Marianne sailed into the dining room early their first morning in their London house. In the rush to prepare to leave Paris, she’d found no opportunity to talk with her uncle privately. Usually she’d find every reason to confide in Lily about her desire to ultimately return to Paris, but she was reluctant to reveal her scandalous intentions to her cousin. Lily was not naive about the nature of intimacies between men and women because she’d lived on a ranch observing animals. Yet Lily thought Marianne’s references to taking a lover were witty by-plays. Nothing she’d seriously consider. And in fact, she never had until she met Andre, the duc de Remy. Lily would learn soon enough her intentions, if her hope ever became a probability. In the meantime, Marianne wasn’t confident that her Uncle Killian would easily accept her wishes, let alone condone them. Still she owed it to him to notify him.

As she hoped, he was already in his chair finishing his breakfast. His two newspapers to hand, he furrowed his black brows as he read the page before him.

“Good morning, Uncle Killian.” She took her chair and the footman backed away. “Something disturbing in the papers?”

“News about a company whose shares I’m interested in buying.” He picked up his coffee cup and drained it. “You’re up early.”

“I hoped I might have an opportunity to talk with you. I wonder if you can spare me a few minutes.”

“I can. Always. What’s on your mind? A problem?”

“Not at the moment, no.”

“Will you have something from the sideboard first?” her uncle asked.

“I’ll eat after we talk. Thank you, Foster,” she said and smiled at the butler who draped her napkin in her lap and poured her coffee.

“Chaumont should appear here today or tomorrow. She sent a note around this morning that her house in Hanover Square is almost ready. She brought with her more of your wardrobes for the Season.” His humor lit his large silver eyes, as she remembered her mother’s had once done. At forty-six, Black Killian Hanniford was a handsome devil. Marianne had watched many women cast their eyes on the American robber baron. He was a desirable catch for his looks and his outrageous wealth, if his nefarious reputation as a civil war blockade runner did not recommend him. “Are you and Lily perhaps suddenly out of clothes?”

She feigned a withering look. “Not for the next century. Chaumont sent over one of the trunks from Worth yesterday afternoon. I’m awash in silk and satin, Uncle.”

“Wonderful. I want you all to feel like queens when we start the Season.”

“Oh, we do,” she assured him.

“I think we here are ready to receive callers. The furnishings are in place. What do you say?”

“Even Delacroix’s portrait of Chopin is spectacular,” she added with a little lift to her shoulders. Her uncle wanted the original painting by the French artist to give a special touch of integrity to his rented house on London’s grand thoroughfare. “I cannot get over his talent. It’s really spectacular.”

“Even if it is only half the original painting?” he said, laughing and putting his napkin on the table.

“I know.” She sipped her coffee. “What idiot cut the damn…darn thing in half!”

With a grin, he sent her a scolding look then reached to take his watch from his vest pocket. “Time marches on. What worries you?”

She folded her hands in her lap while her well-rehearsed speech fled her brain. “I was sorry to leave Paris. I enjoyed the city very much.”

“I know.” He rolled his eyes. “The cabaret especially.”

She grinned. “That was only once.”

“I think more visits are in your future.”

His words showed her, as he often did in other ways, that he not only knew her nature well, but he tolerated her foibles. “I’d like to go.”

“You’ve had too little fun in your life. The war stole your youth and even your husband.”

She tried never to speak of Frederick. Discussing the war was slightly more bearable. “I made the best of the loss of the plantation and our slaves.”

“You set them free.”

“Most ran.”

“You did not call the sheriff or the dogs on them. That in itself was noble.”

“Noble? Frederick called it stupid. He wrote me from camp and scolded me for it.” Called me an idiot. Said he’d beat me black and blue for it. “Most of them fled when Lincoln declared them free after the battle at Antietam. I couldn’t work four hundred acres with only seven Africans. Even my cook and two housemaids ran away.” No wonder. They high-tailed it when they had the chance to get away from Frederick.

Her uncle reached over and squeezed her hand. “We’re a long way from you telling me why you’d like to return to Paris.”

She checked his expression. If he knew the true nature of Frederick Roland, her uncle never indicated. But he was sensitive to her reluctance to speak about him and so he had changed the subject.

“I’d never hurt you or Lily. Not Ada or Pierce either.”

His silver eyes twinkled in mischief. “I know you like to sing, but are you telling me you plan to become a regular chanteuse in a cabaret?”

