Seduction

by Molly Cochran

  But times were lean, and when there was no money for food and no work available, he quietly took a handful of nails or some foreign coins and guiltily turned these objects into gold, traveling widely to spend them. For this reason, Jean-Loup had no permanent home, living in rented rooms in the city when he did not have to travel, and in flea-infested inns when he did.

  He was nearing his twenty-sixth birthday when he was robbed and beaten in one of these inns by a band of thieves. When he came to, bruised and bleeding, he knew he could not continue to live this way, ignoring his inborn power and living like an animal when he could possess the luxuries of a king.

  He decided to become a goldsmith. Normally, mastery of this craft took many years of study and apprenticeship, but that was partly because gold was such a precious commodity that beginners had to practice with other metals. Jean-Loup did not have this problem. He sought out an aged, retired goldsmith whose eyes were no longer keen enough for the delicate work required, and paid him a fortune.

  “Teach me your craft using the gold I give you,” he told the old smith. “Spend what you like, and when my apprenticeship is done, keep the rest.”

  The smith blinked wordlessly in astonishment.

  “All I ask is that you tell no one about the gold or where it came from.”

  “Rest easy, my lord,” the old man said, chuckling. “I would not like to end my days at the end of a cutthroat’s knife. I will say nothing.”

  • • •

  Jean-Loup learned quickly. He had always had leanings toward making art. From an early age he had been able to capture a person’s likeness with no more than a piece of charcoal, but his family had considered art to be an unworthy pursuit for a member of the nobility. Now that he was no longer restrained by the class he had been born into, he was able to let his imagination fly.

  He began by learning to file, solder, polish, saw, forge, and cast the beautiful metal. From there he learned how to produce plates, spoons, and goblets.

  “Even a king could not eat his meals on something so fine,” the old smith said as he examined one of Jean-Loup’s bowls. “I think I should make it known to the guild that I have an apprentice.”

  The guilds were strict about their rules for membership, and the goldsmiths’ guild was one of the most particular. “Tell them I’ve been here for years, working as your servant,” Jean-Loup said. Because he was older than most apprentices, he anticipated problems in joining the guild when the time came, but he needn’t have worried. Once he was permitted to make jewelry, Jean-Loup’s artistic genius flowered. By the time he applied to the guild for membership, noblewomen from as far away as England were already sending emissaries begging to purchase his magnificent pieces. And although he gave all the credit for his work to the old smith who had trained him, the shop he bought on the Pont au Change, the bridge where all the city’s goldsmiths kept their businesses, was bustling with activity as soon as it opened.

  Thus did Jean-Loup de Villeneuve, former aristocrat, become a tradesman and a new addition to Paris’s growing middle class. He lived in rooms above the shop on the busy bridge, ate well, enjoyed the company of his fellow guild members, and employed several assistants, although he took on no apprentices for fear that one of them would discover his secret.

  Indeed, he almost never had to make gold anymore. He was successful as a merchant and an artist. But sometimes when business was slow, he would rub his thumb along a lead slug and watch it come to life as it transformed into a gleaming, glowing nugget of gold. This is what he was doing when the bell above the door to his shop opened and the most beautiful woman he had ever seen walked in.

  Her eyes were violet. She was tall and slender, with a smattering of black curls peeking from beneath the hood of her cloak. The cloak itself was of plain undyed wool, but its coarseness could not disguise the nobility of her bearing or the stunning vibrancy of those extraordinary eyes.

  “Are you the goldsmith?” she asked.

  He stood mutely, all thought having flown out of his head the moment he’d set eyes on her.

  “Sir?”

  “What? Oh.” Jean-Loup felt himself blush. “Yes. May I help you?” The words dropped out of his mouth mechanically, while his mind only registered that something very unusual was behind her exotic gaze—a wisdom, perhaps, or a sadness so deep that he could not even imagine its depths.

