by Nell Goddin
Then someone grabbed her hand, spun her under his arm, and pressed her close. “Lapin!” she said, pushing him away.
“La Bombe! I have been patiently waiting for your arrival all night. When oh when is La Bombe ever going to arrive? I have said this to myself ten thousand times.”
“Pfft, you’ve said that to the last six women to come in.”
“Never!”
Neither of them was familiar with the song but they valiantly danced until the end of the song, Lapin showing more enthusiasm than Molly.
“You should eat something,” he told her. “It’s duck, like they serve every year. Why change something when it works, that’s what I always say.”
“Not a bad idea. First I think I’ll get a kir—”
“Allow me,” said Lapin, bowing low with a grand gesture of the arm, and then working his bulky self through the crowd.
I wish Ben were here, Molly couldn’t help thinking.
“Molls!” shouted a familiar voice. Molly turned around to see Frances and Nico, their arms entwined around each other, both beaming.
It was impossible not to smile back. “Having fun?” asked Molly.
“You should see the moves Nico’s got on the dance floor,” shrieked Frances. “He’s been practicing at home, as a secret surprise. Learning from youtube videos!”
“Well?” said Molly to Nico. “Show me what you got!”
Nico led Frances out to the center of the dance floor just as an electronic song started up that sounded like something composed by a computer. Nico stood absolutely still, then began moving various parts of his body along with the bass beat, isolating each part so that he magically seemed to become a robot right before their eyes, his limbs segmented and autonomous.
“I….” started Molly, impressed but disturbed.
“Isn’t he amazing?” said Frances dreamily, and then she went to Nico and he wrapped his arms around her and they slow-danced like a couple of ninth graders in their first infatuation.
Molly sighed. She kept scanning the crowd but not seeing anyone she knew. Where was Manette, Rémy, Constance and Thomas? Usually Molly was gregarious to a fault, but that night she felt out of step, and reluctant to go up to people whose faces were familiar but she hadn’t actually met.
And where was Lapin with that kir? She decided to go fetch one for herself, and squeezed through the crowd to the bar, where the always gloriously handsome Pascal was on duty.
“The usual, Madame Sutton?” he asked charmingly.
“Of course,” said Molly. “I hear the Baroness is here tonight?”
“She is! Right over there, no, to the left—”
Molly stood on tip toe and nodded. “Oh yay! I want to have a word with her.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Pascal. “Any progress yet?”
“I haven’t even begun! Slow down!”
“I have supreme confidence in you, Molly,” he said, and the real charm of Pascal was that he was not only beautiful but honest, so when he gave you a compliment, you could trust that it wasn’t just a pile of empty words.
“Thank you. And thanks for the kir, too.”
Pascal flashed a smile and began to chat with the old man who was next in line. The room was packed and Molly slowly made her way towards the Baroness, who was talking to a small group of people just on the edge of the dance floor.
“Bonsoir, Baroness,” Molly said, catching her eye.
“Oh please, Molly—call me Antoinette. When people use the title it makes me feel like we’re still in the Middle Ages!”
The others in the group tittered.
Molly saw that Antoinette was wearing a glamorous gown that fit her slender frame closely and gave her movements a sinuous grace. It was an odd color, in between yellow and green, that was flattering to her complexion, and the gazillions of tiny beads sewn into the fabric made her glow with reflected light. Yet her face, Molly thought, her face…it’s a shame she’s so plain. But what is this weird assumption I keep making—that if you’re rich you’re automatically supposed to be physically attractive? She shook her head as though to change the direction of her thoughts.
“I love your dress,” Molly said, leaning close to the Antoinette’s ear because the music had gotten louder.
“Thank you.” Antoinette sipped her drink and looked out at the dancers.
The song ended, and Frances saw Molly and started to come over with Nico.
“Allow me to present my best friends in Castillac,” Molly began as Frances approached. “This is Frances Milton, a childhood friend who has also chosen to live in Castillac full time. And this is—where did Nico go?”