“Never that. But perhaps worse.”

“So then, what?”

“I would hope that in time here you might not need me as much to chaperone Lily and Ada.”

“Until they’re married, they’ll require an older woman to watch over them.”

She winced at that last. Her life was passing her by and nothing had brought that home to her as quickly as living in Paris—and meeting Andre. Her visit to his exhibit in the Place Dauphine had overwhelmed her with joy and expectation that she might revel in a man, a decadent escapade, a period in her life when she was her own person, free of all in her past that saddened her.

Her uncle caught her eye. “You’re day dreaming, my dear.”

“So I am. Oh, Uncle Killian you’ve been good to me—”

“Marianne, just tell me what it is you want and I will get it for you.”

“You cannot buy this for me, Uncle.”

“Ah.” He inhaled and sat back. “But I can bless this for you, is that right?”

She grinned. “You could allow it to happen without censure.”

“Oh, I don’t like the sound of that. You could get hurt, badly.”

She lifted her chin. “At some point, you see, I want to live in Paris by myself.”

“Not in Rue Haussmann?”

She nodded. “Not there. I’d like a taste of freedom. Not that I don’t experience it here and—”

He lifted his hand to indicate she need not continue. “I understand. You see Madame Chaumont and you want that independence.”

“I do.”

He cocked a brow. “She is French and they have different expectations of their widows than we do in America.”

“I’m aware. But I don’t want to return to America.”

“You’ve thought a lot about this obviously.”

“I have. I want the cafes and the Louvre, the exhibits and the—”

“Place Dauphine?”

She stared at him. “How did you learn that I—?”

“Went to Number 10 one wintry afternoon alone?” He gazed at her with kind regard. “My dear, one of my associates spied you in the street. He was concerned when he saw you walked alone and he followed you to ensure your safety.”

“I had to go before we left the city.”

“I understand. I went to see his exhibit myself the next day. Remy was there. We talked.”

She had a new appreciation for her uncle. He’d known she’d visited but never raised the subject which must mean— “You like him?”

“My dear, I even liked Remy’s friend, Lord Chelton, and trust me when I say, I have little reason to care for him. His father foils me at every turn to buy the shares in his shipping company. But the Duke of Remy? I have no conflicts with him. A fine man. A very talented one. And ethical.”

She frowned. “How do you know? What did you discuss?”

“Don’t worry. I did not challenge him to a duel.”

“No but—”

“Marianne, he was honest with me about your visit.”

“Andre was a gentleman throughout and never took advantage of me.”

“So he is ‘Andre’ to you? Well, I am not surprised.”

She sagged in her chair. “I like him.”

“And he has a fond regard for you, my dear. Fond enough that he made me a few promises.”

She sat straighter. “What do you mean?”

Her uncle glanced up and with the arch of his brow, Foster the butler and the footman backed out of the dining room. The butler shut the doors.

He pushed away from the table and crossed one leg over the other. “After we met him that night at the Opera Garnier and I saw then how you were attracted to him, I had my man in Paris collect a dossier on the Duke of Remy.”

“Oh, Uncle Killian.” She was aghast. “Why? How could you? Does he know?”

“Not that I investigated him, no.”

“Oh,” she said, a hand to her chest. “Thank goodness.”

“But I had to learn more about him. Why? Because despite how independent you are, my dear, despite what you want, you are tender. Frederick, god rest his miserable soul, was not a proper husband.”

She was horrified her uncle knew anything about Frederick. “He was no man you would befriend.”

“You are too kind to him, Marianne.” Killian shot up a hand to deter her from speaking. “Over the years, your reluctance to talk about your departed husband has implied much. But then, long before you came to our house to live, I had friends among General Lee’s officers who told me tales about Frederick. Stories I will not repeat for anyone’s ears, most of all yours.”

He rose and walked to the sideboard where he brought the pot of coffee to the table and poured for her and him. “You endured starvation, enemy soldiers eating your crops and sleeping in your barns, desertion by your house slaves, and still, you nursed Yankee wounded in your parlor and then in town. That took gumption, Marianne. And courage few other women—may it please God—will ever have to summon. When you escaped across the Potomac River to come running to us in Baltimore, I was damn glad to give you a safe home. So was my Aileen. She loved your mother as I did and she feared for you for years.”

“I was happy to see her before she died.”

A gloom fell over Killian. He’d treasured his late wife with a fierce devotion. Marianne had seen love like that between her own mother and father.

