Grave Consequences (Grand Tour Series #2)

by Lisa T. Bergren

  Art threw his head back and laughed at her playful audacity. “We shall see, Miss Kensington. We shall see.”

  I sighed and cast a helpless glance in Will’s direction, but he only gave me a shrug. I looked away, out to the rocky landscape beside us. Part of me wanted to stop her. But how could I do that when there was a part of myself that wanted to do the same? Leap, fly, plunge…for a moment, aware of little other than the feel of the wind in my hair and the rush of adventure to tell me I was truly alive.

  My life…I shook my head and thought about how mad this whole adventure was. A girl who’d come from a dirt-poor farm in Montana now dressed in such finery, riding in luxurious motorcars, guarded by fierce men determined to keep others from ever attacking us again. That I’d even been involved in such an attack was monumental in itself. I could never have imagined such a dramatic turn of events. And thinking it through, it made me so weary I wished I could hop out and somehow run across these foreign countries, across the sea, all the way home.

  I stared up at the white, chalky cliffs, wishing, for the moment, that they were the blue, snowcapped peaks of my youth.

  “Are you yet with us here in France, Miss Cora?” Arthur asked over the roar of the engine and the wind from the open window.

  I looked up at him in surprise. Were my thoughts so apparent?

  “In part,” I said, not missing Will’s slight scowl. Was it my imagination, or did Arthur’s faint flirtation irritate him? “I miss my home in Montana.”

  “Ahh, yes. I hear the Kensingtons have a fine manor in Butte.”

  “Or is it the farm?” Lillian asked, looping her arm through mine. “I bet you’re homesick for your farm.”

  “Farm?” Arthur said with pleasure lighting his eyes. “I thought Felix misspoke last night…I hardly imagined the Kensington clan residing in anything short of the world’s finest abodes.”

  “You might be surprised,” I said, giving him a sly smile for once. Let him wonder over that, I thought. “So, tell me,” I said, clapping my gloved hands together. “William, what say you of our mighty prophet Nostradamus? Was he a godly prophet or an evil hack preying upon innocent medieval minds?”

  “You know of Nostradamus?” Will said, his eyes warming as they met mine.

  “A little. We studied the Medicis and learned that Catherine was quite the admirer of the man, making him her son’s physician.”

  Will nodded. “He called himself a doctor, but he was thrown out of medical school. He was largely self-trained, after traveling for years, studying the art of herbal medicines. The plague took his first wife and children from him. In subsequent waves of the disease, he did his best to save others.”

  “But it was his prophecies that made him most famous, correct?” Arthur asked.

  “Indeed. Some say he wrote of the great fire of London in 1666, as well as of the rise of Napoleon.”

  “How thrilling!” Lillian said, clapping her hands together. “What else?”

  Will shrugged and shook his head. “You mustn’t give it too much credence, Lillian. He attached no specific dates, lending plenty of room for loose interpretations to be ‘proven’ in time. He wrote of floods, wars, famine in the years ahead of us yet.”

  “How did he learn of such things so far in advance?” she pressed. “Séances? A trance?”

  “No, no. And you mustn’t consider such things glamorous,” Will told her gently. “The man himself feared the Inquisition, and for good reason.… He was in tenuous territory. It was fortunate for him that prophets and astrologers were exempt from the hunt for heretics.”

  “But do you believe he had the gift? That he was a true prophet?” Lil asked.

  Will gave her a kind smile. I liked that he seemed to be able to show that he cared even as he corrected. And it was always wrapped in a quiet strength. Being around him was reassuring. Calming. “I personally think he was a student of human nature and history, watching the rise and fall of rulers and kingdoms, the rhythm of nature in drought and flood. His predictions were merely recitations of those observations. But you can decide for yourself.”

  William

  Will wasn’t certain what Stapleton’s game was, but there was definitely a game in play. Hugh had invited him along on their excursion before Will had had the opportunity to intervene. His uncle preferred that they travel with only their clients. It was a common issue on the tour—once acquaintances latched on they were difficult to shake loose. But Kensington and Morgan were paying for this tour, not Stapleton, so while an afternoon together was acceptable, Will hoped the man would have the good sense to bow out in the coming days.

