Eros Element (17 page)

Chapter Twenty

Hôtel Auberge, Monday 13 June 1870

Twenty minutes later, Iris gazed at herself in the mirror and admitted she looked quite smart in her new day suit, and Marie had laced her corset to to an almost stifling degree, but she could mostly breathe comfortably. She sauntered down to the lobby, where Johann raised his eyebrows and looked at his watch.

“So sorry to keep you waiting,” she said with as sweet a smile as she could muster.

“I'm sure you are,” he said. “Our coach will be here in five minutes.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, and it was his turn to smile without sincerity, as far as she could tell. “How is the professor this morning?”

“Oh, is he no longer Edward to you?”

“Not if we are somewhere we could be overheard. I wouldn't want anyone to suspect me of any impropriety.” She tried the eyelash batting thing she'd seen other young women do but feared she looked like she had dust in her eyes.

“Because you've never been guilty of that.” He placed his hat on his blond curls and held his arm out. “Shall we?”

“You didn't answer my question.”

“The doctor has surmised Edward may heal more quickly if he goes back on the routine he'd so carefully established for himself at Huntington Village. Thus, he is being woken and brought his morning tea, after which he will dress and work on whatever interests him until his midmorning break at ten o'clock.”

Iris swallowed around the parched feeling in her throat. Tea would be the thing for both her headache and her mood. But she wasn't going to ask him for anything.

“And before you ask,” he continued, “we're going to be out during the normal times he would have company, so you won't be seeing him today.”

“I remember our agreement,” she said and tried to appear that she was nonchalantly gazing at the bustle of traffic in front of the hotel. A closed blue steamcoach with white and gold monograms on the side stopped in front of them.

“Oh, I couldn't tell,” he said and handed her into the brightly colored vehicle.

She chose to ignore his comment and asked, “Whose vehicle is this?” once they were settled inside.

“My friend, the Marquis de Monceau. He was in town for the day, so he offered us the use of his coach while he is in his meetings to prevent his driver from idling his day and salary away in the gambling halls,” he told her in a quiet voice.

“I see.”

“You'll meet the marquis at breakfast. He's going to introduce us to the curators of Classical art and Renaissance art at the Louvre.”

They traveled down a series of wide boulevards with uniform appearance. Iris wondered if they were to be excavated in the future, would it be difficult to catalog the finds due to the lack of variability of the stone in the buildings? What would the archaeologists of the future think about their time? And would she have the opportunity to change the course of history with the discovery of a practical application for aether?

“We'll be breakfasting in the courtyard at the Palais Royale,” Bledsoe said as the coach slowed. “Try not to gawk. It's quite an unusual place.”

They drove through a narrow shrubbery-lined lane and into a wide courtyard surrounded by shops. Some of them looked shabby, others prosperous. It seemed a strange juxtaposition of old and new, wealthy and poor. From what Iris could tell, there wasn't any interaction between the shopkeepers and restaurateurs. Indeed, contrasted with the noise of the boulevards, the silence of the courtyard settled over them like cold dew. The steamcoach rolled to a stop in front of a small cafe, and Iris welcomed the clinking and clattering noises that invaded her ears when the coachman opened the door. For a few seconds, anyway, until her head started to hurt again.

The
maitre d'
led them to a corner table, where three men waited for them, and they all stood. Each complimented Iris and kissed the back of her hand when they were introduced, and she was almost relieved for Johann's steady if disapproving presence.

This must be how a fish in a bowl surrounded by cats feels.

He held a chair for her, and everyone settled back into their seats.

The Marquis de Monceau wore a coat of royal blue that would have seemed a century out of date had he not paired it with a tailored shirt and tie. The ensemble gave him a devil-may-care air, as did his too long wavy dark hair and chocolate brown eyes that assessed Iris more thoroughly than Madame Beaufort's tape measures had. She shifted in her seat at the feeling of being naked under his scrutiny.

