Seduction (6 page)

“Katy—”

“I’ll let myself out,” I said, staggering to my feet.

He caught my arm. “Why are you acting like this?”

Suddenly I was blinded by tears that welled up, unbidden and embarrassing. “Forget it,” I said. I projected myself toward the front door. “
Merci
,” I said to the woman who’d offered me a cup of tea. Then I tripped over the threshold and hurled myself down the marble steps.

“Don’t go,” Peter called after me. With his long legs, he caught up with me before I reached the street. “How’d you know I’d be here?”

“I didn’t come to see you,” I said, feeling the corners of my mouth trembling. “And you didn’t come to see me. So we’re even.”

“I just got here myself. I was going to look for you, I swear.”

“Oh, go away.” I ran down the street, my vision blurry with tears. I would have collided with a lamppost, but Peter caught my arm. “Please, Katy,” he said. “Just talk to me.” Then he wrapped his arms around me.

I covered my face with my hands, willing myself not to feel anything. But I did. I felt as if I was where I’d always belonged.

“You didn’t answer your cell phone,” he said.

“It got stolen.”

“You called your Aunt Agnes. She told me.”

“That was from the post office. I didn’t want them to know I’d been robbed.”

“Did you get my e-mails?”

I shook my head. “My laptop got stolen too,” I said into his chest. “I send them e-mails from an Internet café so they won’t know.”

He stroked my hair. “I couldn’t believe you left without saying good-bye.”

I looked up at him. “You said I acted like a mom,” I whispered.

“What? That was what you were so mad about?”

I pulled away from him. “I need to get home,” I said.

“I’ll go with you.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “Seventeen Rue Cujas, right? Agnes gave it to me.”

I kept walking, although I didn’t really know where I was, and in the dusky light, I couldn’t read the street signs.

“You could have written to me,” Peter said.

I had. I’d written to him every day. I just hadn’t sent the letters. “I didn’t think you’d be interested in hearing from me.”

“That’s insane,” he said.

That wasn’t worth answering. We walked on in silence for a while. I saw a couple of things I recognized, like the Pompidou Center and the Rue des Rosiers, where all the Jewish bakeries are.

“Are you still mad at me?” he asked softly. “For the mom thing?”

I shrugged.

“I was hoping that maybe you’d be glad to see me. At least a little.”

At that point, I didn’t know what I was thinking anymore. Of course I was glad to see him. I’d been hungry and lonely and tired and disappointed since I’d arrived, and seeing Peter was like going to heaven.

It just hadn’t happened the way I’d wanted.

“I wish we hadn’t fought,” he said.

“Me too,” I squeaked. Somehow, what had been so important to me back then suddenly seemed pointless. “Okay,” I said, pulling myself together. “So what
are
you doing here?” I ventured. “In Fabienne’s house?”

“Fabienne’s?”

“The French girl from school,” I said for what must have been the tenth time.

“I know who she is. That’s her house?”

“It’s the address she gave me.”

“I really don’t know who lives there,” Peter said. “A bunch of people, from what I can see. Jeremiah stays there when he’s in Paris.”

“And who else? Are all those people related to him or something?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Those are his friends, I guess. His driver picked us up at the airport and dropped me off about an hour ago. Nobody in the place even seemed to know I was coming. A maid took me to my room.” He grinned and shook his head. “It was all like a movie.”

We were back in my neighborhood. “This is where I live,” I said.

Peter looked up at the dingy, narrow building that leaned toward the street like a nosy old woman. “Here?” he asked as if he couldn’t believe anyone would actually set foot inside.

I nodded. The place looked even worse than I’d remembered. “Want to come in?”

He seemed dubious about entering, but finally stepped into the dark entryway with me.

“Run,” I said, turning on the
minutière
and heading full speed up the stairs. Peter sprinted behind me, nearly
colliding with one of the Norwegians coming out of the (ugh) communal toilet (the shower was separate, and two euros extra) and eliciting an appreciative murmur from Hernan the transvestite, who had come out to spy so quickly that he forgot his wig.

