J.C. and the Bijoux Jolis: The Rousseaus #3 (The Blueberry Lane Series Book 14) (21 page)

“
Oui, Sylvia. C’est bon de te revoir
.”

Madame Comtois reached out her hand, which shook like a lone brown leaf at the bitter end of autumn, and touched Libitz’s cheek. “
Es-tu C-Camille...la jolie...juive
.” After expending such effort, her eyes fluttered closed and her head fell softly forward, her limp hand dropping to her lap.

“What did she say?” asked Libitz.

Jean-Christian whispered, “She says it’s good to see you too, Camille…She called you ‘the pretty Jew.’”

A small noise issued from Libitz’s mouth as she braced her hands on the floor and slowly stood up.

“Now she sleep,” chirped Lizette, pulling a blanket around Madame Comtois’ shoulders and smiling warmly at Libitz. “
Oui
?”

“
Oui
,” said Libitz, vaguely aware that Jean-Christian had also risen and had his arm around her shoulder. “
Merci
, Lizette.”

“
De rien
.” She nodded, taking her place behind Madame Comtois’ chair, waving as she pushed the older lady back to her bed.

“Lib?” said Jean-Christian. “Are you okay?”

“My…my great-grandmother’s name was Camille.”

“I know,” he said, searching her eyes, his expression warning her to be cautious.

“Camille Trigére,” she repeated softly, wishing that her mother had known her great-grandmother’s maiden name.

Camille. Camille like my great-grandmother.

“Hey,” he said, guiding her toward the exit of the nursing home, “do synagogues keep records? Like, birth records?”

Libitz looked up at him and nodded. “Sure. Some of them keep meticulous records.”

“Well, now that we have a first and last name…” he said.

“Yes!” she cried, her footsteps speeding up with anticipation. “Of course. Let’s go!”

As Jean-Christian hailed a cab, she rolled the name over and over again in her head.

It’s just a coincidence
, she told herself, and yet her stubborn heart insisted it knew better, insisted that it was
far more
than mere coincidence.

Jean-Christian told the cabbie that they wanted to go to the Grande Synagogue de Marseille, and Libitz tried to steady her breathing.

Was it
possible
?

Was it possible that a portrait found in the attic of a mansion in Pennsylvania could have a direct tie to Libitz? She couldn’t deny the profound connection she’d felt to
Les Bijoux Jolis
since the moment she’d laid eyes on it, but this? To be related to the model? It would be—

“Are you okay?” asked Jean-Christian, rolling down the window for some fresh air. “You’re pale.”

“I’m stunned. For her name to be Camille, just like my great-grandmother—”

“Lib,” he interrupted. “Camille is a common name here.”

“I know that,” she snapped, suddenly feeling foolish. “I know, but…I
look
like her.
So much
like her. I just…”

“You
do
,” said Jean-Christian, putting his arm around her and pulling her into his side. “I know how much it meant to you to find out if C.T. survived. Now that we know she shares the same first name as your grandmother, it must feel really…personal.”

“It does,” she admitted.

But he was right. The chance of the Camille Trigére in the portrait being her great-grandmother would be a next-to-no-chance coincidence. She sighed, the wind leaving her sails. “I don’t even know where my great-grandmother was from. She could have been from Paris for all we know.”

He nodded beside her.

“It was just…a surprise.”

“Of course,” he said, squeezing her a little closer. “We’ll find out more at the Grande Synagogue, hopefully, and then I’m taking you out for a memorable dinner, followed by…”

She turned to look up at him, and he dropped his lips to hers in a sneak attack. “Lots of this.”

“Hey,” she said, drawing away from him so she could look into his eyes. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Jean-Christian Rousseau.”

“No way,” she said. “I heard all about him. Jean-Christian Rousseau is a dog.”

“Jean-Christian Rousseau
was
a dog,” he corrected her. “He’s under renovation.”

“A new and improved version?” she asked.

“Trying like hell, Elsa,” he said, his eyes vulnerable as they looked into hers.

She kissed him tenderly. “I wasn’t supposed to fall for you.”

He sighed. “I know.”

“We need to talk to Kate and Étienne at some point,” she said.

“We will,” he promised, nuzzling her neck with his nose, his lips pressing hot kisses to her skin. “But not yet. Let’s just be you and me for now.”

“You and me.”

“Us,” he said simply.

“So we’re officially…
together
?”

“Hell, yes,” he said.

“Exclusive?” she clarified.

“A hundred percent,” he said. “No more Nice Neil…or anyone else for that matter.”

“Except for you,” she murmured, watching Marseille sail by out the window as her lover, her love, swept her off her feet.

“Except for me,” he said, raising his head to kiss her again.

All too soon, the cab stopped in front of a large white building behind a tall, black wrought-iron fence, and the driver asked for the fare. Libitz opened the door and stepped out of the cab onto the sidewalk, looking up at the synagogue built in the 1870s, a place where Camille Trigére may have attended services as a girl.

“Can we go in?” Libitz asked Jean-Christian, looking at the fence.

Jean-Christian sighed. “There have been some anti-Semitic attacks on the local Jewish population in the past several years. It looks like the synagogue isn’t open to the public anymore.”

“A dead end?” asked Libitz, feeling frustrated.

“Well…hold on,” said Jean-Christian, pulling out his phone. “Give me a second.”

As he tried to figure something out, Libitz looked up at the beautiful building—the spotless white facade with a huge double door at the top of a small white-marble staircase. There was a round stained-glass window over the door, very high up, with a small clock on the middle. How she wished she could see inside, hear her feet on the marble floor as Camille may have once heard her own. See the colors of the stained glass, which were impossible to detect outside on the sidewalk in the strong Marseille sun.

