“What do you want from me?” he asked.
“Did you really know nothing about Lucy?”
“Not a thing. If I had, I would have put her somewhere safe myself. And now this useless doctor is dead, I’ve less of a chance than ever of finding the child—who should, I must point out, be raised by me.”
“You?” Cécile was all skepticism. “A bachelor? Living with his parents? You are fit for raising a little girl? Who, for all you know, is already happily settled in a comfortable home? Hubris, my dear Laurent. Hubris.”
He replied to her, but I did not hear the words. My attention was focused on the pile of manuscripts nearest to me, on the words scrawled at the tops of the pages and the marginalia on the sides. All written in the same handwriting I’d seen only hours before on Dr. Girard’s supposed suicide note. My heart thumping in my chest, I bent down and picked up the sheet.
“Written any suicide notes lately, Laurent?” I asked.
“How dare you?” He grabbed the paper from my hand.
“I thought I recognized the handwriting from when I was last in your room. So why did you kill him? Did he keep Edith’s baby? Did she fall in love with him? Were you jealous?”
He slapped me, hard, right across the mouth.
I stumbled as Cécile gasped and stepped towards him. Without hesitating, I stopped her, came forward myself, smacked him back, and watched a deep red mark develop on his cheek. He said nothing, but raised his hand to the spot. I resisted the urge to touch what I knew must be its twin on my own face.
“The paper was ripped out of a notebook, like the one lying there,” I said, pointing to a slim volume resting on top of the piano.
“Don’t touch that.” He stepped in front of me, blocking any progress I might try to make in pursuit of the object in question.
“Why are you so concerned if you’ve nothing to hide?” I asked.
“What did the note say?”
“It was a quotation from Hamlet. And a comment.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t near the asylum last night.”
“Did you write the note?” I asked.
“I’m not in the habit of depositing my writing with the possessions of dead men.”
“Then explain to me how Dr. Girard got it?”
“There’s nothing to explain. You can’t prove I wrote it—you don’t have it in your possession. If the police care to query me on the matter, I shall welcome them with open arms. They’ll find nothing.”
Something in his tone indicated with supreme strength the truth of his final statement. The police would find nothing, but only because Laurent would destroy anything that might be of use before they even thought to contact him. I was desperate to look in his notebook, but knew he wouldn’t let me. His handwriting could be identified by the police in any number of ways—but I didn’t need anything further to convince me who wrote the false suicide note. I wanted to read more, to find out why someone would do such a thing.
And why, after we’d learned the truth about Edith’s baby, her doctor—quite possibly the only person who knew the story in its entirety—had been killed. Had our investigation catalyzed more violence?
“Lucy is all that matters, Laurent,” I said. “We have to find her.”
“I’ve done nothing but try since you told me she’s alive,” he said, his voice low and rumbling. “All I know is that there was a man called Myriel who visited her.”
“What did you find out about him?” I asked.
“What do you know?” His eyes narrowed and darkened.
“We’re in possession of the belongings he left in his rooms near the asylum,” I said. “They’re remarkably interesting.”
“I need to speak to my father,” he said. “Forgive me for walking out on such an invigorating conversation, but I’ve nothing further to say to either of you.”
Cécile, intent on liberating Laurent’s notebook from its rightful owner, refused to return to the country with us. Colin forbade her to touch the book, but agreed that keeping her in the Priers’ house was a rational decision—she might observe something significant in the family’s behavior. He knew perfectly well, however, that she would be in possession of the journal the next time we saw her. George had managed to forge some sort of connection to Madame Prier by the time we left the house—she implored him to return for tea, but did not include Madeline in the invitation.
“She’s so like Madeline’s mother,” he said as we drove away from Rouen. “At least the way she was before we were married. Eccentric, yes, but charming all the same. How fortunate that she escaped my mother-in-law’s fate.”
“Was she able to offer you any useful insight?” I asked.
“Not a shred,” he said. “I do wish I could have met Monsieur Prier. He must be a character of his own. Where does he keep himself hidden?”
“Cozied up with his mistress much of the time,” Colin said.
“And their daughter.”
“Another daughter?” George asked.
“This one much younger than Edith and Toinette,” I said. Colin subtly jabbed my side. “Not that it’s any of our business, of course.”
“No, of course not,” George said, laughing softly as he turned to look out the window. “Must be something to have so many children.”
Discomfort prickled in the air, as each of us looked away from the rest. Each of us childless. Each of us carrying the small heartbreak of tiny losses.
None of us spoke again for the duration of the journey.
21 July 1892
Emily’s questions about the daughter of the Markhams’ gardener spurned me to inquire about the matter. The servants wouldn’t tell me a thing—no surprise there—but a visit to the boulangerie in Fréville resulted not only in a spectacular baguette stuffed with ham and Gruyère cheese, but also the story that circulated at the time. The child, it seems, did die on the property, and the good citizens of our village are convinced she haunts the area.
Ridiculous, of course. I’ve no time for wailing cries and misty apparitions. And ribbons, according to the story. The ghost, you see, has a propensity for dropping them wherever she goes. No doubt they’re supplied by every bored adolescent in the area.
