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  PRAISE FOR SECRETS OF PARIS

  “Rice is clearly smart, sophisticated and well-traveled.… You’re likely to recognize the many French idioms or gestures that Rice retails with wry affection.… Characters with heart; colorful vignettes from the life of Mme. de Sévigné, whose letters are excerpted at the start of each chapter; and glimpses of French neighborhoods that tourists often miss on the way to the Mona Lisa, such as Tolbiac, the Chinatown of Paris. Not just for Francophiles, this is a thinking sunbather’s beach book.”

  —The Plain Dealer

  “Rice has a flair for creating bright, compelling characters. We’re drawn to them.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Passion and friendship get equal billing in this entertaining love story, shaded with dark undertones, from the author of Crazy in Love.… Lively and appealing characters … the Paris setting and themes of betrayal and forgiveness distinguish this spirited romance.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A romantic and satisfying account of love revived.”

  —Booklist

  “Light, airy, rich and tasty, Luanne Rice’s Secrets of Paris is like a soufflé.… It also has warmth, charm, wisdom and a great deal of heart.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Once again Rice weaves a tale of modern-day life that’s hard to put down.… A novel of friendship, love, and betrayal that lets you into the minds of all the participants. It is one of those books that you don’t want to end because you want to know what happens to all of the people in it. Highly recommended.”

  —Library Journal

  MORE CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR LUANNE RICE

  “A rare combination of realism and romance.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Luanne Rice proves herself a nimble virtuoso.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “Few writers evoke summer’s translucent days so effortlessly, or better capture the bittersweet ties of family love.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Ms. Rice shares Anne Tyler’s ability to portray offbeat, fey characters winningly.”

  —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  “Rice has an elegant style, a sharp eye, and a real warmth. In her hands, families, and their values … seem worth cherishing.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Luanne Rice has enticed millions of readers by enveloping them in stories that are wrapped in the hot, sultry weather of summer.… She does it so well.”

  —USA Today

  “What a lovely writer Luanne Rice is.”

  —DOMINICK DUNNE

  “[Luanne Rice’s] characters break readers’ hearts.… True-to-life characters dealing with real issues—people following journeys that will either break them or heal them.”

  —The Columbus Dispatch

  “A joy to read.”

  —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  “Addictive … irresistible.”

  —People

  “Rice writes as naturally as she breathes.”

  —BRENDAN GILL

  “Luanne Rice has a talent for navigating the emotions that range through familial bonds, from love and respect to anger.… A beautiful blend of love and humor, with a little bit of magic thrown in.”

  —The Denver Post

  “Brilliant.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Exciting, emotional, terrific. What more could you want?”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Rice makes us believe that healing is possible.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Good domestic drama is Rice’s chosen field, and she knows every acre of it.… Rice’s home fires burn brighter than most, and leave more than a few smoldering moments to remember.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Rice masterfully weaves together a batch of sympathetic characters into a rich and vivid tapestry, all while exploring complex human emotions and the healing power of love.”

  —The Flint Journal

  “Book after book, Rice never fails to deliver a beautiful tale full of emotion. [She] speaks to the reader of magic, miracles and pursuing your dreams, no matter what the cost.”

  —BestReviews.com

  “Rice … excels at weaving the familiar staples of popular fiction into storytelling gold; her talent for portraying both children at risk and good men scarred by circumstance also dazzles. [She] depicts the magical endurance of love with the sensitivity and realism for which she’s known.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Rice is a gifted storyteller with a keen sense of both the possibilities and contingencies of life.”

  —Brunswick Times Record

  “Rice’s great strength is in creating realistic characters readers care about.”

  —The Denver Post

  “Few … authors are able to portray the complex and contradictory emotions that bind family members as effortlessly as Rice.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Full of all the things families are made of: love, secrets, traditions, and memories.”

  —The Providence Journal

  “Luanne Rice handles with marvelous insight and sensitivity the complex chemistry of a family that might be the one next door.”

  —EILEEN GOUDGE

  “Rice, a terrific storyteller and a poetic stylist, takes on a difficult and brutal subject and transforms it into a source of light and hope.”

  —Booklist

  “Irresistible … fast-paced … moving … vivid storytelling. Readers can almost smell the sea air. Rice has a gift for creating realistic characters, and the pages fly by as those characters explore the bonds of family.”

  —Orlando Sentinel

  “What the author does best: heartfelt family drama, gracefully written and poignant.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Rice, always skilled at drafting complex stories … reveals her special strength in character development.”

  —The Star-Ledger

  “Rice’s ability to evoke the lyricism of the seaside lifestyle without oversentimentalizing contemporary issues … is just one of … many gifts that make … a perfect summer read.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Rice, as always, provides her readers with a delightful love story filled with the subtle nuances of the human heart.”