Frances turned around and looked momentarily crestfallen. “I—no idea. He was right here a second ago. Oh well, you know how men are, he probably felt starved and ran off for another plate of food.”
Molly and Antoinette laughed politely. The three women all craned their necks looking for Nico, but he was nowhere to be seen.
10
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God—look!” said a young woman in a mini-dress. So Molly looked.
Pausing in the wide doorway was a heart-stoppingly gorgeous woman, her chin lifted slightly as she surveyed the crowd. Her glossy blonde hair spilled over her shoulder in artful waves, her darkened eyebrows framed her exotic eyes, her full lips were a sensuous red. But more than beauty, this woman had it: the kind of charisma that stopped a room dead. The music kept pounding but no one moved. All the faces in the crowd had turned to the doorway, mesmerized by the tall woman dressed simply in a silk shirt and dark, fitted trousers.
“That’s…who is that?” Molly asked.
“Esmé Ridding,” said the woman, looking at Molly as though she were mentally challenged. “Are you kidding me? The face of Chanel? Plus all those movies? Oh my God.” And she scurried off to get closer to the stunning celebrity who was taking her time in the doorway, an expert at knowing how to make an entrance with optimal impact.
“There you are,” said Lapin, appearing at Molly’s elbow carrying a kir and a glass of local red for himself. “I’ve been looking all over for you. The Gala is so crowded this year, more people than ever. You saw who just came in?”
Molly tossed back the rest of her drink and took the new one from Lapin. “Thanks, pal,” she said. “So what in the world is Esmé Ridding doing in Castillac?”
“The Baron’s mistress, what else?”
“Wait, what?”
“Do I have to tell you everything?” said Lapin with a grin. “Oh yes, the affair’s been going on for months. In all the tabloids. Don’t you look at the papers?”
“I tend to go with Le Monde.”
“Ah,” he said rolling his eyes. “If you want to keep up on what’s really going on, you’ve got to read all the trashy papers that are willing to break the laws about spying on people. Sure, they publish some made-up stuff to boost circulation, but there are some nuggets of gold in there every so often.”
“But here’s the thing, Lapin. I actually feel sorry for celebrities. Once you hit a certain level of fame, you can’t even go to the épicerie for a candy bar without being photographed and the world mocking you for it. And God forbid something embarrassing happens.”
“Remember when the Princess of Liechtenstein tripped going up the steps to the palace and her dress flew up and we saw she was wearing Little Kitty undergarments? I live for moments like those,” he said dreamily.
Molly shook her head, smiling. “You are a complicated man, Lapin.”
“Indeed. Esmé is stunning, you must admit. Makes me think she was part of the Baron’s hoard, you know? He possessed La Sfortuna, and wanted another prodigious jewel for his collection.”
“Do you really think anyone is like that? Or are you talking sort of metaphorically?”
“Oh yes, people are like that. Literally. Men especially. I see it all the time in the antiques world. People get a fixation on something—a type of furniture, or jewelry, or maybe a particular artist
’s work—and they don’t just want to own a piece or three and get the pleasure of having some nice things in their house. No, they want all of it. And they want to keep other people away from it, too. That’s part of their motivation.”
“And control? Like if they own every last piece, it belongs to them completely. No one else has any say at all.”
Lapin nodded and sipped his wine. “A lot of messed up people in this world, La Bombe.”
“So did one of his women kill the Baron?” asked Molly, almost to herself. A famous mistress suggested at least the possibility that his wife could have done it. Or Esmé herself. Maybe the actress wanted the emerald and the Baron refused to give it to her. Maybe she wanted him to leave Antoinette and marry her.
A world of possibilities, really—and Molly couldn’t wait to get started.
11
The morning after the Gala, promptly at ten o’clock, Molly rode her scooter up the winding drive to Château Marainte to meet with the Baroness. She passed the empty gatehouse and the cottage where Georgina and Angelo lived, the scooter struggling a bit on the steep incline. Once at the top of the hill, the drive flattened out and she went through the allée of plane trees, trying not to run off the road from looking at the incredible view, the green patchwork of farmland and villages of the Dordogne.
