The Cherbourg Jewels (16 page)

Frau Müller handed her the glass and Ella sipped the fizzy liquid gratefully.  Sébastien poured a double for his housekeeper, who nodded in approval when he handed her the glass.    

“Now,” Sébastien said, standing tall and fixing each of them in his gaze intently.  “There are two things that need to happen.”

“Wait,” Dr. O’Malley interrupted.  “Are you sure you want me involved in all this, Sébastien?  I’m an old man and I’m just a doctor.”

“Of course I want you involved, Peter.  You stood by my grandfather through his entire life.  I know he had no better friend than you.  If someone is trying to take down the Cherbourg name, I trust that you’ll be there to help me save it, just like you tried to save my grandfather.”

Peter O’Malley nodded.  “All right, son, all right.  You can count me in.”

“The first thing I need,” Sébastien continued, “is your report, Ella.  You need to complete it so I can give it to the museum.  Unless our would-be murderer thinks the exhibition has stopped, he’ll keep trying to intimidate me.  I want him to know that I won’t stop for anything.”

Ella knew that’s what he would ask of her, but his words still pierced her heart. 
So he still doesn’t understand
, she thought. 
He’s still going to ask me to compromise everything I am just so he won’t seem weak.
 

On one hand, she understood why he was asking.  If someone had come into her home and threatened her, she’d made damn sure she did all she could to get them out.  But she would never ask anyone to violate their code of ethics to do so. 

She felt all of their eyes on her and didn’t want to cause a scene or a fight.  She decided to skip over the part where she agreed to do what he asked.  “And the second thing?” she asked.

Sébastien nodded, interpreting her lack of protest as an agreement.  “You and I are going to give our miscreant two targets to choose from.”

“What?” Frau Müller burst out.  “Sébastien, you can’t be serious!  Why would you put your safety—and Miss Wilcox—in jeopardy?”

“Because,” he answered smoothly.  “It’s the only way to see who they’re really after.  So far, things have gone according to plan for them.  They could have killed both of us in the car or in the atrium.  But think about it…do they want Ella out of the way so she can’t submit her report, or do they want me out of the way?  We don’t know.  And I can’t fight a war unless I know I’m fighting and why.”

“It’s risky,” O’Malley said.

“Taking risks is what Cherbourgs do,” Sébastien answered.  “My grandfather should have taught you that.”

The older man appeared chagrined.  “All right, my boy.  Do what you must.”

“Peter, Gertrude—I want you two to go about your business as usual.  Don’t give our killer any reason to suspect anything is different than normal.”

Ella held back a snort.  “But it is different!  The conservatory is a mess because someone destroyed the ceiling!  Doesn’t it seem silly to pretend it didn’t happen?”

“I’m not pretending anything,” Sébastien said.  “Frau Müller, you will assign cleanup duties to the rest of the staff and select a contractor to handle the repairs.  I’ll stay here and respond to requests from out-of-town reporters who couldn’t make the press conference.”

“I bet I can guess what you want me to do,” Ella said. 

“I bet you can,” he replied.  “Ella, you’ll go across the house into the library where you will write your report.”

“What about me?” O’Malley asked.  “What do you want me to do, Sébastien?”

She saw Sébastien’s eyes soften, losing a bit of their ferocious glare.  “I want you to rest, Peter,” he said.  “If I’m right and this person strikes again, we’ll need you.  I want you at your best.”

The older man looked disappointed, but he nodded his head in agreement. 

“Now,” Sébastien said, glancing at each one of them in turn.  “Are we all agreed?”

Ella nodded, feeling strangely adrift.  She understood what Sébastien was trying to do and sympathized with him.  He was mobilizing his own personal army, taking immediate action to preserve the people and things he cared about.  She could hardly fault him for being so decisive and motivated
,
especially when she was neither. 

She still couldn’t decide whether to give in to Sébastien’s demands and write the report or preserve her integrity and refuse to submit a falsified document.  Despite the fact that only minutes ago, he’d been in mortal danger, Sébastien looked awake, alive and alert.  The air around him crackled with intensity.  He was in his element. 

He was born to do this
, she thought. 
He’s a natural leader.  And what am I?  A scared little girl, trapped in the past.

Sébastien interrupted her thoughts by jostling her arm.  “Ella, did you hear me?”

“What?” she asked, blinking under his intense stare.

“I said it’s time to separate.”

“Yes,” she said softly.  “
Yes, it is.
”

Ella made her way to the library and found it easily, thanks to the crystal-clear directions from Frau Müller.  She left the wide double doors open as Sébastien had asked, giving their would-be killer an easy way to spot her. 

Even though she knew no one was following her, she found herself looking over her shoulder as she entered the room.  “This is ridiculous,” she grumbled to herself.  “What the hell am I doing?”  

She didn’t really think she was the intended target
.  T
hat could only be Sébastien, the man in charge of putting on the exhibition.  If someone wanted to stop the exhibition, killing her wouldn’t do it.  It would only delay the grand opening while Sébastien hired a new gemologist.  It was probably just a coincidence that she’d been with Sébastien each time the attacker decided to strike.  

Ella felt a cold, hard pit deep in her stomach and realized it was fear, but not for herself.  If she wasn’t the target, that meant Sébastien was
.  A
nd he’d just isolated himself in his study, providing the assailant with the perfect opportunity to strike. 

Why didn’t Sébastien ask Peter O’Malley to stay with him?  Even if he wanted the women out of harm’s way, couldn’t he at least have sent for a member of his security team to stand guard?  It seemed like he was taking an unnecessary chance with his life and it made her feel more afraid than she’d felt in a long time, possibly since the night in her father’s workshop.

“What are you going to do about it?” she said out loud. 

