J.C. and the Bijoux Jolis: The Rousseaus #3 (The Blueberry Lane Series Book 14) (11 page)

But Libitz’s fervent convictions had been seared instantly into his brain, leaving him uncertain of his course for the first time in a long time. It was better not to commit to anyone, wasn’t it? It was better not to risk hurting someone. It was better to play the field and love no one. Wasn’t it?

If that’s what he believed, why hadn’t he said as much to her? Why hadn’t he shared his truth with her? Why had he listened in rapt silence, his heart beating out of his chest, hanging on every word like they were lifelines instead of the thoughts of one delectable little New Yorker?

Was it possible that everything he’d conditioned himself to believe, to
want
, wasn’t actually what he believed or wanted at all?

“I think I might have found something amazing!” she cried, suddenly appearing beside the armoire, holding several dusty relics in her arms.

He grinned at her, surprised the gesture came so easily.

Yeah,
he thought, hope spreading through his chest like a balm, like something he’d lost so long ago, he almost didn’t recognize it inside of him.
I think I might have found something amazing too.

“Show me what you found.”

Behind the well-preserved Louis XIV armoire, she’d found a roll-top desk. Opening the bottom drawer, she found what appeared to be a mangy journal, a stack of yellowed letters, and an old-fashioned men’s shaving case in a rolled leather pouch with two dull brass buckles.

Holding her treasures in her arms, she made her way around the armoire to Jean-Christian, looking for a table on which to place them. Finding none, she lowered herself to a squat and placed them gently on the dusty floor. Then she sat down cross-legged beside them and looked up at him.

“Don’t you want to see?”

“We’re just going to sit on the floor?”

“Hell yes!” she exclaimed.

He gave her a look before joining her on the weathered wooden boards, sitting across from her. “Well…?”

She handed him the leather shaving case. “Was this his?”

J.C. used his hand to dust off the side of the pouch and found initials burned into the leather. “PVM. Pierre Victor Montferrat. Yep. Must have been.”

“Open it! I’ll look in this,” she said, reaching for the journal.

The art historian in her said that she shouldn’t be looking at these antique things here—that they should take them to his gallery where they could spread them out on a table under white lights and handle them with gloved hands. But she couldn’t resist learning more about Pierre Montferrat and, hopefully, the beautiful model in the painting.

Pushing the letters gently to the side, she placed the journal on a flat board and opened it gingerly, the old leather giving with a creak as she used a touch more force to smooth the front page.

Pierre Montferrat

47 Rue de Petit Puits

Marseille

A rush of anticipation coursed through Libitz as she reached down to turn the page, but she was interrupted by her partner in crime.

“Wow. Look at this stuff!” said Jean-Christian, who had opened the brass buckles and unfurled the leather case to reveal an ivory-handled razor, a small rectangular ivory box to hold soap, an ivory-handled brush that still had most of its bristles intact, and a mirror with a geometric design carved into the ivory.

“Classic art deco,” whispered Libitz, reaching out to finger the black spots of missing silver on the antique mirror.

“Hmm,” said Jean-Christian, noting a zipper on the back of the case. “I wonder what’s…” His sharp intake of breath stole her attention from the mirror, and she looked over to see his fingers pull an emerald necklace from the pouch, the tarnished setting and glittering jewels spilling into his hands.

“The necklace!” she gasped. “Is it—”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m positive. It’s the one from the portrait!”

Cupped in his hands, he offered it to her like a gift, and Libitz removed it carefully, searching for the ends before holding it up between them.

“My God,” she said. “It’s like holding history in my hands.”

“It’s not
like
holding history…you
are
holding history.”

She gulped, raising her eyes to meet his. “She
wore
this.”

He nodded, his smile as broad as a little kid’s on Christmas morning. “Can you imagine?”

“You need to have it cleaned and appraised,” she said, the gallery owner in her taking over. “This is an antique, and it’s…silver. I’d never have guessed.”

“Probably sterling covered with twenty-four-karat gold.”

