A Paris Apartment Read Online Free

painting was a Boldini, died in 1931. But these dates? They could not be correct.
    Then again, if they were—if on the off chance these dates were valid and not falsified by Madame Quatremer or her shifty solicitor, Luc—then the story was not an amazing 1940 plus seventy years. The tale was older than that.
    The page April held read in tight, neat script: “2 July 1898.” It was not from the last century but the one before it. She glanced at the bookcase. How far back did this go?
    April scanned the letters, biting back a smile. This woman, the writer, she was brave, unfettered, and damn funny. Her penmanship was impeccable, even when writing words like “flatulist,” “manhood,” and “nipples.” If these letters were real—and of course April knew they were—if these entries were real, the author had guts. She was unafraid. Then again, she was also unaware. Never could she have envisioned an American pawing through her belongings a century in arrears.
    Guilt creeping in, April retied the stacks. The documents weren’t part of the Quatremer estate, at least not as it related to the auction house. Exposed skin and gastrointestinal problems would not establish provenance no matter how much April wished it so.
    As she looped the ribbon around itself, a single sentence caught April’s eye. Her first thought was, thank god, I’m not completely invading someone’s privacy.
    Her second was: holy crap. We were right. That painting is a Boldini.

 
    Chapitre V
    Paris, 20 July 1898
    I sat for Boldini today. Again.
    Only a few more sketches and all will be right, he promises. A few more sketches? That man and his incessant scribbling will drive me straight into an idiot’s asylum! Truth be told, it would prove welcome relief. At last I would finally be done with this godforsaken portrait. A veritable fool’s errand it is. He has yet to pick up a brush! Let this be a warning to all women: A celebrated, handsome artist intent on re-creating your likeness is not so romantic a scenario.
    Turn this way, turn that way, he says. Frowns, furrowed brows, salty language, and much crumpled paper. Then we start the whole thing over. Did I mention it is hot? Murderously hot? Between the heat and the fumes I expected to keel over at any second. I would be offended if the rigmarole was not so very Giovanni. He has done this before.
    “You are meant to be a painter,” I said to him. “Not a cartoonist!”
    He did not appreciate the inference, but, truly, there is perfectionism and there is dementia, and he is teetering dangerously close to the latter. “Master of Swish,” indeed. It would behoove him to swish a little less.
    Marguérite came with me the last time. She told me I do not make it easy on him, at which I had to laugh. Has she ever known me to make it easy on any man? No, in fact mostly I aim to do the opposite. Either way M. Boldini absolutely deserves it. I do tease him. I do warn him against repeating his forebear’s succès de scandale. God help me if a strap falls off my shoulder and I become the next Madame Gautreau.
    But it is all in good fun. He knows this and, further, would never repeat Sargent’s artistic miscalculations no matter how many (many, many) times I say he is in danger of doing exactly that. Unlike Sargent, Giovanni will take caution. He values commerce as much as art and has no desire for la vie de bohème . In that way we are quite the same.
    I suppose I could let up a little, but what I did not tell Marguérite—nay, what I did not tell Giovanni himself—is that it is not merely my impatience driving me to niggle. There is a certain deadline we are working against. If Madame Gautreau’s errant strap threatened to destroy multiple reputations, I cannot fathom what would happen at next year’s salon if Boldini displayed a painting of a woman ripe with pregnancy. An unmarried woman, no less! Mon Dieu!
    It is easy enough to hide, but a time will come when I must confess to Giovanni, to