Chapter Twelve

The chill of late October crept into the corridor when they all gathered once more for their morning audience with the vicomte. Ned didn’t know how he looked, but he felt haggard. He had not slept well and that was unusual. All his life he had slept well, and he resented the disturbed night he had just suffered.

She had kept invading his dreams. It was infuriating. She had no business doing so. He didn’t even like her. She was hard and prickly and took offense at every little thing. There was nothing soft or attractive about her.

Except…

Except that when she had fallen asleep in her chair yesterday, she had looked so different. Vulnerable. The little frown marks had disappeared, and the tightness around her mouth had softened. The frozen mask she habitually wore had melted away and given him a glimpse of the beauty that lay beneath it.

This was preposterous! If he didn’t get hold of himself, he would be writing poetry next. She had no interest in him, and he had none in her—at least, no more than an intellectual curiosity. Puzzles had always intrigued him, and he couldn’t help wondering about the secrets she was hiding. It was no different, really, from wondering about the mysteries of the past, why things had turned out as they did, why people had chosen as they had.

It was curiosity that drew his eyes to her. Nothing more.

She was standing a little apart from the others, looking out, wrapped in a drab black cloak, always in black. Perhaps she had gone for an early morning walk. If so, it was sensible of her to keep the cloak on. It was always cold in these corridors, and she was too thin.

Where she was standing, by the slitted window, the light outlined her profile, her surprisingly elegant profile. But she shouldn’t be standing by the window—it was even colder there. He moved toward her.

Her hand was at her neck, fingering the brooch that closed her cloak at the collar. It was an odd one—about three inches across, with rounded stones arranged like a rosette in a setting of dull metal.

“An unusual piece,” he said.

She jumped, as if startled by his presence. Did she think he had been offended by the way she ran off the day before? He offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

“Unusual?” she said. “I suppose so.” She offered a polite smile of her own.

“Ugly.” Delphine had come up beside them and wrinkled her nose. “It is ugly and unfashionable. You should have sold that instead of my pearls.”

The child certainly clung to her resentments. Ned frowned at her, but she paid him no attention.

Marguerite sighed. “I am sorry, Delphine, but my mother gave this to me, and her mother gave it to her. Maman used to wear it to close her cloak, too. It is the only thing of hers that I have.”

Antoine joined them and huffed a short, bitter laugh. “Typical. He lies there on all the wealth the family has ever had, and the rest of us cannot touch it. You, at least, have a brooch, however ugly it may be.”

Delphine sniffed and turned away with a toss of her curls.

Ned, however, had not lost interest in the brooch. “May I?” he asked, reaching out a hand toward her collar. She started to pull back but then tilted her head back and held still. He lifted the brooch with a finger and peered at it intently. “I am no expert, but the style is indeed antique. It may be very old indeed. Are the stones real?”

“I doubt it. They are so dull that I have always assumed they are glass.” She looked down, avoiding his eyes, and ran her finger over the smooth surface of the stones.

He stepped back but continued to look at the brooch. It intrigued him. There was something about the design. “Glass? Perhaps,” he said. “But if it is actually medieval, gems would not be cut with facets and might look dull to the modern eye.”

That caught Delphine’s attention. “Gems? Is it valuable then? Could the stones be recut?”

“Delphine…” Marguerite sighed.

“If it is a family heirloom, it should be mine. It is my family, after all.” Delphine began to reach out for it, her eyes shining.

Ned caught her hand. “Stop that. It is Marguerite’s brooch.” When she seemed about to erupt, he added placatingly, “Besides, much of the value is in the sentiment, not in the gemstones.”

For a moment, Delphine’s reaction was uncertain. Then she tossed her head and said, “It is an ugly piece. Marguerite may keep it.” She stepped away, ignoring the others.

Marguerite gave a short laugh. “How kind of Delphine to allow me to keep my own brooch.”

Ned was not amused, but before he could say anything, the doctor appeared in the doorway to bid them enter. He looked much the same as usual, neither pleased nor displeased. When Antoine asked if there had been any change in his great-grandfather’s condition, a slight shake of the head was his only response.

As they all moved toward the vicomte’s room, Ned happened to glance up at the coat of arms in the carving over the door and noticed the rosette. It was the same design as Marguerite’s brooch—seven petals surrounding three petals around a single center.

