Chapter 10

10

PRESENT DAY

Blake lowered her window as the taxi moved slowly through the traffic in Paris. She took in the beautiful old buildings and cobbled streets, smiling as they passed an ornate fountain and wondering whether she should have got her phone out to take photographs. But as she went to reach into her handbag, she stopped herself. She wanted to see and experience everything, rather than worry about not recording every second of it and ending up watching the view from her phone. It was then that the Eiffel Tower came within sight, and she felt as if her heart had stopped. Seeing it with her own eyes was surreal, after so many years of catching glimpses of the landmark in French romcoms, and it was even more striking than she’d imagined. I’m actually in Paris . Tears filled her eyes as she lifted her face to the open window, the breeze catching her hair as she tried to absorb everything about the city she’d dreamed of so often.

She was heading straight to the hotel, which Deborah’s assistant had booked for her, and she intended on checking in, leaving her things and heading straight out to try to track down this Henri Toussaint. Deborah had insisted on having everything organised for her when she’d heard that Blake had never been to Paris before, which was why she was now pulling up outside a hotel that looked like it would be very much outside her budget.

Blake was about to ask if it was the correct address, when she saw the awning with H?tel Providence Paris printed in white and gold lettering. The building was only five or six storeys high—much smaller than she’d expected—which only made her more concerned about the nightly rate, even if work was paying for it. She hoped that the accounts department didn’t decide it was too extravagant once they saw the bill.

‘Thank you,’ she said to the taxi driver as she stepped out onto the pavement. ‘Merci,’ she corrected when he got out to retrieve her bag and flashed her a smile.

She stood and looked around, her heart skipping a beat as it sank in. I’m in Paris. This is really happening . I’m here .

Blake closed her fingers around the handle of her suitcase and headed for the entrance, pleased to see there was a café on the ground floor. She had every intention of commandeering one of the outdoor seats in the morning and sipping coffee as she watched the world go by, admiring all the handsome Frenchmen and the women in their chic outfits.

‘Bonjour!’

Blake realised someone was calling out to her, and she called out in return, approaching the desk to check in. To her great relief, the concierge spoke perfect English, and within minutes she was being directed up to her room. She’d learnt that the hotel felt so intimate because it used to be a nineteenth-century town house that had been converted, and when she opened the door to her room, her jaw dropped.

She’d never seen anything like it.

There were two bronze velvet-covered chairs beside a glass table, and the bedhead was made of green velvet that matched the patterned wallpaper adorning the ceiling and walls. Blake dropped her bag at her feet and left her suitcase as she walked towards what she thought was a tall desk but in fact turned out to be a private cocktail bar. But it was the view that truly made Blake’s mouth fall open—she could have stood and stared out at the city all day.

As she laughed out loud, finding it almost impossible to believe, she made a mental note to send Deborah an email. There was no way that a hotel like this would usually be in the budget for someone like her, and she intended on thanking her a hundred times over for the experience.

Fifteen minutes later, after changing twice in an effort to look as Parisian as possible and finally deciding on classic jeans, a white t-shirt and a honey-coloured trench coat with flats, Blake headed downstairs. But she’d barely set foot in the reception area before the concierge was calling out to her again.

‘Excusez-moi, mademoiselle.’

She turned and smiled, expecting that he needed to speak to her about her room.

‘Can I help you to navigate the city? Where would you like to go?’

‘This is my first time in Paris,’ she confessed. ‘So I have no idea at all where to go, but I do have the address of one place I need to visit.’

His smile was friendly, and he was rather handsome, and Blake found herself wondering whether he was just being polite or hitting on her. She decided she was overthinking it and passed him the address she’d written down.

‘If you’d like to explore tomorrow, we are only a five-minute walk to the Marché Saint-Martin,’ he said, ‘which is a covered food market. Or ten minutes to the Canal Saint-Martin, where you’ll find fabulous cafés to choose from.’

‘Merci,’ she said, nodding. ‘I want to explore as much of the city as I can, but first I must find this place.’

He looked down at the paper in his hands, and the address she was pointing to. ‘You are visiting someone there?’

Blake nodded. ‘I am. For work.’

‘This is the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighbourhood,’ he said, pointing at the handwritten note. ‘That is far from here, if you’re walking. Perhaps forty minutes or more?’

She sighed. Why hadn’t she thought about that when she’d been travelling in from the airport? She could have gone to the address first, before checking in.

‘Let me get you a taxi,’ he said, waving her ahead of him. ‘You’ll be there in no time, I promise.’

‘Merci,’ she said, finding herself blushing as he held her gaze for a moment longer than necessary.

