Baroness (3 page)

Besides, Oliver adored Lilly. Or, at least it felt like that to Rosie. He shared Lilly's love of reading, showered her with books, and even gave her a camera and taught her to shoot photography. Not like Rosie's stepfather, Bennett, who looked at Rosie like he was seeing a ghost. She didn't resemble her father, Foster, that greatly, did she? Or maybe she was simply a reminder of the fact that her mother had chosen his brother over him.

Rosie tried not to hate Bennett. But he had an old-fashioned, even overprotective tendency, and the moment her mother married him, he'd enrolled Rosie in finishing school. Rosie felt like an antique as she walked across the room balancing a book on her head, or memorized French verbs, or learned how to waltz.

So that, what?—she might become more appealing in order that he could barter her off for a stake in some New York Knickerbocker family fortune?

Bennett didn't own her. And she didn't need his protection, or his affections. Let him direct them to her mother, finally happy after all these years, and her little half-brother Finley.

Finn, after all, could make anyone smile. Finn deserved to be loved.

“Rosie!”

The name turned her, and she looked around to see Blanche emerging from a hat shop, carrying a box. Rosie tried not to envy Blanche's platinum-blond bob, those green eyes that could hold a man captive. She had watched Dash dance with Blanche and finally took a breath when Pembrook cut in.

“Where's your tagalong?” Blanche swung the hatbox onto her arm. Her family had a fleet of servants, but Blanche had long ago emancipated herself from her mother's archaic expectations. Nichole Stokes had undoubtedly sent her daughter to Paris for the summer season in hopes of keeping her off the
Chronicle's
Page Six. But Paris had only ignited Blanche's joie la vivre. She smoked and drank like a man, and told jokes that made Rosie want to hide under the table. Her mother, Jinx, hated Blanche.

Rosie planned to spend every moment she could with her before Jinx returned to Paris.

“Lilly and I got separated in the funeral procession. I told her to meet me at the Café a la Paix.”

“You went to the funeral?” Blanche stopped to purchase a handful of petite white daylilies from a youngster in a derby.

“Just the procession, but it seemed as if the entire city turned out. They loved her here.”

“Paris loves a spectacle.”

“No, there were real tears. Sarah Bernhardt was truly beloved.”

Blanche lifted a shoulder. “And quickly forgotten, I'll wager. All of Paris is a stage and each of us players. We'll see who they mourn tomorrow. Come, let's track down Pembrook and Dash—I have a proposition for us all.”

“I have to meet Lilly—”

“She's probably back in her room, her nose in a book. That girl has no sense of adventure.” Blanche traded the flowers into her other hand and then wove her free arm into Rosie's. “What would you say to a trip to Auteuil, to the horse races? We can pack a basket with wine and sandwiches, be provincial and take the train?”

“Sounds splendid. When?”

“Tomorrow? Your parents haven't yet returned, but it seems our time is short.”

“And Lilly? My mother would send me back to New York if she knew I'd abandoned Lilly for an outing to see the ponies. She nearly pledged on her life to Aunt Esme that we would keep Lilly safe and entertained.”

Blanche smiled, tugged her close. “Perhaps she'll surprise us all and beg to join us. A day under the clouds, reading. She'll be no trouble at all.”

“It's more likely she'll tuck up her skirts and leap right on a horse and gallop for the horizon.”

“You don't like her much.”

“I love her like a sister. She simply lacks the ambition to taste life. She hates Paris, or at least
my
Paris. If I allowed her to, she would wander the gardens of Luxembourg, lost in her memory of a life that is no longer hers.”

“Montana.”

“Her beloved ranch and her herd of buffalo.”

“Buffalo?”

“Did you know that Lilly can shoot a pistol, ride a horse, and even swing a lasso? I know because she told me. Again, and again. She spends hours writing letters to a cowhand she left behind—”

“A beau?”

“More like an uncle. He runs their ranch in Montana, and before she moved to New York City, he took the place of the father she never had.”

“Pity. What happened to her real father?”

