Tempting Fate (5 page)

“Yes, but it isn’t your money that keeps me in your bed, and Abby already told me you aren’t interested in falling in love.”

He grimaced. “
C’est vrai?
And when was this?”

“During the rehearsal dinner.”

Jean muttered something that sounded like a curse in French.

“She was drunk, Jean.” The way his eyes had hardened she wished she’d never mentioned it. “I’m sure she doesn’t even remember telling me. You saw how much wine she had.”

“
Bien sûr,
” he said, but his tone was harsh. “And that is the risk of being her relation; your thoughts are never your own from the moment she enters the house.
Non,
I do not envy Garrit at all for his choice of wife.”

“Please! You can hardly be upset if it’s the truth.”

“My relationships are no business of your sister’s!”

Mia said nothing, suddenly aware of the fact that they had an audience as the staff passed through the halls. She bit her lip and turned her face away.

Jean sighed. “
Je suis désolé,
Mia.” He stroked her cheek. “I am not angry with you; none of this is any of your doing.
Tu me pardonnes?
”

“Go see your aunt,” she said, not looking at him. “You shouldn’t keep her waiting.”

“Mia—”

“If you’re leaving me behind tomorrow, it doesn’t matter. Go to your aunt. We can talk about it later.”

He hesitated for a moment. Long enough that Mia wondered if Abby had been wrong after all.

It wasn’t difficult to find her sister, when she went looking. Abby had been lurking in the library since the wedding, and today was no different, though Mia had worried that she might be with Garrit, locked in whatever meeting had dragged Jean away. Mia slipped into the room to find her sister curled up with one of the many very old books. The whole library smelled like musty leather and moldering pages.

Abby closed the book and looked up. “How was Marseilles?”

“It was beautiful.” She sat down in the window seat and sighed. “I could wish it were closer.”

“You and Jean both. I think he prefers civilization to the Alps.” Abby cocked her head to the side for a moment, as if listening to something. “Is he with Garrit?”

“For all the good it does me. Is his aunt really sending him away to Paris so soon? Can’t you ask her to let him stay?”

“What makes you think if I did, she would listen?”

“Oh, please, Abby. Everyone listens to you. And I don’t care what Mum said, they trip over themselves to do everything for you. Except for Jean. Is that why he’s being sent away?”

Abby laughed. “The last thing I would dream of doing is sending Jean away while you’re still here. As if you would ever leave me alone about it.”

“Then why does he have to go?” Mia asked. “Or is it some big secret like everything else in this family?”

Abby rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic, Mia.”

“Jean says that if I were his wife, he’d tell me everything and I still wouldn’t believe half of it.”

“Jean should know better than to gossip about his own family.”

“Maybe if his family weren’t so impossible he wouldn’t have to.”

“That’s a fine way to talk about your hosts, Mia,” Abby said, her eyes narrowing. “And if you must know, the only reason they’re going to Paris so soon is because Garrit thought you might like to see the city and Jean would be the best person to show you the sights. I was going to let him surprise you with it, but if you’re going to be so uncharitable, maybe I should just tell them it isn’t a good idea for you to go at all.”

Mia gasped. “Really?”

Abby made a face. “Not that you deserve it, but yes. Garrit suggested it, and I thought it was a great idea. But you have to promise me that you’ll be respectful of Jean’s parents. Ryan and Clair are very generous to offer, never mind take you in.”

“Oh, you know I will! You know I’m only ever rude to
you
.”

“I’m more than aware.” Abby sighed. “I hope I won’t regret it.”

“You won’t!” she promised. For Paris, she would promise anything. And maybe even keep it. “I’ll be on my best behavior the entire time! Should I go pack? Will you help me? Paris! What am I going to wear?”

“Maybe if you’re extremely kind to him, Jean will take you shopping when you get there.”

Mia grimaced, thinking of their argument. “If he offered I’d have to say no or he’ll think I’m only sleeping with him for his money.”

Abby raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t look at me that way, Abby. It isn’t as if the idea of having all this money never crossed your mind the entire time you were dating Garrit.”

“It isn’t—” She bit her lip and stopped, then began again. “If he had been a pauper, I still would have married him. Sometimes I wish he were one.”

“Mama would have hated him if he had been poor.”

Abby looked down, her hand resting on the book beside her. “Maybe that would have been easier, too.”

“You’re so strange, Abby.”

Maybe Jean would tell her what was so different. He certainly had opinions about Garrit’s marriage. Maybe she could hold her forgiveness hostage until he told her something. Anything, really. There were so many secrets.

Abby shook her head just once and glanced at her as if she knew exactly what she was thinking. It reminded her of the way that Lars Owen man had looked at her.

“What?” Mia asked, feeling a trickle of ice down her spine.

Abby’s face smoothed into a polite mask. “Nothing.”

Mia rolled her eyes and stood up. “At least if I’m in Paris I won’t see Mr. Owen if he comes back.”

The mask disappeared and Abby’s eyebrows rose. “Why would he?”

She tsked. “Don’t you know? I mean, if he’s such a good friend of the family that Jean knows him, it seems odd that you don’t.”

Abby shook her head slowly, a wrinkle forming between her eyebrows. “The wedding was the first time I saw him. Garrit said he was a friend of René’s, acting as security.”

“Good!” Mia couldn’t quite help herself. “If I ever see him again it will be too soon, anyway. And I’m sure Mum will be happy to know he isn’t loitering around often. He really was rude.”

