Remembered (22 page)

“You best be coverin’ up that pretty face of yours, ma’am. Those pretty little hands too. ’Fore they get all freckled.”

Véronique saw the old man and backed up a step, clutching her
réticule
to her body.

He pulled a two-wheeled cart behind him, reminding her of the paupers who lined the streets outside the opera house in Paris. After a performance, many would call out as the finely dressed men and women returned to their carriages. But others would stand silent, hands outstretched, dark eyes hollow. These always frightened her most—their faces gaunt and void of emotion, as though death had already visited them unaware. Yet on those evenings, Lord Marchand had never failed to have pocketfuls of coins. And he hadn’t tossed the coins out like so many did before rushing back to their lives. He’d distributed each personally, looking every man, woman, or child in the eye.

But the very thought of having to touch this man caused Véronique to shudder. His teeth, what few remained, were yellowed. His shirt, stained and dirty, hung on frail shoulders, and if not for the suspenders he wore, his trousers would have puddled about his ankles. A strong odor wafted toward her, and she swallowed convulsively, thankful she’d chosen to go without breakfast that morning.

The stab to her conscience was swift and well aimed.

A knot formed in her throat. Wishing she could turn and leave, she found it impossible to look away.

“That’s a mighty pretty dress you got on there, ma’am. Not sure I’ve ever seen one quite like it.” The aging pauper grinned and made a show of peering around behind her to look pointedly at the bustle of her dress. “Kinda reminds me of a little caboose, if you don’t mind me sayin’.” His laughter came out high-pitched and wheezy, and ended in a fit of coughing.

Véronique backed up another step, fairly convinced the man meant her no real harm. Perhaps if she gave him a coin or two, he would leave her alone. Still holding tightly to her réticule, she rummaged for her change purse.

“Care to look at my wares? I’ve got some mighty fine things here.” He began pawing through the contents of his cart. “I’ve got some nice picture books, or maybe jewelry would be more to your likin’.” He held up a pair of earrings, holes where the jewels had once been. “These aren’t nearly as pretty as yours, but you’d brighten ’em right up, for sure.”

Wishing she’d worn her gloves, Véronique held two nickels out between her fingertips.

He looked at the money, then at her. A frown shadowed his sun-furrowed face. “But you haven’t picked out anything. Besides . . .” He glanced from left to right as though perilous spies lingered near. His voice lowered. “You need to ask me if I’ll take any less.” He winked. “I always do.”

Wanting him to leave, Véronique nodded to the coins between her fingertips. If he would only take them, her obligation would be fulfilled. “I am not in need of anything today, monsieur. But I am offering these to you.” She thrust it forward. “You may have them.”

Bushy brows shot up. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Please, monsieur. If you will but accept my charity and depart from my—”

“Why, Mr. Callum Roberts. Good morning to you, sir.”

Hearing Jack’s voice, Véronique felt a rush of relief. She readied her thanks, only to discover Jack wasn’t looking at her at all. His attention was fixed on the beggar.

The old man’s face split into a grin, revealing fewer teeth than she had originally attributed to him. “Why, Jack Brennan, how are you today?”

Jack shook Monsieur Roberts’s hand. “I’m very well, thank you, sir. I saw you both out here and thought I’d come join you.”

Wondering how Jack knew this man, Véronique caught the subtle look Jack tossed her, and returned one of her own that said she appreciated his rescue.
Again
.

Jack peered into the man’s cart. “You got anything new since Friday? I sure am enjoying that rolling pin I got from you.”

A rolling pin?
She tried to catch his eye but couldn’t.

“Well, let’s see what other treasures I’ve got. . . .” Monsieur Roberts dug around for a moment.

Véronique watched Jack as he watched Mr. Roberts. Genuine concern shone in Jack’s expression, as well as attentiveness. Strange, but his ease with the beggar only served to deepen her discomfort.

“Here we are. This might be somethin’ that’ll work for you.” Mr. Roberts straightened with effort and presented Jack with a rustcovered iron.

Véronique waited, eager for Jack’s reaction. An iron was the last thing she could imagine a man like him needing.

A slow smile crossed Jack’s face. “This is perfect.”

