Seduction

Thirty-two

The second floor of the Gaspard house had two wings. Walking Jac to her bedroom, Minerva had pointed out where her own was.

“Just two doors down if you need me. Eva is on the opposite side of the staircase, and Theo is downstairs in a suite of rooms. It affords him more privacy.”

“Did he live here with his wife?” Jac asked.

“No. They had their own house on the grounds. The old gamekeeper’s cottage. He moved back here after she passed.” She paused for a moment. “It was a car accident.” Minerva shook her head. “She was a careful driver, but there are dangerous turns on these roads, and so much fog. Naomi was from London and used to streetlamps. She wasn’t careful enough.”

Or she was very unhappy, Jac thought.

They said good night. Then, for more than an hour, Jac lay sleepless in a four-poster bed in the powder-blue and white bedroom, listening to the sea crashing on the rocks and thinking about everything that had happened since she’d arrived. Finally giving up on falling asleep, she slipped out of bed, wrapped herself in the robe Minerva had given her, nestled into the window seat and looked out at the view. The horizon’s line had vanished. Sea and sky melded into inky blackness. The waves’ phosphorescent glow looked ghostly against the dark backdrop.

Somewhere to the left of the window, a sweep of car lights passed by. Had Theo gone out? Then she heard Tasha’s bark. He must have taken the dog for a walk somewhere. A car door opened. Closed. Jac saw the dog bounding across the grass, illuminated for a brief second before she disappeared around the corner.

Feeling restless, Jac decided to go downstairs. Make some tea and find a book to read. As she left the bedroom, she remembered the last time she’d done this in someone else’s house. Over a month ago, at Malachai’s, the weekend she’d almost been hit by lightning. Found out she’d lost Griffin’s baby. The night she discovered the letter from Theo that had brought her here.

There was so much to think about, to think through. What had happened to her today? Why had she been drawn to this island? Had she been hunting down a myth or chasing the fantasy of a boy she’d known when she was a teenager? Her first kiss, her first crush. The idea of exploring a relationship with Theo, which had seemed possible in theory, was now complicated by his brother. And as interesting as both these men were in different ways, Jac was still getting over losing Griffin. One day she would get used to the idea that he was really gone from her life. That was progress, wasn’t it? To at least admit that she’d get past it eventually?

Pulling her robe tighter, she slipped her cell phone into the pocket and left her room. Jac trod the wide carpeted staircase, fingers sliding down the polished railing. What she really wanted to do was talk to Robbie. But her earlier call had gone to voice mail.

The two of them spoke in shorthand that made conversations so easy. Robbie could see inside her in a way that could make her angry but was always reassuring. Sometimes he was too sure of the advice he gave. Count Toujours Droit, she’d dubbed him in a mock knighting ceremony when they were little. Count Always Right. The times they spent working at the miniature perfumer’s organ their father had built for them were the most perfect memories Jac had. That little desk with its rows of essences and absolutes had occupied them for hours. Their grandfather would always stop by at the end of the day and smell what they’d blended. Grade it. And when he gave high marks to a fragrance that Jac had concocted, Robbie was always careful to give her the credit. Even though she was older, he’d taken care of her.

In the kitchen she turned on the electric kettle. Opening first one cabinet and then another, she finally found some tea and was delighted to see it was the same brand Robbie favored, Mariage Frères. She scanned the black canisters. Earl Grey. Russian Star. Marco Polo. She chose Des Poètes Solitaires.

While she waited for the kettle to boil, Tasha came into the kitchen for a drink of water. The beautiful dog did look as if she hailed from another era, much like the house. Like the sisters. A lot of the past lived on here, sharing space with the present. What Jac didn’t sense was the future.

Smelling the tea’s flowery aromatic scent waft up around her as it brewed made her even more anxious to talk to Robbie. Tell him what had happened. Hear what he thought.

Robbie, call me.

She pictured her brother sensing her, picking up his head. Looking into the darkness. Of the two of them, Jac knew she was fine-looking, but it was Robbie who was beautiful. They had similar features, his slightly too refined for a man and hers slightly too coarse for a woman. Looking at him was like staring into a mysterious mirror and seeing another version of herself. Robbie and Jac. Jac and Robbie. They’d always been desperately connected, the way children of damaged parents and a shared tragedy can be.

