Seduction: A Novel of Suspense (9 page)

“What an astonishing creature you are. You are offering me a bargain.”

You smiled. “I suppose I am.”

I reached out and touched your beautiful hair, lifting one of the curls. As I did I breathed in your scent again. What a fine perfume. One more suited to a woman seated in front of a silver tea set under a crystal chandelier than to a servant girl walking on the beach in Jersey.

From my pocket I pulled out a handful of coins and opened my hand to you.

“You are sure you won’t take these?”

“There are others on the island who would gladly take your centimes, monsieur. But not I. If you want something from me, I will give it freely in exchange for what you might come to feel for me.”

Boldly you curled my fingers over the coins, closing up my hand. Rejecting the offer as completely as you could. And then, then you leaned forward and both gave a kiss and took one. My breath caught in my throat.

When you pulled back, you said two words, “Thank you.”

I was astonished. “What on earth for?”

“For making me wonder for the first time in a long time. Now I must go back.”

“Let me walk with you.”

“No, you have important things to think about—more important than me.”

But I didn’t want you to wander off into the inky black sky. I was afraid that you might venture into the sea instead of walking back to the house. I couldn’t bear to think of you in the water, with your dress soaking up the sea, pulling you down, swirling around you, sand and seaweed in your beautiful hair. I wanted to save you, Fantine. Save
you,
to make up for the other young woman whom I had not been able to save.

I saw you to the passageway where the road came down to the beach and then partway to Juliette’s house. I wouldn’t be going there after all. I craved solitude. So I returned to the beach and took the long way home, by the sea.

On my way back to Marine Terrace, I sensed someone walking behind me and thought I smelled a particular scent of smoke and incense, but when I turned to look all I saw were the rocks’ dark shadows and all I could smell was the sea’s salty, briny fragrance.

With only the roar of the waves there was little to distract me from my thoughts, until somewhere in the distance a dog began ferociously barking. Not alerting his master to a stranger approaching but quite the opposite. This dog was warning everyone who heard him that he was to be feared. Within moments other dogs were howling and the air was filled with their noise, just as had happened earlier that evening.

I was not usually worried about being accosted or assaulted by man or beast, but it had been such a strange night, I bent down and picked up a good-size rock. It was large enough to throw at a man. Or a dog if one approached. As I continued home, I held the stone in my grip, finding comfort in its craggy surface and heft.

Only when I was inside my own house with the door locked firmly behind me did I relax enough to gaze at the rock. In the candlelight I saw that it was almost a perfect oval of clear white quartz with a slightly fleshy pink tone to it. Actually very much shaped like a head. In fact the crevices and grooves, bumps and depressions even gave the appearance of a woman’s face. But not just any woman’s face. With
wonder, I stared at the rock that could have been an unfinished portrait of my own daughter, my own Didine. It was as if Rodin himself were working the stone and had just begun to rough out her appearance, had chiseled just the essence of her.

I placed the rock on my mantel, continuing to appraise it, wondering if in the morning Didine’s sister or brothers or her mother would notice and see the resemblance.

Upstairs, I opened my windows and looked out at the sea as I stripped down and stepped out of my damp clothes. I poured myself some brandy and sipped it as I returned my gaze to the infinite blackness.

I remembered the feel of your soft cheek on my fingers, your yielding lips on my mouth, your scent of roses and lemons. I could hear your melancholy words ringing in my ears.

It had been a relief to talk to you without pretense, the way I must all too often with my wife, even with Juliette. I could allow you to see how my grief still consumes me without worrying the knowledge would affect you.

I walked to my writing table. Pen in hand, while the wind washed over me and the household slept on the floors below, I began to write the story of this strange night that began with a séance and ended with two ghosts meeting—yours, Fantine, and mine.

The ring felt icy on Jac’s forefinger. As the cold shot up her arm, she shivered despite the comfortable temperature in the basement room in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The ancient jewelry was made out of a copper alloy that had a deep plum cast to it. Typical of the period, it was a knot without any loose strands. The carved Celtic design was intricate. In its center was a strange ghostlike face with hollow gaping eyes staring back at her. Jac was fascinated. Everything about her research was making her more and more excited about the upcoming trip to Jersey.

