Page 23 of Wild Lily
Lily could recall having met no artists. “Who is this?”
Marianne glanced away.
“Who?” Lily asked of Chaumont.
“The Duc de Remy.”
“You did not tell me he is a painter,” Lily said to Marianne.
“A sculptor,” Marianne said quietly and strolled to the window.
Did she not wish to speak about Remy? “Does he have talent, Madame Chaumont?”
“Indeed.” The comtesse inclined her head. “He has recently acquired a new commission for the City of Paris.”
“How wonderful for him.” Lily raised her brows at Chaumont, puzzled by Marianne’s silence.
In answer, Chaumont lifted her shoulders. “He works in marble. Bronze, too.”
“I understand he has a mistress.” Marianne fingered the edge of the draperies. “Is that true?”
Chaumont gave a sharp laugh. “I understand he has sent her away.”
“Really?” Within the word was hope.
“Truly, madame. My friends say he was bored.”
“How can that be? She was lovely.”
Lily cocked her head. How would Marianne know if Remy’s lover were beautiful?
“Lovely or not, she has departed. The story goes that he gave her money to retire to the country. Gossips say he is…how you say in English. Pining.”
Marianne whirled to face Chaumont. “Pining?”
“For a new woman.”
“Oh.” She struggled to smile. “What you would expect from an artist,oui?”
Lily had never seen Marianne so secretive. Indeed she was a very bad actress, feigning disinterest in Remy.
Marianne grew nervous, her fingers clutched together so hard her flesh turned white. “He needs a new model, I expect. One who will pose for him in the nude.”
How would Marianne know that women posed for him without their clothes?
“Does he,” asked Lily, “need models who do that?”
“He does,” Chaumont confirmed.
“How else could he impart realism, eh?” Marianne asked. “I saw two of his pieces. A man, tortured, which he namedSamson. He was spectacular.Dianawas another form and she was breath-taking.”
Lily gazed at her cousin, marveling in surprise. “You’ve seen his works?”
“I went one day to a private showing. You’d gone to the book store along the Seine and I knew you would be hours.”
Lily recalled the day, a cold one, when Marianne had left her to her own devices in the book store and gone off for an hour or more. Lily suppressed a grin, but was eager to tease her cousin. “I thought you’d gone in search of a new hat.”
Marianne demurred with a small smile. “Perhaps, at first. But I’d seen a billboard outside the Louvre advertising Remy’s exhibition and since I had met the man, I was curious.”