Monsieur Roberts shook his head as Jack took the item from his frail hands. “Now, don’t you be buyin’ it if it’s not somethin’ you can use. There’s nothing worse than throwin’ your money away on an iron you won’t use or don’t need.”

Véronique found herself smiling at the old gentleman’s concern. And at Jack’s
gentil
way with him.

“I wouldn’t buy it if I couldn’t use it, sir. I give you my word. Matter of fact, I’m heading out of town on Friday and my . . . traveling partner can be mighty particular about things. Likes everything just so, and I’m thinking sh—my partner—will put this to good use.”

It took her a moment, but Véronique realized he was referring to her. And that he was telling her they were leaving on another trip in three days! Another chance to search for her father—and anticipating time in Jack’s company wasn’t altogether unpleasant either. In fact, it gave her far more pleasure than it should have.

Aware of his watchful glances, she took care not to show her excitement at the news—while already picturing how she might use that iron the next time he got flippant with her.

Jack placed a gentle hand beneath her arm. “Mr. Callum Roberts” —his voice took on a more formal tone—“have you had the pleasure of meeting Mademoiselle Véronique Girard? She’s new to Willow Springs and hails from Paris, France.”

Gripping the side of his cart, Monsieur Roberts bent briefly at the waist. “Mademoiselle Girard, it’s a real pleasure to be makin’ your acquaintance, ma’am.”

Surprised at his bowing to her, she hoped the man didn’t also know that etiquette demanded she proffer her hand for a kiss. But she knew, and from the look on Jack’s face, so did he. She couldn’t imagine the pauper’s mouth actually touching her skin. No matter what she told herself, her arm would not move from her side—until she looked at Jack.

He gave her an almost imperceptible nod, his eyes telling her it would be all right.

Embarrassed, not wanting to, her stomach in knots, she curtsied and extended her hand. “The pleasure is mine, Monsieur Roberts.” She tried not to wince as he took her hand and kissed it. When she lifted her gaze, her throat closed tight.

The man’s rheumy eyes were swimming, and despite the undeniable chasm in their social classes, Véronique felt strangely unworthy of his obvious adoration and esteem.

“Now, ma’am, you need to pick something out.” He waved an arthritic hand over his cart. “No charge today. Anything you want.”

She shook her head. “
Merci beaucoup
, but I am not in need of anything today, monsieur.” The man’s chin lowered ever so slightly, and the subtle shake of Jack’s head told her she’d made a mistake. “However, thinking better of it now” —already Jack’s smile returned—“I might be able to find something if . . . I were to look more closely.”

“You bet you can.” The man pulled a cloth from his back pocket and started wiping off the discarded trinkets as he presented them to her, one after the other.

Véronique finally decided on a china cup regrettably relieved of its handle, though no matter what Jack said or did, she would never use it for its original purpose. She did have her limits.
“Merci
, Monsieur Roberts. And I insist that you have this.” She held out the coins, sensing Jack’s approval. “There is nothing better than finding treasure in unexpected places,
non
?”

CHAPTER | EIGHTEEN

V
ÉRONIQUE RIPPED THE
piece of parchment in half and wadded E´ it up into a ball. The pencil would not obey her mind’s instruction. For an instant, she almost gave in to the desire to break the drawing implement, but then remembered a fellow painter who had injured his fingers in just such a foolish gesture.

She rose from the desk in her hotel room and paced the brief length of floor unoccupied by trunks.

She could see his hands; the picture was vivid in her mind, as clear as if the old beggar were standing there before her, frail arms outstretched, palms facing downward.

She closed her eyes, concentrating.

Ever since she’d bid farewell to Monsieur Roberts earlier that day, her thoughts, of their own bothersome accord, kept returning to his hands. Their arthritic-swollen joints, the parchment-thin skin, mottled with markings of years and age, draped over gnarled fingers. What living those hands had done, and what pain they had endured, if the scars covering them were evidence.

