Chapter 31

31

ONE WEEK LATER

Blake looked up when she heard Henri say her name. She groaned.

‘What time is it?’

‘Time for lunch,’ Henri said, offering her a hand.

She gratefully took it and extracted herself from the sea of photographs and fabrics surrounding her.

‘I’m sorry, I got so absorbed in what I was doing, I lost all track of time.’

‘I would tell you that the French don’t live to work, but given you’re working for my family…’

She laughed, but then squeezed his hand. ‘You’re sure this isn’t difficult for you?’

‘I’m sure,’ he said, before grinning. ‘Besides, I have a feeling my mother may choose you over me if it comes down to it, so I’m not going to complain about you working together.’

‘Where are we going for lunch?’ She yawned. ‘Sorry, it’s been a very long day already.’

Henri frowned. ‘The hours are?—’

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘The hours are perfectly fine. I just need coffee and fresh air. And you can’t talk, you’re at work all hours of the day and night.’

‘Yes, but once my exhibition is finished, I will have time to sleep for a month.’

They both knew that wasn’t true; he would be back working for the family business as soon as he was done, but she didn’t argue with him.

‘How’s it all coming together?’ she asked. ‘I can’t wait to see it.’

‘I’m actually taking you there right now,’ he said. ‘I thought we could walk and eat, so we both get some fresh air, and then you’re going to be the first person to walk through the door.’

Blake pressed a kiss to his cheek, before going to her desk and taking her bag and her coat. ‘I’m honoured, Henri. Truly honoured.’

Half an hour later, after wandering slowly and eating a Swiss cheese and ham baguette, talking in between mouthfuls and then stopping to get coffees and profiteroles , they found themselves at the door to his workspace. Blake hadn’t been back since the first day they’d met, and she caught his hand, stopping him from entering the code to let them in.

‘Do you remember seeing me for the very first time here?’ she asked.

Henri grimaced. ‘I’d prefer you not to remember that first time,’ he said. ‘I was like a grumpy old bear who’d been woken from slumber.’

‘You were dreadful,’ she teased. ‘But I had to get answers from you, so I had to pretend you weren’t so bad.’

They both laughed.

‘It didn’t take long for me to like you, though,’ she said.

‘Or for me to forget my grumpiness.’

She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him, letting her lips linger as they stood on the steps in the afternoon sunshine.

‘I should have taken you to my apartment for lunch,’ he moaned, his forehead touching hers as their lips parted.

‘No, this is exactly where we’re supposed to be,’ she said. ‘I can’t wait to see the collections.’

After he entered the code to let them in, Henri nudged open the door and then told her to close her eyes. Blake obliged, although she didn’t expect him to place his hands over her eyes as well.

‘I want you to take little steps, and I’ll tell you when you can look,’ he said, his body close to hers as she shuffled forward. ‘No peeping,’ Henri whispered into her ear and moved even closer, his chest against her back.

When they finally stopped moving, Blake waited, hearing Henri’s breathing increase behind her. He was nervous. She’d never known him to be anything other than confident before, but she could sense that this was why he was hesitating.

‘Can I look now?’ she asked, keeping her voice low as if she were in a library.

Henri finally uncovered her face and dropped his hands to her shoulders, and she opened her eyes.

‘Oh my goodness.’ The room was like the finest museum, only instead of artefacts, it was filled with tall glass boxes that displayed the most beautiful of dresses, somehow suspended in the air. ‘Henri,’ she said, turning to him, eyes wide as she stared at him. ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it.’

‘Please, go and explore. I wanted you to have a private viewing before anyone else has even set foot in here.’

Blake didn’t need any encouragement. She went to the first box and immediately recognised the outfit. It was the blush-pink Louis Vuitton dress and coat worn by France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron, to the coronation of King Charles in London. It had easily been her favourite outfit from the entire ceremony, and she loved that it was an ensemble by a French designer worn by a Frenchwoman.

‘This is stunning,’ she said, as much to herself as to Henri, who was trailing behind her, not wanting to interfere with her experience. ‘Such an iconic outfit, and an iconic woman.’

She moved slowly to the next box, and the next, the lighting on each showing the outfit perfectly, and taking her through each decade of fashion in the most thoughtful of ways.

But it was when she reached the 1930s that she found her favourite era.

‘Coco Chanel,’ she gasped. ‘It must have been so hard to decide which of her pieces to include.’

‘It was,’ Henri said, coming up to stand beside her. ‘And you’ll soon see that I also included her in the 1940s, to show how fashion changed post-war. I find her to be one of the most fascinating French designers.’

‘I feel like there’s a but ,’ Blake said, as she moved around the glass box, wishing she could reach out and touch the jacket, to feel the fabric between her fingers. Since beginning to work with Céline, she’d come to realise how tactile she was, how much she needed to skim her fingertips across silk and velvet and cotton.

‘I thought this next one might interest you,’ Henri said, hovering in a way he hadn’t when she’d been inspecting the earlier works.

She was going to take her time, but she sensed that he was waiting for her to move on.

‘I hope you don’t try to hurry all your other guests through,’ she said, as she turned to the next box. ‘You chose to do a few designers for this same year?’

Henri stayed silent, and she studied the dress before leaning forward to read the display. But her lips never uttered a sound.

Evelina Lavigne .

