I hope.” She smiled at the two listeners, unaware of how much she'd moved them both, especially Simon, “And they all lived happily ever after.”
“That's quite a story.” He stared at her in open amazement and Axelle delicately dabbed at her eyes with a lace hankie.
“Why didn't you tell me then?”
“I was afraid you wouldn't hire me. I would have done anything to get that job. I even came to you and flaunted my title, something I'd never done before.” She laughed good-humoredly then, “If I had, I'm sure they would have had me bumping and grinding as someone shouted from backstage, ‘And our very own Countess!’” All three of them laughed, but Zoya more easily than the others. The others were too impressed by the tale to laugh at her, and only Axelle knew how unkind people would have been if they had known Countess Ossupov had danced in a burlesque hall. “You do what you have to do in life. During the war here, some of our friends actually caught pigeons in the park and ate them.” Simon wondered at what else she had lived through. The revolution had to have been a brutal blow, with all of her family killed before she escaped. There was more to her than met the eye, in her pretty pink linen suit. A lot more. And he wanted to know all of it. He was sorry to see the lunch come to an end, and he dropped them off at the Ritz on his way to see the representative from a French mill, from whom he was ordering more fabric.
He shook hands with Zoya as she stood beside the cab, and he watched her long and hard as he drove away, thinking of what an incredible woman she was. He wanted to know everything about her now, how she had escaped, how she had survived, what her favorite color was, her dog's name, her worst fears when she'd been a child. It seemed crazy to him, but in the space of one short afternoon, he knew he had fallen in love with the woman of his dreams. It had taken him forty years, but on an afternoon in Paris, three thousand miles from home, he had found her.
CHAPTER
36
Zoya saw their trip come to an end with regret. They had had a good time, and on their last night, they had dinner at the Cordon Bleu, and strolled slowly back to the hotel, as Axelle urged her to get a good night's sleep, and thanked her for all her help in selecting the fall line for the shop. She was still stunned at the story Zoya had told at lunch at the George V with Simon Hirsch several days before. It gave her fresh respect for Zoya's courage.
They hadn't run into him again, and Zoya wondered if he was still there. She had dropped him a note, thanking him for lunch, and wishing him luck on the rest of his trip, and they had been busy finishing their own business after that. They had bought the rest of the hats, and finally some of the jewelry at Chanel, and on the last day, Zoya had gone shopping for the children. She had actually found the red dress Sasha wanted, and she bought Nicholas a beautiful jacket, and a coat, some books in French, which he spoke beautifully, and a little gold watch at Cartier, which had reminded her of Clayton's. And she bought Sasha a lovely French doll, and a pretty little gold bracelet. Her bags were laden down with the things she'd bought for them, and already packed, in preparation for the trip back to Le Havre the next morning. But there was something she was planning to do that night, which she didn't tell Axelle. The next day was Russian Easter, and she had decided, after much debate, to go to midnight mass at the Russian cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky. It was a decision that had been painful to make. She had gone there in the past with Clayton and Vladimir, and Evgenia. But she knew she couldn't leave Paris without going back once more. It was as though part of her was still there, and she wouldn't be free until she went back and faced it. She would never go home again, St. Petersburg was long gone for her, but this last piece of what her life had been had to be touched, and held, and felt one