I sprang to my feet.
“Oh heavens, there are more.”
“More?” I repeated in horror.
“Here’s one where she’s standing in front of a mirror, trying on a top hat. Goodness.” The hat Clare had been wearing came bouncing out through the doorway. “One where she’s reading Le Figaro and eating a slice of melon. And this one she’s in a chair with…what is that? A butter churn?”
“I think we should leave,” I called in to Clare, but she continued flipping through stacked canvases with a rattle.
“Here’s one with a horse. Well, that doesn’t look comfortable.”
“Mademoiselle.”
“And here’s…” But she didn’t finish her sentence.
“What?”
She appeared in the doorway, holding a small framed canvas in her hands.
“Please, mademoiselle, I don’t wish to see a painting of my maman.” I crossed fingers, like one might do to ward off bad dreams.
“But it’s not. It’s not your mother at all.” She turned the canvas around to show a redheaded woman wearing nothing but a pair of high black stockings and an enigmatic smile. “It’s mine.”
I didn’t recognize Madame Ross in the painting, though the one time I’d met her, more than a decade before, she’d worn a hat and considerably more clothing. I could see the resemblance to Clare in the tilt of her chin and the steady gray eyes. Clare’s hair was that same deep auburn. And those long fingers, wrapped around the handle of a fan in the painting, they looked like the very ones holding the frame. Which, I noticed, were white-knuckled, indeed.
“Monsieur, are you quite finished?”
I looked up to see her mouth drawn in a tight line. “Finished?”
“Ogling my mother. Are you finished?”
“I wasn’t ogling, mademoiselle,” I said quickly. “I was comparing the resemblance.”
I instantly knew it wasn’t the right thing to say. Two spots of color appeared high in her cheeks and I could feel my own following suit.
“In the face.” I said it perhaps too loudly. “In the face only. I was looking nowhere else.” But of course, saying that made my gaze go right to Madame Ross’s nibards. She had a small mole on the left one.
“Monsieur!” she exclaimed.
I covered my eyes. “Mon Dieu, put it away.”
“Why did she…why is it…here in your father’s studio….”
“Well, it’s one of his works,” I offered helpfully, peeking out from between my fingers. “See? His initials are right there in the middle, painted over her—”
“I know where they’re painted,” she said, face flaming.
“It’s really quite clever, how he’s incorporated the two Cs right into her—”
She cleared her throat pointedly.
“Pardon.”
“But why?” she wailed. “Why on earth did he paint my mother in…such a state?”
“And why did she pose in…such a state?”
Clare refused to answer that.
“Are you so sure it’s accurate? That he didn’t just paint her face and then, well, imagine the rest?” I uncovered my eyes. “Now right here…does your mother really have a—”
“Luc René Rieulle Crépet!” She flipped the painting around, away from my view.
“You’ve remembered my full name.”
“And you’ve forgotten your manners.” She glared at me over the top of the frame. “It’s my mother you’re talking about.”
“Pardon, mademoiselle.” I went to close up the supply cabinet, trying very hard not to think of nibards.
When we left the studio, Clare kept her eyes fixed on the hallway rug.
“Papa has painted me before.” I tried to sound reassuring. “Many times.”
“And your mother. Many, many times. Once with a butter churn.”
I made another attempt. “They were good friends, our parents.”