‘Mademoiselle, do you have dinner plans this evening? Because if you don’t…’

The heat in her cheeks intensified. ‘I do, but, ah, thank you.’ Blake cleared her throat, wishing she wasn’t so awkward. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had flirted with her in person, rather than on a dating app. ‘The taxi?’

He smiled and she had to fight not to laugh. Despite her self-consciousness, she found that she didn’t mind the flirting at all.

The next man to ask me that question… Blake glanced over her shoulder at the handsome concierge as he walked away, wondering if maybe she should go and tell him that in fact she had no plans at all, and would probably end up in her room alone. You’re in the city of love , she told herself. If a handsome man asks you out, next time you’re going to say yes .

She smiled to herself as she raised her face to the sky. Date or no date, I’m going to take myself to a fabulous restaurant, eat fabulous French food and drink champagne .

But for now, she had someone to look for. Blake patted her handbag, somehow reassured that she had the little box in there for good luck. And as she waited for the taxi to arrive, she got out her phone and took a selfie standing outside the hotel, deciding that if she was going to document her journey for their readers, she was going to have to get used to taking photos of herself as well.

Thirty minutes later, after the promised short taxi drive to Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and after walking around aimlessly as she tried to find the exact building she was looking for, Blake stood still on the cobbled pavement and looked around her.

‘Ah, excusez-moi,’ she said, calling out to a well-dressed chic woman walking past. ‘Je…’ Blake struggled to find the words; it had been such a long time since she’d learnt French at school. ‘Ah…’

‘I speak English.’

Blake sighed. ‘Thank goodness. I’m looking for Henri Toussaint, he is putting together an exhibition and…’

‘La mode du passé,’ the woman finished for her. ‘In there.’

She pointed to a beautiful old building with two large pots outside filled to overflowing with white flowers, beside a café brimming with young Parisians drinking coffee and smoking. If someone had asked her to imagine a scene from France, it would have been very similar to what she was looking at now.

‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’

Blake walked to the solid wooden door and turned the handle, but it didn’t move. There was an intercom on the wall, and she pushed it, fidgeting from foot to foot as she waited. No one answered. She pushed it again, sighing as she stepped back and looked around, wondering if perhaps there was a different entrance that she hadn’t seen. Or maybe today just wasn’t a day that anyone was on site?

But just as she was about to leave, the heavy timber door opened, and she was greeted by a very handsome, very unhappy -looking, Frenchman.

‘Quoi?’

Blake gave him what she hoped was her sweetest smile. ‘I’m looking for Henri Toussaint.’

He looked irritated. ‘Il n’est pas disponible.’

‘He…’ She tried to translate, becoming flustered and not knowing at all what he’d just said.

‘He is unavailable,’ the man said, in English with an accent that would have been charming, had he not been so obviously annoyed. She hoped that she’d simply caught him on a bad day, and that he wasn’t usually like that.

He began to close the door, but Blake leaped forward, placing her hand on the wood to prevent it from shutting completely. ‘Please, I’ve come all the way from London to see him. Mathilda, from Vintage Bazaar, told me to ask for him by name.’

This time the door didn’t click shut as she dropped her hand.

‘Mathilda?’ the voice said. ‘Mathilda sent you here?’

Blake wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, or whether he’d said the name with slightly less arrogance than before. Perhaps he was going to agree that Henri could see her after all.

‘Yes, Mathilda,’ she repeated. ‘She told me that Henri Toussaint might be the one person who can help me identify a designer from the past.’ Blake swallowed. ‘You wouldn’t by any chance be Henri, would you?’

There was silence for a moment, before the door slowly swung open. This time, the man facing her held out his hand.

‘I am Henri Toussaint,’ he said.

‘Blake,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry to turn up unannounced, but I’ve emailed you twice and?—’

‘It’s been a busy few weeks,’ he said. ‘My exhibition begins in two months, so my inbox is a disaster.’

He ran a hand through his rather unruly brown hair, and she noticed that he wore a band of leather tied around one wrist, along with a solid silver bangle. His shirt was untucked, with a few too many buttons undone, and he was wearing jeans rolled up at the ankle with bare feet. She raised a brow. He was most definitely not what she’d expected. She’d imagined an older man wearing an impeccably tailored suit with Italian leather loafers, and instead she was looking at a golden-skinned, blue-eyed, ridiculously handsome man who appeared more casual than high-end fashion, and who couldn’t have been more than thirty. And that accent…she hoped she wasn’t blushing, but everything about him had taken her quite by surprise.

‘I understand, and I do apologise for turning up like this.’ Blake hesitated when he just stood there. He clearly wasn’t going to invite her in. ‘Have you had lunch?’

She glanced at her watch. It was 2p.m., but she was hoping that the French ate lunch late.

