by Liz Carlyle
Worse, she had not seen Adrian in days, and she could feel the distance between them. He had not been at dinner, and last night Luc had remarked that his old suite in St. James’s had come empty again. Adrian was avoiding her, Grace sensed, and in her darker moments, she began to fear she had stirred up in him something he did not want to face—and but for her, would not have needed to.
“There, there,” said Anisha, patting her lightly on the back. “It cannot be as bad as all that, Grace. Have heart, my dear. It will all work out eventually, I do promise you.”
Confused, she lifted her face from Anisha’s shoulder. “B-B-But he’s dead!” she said through her hitching sobs. “How can it work out?”
Anisha’s face fell. “No, no, it will not,” she agreed squeezing both her hands. “You are quite right about poor Mr. Holding.”
At last Grace sat back on her heels again, dabbing away at her eyes with her pocket handkerchief. “Oh, Anisha, do forgive me,” she said. “I am not quite myself.”
“Of course, how could you be?” Anisha smiled gently, then smoothed her hands over the leather gun case. “Tell me about these,” she went on. “Your father must have loved them very much.”
“Yes, he did.” Grace flashed a watery smile. “When I was perhaps fourteen, Mamma had someone bring them back from America as an anniversary gift. He loved them so much, I could not bear to part with them.”
Anisha crossed her legs on the carpet in that odd way her brother had, then lifted a small wooden box Grace had left perched on the ledge in the trunk. “And what is this?”
“Some of Mamma’s jewelry,” said Grace. “Small things mostly, but all Papa could afford. They were given, though, with great love. Let me show you.”
And bit by bit, Anisha coaxed her from her gloom by turning Grace’s attention to the trunk and allowing her to let go some of the grief. Save for her tears at Mr. Holding’s grave, Grace realized, she had not cried since leaving France and her father’s funeral mass.
Eventually, when half the contents of the trunk lay spread about the carpet around them, and a dozen little stories had been told, Anisha caught her hand and squeezed it again. “You need to simply accept, Grace, that you have had a couple of very hard years,” she said. “You should, perhaps, cry more often. Not less.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
But Anisha had opened Grace’s hand on her knee and was lightly tracing her finger over Grace’s palm, her expression pensive. “You have had to leave your beloved Algeria to take your ailing father home to die,” she said. “But you faced it, and you went on to face a new job in a new place, then you faced the prospect of a new but uncertain future with Mr. Holding. And when you thought that settled, fate dashed it all to pieces again. And now you are here, with Adrian and all his darkness to deal with.”
“Oh, Anisha, it’s not—”
But Anisha raised a forestalling hand. “Believe me, Grace, when I say I know something of tragedy and sudden change,” she said. “It wears one’s emotions to a bloody nub, no matter how brave we may appear on the outside.”
She returned her gaze to Grace’s hand, drawing her finger down the deep line that hooked down the center of her palm, then made a tch-tching sound. “See all these little lines crisscrossing everywhere?” she said. “This is just what I am talking about. They come from the strain in your life. Your sorrows, if you will.”
Grace leaned over to look, then sighed. “Well, Anisha, at least they are still on my hand, not my face,” she managed. “Yet.”
At last, they both laughed again.
Anisha’s finger ran over one of the fleshy mounds of the palm. “And this—this is Venus. It represents Shakti, the great, divine mother.” She looked up slyly. “My dear Grace, your passion is impressive—a little too impressive. Have a care that your sensual appetites do not bring you to grief.”
Grace felt her face flame with heat. “I fear it may already be too late,” she muttered.
At that, Anisha gently closed Grace’s hand. “This is too much for one day,” she said. “If you will permit me, I will do this at greater length after I have charted your stars.”
“Why not?” Grace knew nothing of astrology, or whatever it was called, but according to Adrian, it clearly mattered to his sister. “I will put myself in your hands, Anisha. Perhaps I shall learn something.”
Anisha smiled faintly. “Then write down the date and precise place of your birth,” she said, “and the time, please, as near as you know it.”