“Oh, lay off the young lady, Monceau,” Johann told him. “She isn't interested in you, and she's too proper a miss for your propositions.”

“You wound me, Maestro, like that cut over your eye but in my heart,” the marquis said and put a hand on his chest. “I am interested in why you brought Irvin McTavish's daughter rather than the great man himself.”

“My father is ill, so he sent me in his stead,” Iris said.

“Ah, then
bienvenu
and please pass along our wishes for his speedy return to health.”

With each repetition, it felt like it could be true, that Irvin McTavish was merely ill and waited for her to visit him in the south of France and catch him up on her adventures. A memory of Jeremy Scott's footman telling her that the odious lord now held the mortgage on her house surfaced. She folded her hands in her lap and tried to pay attention to what the other two men—obviously toadies trying to gain the Marquis's favor—said, but her heart wanted to beat through her ribcage. Now even if she did acquit herself successfully, she wouldn't have a home to go to, at least not as long as she continued to refuse young Lord Scott.

A waiter brought soft-boiled eggs, and another poured coffee into Iris's and Johann's cups.

“Would the mademoiselle prefer tea?” the Marquis asked. “Or perhaps an Italian coffee with steamed milk?”

“Tea would be wonderful,” Iris said. If nothing else, she would always have tea. She selected the type she wanted from a list, and soon she had a fragrant cup steeping in front of her and a
pain au chocolat
on a plate beside it.

“And now that you have your tea,” the Marquis said, “tell us why you are interested in Classical and Renaissance art. The Maestro said it had something to do with your research? Or your father's?”

Iris looked at Johann, who shrugged as if to say, “You're the one accustomed to lying.”

She smiled at the Marquis and picked up her tea cup. “I'm looking into elemental symbolism in Classical art and how it was portrayed in the Renaissance.”

Monsieur Anctil, the Renaissance curator, nodded so hard Iris thought his glasses would fly off. He had little tufts of curly graying dark hair over his ears and a mustache she found ridiculous. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Especially in the Renaissance, in the paintings of the Greek gods. The marquis has a particularly nice Eros and Psyche.”

Iris kept the smile on her face even though her dimples hurt by now. “I would love to see it,” she said and hoped she didn't accidentally tip them off to the search for the Eros Element.

The
maitre d'
appeared with a message for Bledsoe. The two men conversed in whispers, but Iris was close enough to hear.

“I can't talk to him right now,” Bledsoe said.

“He was very insistent, Monsieur. Said he would cause a scene if you did not meet with him.”

“Very well.” He stood and threw his napkin on the table. “Excuse me, gentlemen. Some urgent business from home is calling me away for a few moments.”

“Anything I can help with?” the Marquis asked and shifted his weight as though to rise. Bledsoe put a hand on his shoulder.

“Not this time, my friend, but thank you. I'll only be a minute.” He followed the
maitre d'
out of the restaurant. Iris turned to the remaining three and took off her gloves to eat her croissant. She made as to move the fork Bledsoe had been holding away from the edge of the table and read it. It produced an all-too-familiar bitter sensation in the back of her mouth—lying and fear of being caught. He was hiding something from her and the rest of them.

A sip of tea cleared the taste but not the residual headache, which piled on top of the one she already had. “I apologize,” she said, “but I'm not feeling very well. Is there a, er, water closet for women here?”

A waiter showed her the way, and she lucked out—the room had a ventilation window, and it gave her a limited view of the wall of another building, which meant it opened onto an alley. She climbed onto the counter beside the sink and was rewarded by hearing voices.

“—can't pay you more than this,” Bledsoe was saying. “It's all I've been able to gather.”

“That'll barely cover my travel to chase you down for what you owe, Guv'nor,” another man said. His accent said lower London. “Our beasties told us you're on Cobb's payroll. You should have access to more than that.”

Iris stood on her tiptoes and strained to hear the men's voices over the clatter of the kitchen across the hall from the toilettes and the pounding of her own heart—so the Maestro had been lying to them all along.