“I once hoped I might find a husband who cared for me like my father loved my mother or as you cared for Aunt Aileen,” she said with sorrow. “I grow older and my hope dwindles.”

Killian took his chair and faced her. “And this man is one you could care for?”

“I am attracted to him. Surely you’ve been attracted to a woman who is not…” She groped for polite words. “Not one you’d marry?”

“You’re right. But a man can do that with some impunity.”

Anger flashed through her. “A woman can. She just needs courage and a pinch of discretion. I have those.”

“I do agree.” He gave her a sad smile. “Have you thought how you’d do it?”

“I’ve laid out my terms with him already.”

Killian’s eyes went wide. “Bold of you. Did he agree?”

She feigned confusion. “I think so.”

“You could leave him to many of the details.”

“Details? There shouldn’t be many.”

“My dear young woman, he is prominent in society. You are too. People will notice a dalliance and talk to the scandal mongers.”

She laughed. “Oh, no, Uncle Killian, you have this wrong.”

“What do I have wrong?”

“I don’t want Andre for an affair.”

His cup half way to his mouth, her uncle paused to stare at her. “Now I am really confused.”

“I want him only for one night.”

Her uncle dropped his cup to the saucer with a clack. “Marianne.” He put his napkin to his lips.

“You think I want a grand affair. To be in his house for nights? For days?” She shook her head, recalling Andre’s expression when she told him she wanted the diversion of a brief liaison. “You’re right that I want some fun. I want to laugh and sing and learn how to really make lo—”

She cleared her throat.

He turned serious. “You deserve all of that.”

Her gaze locked on his. “I could have it. In a year or two, after Lily and Ada are married. Pierce too. I wouldn’t hurt anyone’s chances of marrying well. Not for the world.”

“You’d wait until the girls are married?”

“Of course.”

“Marianne, I know your heart is in the right place for all of us. But my dear, you are forgetting a few things here.”

Frazzled, she sat quietly and folded her hands. “I’m listening.”

“The Duke of Remy is a charming man. Thirty-six, educated, landed, rich and prominent at the height of Parisian society. His mother is a princess of the blood of the Bourbons and a descendent of the Bonapartes. They are a revered family, respected in politics and foreign affairs with extended family in Germany and Russia. They are wealthier than I am by three times. And more to the point of his relationship with you, he is experienced in affairs of the heart. My dear, he has had many women in his bed. Just recently he divested himself of a woman he’d supported for more than six months. Furthermore, he has taken no new woman to his care.”

Marianne knew all of this except for two things. Andre must be worth at least twenty-nine million dollars. An unbelievable fortune. And he had rid himself of all entanglement. Money, as much as he possessed, did not matter a fig to her. Money was immaterial after the normal needs it bought. But she bubbled with delight that Andre had ended his relationship with another woman to take up with her.

Or was she foolishly thinking he’d done that to be with her?

“Marianne, are you listening to me?”

“Yes, absolutely, Uncle.”

“Remy might be wealthy and respected socially, he might be a leader in his own circles, but he is an artist with all those intemperate tendencies those men seem to cultivate, Marianne. He’s a man of great talent.”

That was apparent in Andre’s Samson. Even the unfinished Diana showed the frontiers of his vision.

“But when I spoke with him, Marianne, he seemed balanced. Not prone to anger or boasting like those artists up on the Butte are known to be. And he mentioned you with reverence.”

Reverence was not the emotion she wished to evoke in the breast of the dashing French duc de Remy. “He is impatient.”

“I agree.”

“He is charming.”

“Without a doubt. He understands your sensibilities. Furthermore, he can seduce you when and where he pleases.”

“I trust him not to do that.”

Her uncle pursed his lips, thoughtful, pensive. “I hope you’re right.”

“I am,” she said with confidence.

“You say you want him for one night?”

“I do.”

“Because you cannot cope with the challenges of a long term affair?”

She shifted in her chair. “So I thought.” Even though I’m terribly tempted to take all that’s offered to me.

“But did you consider, he might not wish to end the affair quickly?”

So Andre had said. “To him, I am a novelty. An American. I wouldn’t amuse him for long.”

“You think he regards you so nonchalantly?”

“I don’t know him. I don’t know what he thinks. Except that he likes me. My looks. My odd background. My—”

“Innocence.”

She blinked.

