like the wine in the glass. What he was saying did make sense, but . . . “No, I’m sorry, Sebastian. I just can’t.”
He was angry, but he didn’t say a word. Standing, he walked out of the kitchen. I followed him downstairs and outside. He still wasn’t speaking to me. He was going to leave without even a good-bye. He opened the door and stepped outside.
It had been raining, and there were puddles of water everywhere. An especially large one in front of my house. The sky was filled with gray banks of clouds, but a single ray of sunshine had broken through and was shining down on Sebastian. I thought he was going to keep going, but he stopped just next to the puddle and turned to me. He was saying something, but I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t concentrate. In the puddle’s reflective surface, as if I were looking into a scrying bowl, I watched a series of images present themselves to me.
A castle in the countryside. Sebastian standing by the entranceway, his hand reaching out to me. Sebastian’s voice a watery whisper inside my head.
Unless you are here to save me, I am going to die.
“Where? I don’t understand?” I spoke out loud to the apparition of my brother.
“Delphine?” The flesh-and-blood Sebastian was calling my name but from a great distance. I couldn’t focus on him. I waited for my spectral twin to explain. What kind of danger? Where was here? How I was supposed to protect him without more information?
Unless you are here to save me . . .
The water rippled. The apparition was gone. I continued staring, willing him back. I didn’t have any answers. What was I supposed to do?
Yet again, my second sight was presenting me with a future disaster. Only this time, I could be someone’s savior, not his destruction. I couldn’t risk what would be another great loss. I didn’t know where I needed to go. Not yet. But I was determined to find out.
Chapter 21
Book of Hours
July 6, 1920
The envelope was on my plate. Pale gray, with bold, bright blue letters spelling out my name. Without postage, it was obvious it had been dropped off. If I opened it at the breakfast table with Grand-mère and Sebastian watching, they’d ask me questions I didn’t want to answer. So I slipped the envelope into my skirt pocket and murmured something about it being from a friend at school.
I still haven’t told anyone about Mathieu. He knows but doesn’t agree with my decision to keep him a secret. I am determined not to be distracted by having him in my life. Not to let my work at school or commissions from Sebastian be affected. I don’t want to disappoint my twin; I don’t want his judgment, either. I also don’t want my mother, my great-grandmother, and my sisters to know and start to meddle, no matter how loving their intentions might be.
Up in my bedroom, I opened the note. Written out in Mathieu’s hand were an address, 3 avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt, a time, dix-huit heures, and a line from a poem: With a kiss let us set out for an unknown world.
Who had written it? From which of the famous poets he was always quoting had Mathieu borrowed these words that filled my heart with such excitement and hope?