There was no easy answer.  If she went back to the study, Sébastien would probably just send her away.  Besides, if she went back, she ran the risk of another heated encounter that would test the limits of her mind’s ability to withstand her body’s temptation.  As much as her body wanted him, her mind knew there was far too much danger and far too many unanswered questions.  

Ella hefted her laptop case up onto a large reading table and glanced around the room.  Except for one wide window that overlooked the gardens, every wall contained nothing but built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves packed with books.  Some of them looked extremely old, judging
from the faded gold printing on the faded leather spines.  Others were newer, some with titles she recognized.  She began to stroll around the room, perusing the titles printed on the spines. 

It seemed Sébastien preferred biographies.  Most of the newer-looking books told stories about fascinating people from the past: Lincoln, Lindbergh, Alexander II of Russia, Churchill.  He’s looking for role models, she realized.  He learned how to be a leader by reading about people who’d already done it and done it well.

Instantly, she wondered why he hadn’t just absorbed the lessons taught by his own family.  Surely their success would have been the best type of textbook?  Couldn’t his father have sat him down and given him the whole “how to succeed in business” lecture any time he’d asked?

On the wall opposite the door, a framed piece of art caught her eye.  She stepped closer to take a look.  It was a family pedigree, traced on worn paper the color of a
used
tea bag.  She immediately skipped to the bottom to find Sébastien’s name.  She spotted him at the very end, along with his sister Honorée.  Then she traced the line back up a generation to his father. 

But as soon as her finger stopped on the name “Sébastien Cherbourg III,” she realized why Sébastien had to do all his learning from books.  His father had died in 1985, when Sébastien was only ten years old. 

She remembered Sébastien saying his grandfather had been ill for many years.  With her finger still on the line of descent, she traced it up one more generation to his grandfather, Sébastien Cherbourg II.  He was born in 1925 and died in 1990.  Sébastien was only fifteen years old, she realized.  Robbed of his only male role models before he was even a man himself, poor Sébastien had grown up with only his mother.  From what she’d seen and heard, the woman was a poor role model herself and spent most of her time in a pill- or drug-induced haze. 

Suddenly, Ella felt as if her heart were more bruised than her head or her hip.  Sébastien had carried the full weight of his family’s name on his shoulders since the age of fifteen, with no one to guide him or teach him the ways of the world.  She wondered why he hadn’t said anything when she’d told him about losing her own father at a young age.  Why hadn’t he told her he’d gone through the same thing? 

As soon as she thought the question, she knew the answer.  He probably thinks he has to be strong, she realized.  He probably thinks it’s weakness to admit he’s sad or lonely or unprepared.  Suddenly, she realized how lonely he must be, especially if he had no one to talk to. 

Ella turned around and walked back to her computer.  She fired it up and opened her reporting software, a combination database and spreadsheet program that tracked her clients’ jewels.  The software allowed her to enter notes regarding provenance, purchase price and prior appraisals. 

As she looked at the blank document in front of her, filled with empty rows and columns that waited for her to assign numbers and values, she realized how empty it all was.  Compared with the gulf of loneliness both she and Sébastien must have felt after losing their fathers, what did a few numbers matter?  It seemed so petty and unimportant.   

And then she realized it.  “I’ve had it all wrong,” she said out loud. 

At first, she thought Sébastien adopted his gruff exterior because of some holier-than-thou attitude and the size of his family’s bank account.  But now, she realized his tendency to push people away was something else entirely.  It actually stemmed from the enormous pressure he felt to do right by his family’s name.  He probably lived in fear of disappointing them…hence the biographies of strong, successful men who lived through incredibly punishing historical events. 

“He’s not being selfish,” she breathed.  “It’s the other way around.” 

He wasn’t forcing the world to bend to his whims—he was bending himself to the whims of his family.  He’d become the strong man they needed at an age when he should have been a boy.  Should have been happy to play football with friends or ask a girl to a movie.

Ella realized she must have looked like a spoiled brat.  While he was going through all that inner turmoil, she refused to help him
,
and all over a few simple spreadsheets.  So what if she claimed that she’d appraised the missing jewels?  They were Sébastien’s property to lose, not hers. 

If she didn’t help him achieve his goal of staging this exhibition, she’d be no better than their assailant.  She’d be sabotaging the dreams of a man who only wanted to be the perfect son his family needed.

Once she’d made her decision, she felt much better.  At least the weight of “to report or not to report” had been lifted from her shoulders.  Whether it was right or wrong, she’d help him.  Damn the consequences.   

Her eyes drifted back to the bookshelf nearest her.  As her eyes scanned the titles, she saw one she recognized.  The book had a bright red spine with silver gilt letters.  It was a catalog
of famous jewels of the various European royal families.  Her father had owned it, too.  She’d checked it out from the library at least a dozen times before he bought her a copy for her birthday. 

Her trips to the public library with her father were some of her favorite memories.  Even before she’d started kindergarten, he’d taken her to the non-fiction section and turned her loose on the jewelry and gemstone books.  Instantly, she’d gone for the ones featuring queens and princesses.  She couldn’t get enough of their diamond tiaras, pearl necklaces, and glittering gemstones in all the colors of the rainbow.  She remembered sleeping with one of the books under her pillow, hoping she’d see herself in a dream, wearing some of those jewels.

She reached for the familiar book.  As she flipped through it, every page brought back a memory.  She remembered her father pointing out the stones embedded in the Imperial State Crown of Great Britain, from the Black Prince’s Ruby to the eye-popping 317.4-carat Second Star of Africa diamond. 

Even though she knew the book’s photographs couldn’t capture the color, depth
,
and brilliance of the stones, they still took her breath away.  It had been so long since she let herself enjoy the simple beauty of a jewel without analyzing it to determine whether it had come from her father’s workshop.