It had affected them so differently, though. Robbie had turned to Buddhism and become spiritual and contemplative. Jac had become hard, cynical and suspicious. Robbie embraced people. Jac didn’t connect to anyone easily. She worried too much about loving someone and then losing them. What if they disappeared? And as with Oedipus, her fears were realized no matter how hard she tried to avoid them.

The tea was brewed. She took a sip. Its familiarity offered a modicum of comfort. Just as with people, she wasn’t that good with strange places. Even though she traveled so much for her job, she still got anxious easily and longed to be home, secluded and sequestered in the little apartment on Sutton Place overlooking New York’s East River.

Mug in hand, Jac walked out of the kitchen and into the hallway, the marble cold on her bare feet. Without Eva’s bustling about and chattering and Minerva’s searching eyes and endless questions, the house’s melancholy was more pronounced. The quiet became a mysterious presence that knew so many secrets, the chill air seemed to hum with them.

As she walked toward the library she was pleased to hear the sound of a fire crackling and find Theo sitting beside the hearth. So engrossed in what he was reading, he didn’t hear her come in.

“Hi,” she said softly, trying not to startle him.

But she had, and he jumped.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

He had a faraway look in his eye. “No, of course, it’s fine. It’s all right.” He gestured to the chair. “Come, sit. I’m so glad you’ve appeared. I wanted to wake you, actually, but figured you needed the rest.”

She looked at the book he held in his hand, Hugo’s small, brown leather journal they’d found in the sea cave. “I couldn’t sleep. Too much to think about.”

“Do you believe what Minerva told us? Did you talk to Malachai? Do you think you were remembering my past?”

“I’m not sure what I believe, but I talked to him and that’s what he told me he believed.”

“Could it be? What an odd connection we have.”

She nodded.

“Jac, are you very frightened by all this?”

“I suppose so. Yes. Are you?”

“Not at all. But I’m not the one having the memories.” He took her hand and held it as if he was warming it. It was a caring gesture, and she welcomed it.

“I don’t know what to think,” she said.

“Neither do I.”

She nodded toward the journal. “And how are you doing with that?” She was relieved to talk about something else but what was in her own head.

“My French is terrible. I’m having quite a time of it.”

“Isn’t it astonishing that after all this time it was still there? How much have you read? What have you been able to figure out?”

“It’s very odd. Stranger than I would have imagined. I think you should give it a try.” He looked disturbed. “I might have gotten it all wrong. I almost hope I have.”

“What do you mean?”

“Here,” he said, and offered her the slim volume. She’d looked at it briefly in the cave, and then earlier that evening she’d just opened it when Minerva had interrupted. For the third time she held the journal in her hands.

Seven inches wide and nine inches tall, it was made of dark brown leather, still supple. Its twenty-five pages were all edged in gold, though some of that had worn off. She smelled the sea and mold and the strange and beautiful perfume.

She looked at the frontispiece. It was dated. December 1855. Nearly one hundred and sixty years old. She wondered if Fantine had ever gone down to the sea to look for it. Had she found it? Read it? Put it back? Or had no one but Hugo ever touched it again, till now?

Jac settled back. The armchair enveloped her, offering a false sense of security. When you sat in a chair like this, nothing was ever supposed to go wrong. You sat on your grandmother’s lap in a chair like this. You lounged in this kind of chair while listening to soothing classical music. But as she scanned the first paragraph, Jac guessed that what she was about to learn wasn’t going to be calming or soothing.

Jac began to read out loud, translating as she went.

Every story begins with a tremble of anticipation. At the start we may have an idea of our point of arrival, but what lies before us and makes us shudder is the journey, for that is all discovery. This strange and curious story begins for me at the sea. Its sound and scent are my punctuation. Its movements are my verbs. As I write this, angry waves break upon the rocks, and when the water recedes, the rocks seem to be weeping. As if nature is expressing what is in my soul. Expressing what I cannot speak of out loud but can only write, here, in secret, for you, Fantine.