When she reached the parking area outside the walls of the Château, Molly stopped and looked up. It was a forbidding sort of place, clearly built for defense and not for beauty, the stones not the warm and inviting golden limestone typical of the area but a dark gray granite. She wondered what it was like to live in such a dreary place in the twenty-first century—would it make you defensive and wary to live in a building built for war? Would it make a person colder or harder of temperament than someone who lived in a cozy, cheerful place with lots of light? And how on earth did they heat the place in winter?
Molly walked the scooter across the bridge over the dry moat. She had a vague memory of alligators in moats and shivered even as she guessed those memories came more from cartoons than historical fact. The courtyard was more welcoming than the outside of the Château had been. The yellowing leaves of birches fluttered in the breeze, the gravel was neatly raked, the parterres still showing plenty of life since they had not yet had a hard frost. Asters bloomed in profusion and Molly noticed some flowers she wasn’t familiar with, some sort of autumn bulb, possibly?
“Madame Sutton,” said a voice, and Molly turned quickly to see the Baroness walking towards her with a border collie at her side.
“Please, call me Molly! Your home…well, I can’t even find the words! It’s magnificent. Of course, for an American it’s just so outside my experience to imagine living in history like this. Has it been in your family forever?”
“Not mine, but my husband’s, yes. The Fleurays have been at Château Marainte since sometime in the seventeenth century. Right around the time your country was being settled by the English.”
“Incredible. I suppose we have families in the U.S. that go back that far, who know their history, but for the most part we are much more fractured. I couldn’t even name my great-grandparents, which now that I think of it, seems downright horrible of me.”
Antoinette laughed. “Well, as with anything, there are pluses and minuses. Ancestry can be a sort of unhealthy fetish that distracts one from the present.” She squatted down to pet the dog, running her hand down the border collie’s back and then ruffling her ears.
Molly suddenly remembered the dramatic entrance of Esmé Ridding the night before, and wondered how to bring it up without seeming unforgivably rude.
“Well,” said Antoinette, “come inside, and let me explain what I would like you to do. Would you like coffee, or a cup of tea?”
“Coffee would be lovely.”
They walked across the courtyard and through a door that opened into a small dining room, and from there into the kitchen. In the center of one wall was an enormous fireplace, almost tall enough for Molly to stand up in and more than two meters wide. A pair of massive andirons held some charred logs and a black pot—a classic witch’s model—hung from an iron hook.
“Wow,” said Molly.
Antoinette smiled. “If you’d ever like to roast a whole boar, we can handle that here.”
“I see that you could! I’ve never tried roast boar. I bet it’s amazing. Do you eat a lot of game? Did your husband do a lot of hunting?”
Antoinette looked momentarily taken aback and Molly reminded herself to proceed with more sensitivity and not pepper the Baroness with so many questions.
“He was an avid hunter, yes. He lived for it, in fact.”
Molly bit her lip to keep from talking, hoping Antoinette would elaborate, but she was giving her attention to the espresso machine and said nothing further for the moment.
“Thanks,” Molly said when Antoinette gave her the small cup and saucer.
“You’re quite welcome. Let’s go in the lounge where we’ll be more comfortable. Come on, Grizou, you may join us.” They went into the lounge, a small room with a television and two sofas that had seen better days, and several Turkish throw rugs. Molly was surprised to see that the room was comfortable and pleasant, and did not feel a bit like part of a fortress despite having only one small window and being made completely of gray stone. The dog followed Antoinette and curled up at her feet. “Molly, I know you have been in Castillac barely a year, so perhaps there are bits and pieces of local gossip and history you have not yet heard. I will need to fill you in if you are to undertake the task I have in mind. By any chance have you heard of La Sfortuna?”
“The emerald?”
“Indeed. So you have heard of it?”
