I'll See You in Paris (23 page)

“And they still talked about her.”

“Obsessively. And among people far more notable than Gads and his family. Sir Winston Churchill, for one. Though he was technically part of the family, too.”

“Ah, Winston. Mrs. Spencer's favorite subject.”

“Favorite something. Person to torment perhaps. ‘He couldn't have done what Hitler did!'” Win trilled in a perfect Mrs. Spencer voice. “The scuttlebutt wasn't limited to the Marlboroughs, either. Guests all parroted the same questions. What happened to the duchess? Was she alive? And what of her personal possessions? The duke and duchess were in the process of divorcing when he died, leaving her his forever wife. The family felt her things belonged to them, even though Nine cut her out of his will and left the estate to Ten. Estate. Albatross. What have you.”

“Hmm,” Pru said, and settled back onto the bed. “It's amazing how much damage one person can do.”

She was half asleep now, the odds of making it back to her room slim. Could she sleep there? On the bed of an unfamiliar man? What would he think of her? More important, what would Pru think of herself?

A few short months ago she was a student at Berkeley, living with roommates who introduced themselves as “lesbian-feminist organizers.” Pru dutifully protested the war, but waved the figurative hanky as she sent her fianc
é
off to fight. Then she left school to get married, a decision she could not reconcile with the desire to call herself a feminist. Alas, it was Charlie. And so love won.

Pru was equal parts independent and traditional. She dreamt of office pumps and also a pregnant belly wrapped in a housecoat. Now, a continent away, among people whose families and traditions went back for centuries, Pru didn't know who she was at all. Already she felt like someone else but couldn't pinpoint in what ways.

“Are you still with me, Miss Valentine?” Win asked in a half whisper as he stood above her.

She nodded, the back of her head rubbing against his pillow.

Pru was beginning to understand the man's obsession. If she was slightly stunted in her forward progression, this chap was doubly so. Thirty-four years old. A man-boy who lived in a world of family stories and fish tales. He said it himself. What grown child wouldn't want to meet his Peter Pan or Wendy? His Alice in Wonderland?

“I get it now,” she said dreamily, her mind and good sense already slipping away. “Staying at Blenheim, stories of the duchess bleeding through the years. She grew to fabled proportions, a goddess to those who visited.”

Pru fluttered her eyes open. Win remained hovering above, hands on hips, staring down with his puckered blue gaze.

“Scoot over,” he said, nudging her leg with his foot. “You're welcome to sleep here but make room for me, and pronto. I'm suddenly feeling quite off my tits and am liable to pass out right atop you.”

“Mmm,” she replied, and inched to the right. “Can't have that.”

“How generous. Thank you for providing me a full three centimeters of space in my own bed.”

Pru felt him slide in beside her. Her eyes popped open as she felt his fingers whisper ever-so-slightly against hers.

“Are you okay?” he asked, sensing her body tighten against the bed.

“Yes. Peachy.” Pru closed her eyes again and tried to steady her breath. “Win, who are you writing this book for? Do you really think anyone will care about a woman who's been missing for thirty-five years? A woman who was more legend than truth?”

“How can you
not
find her fascinating?” he asked. “A champion spaniel breeder who is also a firearms enthusiast, a kidnap victim, a lover of great men, and the one person who could have prevented World War I?”

“Yes, this person does sound fascinating. If she existed. If that's her down the hall.”

“What about a woman who keeps dead cats in the icebox and is famous for running naked through the town center? If you don't find this compelling may I direct you to more plebeian entertainment? An episode of the American comedy
Sanford and Son,
for instance.”

“Well,” Pru said, breath finally at peace in her chest. “Perhaps you have a point.”

Win beamed in return, though Pru's eyes were closed and she could not see him.

A point? He had a point? It was a very rare thing for anyone to say about Win Seton. A very rare thing indeed.

“Do you really think Mrs. Spencer is the missing duchess?” Pru asked before finally nodding off.