Now that I think on it, I saw a ribbon crumpled on the ground when I was out riding some days ago. Blue, though I’m not sure the color is of any significance. I have a vague memory of Emily asking about ribbons in conjunction with the child. I do hope no one has polluted her mind with such nonsense. My opinion of her is much improved, but she’s still more vulnerable than I would like.
No one, however, could argue she is not a good teacher.
26
I was pleased, when we returned to Mrs. Hargreaves’s house, to find a letter waiting from Monsieur Leblanc. His update primarily served to inform me he’d learned nothing new, but he also asked if he could call soon, saying that he needed my assistance on a matter, but that it could wait until after the questions of Edith Prier’s death had been answered. The thought of someone needing me was more than a little flattering. Colin allowed me to assist him on occasion, but would have had no trouble carrying on in my absence.
Allowed. How I hated that word.
A hot fire burned in the sitting room’s enormous stone fireplace, the three of us snugly fortified against the damp, each hard at work. Normandy was giving us days that felt more like autumn than summer, but the cool weather wasn’t oppressive, not given the bright sun that managed to cut through the clouds often enough to remind us it was July. Mrs. Hargreaves and I had spent no small amount of time on Homer after dinner, and I was more enamored by the poet’s work than ever. I’d never before filled the role of teacher, and found that I learned as much while assisting my mother-in-law as I did studying on my own. More, perhaps, as the understanding it took to explain to her the rules of Greek grammar or to help her analyze of passages of the poem required more active and thorough thought than it took to study by myself. I adored every minute of it.
; “Ah!” Mrs. Hargreaves said. “I have it now—‘The wine urges me on, the bewitching wine, which sets even a wise man to singing and to laughing gently and rouses him up to dance and bring forth words which were better unspoken.’ I do like this, Emily.”
“I’m glad,” I said.
“What we need, Mother, is port,” Colin said. “It’s appropriate to what you’ve just read, and it’s Emily’s favorite.”
“I’m afraid I have none,” she said. “You’ll have to settle for cognac.” This may have been the first time a lady had not balked at my preference for drinking port, traditionally considered a gentleman’s beverage. My respect for my mother-in-law was increasing exponentially.
“I’ll expect you to have filled the hole in your cellar before our next visit,” Colin said, filling glasses for each of us as our conversation returned to the Priers.
“Laurent’s feelings for his sister go deeper than perhaps they ought,” I said. “Could he have crossed an unspeakable line? Could he have been jealous of Vasseur, and furious when he found out Edith had given birth to the child?”
“And killed her?” Colin asked. I nodded. “How would he have found out about the baby? Girard didn’t tell him.”
“He did seem surprised when we told him Lucy was alive,” I said. “But he may very well be an excellent actor. As soon as Edith went missing, he would have started to search for her. And that search may have uncovered the truth about the girl.”
“Wouldn’t it also have uncovered the girl?” Mrs. Hargreaves asked.
“Possibly,” Colin said. “But not necessarily.”
“Would he have been so angry that he’d actually kill the sister he loved? And in such violent fashion?” I frowned.
“He’s the only one in the family who kept visiting her,” Colin said. “He might have felt doubly betrayed—first that she took a lover, second, that she lied to him about the baby.”
“Did he not see her during her confinement?” Mrs. Hargreaves asked. “Surely even an ignorant man would take note of her condition.”
“It wouldn’t have been too difficult to hide,” Colin said. “She was in bed, and could have had a mountain of blankets over her. Laurent might have never noticed.”
“Which would have angered him all the more once he realized the doctor’s real game,” I said. “The note in Dr. Girard’s pocket is in Laurent’s handwriting. That’s solid evidence.”
“It may be in his handwriting,” Colin said.
“Yes,” I said. “But I’d stake my life on it. The police will confirm it.”
“We need more proof than just the note,” Colin said. “Even if Laurent did write it, someone else could have slipped it in the doctor’s pocket.”
“There’s also Vasseur,” I said. “We must find him.”
“I’ve persuaded the office of the Foreign Legion to give me the two addresses he’d given them,” Colin said. “But my subsequent inquiries turned up nothing, so it’s time for a personal visit.”
“Why don’t we go there tomorrow?” I asked.
“That won’t be necessary. You stay here and deal with Sebastian. We do have a bet, you know.”
“A murder is more significant,” I said.
“I’m not trying to give you useless tasks,” he said. “You know me better than to think that. I’m convinced your old friend has more of a connection to all this than we’ve figured out so far. He took Monet’s painting to and from the Markhams’—good fun for Sebastian, but I’m beginning to suspect he wasn’t in the neighborhood simply to follow you.”
“I wonder—” I stopped. I didn’t want to say more out loud. I wondered if Sebastian had Lucy. I wondered if he were Jules Vasseur. “How long do you think you can pacify me in this way?”
“Undoubtedly not long enough,” he said. The teasing rhythm of his words combined with the warm intensity in his eyes tugged at me deep inside. I wanted to lean forward and kiss him, to feel his arms around me, to hear him murmur soft words against my neck.
