“I don’t want to—”
He put his forefinger up against my lips. I felt his flesh on mine, and my skin burst into flames.
“A night out of time, Delphine. One night here in this old chateau, with Emma’s fine wine and her food and music. Let’s just take it. Steal it. I’ll forgive your trespass against me, and you forget your act of transgression. Gamble with fate that we can survive it. Surely you’ve gambled before? From what I’ve heard, your life in New York involved quite a few gambles. You lost some of them and still survived, didn’t you? You can survive me.”
But could he survive me?
“What do you say?” he asked.
“You still have a velvet tongue, but no, I can’t indulge in a night out of time.” My voice was deliberately cold.
I could see the faint dusting of freckles on his impossibly high cheekbones. The twinkle in his twilight eyes. I couldn’t stand looking at him anymore and focused just beyond him. As much as I wanted him, giving in would be self-immolation. I’d burn up with passion and put the one man I truly loved in danger.
I pulled away, taking back my hand. “Madame Calvé is waiting. I don’t want to be rude. Let me be, Mathieu. It’s a mistake that you’re here. Let’s not compound it. You only want me because I rejected you.”
“Rejected me for no good reason, while you were in love with me and I with you.”
I didn’t answer but somehow put one foot in front of the other and forced my feet to take me past him and down the steps. I’m not sure how long he stood there, but I felt his eyes boring into my back, willing me to turn around. I didn’t.
I found Madame Calvé inside the large living room, giving last-minute instructions to her butler.
She glanced over at me, then frowned. “Are you all right? You look flushed.”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Come, darling girl, I want to introduce you to the rest of my guests.” Taking my arm, she escorted me over to the first grouping, which included Sebastian, who was looking at me curiously, and then I noticed another familiar face. Picasso’s intense eyes appraised me seductively as I approached. Or was I just overly sensitive after the way Mathieu had been looking at me?
“You know Pablo, I’m sure?” Madame said.
“Yes. It’s a pleasure to see you again, Monsieur Picasso.” I had enough wits to address him formally, hoping it would signal to him that I saw him less intimately than the way he was looking at me.
“The charming Mademoiselle Duplessi,” he said, his eyes sparkling, his expression telling me he wasn’t taking the hint.
“And Jean Cocteau? The prince of French poetry,” Madame said, indicating the man beside Picasso. He was as long and lanky as Picasso was short and thick. With his foxlike eyes, thick eyebrows, delicate lips, and impeccable suit, Cocteau exuded style.
He reached for my hand with his elongated fingers, and I almost pulled it back, not wanting anyone to take away the residue of Mathieu’s kiss. Then I made myself shake his hand. I needed to get rid of Mathieu’s touch, not hold on to it.
There were twelve of us that evening. In addition to Madame, me, and my brother were Mathieu, Cocteau, a dancer named Liselle Veronique, Paris Opera director Yves Villant, the poet and spiritualist Anna Poulent, the novelist Jules Bois, the archeologist Eugène Leverau, and Picasso.
After we’d seen Picasso that day on the Carlton terrace, my mother had told me she’d never met a man who had more magnetism, except for my father. And I understood what she meant. There was an intensity to his eyes, a fire that burned in him, that warmed the air around him.
At dinner, I hoped I would be sitting comfortably close to Sebastian, but he was at the far end of the table. I was a bit intimidated to find that I was seated with Jules Bois on my left and Picasso on my right.
Monsieur Bois was a gentleman, but Picasso wasn’t, and his sexual energy was as palpable as his verbena cologne. As a topic of conversation, I asked him the least suggestive question I could think of: when his interest in the occult movement had begun.
“When I was young and poor and living in Paris, I shared a flat with Juan Gris and learned the tarot from him. I’ve studied myths and magic in many cultures, from Spanish and French to African. I’m fascinated by exorcisms, both spiritual and literal. I believe everything is unknown. Everything is the enemy. I’m anxious about it all and inspired by it all. That’s why I paint. To give spirits form. If we do that, we become independent of them. Our paintings and sculpture are weapons against their influence. We Spaniards are very superstitious. And believe all these subjects are connected. Those superstitions are responsible for my first meeting your maman at one of the occult bookshops in Paris before you were even born. Cocteau”—he nodded toward the poet at the other end of the table—“took me with him once.”
“And that’s where you met Satie?” I asked.
He nodded. “Paris was a small city before the war. We all went to the same bars and cafés. Studied one another’s paintings, read one another’s poetry, and listened to one another’s music. Eventually, we worked with one another. Satie, Cocteau, and I collaborated on a ballet in 1916. Cocteau wrote the scenario, Satie composed the music, and I designed the sets—” Picasso broke off, as if suddenly remembering. “It was only nine years ago but seems a lifetime. Things were so different then. You are too young to remember. Now, with everyone having a telephone and an automobile, as convenient as it all is . . . the modern age is separating us.”
Monsieur Bois, who’d joined in the conversation, laughed. “Such a pessimistic way to approach modern marvels, Pablo.”
“I’m trying to charm Delphine. Don’t point out that I’m really just a curmudgeon.”
Mathieu was seated across from me, and I felt his stare. Unwilling to meet his gaze, I searched out Sebastian at the end of the table, but he was engaged in conversation with Yves Villant.
I focused on Picasso again.
“Is mysticism part of the Spanish culture?” I asked. “I haven’t been to Spain, and I’m afraid I don’t know very much about it.”
“Spain is a very Catholic country, and Catholicism is a very mystical religion. I can actually pin a date on my first experience with the mystical. It didn’t turn out well. In fact . . . it’s a sad story. The saddest of my life. Do you want to hear it?” He was experiencing a painful memory and at the same time flirting shamelessly.