That suggested that Marguerite’s brooch might really be very old. An heirloom indeed. He would have to tell her.

Marguerite approached the bed feeling uncomfortably shaken. Lord Edward’s nearness should not affect her this much. He had barely touched her. A slight brush of the fingers against her throat when he had lifted the brooch—that was all. It should not have felt as if he’d set her skin aflame.

He had defended her against Delphine’s silly outburst of greed, but she should not read anything into that. It was the normal reaction of an adult to a childish tantrum.

She should be paying attention to the vicomte and his condition instead.

Was the doctor lying? It appeared to her that change was visible when they lined up as usual beside the bed. The shriveled old man was once more propped up against the pillows, half sitting, half reclining. He was neatly shaven, dressed in a pressed night gown with a cap on his head, but today his mouth was not quite closed and his eyes were not quite open. His hands lay on the brocade of the coverlet with the fingers curled, almost as if he clawed at it.

Every time she saw him there seemed to be less of him, as if he were drying up and shriveling away.

Those hands held her eyes almost hypnotically. Each slight movement of the fingers seemed weighted with meaning. In the silence of the room, the scraping of his fingers on the brocade seemed preternaturally loud.

She forced her gaze aside and tried to think. This could not go on much longer. The vicomte was fading away. Soon he would shrivel up and vanish completely. There would no longer be any excuse for them to be here.

Things were getting more complicated. Lord Edward’s presence, his very existence, was making them so. He was a distraction, and she could not afford any distractions. Why did he have to come here? Why couldn’t he have stayed in England where she would never have even seen him?

For a while, things had been under control, but not any longer. She had to get away from this place. She had to get Delphine away. The girl was getting worse here. There had to be a way to get them all away.

Antoine gave an irritated wave of the hand that drew her attention back to the presence. His impatience was showing. He seemed to be holding himself still through sheer force of will. “Well, doctor, your patient appears to be asleep. Did you call us in here so that we could bear witness to that?”

“You have somewhere more important to be?” Doctor Fernac sounded dismissive.

Antoine exploded. “Yes, as a matter of fact I do. This pointless daily attendance on a dying man who does not even know we are here…” He halted, shocked into silence when the old man’s eyes suddenly opened and stared at him.

Then the vicomte turned those eyes on Marguerite. No, she realized, not on her. On her brooch.

“You have it still, Marguerite.” His voice was surprisingly strong.

She was not sure what he meant, but she put up a hand to cover the brooch. Still, a response seemed necessary. “Yes, Monsieur le Vicomte.” She never knew quite how to address him. None of them did, really. She could hardly call him uncle. He was a complete stranger to her. Until a few months ago, she had not known that he existed. Antoine referred to him as “the old man” and simply avoided addressing him directly.

The vicomte frowned slightly and one of the hands on the coverlet fluttered slightly. In some sort of protest? Or was it confusion? Did he know who she was? Who any of them were? But he seemed to be speaking directly to her. “You never told me what it means. Do you know? The priest, Abbé Seznec, did he tell you? Where did he hide it?”

She did not know what to say. All she could manage was to stammer out, “I don’t know.”

He looked away, and his voice grew querulous. “It wasn’t my fault. There was nothing I could do. So many of them, and Léchelle leading them. I could not stop them. Everyone feared Léchelle. But he would not tell them, the abbé. Even when Léchelle struck him down. They left then. The others did not like it that he killed a priest.”

In the silence it seemed as if everyone was holding his breath. Was he telling them about the treasure? Something a priest had hidden? If the priest had been killed by this Léchelle right after hiding it, then perhaps it really was still hidden. Perhaps there really was something.

Perhaps there would be enough to buy safety.

A wave of dizziness swept over her. She might have fallen had not an arm caught her around the waist to steady her. Lord Edward. He was right beside her, looking concerned, keeping her safe. Again. It was so tempting. She wanted to smile and lean against him.

No! She must not. A polite smile of thanks was all she could allow herself. That, and then she must keep herself erect and rely on no one. Before he came, there had been no difficulty in remembering that. She had to be strong. A few kind gestures could not be allowed to get under her guard.

