I'll See You in Paris (26 page)

“Cop off?” Win said, immediately prodded into consciousness. “Is someone copulating? That hardly seems fair.”

“Lord Almighty!” Mrs. Spencer said and tossed up her hands.

The woman shook both fists at the ceiling, which sent the birds flapping about the room. The chickens spent the better part of five minutes disrupting papers and banging into windows and walls until finally releasing themselves out into the hallway.

“No one's copulating,” Pru mumbled and scooped up her shoes. “Not to worry.”

With both shoes gripped to her chest, Pru scooted to the room's periphery and tried to slither out the door. Mrs. Spencer kicked it closed.

“No one's leaving until you confess your sins.”

“You're not a priest,” Pru said. “And I don't have any sins.”

“More's the pity,” Win said as Pru shot him a look. “Aw, Mrs. S., we're not copulating. Don't you worry, all body parts have remained with their original owners.”

Pru scowled again, an error in judgment to be sure. Her cute glower was an invitation, a call to increased cheekiness.

“Don't give me any of your seductive gazes, Miss Valentine,” he said with a wink. “This poor old man can't handle your wiles.”

“That was a glare, not a gaze!”

“Miss Valentine, I didn't take you for such a harlot!” Mrs. Spencer said.

Pru groaned. Her mistake, thinking Win Seton was a chum for those few minutes. It astounded, his dire lack of social graces. No surprise he was thirty-four and unmarried. The bloke was a fiasco.

“Nothing happened,” Pru said. “I was trying to save your alleged biographer from mental collapse. He's being impossible on purpose.”

“It wouldn't be accidentally now, would it?” Win said with a chuckle. “Anyway, a harlot is not so bad an insult. ‘If a woman hasn't got a tiny streak of harlot in her, she's a dry stick as a rule.'”

It was a quote Pru recognized immediately, but it did not make her any less cheesed.

Okay, perhaps it made her a touch less cheesed. The very slightest.

“Very nice, Seton, with your D. H. Lawrence,” Mrs. Spencer said, picking up on the reference as quickly as Pru had. “He was a friend of mine, you know. I have a book of his sexually explicit drawings in my library.”

“Please. Show them to me straightaway.”

“You are both ridiculous,” Pru said. “As I told you, nothing happened and Mr. Seton would be
lucky
to experience one of my seductive gazes.”

“Here, here,” Win said.

“Edith Junior vowed that you were a nice girl,” Mrs. Spencer said. “Tight with one of the best families in Boston. What would the Kelloggs think of these exploits in the boudoir?”

“I don't think the Kelloggs would much care.”

“Kellogg?” Win asked. “As in the foodstuffs?”

Pru nodded. She moved from the barricaded doorway and slumped down into Win's writing chair.

“Mrs. Spencer … I
am
a nice girl,” she insisted, though it didn't sound remotely convincing. “This is a misunderstanding.”

“What's to misunderstand about you taking sexual advantage of my biographer! You're not even French!”

“How many times do I have to say it? There's nothing sexual! He wishes there was something sexual!”

“I like the way you say ‘sexual,'” Win said and wiggled his brows.

“Oh good grief! Don't you think
he's
more the taking-advantage type? I'm a fresh, young innocent girl of only nineteen. He's a grizzled old bachelor.”

“Why, I'm gobsmacked,” Win said. “Simply beside myself! Miss Valentine, tell her the truth. Here I was, innocently pecking away on my manuscript—”

“I wouldn't touch you with someone else's hands!” she barked.

The man felt a troublesome sensation across his chest. Regret? Sorrow? The realization that this was all a big joke, that he could never hope to be in the position of fending off her advances?

Not that Win had designs on the girl, not exactly. She was indeed beautiful and he'd welcome the flattery of her attentions. But he'd never try to outright seduce the poor thing. She was too forbiddingly innocent for one, so ethereal with that flowing, glossy hair and her bright eyes.

And liberal education aside, the girl lacked a certain practicality. It wasn't exactly a dearth of sophistication, but something close to it. Pru was polite and mannered, but in the way a schoolgirl might be, as though she were told how to act and had not yet learned it for herself.

