Deadly Descent (19 page)

“My mother at the age of thirty,” said Pressigny, who had noticed Anne's interest in the picture, “with her favorite pet, Princesse.”

Anne moved back a few steps to a better vantage point. The painter was a master, a discerning observer. He had subtly captured the spirit of the woman. With a side glance, Anne detected the mother's fine, well-proportioned, but loveless features reflected in the face of her son. Then she noticed fleeting lines of sorrow about his mouth. She wondered uneasily, did he feel the loss of his mother? Or feign sadness to win sympathy?

“She passed away ten years ago,” he replied to her quizzical expression as they resumed their walk through the gallery.

He stopped abruptly and scowled. “Someone's been careless here.” A marble statue, the
Faun
by Sergell, rested dangerously close to the edge of its pedestal. Pressigny removed his dress gloves and drew a pair of white cloth gloves from his purse. As he put one on his right hand, Anne noticed with a start the scar on the back of his left hand. When he turned the hand, she saw the scar on its palm. Lélia
had
thrust the hatpin through his hand! The wound must have become infected. Ugly scar tissue had formed where it had been lanced.

Anne stepped back, shaking. In her mind's eye, she saw the raging actress striking at him, the pin penetrating his hand. She struggled with the horror that surely showed on her face, glad that Sergell's statue preoccupied him. By the time he had finished, she felt outwardly calm.

He changed his gloves again, exposing the scarred hand. She couldn't avert her eyes quickly enough.

“Mademoiselle Cartier! You're trembling!” He stared at her with a worried look, then smiled. “Sergell's
Faun
is safe now.”

As she walked again at his side through the gallery, she thought of the scars now concealed by a glove. He bore uglier, crippling scars on his spirit.

***

The maid closed the door to the corridor, leaving behind a lunch tray of fruit, bread, cheese, and wine on a side table in the parlor. Michou took a portion to her room, where she would eat and rest, then finish unpacking. In what remained of the afternoon, she would practice signing, in which she was making good progress.

Biting into a pear, Anne walked to the window and breathed a sigh of relief. There would be no formal midday meal. She would have time in the afternoon to explore the grounds of the chateau. While eating the fruit, she arranged the freesia in a new rhythm of lavender and yellow. The shocking image of Pressigny's scarred hand slowly ebbed into the remote recesses of her mind.

After lunch she stepped outside into bright sunshine. On the path from the chateau to the garden, she noticed a large-boned woman pruning a pear tree on a trellis. A gray sun-bonnet guarded her face, a plain brown robe covered her body. Although clothed like a peasant, she moved with the unmistakable assurance of an aristocrat. Ah, thought Anne, that must be Claire de Pressigny, the chevalier's sister.

The woman was alerted by the crunch of Anne's shoes in the gravel. Wary, unfriendly eyes glared at her from a face well-formed but scarred by smallpox. Anne walked to a nearby jasmine arbor that overlooked an ornamental kitchen garden. The bright lemon-yellow flowers gave off a pungent vanilla fragrance. “Do you mind if I rest here for a moment?” she asked. “Anne Cartier. I've come for the Amateurs' reception.”

Claire shrugged her shoulders, then fixed her attention again on the trellis. She hadn't said a word. Anne heard the sound of hammering in the distance, but no one was in sight.

After several minutes she left the arbor and approached Claire, whose expression remained flint-like. Undaunted, Anne tried to cajole her with friendly questions about the garden. Her responses were cool, terse.

“Would you show me the greenhouse?” Anne persisted. “I've been told you have tropical plants.”

Claire consented curtly and set off in the direction of the hammering.

As they entered the building, the sound stopped. A tall, muscular young man looked up at them, a hammer in his hand. He had rough, handsome features, marked by a knife scar on his cheek, black curly hair, and dark flashing eyes. He threw a quick smile at Claire, then an inquisitive glance at Anne.

“René Cavour, our gardener,” said Claire. “Mademoiselle Cartier has come for the reception.”

Cavour studied Anne for a moment, then spoke in heavily accented French to Claire about the pear trellis. He gave Anne a final glance and returned to his work, a flatbed for potted plants standing nearby. During this brief encounter Anne detected an unmistakably erotic message in the eye contact between the young people.