“Hey,” Peter called when the lights went out. There was never enough time to make it up to my door.

“Follow my voice,” I said.

Inside, the place smelled like three hundred years of dirty feet. Plus it was July and sickeningly hot, with no hope of anything resembling air conditioning. I turned on my lamp with its twenty-watt bulb to show off my two decorations, a wall calendar from the meat market displaying a color photograph of a raw rack of lamb, and a wallet-size junior class picture of Peter, put up with a thumbtack. Quickly I took his picture off the wall.

Peter stood in the doorway for a time. I suppose he was trying to get used to the ugliness of the place. “That a friend of yours?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at Hernan. “The bald guy in the dress?”

I ignored him, and turned on the hotplate. It sparked. The smell of electricity filled the room. “Tea?” I asked.

“No, thanks.” He looked around incredulously. “What are you doing here?” He sounded genuinely astonished.

“I live here,” I answered truculently.

“Good God.”

“That bad?”

“Excuse me for a moment,” he said, and walked outside. In a few minutes he was back. “I’d like you to move into the place where I’m staying,” he said.

I blinked. “What?”

“I asked Jeremiah. We can go back to the house now. I’ll help you pack.”

“Wait a minute,” I objected. “You can’t just order me out of my home like some kind of
policeman
.”

“For crying out loud, Katy.”

“Not everybody has a rich uncle!”

“But I do,” Peter said. “And he says it’s okay if you move in.”

“Well, maybe I don’t want to,” I shrilled. “Why would I want to move in with you, anyway?”

He sighed. “It wouldn’t be
with
me,” he said. “There are more than a dozen bedrooms at the house. People move in and out all the time. Jeremiah says it’s like a hotel. In fact, I think it’s called a hotel.”

“That’s a French thing,” I said. “A lot of big old houses are called hotels. It doesn’t mean they rent rooms or—”

“No, not a hotel. An
abbey
, that was it. L’Abbaye des Âmes Perdues.” Peter smiled. “Did I totally fracture that?”

“Totally,” I said. “Not that I could do much better.”

“What does it mean?”

I picked apart the words. “The Abbey of Lost Souls, I think. Strange name for a house. Or the street it’s on, for that matter.”

“Jeremiah said that some of these places are hundreds of years old. Who knows who named it, or why?” He touched my hair.

“Don’t butter me up,” I said, pushing his hand away.

He spread his hands by his sides. “Okay, Katy. Be as stubborn as you want. But you’ve got to admit, Jeremiah’s
house—or Fabienne’s, or whoever owns that place—is going to be a lot less dangerous and more comfortable than this dump.”

I was about to object, but really, I couldn’t. It
was
a dump. I’d called it that many times myself. He looked out the window. “Don’t do it for me,” he said. “Do it for your Gram. She’d want you to be safe.”

Of course she would. And Peter was right. I just hated to admit it. “I’ll be okay,” I whispered, wondering how true that was. “I’ll stay here.”

He slid down to the floor. “Then I will too,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

He nestled his head on my lap. “Well, if you won’t come with me, I’ve got no choice but to stay here in Hotel Cucaracha with you.”

“Why?” I asked defensively.

“Because I need to know you’re not being murdered in an alley someplace.” He was struggling to keep his eyes open. “And because I love you,” he added softly.

“You . . . you love me?”

“Of course I do,” he said, frowning and making smacking sounds with his lips. “I always love you. No matter how cranky you get.”

Within a few minutes he was asleep. I guess he’d had a busy day too. When he started to snore, I took the sheet off my bed and draped it over him. Then, after thinking about it for a second or two, I crawled under it with him.

He shifted toward me. Then, with a soft sleep-noise that sounded like a kitten’s meow, he put his arm around me.

“Okay,” I whispered. “I’ll move in. For a while. I mean, I
can think of worse things than living in a mansion with the person I love most in the world, even if we do argue a lot.”

He twitched and snorted a little in response.

I lay my head on his shoulder. It was a perfect fit.