  Will picked at a loose thread around the button on his jacket, electing to wrap it around the base of the button rather than risk pulling it and sending the button flying. He felt God’s nudge and knew his Father was asking him about his real agitation over Arthur’s presence.

  Truth be told, it was because he was finally free of Richelieu. Or at least, Cora was free of Richelieu for a few precious days, and he’d hoped he’d be able to find more time with her. He hadn’t expected another man to enter the picture, more than nominally curious about the newest Miss Kensington.

  But he had no right to such feelings. He was her guardian, her tutor, her guide, nothing more. To lay claim to anything else would endanger every future goal he’d ever held. If Wallace Kensington thought for a moment that Will held any illusions that something might come of his friendship with Cora, the consequences would be grave indeed. He’d be dismissed on the spot; his uncle would have to carry on without him—and Will doubted he had the stamina to do so—and the family business itself would be in jeopardy. Who would send their daughters on future tours if word got out that the guide preyed upon innocent young females given to his care?

  His eyes narrowed as they pulled to a stop and Cora leaned forward to admire the Autographic Kodak camera that Arthur pulled from his pocket and carefully began to wind.

  “Oh, take our photograph!” Lillian said, leaning toward Cora.

  “Gladly,” Arthur said, stretching out the lens and leaning over the viewing piece, then clicking the button at the end of a wire. He opened a small window on the back and wrote with a special pen, reading his words as he did so. “Two of the loveliest women in all Provence—Cora and Lillian Kensington.”

  “Indeed,” Will muttered, not waiting for the driver before he opened the small door and escaped, stretching out his long legs and brushing out his trousers. He lifted his hand to Lillian, helping her step down, and then Cora. Arthur followed, and Felix came alongside him, asking about his camera.

  “I should pick up one myself. It’d be an ideal way to document our travels,” Felix said.

  “Of course!” Arthur said. “It’s a shame you haven’t had one to date.”

  “I’m afraid my uncle doesn’t favor them,” Will said regretfully, coming up on Arthur’s other side. “He prefers our clients catalog their own memories. Or sketch or journal.”

  “Perhaps it’s time for your uncle to embrace the future,” Arthur said lowly, as the old bear lumbered toward them.

  Will bristled at his words. Over the course of the afternoon, Arthur took three rolls of film—thirty-six frames—of the Kensingtons and Morgans attempting their hand at pétanque with old men in berets beneath the slim shade of dry, city-bound trees, on hard dirt ideal for the rolling-ball game. Will resented Art’s continual demand for the group to hold still as he documented the moment, and Uncle Stuart’s jowls began to grow red with irritation as it went on.

  Art took photographs of them listening to Uncle Stuart sharing a legend of Nostradamus’s burial—that the Provençal-born prophet had a brass plate on his chest with the date his body would be disinterred, even when he’d left explicit instructions never to disinter his remains. Art took photographs of them exiting the Roman ruins of the mausoleum. And he took photographs of them sitting in two rows before blank canvasses, attempting to re-create van Gogh’s famous painting of a night sky as
afternoon shadows grew deep. It seemed he had no regard for the cost of the film, or the coming cost of developing, telling the group that the photographs could be printed out on special paper and mailed home as postcards.

  More often than naught, Cora was at the center of his compositions. Will was certain of it. His eyes narrowed, and for the first time, he sincerely hoped Richelieu would show up this week in Provence.

  I’d rather take the devil I know than the devil I don’t.

  Cora

  I resisted the pull of the dive for the next couple of days. At first my resolve was to give Lillian a good example, after she hovered on the brink of the castle wall and ultimately had to forfeit ten dollars to Arthur—which he graciously tried to refuse. Will had insisted he accept it, because he wanted Lil to remember that she ought not wager at all.

