by Baird Wells
He absorbed her point, understanding it all at last. “Someone claimed your parents, buried them before that could occur.”
She nodded. “The street sweep, if I had to wager, with Beltran’s help. Fouche may have been truthful, and the men cleared them from the dressmaker's door. And then Beltran kept their secret for a decade, protecting my parents’ remains from Napoleon's wrath.”
The last of his doubt washed away. Knowing a little of Beltran's nature, the story no longer seemed a giant series of coincidences. “He likely had no idea where to find you afterward, if your uncle's intervention was as convoluted as you say.”
Olivia nodded. “Madame Toulon, maybe? He must have found her, learned enough to begin tracing my path.”
An expression softened her face. Not happiness or joy, but something like peace. She stood away from the wall and reached for him. “Take me in?”
Overcome suddenly, for a moment he could only stare at their joined hands while the world passed by all around. Then he pulled her close, pressing a kiss to her flushed cheek.
* * *
Cool shadows fell across the Madeleine's green mounds. Shadows of high cypress trees reached over mausoleum roofs like gentle fingers, soothing the weary spirits sealed within. High walls and thick hedges kept outside sounds of the living at bay, blanketing them in stillness. Olivia tried not to think about the swaying stalks of viridian grass above the black loamy soil, spongy beneath her heel, lush because it had been fed by the blood of those laid under her feet.
They cut between two shattered caskets, rough stone slabs violated long ago, testified by clumps of moss softening each crack. Ty guided them to the back wall, the firm steady pressure of his fingers reassuring against clamminess born of nerves. She was grateful for his presence now, grateful for him, and as they picked between the wall and blank, weathered headstones, Olivia gave silent thanks.
As they walked, her eyes darted everywhere, straining so hard for the clues Aguirre had given that her temples ached before they had gone halfway. Finally, they reached a corner where the south and east walls intersected. Nothing was as the priest had described. A gray stone partition cut the corner's angle, the back wall of a long demolished crypt, judging by its height and width. It couldn’t be more than seven feet in both directions, were she to guess. Its only purpose now seemed to be as a brace for woody stalks, underpinning a shrubbery that appeared to have forgotten, then remembered to grow a hundred times. Holes in the waxy leaf cover revealed bits of the wall’s face. It gathered, twisty and root bound at the base, trying and failing on both sides to blend with a spindlier, more sophisticated climber.
Disappointed, she stepped back to study the horticultural mess. Had Aguirre misunderstood Beltran's directions? Had Beltran been truthful with his confessor, or was she on another fruitless expedition? She glanced at Ty, standing and fanning himself with his top hat, frowning with equal concentration at the wall. “I suppose we should check the other corner,” she offered, afraid to get her hopes too high.
Ty held up a hand but said nothing. He moved to the left, then right ends of the partition, drawing several deep breaths at each as a breeze shook leaves overhead. “Do you smell that?” he asked finally.
“No.” At least, she hadn't until a few paces brought her even with him, face nearly buried in the shrub. Then it tickled her nose at last: the oily, heady musk of a rose bush in full bloom. She breathed again, at war with trusting her nose or her eyes. “But where...”
In answer to her question, Ty moved along the wall, jumping at intervals for a handhold. Brambles caught his clothes; he winced on another attempt, shaking fragments of sharp stone from his glove. He leaned against a fence column, searching their obstacle. “There has to be a way over it.”
“You could boost me,” she offered, chest aching at an eagerness to see behind.
“No.” Ty chewed his lip, slouched against his column. “This weed,” he kicked at the shrub, “grows up and over to the outside wall. It's a giant tangle.”
Fighting her excitement, Olivia drew a deep breath and looked hard at their problem for a moment. She searched for anything unusual or remarkable. Nothing unique jumped out, just a lower section of the shrub more brown and barren than the rest, near the old crypt's right-hand angle. Leaning in close, she searched stones behind the patch, pressed against a few where the mortar was especially crumbled. It occurred to her that no roots grew beneath the brown patch; it was formed by plants joined from either side of a nearly egg-shaped slab. The last remaining section of an old crypt floor, the tan chunk of stone was seated deep in the ground, bordered with a ring of dry soil. Removing her bonnet, Olivia tossed it to the grass and poked her head between spindly branches.
