‘You’d should tie her to a chair to cease her. My great-grandmother is a deeply curious lady. Although I feel the most effective English phrase for her is… nosy.’

Maeve grinned. It lightened his coronary heart, wanting into her laughing eyes. ‘I shall be simply the identical if I ever get to her age. Nosy and decided to maintain up with everybody.’

Leo thought again to what she’d stated about her Embassy name. ‘So that you’ll be going again to England quickly?’

Her laughter died. ‘It does look that manner, sure. They steered I come again to the embassy in particular person in about three or 4 days. For an additional interview.’ She frowned, biting on her lip. ‘I hope it’s only a formality. I discover that place quite intimidating. I hold pondering they’re going to arrest me and drag me off to the Bastille and I’ll by no means be seen once more.’

‘The Bastille doesn’t exist anymore. It was demolished.’

‘Oh.’

The boat was juddering because it slowed, backing gracefully towards a picket jetty the place vacationers may disembark for the Ile de la Cité and Notre Dame, though repairs to the good cathedral have been nonetheless ongoing, following intensive hearth harm, so no visits have been but being permitted.

‘That is our cease, I consider,’ he stated. They’d pre-paid for lunch as a part of the boat ticket worth, so it solely took a second for them to go away the restaurant space and climb up onto deck into the sunshine. The wind snatched at her gown and made his trouser legs flap. However at the least it offered just a little aid from the warmth. ‘When you have been arrested, I’d come and rescue you. Even when I needed to blow the jail gates off.’

It was a foolish joke, and but he meant it. The realisation stunned him. He was turning into oddly protecting of their English visitor. What did that imply?

‘Then you definitely’d find yourself in jail too,’ she identified.

‘I wouldn’t thoughts if I used to be in the identical cell as you.’

One other joke. Wasn’t it?

‘Have they got unisex prisons in Paris?’ Her look was cool. She thought he was mocking her. And he in all probability was. That made essentially the most sense, he determined.

‘I’m positive if I bribed somebody, it may occur. So I wouldn’t go to jail. I’d merely rescue you and we’d trip off into the sundown collectively, by no means to be seen once more.’

‘I can’t trip.’

He beloved how prosaic she at all times was. Or was irritated by her down-to-earth replies. He couldn’t ensure which. ‘Not an issue,’ he insisted, and ran a smoothing hand by his hair because the wind ruffled it. ‘I’ll deliver a big motorcycle. You possibly can trip pillion and maintain onto me.’

‘Oh effectively, in that case… I’ve at all times had a smooth spot for a biker boy.’

He seemed spherical at her with raised brows, however Maeve was already drifting away, threading her manner between vacationers planning to disembark, apparently eager to look at the boat’s sluggish method to the quayside.

He raised his head to the solar and closed his eyes because the gangplank was set in place, having fun with the warmth.

He had been cooped up indoors for an excessive amount of not too long ago, he thought, absorbed by household enterprise, like Henri’s hearth catastrophe on the winery. Or simply portray…

‘Alight right here, mesdames et messieurs’ the crew member on the gangplank was saying, ‘for the cathedral of Notre Dame and the left financial institution…’

‘Maeve?’ She had disappeared into the group, he realised. ‘Maeve? We now have to go.’

Eventually, he noticed her leaning over the facet of the riverboat a couple of metres alongside the open deck, simply previous the jetty, as if straining to see one thing within the murky waters beneath.

He hurried in direction of her, however the vacationers blocked his manner, shuffling in direction of the gangplank. She will need to have seen him coming although, as a result of she pointed down into the river, her face animated.

‘Oh, Leo, look… Is {that a} fish?’ she requested, her voice muffled as she leant even additional. ‘I’m positive that’s a – oh no!’

It was famously gusty alongside the Seine, summer season and winter alike. Shorts or denims have been de rigueur on the river.

As he elbowed his manner in direction of her, Maeve’s over-large borrowed gown was caught by a kind of sudden gusts and blown upwards, granting him – and everybody else within the neighborhood – a view of pale rounded thighs and an equally rounded and delectable derrière.

Leo stopped useless, his eyes widening on the sight of her backside in tight white underwear. He didn’t imply to however couldn’t assist it.

‘Mon Dieu…’ he breathed.

In the meantime, Maeve had gasped in consternation because the gown blew up, as effectively she would possibly, given what was now on present. Releasing the floppy hat she’d been holding in place, the modest Englishwoman clamped each fingers to the hem of her gown as an alternative, swiftly dragging it down…

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