Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (52 page)

“Iris Easton, where
are
you? It’s after six and you’re not even here! Where
are
you?”

“On my way back to the hotel. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Fifteen at the most.”

“I’ve been frantic! I very nearly called the gendarmes!”

“What could happen to me. I’m perfectly all right. I’m with Paul and all four of us are going to have dinner together.”

“All four of whom? What do you mean you’re with Paul?”

“It’s a long story,” Iris said. “I have to go now, but I’ll see you shortly.”

“Iris. Iris!”

“I love you, Aunt Louisa,” Iris said softly, and hung up.

When she went outside again, Paul had apparently paid the check and was standing, looking at his watch and tapping his newspaper impatiently on the table top.

“I had to make two calls,” Iris explained. “My aunt was a bit worried about me, so I must hurry home. And yes, Claude Marchand is having dinner with us tonight. Would you get me a cab, please, and I’ll dash back and change.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said authoritatively. “I’ll wait in the bar until you and your aunt are ready.”

They were walking up the Rue Vernet and, as they neared the corner Paul, in plain sight of half a dozen passersby, put both arms around her and pulled her up against himself.

“But first,” he said huskily, “this. Our first kiss. No, don’t fight me, sweetheart. What does it matter if people are looking? What does anything matter?”

What
did
it matter, she thought, clinging to him. His lips, gentle at first and then hungry and demanding, engaged her own. Who cared if a few jaded Parisians were eyeing them curiously? It was, as Paul said, their first kiss and, Iris thought tremulously, she would remember it, and this magical moment, forever.

Then he released her and, as they walked ahead to find a taxi at the Etoile, told her what his plans for the evening were.

“We will go up to the Place du Tertre again,” he said. “And after dinner walk down the steps as we did the other night. There are eight … perhaps nine flights of them, and on each one I will kiss you. It means that, by the time we reach the bottom, I will have kissed you about one hundred and ninety times.”

He grinned down at her. “How is that for a start, Mademoiselle?”

“I’m looking forward to it, Monsieur,” she replied.

Paris, Iris thought, was wonderful, simply wonderful. You met the nicest people.

“And, oh yes,” Paul said suddenly. “I will have the violinist play our song again, during which we will hold each other’s hands and look into each other’s eyes. This time it will mean even more.”

His arm was slung over her shoulder, the way Iris had seen the young boy hold his girl in the student quarter on the day she and Paul had met.

It was liking, she thought, as well as loving. Being comrades as well as lovers.

A passionate kiss … and then an arm slung over her shoulder.

And because her heart was at last ready to accept them, the last lines of “their” song came to Iris effortlessly and without thought, as if the words had flowed from Paul’s mind to her own.

After leaving Paul in the bar lounge on the second floor, Iris ran up the next two flights of stairs. Before she had a chance to turn the key in the lock, the door was smartly opened by Louisa, a very confused Louisa.

“What happened?” she demanded. “You said you were with Paul. How? What’s happened? Paul? You said you were with Paul? How in the world …”

“Give me a chance to catch my breath,” Iris pleaded.

“Why did you hang
up
on me? Without telling me — ”

“Take it easy, Auntie. To use one of my mother’s pet phrases, everything’s turned out all right. And I apologize, profusely, for thinking those horrible things about you.”

“What horrible things? Iris, will you please try to make some sense?”

“I did think awful things,” Iris admitted. “I’ve been thinking all along that you were madly infatuated with Paul. Yes, that’s what I thought. And I was convinced that Paul was a cad and a bounder and was scheming to get you in his clutches and then squander your money right and left — besides making a fool of you. You can understand that I couldn’t sit meekly by and see
that
happen. Not to you, Aunt Louisa. Oh, not to you.”

“You thought that … you thought …

Louisa groped for a chair and sat down fast. “You actually thought that I would … and Henry dead only …”

“Other women have — ”

“I’m not other women!” Louisa said shrilly. “You actually thought I’d lost my head over that
boy?”

“He’s not a boy,” Iris said, her own voice rising. “He’s a man … a wonderful, mature, tender, dear, wonderful, wonderful
man!”