Ty, curiosity obviously piqued, leaned through beside her. “What are you about in here?”
“Look at that,” she breathed. Leaning down, Olivia wrapped her fingers over the stone's smooth back edge, feeling about. After a moment, her fingers poked into a hole which seemed made for the purpose. Her glove caught the slab's rough underside, and she pulled. It wasn’t as thick as it had appeared; it was a clever trick, burying it deep into the soil. She raised the stone with hardly any strain, and Ty caught its other end, flipping it over toward them. It landed in a bare patch, precisely where roots no longer grew.
“I'll be damned,” whispered Ty, peering beside her at a hole.
The hole must have been six or seven feet deep, deep enough for a man to drop in and then crouch. The passage wasn’t much longer than the crypt wall; sun spilled in to light it from the back side.
Ty held out one hand, tugging back branches with his other. “After you.”
When she didn't immediately move, he leaned farther around, nearly in her face. “Olivia, what are you doing?”
“Give me a moment,” she bit back. “I have a natural human aversion to jumping into a cemetery hole.”
“Afraid I might close you in?”
She scowled at a cheeky arch of his brow, then got down on her backside to dangle feet inside. The drop was short, and she was surprised to find on landing that it was not a hole at all, but more of a sunken doorway. A shallow, well-worn dirt and gravel path sloped up ahead of her, coming back to ground level beyond the wall.
Ty's boots struck behind her with a thump. “Sod this...whole...bloody...”
Hands smacked at clothes, and Olivia glanced back to find him brushing a scuff of grit from his reddening forehead.
“Will you make it?”
“I'm managing,” he grumbled, glancing around them.
Gaining the slope, she got her first real glimpse of the secret grotto.
The rosebush. It claimed dominion over the entire outer south wall. Fat ruffled blossoms faded from a pale blush to crisp white, bathing the small space in its delicious, sweet aroma.
To their left, the wider portion of the space, were two rectangles formed by a border of stones. Gray river stones and smooth white quartz, obviously gathered by hand and placed with care. Crudely chipped limestone crosses presided at the head of each grave. Into one was scratched 'C LV', her mother's initials. The other bore her father's. Taking a last step to the top of the ramp, Olivia turned and seated herself on a narrow easement of earth bridging the makeshift tomb's left and right sides.
Ty crouched before her so that they were eye to eye.
At first, she could only nod, torn between looking and taking it all in or closing her eyes to stop a swimming between her temples. “I'm all right. It's not...” She couldn't think of the words, instead patting a hand to her breast for a moment. “It's not a hole anymore.” Leaning forward, she pressed her forehead to Ty's. “It hurts, but it's not a hole anymore.”
His fingers buried in the hair at her nape, warm against skin she swore had been chilled all day. “What can I do?” he whispered.
“Just sit with me for now. I just want to sit awhile.”
Nodding, Ty raised a leg past her, stepping down in a narrow space on the grotto's sm
aller side. Dirt skittered over wood, rattling with a hollow sound. He froze, and she sat up.
“What was that?”
Ty leaned down, brushing a hand over something set into the ground. “More importantly, what is this?”
Getting almost on her hands and knees in their cramped quarters, Olivia arched forward to see what he was seeing. A plank, nicked and weathered, one edge splintered. Flat stones pinned three of its corners; Ty's boot had dislodged a fourth.
A third grave. Olivia stared, mind racing. No initials, but when Ty swept again, fine grit cleared from a rough carving chipped into the board's face. A U-shaped shield pierced by five small dots.
“Who else is here?” she wondered aloud, not expecting Ty to answer.
He traced the shield with an index finger. Not a curious path, but with an ease of familiarity. He whispered something, drowned out by a rushing of leaves overhead.
“What?” she gasped, leaning closer, fixed on his face while he stared at the grave. “What did you say?”
