“I’VE FOUND ANOTHER part of it,” Jenna said excitedly as she burst into the estate room where Philippe had been working late. Outside the wind howled and February sleet drove at the windows.
He looked up in astonishment as she set her laptop down on the desk beside him. “The manuscript?”
“Yes. From the color of the vellum and the handwriting, I think it’s a scroll belonging to the first set of those I restored.”
He turned to the screen she propped open, trying to keep his hand steady as he scanned the lines.
“ ‘For the changing of man into wolf,’ ” he translated. “ ‘In a goblet of rock crystal, let it be half filled with the crests of white stallions and let there be placed twelve threads from the garments of a holy man, add the distilled essence of twenty unicorn horns and a breath of winter . . .’ ”
Philippe was sick with disappointment. He pushed the laptop away and rose. “All nonsense,” he told her. “The ravings of an unsound mind!”
But Jenna was frowning and paying no attention to him. Excitement unfurled inside her. “There’s nothing I like better than solving a mystery. Unicorn horns: that’s an old nickname for the allium plant. The crests could be its white flowers . . . and monks are holy men . . .”
“What are you talking about?”
“Monkshood,” she said. “The plant called aconite. But I don’t know what the ‘breath of winter’ might be. Do you have any botany books around?”
He looked down at her in wonder. “Where do you come by all this strange knowledge?”
“It’s not strange in my family. Aunt Alys is a gardener and herbalist, and she was always teaching us to make face creams and body lotions and herbal teas from the things that grew in our backyard. Her influence is one of the reasons my brother became interested in chemistry. We were always out picking things for her—chamomile, witch hazel, cherry bark. You name it, and I can probably tell you what it’s good for; John could tell you all its chemical components, too.”
Philippe put his hands on her shoulder. “My darling Jenna, how much more of this scroll do you have to restore?”
“Five, maybe six strips. I can’t tell until I unroll them.”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “What a fortunate day it was when you came into my life.”
One thing led to another. The ledgers and the laptop were forgotten in their haste to go upstairs and celebrate.
Jenna was awakened after midnight by a rapping on her door. She looked over for Philippe, but he was gone, as was usual after their lovemaking.
She slipped on a robe and unlocked the door. Berthe stood there in her nightgown and terry robe. “It is Claude. He is doubled over with stomach pains, and asking for you.”
Jenna hurried out into the passage and followed the housekeeper toward the stairs. “Is Monsieur Beaumont with him?”
“No.” Berthe bit her lip.
“Has he been sent for?”
“He has gone out.”
“At this time of night? It’s almost three in the morning.”
“Nevertheless, he has gone out!” Berthe flung open the door to Claude’s room.
The boy was tangled in his sheet, his legs curled up to his chest and his face pale. “Oh, mademoiselle! I hurt so.”
She was glad that she’d learned a lot just observing her mother. Jenna leaned down and touched his forehead. No fever. That was good. She felt his stomach and side the way her mother had when she’d been a young girl with appendicitis. No rebound tenderness.
“What did you eat for your dinner?” she asked.
“Onion soup,” he managed between moans. “And two stuffed cabbage rolls.”
“And a slice of raisin pie,” Berthe added.
“No,” Claude said, rolling from side to side. “Three slices of raisin pie. With fresh cream.”
Jenna laughed despite herself. “I believe this is the mystery solved. A bad case of indigestion is my diagnosis. Nothing that can’t be cured by a dose of antacid.”
“Do you think so?” Berthe managed. “Oh, mademoiselle, I am so glad you were here tonight. I was quite distracted with worry.”
She hurried off to fetch a bottle of liquid antacid. Once Claude was dosed he began to feel better quickly. He fell asleep before Jenna could finish the story she was weaving for him, about kindly dwarves who mined gemstones, a wicked queen, and the lovely princess who came to live in their cottage in the woods.
“It is almost dawn. I’ll stay with him,” Berthe said, with a warm smile for Jenna.
There is nothing like overcoming a crisis together to bond two women, Jenna thought. Unless it is love for the same small boy.
Once he was settled Jenna tiptoed back toward the head of the stairs. The light of dawn was seeping into the corridor as she passed the room that was Philippe’s. She turned the corner and gave a squeak of surprise as a shape lunged out of the shadows toward the door of his room.
For a confused moment it looked like a great gray wolf standing on its haunches. She gasped in shock, before recognizing Philippe. He was swathed in a fur cloak that covered him from the crown of his head to his feet.
“I told you never to come here!” he said angrily.
Jenna tried to speak and couldn’t. As the light came through his windows into the corridor she stared at him in shock. The illusion of a cloak vanished. His body was covered with thick fur, his long hair flaring out behind his neck and flowing down along his spine into a wolf’s raised hackles.