“Is René French, from the south?” Anne asked, after they had left the entrance hall.

“Italian, from Piedmont,” Claire replied, leading the way through an orangery into a room of brilliant flowers. Little by little, she grew more congenial in this place where she felt at home. She pointed to several exotic plants, reciting their Latin botanical names. When they passed a bank of rare orchids and Anne identified a few she had seen in the colonel's home, Claire smiled for the first time.

A mocking smile, Anne thought. “Do you raise medicinal plants as well?” she asked, recalling the comte's wasted appearance.

“We grow the basic ingredient of laudanum right here.” Claire led her into a large room of tall plants with bluish purple flowers.
Papaver somniferum
, she explained, a poppy native to southern India. She helped Krishna harvest the sap, from which he manufactured the drug in a solution. “It smells of cinnamon and cloves. Tastes good too. Krishna claims it's medicinal.”

“Is that true?” Anne looked askance. From the Vauxhall in London, she knew of young men given over to the drug. They became listless and unreliable and neglected their health.

“Krishna's laudanum seems to ease the comte's pain,” Claire conceded.

“Does he make it only for the comte?” Anne's curiosity was aroused.

“No, he also sells it to my brother and his acquaintances.” Claire glanced sideways at Anne. “Like Simon Derennes. You know him from the palace theater, don't you?”

Anne shrugged noncommittally. She could feel the woman's probing eyes, her lingering suspicion.

The two women left the greenhouse, Anne striking off in the direction of the oriental pavilion in the center of the garden. Claire hesitated at first, then joined her. The low octagonal structure had a yellow foundation and a red tile pagoda roof. Black wooden latticework covered four alternate sides; the others were open. Inside were benches attached to the four latticed walls and a few wooden chairs. In the middle of the raised unpainted wooden floor was a trapdoor.

“It opens into a tunnel to the chateau,” Claire offered. “It's fastened tight at both ends.” She gestured toward a pair of benches. The two women sat down facing one another.

“How well do you know my brother Jean?” asked Claire, barely concealing a smirk.

Refusing to be drawn out, Anne revealed only that she had performed in one of his productions and he had invited her to the reception.

Claire frowned, a doubting glint in her eyes. “You know, he always has his way with women.”

Anne shook her gown and rose to leave. “Perhaps with women of a certain kind.”

***

On the way back to the chateau, Anne went looking for Krishna to ask if she might have a horse for a ride in the countryside. She found him seated behind a desk in the chateau's basement office, wearing a brown suit like a proper Frenchman. A large account book lay open in front of him. To his right, within arm's reach, stood shelves of leather-fronted file boxes lined up in neat rows. To his left, a rack of iron keys hung in an open cabinet. Light came from high deep-set windows in the thick whitewashed walls. A musty smell hung in the air.

When she put forward her request, he agreed without question. He penned a note to the stablemaster, blotted it, and handed it to her with the obliging smile of a proprietor rather then a servant. She hurried to her room. Comtesse Marie had lent her a fashionable wine-colored English riding habit embroidered with spangles and silver thread, a black tricorn hat, and boots. The fit was good, just a little tight in the shoulders.

Krishna's note in hand, Anne went to the farmyard opposite the chateau. The stablemaster prepared a riding horse with a sidesaddle for her, then beckoned to a groom working nearby. He should go with her the first time. She wanted to ride alone—she could explore more freely. But, as a guest, she thought it best to comply. She mounted the horse and rode out into the courtyard. The groom followed a length behind. When he seemed about to close the gap, she glanced irritably over her shoulder and increased her speed. He gained ground.

Beyond the courtyard, where the road forked in several directions, she had to stop for a hay wagon. The groom came alongside her on the left. A sharp reproach on the tip of her tongue, she shifted in the saddle to confront him. He winked.

“Georges!” she flustered, choking back the urge to laugh.

“My lady!” He touched the tip of his cap, grinning like a monkey. He pointed to a path winding up to the wooded chalk ridge. She took the lead. When they were out of sight in a small clearing, they dismounted and tethered the horses.

