The Bride Wore Scarlet Page 19

  Lifting her lashes in alarm, she looked at the circle. It appeared perfectly ordinary. No supernatural force had set it afire, or piled hot bricks beneath the tea table. These past few days had left her nerves unaccountably jangled, that was all.

  Still, it was with a measure of unexpected reluctance that Anaïs turned the first card. It was the three of Swords—a trio of swords driven deep into a bleeding heart—a most significant card, and one that she’d never seen turned at the opening.

  Charlotte had recoiled. “How frightful,” she said, her voice thready. “Please tell me that card has nothing to do with me.”

  Anaïs’s faint sense of dread was growing. “It is rare that any one picture or number predicts anything,” she said. “The interpretation of each card changes based on its position in the circle, the cards it lies in proximity to, and many other variables.”

  “So you will turn more cards?”

  Anaïs nodded and turned three more. “Ah,” she said.

  Charlotte gave a nervous laugh. “What do you see? Something that does not involve swords or blood, I pray.”

  “Nothing definitive, no,” Anaïs murmured.

  She continued her way around the circle, feeling remarkably ill at ease, as if her clothes were too tight or the room too hot. The palm of her right hand felt almost sunburned, and Anaïs’s skin seemed to be prickling with an unpleasant sort of awareness—just her own needling guilt, no doubt.

  Still, she wished very strongly that she had not gone upstairs for the cards. They felt strange to her today. It was just her fear over Lezennes, she told herself.

  With the circle turned, Anaïs sat back in her chair, and rolled her shoulders back to loosen them. Charlotte touched the card nearest her. “This card is pretty,” she said. “What can you tell so far?”

  “Little yet that we do not already know,” said Anaïs, sweeping her hand around the left side of the circle. “Here we see you have come on a long journey—the order represents your travel from England, I think, not your journey to Brussels. You have had a happy life, for the most part.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Charlotte wistfully. “I was blessed.”

  Anaïs turned the next card, and felt a sudden jolt, like a little discharge of static into her hand. For a moment, she hesitated. It was not too late to laugh, and sweep the cards from the table.

  “Anaïs?” Charlotte’s voice came from far away.

  “I am sorry,” said Anaïs, wiping the back of her hand across her temple to brush back a curl that had sprung loose. “I lost my train of thought.”

  Charlotte touched the card lightly with her finger. “He looks sad.”

  “He is sad,” Anaïs replied, a little quaver in her voice. “This card—the warrior Carbone—he represents the one who has left you. Do you see the way he faces away from us? And the waning moon?”

  “Yes,” said Charlotte, drawing out the word uncertainly. “Who is he? A real person?”

  Anaïs knew without a doubt. “This mighty warrior is your husband,” she answered. “He is God’s messenger who has passed from this world to the next.”

  “Oh!” said Charlotte. She jerked upright in her chair. “Anaïs! Surely you are making this up?”

  Anaïs shook her head, but could scarcely pull her gaze from the spread of cards. “No, this is very clear,” she murmured, her hand trembling a little. “This is a man who was your strength and your light. The waning moon near this card, the four of Chalices, tells us this. But the light is fading. He has passed happily, Charlotte. He is at peace, and waits for you beyond the veil.”

  “Does he?” she whispered.

  “I am certain of it,” she said honestly—for honesty did indeed seem the best policy now. She turned the card beside it. “Now this card—the six of Swords—this person carries a mighty burden,” said Anaïs. “Do you see the heavy bag he carries? A bag full of weapons. This represents your more recent past. You have been fighting a long and wearying battle, Charlotte, and you have much responsibility left to you here on earth.”

  “Oh!” said Charlotte sharply.

  “This duty, like the bag of swords, weighs heavily upon your shoulders. But this previous card—the warrior Carbone—he sits above you, metaphorically and celestially. He watches over you. He trusts you to carry out your duties well, and act with utmost care. He is confident you will choose rightly.”

  Charlotte’s face twisted as if with grief. “I wish I had such faith in myself!”

  “But here”—Anaïs turned the next card and lightly tapped it—“here we see a threat to your peace. This card—ah, yes, it represents a grave concern. Something that has followed you for a while now, I believe.”

  “Yes?” said Charlotte a little anxiously.

  Anaïs turned the card below. “Le Fante di Dischi,” she murmured. “And this, I believe, is . . . yes, this is Giselle.”