Of course Win didn't know about the dead fianc
é
, or the things she was trying to get over. If he had, he probably wouldn't have mistaken her brave and quiet self-confidence for ordinary cluelessness.

“I'm only playing,” Win said at last. He felt bad, as if he'd been caught teasing a scared little girl. “Miss Valentine has acted appropriately at every turn. As you can see, we are both fully dressed.”

“You are in your shorts!” Mrs. Spencer said. “I can see the outline of your willy!”

Pru blushed hard and turned to face the window. She didn't want Win to notice that she was giggling. But notice he did. She could feel his grin from clear across the room.

“The outline of my willy? Heavens!” Win swung his legs off the side of the bed. “Well, do enlighten me, Mrs. Spencer. How does my willy compare to, say, the Crown Prince of Prussia? The man who owned the Hope diamond? I can assure you its abilities leave women sparkling far more than the diamond itself.”

“Oh please!” Pru said, and bonked her head on the desk. “Dream on!”

Win hobbled toward her, his bones tired from spending all night maintaining an appropriate distance from his unexpected companion. As he walked, Pru tried her mightiest not to catch sight of his legs, which were bare and muscled in a way that brought to mind D. H. Lawrence's book of explicit renderings.

“Up,” he said.

“Um, what?”

She could not stop staring at his legs. Better those than the “outline of his willy,” of course.

“Up out of my chair, you plotting vixen. I can't be distracted by your sexual aggressions. I have to write my book.”

“You're disgusting,” Pru said and tried, once again, for the door. Mrs. Spencer swatted her away.

“I can't have this,” the old woman said, her voice scratchier by the syllable. “Two of my employees fornicating in my home! We have to contend with enough litters in this place. I'm not sheltering whatever godforsaken offspring the two of you might produce.”

“Which would be far less special than the spaniels,” Win said, and rolled a piece of paper into his typewriter.

“You don't need to tell me that!”

“Relax, everyone,” Win said. “This is all in good fun. I'm merely trying to get a rise out of the two of you.”

“Getting a rise is precisely my concern!”

“You don't need to worry about the hired help shagging,” he said. “What you see before you are the aftereffects of a couple of mates sharing a bottle of cheap wine and then promptly passing out. Plus whatever Miss Valentine said about my crack-up. That is also true.”

“Well, I'm delighted to learn you have so much excess time for drinking and losing the plot. I thought you were writing a book. You're both here to work, by the by.”

“I can't speak for the innocent young lodger, but as for me, I do swear by the
Church
on the
Hill,
” Win said and winked at Pru, “that I'm working hard as I can.”

“Church on the Hill? Not Winston again,” Mrs. Spencer said with a snort.

“Here's the rub, though,” Win said. “You've given me so little to work with I often find myself facing gobs of free time. Can you blame me for befriending the only other employee of the Grange? I'm quite bored and Miss Valentine makes for excellent company.”

“Oh, I'll bet she does,” Mrs. Spencer huffed. She sat on the bed. Pru inched toward the door. “You're supposed to be writing
my
story, Seton. Paying attention to
me
.”

“Lady, that's what I've been trying to do. Problem is, you're not giving me the chance.”

 

Forty-four

THE GRANGE

CHACOMBE-AT-BANBURY, OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND

JANUARY 1973

“Fine. Have it your way,” Mrs. Spencer said, and took to roost at the end of Win's bed, same as the chickens. “I'll answer whatever questions you please. Though, as I said, I'm no duchess. Where's your tape recorder, Seton?”

“Tape recorder?” Win said, stunned and buggy-eyed. “To be honest, I'd rather transcribe our discussions. I've grown, shall we say, rather embittered by the recorder. Just ask Miss Valentine over there.”

He nodded toward where she stood rooted beside the door. Though her exit was no longer restricted, Pru found herself unable to move. Mrs. Spencer's demeanor had flipped. She was at once more attentive, ready to play. Pru wanted to stick around and finally hear the full tale.

“Miss Valentine? What does Miss Valentine know of your recordings?”

“I played her the tapes. Then I promptly reached my limit and chucked the device against the wall.”

“You
threw
it?”