She threw out her arms dramatically. “So why shouldn’t you lose your head over him?”

“But I didn’t! How could you even think such a thing? And what made you think it?”

“Because you were always talking secretively together, and with my own eyes I saw you both holding hands in the bar the night we went to Montmartre. Oh, I know
now
that he was confiding in you, and — ”

“He talked my ear off,” Louisa cried. “About did I think there was a chance for him … and then you seemed to soften up quite a bit at
Mère Catherine’s
on the Butte. So I thought, and so did he, that perhaps on the Riviera, which is certainly a spot where even the most resistant women are prone to be pushovers for romance, you might very well capitulate. So he booked a flight for the day after our own, and …”

“Yes, I know. I know everything.”

“Then will you kindly explain
how
you know, and how you happened to be with him when you phoned me. I am struggling for composure, Iris, and if you don’t tell me at once
from the beginning,
I shall explode.”

“Please don’t explode. M. Marchand will be here at seven, and it’s after six-thirty now.”

She ran a hand through her hair, “And I have to bathe and dress in less than half an hour!”

“M. Marchand?” Louisa looked absolutely bewildered.

“The man who put me on the right track. He’s having dinner with us. Paul and I and you and M. Marchand. It’s a celebration.”

“A celebration?”

“Oh, please don’t repeat everything I say! Look at the time!”

“What kind of a celebration?”

“Like an engagement party. For Paul and me.”

“Engagement
party?”

“Yes, and you might say you’re happy for me.”

“Iris …”

“Yes, it’s true, Aunt Louisa. I’m going to marry him. For as long as we both shall live, he said.”

Unaccountably she burst into tears.

“Iris …”

And then, just as suddenly, Louisa’s eyes filmed over.

In the next moment they were in each other’s arms until Iris pulled away. “I’m so happy I don’t know what to do,” she sobbed. “And look at the time!”

“Oh, Iris …”

“You’re glad for me too, aren’t you, Auntie?”

“Glad? I’m ecstatic! Dry your tears and sit right down and tell me from the start. I’m so at sea about the whole thing. Tell me everything.”

“I will, but not now. I have to get dressed. He’ll be here at seven, you see. But Paul’s downstairs in the lounge, and when Claude Marchand arrives he can join Paul there.”

“Who
is
this Claude Marchand?”

“I told you. He’s the one who — ”

She broke off. “Aunt Louisa, you simply must pull yourself together,” she said firmly. “Because I’ll never be ready by seven o’clock. You’ll have to do the honors along with Paul. M. Marchand is a very fine gentleman and I know we’ll have a perfectly super evening.”

She gave her aunt an assessing look. Louisa, who was wearing one of her most beautiful dresses, in a heavenly shade of peacock blue, looked her very best. Her hair shone, her heart-shaped face was radiant with joy, curiosity and excitement, and her eyes were dewy with her recent tears.

“You look lovely,” Iris said softly. “Perfectly lovely. Will you listen for the phone, which will probably ring in my room. It will be M. Marchand, so please ask him to go to the second floor lounge and ask for Paul’s table.”

She headed for her bedroom. “And now I simply must do something about myself,” she said. “I’ll hurry just as fast as I can, but I’m depending on you, Aunt Louisa, to keep Paul and M. Marchand company until I can join you.”

“But Iris …”

“Just listen for my phone, okay?”

She left her aunt standing in the middle of the room with her mouth slightly open and in her shower heard the shrilling telephone, and then her aunt’s voice.

As she was drying herself there was a knock at the bathroom door.

“Iris?”

“Yes?”

“He’s here.”

“M. Marchand?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell him to go to the — ”

“I told him to go to the lounge and ask for Paul’s table.”

“Good girl. Now you go down too, and I promise I won’t be long.”

“No, I’ll wait for you.”

“You will not,” Iris said, opening the door. She stood there wrapped in one of the enormous hotel towels. “I can’t hurry if I’m not alone. And I do want to look decent tonight.”

“You look pretty smashing as you are now.”

“Ha ha. Hurry, now. It would be rude to keep him waiting. Oh, do go down and all of you have a drink. And let me get dressed!”

