“You and Rhys did it?” repeated Scarlet, as we strolled through early-morning Paris two days later. Of everything I had told her, this was what she lingered on. “In the catacombs?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “And the earthquake was deliberate.”
“Why not ask the geophysicist about it on tonight’s date?” Scarlet laughed at our continued emphases. I did not.
“That is exactly why I called Léon. I was not responsible for the last earthquake. I do not intend to be responsible for future ones. He suggested we discuss matters over dinner. And why not?” I asked. But Scarlet’s narrowed chocolate eyes did not let me off so easily. “Rhys and I have no relationship.”
“Ah. Just sex then.” Her eyes flashed. “Does he know that?”
“He barely spoke to me yesterday, when he helped me make arrangements for my grandmother.” At Scarlet’s blank look I added, “She died. He is angry I did not tell him. And if you are my friend, you will not expect abject grief. I hated the woman.”
“Still, it was kind of him to help you make arrangements.”
“I did not ask him, he just did. The man was a priest. He understands the administrative necessities that complicate dying.” To be fair, I added, “And he is a kind person.”
One who’d fully realized that I was not. I did not like remembering how my heart had sped when he joined me in the hospital offices—or how it had sunk when I saw his continued disapproval. And now, this morning, I had to see him again.
I was meeting our financial benefactors outside the building that now held the remaining effects of the Soeurs de Marie, to introduce the project to them. Hence I wore my best suit, knee-length. Scarlet wore a flirty miniskirt, a T-shirt and combat boots. “I think you’re pushing him away,” she said.
I shrugged. Students, on their way to early classes, were a good sign. Still, the Université de Paris is not one building, or even one campus. It consists of three separate universities. Luckily, I had studied histoire at this 5th arrondissement Sorbonne. I knew my way around.
“You like this man, but now you push him away with both hands. Off a cliff! And then you laugh over the edge—hah hah hah! And likely spit, too. As he plummets.”
“There was neither laughing nor spitting involved.”
“Perhaps he will blame it on grief,” she mused.
I glared. Grand-mère had managed to drive a wedge between Rhys and me, even from beyond the grave, although I had admittedly helped. I just hadn’t wanted…rather, I had wanted…
We rounded a squat, sixteenth-century building and my stomach swooped. There stood Rhys beside a broader, tawny-haired man outside the front steps of our destination. Tall. Slim. Dark-haired. But…impeccably dressed in an expensive suit?
When this man turned, I saw my mistake. Instead of Rhys’s fair complexion, this tall-slim-dark man had the olive cast of the Mediterranean. My foolish disappointment warred with vague appreciation. Not only was he perhaps as beautiful as Rhys, with his high cheeks and light eyes…this man knew it.
His haircut, his Italian suit, even his shoes bespoke the casual splendor of wealth. So did his posture, and the quick smile that touched his lips at our arrival—and then froze there.
“Good morning,” greeted his sturdier, tawny-haired companion. “Catrina Dauvergne? I am Caleb Adriano.”
“Monsieur.” I offered him my hand. He kissed it with a gallant gesture that went with his Latin complexion, and our gazes locked in a moment of honest appraisal. The sex would be good, I decided in that moment, but this one liked to dominate as he pleased. I would annoy him—as I did so many men.
Perhaps he came to the same quick conclusion. Our eyes smiled at each other and he gave the tiniest shrug of regret. “Please, call me Caleb. This is my little brother, Joshua.”
His “little” brother was the one who had reminded me of Rhys although, close up, Joshua and Rhys shared little more than general age, body type and dark hair. I offered my hand.
Joshua Adriano, however, simply stared. At Scarlet.
I caught Scarlet’s gaze and she widened it, confused.
“Fratellino,” chided Caleb—so they were Italian, instead of Spanish or Portuguese? Their French was excellent.
Joshua took a step forward, now frowning down at Scarlet. A single word choked from his throat. “Zoe?”
Caleb took a closer look—perhaps her vintage clothes had lost him at first? She shook her head, shrugged—then grinned.
