Daisy allowed herself to be led from the window and across the room. The cognac had found her brain by now. A pleasant numbness dulled away the guilt and the rage, the unsettled nerves. Grandmère stopped before the curio case and reached beneath the cabinet to grope for something or other. Daisy gazed through the glass, the way she used to do as a child. The velvet was now so old and dark, you couldn’t tell which color it once was, sapphire or emerald or burgundy. Nestled inside its folds, the talisman had not recently been polished—by design, Daisy thought, because you didn’t want to draw attention to such a thing these days—and the jewels and the gold and the glass no longer sparkled. Still, it was a beautiful thing. Gazing down on it always gave Daisy a sense of peace.
“Ah!” exclaimed Grandmère. “There you are, little devil. Here. Daisy, give me your hand.”
Obediently Daisy allowed her fingers to be guided underneath the cabinet, where they encountered a small metal bump, almost a hook.
“Lift it upward with your fingernail,” said Grandmère, and Daisy caught the hook with her fingernail and pulled, an awkward, tiny movement that caused a soft click, a tremor of the glass case. “You see? That’s how you open it, my dear. If something should happen to me.”
“Happen to you!”
“You must take the talisman, of course. It belongs to you. You’re the daughter of the Courcelles, the next in line. The heiress. The demoiselle.”
“Oh, Grandmère. You know I don’t believe in any of that. What protection did it give my mother? None at all. She made it through the war and died of the flu.”
Grandmère clicked the glass case closed again. “It doesn’t matter if you believe in it. It doesn’t matter if I do. What matters is that other people believe in the talisman’s powers. What matters is the value of those stones and that setting, which amounts to a pretty penny, believe me. You are not to leave this priceless object to the Germans, do you understand me? It belongs to you. It belongs to France.”
Daisy mashed her lips together and regarded Grandmère through her cognac-glazed eyes. Her grandmother stood tall and very straight, at least so straight as her spine would allow. Her eyes flashed passionately. Her white hair resembled the clouds on which the cherubs lounged above her. Oh, that old and papery skin, so thin you could see the blood spidering beneath. When had Grandmère become so old? Daisy felt a wave of compassion. She took Grandmère’s hand to hold between her own, and the lightness of it surprised her, as if someone had filled her grandmother’s bones with air. “Of course, Grandmère,” she said. “I understand.”
“I doubt it,” said Grandmère, “but I suppose that will have to do. In the meantime, my girl, I have an errand for you.”
An errand. How harmless it sounded, how ordinary. Go to the bookshop and ask for Monsieur Legrand. He has a book for me. A book! How simple.
It had begun to rain, suddenly and with conviction, the way it often rains in Paris during the springtime. Daisy usually brought an umbrella with her, but today she’d forgotten—fury has a way of making you forget your umbrella—and she could only turn up the collar of her coat as she trudged past the shops, around the corner of rue Cambon, a quick dart across rue des Capucines, dodging the gathering puddles, and then—just as the rain began to lessen, naturally—rue Volney, and the familiar white lines of the bookshop, the windows, the books stacked alluringly behind the glass. Behind the books, a shadow shaped like a man.
Daisy paused beneath the tattered awning and clutched the collar of her coat. The rain dripped solemnly from her hair. Inside, warm and dry, the man seemed to be leafing through a book. Some customer, no doubt, browsing a possible purchase. Daisy stepped closer. He wore a shirt and a tweed vest but no jacket, and his right hand was so large as to dwarf the back cover. Daisy thought she caught a flash of gold on one finger, the ring finger or else the pinky. As he turned a page and moved the angle of his face, Daisy saw the pipe stuck between his lips, in the corner of his mouth.
Possibly she stood there only a second or two, watching him. But it seemed like longer, it seemed like a lifetime. She couldn’t seem to pull her gaze away. She had this uncanny sensation of familiarity, as if she’d known him for years instead of minutes, as if his presence in her bed that morning hadn’t been a dream at all, hadn’t been her imagination, but was instead reality. As if she hadn’t been married to Pierre all those years, made love with Pierre, shared a home and children with Pierre, but instead with this man. With Monsieur Legrand, whose name was most assuredly not Legrand.
She stared at his nose, his hair that shone in the golden lamplight, and thought, What is your name?
At that instant, he looked up, as if he actually heard the words in her head, this small and dangerous question. He was so quick, she had no time to look away, and for a second their eyes met through the glass, bedraggled Daisy and warm, sturdy Monsieur Legrand. The shock of recognition passed between them. She started toward the door and so did he, so that when she reached for the handle, it was already turning, the door was already opening, and Monsieur Legrand stood right there before her in his tweed vest and his smile. He took his pipe from his mouth. The gold ring flashed on his last finger.
“My dear Madame Villon,” he said. “Come right inside. I believe I’ve found you the perfect book.”
Chapter Ten
Babs
The Hôtel Ritz
Paris, France
April 1964
I awoke the following morning to someone banging a book against my head. Or that’s what it felt like at any rate. At least the pain in my head softened the ache in my heart. I’d been dreaming of Kit. We were in his library at Langford Hall, searching for a particular book, both of us becoming more frantic as we kept pulling the wrong volumes from the shelves, tossing them on the floor.
My eyes popped open, realizing two things at once—I’d left Kit’s copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel at the bar the night before, and someone was knocking on the door. I looked around at my strange and opulent surroundings, suddenly remembering where I was. And why.
I lifted my head from the pillow, immediately wishing I hadn’t. The banging on my head was actually coming from inside my skull, and in a horrendous flash of memory I recalled how much I’d had to drink the night before. And with whom. A particular recollection filled my mind in bright, violent colors. I clenched my eyes as if I could block out the memory, but it was there, too—right behind my eyelids. Good heavens. Had I really said rumpy-pumpy?
The knocking on my door continued and I stared at it in horror. What if it was him? What if he’d returned to take me up on my offer? Surely not. Mr. Bowdoin—Drew—was a gentleman. Although he had admitted he found me attractive. Hadn’t he? I was finding it very hard to sort through my memories because of the competing pounding from both my head and the door.
“Barbara? Are you awake? It’s Precious Dubose.”
An enormous sense of relief coursed through me at the sound of Precious’s voice. And a little bit of disappointment if I were to be completely honest with myself. “Coming!” I shouted, the word thumping about in my head like a cricket ball run amok and ricocheting against the stumps.