“He likes you as you are, Marianne, because he does not know anyone like you. Wise about war, bold in the ways to survive, but artless, without guile. A lamb when it comes to navigating the rigors of a love affair. He wants you. And he may be ruthless in his pursuit.”

“The very reason I have not succumbed yet to his allure.”

Killian sighed. “But you will do this.”

She bit her lip. “I will.”

“If he ever hurts you—”

“He will be blameless. I do not go to him blind to the consequences.”

“We are always your family, here to give comfort and respite from the storm.” Killian reached over to squeeze her hand.

“I know. Thank you.” Inside her, every nerve sparked with delight. She shocked herself to be so giddy about losing all her inhibitions and acting on impulse with a scintillating man. “I will be careful.”

Killian nodded. “I believe you.”

She got to her feet. “I think I’ll take a walk along Piccadilly.”

“Of course.”

She went toward the door. But she paused, remembering what he’d said earlier. “A question for you.”

“Yes. What?”

“You said he made you promises. What were they?”

“To treat you with respect and gentleness.”

The last word made her panic. “You told him? About Frederick?”

“I leave that to you, my dear. It’s your story to tell, if you ever wish to. A man you love might wish to hear it. Might need to.”

She looked down at the pink and rose Aubusson carpet, the colors swimming in her vision, her eyes stung by grateful tears. She quickly brushed them away, raised her face and smiled in great thanks to this man whom others thought was nothing but ruthless. “Anything else?”

“Yes. One more promise.”

“What?”

“Not to get you with child unless he wanted the babe as much as you.”

Her hand went to her throat. She hadn’t considered that possibility. Her times in bed with Frederick, frequent and painful as they’d been, had never led to any indication she might be pregnant. Still, with another man she might conceive, though she thought the chances very small. She must consider how she would act if she were to carry Andre’s child. Must come to her own terms with that. Was she capable of raising a child alone allowing him or her bear a burden of ridicule? She had to decide that quickly and abandon her plan for an affair if she was not brave enough or wise enough. “I will act responsibly. Thank you for your thoughts, Uncle Killian.”

“You’re welcome, Marianne. For all the good you’ve done in the world, you deserve to be happy. I wish you well of it.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. She spun for the hall and a welcome walk in the crisp London air.

* * *

“Monsieur le duc, pardon, you have a visitor.”

Wincing, Andre pushed his pince nez up his long nose and caught a glimpse of the dying rays of sun streaming through his studio skylight. He hated intrusions when he was at work. This piece, like four other previous attempts, eluded him in its final form. He dropped his clay onto the granite table and wiped his brow with a swipe of his forearm.

The young man stepped back. Carré was his newest apprentice, skittish enough without Andre barking at him for allowing someone into the parlor. “Most know not to disturb me. You hung the sign outside the door?”

“Oui, Monsieur, oui, but this lady demands you receive her.“

A woman?

He’d parted with Collette Nemours back in February. She wouldn’t call on him. After coming to his bed for many months, she knew him well and had more sense than to question his decision to end their arrangement. Besides, he’d given her enough francs to buy that house she’d wanted in Compiegne. Nor was his visitor delicious Marianne Roland. She was in London going to teas and house parties, chaperoning her cousin Lily and awaiting her other relatives’ arrival from America. Julian Ash had written to him that he had seen Marianne at the Hannifords’ home in Piccadilly.

“She looks well, as if she enjoys her duties with the Hannifords,” his friend had noted. When Julian had added that she is well regarded by English gentlemen, Andre fought the urge to run to London himself and declare himself her suitor. But he had promised her time and when her uncle had appeared before him, Andre had promised him restraint. Then too, between the lines of Julian’s letter, Andre had sensed that his friend was more than smitten with the dark-haired beauty who was the daughter of his adversary, the millionaire Killian Hanniford. If Julian was beginning a courtship of the American heiress, Andre hoped to heaven he got on with it quickly. The sooner Lily Hanniford married anyone, the sooner he himself could appear in London and begin his own pursuit of the widow whose image he could not seem to duplicate in any medium, save his own lusty imagination.

He pushed up from his workbench, hope dwindling Marianne could be in his parlor. “Who calls, Carré?”

“Oh, Monsieur. She says she is your mother.”

“My—?” What was she doing out of bed? And here? She never came to see his works in progress. She wished for only the finished product to coo over. He marched to his basin, poured water from the pitcher and scrubbed his hands free of the sticky clay. Peeling bits of it from his nails, he wiped his hands dry with rough paper. “What is she doing here?”