Grace cast a glance at the trunk. “It is written in there somewhere.”
“Excellent,” said Anisha. “Find it, then I will be able to consult the stars with great exactitude. And in this way, I will be able to tell you precisely when you should next go to my brother’s bed.”
“Ça alors!” Grace uttered. “Anisha!”
“What?” Anisha blinked innocently. “You have not, I hope, given him up? Raju will not take it gracefully. No, you must go to his bed at the time when his mind is most clear and his prana is abundant. Go, and show him that overdeveloped Venus, and ask him what is to be done for it.”
Grace imagined her face was cherry red. “Really, Anisha,” she said. “Here, if you are so full of mischief and energy, help me finish going through this trunk.”
“Of course.” Anisha uncrossed her legs and leapt up with ease. “What are you looking for?”
Grace knelt and peered down into it. Mostly books and bundles of papers remained. “I’m not absolutely certain,” she admitted. “Something I saw as a child—a book or perhaps a drawing? I think I shall know it when I see it. Let’s just unload everything bit by bit.”
“Loose papers first,” declared Anisha. “I shall get them out, and you sit down and sort. This thing—was it a certain color?”
“Not that I can recall.” Grace began to go through the first pile of detritus passed down to her. “But do you remember, Anisha, that old legend about the Guardians?”
Anisha looked over her shoulder and flipped her long, silk scarf back into place. “About the little girl being kidnapped? And how they rode onto the Île Saint-Louis after her?”
“Oui, and then the bridge collapsed.” Grace scowled at her papers. “I didn’t mention it to your brother, but something has been nagging at me. And it’s the oddest thing.”
Apparently catching something in Grace’s tone, Anisha turned slowly around. “Yes?”
“I had an ancestor who almost died in a bridge collapse—a Scottish ancestor—and according to family lore, he was left for dead in Paris.”
Anisha froze, eyes wide. “Truly?”
“Eventually he recovered, and may even have returned home for a time. But I believe he died in Paris—Papa once said something about his tomb. I cannot quite recall.”
“It makes one wonder how many bridges there are in Paris,” said Anisha.
“More than half a dozen,” said Grace pensively. “But how many, over the centuries, could have collapsed?”
“Good question.” Anisha set the next pile of papers down. “And this thing we are looking for, has it something to do with that ancestor?”
Here, Grace was compelled to lift both hands. “I do not know,” she said, “but that symbol—the golden cross—I know I’ve seen it somewhere. Somewhere in childhood. And since I was raised mostly in North Africa, isn’t it more likely what I saw was something my father already had?”
“Very likely,” said Anisha, hefting out another load. “Let’s sort the books first, for they shall go much faster.”
The sixth book Anisha handed out—a slender, crumbling volume of faded red leather—instantly struck a chord with Grace.
“This looks familiar,” she murmured, turning it over. The book had once been deeply embossed in gold, but much of it had worn away, and the cover was all but rent from the spine. Still, it looked beautiful—and costly.
Anisha knelt beside her. “What is it?”
“A bréviaire,” she said. “Or a
sort of prayer book. It is in Latin, of course.”
Gently, Grace flipped it open, and there it was, emblazoned upon the frontispiece, hand-colored in brilliant shades of red and blue. In this version, there was no thistle. The Latin cross was illuminated in shimmering gold, positioned above a crossed quill and sword, the letters F.A.C below.
“Good Lord, the Fraternitas Aureae Crucis!” Anisha whispered, brushing her finger over it. “And look! What does this say?”
Excited, Grace turned the book to show her. On the top right corner of the title page, in a spidery, cramped hand, someone had written his name and address. “Sir Angus Muirhead,” she murmured, “Rue de la Verrerie.”
Beyond that, however, there was nothing to indicate who Muirhead had been or how he had come to own the book, though the pages looked well thumbed. The publication date was given as 1670, and within, the book was beautifully illustrated in brilliant hues of red, blue, and gold.
“Muirhead,” Anisha repeated. “Is that a Scots name? Could he be your ancestor?”