After a moment’s obvious surprise, Caleb grinned back.
But I was being rude as well—which, in business at least, I try to avoid. “My apologies. This is Scarlet Rubashka. She has been keeping a photographic journal of the salvage from the Denfert-Rochereau site.”
“How do you do, Scarlet Rubashka?” Caleb Adriano lingered an extra breath over Scarlet’s hand, and she bit her lower lip.
“Scarlet?” repeated Joshua. He looked suspicious, now.
She sidled a little closer to Caleb.
“Fratellino!” Caleb smacked Joshua lightly on the shoulder, snapping his brother out of whatever spell he’d been under.
Joshua better composed his features. “My apologies, Mademoiselle Rubashka. You remind me of someone I once knew.”
“Truly?” Caleb arched a wry brow. “We had not noticed.”
In the meantime, Scarlet seemed to have thrown aside her initial suspicion about Joshua. “You know someone who looked like me? How much? I mean, was it just a passing resemblance, or could it have been a familial likeness? I’m adopted, you see, and I’ve been looking for my birth family for so long—”
“I am sorry,” interrupted Joshua, with what now seemed like honest regret. “She…it was only a passing resemblance.”
“Oh. Oh, well. It was worth asking, right?”
For Scarlet, perhaps. I could not imagine flashing my most private longings at strangers—but I was not her, thank heavens.
“Think nothing of it,” Joshua insisted, but he backed toward the entryway as he said so, as if he felt similarly about such blatant disclosures. “I am the one who should apologize.”
She took the hint well enough. “I’d best let Catrina take you in to show off all the fascinating things she found.”
“What?” Caleb’s protest surprised us both. “Surely you do not mean to leave us so soon, Scarlet Rubashka?”
He smiled at her, almost too charming—but not quite. She smiled back and bit her lip. I could see that their immediate appraisal of each other went far better than had his and mine.
“Well…” She hesitated, sliding her gaze to me.
“If Monsieur Adriano does not mind.” They were our financial backing, after all. They had a great deal of say.
“Please, call me Caleb,” insisted the older brother again, offering Scarlet his elbow. She took it happily, her bright blue fingernails a strange contrast to the fabric’s expensive weave.
“Caleb,” I agreed, and took the elbow that Joshua offered me. The suit—and arm—felt lovely under my fingertips. But I think I am the only one who noticed him frown at his brother as we passed into the sixteenth-century building.
The large, second-story workroom’s metal shelves, cardboard boxes and worktables made a stark contrast to once-elegant paneling and stained-glass windows. Rhys—the real Rhys—was at work, his left hand lightly bandaged, examining some of the pieces we’d found. Our gazes touched and then veered away from each other’s as I led our guests into the room.
I made the introductions, clarifying that Rhys was the project’s full-time coordinator, since I would split my time with my duties at the Musée Cluny. Rhys stood, and they shook hands, sizing each other up the way men will. I did not hear Caleb and Joshua asking Rhys to call them by their first names.
But Rhys was taller.
“May I?” asked Scarlet, lifting her camera.
“Please, this should not be about us,” protested Joshua.
With a gesture, I encouraged Rhys to take over the tour of said artifacts. He looked good today, if not expensive-Italian-suit good. His long-sleeved shirt and slacks had been ironed and starched and his shoes shined in preparation for our guests. The fact that he’d likely done the ironing, starching and shining himself gave his appearance an unexpected poignancy.
As did my clear memory of taking his virginity…
“Finding remains from the Revolution is not unusual,” he explained with easy confidence. Saying mass must have been good practice against stage fright. “During the Reign of Terror, from June 1793 to July 1794, more than twenty thousand people were executed. The government kept copious records. And yet so far my students have found no record of this burial. What differs about the collection that Mademoiselle Dauvergne…stumbled across—”
His eyes warmed momentarily at me with his joke—and, as before, my heart sped. Damn. It was happening again. I could feel myself getting more foolish by the moment.
