Seduction

Thirty-seven

As Jac and Theo journeyed away from the monument, he explained that before her death, his wife had been seeing a therapist and talking about a separation. “It was my fault our marriage was in bad shape. She said I was jealous and overly protective. She hated living in Jersey. Said it was like being in a fishbowl. She wanted to go back to London. I should have just said yes. Moved there. Taken her back to London. Anything to get her away from Ash.”

“Ash? What did your brother have to do with it?”

“My brother was pursuing her. Trying to seduce her. He was in love with her, Jac. He was attempting to steal her from me. He was making all kinds of promises to her. He even was helping her get a flat in London-”

Theo broke off and looked down at his watch.

“We can go to the beach. It should be low tide by now,” he said.

She wanted to know more, but he certainly had changed the subject.

Jac and Theo walked down the slipway and reached the shore.

“We must have been lucky yesterday to get here when we did,” Jac said. “The sea must completely hide the entrance during high tide.”

“Which had to be why Hugo chose it and how the journals remained undiscovered for so long. But I’m surprised he didn’t just destroy it. It would have been so much easier.”

“He was already a famous writer and so well aware of his own celebrity. I don’t think it would have been easy for him to do that.” Jac peered over the edge of the rocks. She felt the familiar jolt of fear from being on a ledge but fought it.

They made their way down to the entrance. There was still an inch of water on the ground from the recent flooding. They sloshed through the first tunnel to the innermost cave where they’d found the stone hiding place. The floor here was dry.

Together she and Theo removed the amber totems from the front of each cubbyhole and searched each niche.

“There’s nothing else here. Just these little statues and bones,” he said, his voice dejected. “Maybe Hugo didn’t leave the other volume in the same place after all.” Theo shone the strong lantern around the cave, swinging it almost wildly. “Where else could he have put it? This place is filled with cracks and crevices. It could be anywhere.” He sounded panicked.

Jac was systematically going through the cubbyholes again, reaching deeper into each one. It didn’t make sense that Hugo would have hid the two volumes separately.

And sure enough, in the fourth from the top on the left, her fingers felt something. She pulled out an identical package to the one they had already found and unwrapped. It was another journal. The same material and type as the one they had found yesterday.

“Theo, look. I found it.”

Jac opened it. Breathed in the centuries-old fragrance of ink and mold and Fantine’s perfume and began to read.