“He died in a mining accident before she was born. Her stepfather, my Uncle Oliver, is the only father she's known, and she all but ignores him. No, Lilly has no interest in beaus, at least none in Paris. But I fear that someday Uncle Oliver will arrive home with the bookish son of his accountant and marry her into some austere flat on the outskirts of Manhattan. She will spend her entire gray life pining for a world she left behind and never truly live.”

“I take it back. You
do
care for her.”

“Of course. Who else does she have but me?”

Rosie stopped to look at a window display in front of Cartier's. She'd already perused their spring collection, but that long strand of pearls…

“Perhaps she will find a beau here, in Paris.”

Rosie laughed. “No. Lilly isn't interested in love—it would have to get her attention and pull her nose out of her fairytale westerns and into the real world.”

“But you might be. I saw the way Dash looked at you at the Napolitain. He kissed you, didn't he?”

He'd tasted of brandy, sweet and sharp, and for a moment, in his arms, Rosie had felt the bright lights of Paris shine through her. “Dash admires too many women for my taste.” She added a shoulder shrug to her tone. “Not to mention himself.”

“He does seem to relish his own reflection.”

Rosie laughed. “I want a man who can't stop thinking about me, who will cross oceans and spend his last dime to woo me. A man who would surrender his life for me.”

“You don't ask for much, do you, Rosie?”

“What's wrong with wanting everything?”

Blanche let her go, drew in the fragrance of her daylilies. “Because I fear you won't get it.”

* * * * *

She couldn't possibly cross the Champs-Élysées without perishing. Lilly stood at the corner, the Café a la Paix crowded and loud and beckoning across the street, the name written in gold foil along a green canopy, and knew that if she stepped her foot out, some manner of bus or brougham or milk cart would mow her down.

But perhaps, if she navigated through the space of traffic, a moment at a time…how hard could it be? She used to herd buffalo on horseback. Certainly crossing traffic couldn't be that dangerous.

Besides, Rosie could be waiting for her right now. And while Lilly relished the moment she'd had wandering the gardens of the Palais Royal, feeling a bit like she'd finally escaped the congestion of Paris, Rosie might find herself in trouble if Lilly didn't meet up with her.

After all, who had been the one holding the chamber pot after Rosie's experiment with Pernod? Seen her dancing in the darkness with Dash? Watched the way Tripp's eyes raked over her?

It would help if Rosie didn't paint on her jersey sweaters along with her rouge. But Rosie's flirting was harmless. Dashielle's wasn't. She didn't for a moment trust Dashielle or Pembrook, and Rosie's friend Tripp could intimidate her, if Lilly were the cowering type.

But Aunt Jinx had nearly made her promise in blood that she'd stay with Rosie, keep her cousin from foolishness, and she intended to cross the street and keep her part of the promise.

She waited until a bus passed, saw a break in the flow, and darted out into the street like a chicken. A carriage nearly nipped her, the horse's hooves clomping like gunshots against the cobblestones, but she leaned away. Then—

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” A hand snaked around her arm, yanked her back. A Citroën nearly clipped her suede shoes.

Her rescuer pulled her back to the curb just as a trolley scooted into her spot.

For a slick, hot moment, her breath caught, her heart bulleted through her ribs.

She'd nearly died on the streets of Paris. A dramatic, tragic finale Rosie might have enjoyed, but…

Her arm began to burn where he gripped it.

“Let me go!”

“And watch you get run over?”

He moved her away from the edge of the boulevard where a fruit truck made a swipe too close to the curb.

Only then did she realize he'd addressed her in English.

Lilly shook out of his grasp, breathing hard, and looked at him.

He had dark brown eyes, the color of Parisian chocolate. They sank into her for a moment, sweeping away her words. Brown eyes, and light hair the color of parched prairie grass that curled from under a derby hat. He wore a tweed jacket, yet bore the tan of a field hand, the sunshine red upon his cheekbones and around his eyes. He looked in his late twenties, a little wear and tear around the eyes.

“I…I'm sorry,” she said. “Are you okay?”

Her tone apparently flushed away the scolding in his expression.