“—is that it held a virtual time capsule. For some reason, these five women were not only guillotined, they were interred in a forgotten corner of the catacombs, along with what seems to have been all their worldly possessions. France had rejected the excess of nobility most violently, yet this grave wasted books, crockery—candlesticks!” He indicated the items on one of the large metal tables. “It’s unheard of.”
Scarlet, never shy, said, “But aren’t people buried with their belongings all the time? Pictures or jewelry…” Her voice trailed off with an apologetic look at me, which…oh.
She’d remembered before I did that my grandmother had died.
Rhys stepped easily into her silence. “Rarely people who have been executed. Their belongings became property of the state. From what we found at the Denfert-Rochereau site, we hope to better understand both the mystery of these women’s executions, and perhaps their lives.”
And on he went, pointing out some of the more intriguing items. Of particular interest was the cracked glass jar I remembered, which had copper wire coiled around it. According to Rhys this was a Leyden jar, used to store charges in early experiments with electricity. “These women may have had a scientific bent,” he noted, “and perhaps were fans of the popular ‘man who tamed lightning,’ as they also had one of these….”
And he made us all smile by producing a chipped dish from our find, featuring Benjamin Franklin’s image. Franklinmania in France had so annoyed Louis XVI that he’d had the American’s image painted in the bottom of a chamber pot.
“Other items are less easily explained,” Rhys continued—and I realized what he meant to show our sponsors next. Perhaps my recent visions colored my paranoia about certain pieces, but…
“Show them the jewelry,” I suggested. “Of everything that should not have survived unmolested….”
Rhys beckoned a student over. “Josette, please show these gentlemen the jewelry you’ve catalogued thus far. Josette’s specialty is the history of fashion,” he explained—to her obvious adoration—before leaving her to open the proper cartons and begin showing the medals and baubles we’d found. Then he came to my side, tall and warm, a silent question in his eyes.
“I don’t want to show them the tiles or key,” I whispered.
My eyes begged him to go along—and he did, with a sharp nod. “Explain later,” he whispered, with surprising authority.
“—have been Catholic?” Joshua Adriano was asking about the Mary medal we’d found, as Rhys and I rejoined them. “Perhaps even martyrs? Surely Rome would want to hear of it, if so.”
“That is one of the theories we are pursuing,” agreed Rhys. “What with the precedent of the fourteen Carmelite nuns—”
“The Martyrs of Compiègne,” Joshua interrupted knowingly. “But…weren’t there sixteen executed?”
“There were fourteen nuns and two servants.” Rhys did not interrupt, but he out-Catholicked Joshua Adriano all the same. “All martyrs, guillotined on 17 July, 1794.”
I felt tempted to suggest that whoever could name all sixteen martyrs first would win, with bonus points for the servants, but I had my professional face on today. “You see how valuable your support is,” I intervened smoothly. “Of course, we have only begun our research, but the possibilities are exciting. What else can we show you?”
“Oh, we’ve seen quite enough,” said Caleb, even if he had been hanging back and trading long looks with Scarlet for most of the presentation. “You have our wholehearted support.”
“Yes. Thank you so much for your time.” Joshua offered a hand to Rhys, and they shook amiably enough—I keep forgetting that competition among men does not always mean hostility. “This project is clearly in capable hands.”
He even said that before he then took my hand and kissed it, holding my gaze as he did. Some men are just made for hand-kissing. I could barely stop my slow, responding exhale.
Only when Joshua offered his elbow again did I recover enough to mouth, Back soon, over my shoulder, before the Adrianos squired us out of the room.
Rhys did not look convinced.
“You have no idea,” said Joshua to me as we walked out together, “how much we appreciate the opportunity to be part of something like this. To uncover a chapter of history that was previously lost. It is…magnifico. As,” he whispered, “are you.”
This is why Italian men are so popular.
I eyed him at a slant, through my lashes. Between his immediate interest in Scarlet, aka Zoe, and his contrast with Rhys—of whom I was admittedly fond—I had not taken time to wholly appreciate this man on his own level.
Like his clothes, it was a high level. Joshua was handsome. He smelled delicious. And yet…I did not wholly trust him.