Carré had only a shrug for answer.

Andre strode for the door. “Get the maid to make tea. Run down to the patisserie and buy two apple tarts, chocolate cakes, something else, anything. And bring the bottle of brandy from the kitchen. Two cups. On a tray. Quickly!”

Taking the three stone steps at a clip, he crossed the foyer to thrust open the door to the parlor. The house was only four years old, three-stories tall, built by him after the Commune and the Prussians abandoned the city in eighteen seventy-one. Compared to his family homes, this house was small, with a coal and wine cellar in the basement, three servants’ bedrooms in the attic, a front hall, a parlor, dining room and large kitchen. But he’d purchased two plots when he’d bought the land and extended the house toward the back where the ceiling soared for two stories over his workshop. Chunks of stone, vats of clay, tubs of elements for plaster lined the bare ivory walls. In the center stood a raw six-foot tall gold-veined marble slab that he contemplated from all angles each morning and night since he’d left his mother’s house in the Rue de Rivoli two weeks ago. All were illuminated by the spectrum of sun streaming through a thick, clear glass sky light. At one end was a set of French doors opening to his bedroom where he slept when he in was ‘in mode’ and creating.

He loved this section of Paris. Montmartre was thriving, full of artists who strived and starved, but it was a rowdy, welcome place to talk about image and beauty, art and the future of expression. It was Andre’s favorite place to sketch, to plan, to create. And not a place the illustrious Princesse d’Aumale frequented.

“Maman!” He went to her as she turned slowly away from the tall windows that faced the street bustling with shoppers and merchants. Taking her elegant hands, he kissed her downy cheeks. “A wonderful surprise. Come and sit. Why did you not send word you were coming?”

She tipped her head and teased him with affection in her azure eyes. “Mon cher, if I told you I would come, you would rush home to bid me stay where I am.”

He led her to the overstuffed Louis Quinze sofa and sat beside her. “You know me better than I do you.”

She slid her hand from his. “Ah-ah. You scoundrel, you need not attempt to take my pulse. I am well.”

He examined her with a critical eye. She wore a walking ensemble of malachite wool that complemented her flawless skin and contrasted with the pure snow white of her hair and brows. This morning, her cheeks were a subtle pink which he happily concluded was not the total result of the application of rouge. Her eyes, the color of an Italian lagoon, were bright, even through her tiny glasses.

The past two years had been difficult for her. She’d suffered and recovered from three weaknesses of the heart, robbing her of breath and energy. Her last episode in January had sapped more of her stamina than the previous ones and her doctor had ordered her to bed for four weeks. In the following two months, she’d regained strength and some weight so that in sunny spring weather, she took a daily carriage ride.

“You came in the landau?” he asked, unable to glimpse which conveyance stood outside his doorstep.

“Oui, our Valmont has the reins. We do not pay him enough.”

Andre laughed. “If you pay him any more, he will revolt and move to Tours just to show you he is his own man.”

She let her eyebrows dance. She was in her mid-seventies, but despite her illnesses, she had the vivacity of a coquette of twenty. “He uses all his wages to pay for school for that precocious daughter of his. She finishes with the hatters’ soon and he wants to send her to Monsieur Worth’s to apprentice with the drapers. To audition for Worth, she must produce three chapeaus in different materials. That costs money.”

“I don’t begrudge any of our staff more pay. You and I have enough for ten people. Increase Valmont’s wages. Increase them all.”

She pursed her lips. “I think it useful.”

He heard the pause in her voice. “What are you getting at, Maman?”

A rap came at the parlor door.

“Come in! Ah, yes, Nanette. Merci, beaucoup. Please place the tray here.” His maid-of-all-work scurried in, curtsied and backed out. But she lingered in the shadows in the hall, craning her neck to catch another glimpse of the princesse whom Louis Napoleon had tried to seduce away from her devoted husband, the Prince d’Aumale. “Shall I add a bit of fuel to your tea, Maman?”

‘Fuel’ had always implied aged brandy and his mother enjoyed it. Even her doctor encouraged her to drink it by the cup full.

“Mais oui. I am dry and this conversation requires sustenance.”

“I see,” he said as he poured tea into a Sèvres cup he kept here just for special visitors. He knew she’d come for a specific purpose. She’d never disturb him to have a meaningless tete-a-tete. For whatever her intent, he was happy to lace her tea with the spirits that would relax her. “I would hope you are here to view my latest work.”