He shrugged. ‘Non.’

‘Could I buy you lunch? Or coffee?’ She gestured to the café behind her. ‘I only need a few minutes of your time, I promise.’

Henri looked unsure, but then he took his phone from his pocket and seemingly looked at the time, too. When he glanced up, she noticed just how blue his eyes were. They almost made up for how rude he’d been. Almost.

‘Coffee,’ he said. ‘Give me five minutes.’

Blake nodded and barely had time to step back before the door shut. She stood for a moment, before deciding that he clearly meant for her to meet him at the café. Or at least she hoped so.

She walked next door and found her way to a table out front so she couldn’t miss him, happy to relax in the shade beneath the awning. Her stomach growled and she grabbed the menu, although barely anything made sense to her. The only thing that was obvious to her were the words croissant and baguette . She really needed to brush up on her French.

‘Sorry you had to wait for me.’

Blake looked up and the first thing she noticed was the bright blue eyes staring down at her, followed by the change in Henri’s appearance. His shirt was now buttoned higher and he was also wearing shoes, but his sleeves were still rolled up and his hair looked like he’d just risen from bed. She imagined it was more like he’d barely been to bed, given the urgency with which he ordered his double-shot espresso.

‘So Mathilda sent you to me because you have a special piece?’ he asked. ‘That you’d like me to consider for my collection? I must say that I’m intrigued, because I know what an eye she has.’

Blake opened her mouth to answer, but he continued.

‘Unfortunately, I can no longer accept general submissions, with the exception of?—’

‘No,’ she said, interrupting him and receiving a frown in response. ‘I mean, no, I don’t want to submit anything to you. I have an original sketch of a design that I would like to show you.’

His eyebrows drew together as he sat back in his chair. ‘A sketch?’

She was grateful that their coffees arrived so promptly, because he seemed far more at ease once he’d taken his first sip. She did the same, not bothering to stir in her usual sugar and grimacing at the bitter taste.

Blake reached into her bag and took out the design, which she now kept in a plastic sleeve.

‘This sketch was left for my family,’ she said, putting it on the small round table between them and pushing it towards him. ‘Mathilda thought you might be able to help me decipher who designed it. It’s a very long story, but I believe that the person who did this drawing could be my great-grandmother.’

Henri set down his coffee cup, which she noticed was now empty, and glanced at her before taking the paper from the plastic.

‘You were left this? How, exactly? You just found it in your grandmother’s house, or…’

‘It was left by my great-grandmother when she placed my grandmother for adoption many decades ago. I was recently given it, along with this little box, and they’re the only clues I have to the past.’ She took the box from her bag and held it out to him. ‘The design was folded up in this little wooden box, and there was also a piece of fabric left behind.’

At the mention of fabric, Henri looked up again.

‘It’s in this box?’

She nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘And this was all that was left? You don’t know anything else?’

‘Nothing. I don’t know if this will translate from the English, but you are my last hope.’

She received a smile when she said that. ‘You are meaning that if I cannot help you, you will have nowhere else to go?’

She grinned. ‘Exactly.’

‘So that explains why you turned up at my door today.’

‘It explains why I flew to Paris today just so that I could knock at your door.’

That made him laugh. ‘You flew to Paris to show me this?’

Blake felt her cheeks heating. Hearing him say it made her realise why she’d thought it was such a ridiculous idea in the first place.

‘I know it sounds mad, but?—’

‘Excusez-moi,’ Henri called out to the waiter, holding up his hand before asking for the menus and turning his attention back to her. But this time he faced her with one leg casually crossed over the other, his arms folded as he studied her. ‘You still want lunch?’

‘I do, but I have to confess that I’ve looked at the menu already, and I can barely read a word.’

He took both of the menus for them, glanced over it and then looked at her.

‘Anything you don’t eat?’

‘So long as it’s not raw or part of a snail, I’ll try it.’

Henri laughed. ‘That makes it easy.’ He ordered in rapid French that she didn’t have a hope of understanding, although she was suddenly finding herself far more interested in the man seated across from her than the food.

‘Mathilda was right to send you to me. I have spent much of my life dedicated to researching and curating fashion from the past, and I have many contacts I can lean on when I’m searching for a particular piece of clothing.’

Their waiter returned with two glasses and a bottle of wine, and just as Blake was about to say she hadn’t ordered wine, Henri waved his hand at her as if to explain.

‘You can’t eat lunch here without wine,’ he said. ‘You do drink?’

‘I—’ Not usually at lunch . ‘Of course, wine is perfect.’

‘So this design of yours, it is from the 1930s,’ he said, ‘and although I don’t recognise the signature, I know someone who’s very knowledgeable in this particular period.’

