The Paris Wedding by Charlotte Nash

Author:Charlotte Nash
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The car in the hotel driveway was midnight black. A tinted window was lowered to reveal Yvette’s cigarette sending a plume of blue smoke skyward. A hotel attendant held open the other passenger door for Rachael. Inside, the car was all cream leather, and smelled of cigars and floral perfume.

Yvette was resplendent in a square-cut suit of burgundy slub, the jacket pockets detailed in dark trim, and a matching pleated skirt.

“Chérie,” she greeted Rachael. “Can you give me an hour? I want to show you something.”

Rachael couldn’t have refused. As the car took them across the Seine, she peered out the window. “Where are we going?”

“After you left me last night, I could not sleep. I had so many ideas. Today, I want to discuss them with my friend, and I thought you could see her showroom.”

The car turned onto the elegant Champs-Élysées, took another turn at the Arc de Triomphe, then pulled up outside a stone building with black iron Juliet balconies. Rachael was confused when the burly driver left the car and followed them inside.

Yvette said, “You must forgive me for this, chérie. It is five floors to the top. And you must not breathe a word to anyone.”

The driver scooped her up and carried her up the stairs.

On the top floor, an unassuming wood door opened into a sunlit studio and showroom. Mannequins lined one wall wearing creations in different stages of construction—two Chanel-style suits, an unhemmed cocktail dress, a longer silk dress, and what looked like the beginnings of a wedding gown. The other walls were lined with cutting benches, racks for bolts of fabric, three sewing machines, and a floor-to-ceiling mirror. Rachael smelled tailor’s chalk and machine oil and the clean scent of newly opened packaging.

A round woman with cropped graying hair, a tape measure and glasses around her neck, greeted them. “Yvette! L’escalier! Tu ne devrais pas! Ça va?”

The two women exchanged kisses and Yvette beckoned Rachael.

“Chérie, this is Martine Bertrand. She is one of the petits couturiers still working in Paris. A beautiful dressmaker and a good friend. Martine, Rachael is a dressmaker from Australia, but she thinks it is not a real career.”

“No?” Martine drew herself up with raised eyebrows, then laughed heartily.

Rachael knew she had turned red.

Yvette patted her arm. “Do not be embarrassed, chérie. But look around. Ask questions.”

So Rachael did. The room was heaven, the kind of place she could disappear into for a week, time standing still as she worked on something beautiful.

“How long have you been here?” she asked Martine.

“I am back in Paris for fifteen years. Before that I was in America, making costumes for theater and film. Here.” She pulled a heavy album from a shelf.

Rachael turned the pages. Photo after photo of Martine with costumed actors, mostly grand medieval and Regency dresses and coats.

“Now I make couture suits and gowns better than the grands couturiers for less money. New Yorkers come to me straight from the airport!” She laughed.

Rachael was astounded. She pored

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