Maxence
Afew days later, on a sunny afternoon, Maxence grinned at his littlechérie.
Dree glanced back at the rear of the office, but Maxence had already sent Quentin Sault off on some fool’s errand. She turned around and stared up at him with wide blue eyes as he sat behind his desk. “I’ve never gone swimmingin the oceanbefore.”
“It’s the Mediterranean Sea, not an ocean, but it is salty.”
She grinned harder, and he just loved looking at her smile. She said, “Then it totally counts.”
“Come on, just like last time. Grab your notepad and pretend to take notes as we walk. The most important thing is to walk with purpose like we’re on our way to murder someone, and no one will even question where we’re going.”
“But I don’t even have a bathing suit!”
“There are a dozen little shops down by the beach that sell swimsuits. We’ll buy a few and change into them at the beach club.” Max stood up so fast that his chair banged into the bookcase under the window behind him. “It’s almost two o’clock. If we don’t leave now, we won’t have sunlight left on this astonishingly warm day.”
“It’s, like, seventy degrees out there! If I were in Phoenix, I’d wear a coat. And maybe gloves.”
“Yes, but you were in Nepal for a month, so you’ve acclimated to entirely different weather than you were used to in Phoenix.Come on.”
Maxence strode out of the office, and Dree scurried behind him with her notepad, looking up and frantically scribbling while he expounded upon the imports and exports of Monaco, mostly imports. Sunlight poured warmth on his suit jacket as he strode, occasionally gesturing with a raised hand to emphasize an important point about olive oil.
Again, they walked along the parapet, encroaching upon a crowd of tourists queued up to gawk at the throne room before making a sharp left and trampling down the curving staircase that led to the tiled courtyard below. Dree’s pretty little shoes tapped the marble behind him.
Again, they sprinted toward the arch to lose themselves in the line of tourists trundling into the palace. Maxence already had one arm out of his jacket and was preparing to throw it around Dree’s shoulders to change her silhouette and disguise the color of her pale blue dress. It would also alter his appearance by now revealing his white shirt instead of his dark jacket. But when he glanced at the line of tourists waiting to get into the castle and saw four particular people—
His feet bolted themselves to the tile of the courtyard.
Maxence had run into a wall made of his own utter shock.
The two women were taller and slimmer than the tourists around them, but their sparkling white long skirts, blouses, and religious veils over their hair made them stand out from the crowd. Two little girls with them, barely older than toddlers, wore brightly patterned dresses with voluminous skirts that flowed around their knees.
Sandals on their tiny feet pitter-patted on the tile as they scampered toward Maxence, shouting.“Parrain! Mon parrain!”
Before Maxence could think about his actions and who might be watching, he’d squatted down and opened his arms, and the two little girls barreled into him. He closed his arms around the giggling, wiggling little baby-girls, and they peppered his face with kisses as he pressed his lips to their temples and hugged them to his shoulders. Pristine joy fountained in his soul, and he murmured to them in French, “Majambu, Mpata, I am so happy to see you. Seeing you fills my heart with joy.”
Their wiry hair was cropped close to their heads, as always, because he had never seen them anything less than impeccably groomed since they had arrived at the children’s home run by the Catholic sisterhood. They squealed and exclaimed in the odd language of toddler-talk, trying to express emotions they had no words for yet.“Mon parrain, leur parrain,where have you been? Why are you not at the rectory? The rectory is empty!”
“I have traveled,” Maxence told them. “Other children in other countries needed me. I have traveled to Nepal.”
“Nepal!” Mpata exclaimed. She was always the more adventurous of the two, even though she was six months younger. “Where is Nepal?”
“At the top of the world, where the mountains touch the sky,” he said.
“Like the Virunga Mountains?”
“Even taller,” he told her. “Who told you about the Virunga Mountains?”
“Bonne sœurDisanka,” Mpata said, gesturing with her chubby hand toward the religious sisters wearing white who were still standing in the line.
They smiled and inclined their heads toward each other, fondly watching Max and the girls.
Maxence scooped the girls up in his arms, each warm little baby claiming a shoulder, and walked over to the two sisters. “Good Sister Ndaya, Good Sister Disanka.” He let the girls slide down his sides to stand on their feet so he could greet and double-kiss the two women on their cheeks.
“Deacon Father Maxence, it is a blessing to see you,” Disanka said.
“I’m so glad to see all of you. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
The religious sisters Ndaya and Disanka pressed their lips together and inclined their heads again, kindly waiting but just a little patronizing.