Since when had I begun to rank trust so high among my potential lovers? I thought. Likely this was Rhys’s doing.
“I am too forward,” Joshua murmured quickly, his soft voice a tickle in my stomach. “My apologies.”
“No need,” I assured him. “I merely—”
But Scarlet interrupted us with a gasp. “Catrina!”
I looked toward her, for a moment foolishly concerned that Caleb Adriano had done something untoward. What I saw, however, dragged my attention from thoughts of all men except for one.
The small, dark-haired, crazy-eyed man who had invaded my home the night of the first earthquake, watching us from behind a tree across the courtyard.
He saw us recognize him—and he scurried away, like a bug.
I took off after him.
No, I do not know what I meant to do if I caught up to the strange little man. But I wasn’t going to just let him stalk me like this, and not do anything!
He dodged around students and spun around a corner, but I pounded after him in my best pumps. Joshua and Caleb Adriano quickly caught up.
“Him?” demanded Joshua, pointing as he slowed beside me.
“Yes! He—”
But I did not need to explain further, because he and Caleb were already pulling ahead of me. Apparently, the fact that this man upset us was more than enough motivation for testosterone-drenched Italians to give chase.
The dark man glanced over his shoulder, blanched and ran faster. Me, I slowed to a trot, then a stride, then stopped entirely, bending at the waist to catch my breath—and watch the Adriano brothers disappear down the Paris street after their quarry. Damn, they were fast.
“What will they do if they get him?” panted Scarlet, catching up to me outside the pâtisserie where I’d stopped.
I shrugged. For once, Scarlet did not have anything to add.
To our disappointment, when Joshua and Caleb reappeared, they came alone. Their suits were rumpled, and Joshua was bleeding from his lip, his jaw swelling. He looked furious.
“The little bastard ambushed us,” explained Caleb, breathing hard. “He went down an alley, then he leaped out at us. He knocked poor Josh silly. I could have gone after him, but…”
“You had to stay with your brother,” agreed Scarlet, while I moved closer to inspect the damage. As he held a handkerchief to his definitely split lip, his dark hair tousled and his suit stained, Joshua Adriano seemed more attractive than ever.
“We are so sorry,” said Scarlet, hovering. Considering that I’d not asked our patrons to give chase, I did not bother to second the opinion, but I did wince at the sight of Joshua’s injuries up close. “It’s just…he broke into Cat’s flat, just last week, and who knows what else he might have done, I mean, just the other night someone vandalized her hospital room, and if only we knew who he was….”
Joshua quieted her with a raised hand, a smile in his hazel eyes easing any imperial edge to the gesture—especially with the accompanying wince. “This sounds like too complex a matter to discuss on the sidewalk. Perhaps dinner? Tonight?”
He was staring at me the whole time he asked, and I felt myself slowly exhaling again under his inherent magnetism.
Caleb cleared his throat. “Our flight, fratellino….”
Joshua waved him away. But luckily for their flight, I, too, had other plans. “I already have a dinner date tonight.”
“Then…” Joshua considered this as a dark car drew up beside them. Of course, men like these would hire a driver. “Let me give you a ride to the museum, Catrina Dauvergne. I must know more about these threats to you. And I have information that you, too, may find useful.”
I hesitated. For one thing, the invitation had not seemed to include Scarlet. For another, I’d just told Rhys that I would be back soon. For yet another, all women have been warned about getting into cars with strange men. But we knew who these men were. How could I resist such an invitation?
“Scarlet and I,” suggested Caleb, “we can walk, so that you may speak privately. If the beautiful lady agrees?”
Joshua’s gaze flickered. Either he did not like his brother, or he did not like Scarlet, or both, which also intrigued me. Scarlet’s eyes were pleading, despite her careful silence. She wanted to walk with Caleb—and, no doubt, to hear whatever Joshua would tell me, secondhand.
“Prego, Catarina,” Joshua murmured, holding my gaze. “This may affect your project, as well as you.”
Non, I could not have resisted the invitation.
I nodded and let him help me graciously into the car.