She looked back up at the dress, then at Henri, who now had his arms folded across his chest. Blake looked back at the dress.

She knew now why it was familiar to her.

The almost sensual design, the way it skimmed the waist and hugged the figure, the dark grey velvet that she’d felt against her skin so many times already.

He’d found Evelina’s dress .

‘How?’ she whispered. ‘How did you, I mean…’

‘My greatest wish was to find out more about your great-grandmother for you,’ Henri said, as he took a key from his pocket and carefully unlocked the glass box, opening the door and then standing back. ‘I haven’t been able to find out anything more about Evelina that you don’t already know, or the details of what happened to her after she moved back to Provins, but I scoured France for one of her dresses.’

‘Am I imagining it, or…’

‘You’re not imagining it. This is the exact dress from the drawing.’ Henri grinned. ‘I spent almost every waking hour after you left the chateau searching archives for it and reaching out to private collectors, and I didn’t want to just tell you. I wanted to show you.’

‘Henri, I can’t believe it,’ she gasped. ‘This is, I can’t even…’ Blake’s eyes filled with tears as she looked from the dress and back to Henri again. ‘I think this is the most incredible thing anyone has ever done for me. Thank you, thank you a hundred times over.’

‘There are slight differences between the drawing and the finished dress, but I think they may have just been small adjustments that were made during the fitting process. Otherwise it’s true to the original design that was left behind.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ Blake said, lifting her hand to touch the velvet, even though she knew exactly what it would feel like. It was soft and buttery, and seemed to glide against her skin.

‘From what I’ve been able to find out, this dress was from her most popular collection, that was stocked by Les Galeries Renaud at the time.’

Les Galeries Renaud . The name had come up so many times in her search for information about Evelina. ‘It’s almost as if they were part of her career from beginning to end.’

‘I had the very same thought,’ Henri said. ‘I can only imagine that she was such a popular clothes designer for them that they wanted to see if they could recreate that success with her perfume. When the perfume rights were put up for sale after her passing, they must have acted quickly. Perhaps they were in contact with her all that time, even after she left Paris?’

‘That does seem like the most plausible explanation,’ Blake said, ‘although I suppose we’ll never know.

Henri’s expression told her that he felt the same.

‘Were there many of these dresses made?’ she asked, as she continued to study the design.

‘I believe this one was made in a few different variations, different colours, most probably, but this was the most popular.’

‘Thank you, Henri,’ she said, turning to him with tears in her eyes. ‘Just seeing this, it makes her feel real to me. It doesn’t matter that I don’t know any more than I already do, this is enough.’

‘Well, I’m pleased that you feel that way,’ he said. ‘I’m also honoured to have her dress on display here. I’d said for months that I wasn’t accepting any more submissions, and then along came a lovely English girl with a tale of her long-lost relative.’

They stood together, side by side, both staring at the dress. It was stunning even by today’s design standards, and Blake could imagine a beautiful woman in the late 1930s sashaying into a party or a restaurant, making heads turn with such a figure-hugging design, the fabric luminous under the light.

‘I do wish I could have known her, or that my grandmother could have known her,’ Blake said. ‘But to be honest, it’s just a relief knowing that someone else in my family loved fashion the way I do. That another woman in my family somehow had the talent and determination to make a name for herself, because it makes me feel that maybe, just maybe, I can make my dreams come true, too.’

‘It would have been so hard back then. Coco Chanel led the way, but for a woman to become a designer…’

‘She must have had the heart of a lion.’

They stood there for some time, before Henri closed the glass box and locked it. It reminded Blake of the little box she’d carried around for so long. How special it was that Henri had been able to create such a tribute to her. Blake almost felt as if everything had come full circle. You left a box for your daughter, and this box, Evelina, is for you .

‘Come and see the other designs,’ Henri said, taking her hand and seeming far more relaxed as they moved on to the 1940s. ‘This is one of my favourite eras, when the world stepped out from the shadow of war.’

‘Everything you’ve created here, Henri, you should be immensely proud of,’ she said. ‘You talk about stepping out of shadows, well, this is what you’ve done, too.’

The way he looked at her, she knew she’d said something that truly resonated with him; that perhaps he hadn’t even known she’d understood the way he felt about his career.

‘Your mother is one of the best fashion editors France has ever known, but you, Henri Toussaint, you are an incredible curator. I’m so proud of you.’

Blake touched her palm to his cheek and stared into his eyes. He didn’t need to say anything for her to know how much her words had meant to him.

She kissed him, smiling against his mouth as he wrapped his arms around her and twirled her beneath the bright lights of his soon-to-be-opened exhibition.

‘Do you know who would love this?’ Blake said, as she caught her breath.

‘A very special older woman from London?’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve already invited Mathilda?’ Blake asked.

‘When you told me that you’d promised to keep her informed about your search, I knew that I had to invite her here to see Evelina’s iconic dress.’

‘Please tell me she said yes?’

‘Oh, she did,’ Henri replied. ‘I sent her tickets to the opening evening, and she said she would be the first through the door.’

Blake laughed. ‘Of course she did. I’m so happy to know that she’s going to be part of all this. We owe our first meeting to her, after all.’

‘Now, enough talking,’ Henri murmured, pulling her closer and staring at her mouth. ‘I believe we have some catching up to do.’