  —Booklist

  “Luanne Rice touches the deepest, most tender corners of the heart.”

  —TAMI HOAG

  “Pure gold.”

  —Library Journal

  BY LUANNE RICE

  The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners • The Geometry of Sisters

  Last Kiss • Light of the Moon • What Matters Most

  The Edge of Winter • Sandcastles • Summer of Roses

  Summer’s Child • Silver Bells • Beach Girls • Dance With Me

  The Perfect Summer • The Secret Hour • True Blue

  Safe Harbor • Summer Light • Firefly Beach

  Dream Country • Follow the Stars Home • Cloud Nine

  Home Fires • Blue Moon • Secrets of Paris

  Stone Heart • Crazy in Love • Angels All Over Town

  with Joseph Monninger

  The Letters

  Secrets of Paris is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are

  the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual

  persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  2011 Bantam Books Trade Paperback Edition

  Copyright © 1991 by Luanne Rice

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House

  Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of

  Random House, Inc.

  Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Viking Penguin, a division of

  Penguin Books USA Inc., in 1991.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following

  copyrighted works:

  Madame de Sévigné: A Life and Letters by Frances Mossiker. Copyright ©

  1983 by Frances Mossiker. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,

  a division of Random House, Inc.

  Selected Letters by Madame de Sévigné, translated by Leonard Tancock,

  Penguin Classics 1982. Copyright © Leonard Tancock, 1982.

  Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Rice, Luanne.

  Secrets of Paris: a novel / Luanne Rice.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-553-90817-6 I. Title.

  PS3558.I289S44 1991

  813′.54—dc20 90-50746

  www.bantamdell.com

  Cover design: Brigid Pearson

  Cover images: © TanMan/Getty Images (sunset), David Sacks/Taxi/Getty Images (couple), Jan Martin Will/Shutterstock (Seine)

  v3.1

  For Max, Olivier,

  and Amelia Onorato,

  with love

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Luanne Rice

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

>   Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  About the Author

  What I am about to communicate to you is the most astonishing thing, the most surprising, most triumphant, most baffling, most unheard of, most singular, most unbelievable, most unforeseen, biggest, tiniest, rarest, commonest, the most talked about, the most secret up to this day, the most enviable, in fact a thing of which only one example can be found in past ages, and, moreover, that example is a false one; a thing nobody can believe in Paris (how could anyone believe it in Lyons?).

  —FROM MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ TO COULANGES,

  DECEMBER 1672

  LYDIE MCBRIDE OCCUPIED a café table in the Jardin du Palais Royal and thought how fine it was to be an American woman in Paris at the end of the twentieth century. The sun warmed her arms. People strolled along the dry paths, and the silvery dust mingled with the smell of strong coffee. It was one of the first hot spring days. Then something happened—cups clattered on the waiter’s tray, or the breeze shifted, and Lydie thought of home. She felt a keen hankering for it: for her family, for her block in New York City, for the racetrack, for strangers speaking English.

  “May I borrow your sugar?” someone asked in a low voice.

  Lydie jumped. She had just been longing so hard to hear the English language, she wondered for an instant whether she had conjured the sound out of the May air. But then she regained her composure.

  “Of course,” she said, passing the china bowl to the woman at the next table. She watched her, a tall woman Lydie’s age with dark hair twisted into a chignon, stir two sugar cubes into her coffee. This woman wore red lipstick perfectly; her eyes were hidden behind big sunglasses. Lydie, who never wore much makeup and had the sort of flyaway red hair that always looked uncombed, had the impression of much gold jewelry.

  “I need some quick energy,” the woman explained. “I just had a fitting at Chanel—an experience that never fails to take the heart out of me.”

  Lydie smiled at the way she made shopping at Chanel sound like torture—somehow Lydie knew that she lived here.

  “What brings you to Paris?” the woman asked.

  Lydie hesitated, trying to formulate the short version of a complicated answer. “Well, for work. Michael—my husband—is an architect. He’s working on the Louvre, part of an exchange program. And I’m a stylist.”

  “A stylist? As in hair?”

  Lydie laughed. “No, I work with photographers, doing pieces for magazines and catalogues. I set up the shots. The editor tells me what he wants in a photo layout, and it’s my job to get all the props.”

  “I think my husband uses stylists,” the woman said. “He’s in the jewelry business.”

  “Yes,” Lydie said, nodding. “I work with jewelers a lot. He’s French?”

  “Yes, but we met in America …” The woman trailed off, as if she thought the conversation was going on too long or growing too intimate. “I’ll tell you something,” she said. “I met my husband one day, he took me to Guadeloupe the next weekend, and then I enrolled in Berlitz, and then he asked me to marry him. You’ll think I’m crazy, but it all took place in less than five weeks. The French understand, but Americans never do.”

