LITMIR.BIZ

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unable to master the sheer nasality of the language. “Well, at this time of year there are always English speakers roaming around if you get into a bind. And Curt and I will take you to the airport like we planned. I wish I had given you more notice than this,” she fretted.

      “I wouldn’t change anything,” Lily told her, and that was the truth. Later on in the pregnancy, when her cousin felt more secure, Lily would inform her she was going to be the godmother. Maybe she would bring back a little French toy for the baby and keep it hidden until he or she was born.

      Curt loaded her things into the trunk and they headed for the Verrazano Bridge to cross into New York. JFK Airport sat on a bay overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Queens. At that early hour, the miles passed quickly and Lily found herself deposited on the sidewalk with all her luggage.

      Sarah reached her hand out the window to grab her cousin’s hand. “Lily, Lily, please take care of yourself.” Her eyes were filling up. Lily’s were, too, only she didn’t have early pregnancy hormones to blame, thank God.

      She blew Sarah a kiss. “Everything will be fine. I’ll text you once I land. You just concentrate on taking care of yourself—and your baby.”

      Sarah waved as Curt pulled away from the curb. Lily took a deep breath and hefted her backpack onto her shoulders before pulling her medium-size rolling suitcase into the terminal.

      Her first major trip anywhere. France, land of wine and roses, perfume and pomp. Wow, that sounded good. She grabbed her phone and quickly entered that phrase. She had her laptop all tuned up and ready for the great stories that would fall in her lap.

      Lily was going to take France by storm.

      JACQUES MONTFORD HOPPED off the Métro stop a few blocks from the family mansion on Rue de Faubourg St-Honoré. His mother, the Dowager Countess de Brissard, had wanted to send the family car to meet him at the airport, but he needed more time. Time to get out of the closeness of the airplane, the craziness of Charles de Gaulle Airport, time to get some fresh air—as fresh as Paris could provide.

      He climbed the stairs to the street. Ah, the parfum de Paris in the summer. More than a hint of auto exhaust and pollution, but also a touch of garden from behind the high walls he passed. Jasmine, definitely rose and a touch of lily. But no lavender.

      The only lavender in Paris was in the buckets in the flower market and maybe in a clay pot in some less sophisticated neighborhood than the one he walked through.

      For real lavender, Jacques would have to leave Paris and go to Provence.

      The idea of another trip at that point seemed exhausting. More exhausting than staying with his mother in Paris? That remained to be seen.

      He rounded the corner to the house and took the steps before knocking on the wide wooden door. He hadn’t bothered to take his key ring on his trip to the Southeast Asian typhoon disaster area. As a relief-work physician, he’d had plenty of important medical supplies to carry with him. It was typical to bring one backpack of personal items and a couple of large suitcases filled with medicine, bandages and emergency surgical instruments. In fact, he was wearing his trusty backpack right now. He couldn’t wait to drop it in his suite of rooms, take a shower and grab something to eat in the large kitchen. A quick knock, the door opened and he was officially in hell.

      “Surprise!” A crowd full of people he didn’t know greeted him, slapping him on the back and shaking his hand.

      His mother, her hair an exact color match for his thanks to the hairdresser, fought her way to him, kissing him on both cheeks twice and crying prettily, though not enough to either ruin her mascara or redden her eyes. “Jacques! Mon petit Jacques is finally home!” she announced. His mother’s guests cheered again.

      He was a rich lady’s prize poodle being trotted out for admiration. And for his next trick, he will administer oral rehydration salts and give measles vaccinations!

      He felt like turning around and leaving. But the crowd filled in behind him and Bellamy was taking his beat-up backpack from him.

      His mother clutched his shoulders. “Ah, Jacques, your hair. Why so long?” She fingered his long ponytail of chestnut-brown hair. “And la barbe that hides your handsome face?” She tapped his beard. “You look like one of those scruffy men who live in the subway.” She, of course, was impeccably turned out in a flowing silk peach-colored lounge suit, the perfect outfit for an evening party at home.

      “Maman, please.” He took her hand away from his face but kissed the back of it so she wouldn’t fuss.

      She dimpled at him. “Someone else is waiting to kiss you,” she said coyly.

      He had no idea who. “Bellamy?” He was their ancient butler and the idea of being kissed by the old English fossil made him crack the first smile of the evening.

      Unfortunately his mother misunderstood. “Oh, you funny boy. But that smile tells me you know who I mean.”

      “Actually, Maman, I don’t…” he began, and then his teeth clicked together in shock at the person she intended him to kiss.

      He’d rather have dysentery again.

      “Nadine.” It was difficult to pronounce his ex-fiancée’s name from a clenched jaw, but he did just fine.

      She took that as an invitation instead of an expression of dismay. “Oh, mon amour!” She flung her expensively dressed arms around his neck and tried to kiss him, but he turned his head and was happy to see her spitting out strands of his hair instead.

      He took her by the upper arms and tried to set her away from him, but her grip reminded him of a gecko he’d watched while lying in a hospital bed in Thailand. That sticky-footed lizard could walk upside down on the ceiling and even across glass without falling. Of course it could also lick its eyes with its tongue, something that Nadine had not mastered—as far as he knew. What she did with her tongue was none of his business anymore. It was what she had done with it while it had been his business that had caused their breakup.

      So why was she here, reenacting The Hero’s Welcome from a black-and-white postwar movie? Jacques looked around at his proud mother and her well-lubricated guests eyeing him and beautiful blonde Nadine fondly. Nadine wisely decided not to kiss him again and instead threaded her arm through his, snuggling into his side. A hired waiter pressed a glass of champagne into his hand that wasn’t suctioned to Nadine, and his mother raised her own glass. “To my son, Jacques Charles Olivier Fortanier Montford, Comte de Brissard.” As usual, she forgot the title he valued the most—doctor.

      But the guests cheered anyway. Perhaps his beard hid what had to be a sour expression. Huzzah, huzzah. All that was needed was a rousing orchestral version of “La Marseillaise” as the weary warrior came limping back to Paris. He started to sing under his breath. “Allons, enfants de la Patrie…”

      Nadine gave him a strange look and he remembered his precarious situation. She wanted nothing better than to be Madame la Comtesse de Brissard, and Jacques’s paltry wishes were the only impediment to her desire to enter the noblesse.

      He detached himself from Nadine and raised his glass in fake cheer when he caught his mother staring at them. “Come with me, Nadine.”

      He hurried her into the small hallway leading to the back stairs. Nadine looked at him apprehensively but reached out her arms to him.

      Jacques folded his. “Nadine, what the hell are you doing here?” She started to pout, but he ignored it. “Were you hoping I’d developed amnesia along with dysentery?”

      “Jacques!”

      He was too tired to be kind anymore. “Go away, Nadine. I don’t know what you’ve been telling my mother all these months, but it doesn’t seem to have been the truth.”

      “But, mon cher, we just had a little misunderstanding before you left. If you had stayed instead of going to that dreadful typhoon, we would have smoothed things over in no time.”

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