“La Porte,” he rasped again, hardly louder than before. Then he folded onto a strip of grass beside the marker, flattened his palm to it, and was silent.
It was new, the hole beneath the plank. Pale shoots of grass were just reclaiming its lip. Judging by the rocks, Beltran had obviously intended to craft a more permanent memorial. Moving Philipe's remains must have been the man's last task before he died.
She felt a sudden and overwhelming loss. More than anything, she wished that Beltran was alive so that she could thank him. For everything.
Leaning out over the grave, she wrapped arms around Ty, who crushed her against his side. She couldn't guess how long they stayed that way. Past when her shoulders tired, well after her knees had begun to ache.
Ty was the first to concede, no doubt cramped in his small nook. “What next? I’ll take care of whatever you need… Just ask.”
Her first thought was that her half-brother should be told. Then a chill ran down her spine. She stared at their graves, at a loss. “I will have to separate them.”
“What?”
“All this time, I envisioned them ending up somewhere together. My brother or my father’s widow will claim his remains.” Olivia swallowed a lump in her throat. “My mother will have to be separated from him.”
Ty brushed a hand up the wall, glancing around. “Would it be so terrible, leaving them here?” He patted Philipe's grave with a gentle hand. “Private and peaceful. In good company.”
A struggle twisted up her gut. Jules had been someone else's father, too. Someone who may have looked just as long and hard, agonized as she had. She nodded, shaking an idea into place. “I will write to my brother, tell him what I've found and that I don't intend to interfere with what stands now. I will leave the decision to him.”
Ty brushed wisps of hair from her face, cradling her cheek. “He’s a good man, Olivia. Someday I think you should meet him.” He kissed the tip of her nose, and a sense of calm relief nearly overwhelmed her. “He'll handle things fairly.”
Ty's reassurance felt like a conclusion, and she stood up. He followed, dusting his trousers and then plucking a blossom from its vine and holding it out to her. “A memento.”
Shaking her head, she dismissed his offer. “I'll be back. I will.”
“I know you will,” he chided, pressing the rose into her palm. “Just take it.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“Do you want to go in? I can take you,” offered Ty.
They had walked Paris in almost complete silence for an hour. She assumed they had been wandering, but now as she stared up at the Tuileries, suspected Ty of engineering their destination. The palace’s warm ivory facade glowed in afternoon sunlight, evoking happy memories for the first time in ages.
She smoothed a hand over a rough stone pediment of Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe, a reasonable miniature of the larger one farther west. Both were ugly, in her opinion. Both monuments to Napoleon's brutality displayed for all to see. To look upon it now felt like being slapped and then asked to applaud.
Olivia shook her head, and stared up through its heavy iron gate at the Tuileries. “I can't.”
Ty started beside her, grasping her arm. “Why not? Therese is waiting, and the king.”
She brushed the arch again and then stepped back, filling the space with an ocean of distance. “On the other side is a time that no longer exists. Not for me.” Tears caught in her throat, strangling her words for a moment. She did want to go in, and she wanted things to be the same. No violence, no horrible memories. For mama and papa to be waiting in their apartments, reading the paper and watching birds in the garden. Memories slipped between her fingers into a heap of ashes.
She backed farther away from the arch. “Napoleon built this as a gate, but he might as well have built a wall.” She took his hand. “There's nothing for me here anymore. Take me home.”
Ty wrapped their arms together and pressed her close to his side. She leaned into it, drawing comfort from his touch.
Olivia gathered herself as they walked. There was no forgetting the past, but maybe there was a way to see it differently. Rather than being driven from the Tuileries, she would think of it as a choice. The arch was a wall of sorts, a line between her life without, and now with, Ty.
The Paris crowds were loud, wild. Weeks had not dulled celebrations that were a general fervor punctuating the public's every waking moment. It was a relief, having Ty take her home. She longed for a few moments of relative peace and quiet.
Passersby were so effuse that she nearly missed a voice from behind when they stopped at Rue de Jardins waiting to cross the street. It was the feeling of eyes on her back more than recognizing that the words were aimed at them.