  “I brought something for you to appraise,” she said as she drew a silk-wrapped parcel out of her sleeve and laid it on the counter between them. Jean-Loup could barely bring himself to tear his gaze away from her, but he reminded himself that he was a master craftsman with obligations to his profession.

  The object on the silk cloth was a long necklace of heavy gold links that held a pendant that bore a crude likeness of a man’s face. Studded around the edges of the pendant were eighteen uncut diamonds. Jean-Loup gaped at the necklace in astonishment. He had seen drawings of Carolingian goldwork forged from the time of the early Franks, hundreds of years earlier, but he had never seen any actual examples. Until now.

  “May I?” he asked diffidently before lifting it. The piece was enormously heavy. He examined the portrait on the pendant with a magnifying glass.

  “It’s Charlemagne,” the woman said.

  Jean-Loup’s head snapped up.

  “It belonged to him.” She swallowed nervously and looked down at her hands. “He gave it to his last wife before he died.”

  “How do you know?” he asked stupidly. She didn’t answer. But of course she doesn’t know, he thought. She was just telling him a story in an attempt to increase its value.

  As it turned out, the story wasn’t necessary. Even if it were a forgery, the sheer weight of the gold in the necklace was staggering. And if it really did belong to Charlemagne, well, then the piece would be beyond price.

  “How did you acquire this?” he asked.

  The woman ignored him. “I’d like you to melt it down and cast it into pennyweights. As payment, you may keep one of the stones.”

  “Ah. A forgery, then.”

  “No. It is genuine.”

  “Then why would you have me melt it down?”

  The woman sighed. “We need the money,” she said, her eyes downcast.

  “Perhaps you could sell it—”

  “No one could pay what it is worth, and a pawnbroker would only cheat me. I came to you because of your reputation for honesty.” She picked up the necklace and handed it to him. “Please weigh it,” she said.

  He did. “Three pounds, eight and three-quarter ounces.”

  “It must weigh at least three and a half pounds when I pick up the gold,” she said. “And you must return seventeen of the stones to me.”

  He bristled. She had expected him to cheat her! “If I were to melt down the gold, I would return three pounds, eight and three-quarter ounces to you,” he said with dignity. “And eighteen stones. The payment for my work would be twenty francs.”

  “I apologize,” the woman said. “I was only trying to control how badly I would be mistreated.”

  Jean-Loup inhaled sharply. He was aware of the ways merchants took advantage of women. “At any rate, however, I cannot do as you ask.”

  She looked up, alarmed.

  “If this piece is genuine—as I suspect it may be—I also cannot pay you what it is worth. But neither can I destroy it. Instead, I will give you an equal measure of gold for it, and polished diamonds that you will be able to sell.”

  Confused, the woman nodded her agreement. Jean-Loup went to the back of the store and returned with the exact measure of gold and a handful of good, if small, diamonds. The woman accepted them with thanks, and he wrote her a receipt. “Your name?” he asked, feeling his heart pounding as he dipped the quill into the ink.

  “Veronique de Caroligne,” she said.

  A drop of ink fell onto the receipt. “Caroligne? From the House of Charlemagne?”

  “Yes,” she said, collecting her things. But before she reached the s
hop door, she turned around to face Jean-Loup again. “Forgive me, but what will you do with the necklace?”

  Jean-Loup smiled shyly. “I don’t know,” he said. “Look at it, I suppose.”

  She smiled. As she left, Jean-Loup’s chief assistant, Thibault, entered the shop, his mouth agape as he watched the beautiful woman walk away.

  “Well, we’re surely the top shop in the guild now,” Thibault said.

  “Oh?”

  Thibault jerked his head toward the north end of the bridge. “That was the abbess, wasn’t it?”

  “Abbess?” His heart sank. “She’s a nun?”

  “I think so. You know the Abbey of Lost Souls?”

  Jean-Loup nodded glumly. Everyone knew the place. It had been in existence since before Paris had been chartered.

  “Well, that lady’s the head of it,” Thibault explained, glancing over at the necklace. “Looks like the sisters are doing pretty well.”