They both took a sip of wine before he reached for the box. ‘May I?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

She watched as he opened the lid and took out the piece of fabric with a tenderness that surprised her, as if the material might disintegrate in his fingers.

‘This is special,’ he told her, holding it up to the light and gently rubbing it between his forefinger and thumb. ‘The most used fabrics from this period were cotton and rayon, and linen in some cases. But this is silk velvet. If this sketch was made in this fabric? Let’s just say it would have been a very expensive finished product, not to mention a stunning one.’

She held out her hand and he dropped the fabric into her palm. ‘It’s different from regular velvet?’

‘You can tell from the softness and the luxurious sheen, and it has a shimmer through it when you hold it up to the light. It also looks slightly darker at some angles and lighter at others.’

‘The dress would have looked incredible in this fabric, if that’s why it was with the drawing.’

‘Oui. It would have been a dress like no other in the ’30s, of that I’m very sure. Not to mention that it would have been very expensive. For a dress to be made in a fabric like this, it would have to be designed for a very wealthy woman, or made by a well-known fashion house.’

‘But if no one recognises the signature…’ she said.

Henri held up his wine glass and gave her a smile that she couldn’t look away from. ‘Just because I don’t recognise it immediately does not mean I won’t have answers for you.’

Their food arrived then, and Blake’s eyes widened at the number of plates the waiter placed on the table in front of them.

‘I hope you don’t mind, I can’t remember the last time I ate.’

Blake’s stomach rumbled and made them both laugh. She didn’t mind at all.

An hour later, Blake could barely recall the grumpy, unimpressed man who’d answered the door to her. Henri had proved to be warm, interesting and most definitely charming, and she was sad that their lunch was drawing to a close.

‘Thank you for lunch,’ he said as he paid the bill, waving her away when their waiter took his credit card. ‘It was nice to see daylight.’

‘You’re working long hours?’

‘I am. This belief that the French barely work is nothing more than a fable. I can’t remember the last day I had off.’

‘I’ve always been told that the French work to live, not live to work.’

‘Well, that may be true in some cases, but you haven’t met my mother. She most definitely does not agree with that saying, which unfortunately is a trait that I have inherited.’

‘Well, I’m pleased we had lunch, too. This is my first time in Paris, so?—’

‘This is your first time in Paris?’ he asked. She loved the way he said Paris , in the way that only a Frenchman could.

‘I’m embarrassed to say that it is, indeed, my first time in France. And before you say it, yes, I do know how close London is.’

‘Do you plan on shopping while you’re here?’ Henri asked.

‘Yes,’ she replied without hesitating. She wondered if she should have told him the truth—that she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the quaint boutiques she’d passed in the taxi, and that she intended on spending hours wandering the streets and shopping. ‘Anywhere I should go?’

‘The shops around here are fantastic, and you might like exploring Le Marais. Or if you’d like a French department store experience, you could try the Galeries Lafayette, which is right in the centre of the city.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll shop for a few hours and then go back to my hotel. It’s been a long time since I’ve given myself permission to shop for fun.’ More like I’ve been saving for a rainy day most of my life, worrying about the future so much that I haven’t enjoyed the present .

‘You have dinner plans?’

She didn’t even let herself hesitate, not this time. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘Well, it won’t be hard for you to find somewhere nice to eat. French restaurants are the best in the world, and most of the servers will help you with the menu.’ Henri chuckled. ‘If they don’t, just watch what other people around you order, see what looks nice, and then point at their plate and ask for that.’

They both laughed, but Blake tried not to be disappointed that he hadn’t asked her for dinner as he leaned in and kissed each of her cheeks. She’d expected him to smell like musk, but instead he smelt faintly like citrus.

‘Here, if you need to contact me, please call this number,’ he said. ‘And you’re still comfortable with me keeping the design? You could bring me back a copy if you’d prefer.’

‘It’s fine, I trust you,’ she said, tucking the little box with the fabric now safely cocooned back inside, in her bag. ‘I’m staying at the H?tel Providence.’

He passed her his phone. ‘Put your details here. I’ve been so busy lately I fear that I’ll forget which hotel you’re in if I don’t write it down.’

Blake did as he asked, and then they strolled back across to his building, standing on the steps together.

‘Enjoy the rest of your time in Paris, Blake,’ Henri said. ‘Au revoir for now.’

She held up her hand in a wave. ‘Au revoir.’

Blake stood and watched as he unlocked the door and disappeared inside, and if she’d been anywhere other than on the pavement, she expected her legs would have given way right there and then.

I had no idea how handsome and charming Frenchmen could be.

Or how much a grumpy man named Henri could make me desperate to spend the rest of the day with him, so I could spend longer staring into those dreamy blue eyes.