“Yes, of course. Otherwise, what am I doing here?”

“But what proof do you have other than a hunch and a handful of rumors?”

“I have photos. And documents. And we have her name.”

“Whose name? Gladys Deacon's? That's not exactly top secret information.”

“I'm referring to Mrs. Spencer, your oft-naked employer. You see, I've not told you Gads's surname.”

“It's not Marlborough?”

“No. It's Spencer. Well, Spencer-Churchill to be specific. And isn't sloughing off the Churchill the very thing our dear friend would do? Winston was no Hitler, after all.”

 

Thirty-eight

 

GD: He was the worst. The absolute worst.

WS: I'm not sure why you have such prejudices against Churchill.

GD: Because he was not a great man! And everyone erroneously thought he was. Which only served to puff him up.

WS: But how well did you know him?

GD: I knew him well enough. He used to come to that place where we were.

WS: Blenheim, you mean?

GD: He liked to lay down the law! No compassion. The man was incapable of love. He was in love with his own image—his reflection in the mirror. Coon thought he was tiring, too.

WS: To be clear, you're talking about his visits to Blenheim.

GD: Yes, of course I am.

WS: Your family seat.

GD: They're not my family.

WS: Churchill was your husband's cousin. His best friend.

GD: I'm telling you he's not my family.

 

Thirty-nine

THE GRANGE

CHACOMBE-AT-BANBURY, OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND

NOVEMBER 2001

 

When her father passed, he left each of his daughters a sizable trust. Naturally, this sudden influx of riches rendered Gladys Deacon ever more attractive to potential suitors. The “cash for class” business was thriving, this a term invented by Consuelo Vanderbilt herself. Old Coon was quite aware of her position in that particular exchange.

Despite a revolving door of paramours, Gladys saw in the dollars not a dowry but her chance at freedom. She bought her very own Parisian apartment at the Trocad
é
ro
and flitted about the best salons, not a care to be had. On weekends she visited Monet in Giverny and consorted with the likes of Renoir, Rodin, and Degas.

Because of this freedom, Gladys endeavored to improve herself in every conceivable way. She understood beauty and money would disappear long before she had a chance to appreciate either. But knowledge, education, and the ability to dazzle at salons, these were qualities age and bad decisions could not erase.

Already a skilled mathematician and almost grotesquely well read, Gladys set out to better understand the art world, an education garnered via a close father-daughter relationship with renowned art critic Bernard Berenson.

What happened to their friendship leaves room for conjecture. They went from touring the world together for months at a time to a permanent severing of communication. Whatever caused the rift must've been monstrous given the friendship ended with such bitter finality. On the plus side, not a single person was shot.

—J. Casper Augustine Seton,

The Missing Duchess: A Biography

“Bite me, Gus,” Annie said to herself as she climbed up into the windowsill, breaking and entering without compunction. “And you too, Mom, while we're at it.”

She didn't mean it, not really, but it was comforting to say. Gus who told her only half the story, then made her feel silly for wanting the other half.

“So they slept together?” she'd asked, when he finished his tale about the wine-slugging.

“I didn't say that,” he replied.

“So they didn't sleep together.”

“I didn't say that, either.”

Thanks, jerk.

And then there was Laurel, who'd promised a memorable mother-daughter adventure yet they'd spent more time apart than together. Not that their separation didn't have certain advantages, like more time for Annie to snoop.

With a sigh, she hopped down from the window and scanned the room. Everything appeared the same as before. Using much less caution and far more haste than her first visit, Annie made a straight line toward the opposite end of the house, where she bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“All right, Seton,” Annie said as she stepped into his room. She dropped to her knees and peered beneath the bed with a flashlight. “What did I miss the last time through?”

Among the dust and bug carcasses, Annie uncovered little, only a few more sheets of paper, which she dragged toward her with a stick. Another look indicated there was nothing else to find, at least not beneath the bed. Annie leaped to her feet and crammed the transcripts into her backpack.