  CHAPTER

  •

  NINETEEN

  Peter arrived a few minutes before five. As soon as I saw him, I ran into his arms and he twirled me around and kissed me so hard it took my breath away. Some of the people at the other tables applauded, but I didn’t care. I was just happy to see him.

  “How long has it been?” he whispered.

  “You know the answer,” I whispered back. For a moment, I could only stand there and look at him, at his honey-blond hair, his gray eyes, the soft lips that were red from pressing against mine. “Too long,” I breathed into his ear.

  And then he kissed me again, and it was as if nothing in the world existed except the two of us. That is, until we were interrupted by a waiter clearing his throat.

  “Vous voulez?” he inquired, smoothing the white cloth draped over his arm.

  Once we’d gotten over our initial flush of passion and managed to stop staring into each other’s eyes, we sat down and ordered two limonades, otherwise known as lemon sodas.

  It was funny, but after such a prolonged PDA, neither of us seemed to know what to say. I think that even though we both wanted to forget about the other night, it was hard to pretend it never happened, although we were both giving it our best effort.

  “So we’re all good now?” I asked in a small voice.

  He looked at me for a moment. “Yeah,” he said finally. “You thought I’d stood you up, so you—”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said quickly.

  “Okay. I was just jealous.”

  “There was no reason for that.”

  He looked away, his jaw clenched.

  “Maybe you could have told me you were going to Brussels,” I said.

  “Look, I . . .” He closed his eyes, which had practically been flashing sparks, and took a deep breath. “You’re right. I will next time.”

  Then all was quiet. We were all right. I could feel the muscles in my neck loosening with relief. “So what are you doing for Jeremiah these days?” I asked, eager to bring the conversation back to neutral ground.

  “All kinds of strange things.” He sighed. “Right now I’ve got to arrange for a truck to come pick up an old lady’s belongings. You know her, Marie something.”

  “Marie-Therèse? What do you mean, pick up her belongings?”

  “On her birthday, she’s going to leave the house. I’m supposed to help her move out.”

  “What?” Maybe that’s why she felt so scared when I touched her hand, I thought. “She never mentioned leaving.”

  “No? That’s weird.”

  “She’s being kicked out on her birthday?”

  “I guess. There’s a country house or something, staffed with servants. Jeremiah says it’s kind of a reward.”

  “So why is it so secret, then?”

  “I don’t know. These people have a lot of secrets.” He paid the bill. “They call themselves ‘the Enclave.’ ”

  “Enclave?” My mind was racing. “That’s like a special group or something, right?”

  “Right. I think they’re witches.”

  I clucked. Sometimes Peter was just dense. “Of course they are. That’s not what they’re trying to hide. It’s something else.”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t know. They don’t confide in me.” Understatement of the year.

  “Yeah, I heard about the thing with Joelle and the sewer. You could have been lost down there forever.”

  “That’s what I mean. It makes no sense that they hate me so much. I’m no threat to them. Plus, I’m in school all day and have to study recipes at night.” And read a handwritten book in antique French, I might have added.

  “Maybe they just don’t like Americans,” Peter said.

  “They like you,” I countered. “A lot. Especially Sophie.”

  Peter smiled. “Who’s acting jealous now?”

  I swallowed. That hit close to home. “I’m not jealous,” I lied. “She’s way too old for you.”

  “Maybe. But her daughter isn’t.” He pretended to shoot me with his index finger.

  “What?” I almost jumped out of my seat.

  “Relax, Katy. It was just talk.”

  “About Fabienne? What was she saying?”

  “Oh, dumb things. How Fabby’s so beautiful and how can I help but fall in love with her, blah, blah.”

  I stood up. “Are you kidding me?” I shouted.

  He laughed out loud. “Hey, that’s Sophie talking, not me.” He stood up and took me in his arms. I was shaking all over. “Ooh,” he said, grinning. “You are jealous. Payback.” I pinched his arm. He laughed. “Come on, let’s walk,” he said. “I like how the sun looks on your hair.”