“Almost all gone now.” She nodded sadly. “But still beautiful.” Reaching for her purse, she took out her eyeglass case and put her sunglasses on her head. “This’ll have to do.” Slowly she laid the glistening gems on the black felt lining and shut the case, handing it to Jean-Christian.

He shook his head. “You keep it for me.”

She nodded, a warm feeling inside making her smile at him. “Of course.”

“How about that?” he asked, gesturing to the flattened journal with his chin and scooting around their small pile of booty to sit beside her.

“Cover page has his name and address. A ledger?” she asked, slipping the eyeglass case back into her purse and looking back at the book on the floor. “A journal?”

His fingers traced the faded name, but his eyes skimmed to the small stack of letters beside the book, bound with a yellowed ribbon. “What about these?”

“Letters,” she said, looking at the vintage airmail envelopes.

“To my great-grandmother, I bet.” He picked up the pile and scooted backward to sit against the steamer trunk. “Let’s read them first.”

She grinned at him and nodded, sliding back on the floor to sit beside him. “Okay.”

As he untied the ribbon, part of the old fabric disintegrated to fragments, and he winced. “So damn old.”

He reached for the letter on top and looked at the address and postmark. “From Pierre Montferrat in Marseille, France, to Amelie Montferrat Roche. So that’s, um…my great-uncle writing to my great-grandmother, his sister.”

Libitz’s heart sped up with excitement as she slid slightly closer to him, shoulder to shoulder, so she could see better. “Sent in December 1939.”

Jean-Christian gently squeezed the envelope that had been sliced open over seven decades ago and pulled the letter, written on thin airmail paper, from its home. He unfolded it and, after a moment, began reading snippets in English.

“Um…let’s see here…
There is talk of…
um,
rationing. En Angleterre
, um,
in England, it has already started. Can you imagine a France in which you cannot have butter with your bread, dear Amelie? Today I shall try to find…
”

Libitz stared straight ahead at the dust that floated around the attic in a beam of sunlight as Jean-Christian haltingly translated letter after letter from Pierre Montferrat to his sister, switching back and forth from murmured French to carefully chosen English. Though Amelie repeatedly begged her brother to join her and her family in Montreal, he was unable to due to poor health and an increasingly tumultuous France under Nazi occupation. The letters were vivid and descriptive, and her heart ached for a brother who waited too long to leave, hoping the France of his youth might be restored before the end of his life. But alas, it was still under German occupation when he died, and he would never see his sister again.

***

“…my trusted friend, Jules Vichy, has promised to keep my things safe until they can be shipped to you.”
Jean-Christian cleared his throat, his voice breaking at times, clearly moved by the tone of farewell in Pierre’s final letter. “Um, let’s see here…
There will be no more letters after this one, dear sister. I beg that you remember me always during our sunny days at the Vallon des Auffes when the fish practically jumped into our little boat. Do you remember collecting them into a bucket and running home barefoot to mother? I can still feel your small hand clasped in mine and the hot sun on our backs. Forever I will be your older brother…
um,
Pierre, watching out for you until we meet again in God’s glory, my little—
” He sniffled. “
My darling little sister.
”

Jean-Christian folded the final letter and carefully tucked it back inside the envelope as Libitz took a shaky breath beside him and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“He didn’t make it to the end of the war,” murmured Libitz, whose head had dropped to his shoulder over an hour ago. “He never saw her again.”

J.C. turned from the pile of letters in his lap, his lips grazing the top of her head. He pressed them against her sleek black hair, closing his eyes and picturing
Les Bijoux Jolis
, which had been his great-uncle’s final painting in free France. Pierre’s friend, Jules, must have shipped it, along with his desk and other belongings, to J.C.’s great-grandmother in Montreal at the end of the war.

“It’s so sad,” said Libitz, her usually strong voice thready with emotion.

J.C. adjusted slightly to put his arm around her and draw her against him, kissing her head again. He nodded, thinking of Étienne, Jax, and Mad and how desperate he would feel to be separated from them during a war that would end up severing any chance to see one another again.

“But no word about the paintings or the model,” said J.C.

“Maybe in the journal?” asked Libitz, reaching for it.