Grace sighed. “Angus is a Scots name, I believe,” she said. “I suppose he is a relation, or Papa would not have had the book, but oh, I do so wish I had listened more as a child!”
“Is there a family Bible, perhaps?”
Grace laid the prayer book down. “It’s possible my uncle has one. And that address is near the Place de Vosges, just round the corner from his house. The house where my father and many generations before him were born. Is that not odd?”
“Grace,” said Anisha excitedly, “what if you are descended from the Gift? From Sibylla?”
“Well, it couldn’t quite be that,” said Grace. “Even if we stretch probability, and say this is my ancestor, and that he did come to Paris with her, it would mean only that he was, at best, her kinsman.”
“In whose blood the Gift was carried,” Anisha reminded her. Rance did say what a sensible young woman you were—and that when he flirted with you, you would never give him the time of day. Perhaps you have some hint of the Gift?”
Grace smiled up at her faintly. “Oh, Anisha, I am sure I do not!” she answered. “And Rance never flirted with me at all.”
“But Grace,” Anisha said thoughtfully, “do you never find that you know things others don’t—know them instinctively, I mean, in the pit of your belly?”
Grace considered it. “Mais oui, doesn’t everyone?” she answered. “Though I did have an aunt…”
“Yes?”
Grace shook her head. “She had odd dreams, that is all,” she said. “Certainly I have never known the future, Anisha.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Anisha pressed. “Mr. Sutherland and Dr. von Althausen have come to believe the Gift in some families has been watered down to nothing more than perspicacity. Not second sight so much as a sort of muted clairvoyance. They theorize, however, that with training, the sight can be—I don’t know—restored, perhaps? If one has the propensity for it—the right blood, if you will.”
“Well, I don’t know…” Grace answered. “I cannot see myself being trained for any such thing—nor would I wish to be. But Mamma did always say…”
“What?” Anisha prodded, leaning forward. “What did she say?”
Grace gave a chagrined smile. “She always said I had a gift,” she answered. “A gift for knowing people—well, men, at least. She called it uncanny, and said that Papa was the very same. That we could sum up a man in one look; that we always knew who meant us well and who was dishonest.”
“Is it true?”
Grace shrugged. “I’ve never been swindled, if that’s what you mean. And I’ve turned down a few marriage proposals over the years because…well, because I just felt something was a bit off.”
“Off in what way?”
“That…they were not right for me,” she said musingly. “Or that they were not the faithful type. And then there was this one in particular…oh, but that does not bear mentioning.”
“I can bear it,” Anisha assured her. “This is fascinating.”
“Well, there once was a handsome young army major detailed to the legion,” said Grace reluctantly. “I adored him desperately from afar. Oh, Anisha, if you could have seen his shoulders! But later, when Papa brought him home to dinner…”
“Yes? Go on.”
Grace dropped her gaze to the carpet. “Well, it’s just that when I looked in his eyes, chills ran down my spine,” she said quietly. “I told Papa that I had changed my mind, and he would not do—which Papa was not at all displeased to hear. Just before his return to France, he met and married the niece of the maréchal-de-camp. But apparently, he had a frightful temper, and within the year, he had beaten the poor girl to death in a rage.”
“Good God,” said Anisha. She pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them. “That’s horrific.”
“Oh, Anisha, I just felt…so terribly guilty.”
“The guilt of a survivor?”
Grace’s brow furrowed. “No, it was worse than that,” she murmured. “I felt as if I…I should have stopped it somehow. As if I knew what he was capable of and should have done something.”
“This evil you saw,” said Anisha intently, “did it come to you in a dream? Or in a wakeful moment?”
Grace looked at her and laughed. “Oh, Anisha, you sound so dramatic!” she said. “As I said, it was just the proverbial chill down the spine.”
Anisha relaxed into her chair. “Of course,” she answered, “and there is nothing to be done about that, is there?”
Again, Grace shrugged. “I don’t know what I could have done, really,” she said softly. “As to me, Papa just said I was waiting for the right man, as he had waited for Mamma, and that I would know it when I found him.”
