“You’ve found her,” said Marlow, willing her jelly legs to step forward.
“Look who I have with me,” said Guillaume. “It’s Ruth, from Cincinnati. She was passing through and asked to see Maison Perdue.”
Yves, Aubin, and Sabine walked through the Quartier Latin into the evening, eventually landing on Yves’ doorstep. He gave themthe code for the front doors, they buzzed in, crossed the courtyard, and entered a hall with large circular stone stairs up to a second-floor apartment.
The salon was spacious and elegant, with wide-planked wooden floors covered by Persian carpets. Artwork covered the walls, and antique furniture looked aristocratic under high ceilings of ancient rafters and stucco. The front windows overlooked the Seine, statuesque Notre Dame on the right, the rest ofÎle de la Cité, and Rive Droite beyond it.
“The apartment belongs to my parents,” said Yves. “They have retired to the country and come into Paris only for appointments. I gladly accept their generosity because I don’t always have money of my own. The self-employed man’s predicament. Sometimes you live like a king. If you’re smart, you save. If you’re not smart, like me, you put your money in your next film and never keep a dime. Become doctors and lawyers, that is my advice.”
He took them through a dining room with a crystal chandelier, a sideboard lined with china and silver, and a large table with heavy carved legs covered with paperwork, a laptop, and seven crumpled cans of Diet Coke. “My office,” he said with a smile.
He led them down a hall, past the small kitchen, to a guest bedroom.
“You’ll sleep here,” he said, gesturing to the double bed surrounded by bookshelves of dusty books. Sabine flushed. Did he mean you as in “both of you,” or you as in Sabine?
“I’ll leave the Wi-Fi code on the table. In the morning, you can check for the next train to Haute-Marne. And Sabine? If you have not decided on a school, why not go to La Sorbonne? I am a terrible parent, as you know. I come, I go … but I have this flat. There are months when I am here. We could get to know each other. And months when I’m gone, so you’d be independent in the best city in the world. The school is close—five minutes from here.”
Her heart stopped. Could this be real?
“I’d love that,” she said in a little voice.
“I’d love that, too,” he said.“Bonne nuit.”He squeezed her arm and pulled the door shut behind him. Sabine smiled wide at Aubin. Her whole body coursed with joy.
Maison Perdue was not ready to show—Marlow and Luc had dropped everything that morning to head for the springs.
“It’s a terrible mess,” she stuttered to Guillaume and Ruth. “Luc and I ran errands today and left the plaster drying. We got back just before you arrived and were having a bite.”
“I’m awful to drop by with no notice,” said Ruth, taking in the mounds of furniture under sheets, the tools and plaster buckets, “but I grew up with three brothers. Mess means nothing.”
She gasped at the panoramic view out the living room windows. She loved the rope for a banister up the circular stone stairs. She thought the bedrooms were sweet.
“I adore it,” said Ruth. “Would it be an imposition to have a moment in here, alone?”
“Not at all,” said Marlow, hiding a sports bra and a pair of cotton underwear. Couldn’t they have been lacy and impractical? She and the two men stepped out the front door.
Luc sat on his step, leaning back so his torso muscles contracted under his shirt. Guillaume stood, hands in pockets, relaxed but more formal, gentlemanly. Night was falling. Marlow was glad for shadow to cover how awkward it was to be with both of them, each so different and yet so interesting in his own right. She had not anticipated, when she’d arrived weeks ago, being attracted to not one but two men in this tiny French village. But for now, the sexual tension was a bit exhilarating, house mayhem or not.
“Before I forget,” said Guillaume, “Sabine texted. They’re at a party with Aubin’s friend Chloe, who offered to take them to her farm tomorrow. Sabine hoped to sleep over.”
“A sleepover. Hmm. Do I need to worry?”
“I don’t think so … Aubin may be occasionally lazy and a bit of a rebel, but he is honorable. I trust him.”
“So do I. I think. I hope. I just know what happens when teenage libido takes hold.”
“But you’ve had those conversations, I’m sure.”
“Oh yes. About a billion times.”
“Then your work is done, no?”
“Probably. And, to be fair, all Sabine ever did in Toronto was go to school and study. I want her to live a little.”
“I will text them back when I get down to the square.”
“And thank you for bringing Ruth,” said Marlow. “Even if she doesn’t decide to buy the house, I really appreciate your help.”
“It’s my pleasure,” said Guillaume, “although I hope she doesn’t take it … Is that terrible? I’d miss you if you went home.”