“What next?” she said with a small hack. Already her throat felt sore and scratchy, her eyes swollen. She'd have to get out of there soon.

Approaching the typewriter, Annie noticed a half-torn, ragged sheet of paper lodged inside. She turned the knob, which caught on its own rust. Using both hands, she pried and jerked until she finally released the words.

“Do you remember what you said to me once? That you could help me only by loving me? Well-you did love me for a moment; and it helped me. It has always helped me.”

—Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

“I have nearly died three times since morning.”

—Marcel Proust

Annie shoved it into her bag along with the rest of the purloined manuscripts. There wasn't much to learn from dead-writer quotes, but as the Diet Coke incident proved, sometimes there was more to a page than the words written on it.

Before heading out the door, Annie paused to stare at the desk. It had two drawers, she noticed for the first time. She doubled back to case them out, but found both were stuck.

“Hmm,” she said, eyes skimming the room. “Hmm. If a thief wanted to bust open a furniture lock, what would he use?”

The bed, she thought with a startling quickness. The very bed where Pru and Win had their maybe-salacious, maybe-innocent drunken evening. Surely there was a loose spring she could use to jimmy open the drawers.

Chin held high, she moved swiftly, assuredly across the room.

“Hello, coil,” she said, yanking one from the frame.

With a grimace and a heretofore-untapped physical strength, Annie stepped on one end and pulled the entire spring taut. Then, after only a few minutes, she was able to force open both locks. If fake researcher didn't pan out, Annie had burgling down pat. The CIA wasn't too far from Goose Creek Hill, maybe they needed a new covert operations specialist.

But despite her efforts, the drawers revealed nothing more than a smattering of pencils, several spools of errant typewriter ribbon, and some blank sheets of paper.

After Annie tossed her findings onto the bed, she reached farther back in the drawers, where her hand made contact with a set of plastic cartridges. Audiotapes, eight in total, all of them damaged with thin brown ribbons gnarled and kinked. What Annie might do with broken tapes and nothing to play them on, she hadn't the faintest but she added them to her backpack of thievery nonetheless.

As Annie went to leave, she gave the bed one last look. Poor confused Pru Valentine. A feminist and Victorian lady both.

Smiling, Annie headed toward the stairs, no longer afraid she might fall right through them. Somehow it felt safer knowing Win and Pru had been there first.

After reaching the bottom step, Annie swung around the banister. She skipped forward a few paces then froze.

Something caught her eye.

“Huh?” she said, backing up.

Annie crouched down and saw, lodged in the banister, a tan, rectangular piece of leather, across it a strip of metal. It was a luggage tag, caught on a spindle.

She picked it up and ran her finger along the brass plate. The metal was blackened and mottled but the inscription was decipherable. She'd seen the address before.

J
AMES
E. S
ETON

24 Q
UAI
DE
B
ÉTHUNE

PARIS

 

Forty

BASIL'S WATCHES & SUCH

BANBURY, OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND

NOVEMBER 2001

Annie stood at the counter, staring down at the luggage tag in her right hand, a cluster of cassette tapes in her left.

James E. Seton.
Paris.

Gus had never mentioned the
J
in “J. Casper Augustine Seton” stood for James. Granted, Annie cared far more about what happened between Win and Pru than the details behind their given names, but Gus's ongoing fact embargo needled. It was another hidden tidbit, a plot point withheld.

“Hello, miss, can I help you?”

A man bumbled out from behind a mauve curtain.

“Oh, hello there.” Annie slid the tag back into her pocket and extended a hand over the counter. He stared at it with suspicion. “My name is Annie Haley.”

She let her arm drop back to the counter, hand untouched.

“Anyway,” she said. “Nicola Teepers gave me your contact information. I'm in possession of some damaged audiocassette tapes.”

As Annie pushed the cartridges forward, they squeaked against the glass.