Who had last worn the twenty-six-hundred-year-old piece of jewelry? Was it a man or a woman? Was this a ritual piece? Jac knew the Celts were divided up into tribes, each ruled by a king. The population comprised Druids or holy priests or priestesses, warriors, nobles and commoners. Jac had read that chiefs gave rings to warriors to use as a badge of office and symbol of their power. Priests also wore them to denote their station.

“How long has this piece been in the museum’s collection?” Jac asked Christine Bullock, the curator of the medieval department.

“It was a gift from Josef and Brigitte Hatzenbuehler in 2009. They gave us a very generous portion of their collection. Almost all of it is now in our department.”

Jac turned her hand to the right and the left to catch the light. The jewelry ignited her imagination. This beautifully wrought metal object was bringing the Celtic culture to life. Making her anxious to leave for Jersey and begin her quest.

Despite Malachai’s pleading, or maybe perversely because of it, she’d decided she couldn’t pass up Theo’s fascinating invitation. There were over a hundred known Celtic ruins on the island. Because of how the landmasses shifted, occasionally new sites were uncovered. If Theo Gaspard had discovered one, she wanted to see it.

Jac’s ritual when investigating a new topic was to read as much as she could as well as search out facsimiles of art and artifacts related to the subject that she could look at and touch and hold. In the weeks since finding Theo’s letter she’d gathered hundreds of photos of ruins, archaeological finds, paintings depicting Celtic myths and legends.

This trip to the Met was proving to be the highlight of her research to date.

Bullock had met her in the museum’s great hall and via elevator taken her to a sub-basement. They’d walked for over fifteen minutes through labyrinthine tunnels to reach this windowless, quiet room that appeared to be some kind of storage space. Floor-to-ceiling racks of shelves were filled with hundreds of tantalizing tagged artifacts that all seemed to be from the medieval period. Jac itched to explore them, but her focus was on the dozen Celtic pieces Bullock had displayed on the table in the center of the room.

In addition to the ring, Bullock had chosen two bracelets, a sword, three coins, two brooches, a belt clasp and an assortment of items related to saddling a horse. All utilitarian objects, they were exceptionally made and beautifully designed. Simple but elegant.

Very little was known about these people whose civilization could be traced back to the Bronze Age in 1200
BCE
. Most of what had been written about them came from biased and bigoted accounts from the Romans who considered the pastoral, pagan Celts barbarians. Pull away the veil of prejudice and what emerged for Jac was a complex, deeply spiritual and evolved society.

“Are you working on any particular myth?” Bullock asked.

“Not yet. I’m going to wait until I get there and see what we find.” As she spoke, the ring distracted her. She was conscious of its heft and how the metal felt against her skin. Jac usually wore earrings but not rings. They somehow looked wrong on her, and she always worried she was going to lose them. But this one looked as if it had been designed for her. It was different—she felt as if it had just been found, not lost.

“Where was this ring discovered?” she asked the curator.

Bullock looked at the card from the ring’s tray. “At a burial site in the British Isles.” She raised her eyebrows. “Nice coincidence.”

Malachai’s favorite refrain repeated in Jac’s head.
There are no coincidences
.

Bullock was still speaking. Jac concentrated on what the curator was saying.

“Like the Egyptians, the Celts, especially the noble class, were buried with their personal and household goods, including weapons and chariots. It’s one of the reasons we have so many antiquities from that time.”

“When you believe the soul is immortal and the living and the dead exchange places all the time, burials take on a different meaning,” Jac said, as she started to pull off the ring and felt a pang of—what was it? Melancholy? For a moment the emotion threatened to overshadow the thrill of examining the rest of the items. Bullock hadn’t noticed—she was reaching for one of the other items—so Jac left the ring on and took the sword that the curator was handing her.

“This is a treasure,” Bullock said. “The artistry is highly evolved for the period.”

