§ § § -- October 6, 1993

Both she and Tattoo slept quite late the following morning, and Solange had to roust them both out of their respective beds. In Leslie's case, that meant twenty-month-old Mireille climbing onto her bed and leaning down to peer curiously into her face. Unlike her older brother and sister, Mireille wasn't shy around Leslie at all.

When Leslie woke, she blinked in surprise at sight of the toddler staring at her with wide, curious eyes. She was a dead ringer for Solange, except that she was blessed with Tattoo's thick, glossy black hair. The moment Leslie found herself staring back at Mireille, the little girl giggled and said clearly, "Ma'selle up!" in a completely un-self-conscious mixture of French and English.

Leslie grinned at her. "Did Maman say so?" she asked the child playfully, and Mireille nodded vigorously.

"So did Papá," came a voice from the doorway, and Leslie rolled over in bed to find both of Mireille's parents watching her. It was Tattoo who had spoken. "Come on, sleepyhead, get up. You're still coming with me to the gallery, aren't you?"

"That was the plan," Leslie said, stretching beneath the covers. "I guess now you're going to tell me you're about to walk out the door and I have five minutes to get ready."

"No, fifteen," retorted Tattoo, and Leslie stuck out her tongue at him, which evoked quiet laughter from the adults and a squeal of mirth from Mireille. At Solange's urging, the child tumbled nimbly off the bed and trotted over to join her mother and father in the doorway while Leslie got out of bed.

"Did you sleep okay?" Solange asked.

"I slept great," Leslie said and grinned down at Mireille. "She makes quite the little alarm clock, this one. Maybe I'll take her home with me. She's a sweetie."

Tattoo and Solange both laughed. "Be careful what you say; she'd probably go," Solange remarked. "Mireille's crazy about you." Leslie grinned wistfully. Mireille had insisted that Leslie be the one who read her a bedtime story the previous evening, and had listened very intently for such a young child. Leslie, reminded of the child she and Teppo had tried to have, carefully hid her expression from Tattoo and Solange, but they looked at each other as if they'd seen something in her eyes.

"She's a little doll," Leslie said. "Well, if you three will do me a favor and let me get dressed, I'll be down in no time at all."

Half an hour later Leslie and Tattoo were on their way into the city, having left Solange trying to pacify a wailing Mireille, who had wanted to go with Leslie. Tattoo sat back in his seat and regarded Leslie with a faintly worried look on his round features. "Tell me if I'm pushing," he said questioningly, "but did you and Teppo ever talk about having kids?"

"We really wanted to," Leslie said, her face clouding over. "For some reason we couldn't. No matter how many doctors we saw, no one ever found out what the problem was. It certainly wasn't for lack of trying on our part." She gave Tattoo a raised-eyebrow look, at which he grinned knowingly.

"Hey, at least you had fun trying," he offered, and she rolled her eyes before laughing in concession. "I asked only because there seems to be such a bond between you and Mireille. If you did take her home, I think she'd go right along with you and never look back even once."

Leslie smiled. "I imagine so." She stared out the window for a moment, reflecting, then sighed gently. "In a way, maybe it's as well. If there had been a child, Teppo's family might have used him or her to make me stay in Finland after he was killed. Since I was alone, nothing held me back and I was free to go home."

Tattoo nodded. "I see what you mean. But it's still a shame. I think the boss would have been thrilled to be a grandfather." He grinned slyly, and Leslie laughed.

"That could very well be true. Well, I'm happy things are as they are, especially since there's no use wishing they could be changed. Hey, I just remembered something I wanted to ask you about. You scolded Patrick about some homework last night and called him 'Patrick Latignon' when you did. Why?"

"We gave the kids Solange's surname to protect them," Tattoo explained. "Like it or not, I'm famous throughout Europe and in quite a few other countries too. Solange is a fairly well-known name in France, but outside the country she's just another private citizen, so we felt it was better to give the children her name."