“A complete stranger,” Louisa grumbled.

“He won’t be for long. He talks a blue streak.”

“Well, all right. But please, Iris, do hurry, won’t you?”

“The sooner you go, the faster I can hurry.”

At last she was by herself and free to slip into undies, hose, and then do something to her face. The tan helped, and there was really only a light lipstick and eye makeup to be applied. A quick brush of her hair and she was ready to put on her dress.

She didn’t have to decide. She had one really good designer dress, for very special occasions. She slipped it over her head and stood looking at herself in the long pier glass.

“You are beautiful,”
he had said.
“Very beautiful.”

And tonight even Iris was able to concede that she would do. Pretty she had been born, and pretty she was, and thankful for it.

But beautiful?

If she was beautiful in Paul’s eyes, then she was beautiful. It didn’t matter what she thought … only what he did.

She quickly emptied the personal things from her tote bag and transferred them to a dressy one, then looked at the bag affectionately. That tote bag … that tote bag had introduced her to Paul Chandon, as it had introduced her to Claude Marchand. That idiotic tote bag had changed her life.

You dear thing, she said to it. I will never throw you away, never.

Then she let herself out, locked the door and walked quickly down the two flights of stairs and came almost face to face with Paul.

He was standing a few paces down the hall from the door of the lounge.

He put a quick finger to his lips and shook his head. Then he lifted a finger and beckoned to her.

She walked over to him cautiously. He was clearly indicating that she should be silent.

“What?” she whispered.

“Look inside,” he whispered back.

From where they stood, she could see inside the room. There was Marcel at his bar, busy with bottles and glasses. Past the bar, a lot of people were sitting at the tables, and the room hummed with the sound of voices.

At one of the tables, and not very far away, sat Louisa and Claude Marchand.

Louisa, in her peacock-blue dress, a drink in front of her and a cigarette in her hand, was listening intently. M. Marchand, sans beret and clothed in a charcoal-gray suit with a discreet pin stripe, was a study in sartorial splendor. His thick hair, streaked with gray, was as neat as a schoolboy’s.

He was speaking animatedly, with occasional expressive gestures of his hands — typically Gallic gestures — and was apparently relating some anecdote that seemed to fascinate his companion.

Whatever it was, the ending of it must have been amusing, because, as Iris watched, her aunt broke into delighted laughter.

“They appear to be enjoying each other’s company,” Paul said in a low voice and, putting a hand on Iris’s arm, drew her farther down the hall.

“I made an excuse to leave for a few minutes,” he told her. “They hit it off right away. Really, it was because Marchand has such an easy manner. He has a way of taking charge, hasn’t he?”

“Do you like him?”

“Oh yes, very much indeed.”

“So do I. And it looks as if my aunt does. Paul, it won’t hurt for them to know each other. And then let come what may. Oh, I know you think I’m trying to — ”

“Yes, I think you are trying to bring two people together. I am not critical,
chérie.
You are sweet. You want everyone to be happy.”

“Because I’m happy.”

“And so am I. Oh, am I! Anyway, I excused myself, saying there was a call I had to make. That would give them some time, I thought, to become friends, so that we would have a really enjoyable evening together.”

“Aren’t you nice.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. I think you’re wonderful.”

“You do?”

“Unreservedly.”

“Anyway,” he said. “I did make a call. I tried to switch my flight to Nice for tomorrow, in order to be on your plane.”

He made a long face, and shrugged.

“Oh. You couldn’t do it. The flight was filled?”

“You are disappointed?”

“A little.”

“Don’t be,” he said. “I was successful. I leave on the same flight as yours.”

“Oh, Paul! I thought …”

“Just teasing,” he said, and looked around quickly.

The corridor was empty, and he turned her so that her back was to the wall.

“Now,” he said, “I have you in my power, Mademoiselle.”

“I can always scream for help.”

“I can always shut you up.”

“How?” she started to say, but then his mouth came down on hers, and in a flash they were like one person, body to body, mouth to mouth, and whether it was his heart or her own Iris felt throbbing with such wild intensity, she couldn’t have said if her life depended on it.