A voice came again, throaty and velvet, spinning her around in curiosity.
“Snobé par mon propre fils? En vérité, je suis à Paris.” Snubbed by my own son? Truly I am in Paris.
“Mrs. Elliot.” Ty reached out and grasped one long-fingered glove with a grin. “Mama.”
Mrs. Elliot threw her a glance. “Grace will suffice.”
Mama? Olivia could hardly believe her ears, let alone her eyes. Every inch of the woman was elegant. Chocolate-striped, cream satin worn head to toe emphasized a figure at least as tall as her own. She was topped with a wide, crowned, brown velvet hat that might have been out of fashion on a woman less classic. Instead, it capped a sweep of raven locks turning snowy white that framed almond eyes and a complexion that were both equally dark. It was a struggle, picturing the lady before her as the mother of her fair-haired, light-eyed Tyler Burrell.
More than her looks, she moved with a confidence that bordered on seductive. It was easy to see how she was a woman who had caught the eye of a prince or two. Olivia could imagine her perched straight-backed in a brocade chair, sipping tea and trading gossip down her nose, commanding the attention of all those around her.
Then, in the middle of a crowded Paris street, Grace reached out and grabbed her son in a desperate hug. Olivia was won heart and soul by the gesture.
Ty held his mother away and looked her over with the same outrageous flattery he might use on a dear friend's wife. “I was told you had left Paris, yet here you are.”
She frowned, pursing kind, thin lips. “And if I leave a place, I may never come back? What an outrageous rule!”
Olivia smiled, starting to see something of Ty in his mother.
Ty was smiling, too. “It’s just strange. I rather think wartime Paris suits your temper better.”
“What a rude accusation, and in front of your lovely guest.”
It felt good to be remembered. Ty, for his part, did look sheepish. Turning, he put a hand to Olivia’s back, gently pushing her forward. “Mama, Miss Olivia Fletcher.”
Grace's head was already shaking. Olivia stared at her hem while the woman's eyes raked her up and down. “That may be what you call yourself, but I know your face.”
“I live in London,” Olivia
mumbled. “My uncle is Portsmouth.”
Two fingers pressed beneath her chin, raising her face. “And your mother is Charlotte. Was,” she amended. “La Valette. Isn't that what she was called, before she took up with your father?”
“It was.” She kept a neutral face, unable to tell if she was being judged.
Grace smiled and took her hand away. “I liked her, though Jules kept her to himself. Never allowed her to attend my dear friend Du Barry's parties.” Sighing, Grace nodded at something silently decided. “Probably wise, in hindsight. Burrell, your mouth is hanging open.”
“I… we…” Ty shook himself. She held back a laugh at his absolute discomposure. “We apparently have much to talk about. As usual.”
“So we do, but I cannot keep you from such lovely company. You both will come around and see me tomorrow evening. No, evening after next.”
Ty, patting at his pockets, looked to her and spoke to his mother. “Where are you staying?”
“Tonight is dinner with Wellington. I have a wager with Lady Richmond that I can get him to draw me a battle map on his trouser leg.”
Olivia laughed, as much at Ty's wide-eyed gape as at Grace's bet.
She sighed as if the weight of the world were on her shoulders. “And tomorrow night a grand fete at the palace. I am not especially eager but seem to be the only one who can tell the king to go to bed when gout has made him cranky.”
Ty hadn't seemed to hear a word his mother had said, pleading with both hands. “Wait here with Olivia. I'm going to find a pencil and some damned –” He sighed. “Just wait here.” In a few long strides he disappeared into a bookseller's one door over.
Olivia, for her part, smiled at Grace, having no idea what to say and trying to fit the woman's puzzle pieces together.
Grace cocked her head, looking her over again, and smiled. “It shows. The way you walk together. The way he looks at you.”
Ty hadn't introduced her as his wife; in fact, they hadn't told anyone. She didn't volunteer the information now. Instead, she told the most important truth: “I love him. Very much.”