  But after another dry and dusty day about in the countryside, I found the pull increasingly difficult to ignore; I caught myself constantly daydreaming of my leap, especially after watching the men pierce the water for three days in a row from my secret view on my balcony. Our suppers, shared on the sprawling stone patio of the chateau with a pleasant breeze off the river, eased my angst some. We dined together outside on the wide porch, eating roasted chicken with lemon and sprigs of fresh rosemary and crepes filled with mushrooms and cream. But the river seemed to whisper to me, and I looked to her again and again. When dinner was done, we milled about, sipping at champagne with raspberries bobbing in the bubbly depth, posing for a new round of photographs by Arthur. We admired the setting sun, which cast the river below us into a deeper hue of teal, and it seemed to call to me again, enticing me in.

  Plus, I simply wanted to prove it to myself. That I could do it, regardless of Will’s views that it wasn’t an exercise for the “fairer sex.” I wouldn’t halt where Lillian had. I’d practice on my own tonight, under cover of darkness. Would they not be surprised, come morning, when I made my leap with confidence? I’d step into the air and remember to breathe on the way down so that I could hold my breath until I broke the surface again and—

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Will said, sitting down on the wall as I stood gazing at the river. He sipped at his champagne, his eyes shifting over the others, then sidling back up to me.

  “Oh,” I said, wondering if I dared to tell him. Would he try to stop me? “I was just considering putting on my bathing costume and joining you gents come morn for a leap into the Rhône.”

  He studied me with slightly narrowed eyes, as if he knew I wasn’t telling him the exact truth, but then he turned and looked over the edge. “It’s a big jump. Are you not scared?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Every time,” he said with a conspiratorial grin. “But that’s part of the thrill.”

  I peered over the edge with him, watching as the river swirled here and there in minor eddies and a leaf-laden branch drifted by. “Is it cold?”

  “Not as cold as the lake. Not as warm as the sea.”

  “And is it deep? There are no rocks to watch out for?”

  “If you can get several feet out, it plunges straight down a good thirty feet. I’ve never seen or touched bottom.” He eyed me. “Maybe it’s best you skip it. Or if it’s a swim you crave, simply walk down the stairs, through the gates. It’s far more ladylike.”

  “Maybe,” I said lightly. “Though I’m still more farm girl than a lady.” It chafed, the idea that we couldn’t do as the men had without being censured, judged. I took a sip of champagne. “Will, what do you think of women having the vote?”

  His eyebrows lifted. “What? Where did that come from?”

  “Where has it not come from?” I returned. “It’s a part of conversation, in newspapers, everywhere. Just today, Vivian and Lil were talking about it.”

  He studied the river a moment, apparently gathering his thoughts. “I think women should have a say,” he said carefully. “And giving them a vote is a fair and prudent call. That said, women need to put their heads to understanding the issues before they cast a vote.”

  “As should men,” I said.

  “Agreed. Far too many don’t. They vote by party alone, never really paying attention to what a change might do. They get swayed by a speech, a man’s charisma, rather than forming their own opinion.”

  I nodded, wondering if Will had ever been swayed on any front. I admired that about him, his fortitude. He was steady, like a boulder in the river—the water went by, but it was never pulled under.

  “Would you vote, Cora, if given the opportunity?”

  “Of course. I’d imagine we women would appreciate the opportunity more than men. It’s like me being here on the tour.” I glanced over my shoulder at my traveling companions. “They enjoy it. But how many other journeys have they been on? This is one of many, I’d wager. I’ve never been anywhere other than Normal School.”

  “And that mitigates some of their appreciation?”

  I shrugged a little. “I can’t know for sure. But that’s what I’d guess.”

  He lifted his chin, and I studied his profile as his eyes scanned the castle and woods of the far side of the river. Then his eyes shifted to mine. I forced myself not to look away, allowing him to know I’d been watching him. “You and I are in agreement,” he said softly. “We appreciate the things we have to fight for.”

  A chill ran down my back. He did not look away. What was he saying? Why did I get the idea that he spoke of fighting for me?

  “What’re you two conspiring over?” Felix said, edging near with Arthur in tow. We both looked to them with some relief.