“Just barely. All I know is…that it’s big. And valuable?”
“Yes to both, though I cannot put an exact price on it. It belonged to my husband and was, for sentimental reasons, one of his most treasured possessions. So treasured, in fact—ironically enough—that he absolutely refused to keep it in a safe place. His friends and I begged him to put it in a safe deposit box but he would have none of it. He liked, much of the time, to wander about with the stone in his pocket where he could caress it anytime he liked.”
“I get that. I mean, what’s the point of having something beautiful if it’s going to be locked up where you can’t even see it?”
“You and Marcel would have gotten along famously.”
Molly listened for bitterness or jealousy in that remark, but heard none.
“The problem is, with Marcel gone, we have no idea where the emerald is. It was not in his pockets when he died, so either he had hidden it away somewhere—which he did from time to time—or it has been stolen. What I would like to do,” continued Antoinette, “if you are amenable, is hire you to use your prodigious detective skills to figure out where it is hidden, if it is. I’ve looked everywhere I can think of and can’t find it anywhere. As you might imagine, it’s worth far too much money to remain lost.”
“Understood,” said Molly, trying not altogether successfully to hide her disappointment at the job Antoinette was giving her. Then she decided the hell with it, she would speak her mind. “I…I’ll admit, Antoinette, I thought you were going to ask me to investigate your husband’s murder. It was murder, right? Not an accident? If you don’t mind my asking?”
Antoinette bowed her head. “Not an accident, no.” She looked up and Molly could see her eyes were reddish and damp. “Let me be clearer. I’m asking you to find the emerald not instead of Marcel’s killer, but because it’s a necessary first step in that process. The jewel is the key,” she said in a low voice. “I believe the chance is fairly good that he was killed by someone who wanted it, and that finding it might bring that person into the open, force his hand so to speak. And not only that—do you know any Italian? La Sfortuna…it means misfortune. Not exactly subtle, whoever gave it that name. Maybe it sounds silly to you, but the emerald…it truly does seem to be cursed, and believe me, I’m not a superstit
ious person, I don’t go in for that sort of thing normally. Let me explain a bit of the history.
“The jewel came to this family through Marcel’s brother-in-law, Gianni Conti. You’ve heard of him? Fabulously wealthy, a captain of industry in Milan, an aristocratic family going back many centuries. I do not know precisely how he got the emerald, but back in the fifteenth century it belonged to none other than Lucrezia Borgia, and surely you have heard of her.”
Molly nodded, racking her brain for details. “A lot of poisonings?”
“Oh yes, although many of the reports are unverified. Her enemies were legion and it is difficult to sort out their attacks from the truth. But in any case, it is clear that Lucrezia was a powerful woman and she did not always use the gentlest means to achieve her goals, shall we say. The emerald was the central jewel in a famous necklace of hers—it shows up in at least one portrait that I know of, currently hanging in the Uffizi.”
“That’s some story,” murmured Molly.
“There’s more,” said Antoinette with an ironic smile. “Fast forward to the 1990s. Marcel was devoted to his sister, Doriane. She was ten years younger than he, and he believed she could do no wrong.”
Ah, thought Molly, now there’s a note of bitterness.
“So Doriane marries Gianni Conti, they live a life of great luxury—although to give her credit, she was actually something of an intellectual, always had her head in a book. But Gianni wanted to show her off and was always dragging her to Gstaad or Cannes, to the latest jet-set party. In any case, to give you the short version of this long story—Gianni and Doriane were killed in an airplane crash in the Alps, almost twenty years ago now. That is when Marcel came to own La Sfortuna, as an inheritance from his sister. Excuse me if this sounds, oh I don’t know—it does sound absurd, there’s no getting around it—Marcel seemed to treasure that stone as though it were the embodiment of Doriane’s soul. As though by keeping it in his pants pocket he was holding her there as well, keeping her close to him. It seemed to give him a great deal of comfort, though he would tell anyone that her death had broken his heart.