He’d taken one of his drawings of her—he was surprised how many he had—and then used watercolors to color it in—especially her midnight hair and beautiful green eyes. Getting the right shade for those eyes had been more difficult than he’d thought. But they were unforgettable—she was unforgettable. He was sure people would remember seeing her.
He went to thediligenceoffice, showed several people her picture and asked whether they’d seen her. The sixth person he spoke to recognized her. “Yes, monsieur, the young lady did arrive on thediligence. When? I do not recall exactly which day—we are very busy here, monsieur, with coaches arriving day and night from all corners of the country—but certainly it was in the last week. I remember the so-pretty young lady. Where did she go? Oh, that I could not say, monsieur. I think she hired a cab, but which one and where it was going, I could not say. But she seemed to know her way around.”
That should have reassured him. If she’d hired a cab with confidence, she must have had somewhere safe to go to, but strangely it made him angrier. More lies, and he’d thought her so honest.
With the reluctant assistance of Gaston, the gallery owner, he’d made a list of all the galleries and dealers where someone might try to sell a valuable old painting. He’d had to work to assure Gaston that he wasn’t in search of an alternative source to take the paintings, that he was trying to track down a particular painting that had been stolen from him.
He still couldn’t understand why she hadn’t taken the other paintings as well, but that didn’t matter now.
He tramped from one end of the city to the other, visiting gallery after gallery and dealers who dealt privately, starting with the less reputable ones. If a young woman arrived with a loose but valuable canvas, the more respectable ones would instantly smell a rat and send her packing. Assuming that she knew how to sell a painting in the first place.
She probably would, he thought. She’d recognized the Charles Le Brun portrait at a glance, after all. She knew a lot more about painting and artists than she’d let on.
But none of the people he questioned admitted to recognizing the girl in the picture, and every single one of them claimed not to have seen the painting he described to them—though if he recovered it, they would be very interested in discussing a price.
It was all very frustrating. He couldn’t tell if they were telling him the truth or were lying to cover up a disreputable transaction.
By the end of the day, he was utterly fed up. He knew searching for her in Paris would be like searching for a needle in a haystack, so why had he bothered? But he wasn’t prepared to give up yet.
He returned to his hotel, ate a good meal and had an early night.
The next morning he rose early, made a hearty breakfast and then set out to continue his search for Vita. He started with employment agencies. She’d claimed to be a lady’smaid, and though he suspected that was a lie, too, it was worth checking.
But again, he had no luck. It seemed that employment agencies, or at least the dozen or so he visited, were universally run by hatchet-faced gorgons, who eyed him suspiciously—some through a lorgnette, some merely down a long, disdainful nose—sniffed at the picture he showed them of Vita and informed him in freezing tones that they ran “arespectableagency, monsieur, providing employment for deserving, decent, virtuous and hard-working females, notthatsort of girl at all!” Several ended their blistering dismissal with variations on “You are clearly in search ofquiteanother sort of establishment, so I will thank you to begone, monsieur!”
That inspired him to visit those other sorts of establishments, but the madams in charge were just as unhelpful and equally irritating. They questioned him closely—some with ill-concealed amusement—as to how he had lost his young woman in the first place—and such a pretty one, too—which made him stiffen outwardly while squirming inside.
They looked at the picture of Vita and offered him girls that they assured him would be just as good, if not better. “We have blondes, brunettes or redheads—even girls with green eyes—all just as pretty as that one, and all extremely amenable to whatever monsieur desires of them. You can take your pick, monsieur.”
In vain he tried to explain that he didn’t want a girl wholooked likeVita, he wantedher. Upon which the various madams shrugged indifferently and dismissed him.
He walked along the riverbank, accosting complete strangers, showing them the picture, to no avail.
He tried the main markets, visited the more popular parks, the streets where there were the kinds of shops that might attract a young woman who had come into money recently, but to no avail.
But despite his lack of success—or perhaps because of it—he kept seeing her everywhere. There she was, just ahead of him in a crowded street. But when he reached her and touched her arm and she turned around in surprise, it wasn’t Vita at all, just some other slender young woman with dark curly hair. It happened several times—this one walked like Vita, that one tilted her head just like Vita often did.
One time he even thought he caught a glimpse of her in a very smart carriage that bowled smartly along the street. She was sitting with a very fashionable lady, and at the sight of her profile he caught his breath. But the carriage turned, and by the time he reached the corner, it was gone.
It couldn’t have been her, he decided. She was too richly and fashionably dressed, and that very elegant carriage was pulled by a magnificent pair of matched bays, with a liveried driver in front and footman on behind.
He was hallucinating, he decided, imagining he was seeing her everywhere. With a heavy heart he collected his baggage and returned to where he’d left his hired carriage. His search had failed. It was time to return to his wagon and his dog and finish the commissions he’d agreed to.
For Zoë the days passed quickly in a frenzy of shopping and dress fittings in the finest Parisian establishments. She thought she already owned more dresses than any girl would need, but apparently she knew nothing of what it took for a London Season. She spent hours standing patiently, being fitted for walking dresses, morning dresses and ball gowns and the various underclothes that went with each style, as well as pelisses and spencers. Then there were shoes and hats and gloves and fans and all kinds of things to purchase, though Gerald pointed out that many of these could be acquired in London.
The quantity of baggage they would be taking with themwas overwhelming. Gerald said he would have to hire a carriage just for the baggage. Zoë couldn’t help but marvel at all that was considered necessary for a young lady making her come-out, and to tell the truth, the expense worried her. Most of her life, as a child with Maman and in the orphanage, she’d been lucky to have one spare dress, and her recent time with Reynard had reminded her of how little you really needed to be perfectly happy.
Still, Lucy had made the journey from an obscure scoundrel’s daughter to a titled lady, and she knew exactly what was required. And she stressed that Clarissa and her husband, Race, had told Lucy to spare no expense in preparing Zoë for her come-out.
“Clarissa and Izzy would be the first to complain at anything less than perfection,” Lucy told her more than once when Zoë had demurred at some extravagant purchase. “They want you to make a splash, for you to dazzle London society wearing the very latest French fashions.”
Zoë knew it was true. Her two sisters and Lady Scattergood had written weekly, ever since she’d first come to France with Lucy and Gerald, and the most recent letters had been filled with excitement and fashion advice and anticipation of Zoë’s return to London.
But though she was looking forward to being reunited with her sisters and Lady Scattergood, Zoë wasn’t at all eager to make a splash in society. She preferred, in fact, to remain in the background. Oh, Lucy had trained her thoroughly, and she’d had plenty of experience in Paris with balls and routs and dances and other social events, and she’d always managed quite well. She’d learned all the various dance steps, never lacked for a partner and had received many compliments.
She grimaced, thinking about it. Compliments often made her uncomfortable. The French gentlemen she’d met had lavished compliments on her, but she’d always felt that somehow they were practiced compliments, flowery, well-rehearsed and applied almost indiscriminately. She rarely felt they applied just to her. It was the nature of “polite society,” and it helped grease the wheels of social interaction, but though she saw the value in everyone being pleasant—at least to your face—she still didn’t feel comfortable with it.
She knew it was all a kind of game, but what about when you wanted to stop playing the game and be real?
