Read Online Mistral's Daughter by Judith Krantz - Free Book Online Page A

even her red eyebrows were
challenging.   She might be naked and
submerged but the very way she'd appropriated his hat defied him.
    "Don't go away,"
Mistral said, jumped to his feet and walked out of the room, taking his jacket
and the damp towel, closing the door behind him.
    "Oh, that son of a
bitch!" Maggy cried out loud.   She
looked disgustedly at the rim of the tub where a gray ring was forming.   She tried to let in some more water but the
faucet was locked. She shrugged and stood up in the tub, sloshing water over
herself with the palms of her hands. She was reassured to see that she hadn't
turned gray.   She stepped carefully onto
the floor and shook herself mightily, shuddering like a great dog, wringing
water out of her hair.   Fortunately the
night was warm and the room was even warmer, filled, as it was, with the steam
of the bath.
    Suddenly, the door opened and
Mistral walked back into the room.   Maggy
straightened up, shielding her lower belly with the big hat, one arm over her
breasts.
    "You forgot to
knock."
    "Sorry."   He passed her two fresh towels.   "Dry yourself off — go on — I won't look.   And here's my jacket — put it on when you're finished.   I have a
taxi waiting."
    "I hope we're going
somewhere nice for dinner."
    "Eventually."
    "You do know how to
treat a girl."   Maggy struggled into
his jacket.   The sleeve's dangled below
her knees, hiding her hands.   Clumsily,
she wrapped her arms around herself to hold the jacket together.   She was entirely covered up except for her
bare legs and feet.   "Well, I'm all
set, and rather grand too, but you don't look like much.   Your shirt's all wet," she grumbled.
    "I think we both
look...   clean," Mistral said,
leading the way to the front door of the public baths.   "As long as you're clean, the rest isn't
important."
    Padding in her bare feet,
Maggy followed him to the street door of the public bathhouse. They darted
across the pavement into the taxi that waited outside.
    "Sixty-five boulevard
Arago," Mistral told the startled driver.
    Still barefoot, but wearing
the red kimono, which she had put on with a smile of surprise at finding it
just where it had been a year before, surprised that it could still hang from
the same hook like a remote memory, Maggy entered the studio, dimly lit at
night when the work lights were off, and looked for a place to sit down.
    The studio was as crowded as
the bedroom was bare.   Mistral had the
habit of visiting the brocantes of the neighborhood, the dealers
in objects that could not be called antiques, yet were certainly not new, and
picking up odd bits and pieces that caught his questing eye; a huge casserole
of Quimper pottery with a hole in it; a ship's figurehead, half eaten by worms;
the last remaining piece of a once splendid set of painted tin soldiers; a
Victorian chair of purple satin trimmed with moth-eaten braid.
    However, although his
discoveries filled a room they fell short of furnishing it. Maggy picked her
way toward the Victorian chair, which at least seemed to have a recognizable
function, and sat in it with a sigh of pleasure.   She was brimming with a mixture of curiosity
and adventure.   She had never expected to
find herself here again and the evening seemed filled with tentative wonder.
    "Soup?" she called
into the tiny kitchen in which she heard Mistral moving about.
    "What do you think this
is, a restaurant?   If I want soup I go
out for it.   You'll get bread and cheese
and sausage and wine and be glad for them."
    "You're not much of a
host."
    "I don't entertain
often," Mistral said, looking with irritation at the sausage he was slicing.   It had an air of antiquity to it.   On a tray, he hastily arranged a few mismated
dishes, a bottle of wine and two glasses, one of them chipped, and carried it
out to the studio.   He stopped in
mid-stride at the sight of Maggy in the purple chair, her orange hair spread
out on the red Japanese silk.   It was as
if a fire had