Page 71 of Ravishing Camille

“A chateau in Amboise.”

Amboise.Delightful little place. “A small town.”

“Have you been there?” Dylan piped up.

She had to laugh and hope she did not blush. The boy had been listening! “Once I was there, yes. Years ago. A friend of mine had a little house near the one that was owned by Leonardo da Vinci.”

Dylan frowned. “Who’s he?”

“A famous artist. A painter.”

“Like Aunt Marianne.” The boy nodded, unimpressed.

When Dylan returned his attention to the workmen who were hoisting a huge iron girder up to the second story of the tower, Pierce leaned closer to her. “I will have a coachman call for you.”

“At Gare de l’Est,” she told him in a rush. “I know it should be Gare Montparnasse but that’s what I told Marianne. I am sorry. I am nervous and not a good liar!”

Dylan spun to her. “Are we all going to Amboise?”

She swallowed laughter. “No. Just me.”

“Why?”

This young boy was more inquisitive than was healthy for her! “I will visit a friend.”

“Oh. Okay.” He was back to his absorption with the tower.

Pierce cleared his throat and mouthed, “We’ll talk more later.”

That evening, with all the children at their suppers, Marianne, Remy, Pierce and she climbed into Remy’s town coach for the short ride to the Rue Saint-Georges, the Galerie George Petit, and the joint exhibition of Remy’s sculpture with the impressionist painter, Claude Monet.

Remy, usually so ebullient, was for such a large and assertive man, silent.

Marianne threaded her fingers through his own and touched her cheek to his shoulder. “A remarkable evening,” she breathed and caught his smile.

He touched the end of her nose and winked at her. “There is a new piece for you, my love.”

She was surprised but by her look, honored too. “Really?”

He gave one nod. “Truly.”

She shivered in expectation, but put on a silly face. “Tell me. What am I? A barge upon the Seine?” She swept a hand over her stomach. “A Viking matron with shield and babies all around?”

He laughed, a booming sound that filled the carriage. But he directed his blue gaze to Pierce. “You see how I am plagued by disrespect?”

Pierce smothered a grin. “The best kind of disease.”

Remy leaned over and kissed his wife on her cheek. “I will never be cured of her!”

Marianne took it with good cheer. “He is oppressive, this man I married. But you and I, Camille, will see what he has done and declare him an observant creature.”

“Observant? Piffle!” Remy snorted as the carriage idled to a stop before the old Rococo building. “I had better be or I’d best retire to the south and devote my days to growing my children and crops!”

Marianne patted his hand. “And we know, my love, how well you would do that too. Come now. I want to greetMonsieurMonet. I understand he has done a new landscape and I wish to admire the brushstrokes. That way, I can regain my own humility. We need some, you see, Camille, in this family.”

“Ba!” remarked Remy. “Humility! Out! Out now!”

Inside, the arrangement of Remy’s life-size marbles and enormous bronzes juxtaposed with Monet’s prodigious colorful paintings had Camille standing before so many, lost in the wonder of their creators’ imaginations.