Storm Winds Read Free

Marguerite’s lips tightened until they formed a thin line. “You don’t deserve gifts.”
    “She’ll let me have the paints whether I deserve them or not. She won’t want to displease the queen.” Juliette gave a hop and skip to keep up with Marguerite’s long stride as they moved quickly down the Hall of Mirrors. Juliette’s fascinated gaze clung to their images moving from one of the seventeen mirrors to the next as they walked along the gleaming hall. It surprised her to see how small and unimportant she looked. She certainly did not feel small inside now. She felt every bit as big and important as her mother and Marguerite. How unfair that the mirror did not reflect the change. Marguerite looked much more interesting, Juliette decided. Her black-gowned body was lean and angled’ like one of the stone gargoyles Juliette had seen on acolumn of the grand cathedral of Notre Dame. How fortunate she had felt when her mother had instructed the coachman to detour to the cathedral on his way through Paris to Versailles. Perhaps, she could persuade Madame Vigée Le Brun to show her how to paint Marguerite as a gargoyle.
    “Your arms are going to be black and blue for a fortnight,” Marguerite muttered with satisfaction. “I’ll show you that you can’t shame me in front of your mother.”
    Juliette looked down at the long, strong fingers of Marguerite’s hand holding her own and felt an instant of fear. She drew a deep breath and quickly suppressed the terror before it overcame her. The pain of the pinching would be over quickly, and all the time she was undergoing it she would be thinking of her paints and canvas and the lessons to come.
    But in her very first painting she would most definitely paint Marguerite as a gargoyle.
    Ile du Lion, France

June 10, 1787
    Jean Marc Andreas strode around the pedestal, studying the statue from every angle. The jewel-encrusted Pegasus was superb.
    From its flying mane to the exquisite detail of the gold filigree clouds on which the horse danced, it was a masterful piece of work.
    “You’ve done well, Desedero,” Andreas said. “It’s perfect.”
    The sculptor whom some called a mere goldsmith shook his head. “You’re wrong, Monsieur. I’ve failed.”
    “Nonsense. This copy is identical to the Wind Dancer, is it not?”
    “It is as close a copy as could be made, even to the peculiar cut of the facets of the jewels,” Desedero said. “I had to journey to India to locate emeralds large andperfect enough to use as the eyes of the Wind Dancer and spent over a year crafting the body of the statue.”
    “And the inscription engraved on the base?”
    Desedero shrugged. “I reproduced the markings with great precision, but since the script is indecipherable that is a minor point, I believe.”
    “Nothing is minor. My father knows the Wind Dancer in its every detail,” Andreas said dryly. “I paid you four million livres to duplicate the Wind Dancer—and I always get my money’s worth.”
    Desedero knew those words to be true. Jean Marc Andreas was a young man, no more than twenty and five, but he had established himself as a formidable force in the world of finance since taking over the reins of the Andreas shipping and banking empire three years before from his ailing father. He was reputed to be both brilliant and ruthless. Desedero had found him exceptionally demanding, yet he did not resent Andreas. Perhaps it was because the young man’s commission challenged the artist in him. Certainly Andreas’s desperation to please his father was touching. Desedero had loved his own father very much and understood such deep and profound affection. He was much impressed by Jean Marc Andreas’s wholehearted zeal for replicating the Wind Dancer to please his ill and aging father.
    “I regret to say I do not believe you have gotten your money’s worth this time, Monsieur Andreas.”
    “Don’t say such a thing, sir.” A muscle jerked in Andreas’s jaw. “You have