“…merci beaucoup, madame. Au revoir
.
”
Jean-Christian took her hand as he tucked his phone away. “We can’t go in. But the secretary was quite amenable and said she’d have a quick look at the birth records for us…see if she can find a Camille Trigére born in 1921 or thereabouts. I gave her my cell number, and she said she’d call if she can find anything.”

Libitz beamed at him. “My hero.”

He chuckled. “In the meantime, let’s get something to eat?”

“I’d love it,” she said, letting him lead her away from the synagogue. She took a deep breath of the brackish air. “Do we
really
have to leave tomorrow?”

“
Oui
,” he said. “You have a gallery to run, remember?”

“I remember.” She sighed. “So do you.”

As they each processed the fact that managing their respective galleries meant living in separate cities, a pall was cast over the lightheartedness of their walk.

Jean-Christian sighed. “I didn’t mention it before, but on Wednesday and Thursday, I looked at some commercial properties in Manhattan.”

“You did?”

“Mm-hm. I was thinking…I mean…”

“Thinking what?” she asked, her fingers tightening around his.

“Thinking that I might want to open another gallery in New York.”

Her heart leapt with joy, and she jerked her head to look up at him. “You’re
moving
to New York?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t
not
say that either.”

“Oh?”

“Fuck, Lib. I don’t want to go back to Philly if you live in New York. I want…I mean, I want to keep going forward. Fuck—how do you say this? I mean, I want to
be
with you. And I can’t be with you if I’m in Philly and you’re in New York.”

Her breath caught with excitement, but she forced herself to be calm. “I want to be with you too, but we could still make it work, even if—”

“No. I don’t want that. I don’t want to just see you on weekends. Or twice a month when we can get away. I want to see you all the time.
Every
night.
Every
Saturday.
Every
Sunday.”

“But your family’s in Philadelphia.”

“And I’d definitely keep a place there…and I’d go back a lot. But I want to spend my time with you. Near you.” He cleared his throat. “So I thought…maybe…I don’t know. I’d open a gallery in New York. Then I’d have a second reason to stay.”

She had a wild idea that tried to flit quickly through her mind, but she caught it and squeezed it in her hand, wondering if it was bat-shit crazy or a viable idea. She wouldn’t know unless she said it aloud.

“I have a gallery and you have a gallery,” she said.

“Mm-hm.”

“And a presence in Philly would benefit me as much as a presence for you in New York.”

“Right.”

“We worked on the Kandinsky together. It was a breeze.”

“Where are you going with this?”

She stopped walking and faced him. “A merger.”

His eyes widened as he stared down at her. “Are you serious?”

Libitz took a deep breath and shrugged. “Why
buy
real estate when there’s room at my place for a few of your pieces and room at your place for a few of mine?”

“But a merger? That’s serious.”

“Feingold-Rousseau,” she said, flattening her hands on his chest and grinning up at him. “Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it?”

“Not as nice as Rousseau-Feingold,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “Are you sure about this?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “For now, it’s just a fantasy. I’d need for my lawyer to look at your business and my accountant look at your profit and loss. You’d need to do the same. If one of us isn’t a sound partner, the other would have to withdraw the offer. No fault, no foul.”

“I’m doing well,” he said.

She nodded. “Me too.”

His face, which looked so hopeful, so happy, clouded over. “But…what if—I mean, what if we don’t work out, Elsa? This is all pretty new.”

“First of all, it’s a choice to work out,” she said. “Do you want us to work out?”

He nodded. “I do.”

“Then we will.”

“Second of all, even if we don’t, we’re bound for life through Noelle. So we don’t really have the option of not getting along. As I see it, you’re an ideal business partner. I can never escape you, and you can never escape me.”

“Is there a third of all?” he asked, smiling at her, his features relaxing.

“Hmmm,” she hummed. “I don’t think so.”

“Good. Because fuck food. I’m so turned on by this conversation, I’m taking you back to the hotel and making love to you.”

“Turned on by the idea of a long-term commitment to one woman?” she asked, grinning at him with delight.

“That is fucking right. So I’m going to take you back to our chateau and make love to you, my darling Elsa…my possible business partner, my goddaughter’s godmother, my…my…”

“Your what?” she asked, holding her breath.

“My Libitz,” he said, bending his head to kiss her. “Fuck. Wait.”

He pulled his phone from his back pocket. “
Bonjour?…Oui. Oui, madame. Merci. Ah. Oui. Je vois. Uh-huh…
” He looked at Libitz, his eyes bright and excited. “She thinks she may have found something, but not a birth record. A marriage record!”

Libitz gasped, holding on to Jean-Christian’s arm, staring into his eyes.

“
Uh-huh. Oui. Êtes-vous certaine?
” His eyes widened, and he nodded. “
Gilles Lévy. Oui. 5 de Septembre? Êtes-vous absolument—oui, madame. Merci. Merci beaucoup. Oui. Oui. Au revoir
.”

“Tell me!” said Libitz.

Jean-Christian tucked the phone in his back pocket, taking her hands in his, nailing her with his eyes. “She was married. Camille Trigére was married to…Lib, she was married to a man named Gilles Lévy on September 5, 1939. No death record on file.”

She couldn’t breathe.

She pressed her hand to her chest, staring up at Jean-Christian with wide eyes.

“Breathe, baby,” he urged her.