Night Train to Paris by Fliss Chester (best romantic novels to read txt) 📗

Ritz! I’ve never been and I hear it’s where Madame Coco Chanel lived during the occupation, and I am obsessed by her designs.’

‘Gosh, lucky you.’ Fen hated to admit that she was rather jealous.

‘I think tonight could be the night,’ Simone said, winking conspiratorially and getting up from the edge of the bath to look in the mirror above the basin. It was steamed up, so she wiped her hand across it and Fen watched as she pouted her rouged lips into it.

‘For…?’

‘For a proposal! I mean, I don’t see the point in waiting until we are old, well, until I am old – he is already very old.’

‘He’s only… well, I don’t know how old James is actually.’

‘Thirty-six apparently. Ancient.’

Fen, who was twenty-eight, wondered if she was regarded as ‘ancient’, too. Simone’s next statement cleared that up though.

‘You should find someone to take you out, you know? You’re not getting any younger and I know you’re sad about Arthur, but life goes on.’ Simone pouted again and dabbed a finger to the corner of her mouth. ‘Got to fly now, lover boy is waiting!’ She winked and blew a kiss to Fen, then left in a flounce of skirts and confidence and Fen was alone once more, thinking about Arthur as the water around her started to cool.

A little while later and Fen had bucked herself up and dressed ready for heading out into the chilly evening. Simone had looked stunning in a dress that must have come straight from the atelier, while Fen settled for her woollen trousers and trench coat. As much as she’d loved dressing up for the Louvre last night, and would adore to be wined and dined at The Ritz too, she was relieved to be slipping into her sensible lace-up shoes for the walk over to the Marais tonight. As a nod to her and Magda’s trip to the atelier, though, and just to jazz things up a little, Fen fixed the Lelong scarf from Simone around her neck and tied it in a jaunty bow.

She set her hair in victory rolls and carefully pinned a rather natty red beret she had found in Rose’s cupboard to her head. ‘Lipstick…’ she mumbled to herself as she delved around in her handbag looking for her favourite Revlon shade.

Once pouted and puckered, she looked in the hallway mirror before she left the apartment. She may not have been dressed to the nines, but she looked relatively Parisienne and that made her smile. The Ritz though… lucky Simone. Perhaps James had decided to become a lion tamer after all.

Fen shook her head and brought herself back to the present. ‘You’re lucky to be alive and in the city you love, old girl,’ she said to herself. Being envious over something as trifling as going to The Ritz really wasn’t becoming.

With a deep breath, she picked up the clothes she’d put aside for Magda, opened the apartment door and headed out, determined not to let some petty jealousy ruin her evening.

As she walked out of the building and onto the street, the cool air of the autumnal night embraced Fen and she shivered. But the slight chill in the air only made her walk that little bit faster and soon enough she was crossing the river and heading north towards the Marais. By the time she was past the Louvre and almost at the gardens and arcades of the Palais Royale, she was starting to tire. The walk across the city was longer than she had remembered and she really should have tried to catch a bus.

Her pace slowed and she was about to pause to reassess the whole sanity of this evening’s adventure when a familiar face caught her eye. It was Henri Renaud, and like her he was wrapped up in a coat and hat. She was about to wave at him when she noticed he was carrying a large package, different to hers, a painting perhaps? It was tied up tightly with brown paper and string but Fen could see it was rectangular and quite slim. A convenient break in the old palace’s colonnades shielded her as she saw him cross towards the other side of the road.

‘Why are you carrying paintings around in the dark?’ Fen whispered to herself, thinking of those lists of stolen artworks that never made it to Germany. She watched as he continued south towards the Louvre and the river.

Fen knew that following him would take her in completely the wrong direction and she’d be letting poor Magda down awfully.

‘But,’ she whispered to herself as she crossed the road too, to follow Henri, ‘this might just be the three down I’ve been looking for.’

Fen followed Henri until they reached the Place du Carrousel, one of the road junctions outside the Louvre. She chided herself, What could be less suspicious than an art dealer, nay, a curator, carrying artwork back to his place of work?

She was about to hang back just in case she was spotted, as she hadn’t come up with an excuse at all about why she might be in the neighbourhood. But then Henri didn’t take any of the paths that led across the square to the great art gallery and instead he carried on walking south, crossing the river at the wide and cobbled Pont Carrousel.

A light drizzle started to fall and Fen wiped the moisture off her face as she followed on behind him, glad that she knew these streets fairly well, not just from the last few days of holidaying here, but from her childhood too. Her brother had once threatened to throw her over this bridge when she’d naughtily flicked one of his toy soldiers into the Seine. Her claims that the little fellow wanted to be a sub-mariner hadn’t cut the mustard and sibling relations had hit rather a low point.

Fen wished that she could stop and dwell on these sorts of childish reminiscences, but she felt pulled, almost magnetically, to keep following Henri.