“Why else?” she said as waggled fingers at him to be more liberal with the dose of brandy. Satisfied, she put her finger in the air and took the china cup and saucer from his hand. She drank, her eyes closing as she swallowed. “One thing Louvan does is make fine liquor. His politics are a shambles, assuming women can be shut out of his factory and the vote. But we must educate the weak minded, eh?”

He poured straight brandy into his own cup and took a sip.

Another knock came at the door.

“Entrez,” he called and the maid came with a tray of patisseries. “Merci, Nanette.”

He indicated the tray of sweets to his mother. “Shall you have the chocolate mille-feuille?”

She nodded and fixed her gaze on him. “After you’ve taken me back to the studio.”

“You cannot wait to hear me describe my latest, then?”

She waved a hand in dismissal. “You dally. Walk me back.”

“There’s nothing to see,” he told her with a sigh. “I wish there were.”

“You have not been here for two straight weeks and produced nothing. I know you. You are incessant, compulsive, especially when here. You itched to leave Rivoli. You must produce here. So. Tell me no lies. Why is there nothing to see?”

He inhaled. “I have trouble envisioning the final figure.”

“Show me.” She put down her cup and made to rise. She had difficulty.

He offered his arm. “You did not bring your cane today. Why not?”

“Is your arm not strong enough to support me?” she challenged him.

He tsked at her as he led her from the room toward the hall to his studio. “Do you leave it in your bedroom every day?”

Frowning, she pursed her lips. “I did not feel the need. I foresaw no tumbles or missteps. Now, tell me what you’ve been doing here since you left the house two weeks ago.”

He led her along the corridor, up two steps and opened the massive wooden door to his atelier. The sunlight hit him with warmth.

In the brilliance, his mother grinned. “I adore this place. You did well to sweep this high and wide. Reminds me of Delacroix’s studio near Saint Germain. But your’s has more of what God intends.”

He led her to a bench, wooden but comfortably curved for just such visits by those who wished to linger with him. “I wish God would tell me what He intends because I am, at the moment, bereft.”

Facing the six-foot block of marble, she studied it. “Well at least I see that you know how tall the piece will be.”

“I thought I knew when I bought it months ago. Now, I’m not certain.”

“Is it for your new commission for the city of Paris?”

He walked toward the monolith, his arms crossed. “No. I see another shape for that. The city fathers’ want a heroic piece to symbolize the survival of the city after the Prussians won the war.”

“Tell me please not another winged victory?”

“We have enough of those, don’t we?” He placed his hand on the cool white surface.

“Certainement. Europe is full of them.”

“I see a woman free of her chains.” No sooner had he said it, than he narrowed his gaze on the stone and perceived an outline he’d not envisioned before.

“I grow tired of waiting for you to tell me, Andre.” He sensed that his mother rose from her seat and moved toward the table where his clay figures sat in clusters. “Andre? Andre, look at me.”

“Oui, Maman.” He turned to see her holding up the figure he’d been sculpting before Carré came to tell him she’d arrived. “What is it you said?”

She held the figure up to him in her palm. “This. Who is she?”

“A woman I met months ago.”

His mother arched her elegant white brows.

“She is American. Delicate in form but hardy in spirit, like a willow bending to the wind.” He hesitated to tell his mother more. She grew eager to see him wed begetting an heir to take the titles that graced her life with riches and obligations. Encouraging him to go out in society often to find a woman equal to his erudition, his mother had expressed her disappointment with his progression of mistresses. Andre had learned not to exaggerate the depths of any of his affairs. “She fascinates me. Has done, since I first spied her in a cabaret last autumn.”

“This gives me no idea of her. Yet—” she said as she turned in a complete circle, her hand out to denote the dozens of other clay figures on the tables and shelves, “—I see no facial features. Only the lift of a delicate jaw. Why is that, Andre?”

“I recall her essence. I sculpt that.” He pulled off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I should stop trying. The compulsion destroys me.”

“How well do you know her?”

“You are too perceptive, Madame. In practicality, I know her hardly at all. I go by instinct and so I imagine who she is. What she was as a girl, a young woman, a wife.”

His mother’s face fell. “She is married?”

“A widow.”

“Bon.” His mother caught a long breath. “Well, we will be grateful for that. Take me to the bench, mon cher. Good. Good.” She settled onto the wood. “What else must I know?”

“There is not much to tell.”