“I shouldn’t be gone more than a few days,” he continued.
“Perhaps when you come home you can buy me a pony if I’ve been a good girl,” I said, teasing him back.
“Don’t forget, Emily, I know you’re intellectually at least as capable as I am. I’m protecting you from nothing but physical weakness.”
His mother coughed. “‘It is tedious to tell again tales already plainly told,’” she read. “Simple sentence. Obvious truth. I’m glad you’ve brought me back to Homer, Emily.”
“So I’m to contact Sebastian?” I asked Colin after we’d retired to our room and he was helping me undo the long row of tiny buttons down the back of my dress, slipping them through their silk loops.
“I’m confident you’ll find him easily enough.” He kissed the back of my neck. “Buy something you think he’d like to steal.”
“It won’t be that difficult. I had the foresight to set up a method of contacting him,” I said, and explained to him how he’d given me his cravat to hang from the window. “It almost seems a pity, though. Tricking him into stealing something would have been much more fun. I could have had a day or two in Paris, shopping for just the right priceless item, irresistible to our favorite thief. You do realize if I did such a thing he would be eternally indebted to me. And that I would then call in the favor and have him join forces with the Crown—and you’d lose our bet.”
“A risk that would be worth taking,” he said. “Fortunately, however, your foresight has protected me from having to do so. But no more of this right now. If I’m to be away from you for days, my darling wife, I don’t want to spend our last hours together discussing the multitudinous charms of Sebastian Capet.”
“You don’t?” I asked. He was loosening my corset now. “Whatever else did you have in mind?”
“I thought perhaps we could play chess,” he said.
“What a pity there are no pieces in our room.” Free from my stays, I turned to face him and traced his lips with my finger. “And no board. You’ll have to find another way to amuse yourself.”
“Have you any suggestions?”
“None that do me credit,” I said.
“My favorite kind.” He pulled pins from my hair until it hung down my back. I kissed him.
“You’re a corrupting influence,” I said.
“Would you want any other sort of husband?”
And then, in an instant, every confused and conflicted complicated feeling I’d had for him over the past days vanished. I loved him, even when he wanted to protect me. Even when protection meant curbing my freedom. It wasn’t society or some set of arbitrary rules that drove him to hold me back—it was pure and simple love. Tenderness and care. A desire to not lose me before he had to. I melted into his arms and let him carry me to our bed.
It was perfect. Except for the tiniest, darkest part of my soul that was crying out, wishing I could protect him, too.
27
Rain started to fall at half eleven, so I bundled into a thick cloak and slipped into my sturdiest shoes before going to meet Sebastian at midnight. Before he’d left, I’d told Colin what I planned to do—I wasn’t about to hide anything from him—and now I made my way quietly though the house, stopping twice when I thought I heard footsteps, then starting again towards the door, opening it silently, and breathing a sigh of relief when I felt the sweet, wet air outside. I pulled up my hood in what, given the force with which the water was hitting the ground, was doomed to be a vain effort. A cloudy sky meant no moon, so I stepped carefully into the dark, not so much because I worried I would fall on the slick pavement in front of the house, but because everything around me made me want to jump.
The cool raindrops turned steamy as they hit the ground, releasing a disheartening mist to meander through the trees on the estate. Thunder rolled in the distance, and the only relief from the black night came from intermittent flashes of lightning. I’d considered bringing a lamp, but didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to
myself. The sound of the storm and its accompanying wind made it difficult to listen for footsteps, and this put my nerves further on edge. I knew Sebastian would come. But I should have liked to be able to listen for any further—and unwelcome—additions to our party.
I remembered times when I’d been afraid in London, when I feared the man who’d murdered my first husband might try to attack me next. As frightening as a city could be, with its narrow streets and darting shadows, the country scared me more. In town, a person was never truly alone. There were always servants or cab drivers or pedestrians on the street within shouting distance. Here, however, if I ventured far from the house, no one would hear me should I cry for help. Just as no one had heard Edith Prier’s screams when her murderer attacked her.
Which was why I had no intention of taking a single step beyond Mrs. Hargreaves’s gate. But even that felt too far from the warm comfort of her sprawling house. I shivered, wet from the downpour that only grew harder the longer I waited for Sebastian. Clinging to the iron railing posts in an attempt to stop my hands from shaking, I watched for my friend on the road, periodically turning around in case he was approaching me from behind, as he had previously.
“Kallista!” His whisper was harsh, and came from behind a tree a few paces from me. “Come here, quickly.”
Without hesitating, I obeyed.
“Someone followed me here,” he said. “We need to get you back inside.”
“What about you?” I asked.
“I’m afraid I may need to join you. Could your mother-in-law spare a room for me?”
This was hardly a question I wanted to pose to Mrs. Hargreaves so soon after relations between us had begun to thaw, but I saw no other option. “How did you get into the grounds?” I asked.
“Over the west wall,” he said. “I heard someone drop behind me less than a minute later.”
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