Tasha Alexander - Dangerous to Know

He grunted in my general direction.

“I’ve spoken with Dr. Girard again. He didn’t do what you asked of him. Edith gave birth to her baby and the child is still alive.”

He stopped playing. “Impossible.”

“Is it?”

“He—” Laurent looked almost flustered, his eyes darting in all directions, his mouth drawn tight. “He wouldn’t have done that. Not without telling me.”

“He had to have known you wouldn’t approve of the choice.”

“He had no right.”

“So far as I can tell, Edith is the one who should have had rights,” I said. “Can you imagine how it must have tormented her not to be able to raise her own child?”

“Of course I can. Why do you think I asked him to do what I did?”

“Wouldn’t what you wanted have been even worse than her simply giving the child to someone else to raise until she was recovered from her illness?”

He didn’t reply.

“Regardless,” I said. “He couldn’t bring himself to go through with it, and now won’t tell me what became of the child. We have to find it.”

“Vasseur. He must have given it to Vasseur.”

“Vasseur was already away in the Legion when the baby would have been born. This might, however, be the time to give me whatever information you can about the man. Where is his family? Where did he live?”

“It is time for me to have a very serious conversation with Girard. You have no reason to be part of this.” He rose to his feet and stormed out of the room, not even bothering to slam the door behind him. All in all, a disappointing exit. I’d come to expect more from Laurent. If nothing else, one should be able to count on a gentleman like him to brood masterfully.

I started down the steps (long after having heard the front door bang behind Laurent—I was glad his departure from the house hadn’t been completely lackluster) and found Colin and Cécile in the garden with Madame Prier and her husband. The sun still stretched high in the summer sky, the air felt warm, and bees skipped happily from flower to flower in search of sweet nectar. Cécile and Madame Prier sat close together, both shaded by Cécile’s lacy parasol. Colin, his long legs stretched in front of him, occupied the wrought-iron chair across from them and was fanning himself with a folded newspaper while Monsieur Prier occupied himself with the inspection of a thread that had come loose from his jacket.

“Come join us, Kallista, and try one of these,” Cécile said, picking up a plate of bergamot oranges in honey. “You look far too melancholy for such a beautiful day.”

I crossed over to them, rejecting the candied fruit and pulling a chair next to my husband’s. “I’m not melancholy, just tired. All this to-ing and fro-ing, and I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Oh dear!” Madame Prier lifted her eyes to the sky. “It’s the room, isn’t it?”

“The room?” I asked.

“Dominique—” Monsieur Prier glared at his wife, but she didn’t let him continue.

“I shouldn’t have dreamed of putting you in Edith’s room,” she said. “I never gave much credence to her claims of hearing voices, even when I heard her talking back to them. But since her death, it’s all tormenting me. What if there really was something in her room, as she insisted? What if some ghostly girl did speak to her? I suppose I wanted to prove to myself it’s not haunted or possessed or I don’t know what, and I thought—hoped—your staying in it would put my worries to rest.”

“What specifically did she hear?” I asked.

“She was never very lucid about it,” Madame Prier said. “But she’d speak to someone, and she claimed it was a girl—she’d talk about tying ribbons in her hair—got upset when I told her I didn’t see anything. I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything strange while you’ve been up there?”

I steeled myself, hoping to disguise the anxiety tingling through me at her description of the child that so well matched what I myself had experienced. “Only Laurent’s musical efforts.”

“He’s a dreadful boy, isn’t he?” she asked.

“Worthless,” Monsieur Prier said.

“He’s feeling the loss of his sister keenly,” Colin said.

“He’s a fine one to talk now,” Madame Prier said. “But it was he who first noticed her health deteriorating. He’s the one who told us she was talking to people who weren’t there. He recognized her delusions before any of us.”

“What exactly happened to Edith?” I asked. “Forgive me if it’s too painful a question.”

She sighed. “I know I ought to be keening and lamenting and mourning,” she said. “But Toinette’s right. At the moment I’m suffering more from guilt than grief.”

“That’s not uncommon when one has had to deal with a chronically ill family member,” Colin said.

“You’re far too reasonable, Monsieur Hargreaves. Edith was difficult from the time she was a little girl. Headstrong and determined. Always getting into trouble. And always with her brother. That’s the way with twins, I’m told. They even had a private language when they were small.”

“It was ridiculous,” Monsieur Prier said. “I wouldn’t tolerate such a thing, of course, and forbade them to use it. But as they grew older, and it was time for Laurent to go to school, Edith grew more and more obstinate. She didn’t want him to go away from home.”

“Did he?” Colin asked.

“Of course he did,” he said. “He studied in Paris and then returned to Rouen. We hoped he would marry, but he never showed even the slightest interest in any eligible girls.”

“What about the ineligible ones?” Cécile asked.

“You are too bad, my friend,” Madame Prier said, laughing.

Monsieur Prier did not share his wife’s amusement. “He has had his share of romantic attachments, but none of them have held his interest for more than a few months. I think there was someone in Paris about whom he was serious, but nothing came of it.”

“She must have left him,” Madame Prier said. “A well and truly broken heart is the only reasonable explanation for him clinging so assiduously to bachelorhood.”

“And what about Edith? Did she want to marry?” I asked.

“No doubt by now you’ve heard all the sordid dealings she had with Jules Vasseur,” Monsieur Prier said. “Terrible man.”

“I have heard a little about him,” I said. “What specifically made him so undesirable?”

“He came from no family—his father was a tradesman.” Madame Prier’s voice slipped to a coarse whisper. “His mother’s people were farmers. Can you imagine? The father was successful enough to send him to school, where he did well, and he eventually managed to become an officer in the Foreign Legion.”

“Admirable enough,” Monsieur Prier said. “But hardly what one wishes for one’s daughter.”

“Admirable how, my dear?” Madame Prier asked. “The Legion is full of thieves and vagabonds. An utter disgrace.”

Monsieur Prier did not respond to his wife.

“Did Vasseur court Edith openly?” Colin asked.

“He did, until I told him in no uncertain terms that he was not welcome in the house.” His voice had taken on a pointed edge, a hint that a nasty temper lurked not far beneath the surface.

“And then?” I asked.

“Then he showed his true colors,” Monsieur Prier said. “He crept around here at night, trying to lure Edith to meet him. He followed her when she went out—she couldn’t call on a friend without him pursuing her.”

“Did she view it that way?” Colin asked.

“At first I think she found it romantic and took it as a sign of his love and devotion, but eventually it became a burden.”

“She was extremely upset,” Madame Prier said. “As you might well imagine.”