Peach Read Free

and she had worn it every day since—like a lucky charm. And so far her luck was holding. No one could mistake Leonore for a carefree holidaymaker; she looked what she was, a young businesswoman with things on her mind that placed a permanent small furrow between her brows. And one of those worries was still her sister, Lais. Stories of Lais’s antics in Paris were filteringback to her—and they weren’t the sort of stories she’d want Grand-mère Leonie—nor Maman and Gerard—to hear.
    With a sigh Leonore placed the gold-rimmed spectacles on her small straight nose, hoping they added a touch of authority a twenty-year-old girl might lack. She would soothe the ruffled egos of her guests with complimentary champagne—the best, naturally—and arrange for an extra table to be squeezed in so that they might be served immediately. Then she must reprimand the receptionist who had taken the booking and warn her to be more careful. The Hostellerie couldn’t afford to upset its customers when its reputation was based on exactly the opposite principle. She would make time to scan the bookings for next week to see who needed to be VIP’d—and then she’d dash down the path from the hotel to the villa to dine with her grandmother and Jim. And of course, she’d be late, as usual!
    Jim Jamieson watched Leonie making her way along the chalky path that curved around the headland, her step quickening as she drew nearer, heading like a homing pigeon for her beloved villa. From a distance she looked no more than a girl, tall and slender with that long, smooth, cat-like stride that had marked her progress across the starry stages of the world. Even close-up it seemed as though time were reluctant to mar the surface of her smooth skin; there were just the lines of laughter around her eyes when she smiled, or a sad haunted look to her face. He had observed her occasionally, searching in the mirror for some sign of events in her life that Leonie told him she felt sure should be written there, wondering that its tragedies and joys should have left her so unscarred.
    Leonie was fifty-six years old and they had been married for seventeen years. Jim still treasured the memory of her as the young midnight-hours poker player, sleeves rolled toelbows, scooping up her winnings with a laugh and leaving the half-dozen passengers who had been able to survive the transatlantic liner’s stormy crossing, admiring but broke. Leonie had been the only woman on the voyage to New York to leave her cabin—but only at night when she joined the men in their game. Later she’d confessed that she had been afraid to go to sleep in case the ship went down, but at the time he’d been dazzled by her bravery, her poker playing—and her beauty. It had seemed a simple sort of beauty as she’d walked towards him across the darkened saloon that first night, and only later had he learned that she had the ability to be two people—
his
Leonie Bahri, the half-French, half-Egyptian girl and “Leonie”, the great star of the stage who, in bizarre and wonderful make-up and her clinging gold Fortuny gowns, a black panther docile at her feet on its chain, had prowled the stages of Paris and London and New York mesmerizing her audiences with songs of passion. And Leonie still had the same mystery and the same allure for him that he had always felt.
    The little brown cat frisked around Leonie’s feet and then dashed on ahead to the gate, waiting imperiously for it to be opened. There was always a little brown cat with Leonie—the ancient Egyptians had believed in their immortality, she’d told him with a smile. Despite his attempts to disprove it, Leonie clung to the belief in the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet’s mysterious powers. Hadn’t the goddess proved her power? Monsieur was dead. She still kept Sekhmet’s statue, on its tall marble plinth, in their room, lit softly so that it seemed to glow in the dark. Of course she agreed when he said that surely she could