The vicomte was looking at her again, but he seemed to have mistaken her for someone else. “Did you tell our father before he died? He didn’t tell me. Why didn’t he tell me? Why won’t you tell me? I should have been the one who was told about the treasure. I was the heir. Not you.” His voice faded to a whisper. “Not you.”

His eyes closed, and the hands on the coverlet relaxed. He was asleep once more. The doctor leaned over to check his patient’s pulse, nodded to himself and shooed the visitors out.

They all stood about in the corridor, not quite ready to leave and go about their business. It was an uncomfortable silence. Delphine spoke first. “I don’t understand. He called you by name, but he was talking as if you were someone else.”

“I don’t understand either,” Marguerite said. “I didn’t think he even knew my name. He never used it before.”

“It was odd. All of it was odd.” Antoine tugged at his little beard.

“Is there another Marguerite in the family?” asked Lord Edward.

Antoine and Marguerite shook their heads and shrugged, but Delphine burst out excitedly, “But of course! Our great-grandmother—his sister—she was called Marguerite. He must have thought you were his sister.” Then her face fell. “Why you? Why would he mistake you for his sister and not me? That is not right. I have seen her portrait. She was fair and dainty, like me. Not dark and strange like you.”

“Don’t distress yourself,” said Marguerite in soothing tones. It was so hard to be soothing all the time. “His mind was wandering, and his eye fell on me. I’m sure that’s all it was. Doubtless next time he will think you are his sister.”

“The brooch,” said Lord Edward. They all looked at him.

“That’s what he was staring at,” he explained. “You said that it was a family piece, an heirloom. Perhaps he recognized it as something his sister owned, and that is why he thought you were Marguerite—his Marguerite, that is.”

“Possibly. Quite possibly,” said Antoine.

A very French moue appeared on his face, and it amused Marguerite to think that her cousin was becoming more and more French these days. It was a relief to find something amusing.

“He seemed to think she would know where to find the treasure,” Antoine continued. “But since she has been dead for half a century, that is no help. It’s a pity that he did not tell us something more useful.”

“Perhaps he did.” Lord Edward looked thoughtful. “He mentioned Léchelle. I know the name. He was one of the more brutal enthusiasts of the Revolution, and he was only in this area for a short time in ’94.”

“Ninety-four?” Antoine frowned. “That was when the last of the family fled to England—the old man and his sister and their father.”

Lord Edward was frowning. “When was that? Do you know?”

“I know,” said Delphine, holding out an arm in a dramatic gesture. “It was in February, in the bitter cold. They fled in a small fishing boat, carrying almost nothing with them. Hélas, the poor old vicomte was wounded and had died by the time they reached England.”

“Fortunately they had sent most of the family fortune to England when the Revolution began to look serious,” said Antoine dryly. “They were not among the penniless aristocrats offering to teach dancing to the English.”

“I am not certain of the dates, but I think that Léchelle didn’t arrive here until January or February,” said Lord Edward. “That would mean that the murder of the priest would have taken place very close to the time of their departure.”

“I don’t see how that is of any help to us.” Antoine shook his head.

Lord Edward ignored him. “And not long after that, Léchelle himself was assassinated. It all makes a kind of sense. If the priest died before he could tell anyone where the treasure was, and if Léchelle did not live long enough to find it for himself, it may still be hidden.”

“Fine.” Antoine still looked disgruntled. “But that doesn’t tell us where it is, or even what it is.”

Lord Edward’s eyes shone with enthusiasm. “Think about it. We do have some clues. The old man said that he saw the priest come out to wherever he was captured, so the hiding place must be somewhere inside the chateau. And it must be someplace where a boy could see what was happening without being seen himself.”

“And it must be in the other part of the chateau,” said Antoine, straightening up and looking attentive, “because this part was not in use then.”

“We will find it. I am sure of it!” Delphine’s eyes were shining, and she quivered with excitement.

The others all looked eager to get on with the search. Marguerite feared she was the only one who had difficulty responding with enthusiasm. What was wrong with her? If they found the treasure, surely the vicomte and Antoine would allow her a share in it, even if it was only a small share. Money could buy them some measure of security.

Why did she not share the eagerness of the others? Had worry become so much a part of her that nothing could make her feel hopeful?