Leonie by Elizabeth Adler

were flushed from the bath. Her bare feet peeked prettily from beneath the hem and, as she drank, her toes curled into the softness of the carpet; the girl was enjoying herself.
    “It’s wonderful,” said Léonie. “This whole day is wonderful, mademoiselle.” She rested her head against the cushions, her eyes dreamy, her body relaxed. Caro stared at her curiously. This was a different girl from the nervous frozen child who had come through her door only a few hours before. There were no labels of poverty on her now. In her robe and with her golden hair drying in front of the fire she could be anyone—she was a girl just like herself. “You must call me Caro,” she said, “everyone does.”
    A small table had been set up in front of the fire and the heavy curtains were drawn, shutting out the blizzard and the silentstreets. Caro watched Léonie eat, enjoying the sight of someone so obviously relishing her food. Afterward they sat on the rug together in front of the fire and she peeled the peaches specially grown for her in the enormous hothouses at Alphonse’s country estate. They dunked fleshy slivers of fruit in their champagne, giggling as they licked their winy juices. They were isolated by the storm, forced into an immediate intimacy, trapped together with no men around—“Like schoolgirls,” said Caro, laughing.
    “Please tell me,” begged Léonie, sitting cross-legged on the rug, the sumptuous velvet robe wrapped around her, a glass of champagne in her hand. She felt elated, all her senses were alive, her body was drifting on a sea of champagne bubbles.
    “Tell you what?”
    “Your story … Caro,” she added, pleased to be allowed to use her name.
    “My story … ahh.” Caro’s lovely face looked suddenly wistful. “It was a fairy story, Léonie … for a while. My home was in Spain. I suppose if being loved means being ‘spoiled,’ then I was a spoiled child. My father was handsome and my mother young and beautiful. I remember how I used to wait, for what seemed ages, every morning until she awoke and I was allowed in. She’d be lying there in that great old bed, tiny, dark-haired, always in something pale and lacy and always holding out her arms for me, laughing as I’d run across the room and hurl myself into them. Papa would hear us and put his head around his dressing room door, laughing, too, as he saw me covering her face with kisses. And then it was his turn to be kissed and he’d swing me up in the air so that I could reach his face—sometimes I’d have to smooth away the soapy foam where he was shaving and sometimes he’d hold my hand over his long-bladed razor and allow me to ‘help’ him shave. And afterward I’d receive a little dab of his cologne behind my ears. Then we’d both go and sit on Mama’s bed and nibble at her breakfast. I remember sneaking a finger into the little dish of delicious peach preserves and giving it to Papa to lick. They were both so young, so beautiful—and so very much in love. I know now how selfish lovers can be and I suppose I was lucky that they let me share that love.
    “As the elder son, my father had inherited a title and everything that went with it, a castle, townhouses, estates. And Mama was rich, young, and beautiful. They were truly the golden couple on whom the gods smiled. But one day the smiling stopped. Theyhad left to spend a weekend at the country house of some friends, it was November, the weather was foggy, the roads icy.… There was an accident.…”
    Caro’s face reflected the pain of twenty years ago and Léonie turned her eyes away, not wanting to intrude.
    “No one told me,” whispered Caro, “that was the worst thing. I suppose they wanted to shield me from the pain. The servants who were my friends went around red-eyed, bursting into tears when they looked at me, the curtains were drawn, mirrors draped in black; there was whispering. I couldn’t understand it. Then suddenly the house was full of