Abby seemed to be trying not to frown. “What did he say?”

“Nothing. He just stared at me until Juliette told him I was your sister. I felt like he was going to rip me to pieces for asking him what happened with that other man.” Mia shrugged. “It just gave me chills. The man is frightening.”

“I’m sure he isn’t so bad once you get to know him.” But Abby’s eyes were unfocused and she stared out the window. “It’s just that he’s so tall and imposing. He probably doesn’t even realize that he terrifies people. Although, if he does come and go, it would explain quite a bit.”

Mia hadn’t seen her sister look so distant since they were children, and she’d told stories of faraway places forgotten in the past. It had been a long time since she’d thought of any of that. Hadn’t there been something about some proto-Viking?

When her sister didn’t go on, she prompted her. “Like?”

Abby shook her head again and smiled, meeting her eyes. “Oh. Just that I could have sworn I saw someone outside in the rain a few months back. Maybe it was him.”

“You always did see ghosts everywhere.”

“Not everywhere.” Her forehead furrowed more deeply.

“Do you remember those stories you used to tell me when we were little girls?”

“No,” she said, but her face paled and it was much too quick. She stood up, taking the book back to its shelf and putting it away. “Not really. Just that I told you stories, but not what they were about. It was such a long time ago.”

“There must be something in the air here,” Mia said, not quite able to keep the resentment from her voice. “All you DeLeons seem to lie as easily as you breathe.”

Abby’s shoulders drooped, but she didn’t turn. “I’m sure that Jean is looking for you by now, Mia. If you’re going to Paris tomorrow, you’d better start packing.”

Mia left without another word. At least her sister hadn’t bothered to deny it.

Jean helped her pack, in part, Mia suspected, to make amends for his earlier behavior. She tried to be gracious. He was taking her to Paris, after all, and he seemed genuinely regretful.

“At least you don’t lie to me,” she said while she zipped her clothing into a garment bag.

Jean raised both eyebrows. “I hope you’re not comparing me to a lover from your past,
ma chérie.
I fear I am a jealous man.”

“No.” She laid the garment bag on the bed and began balling her socks and stuffing them into her shoes. The whole situation rankled her enough that even if she hadn’t been excited about Paris, she would have been happy to leave Abby behind. “Just my sister. I don’t know what it is about you DeLeons, but she acts so odd around you.”

He was quiet for a moment, taking the shoes and placing them into her suitcase. “I imagine it must be very difficult for you, seeing her this way. I confess I never considered what she was like before she came to us; is she very changed?”

Mia shrugged. “She never used to lie to me so obviously. About stupid things, too. Like remembering the stories she used to tell me when we were children. I used to have the strangest dreams, those nights, after she finished telling them. So vivid, they seemed like memories. One of her favorites was Helen of Troy, but I didn’t realize until much later that she told it oddly.”

Jean chuckled softly. “Let me guess: Prince Paris does not win fair Helen’s heart?”

She stared, forgetting the socks in her hand. “How did you know?”

“Euripides claims she spent the entirety of the war in Egypt, waiting for Menelaus to reclaim her. Nor was he the first to suggest it was so. They say that the gods made a phantom Helen, who went with the prince to Troy. Still others whisper that they did it to save the world. If Helen had become Paris’s lover, and a child born, they would have conceived a god between them.”

“You must have been reading the same books she did.”

“It is one of the stories of my family.” He seemed to struggle with fitting the shoes together among her other things and did not look up. “Our forefathers even go so far as to claim descent from Helen herself. They believe she did not stay in Egypt, but came here, and Menelaus took home his phantom wife. It is one of our secrets, that she is our mother.”

“But Helen never lived. Not really.”

Jean smiled. “I told you that you would not believe me.”

“Well of course not!” Mia laughed. “It’s just a myth, isn’t it? Is that the secret you can’t tell Abby?”

His smile faded and his lips pressed together into thin lines. “
Non.
That is one she knows.”

“Well, when she told it, I felt as though I were there. As though I were Helen, in Sparta, speaking to Menelaus. Or trying to avoid Paris in the palace. She never went into much detail about the war, though. Maybe because I was so young. But I could see it all in my mind while she spoke, even feel it.”

“
Oui,
if she chose to be, she would be a great story teller. She would have made a very fine living as a bard, in the old days.”

Mia frowned. “But now she says she doesn’t remember any of it. Has she been telling you stories?”

Jean shook his head. “
Non.
But I know the feeling you speak of. Lars Owen told us stories the same way, Garrit and Luc and Evaline and me, when he would come to visit in the summers, every so often.”

She shivered. “I’m not sure I’d like to hear the stories he told.” She began balling her socks again and passed him another pair of shoes. “It’s very strange that Abby doesn’t know him, isn’t it?”

Jean tucked the shoes into the suitcase and smiled at her. “You are very determined, aren’t you?”

“Not determined, just curious. How would you like it if you came to visit me and spent the whole trip feeling as though you were missing things and no one would fill you in?”

“I would pretend I noticed nothing, politely, of course.”

Mia rolled her eyes. “I don’t see why you have to be such a spoil sport. Your family already keeps you tied to their apron strings. Rebel, Jean, I promise you it will feel wonderful.”

He grinned. “I can think of some other ways to feel wonderful, if you’ve forgiven me. I promise you’ll enjoy it more than my family’s mythology.”