  We walked along the Seine, holding hands and angling our faces up to the warm, late afternoon sun until we reached the Rue des mes Perdues.

  “Oh, shoot, I have to do something,” I said, suddenly remembering why I was carrying a container of coquille St. Jacques.

  When I was at Azrael’s house—er, cave—I noticed that he had no refrigerator and no stove, except for the little brazier that heated the place. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he didn’t have much food, and that in order to get any, he’d have to go outside the tunnels and then walk a long way to get anything to eat. Of course, he’d said he didn’t want to see me again, but so what. Food was more important than good manners.

  “I can’t go in the house just yet,” I said. “I have an errand.”

  “What is it?”

  “Er . . .” I wanted to tell Peter, but I’d promised Azrael I wouldn’t say anything to anyone about him.

  “I can go with you,” he offered.

  “No. That is—”

  “Don’t tell me you have secrets too?” Peter winced.

  “No,” I said. “Well, not exactly.” I waved my container of scallops. “I just need to deliver some food.”

  “Can’t it wait?” He looked stricken. “I’ve got to oversee a shipment of computers at the Gare du Nord at eight o’clock.”

  “I’ll be back in half an hour,” I promised. “Maybe less.”

  He sighed. “Okay,” he said, his shoulders slumping in resignation. “I need a shower anyway.”

  “I’ll make you dinner before you go,” I said.

  He walked away. I waved to his back.

  CHAPTER

  •

  TWENTY

  Fortunately, the exit Azrael showed me was nearby. I just had to zigzag through a few narrow streets to reach the ruins that led into the carrières. It wasn’t a problem scrambling over a few fallen building blocks and finding my way to the building’s former coal chute. I walked down six crumbling stone steps, then turned right to find a “door” just like the one I’d entered miles away when I’d first come with Joelle: a tall stone slab nearly covering a vine-covered opening that looked extremely unwelcoming. Then I slipped through the narrow portal into almost total darkness.

  This time I had a more efficient pocket light to replace my defunct oinking pig. I kept the beam trained o
n the ground, though, because I didn’t want Azrael to see me. He’d said he didn’t want me hanging around, but I just couldn’t let the old man go hungry. Not when I was going to one of the best cooking schools in the world.

  “Azrael?” I called softly when I neared the glowing candlelight of his living area. “I brought you some food. I won’t stay.”

  I peeked inside. He wasn’t there.

  “Azrael?”

  Interesting. Just where did you go when you lived in a cave? Out for a stroll among the bats? Or was he communing with the spirits of the headless dead people down the way?

  I set the food container on the table near his cookstove and was walking out when I started to worry. What if the wound I’d inflicted on him had festered? What if he’d fallen someplace?

  No, he was probably just going to the bathroom in one of his cavelets, I told myself. After all, he had a place where he kept lemons. Wouldn’t he have a toilet somewhere?

  I almost left again, but couldn’t. If he was hurt, he didn’t have anyone else. I’d wait for him.

  I sat down in one of the beautiful chairs and pulled a candle closer to me. Then I took out Jean-Loup’s story—or as much of it as I’d been able to put in order—and opened it to the next chapter. I’d stash it under my chef’s coat when Azrael arrived.

  1184

  Veronique

  Jean-Loup may never have seen Veronique again if it hadn’t been for the accident, and only then because it left him close to death.

  Jean-Loup had been melting some low-quality gold for use as dinnerware in the house of a provincial nobleman when the Pont au Change suffered one of its not-infrequent “adjustments.” Perhaps the bridge had been struck by the oversized mast of a ship, or the stonework itself might have crumbled somewhere along its length. All the city’s engineers agreed that the end-to-end buildings erected on the bridge would eventually topple the whole structure, spilling every goldsmith in Paris into the Seine, but it was the guild, not the engineers, who held the power on the Pont au Change. It had served as the center of the goldworking industry for a hundred years, and not one smith would leave it until all the others had.