“The stablemaster is one of ours,” said Georges, patting his horse. “We were in the cavalry together, so he hired me. He needs extra help for gatherings like the Amateurs.” Georges gestured politely toward a crude bench in the shade. “What do you have to tell me?” His eyebrows arched with curiosity.

Sitting on the edge of the bench, Anne eagerly described her visit with Pressigny in the art gallery. “I've seen where Laplante's hat pin went through his left hand,” she said in a hushed voice. “The wound became infected and left an ugly scar. That's why he always wears gloves.” She settled back on the bench, a question slowly forming in her mind. “Can anyone here treat a wound like that?”

Before replying, Georges looked over his shoulder as if they might be overheard. “Yes, the housekeeper at the chateau, Madame Soucie.” He explained she was the stablemaster's wife and had learned the healing arts from her father, a military surgeon. On the estate she treated cuts and bruises and set minor fractures. Nearby villages often called her. “She's also keeping an eye on you,” Georges added, clucking softly. “She thought of the bouquet of flowers for your window sill.”

“I sensed something between her and Pressigny when we met outside the gallery.” Anne grew excited. “He must have gone to her.”

“I'll soon find out. She's invited me to supper with the family.” Georges got up from the bench, tentatively offered his hand to Anne. Declining with a smile, she sprang to her feet and followed him on a narrow path to a rocky platform at the edge of the ridge. Hidden behind brush growing out of cracks in the rock, she gazed across the valley to the chateau.

“Oh,” she murmured, recognizing the balcony of her room. She started to speak. Georges touched her arm, cautioning her. The wind behind them could carry their voices. He pointed to two men stacking tiles at the kiln below.

“They work on Pressigny's projects,” he said softly. “See the older wiry one…”

“He's Monsieur Noir, the man we've seen twice with Monsieur LeCourt,” she whispered in his ear. “A clever fellow, my shadow in the Palais-Royal.”

“A dangerous one,” Georges warned. “The servants call him François. He keeps an eye on Pressigny.” He pointed toward the short, thickset younger man. “And that's Jacques Gros, Noir's faithful companion. He's brighter than he looks.”

After a few minutes, the two men left the kiln and went into the nearby cottage. Georges beckoned Anne forward to the edge of the ridge for a view of the entrance to the caves a short distance beyond the kiln. “I had a stable boy search them when the men weren't around. Lots of sheep shit but no sign of Derennes. And he's not in the chateau. The Soucies would have let me know. Noir has hidden him somewhere else.” Georges paused to think for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. “Let's get back to the chateau.”

They untethered the horses and rode back silently. At the door to the stable, they dismounted. Seeing no grooms about, they led the horses to the stalls. Anne wanted to help Georges remove the saddles and feed the horses but he objected, shaking his finger at her. “You're supposed to play the part of a queen. You'd better start acting like one.” He did the chores himself with help from a groom he found sleeping in the hayloft.

While the men were stowing the tackle in another room, Anne wiped the sweat from her horse's glistening neck and admired its rich chestnut color. She found herself hoping to ride it again. With a grimace she stepped back. What a silly notion, to stay at Chateau Debussy a minute longer than necessary! As she left the stable with Georges, she drew a deep breath of fresh air, then sniffed her sleeve. “I'd better wash and change. I shouldn't go to the comte's supper smelling like a thoroughbred.”

***

The meal was in a small, dark-panelled dining room on the main floor, with only Anne, the comte, and Claire at the table. Thin rays of twilight shafted through the windows. Several candles flickered on the walls. The room momentarily reminded Anne of a poorly lighted stage. And Claire looked like a clown. She had attempted to conceal her facial scars beneath a thick layer of powder.

Loath to appear rude, Anne forced her eyes away from Claire to the marble sideboard where food stood ready. A waiter came with a Sèvres tureen of
potage au cresson
for Anne and Claire, while a second waiter served the comte a cup of chicken broth. The soup was delicious, rich with butter and garnished with water-cress leaves. Anne consumed every bit of it. Claire hardly touched hers. Since she appeared well-fed, Anne thought, she had to be eating somewhere else.

While soup was being served, the comte asked Claire a few polite questions about her day. “It was ordinary, of little interest,” she replied curtly.