She grinned. “I enjoyed being in Jacques’s bed, though I shocked him with my lack of meekness. I found to my delight thatle bon Dieuhad amply compensated poor Jacques for his ugly face. The rest of their plans didn’t please me at all. When Jacques died I bid them alladieuand came to Paris to make my way in the world.”
“It was a brave move for a woman alone. Have you ever regretted it?”
“No, I’m a woman who likes her freedom. If I’d stayed in Lyon, I would have been a slave to my mother-in-law for the rest of her life. Here in Paris I’m slave to no one.”
“How did you come to belong to a royalist group?”
Nana chuckled. “What a lot of questions you ask. I assure you it wasn’t because I have any great fondness for the aristos. I couldn’t bear some of the ladies who came into the shop and looked at me as if I were aspeck of dung.” She shrugged. “When I first came to work at this café I had little money and our friend, Raymond Jordaneau, was not overgenerous. However, soon I found out he was involved in something besides the café that paid extremely well. He was receiving regular payments from the king’s brother, the Comte de Provence, for helping aristos escape from the prisons.”
“The Comte de Provence pays you?” Juliette asked, startled. She had never liked Louis Stanislas Xavier, the wily, ambitious man the court and most of France knew by the sobriquet Monsieur.
“He did pay me at first, but after a little while…” Nana shook her head. “I couldn’t take it from him any longer. There was too much need for the money elsewhere.” Her expression became shadowed. “I found out aristos were like everyone else. They loved their children, they were frightened of dying…” She rose to her feet. “You must go now. I have to get back to the café. I’ll send word if I want a particular message on a fan.”
“No.” Juliette stood up. “I’ll come here twice a week unless you send for me. But in the afternoons, not evenings. Jean Marc often spends the entire day away from the Place Royale.”
Nana nodded in approval. “Afternoons will be safer for you.”
“Oh, I’ll be safe whenever I choose to come.” Juliette grimaced. “Jean Marc has hired a giant of a man to drive my coach and a footman who’s equally ferocious-looking. Léon could frighten a dozen footpads away just by frowning at them.”
“Have them wait around the corner from the café,” Nana said as she walked with Juliette toward the door. “It will do no good for you to discard your silk gowns if you arrive in a fine carriage.”
“I’d already thought of that.” Juliette ruefully looked down at her blue linen gown with its simple white muslin fichu. “Another disguise.”
Juliette found that deceiving Jean Marc about her activities at the Café du Chat was blessedly simple. Onthe following Tuesday he was called away to Le Havre, where the local representatives had decided to place an exorbitant tax on the goods in the warehouses. He didn’t return to Paris until the afternoon of June 23.
She was in the garden painting Léon as Samson when Jean Marc appeared suddenly behind her.
“That will be all, Léon.”
Joy rippled through her. He was back.
The giant murmured in embarrassment to Jean Marc, snatched up his shirt, and almost ran down the path toward the house.
She carefully kept her gaze on the canvas and added a little more bronze to the flesh tones of the pectoral muscles of the figure in the painting. “I shall never get a canvas finished if you keep sending away my subjects.”
“I find I don’t like the idea of you painting that handsome behemoth without clothes.”
“You exaggerate. Léon was only without his shirt. I asked him to pose entirely without clothes but he was too shy. I told him that to expose his beautiful body as Samson was not shameful but a religious—”
“You asked him—turn around and look at me, dammit.”
She lifted her gaze from the canvas and turned to face him.
Jean Marc seemed exhausted. Deep lines grooved either side of his mouth and shadows rimmed his eyes. The desire to flow toward him, comfort him was almost irresistible. “You should have gone straight to bed instead of coming out here to harass me. You look terrible.”
“Not like your beautiful Samson?” he asked caustically.
“No.” She put down her brush and took an impulsive step forward. “You could never be a Samson. I could see you as a prince of the Renaissance or perhaps a pharaoh of Egypt, but I…” She shook her head. “No, I could never paint you as anyone but yourself. But why do you just stand here? Go to bed.”
He gazed at her for a long moment. “I wanted to see you.”
She met his stare and was caught, held. She had to force herself to look away. “Well, you’ve seen me. Did your business go well?”
“No. They wouldn’t lower the tax.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I…thought about you while I was gone. Did you think of me?”