“Of course, there is, Andre. You have not been yourself. You do not sleep well. You walk the floors and the gardens. I thought when you left the house in Rue de Rivoli and came here, you might find solace in the work. Do you?”

He was not sleeping well here either. Every night, he dreamt of one incarnation or another of Marianne Roland. He’d startle, rush to a sketch pad but her vision evaporated into air.

“I take that for ‘no.’ You released Collette Namours. You have no other woman to your bed, or so I hear. You do not eat well. You’ve lost weight.”

“Maman—”

“Let me speak. For months, I have watched you, Andre, and it is my penchant not to interfere. You were always one who knew his mind. As a child, impetuous but with desire. Stubborn but with cause. I have not seen you want for a woman you did not win. Is this American widow more than a model for your work?”

“I have more hope than substance, Maman.”

“Why are you not pursuing her then? Erasing the mystery? Filing the void? This is not like you to wait and ponder if a woman is worth your attention.”

”I promised her I would wait until a proper time to court her.”

“Court her? So, it is as I presumed. She could be more than a petite chou.”

“She will not come to me for more than one night.”

His mother laughed heartily, a trilling sound.

He grinned, shaking his head. “I’m serious, Maman. These Americans are intriguing creatures.”

“Stubborn?”

He snorted. “As if they invented it.”

“More’s the pity,” she said.

“Or my advantage. If…if I can ever gain her company for long enough to press my advantage.”

“And do you have one? Does she like you?”

“Oh, never doubt. She does. Surprising as it is to her and shocking as it was to me that first night and the second, even the third, the very sight of her sets me to flame.”

“You have seen her only three times?”

He nodded. “Too few.”

“And your work suffers for the lack of her.” His mother smiled. “What must she suffer for the lack of you?”

He hadn’t considered that. But as he pondered it, he wondered if Marianne did feel the lack of him. If she did even in some small way, it might connote that there was more for them than one hasty affair. More than that was what his heart had hoped for for months.

His mother put her hand atop his and squeezed. “The days grow long, mon bonheur. Summer will be upon us and the nights will be made for soft whispers. Why do you not find reason to go to her? Take your life and your opportunity in your hands? What can it cost you to learn?”

Ten days later he had no cause to speculate on costs. Julian had written to him with news that he and Lily Hanniford were to be married within the week. Andre was to come for the festivities.

That afternoon, Andre hired a public hack to drive him down to the house on the Rue de Rivoli. When the butler opened the door to him, the old man grinned. “Bonjour, Monsieur le duc. We are delighted to have you with us.”

“My mother? Where is she?” he asked as he handed over his hat and cape.

“In the music room, Monsieur.”

“She is well?”

“Very well indeed. She has told us you will soon be very well too. A new commission. A new reason to create.”

Andre laughed. His mother had a way with words. “Oui, she is correct.”

“Tea, Monsieur?”

“Oui, but of course. Brandy, too. And please tell Pierre I wish to see him after I talk with my mother.” Up in Montmartre, Andre never dressed formally and did not require his valet’s services, but Pierre would be vital to dressing him well in London as he tried to impress Marianne Roland.

“Certainly, sir.”

Following the strains of one of Chopin’s piano concertos, Andre took the stairs up to the main floor in quick strides. The old hall smelled of polish and beeswax. The green and white checkered marble floor sparkled juxtaposed to the ruby papered walls. He pushed open the door.

His mother inclined her head in recognition of his arrival, but as was her wont, she continued to play. An expert pianist, his mother could perform miracles with her long fingers hitting all the trills and impossible chords. Seizing the chance to absorb her talents, he sat in one of her overstuffed chairs smiling while she finished.

And then she spun to examine him with a mother’s knowing look. “You’ve brought me good news?”

He rose to walk to her and kiss her on both cheeks, his exuberance spilling out of him as if he were six. “What you longed to hear.”

“You go to London?”

He leaned an arm on the grand old Pleyel. “I leave Monday.”

“You’ll bring her back?”

“As soon as I can.”

She rose from her piano stool. “I expect to be introduced.”

“You shall.”

“She will be a joy to you.”

“You cannot know, Maman.”

“I see the way you look when you speak of her. I note upon your face the thrill of meeting her again. This is no infatuation, Andre.”

Wrestling with that truth no longer, Andre knew it was impossible to live rationally or even productively without seeing Marianne Roland once more. In London, he would woo her and win her or give her up completely.