moment she hit the water, she knew she was in trouble. The icy current, far more violent than she’d supposed, began to pull her downward so she could barely keep her head above the surface. She sputtered and coughed the water from her lungs. Lack of food and the effects of the absinthe had left her with no reservoir of strength. As she tried to ignore her own peril and swim toward the rapidly careening woman, the tide shifted suddenly and forced her in another direction.
Mason swam for all she was worth. I have to keep trying. I can’t let her die like this.
Soon her struggle to reach the woman became symbolic of her own resurrected will to survive. The two became one: Her refusal to bow to crushing defeat fueled her determination to beat the river and pull the woman from its grasp.
But it was all she could do to stay afloat. The Seine was stronger than even her fierce will. With mounting panic, she reached for one of the severed tree limbs rushing by, but it sank under her weight.
She was already dangerously exhausted. The woman was now completely out of sight. She tried to force her arms and legs to move, but they were dead weight.
Suddenly, the truth loomed before her. She was going to drown.
Panic choked her. She shook off the lethargy, scratched and clawed to summon some latent strength, to battle like a fury her inevitable end. But it was no use. The current dragged her down, her clothing weighing her like a stone.
As she realized the futility of her struggles, alarm gave way to a resignation that dazed her more than absinthe ever could.
I’m twenty-five years old and I’m going to die.
But then another realization swept through her, more powerful than the last.
She’d never even been in love. She’d never found the one man who could cherish her for who she really was, who could believe in her for no reason except that he loved her with all his heart and soul.
And that, she knew now—when it was too late—was the true tragedy.
She couldn’t let it happen. She had to fight for another chance. Her lungs were about to burst. Help me, she prayed once again. With a surge of desperation, she shot upward, breaking the surface and taking a deep, rasping gulp of air.
But as she did, something heavy crashed into her, cracking her head. She reached for it, flailing, hoping to use it to keep afloat. But her arms lost all sensation and the world spun madly as she felt consciousness begin to slip away.
Her last bitter thought as blackness stole upon her was of the cruel irony of fate.
I ask for help and this is what I get!
Chapter 1
I must be in heaven.
Mason stepped from the carriage and into a perfect world. The rain was gone and it was a glorious Parisian day, the sky a brilliant blue, the air shimmering and dappled with fleecy clouds. The merest trifle of a perfumed breeze rippled through the bare branches of the trees that lined the fashionable Rue Lafitte.
And there before her, a line of people awaiting admittance to the Galerie Falconier stretched all the way down to the Boulevard Haussmann. A placard beside the entrance displayed, in French, words that seemed to have been snatched from a dream:
Exhibition of Paintings
By the Celebrated
American Impressionist
Mason Caldwell
As she took in the scene, she caught her reflection in the gallery window and almost didn’t recognize herself. She was corseted and bustled into a concoction of the palest pink, topped off with a playfully insouciant hat sporting ostrich feathers. Swathes of lace cascaded down in a veil to delicately obscure her face. Her newly dyed black hair made her look faintly exotic, masking her usual fresh-scrubbed country appearance. She liked the change. It made her feel so mischievous that she had to resist the impulse to spin about in glee.
Lisette stepped out behind her. “Are you ready for this, chérie?”
Mason looked at her friend. She was an effortlessly beautiful woman of twenty-two, raised on the streets of Montmartre—and wise to all its ways, despite the childlike innocence she exuded—with a tumble of sunshine blond hair, a pouty smile, and a lithe yet curvaceous body that was a prime attraction of the Cirque Fernando, where she was the featured trapeze artist.
“Ready?” Mason took an excited breath. “I’ve been ready for this all my life.”
The dreamlike atmosphere continued as they entered the gallery. Auguste Falconier, the same man who’d said such scathing things to her before, now actually rushed forth to usher her in with welcoming arms. “Ah, Mademoiselle Caldwell, at last! The invited guests are all here and, as you have seen for yourself, the public outside clamors for admittance. Those inside are so eager to buy the paintings that the moment the preview is over, they will be trampling over one another to give us their money!”
He gestured past the foyer into the salon beyond. What she saw inside was just as she’d always imagined it: a crowd of wealthy patrons circulating with champagne in hand to admire her canvases, which were tastefully displayed throughout the high-ceilinged rooms of the former Second Empire row mansion.
“Allow me, Mademoiselle—may I call you Amy?”
Lisette nudged Mason and she started at the sound of the still-unfamiliar name. Rousing herself, she answered, “Yes, of course. By all means, call me Amy.”
“Then, Mademoiselle Amy, allow me to show you our most heart-wrenching tribute to the artist, your late sister.”
He led them to a glass display case. Inside was a collection of well-used personal effects: paint box, palette colored with rich smears of dried oil paint, tin can filled with brushes, stained smock, broad-brimmed straw hat, and in the center, a coat and a pair of shabby brown shoes.
“The shoes were those left by your sister on the bridge before she ju—” He corrected himself hastily, “Before she entered immortality. A last-minute idea on my part. I find them indescribably touching. Somehow they speak of her dedication, her poverty, and in the end, her desperation and tragedy.”
Mason regarded the grimy shoes—the leather faded and worn, the toes scuffed from numerous painting expeditions in the Oise River Valley—and had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from smiling. It was too funny. She had other, nicer shoes, but none she’d have chosen to ruin on a midnight walk in the rain.
I’d love to see the look on this phony’s face if he knew I wasn’t the sister Amy just off the ship from America, but the dear departed herself.
Falconier allowed a moment of reverential silence before speaking. “I cannot tell you what an honor it is to represent an artist of such innovative genius as Mason Caldwell.”
Lisette, rolling her eyes at the hypocrisy, put a hand on a shapely hip and spoke for the first time. “Genius? Was it her genius you referred to when you called her style impossible? When you told her to get them out of your sight?”
The proprietor drew himself up in outrage. “Mais, pas du tout! I said no such a thing! If someone