She had drawn countless pairs of hands, feet, arms, and legs, as well as other parts of the body—the soft curvature of a woman’s bare back, the well-defined, muscled shoulders of a man—in the art studio where she had studied in Paris. Nude models were often the subject of their lessons and, though capturing the nuance of the human body was, without question, more intriguing than sketching a vase of sunflowers or a field of poppies, it was also far more difficult. Showing movement, conveying
life
, in a still rendering of the subject was an art she’d studied for years—and was something with which she still struggled.

Véronique walked to the desk and from faraway corners deep within herself, summoned every scrap of confidence she’d ever possessed and every last compliment someone had paid her work. Focusing that energy on the fresh piece of parchment before her, she began again.

The pencil moved over the paper with a rhythm that was at once second nature, and at the same time was distant and disturbingly foreign.

Jack came to mind, and with every painstaking stroke she made on the page, she wondered what he would think if he were to see her paintings and drawings. Would his expression fill with a look of politeness tinged with discomfort over what to say?

If only she possessed the talent of Berthe Morisot and the others. Then Jack might come to think more highly of her than he did now. He had not indicated that he thought ill of her at present, but he might see her as more capable, more deserving if she possessed that level of talent.

Véronique lifted the instrument from the parchment and surveyed her work, finding little worth in it. The lines of the beggar’s hands were awkward, forced, void of movement and life. She crumpled the page and threw it into the corner along with the previous failure.

It suddenly seemed a great offense for God to give someone a talent, only to take it away at His slightest whim. It would have been better had He never gifted her at all, rather than to leave her empty and wanting of the pleasure she had once experienced when the art poured through her hands, through her body, as though issuing from His very heart.

Would she ever become skilled enough to command paint on canvas as did Berthe? Chances of that happening in the tiny town of Willow Springs seemed nil at best. Students needed instruction to better themselves,
non
? And who in this place possessed the necessary skills to tutor and challenge her, to broaden her knowledge of the arts?

As she stared at the crumpled balls of paper in the corner, she recalled Pastor Carlson’s recent sermon. Never before had she considered God to be cruel, even in her mother’s untimely death. Death was part of life. A ceasing of it, to be certain, but nonetheless the natural order of things. She knew this, for since a young age she had rousted about on death’s threshing floor, in the shadow of its grasp, at Cimetière de Montmartre.

But the removal of her ability to draw, to paint, felt like a removal of God’s very presence. And in light of everything else that His grace—however bent with human will by His own design—had allowed to be taken from her life, that filching seemed especially cruel.

“
Très bien
, Mademoiselle Carlson!” Véronique clapped as she rose from her chair, imbuing her voice with enthusiasm based not on the girl’s correctness of form but on her effort and dedication.

Lilly straightened from the attempted curtsy, her brow glistening from the past hour’s lesson. The hotel dining room was vacant, the dinner hour long ended. “You’re very kind, Mademoiselle Girard . . . and generous with your praise. I’m
not
doing well. But I can do better. I know I can.”

As Véronique had anticipated, the brace on Lilly’s right leg greatly encumbered the bowing gesture, and not even the luminescent quality of Lilly’s eyes could mask the dull of pain in them. Whether it stemmed from the girl’s overexertion during the day or from the repeated attempts to master this act of etiquette, Véronique couldn’t be certain.

But she desired to put an end to it. “You continually surprise me with your dedication to learning,
ma chérie
. But I believe we have had more than enough practice for one evening. You must rest now.”

Lilly took a deep breath. Her slender jawline went rigid. “No, ma’am! I’m going to continue until I get it right!”

Véronique raised a brow at the harshness in the girl’s voice, full well knowing the tone wasn’t meant for her. She recognized the obstinacy behind Lilly’s attitude, and her frustration—because she shared it. Had she not experienced the same roil of emotion earlier that day with the pencil and parchment as her formidable foes?

With a determined look, Lilly placed her left foot forward again and attempted to sweep her right leg behind her in a graceful gesture, all while bending at the knee and holding her skirt out from her body. Either her knee buckled or she lost her balance, but if not for grabbing hold of the chair beside her, she would have fallen altogether.

Véronique hurried to help, but Lilly waved her away. Tears rose in Véronique’s eyes, and fell from Lilly’s.

“This is so . . .
stupid
!” Lilly regained her balance and shoved the chair away. “I’ll never be able to do this! Not like you can!”