“I'm alive,” he said. “I suppose I shouldn't have handled you so roughly.”

She refused to rub her arm in front of him. It would only accentuate her stupidity. Imagine what Abel would have said if he'd seen her throw herself in front of a stampede. Her face burned. “Thank you. I don't know what I was thinking.”

“There are plenty of cafés on this side of Paris, I assure you.” He had an accent, but not French. She couldn't place it.

“I am not hungry.” Particularly. “I was simply trying to meet up with my cousin. We were separated, and she told me to meet her at the Café a la Paix.”

“So darting across traffic like a jackrabbit seemed the best option.”

A jackrabbit. She smiled at the comparison. And the way the rest of his frown eased from his face.

“I must find a way across the boulevard. My cousin will be waiting.”

“I can't follow you around all day saving your life. I'm going to need some promises here.”

The faintest excuse of a dimple appeared against what looked like a smattering of overnight whiskers, and as a smile emerged, her world slowed to a languid swirl.

“I…promise not to cross the road?”

He shook his head. “Nope. No good. I saw the look in your eye even before you stepped out on that curb. It scared the spit right outta me. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to accompany me to the nearest footbridge.”

He held out his arm as if she would really take it.

“I don't even know you.”

“Rennie Dupree, flyer and lifesaver at large.”

She couldn't tell if he might be joking or not, his tone of voice solemn despite his white smile.

“Lilly Hoyt. Uh, daredevil.” She wasn't sure why she said the words—both her former last name, and the moniker—in fact, for the last five minutes, it seemed she didn't recognize any of the words issuing from her mouth. But she hadn't seemed anything like herself since arriving in Paris—or New York for that matter. And she rather liked this title. It reminded her of who she'd once been, before her life had been stolen from her.

Most of all, she liked the way his smile settled into a smirk.

He seemed very much like one of Zane Grey's hero cowboys.

“Okay, Mister Dupree. You may walk with me.”

“Rennie. Actually, it's Reynaud, but the chaps shortened it during the war.”

He scattered blue-feathered pigeons before him as they walked down the street. A little boy ran up, dressed in suspenders, and offered up a handful of tiny budded flowers. She shook her head, but the fragrance followed her.

“Is this your first time in Paris, Miss Hoyt?”

“Lilly, please.”

“For now, perhaps.” He winked.

She could, she supposed, just return home. But, even as she walked in the company of this handsome stranger, she felt Rosie's tethers upon her loosen. Perhaps it was her too-brief stroll through the Palais Royal, perhaps the adventure that lurked inside her, fed by the pages of her Zane Grey novels.

She'd walk to the footbridge, be done with him, and harbor this tiny excursion in her heart.

“Your family is…,” he asked, shoving his hands into the pockets of his baggy pants.

“Back home, in New York.”

“I'm from just south of the province of Montreal,” he said.

“You're from Canada.”

“Originally from Winnipeg, although my family hails from the eastern side of the country. But I haven't been home since the war.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “Too much life still to rescue, and nothing of obligation to call me home.”

“What about your family?”

“I have no one. My brother was killed in the war, and my mother died shortly thereafter. My father died years ago from hard work and a bad heart.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

He lifted a shoulder. “He loved what he did. That's enough, I suppose, for any length of life. What brings you to Paris?”

“My mother sent me away with my cousin for the season—I think she hopes to knock the brooding from me.”

“You're too pretty a girl to brood.”

She glanced at him, his comment jarring her off her gait. Pretty? He had a nice smile, however, and seemed suddenly abashed by his own comment as he looked away.

Pretty.

She allowed his compliment to find soft soil in her heart. “It's just that, I don't much like New York. Or Paris. I don't belong here.”

He made a face, shook his head. “Clearly, we'll have to remedy that.”

Vendors hawking the
Chronicle
called for her attention. Apparently, they also beckoned her tour guide, because Rennie veered to the curb and picked up a copy. She read her mother's name on the masthead, along with Oliver's.

“I'd give anything for a novel in English,” Lilly said, picking up a dime novel written in French. She was sounding out the headline when he sidled up beside her.