Anisha was quiet for a moment. “Grace,” she finally said, “Raju said you were an Unknowable—at least to him. Is that still the case?”
“For now,” she said carefully, “but he is much tormented.”
Anisha sighed. “His Gift is strong,” she said, “and unlike some, not easily governed. Yet he is a ruthlessly disciplined man in all other ways, so this is most difficult for him to accept. He is angry in his heart—mostly at himself.”
“I think I understand.”
Anisha hugged her knees tighter. “When Raju was a child,” she said quietly, “Mamma feared this. Before she died, she tried to teach him to control his mind through dhâranâ and dhyâna, but these are not skills one can teach a boy, as they require much discipline and long years of training. And Papa—well, he disapproved. He feared the Gift might be weakened. I don’t think he ever understood the burden it was.”
Grace was confused. “And what are these skills?”
Anisha’s perfectly arched eyebrows drew together. “It is hard to put in English words,” she said. “It is like disciplined thinking, but in an inward way, using pranayama—the retention of breath. And then Samâdhi—the control of the mind—the ability to mentally block unwanted distractions. One can achieve inner unity, thus gaining a better control over one’s thoughts. Raju tries, but he has not been trained—and when he fails, he turns to charas instead, but this brings only a false silence. A temporary peace. I could help him a little perhaps, but despite all his broad-minded words, he still sees me as his responsibility, not the other way round.”
Grace sighed. “I still don’t understand. Are you saying, Anisha, that with practice, he could turn the Gift off and on at will?”
“It might take years of work and study, but yes,” she said. “That is my theory. In India, I have heard, the great holy men can cut themselves with a sharp blade and still the blood with their minds. But von Althausen, the stubborn man of science, thinks everything must be explained in a book.” Suddenly, Anisha’s smile brightened. “Oh, enough of that,” she said, bounding up from the floor. “Come on, get up, Grace. Let’s take that bréviaire or whatever one calls it down to the St. James Society.”
“Whatever for?” asked Grace, rising.
But Anisha had that mischievous look on her face again. “I should like to see if Sir Angus rings any bells with the Reverend Mr. Sutherland,” she said. “And then I mean to poke about in their rare book holdings to see if I can determine just how many bridges have collapsed in Paris.”
Anisha’s question was to be easily answered little more than an hour later as they sat in the shadowy depths of the main library at the St. James Society.
“Precisely three that I know of,” said the Reverend Mr. Sutherland.
He presented a thick, musty tome bound in black morocco and laid it open to one of the middle pages, beaming at it through his silver reading glasses with the pride of possession that only a bibliophile can project.
“Three bridges collapsed?” Grace glanced down at the miniscule print.
“Four, if one counts the Pont Royal,” the gentleman corrected. “That one burned, flooded, then collapsed—all within a span of a few years.”
“Sounds like my luck,” Grace muttered, turning the book so that she might better read it.
“What is it?” asked Lady Anisha, leaning forward in her chair. “And what does it say? My French is frightful.”
“It is an architectural history of the city of Paris.” Mr. Sutherland was still gazing at it almost lovingly. “One of Lord Bessett’s favorites.”
“So the Pont Saint-Michel and the Pont Notre-Dame have also collapsed,” Grace murmured, skimming the words. “Both in the fifteenth century, rather too early for Sir Angus, given the date of his prayer book.”
“Quite so, quite so!” said Mr. Sutherland, peering down his nose. “Which leaves either the Pont Royal or—”
“—the Pont Marie,” finished Anisha triumphantly. “Just like the legend of the Guardians.”
“Indeed, Lady Anisha,” said Sutherland. “Now, let us turn our attention to this beautifully illuminated prayer book—a remarkable thing, and a costly one, in its day. Sir Angus was a wealthy man, of that we can be sure.”
“Can we?” Grace returned her attention to the book, which Sutherland had carefully laid open with two leather-cased weights so that he might better study the symbol.