“I'm trying not to be obvious about it, a skill you apparently lack,” Bledsoe said. “We won't be paid until the end of the mission, which you are jeopardizing. Was it necessary to pull me away from an important business breakfast? And how did you learn I was to be here?”

“We have our sources. We're watching you, Maestro. I know you like your cards, but your companions wouldn't appreciate you gambling with their lives, especially that brunette. She looks like she'd snap you in two. And the Irishman likely has a temper to go with his red hair. Can't trust those brutes.”

“I'll get your money to you. Leave me alone and let me work.”

“You've had your warning. Cobb won't appreciate knowing the Blooming Senator's attack was our little message to you. Keep us informed as to your progress.”

He did put us in danger!
Iris sucked in the corners of her mouth so she wouldn't break into a vindictive smile that would tip him off when she came back to the table. She crawled off the counter, took care of business, and walked back to the table, where the Marquis stood and talked to Johann and the other two men ate what looked like piles of cooked eggs.

“I'm afraid I must excuse myself,” the Marquis said with a bow when she joined them. “I am finalizing my travel plans with my agents here in the city and have much to do. I will send my coach for you this evening for the gala. It will be good to hear you play again, Maestro.”

“I'm looking forward to it,” Johann said. “You and your guests are always such a sophisticated audience, the pleasure is mine.”

They said their goodbyes, and Iris took her seat at the table and nibbled at her
pain au chocolat
.

“My daughter likes to dip her
pain
in her cafe,” Monsieur Anctil said and put something that looked like cherry jam on his croissant. “Perhaps it would work as well with
thé
?”

“I'm willing to try.” Iris broke off a piece and gave its corner a quick soak in her tea. It left a residue on the top, and although she enjoyed the buttery flavor the hot liquid brought out, it didn't work otherwise. “I fear it might work better with coffee,” she said.

“Ah, leave her be, Anctil,” Monsieur Firmin, the curator of the Classics collections, told him. “She is a young woman, not a child, and she is kind to humor you. Besides, you know you should not be eating the preserves. They will worsen your diabetes.” The wrinkles along his mouth and between his eyes told Iris his customary expression was one of disapproval, and indeed, she felt that to be the case with her. His irritable demeanor caused her to feel more comfortable since that was the typical expression her tutors had given her. She knew how to handle dour and exasperated.

The genial Monsieur Anctil, on the other hand, helped himself to another spoonful. Now he made her uneasy. No one could be that friendly, and she didn't appreciate being compared to his daughter, whom she pictured as a true child. Even Patrick O'Connell had a certain edge to him she knew not to test, and she wondered what Anctil's seed of darkness was. Every person had one, she was coming to find.

Breakfast finished, she and Bledsoe followed the two curators across the courtyard and into a small passage well-hidden behind the wall and shrubbery. Now she watched the musician and noticed how he maintained his genial conversation but examined each person they passed. Iris listened to what the men said but also for the quiet whirring of the little clockwork spy devices. Now she knew the Clockwork Guild pursued Bledsoe, she needed to be extra careful about what she said and did around him. There was no telling where the little beasties hid.

They entered the Louvre through a back door unlocked by Monsieur Firmin. “You will start with me, Mademoiselle. As I recall, you are most interested in the Archaic through Hellenistic periods?”

“Yes, that is correct,” Iris said.

“I'll leave you to your pottery-gazing,” Bledsoe said. “You have the practice room with the piano and violin, right, Firmin?”

Anctil stepped up. “
Bien sur!
The orchestra is not rehearsing this morning, so it is all yours. It will be an honor to hear you practice even if we do not get the pleasure of tonight's performance.”

“Yes,” Firmin said. “I am glad you will be visiting the Marquis before he heads to his estate on the coast for the summer, Mademoiselle. He has a fine collection of
kouros
statues you will find quite fascinating. I have been hinting he should donate them to the museum, but alas, he is quite attached to them. He told me he couldn't stand the thought of possible damage during transport between the Monceau suburb and here.”