“It didn't break!” Pru chirped. “He didn't use enough force to cause damage. It was more like a high lob.”

She arched her arm to demonstrate.

“Many thanks for that,” Win said. “A bloke can't feel too manly around here, can he?”

“I want to be recorded,” Mrs. Spencer said. “I can't trust you to write my words as I say them. You don't seem particularly bright. No offense.”

“How could I possibly take offense to that?” he said and rolled his eyes. “You win, Mrs. Spencer. If you provide a single crumb of information not web-footed or feathered in nature, I will gladly record your musings.”

He opened a desk drawer. After groping its contents for thirty seconds, Win found an unused tape. He jammed it into the recorder and tapped the red circle.

“Where would you like to start?” he asked.

“I was born in 1881.”

“Righto,” Win said with a nod. “Just as the Duchess of Marlborough was.”

“No,” Mrs. Spencer said. “I mean 1892. My apologies. I'm old, you see.”

“I use that excuse all the time, too.”

“Yes, yes. I was born in 1892, at the Hotel Brighton in Paris. It was on the Rue de Rivoli across from the Tuileries Garden. My first official home was at Fourteen Rue Pierre Charron, a few blocks off the Champs-
É
lys
é
es. My family was from America but I lived most of my life in Europe and consider myself a Parisian, through and through.”

Win jotted a few notes. Pru tried to see them from her place near the door.

“My mother was a known femme fatale,” Mrs. Spencer continued. “More than that, she was a
demimondaine,
a bygone being who was equal parts countess and courtesan.”

“Demimondaine,”
Win said, addressing Pru. “A prostitute, basically. But higher class.”

“A prostitute?” She gawked.

“Oh, Miss Valentine, don't get so prudish about it,” Mrs. Spencer clucked. “Why am I even bothering? I can't properly explain this to a woman of the modern era, what with her job-seeking and bra-burning.”

“Note to manuscript. Mrs. Spencer glared at Miss Valentine upon speaking the word ‘bra.'”

“Believe me, there was honor in the position, in one's ability to use her beauty and charm to make a life. Quite a nice life, it should be stated. The last home Mother lived in was a castle, decorated with unicorns and virgins.”

“Not the least bit vulgar,” Win said. “Though this is a woman who traded sex for peignoirs and incited at least one death.”

“I quite don't know what you're speaking about.”

“Note to manuscript: Mrs. Spencer is sniffing haughtily as can be.”

“Are you interviewing me or adding your commentary?”

“Both,” he said. “Miss Valentine, you look uncomfortable standing around like that. Why not have a seat?”

With both pairs of eyes on her, Pru scuffled against the wall and planted herself at the far side of the bed, near Win's pillow, which still had on it faint traces of his unwashed, musky scent. Her heart rate sped up by a few extra beats.

“Where was I?” Mrs. Spencer asked, watching Pru.

“Your mother,” Win reminded her.

“Right. Mother. She was a majestic being. A noted femme fatale, as I mentioned. This got her into a spate of trouble.”

“I'll say.”

“Mother was … her beauty … it was a crashing chandelier. She was elegant and graceful and made a scene simply by walking through a door. Her luxurious chestnut hair was envied more than her figure and her clothes, which was saying something given her resplendent serpentine dresses. She had accounts at the finest shops, bills paid by the finest men.”

“Like I said, high-class prostitution.”

“Mother traveled the world,” Mrs. Spencer went on, intent on ignoring the wisecrack, a solid strategy when dealing with Win. “But never without the four of us girls and our accompanying nurses, nursery maids, and governesses. We toured every major country in Europe, and even some minor ones. We summered in Newport, where our American cousins thought us fast merely because they caught us warming our bloomers at the fire.

“We visited Africa. South America. The far Orient. But mostly we stayed in Paris. Sometimes we lived at the best hotels, other times in meticulously appointed flats in the Marais. Either way, Paris was our home.”

“Did you study in Paris?” Win asked. “As a young girl?”

“Yes, of course. Mother ensured we were schooled in the arts. All of us were fluent in half a dozen languages by the age of ten. Even Edith, with her head thick as a brick. Mother squeezed the best parts from us. That's what she did.