"I see," Leslie said. She glanced out the window again and fully noted the passing scenery for the first time. Already they were in the Parisian suburbs. "Is the gallery in the city proper, or what?"

"I started out renting a loft downtown," Tattoo said, "but now I have an exclusive building near the Champs-Élysées. We'll be changing trains a couple of times before we get there. I called the gallery and I understand from Etienne that the prince and his servant are due in anytime—we might find them already there."

He turned out to be right, and for a while he was kept busy with Prince Errico and Rogan Callaghan, leading them on a leisurely tour around the current selection in the gallery and keeping up a casual conversation with the prince. Leslie strolled along a few paces behind them, scanning the various paintings and other works of art in silence before the prince finally chose three paintings and a sculpture at great length. While he was making shipping arrangements with one of Tattoo's employees, Tattoo himself brought Leslie to the other end of the gallery and introduced her to the two employees to whom he had turned over the gallery's day-to-day operation, a married couple named Etienne and Aimée.

"So you are Mr. Tattoo's honorary niece?" Etienne inquired cheerfully. "If you only knew, mademoiselle, how much the m'sieur speaks of you!"

"I believe we know all there is to know about you," Aimée said teasingly. "Especially how difficult you had it when you first came to Fantasy Island." They all laughed; behind them, Rogan Callaghan turned and stared at Leslie with actual interest for the first time since he'd met her on Arcolos the previous morning. No one else noticed.

"Oh, is he telling stories at my expense?" Leslie asked and gave Tattoo a look of mock threat. "Do you want me to regale them with stories of your cousin Hugo and all those get-rich-overnight schemes he suckered you into?" That brought on more laughter, and Tattoo playfully swatted her arm.

Within the hour the prince was ready to leave, and he made a point of coming over to make his farewells to both Tattoo and Leslie. In the case of the latter, he kissed her hand yet again, causing Tattoo's eyebrows to shoot up far enough to nearly disappear beneath his hair. "My dearest Leslie, I do hope we shall meet again. Cari Michiko was so delighted to have you as our guest, and you certainly must bring some of your friends along the next time you come to visit us. You made her so happy, and I sincerely thank you. And Tattoo, mon ami, so very good to see you again! As always, you have an impeccable selection here."

"Nothing but the best," Tattoo replied smoothly, nodding at the prince. "You know we always look forward to your visits here, and we're always glad to be of assistance."

"The friendly accommodations alone bring me back, mon ami, indeed they do." Prince Errico beamed. "I shall return in approximately three months, of course. Perhaps you might consider a little reminder of Fantasy Island for Michiko, if I might be so bold as to presume on our friendship and business relationship? As a Christmas gift, of course."

Tattoo smiled faintly. "I'll consider it," he said. "Just tell me what you think she'd like, and I'll see what I can do."

"Done, mon ami, done," the prince said, beaming. "And now I am afraid we must be on our way back to our humble island. Now, where is that man?…Callaghan!"

Tattoo and Leslie watched him leave; Rogan Callaghan cast a glance at them over his shoulder in Errico's wake. Tattoo frowned curiously. "I never saw that other guy before."

"Michiko said Errico recently hired him," Leslie recalled. She frowned slightly, thinking again that there was something ever so vaguely familiar about him but unable to figure out just what it was. With a shrug, she put it out of her mind. "Well, so that's over with. Hey, do I see the top of the Eiffel Tower out there?"

That was their cue; she and Tattoo spent the next several hours exploring Paris. They had lunch in a café and went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, among a great many other places that Tattoo insisted Leslie had to see before leaving the City of Light. By the time he decided they had both seen enough, it was late afternoon and they were ready to return home. They both dozed on the train; but Tattoo, with the expertise of a native, came awake just before reaching their stop and shook Leslie back to consciousness. "Hey, sleepy, get up. I think tonight would be a good night to call the boss, don't you?"

"Sure, that'd be great," Leslie agreed with enthusiasm, shaking herself back to life. "I haven't been in touch with Father since I left home."