  Lydie leaned forward, and she captured the moment, sure as a photograph: the way the sun struck the woman’s hair, the blaze of primroses in a jardiniere behind her head, Richelieu’s palace casting a shadow on the garden. “I don’t think that’s crazy,” Lydie said. “I believe in love at first sight.”

  “Well,” the woman said. She checked her watch, a tiny gold one with Chinese figures instead of numerals. Then she looked at the sky. “I should go. I’m running late.”

  Now Lydie checked her watch. She had planned to go to the Bibliothèque Nationale, to look up details of seventeenth-century weddings for a piece in Vogue. Then, like the woman, she gazed up. She felt unwilling to leave. The palace against the blue sky looked dark and ancient, as if it had stood there forever. She wanted to stall for time, to prolong this pleasant, casual conversation with another American. “Where are you off to?” she asked after a moment.

  “Oh, home,” the woman said. “I told my housekeeper she could go online.”

  “Your housekeeper?”

  “Yes. I’m teaching her to use the computer. Didier bought it when personal computers hit Paris in a big way, but it just sits there.”

  Lydie regarded the woman more carefully. With her jewelry and clothes and slightly regal bearing, she gave the impression of someone who would want distance between herself and a domestic employee. “Are you training her to do your correspondence?” Lydie asked.

  The woman smiled, but the smile seemed distant. “Kelly wants to improve her life. She’s a Filipino, from the provinces outside Manila, and she’s here in Paris illegally. She’s just a little younger than I am—she’s been to college. She shares a place with an amazing number of brothers and sisters. Her goal is to get to the United States.”

  “And you want to help her?” Lydie asked, sitting on the edge of her chair.

  “Well, it’s practically impossible.”

  “My parents immigrated to the United States from Ireland,” Lydie said.

  “It’s especially hard for Filipinos,” the woman said, again looking at her watch. She gathered her bags and stood. “Well. Hasn’t this been fun?” she said.

  “Maybe …” Lydie began.

  “We should exchange phone numbers,” the woman said, grinning.

  And while Lydie wrote out her name and number on a piece of notepaper, the dark-haired woman held out a vellum calling card, simply engraved, with an address on the Place des Vosges and the name “Patrice d’Origny.”

  Walking down the rue des Petits Champs, Lydie felt in no hurry to get to the Bibliothèque Nationale. Even though she had hours of research to do for a photo series that was already a week overdue, she felt like playing hooky. The BBS wheels on a red BMW 750 parked by the curb caught her eye. Nice wheels, Lydie thought. She had spent many childhood Saturdays at her father’s body shop in the Bronx—a cavernous place filled with smells of exhaust and paint, the flare of welding torches, the shrieks of machinery and metal tearing—without seeing many BBS wheels. Her father was the boss but wore blue overalls anyway. He would leave her in the office, separated from the shop by a glass window, coming back every fifteen minutes or so to visit her.

  “What happened to that car?” Lydie had asked once, watching another wreck towed in.

  “An accident, darling. He hit a tree off the Pelham Parkway, and he must have been drunk, because he knew how to drive.”

  “How do you know?” Lydie asked, when what she really wanted to know was what had happened to the man.

  “See his wheels?” her father asked, pointing at the car, leaning his head so close to Lydie’s that she caught a whiff of the exhaust that always seemed to cling to his hair and clothes. “They’re BBS. A man doesn’t buy wheels like that if he doesn’t know how to drive.”

  To her father, “knowing how to drive” had covered more than mere competence. It was a high compliment and meant the driver was alert behind the wheel, unified with his car and the road, aware of the difference between excellent and ordinary machinery.

  Walking away from the red BMW with its high-performance, nonproduction wheels, down the narrow Paris street, Lydie had the urge to drive fast. In America she raced cars for a hobby, but over here she hadn’t had the desire. She had resisted this move to Paris. She had told Michael it was because she didn’t want to leave her family, which now consisted of only Lydie and her mother. But Michael had said no, what Lydie did not want to leave was her family tragedy.

  Eight months before Michael accepted the position at the Louvre, Lydie’s father had killed his lover and himself. Margaret Downes. Lydie felt a jolt every time she remembered the name. After forty years of what everyone considered a great marriage, Cornelius Benedict Fallon had fallen in love with another woman. Lydie hadn’t known and Julia claimed, even now, to have had no clue. Lydie knew there must have been clues, and she often felt furious with her mother for not seeing them. Because right up until the time the New York City detectives knocked on her door, Lydie had believed in her mother’s myth of a happy family.