  “Your sister believes she’s ready to vote. And leap into the Rhône.”

  “What? A suffragette diver among us?” Felix said in wonder, smiling at me. “Perhaps you’re more a Kensington than I imagined. Though heaven knows I can’t convince Lil to make the jump now that she’s stared down the executioner’s blade. And Vivian believes it to be the last thing you women should be doing.”

  “Maybe the Diehls are more hearty stock than the Kensingtons,” I whispered to him.

  He hooted and ducked his head. “Don’t let the girls hear you say that.”

  “I won’t.” I smiled. I saw that Arthur’s eyes darted from my brother to me and back again. Had he overheard my whisper? I knew I was blushing, and I turned to study the river again, sipping from my glass of champagne.

  “If you jumped with me tomorrow, they might follow,” Felix said.

  “Maybe. It’s a far piece,” I allowed, gesturing toward the water. “Best for everyone to make their own decisions and not feel undue pressure.”

  “Agreed,” Will said. “But be advised that once the women get involved, Uncle will likely put a stop to it. He was very relieved when Lillian turned back yesterday.”

  “If everyone will simply refrain from getting killed, all will be well,” Felix said.

  “Yes,” Will said with a smile. “It would be most helpful if everyone abided by that rule.”

  I covered a pretend yawn. “Well, gentlemen, tomorrow is a new day. I believe I must turn in. After the long day and heat of the sun, I confess I’m most eager to return to my novel.”

  “Are you reading Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers?” Hugh teased, enjoying my look of dismay.

  “Pish,” Andrew said, coming alongside him, “that book is nothing but an Oedipal indulgence for the working classes.”

  “That’s exactly what makes it so engaging,” Arthur said, perching on the chateau wall and bending to light a cigarette. He passed a box around, offering cigarettes to the others, and then lit Hugh’s as well, tossing the stub of his match over the edge, letting it fall to the river below. “I’d think you would find it uniquely engaging, given its mining backdrop.”

  “You’d think wrong,” Andrew said.

  “Perhaps you’d enjoy Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man,” Arthur said, eyeing me and blowing smoke slowly from the corner of his lips.

  “Oh?” I said, throwing him a confused look. �
��Why would you say so?”

  “It’s quite an engaging read. The main character is of mixed race. He must decide between embracing his Negro culture by engaging in ragtime music or passing as white and living a mediocre existence as a common man.” He took a steady drag on his cigarette, never releasing me from his gaze.

  I stilled even as the men about me shifted uneasily. So…he knew. About my history. Had Pierre told Celine and Celine told him? Or Hugh? Felix, even? I straightened my shoulders. It mattered not. Right? I was through with hiding. I lifted my chin. “It does sound engaging,” I said, staring right back into his eyes. “I’ll have to find a copy the next time we’re in a bookshop.”

  Will and Felix straightened and nodded in my direction, bidding me good night. I passed by the others, saying good night to each of them, as well as thanking our hosts. Yves followed me at a distance of ten feet, my silent guard. At first I’d believed he never slept, but over the last couple of days I learned that Claude relieved him on duty by the gate below at midnight.

  In my suite, Anna helped me undress and put on a fresh nightgown, then she brushed out my hair. I lifted my hand, irritated to see it trembling. I thought it was past me—my desire to keep my parentage a secret. I thought I’d embraced who I was. Accepted it. I thought about my teasing words to Felix, about me being of sturdier stock than my half sisters. His drunken comment that I was a scrapper. Why was all that permissible, but a near stranger’s discovery of the truth enough to set me to trembling? “Lay out my bathing costume, will you, Anna? I wish to make the leap with the young gentlemen in the morning before we begin our day.”

  “Ach,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re to be a part of that nonsense.”

  I forced a smile and looked at her reflection in the mirror. “I’m most certainly going to be a part of that nonsense. Don’t you wish to give it a go yourself?”

  “Not a’tall, miss. Never been one for more than a shallow bathtub full of water.”

  “Do you know how to swim?”

  She shook her head. “No call to learn, anyway,” she said, cutting off my next question.