The hilt had been stylized into the form of a human warrior. His carefully carved face featured almond eyes and articulated hair.

“It’s beautiful,” Jac said.

“Probably the best one of its kind that’s been unearthed.”

“Do you know where this was discovered?”

“In Switzerland. Proof of the Celts’ expansion as well as their sophistication. We received it in 1999.”

Jac held on to the sword. Mesmerized by the verdigris, she examined the way the copper’s oxidation had created green crust circles and swirls that were as artistic as the weapon maker’s design.

Then Jac heard a sound. Was the rough clanging a bell ringing? She raised her head and listened. It was so far off. Too distant to hear clearly. Slowly she became aware there was a scent in the air now that hadn’t been there a moment before. She was sure of it. Sniffing, she smelled burning wood, smoke, incense and something sweet. What was it? She sniffed again.

“Do you smell something?” Bullock asked.

From the way she’d asked the question, Jac knew the curator hadn’t. It wasn’t that unusual for Jac to sense a scent others couldn’t. Her nose was better trained and so more attuned. Before this past summer, it wouldn’t have bothered Jac. But in Paris whenever she’d smelled an aroma no one else could, it had led to a hallucination. The return of the condition that hadn’t plagued her since the summer she spent at Blixer Rath perplexed and depressed her.

Since returning to New York in June, though, she hadn’t had a single episode and had stopped worrying about them. But if they were back . . . Jac hadn’t been able to control the incidents in Paris; would she be able to now?

Suddenly the telltale shivers that presaged an episode ran up and down her arms. Painful, cold pinpricks warned her a flare-up was beginning. The smells around her intensified. The light dimmed. She tried to fight back against the attack, but the shadows continued to descend.

Jac’s thoughts began to waver as if she were leaving her own mind and traveling into someone else’s. She looked around. The white walls were now dripping thick rivers of red. Seeping onto the floor, the blood was pooling. It smelled so sweet. Pitiful keening filled the air. A woman’s grief-stricken cries, so piercing they hurt Jac’s ears.

Summoning all her conscious strength, she tried to realign herself with reality. It was imperative to break through the nightmare vision. She feared disappearing into one, never to return with her faculties intact.

At the clinic, Malachai had taught Jac exercises to help her find her way back to her own mind. Her sanity commandments, she called the string of instructions.

Silently, she intoned them now.

Open a window. Get fresh air.

There wasn’t one in the room. Move on to the next step.

Take long, concentrated breaths. Count . . . two . . . three . . . four.

Jac inhaled. Counted . . . two . . . three . . . four. Did it again. And again. She smelled something manufactured. Something real. Of the present. A too-sweet gourmand perfume. Bullock’s cologne. Good. She was returning to the moment. Now she had to stay there and keep her mind from spiraling out.

Give yourself a task.

She’d try to identify the notes in the curator’s scent.

Jac inhaled again. Found them, then named them: musk, benzoin and caramel.

She was feeling better. Now to control her shaking. Jac carefully put down the sword she’d been gripping, inhaled again and counted . . . two . . . three . . . four. And again. Much better now.

How long had the episode lasted? It had seemed like five minutes or more, but Jac knew from recent experience it was probably only seconds. Glancing over at Bullock, Jac didn’t think the curator had noticed. She was still talking as if nothing eventful had occurred.

“There are still a fair number of Celtic tombs being found. Since so many were covered with funeral mounds, land configurations give them away. Over the years, they can be disguised and then come to light when the landscape changes for one reason or another. There was a recent find in Scotland discovered when part of a forest was cleared.”

Bullock got up and for a moment cast a shadow on the ring. When she moved and it left, the copper seemed to glow brighter. It was surely her imagination, but it felt to Jac as if the metal was warmer than it had been. And after a few more seconds it seemed almost hot. By the time Jac took the ring off there was a faint mark on her finger where it had been. Like a reverse sunburn. The rest of her hand was paler and the band under the metal was tan. Her skin stung a bit but she
refrained from rubbing it. It must be that she was having an allergic reaction to some special solvent the museum used to clean or protect the metal.