Keeping his gaze on me one moment longer, Drew referred to his notepaper once more before turning back to Philippe. “Do you remember your grandfather saying anything about a white wolf with a cross?”
Phillipe scrunched his face in an expression I was beginning to recognize. “Le loup?”
He bared his teeth and made a low growling sound.
“Oui,” I said, nodding. “Wolf. A white wolf with a cross. Does that remind you of something your grandfather or Christophe might have said?”
Philippe remained pensive as he continued to shake his head slowly. “No, it doesn’t. However.” He came from behind the counter and led us toward the back of the shop. “A white wolf and a cross sound like objects found on family crests, no? And I know a book that might tell us more.”
We stopped at the back wall lined with stuffed shelves of books. When he reached into a shelf on the far side, I expected him to retrieve a book, but instead we heard a small click as he must have pulled on some sort of lever. A section of shelves popped open and a dark, dusty room was revealed as Phillipe slid the bookcase out wide enough for a person to step through.
“One moment,” he said as he disappeared inside. After we waited for a minute, the space behind the shelf flooded with light. Philippe reappeared at the opening, beckoning us inside. “Come in, come in. Please excuse the dust—we don’t come in here often. It’s mostly used to store older books or those that have fallen out of favor and no one is looking for anymore.”
Drew followed me behind the bookcase and stopped beside me as we examined the room. The cramped, dusty space held a mottled yellow glow from the overhead bulbs and at first glance didn’t appear to be anything more than a storeroom. Shelves teetered with more books, and the odd store fixtures leaned haphazardly against walls and an assortment of furniture including a large wooden desk.
I would have dismissed all of it as having nothing to do with Kit. Except. Except when I’d first entered the room, I imagined I could detect the pungent scent of Kit’s pipe tobacco. “Is this where Monsieur Legrand lived?”
Philippe turned from where he was scanning one of the bookshelves and smiled. “Oui. There is a hidden room upstairs—the small hatch is hidden now by that bookshelf in the rear, but there are stairs you can pull down. Back during the war I wasn’t allowed to mention that this all was here to anyone so no one knew about it but Grandpère and me. Oh, and the nice lady with the two children.”
I shared a startled glance with Drew. “A lady?” Drew repeated.
“Um-hmm,” Philippe said, running his finger along dusty spines.
“Do you remember her name?” I asked.
He shook his head without looking at us. “I do not. But I do remember that she had a little boy and a little girl around my age and when they were home from school for the summer, they would spend a lot of time here with their mother.”
“And with Monsieur Legrand?” I asked, dreading his answer.
“Oui. I remember, too, that she was very beautiful—and very kind. She once gave me a little stuffed rabbit, just like the one her daughter had. Because of my last name, you see. Lapin. It means rabbit, no?”
“How thoughtful.”
Drew sent me a questioning glance, making me realize my tone sounded less than sympathetic.
“Did she return to the store after Monsieur Legrand disappeared?” Drew asked.
“Non. I never saw her again, or her children. I remember being very sad and missing them. My grandpère said I should be happy for them, since she and Monsieur Legrand were probably together. But I still missed them and cried every night.”
I made a good show of looking around the room, at the old wooden floors, and the collection of spiderwebs decorating the corners like architectural embellishments. Anywhere except at Drew’s face. Because even though whatever had transpired here in this room had happened before Kit and I were married, I couldn’t completely forget the final words of the letter that had arrived before we’d said our vows.
My only hope is that you remember me and the short time we had together and know that I will always love you. Always. La Fleur
“Ah, here it is,” Philippe said, sliding out a very thick leather-bound volume from a high shelf and stepping down the ladder. “When you mentioned a wolf and cross, I thought immediately that it sounded like something one of the grand families of France might have on their blason. In English I think you say ‘coat of arms.’”
“Of course,” Drew said. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that myself. Wolves are one of the most popularly used icons in heraldic coats of arms. It’s like football teams having some sort of ‘eagle’ in their mascot name. Of course, lots of teams put ‘flying’ or ‘fighting’ in front, but eagles still dominate in the world of football mascots.”
He stopped speaking, no doubt realizing that both Phillipe and I were staring at him.
“Sorry. I was a history major and played football in college, so I kind of know a lot of useless information about both topics.”
I wanted to tell him that they weren’t useless, but I was mentally occupied trying to squeeze all of my thoughts and feelings about Kit and La Fleur into a little box and lock it. It was all I could do to remain in the room without running outside for a gulp of fresh air that didn’t smell like pipe smoke.
Philippe approached the desk with the volume, its cover nicked and discolored in places, and plopped it on the surface in a cloud of dust. “Here. This is what I was looking for. It is damaged, but my grandpère never threw out anything. So we keep it back here for reference—not that anyone has ever asked for it in the last twenty years.” He shrugged. “It’s a history of French noble families and includes their family crests. As a little boy, I loved to look at all the pretty pictures since I couldn’t read. And you are correct, monsieur. There are many with wolves—those were my favorites.”
A bell rang at the front of the store and Philippe looked up. “I will leave you here with this to see if you can find what you are looking for.”
We watched Philippe leave and then Drew turned to me. “I can come back alone if you want to get out of here.”
I found his solicitousness comforting, and his invitation tempting, but I couldn’t leave. I felt like the mouse at the edge of a trap, lured by the cheese even though it would result in the mouse’s imminent demise. “No. Really, I’m all right. Besides, I’m assuming you don’t read French.”
“Fair point.” He found a sturdy-enough chair and upended a small table with a round base, moving them both up to the desk, and we sat down. After a cursory thumbing through the pages, Drew said, “It looks like it’s alphabetical by family so let’s just hope the family name doesn’t start with Z.”
“Or we could start at the back of the book and go that way,” I suggested.
He frowned down at the pages. “Knowing my luck, the name will be somewhere in the middle.” He thought for a moment, flicking through the pages. “It looks like the pictures of the coats of arms all appear on the top right of the page. Why don’t we flip through the pictures and mark the pages where we find ones with a wolf and a cross, and then go from there?”