Seen and Not Heard by Anne Stuart

part of the cause? “Your father loves you, Nicole. He’s just not a demonstrative man.”
    “What is ‘demonstrative’?”
    Claire pushed her plate away, no longer hungry. Nicole was so absurdly precocious she’d forgotten that she was talking to a nine-year-old. One with an amazing command of English, but even most American nine-year-olds wouldn’t know what
demonstrative
meant.
    “When someone is demonstrative they show, they express their emotions and thoughts, rather than talk about them.” She was sounding like a schoolteacher again, and Claire felt a sudden, searing loss. She missed it, the work, the children, the sense of being needed, making a difference.
    “Then don’t you think it strange,” Nicole said quietly, “that a mime, someone who never uses words, is not … demonstrative at home?”
    Claire had no answer, but then, Nicole wasn’t expecting one. They finished their meal in strained silence, listening to the steady beat of the rain outside their windows.
    Yvon looked down at his hands. They’d clenched into fists, and it took all his strength to open them, flex them. The fingers were cramped, useless, and he held them out into the pouring rain, watching as the water splatted against them. They were still shaking.
    It was after eleven. Lights were blazing in the old woman’s apartment, but he’d seen no shadows against the heavy curtains for a long time. The old bitch was probably too rich to worry about electricity bills. She probably left all her lights on, afraid of the dark. Tonight, he told himself, it would be a waste of time. The lights wouldn’t keep her destiny at bay.
    He started to move, out into the heavy rain, oblivious to the passersby, the cars sluicing through the deep puddles, oblivious to everything as he crossed the street. He had no plan, no thought at all beyond the certainty of what he must do. The black hole in his heart grew larger, devouring himas he stood in front of the heavy wooden door that fronted the residential side street. When he reached out to press the bell, his hand no longer shook.
    Thomas Jefferson Parkhurst was whistling as he raced up the endless flights of stairs to his artist’s garret. Even the final flight failed to wind him, though the whistle became more strained. Nothing could quench his buoyant spirit, not flights of stairs, not the empty apartment, not even the memory of Claire’s eyes when he’d asked her about the man.
    Because the rest of the time Claire’s eyes had been on him, and they’d been warm, happy, and full of promise.
    It was after eleven when he got home. Claire had left him at five, but he’d been too restless to go home and work when he knew damned well he ought to. He’d gone out to see friends, spent the entire evening talking about Claire, and then finally ended up back at the apartment, still too dreamy and lightheaded to tackle the novel.
    Claire was part of the problem. She’d made her appearance in chapter seven as Elizabeth, the madonna. Then he’d revised her into Violette, the whore. But now he knew her too well, he couldn’t turn her into a stereotype and make her do what he wanted.
    Ignoring the typewriter, he flopped down on the bed, letting his big body absorb the vibrations from the ancient springs. Who the hell was he fooling? He wasn’t a novelist. He wasn’t a dancer, a clarinetist, a playwright, or a painter. He couldn’t even run a vineyard. He had seven more weeks left, but he already suspected he knew the answer to his quest. He was a damned, dull, boring stockbroker. His creative gifts lay in making money, whether he liked it or not.
    He knew something else, too. Irrational, unbelievable as it was, at the age of thirty-two, with a decent amount of experience behind him, he’d fallen hopelessly in love with a stranger. And while common sense told him it was absurd, common sense didn’t make a dent in his conviction. Foralmost two years he’d been convinced he’d come to Paris to find