CHAPTER

•

SEVEN

So here I was, hobnobbing with the Haughty Queens of Evil.

Oh, did I mention that my half-dozen new roommates were obnoxious, rude, arrogant, and horrible?
Tzchtzchtzch
. That is the sound of my teeth grinding at the mere thought of my fellow residents at the Abbey of Lost Souls.

To begin with, Fabienne wasn’t even there. She was in Italy somewhere buying shoes. Her mother, Sophie, was, though.

Let me tell you about Sophie. First, picture the most beautiful face you can think of, and then multiply that beauty by ten. Or twenty. With thick, wavy, blond hair pulled into a casual chignon and a Barbie-doll figure. Blinding white teeth. Four-inch heels, at home. Couturier clothes. And the disposition of a Tasmanian devil.

The first thing she did when Peter and I walked into the house’s main sitting room was look me up and down with her hands on her hips, blabbing something in French that the other people in the room seemed to find
très amusant
. I was
already beginning to think moving in with these people might be a bad idea, but the older woman who’d given me a cup of tea earlier approached me. She shook her finger at Sophie, who turned away with a sneer.

“Marie-Therèse?”

She seemed pleased that I’d remembered her name. “
Oui
,” she trilled. “And you are?”

“Katy Ainsworth,” Peter said. “My uncle Jeremiah—Jeremiah Shaw—said she could stay here.”

“
Mais oui
,” Marie-Therèse said. “That will be no problem at all.” She motioned for a servant in livery to take my “luggage,” which consisted of one suitcase and a plastic bag filled with dirty clothes, upstairs. “And Mademoiselle Katy will be staying with you, Peter?”

I noticed at least six pairs of eyes narrow into slits as they regarded me.

“Er . . . no,” Peter said. “That is . . .”

“I’ll need my own room,” I said, figuring if there was a problem with that, I’d just leave. I was awfully tired, but I’d be able to make one more trip back to the Black Lagoon if I had to.

“Of course, of course,” Marie-Therèse said. “Such a young girl. And an Américaine. There is a lovely room for you, ma chère.” Then she put her arm around my shoulder and, gesturing for Peter to follow, led me up a curving flight of stairs covered with carpet so thick I would have been happy to sleep right there. At the top, she opened the door to the most luxurious room I’d ever seen.

It was white. Blizzard white—white carpet, white sheer draperies that billowed in the breeze from the tall casement
windows, a white canopy over the enormous bed—accented with touches of gold here and there. I don’t know much about furniture, but it looked really delicate, really old, really valuable.

“Would you like something to eat or drink? Some
chocolat
, perhaps?” Marie-Therèse asked.

“Oh, no,” I said, instantly regretting my refusal. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

“
Eh, bien
,” she said with a warm smile. “
Bon nuit
.”

Peter and I looked at each other. The catnap we’d taken in my former digs hadn’t been enough of a rest for either of us. Peter’s eyes were rimmed with dark circles, and I was pretty sure mine were a match.

“I’m just down the hall,” he said. “Second door on the right.”

“Okay,” I said. Then he kissed me goodnight, as if we’d gone on a date. I waited until he’d walked into his own room before I closed the door and leaned against it.

I was starving. I was exhausted. The blinding white canopy bed with its gold tassels was calling to me. But I still had to wash out my chef’s coat and take a shower.

Downstairs, it sounded like a party was going on. In time, I would learn that parties were a daily event at the house, but on that night it still seemed like a novelty. Tinkling women’s voices rose in hilarity. Someone played the piano. I could already recognize Sophie’s laughter.

As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered if the women downstairs were the same ones who’d come to Peter’s party back in Whitfield. I hadn’t paid much attention to them then, but now they seemed . . . well,
odd
. The whole situation was odd. For
one thing, why was old man Shaw’s continental
pied à terre
filled with gorgeous women? For another, what was Peter supposed to do with them? Why would Shaw Enterprises need even one alchemist, let alone two? And how was I supposed to fit in with this crew of party-hearty beauties?