“Jean-Christian! Étienne just called wondering where you are.”

Jax’s voice sailed up the stairs, and Libitz straightened, wiggling out from under his arm as if caught doing something they oughtn’t.

“We should go,” she whispered, fishing her phone from her back pocket. “Oh, my God! It’s almost two!”

He picked up the letters and stuffed them gently into the journal. He called down to Jax, “Coming. Tell him we’ll be there in ten minutes.”

The sound of Jax’s laughter faded as she walked away from the base of the attic stairs, telling her brother that J.C. and Lib would be back soon.

“We lost track of time,” said Libitz, standing up and brushing off her jeans.

He immediately missed the warmth of her body pressed against his, the weight of her head resting on his shoulder. Looking up at her, he cocked his head to the side. “This was…fun. Is that weird?”

She seemed to weigh the question for a minute before rolling her eyes. “He thinks reading heartbreaking letters is fun.”

He stood up. “Admit it. You loved it.”

Without much coercion, she nodded. “I can’t lie. I’m fascinated by stuff like this.”

“How about I look through the journal and see if I can find anything about the model? And we can talk tomorrow at the BBQ?”

“Sounds like a plan. And maybe”—she shrugged—“maybe I’ll e-mail a couple of galleries in Marseille and see if I can find any information about Pierre. Perhaps some of his work is still available for sale?”

J.C. nodded. “Definitely worth a shot.”

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and held it for a second before letting it go. J.C. had a feeling she was waiting for him to do something or say something in particular, but he didn’t know what. Suddenly, without warning, she stepped onto his shoes on tiptoe and touched her lips to his, once, twice, gently, without expectation or promise. When she drew away, she looked up into his eyes.

“I wish I could figure you out,” she murmured, as though giving sound to a thought.

He searched her face, tracing the strong angle of her jaw, the softness in her cheeks and lips, the way her dark eyelashes framed her wide brown eyes.

“I’m not complicated.”

She flinched, but just barely, backing away from him. “Don’t kid yourself.”

Then she turned and walked away, disappearing down the stairs and leaving him alone with relics of the past in the dim, dark attic.

***

When Libitz woke up in Kate’s guest room the next morning, she opened her eyes with a start, her dreams from last night still so vivid, and it took her a few seconds of deep breathing on her back to convince herself they weren’t real.

Her mind had conjured sharp, realistic images of her lying naked on Monsieur Montferrat’s chaise, but instead of the older French gentleman painting her, his grand-nephew had wielded the brush. It was intensely erotic holding Jean-Christian’s gaze as he stared at her over the top of the canvas, his eyes dilated and hot as he caressed the lines of her body with his eyes and brush.

Slipping her fingers into her sleeping shorts, she slid her middle finger over the carefully groomed triangular landing strip at the top of her clit. Inside the tender folds, she was soaked and slippery, her finger sliding easily over the erect nub of hidden flesh. She gasped as an image of Jean-Christian flitted through her mind, the sensory memory of his tongue in her mouth making her writhe with longing as she inserted two fingers into her sex, hooking them back to massage her G-spot. She whimpered, her hips lifting from the mattress in a shattering climax as she heard his words,
The first time we fuck, it’s going to mean something
, in her head. Panting as her body jerked and convulsed, she rolled onto her side and tucked her knees to her chest, trying to savor the shivers of pleasure.

Her phone buzzed beside her on the bedside table, and Libitz reached for it, frowning when she realized it was a series of texts from Neil asking about her trip. She sat up in bed, sighing as she cataloged this new development in her so-called boyfriend. Neil hadn’t been much for watchdogging her before now, but inviting him to sleep over seemed to have opened a floodgate of some kind. He asked questions about her trip and shared the mundane minutiae of his day. Neil was a good, solid man, but she really didn’t want to hear about the number of Challah orders that were placed this year for Yom Kippur. And knowing that his mother had reached out to her parents to join them for dinner on Friday night added a pressure to the situation she suddenly resented.

Libitz groaned, placing the phone back on the bedside table and scooching under the covers.

What had changed?

“Oh, God,” she mumbled.