  Charlotte gasped. “Giselle! But . . . that is a young man. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but it is the symbolism one must understand,” Anaïs answered. “There is something about Giselle which troubles you, is there not? Something your husband understood. And now you feel lost. In over your head.”

  The card depicted an androgynous young warrior holding a falcon in one hand. He wore but one boot, and had laid his shield aside. The meaning could not have been clearer. A little weakly, Anaïs turned the next several cards, resisting the impulse to cast them from the table with one swipe of her arm.

  “Charlotte,” she said quietly, “do you understand the term augury? The original meaning of the word?”

  “I . . . yes. Why?”

  Anaïs drew her fingertip along the card’s worn edge. “Le Fante di Dischi represents a young person who holds a secret,” she began. “The bird is the symbol of things unseen. Of knowledge to be unleashed. Of augury, quite literally. But this is a power the young warrior cannot yet control, and is loath to use. She has her shield—for battle, you see?—but she has not yet taken it up. She is not ready. Instead she looks to her right—to the warrior Carbone—her gaze questioning.”

  “Yes?” Charlotte rasped. “Go on.”

  “This young warrior, she seeks guidance,” said Anaïs simply. Lightly, she touched the first warrior card again. “But Carbone is walking away into the waning moon. New guidance—a new mentor—is sorely needed.”

  “But . . . but what does it all mean?” Charlotte’s voice was thready.

  “That Giselle’s burden is heavy, Charlotte, and you cannot keep carrying it. You need help.”

  Anaïs looked up to see that Charlotte had begun to cry, the tears trailing silently down her cheeks, as if she dared not dab at them and make them real. Anaïs felt sick inside—as if she watched some gruesome accident, yet dared not look away. She had not wanted this. Ought never have started it.

  “The power of i tarocchi is strong, bella,” she heard her great-grandmother saying. “Take it up as one might a serpent, holding it tight behind the head.”

  “Do you wish me to stop?” asked Anaïs, almost praying the answer would be yes. “Say the word, Charlotte, and I will wipe these cards from the table.”

  Charlotte gave a shuddering sigh. “No. Go on.”

  “Then we have seen the past and, I think, the present,” said Anaïs pensively. “Let us look to the future.” She turned all but the last two cards. “When did you first leave home, Charlotte? Leave England, I mean?”

  “Over ten years ago.” Charlotte’s voice was unsteady. “I left to attend school in Paris.”

  Anaïs flicked an assessing glance up at her. “And you have no family, you said,” she murmured.

  “N-no.”

  “No.” Anaïs lifted one eyebrow. “And yet . . . ?”

  Charlotte was dashing away her tears with the back of her hand. “And yet what?”

  “This card, the eight of Pentacles—a basket full of staves—it means your world was full,” said Anaïs. “Your harvest was bountiful, Charlotte. There was richness and love in abundance.
A simple world, but filled with . . . yes, many people, I think. But all this you left behind?”

  “I . . . did not wish to,” said Charlotte weakly. “I went away to school. I always meant to go back. But then I met Pierre, and everything changed.”

  Anaïs turned the next to the last card. “And this man, il Cavaliere di Spade—the Knight of Swords—he is a warrior who grieves for you,” she said, wishing to God the dreadful reading was over. “You have left him behind. He is ready to fight for you, Charlotte, but his heart is heavy and his sword—you see here—he has let it fall.”

  On a little cry, Charlotte touched her fingertips to her mouth. “Is it . . . my father?”

  “Well, it is not a man who is dead,” said Anaïs warningly. “That much is certain. But I cannot think who else it might be.”

  “Oh!” said Charlotte again, her color rising. “Oh, I so very much wish I could go home!”

  “Is that what you want, Charlotte?” she asked sharply. “To go back home?”

  “I . . . I cannot.”

  Her gaze had turned deeply inward, and Anaïs wisely let it go. Instead she reached out, her hand visibly trembling now, and turned the last card, which felt as if it might burst into flames at any moment.

  “Good God,” she muttered, staring down at it. “So many swords.”

  “The two this time,” whispered Charlotte. “Anaïs, what does it mean?”

  “The young warrior, and the old warrior,” murmured Anaïs, studying the two figures. “Giselle is looking up to him for guidance. See these little arrows? The evils of the tangible world fly at them but they have their weapons at the ready. They are fully prepared for the battle to come.”

  “Why are there two?” asked Charlotte.

  “Because the young warrior has found her new mentor,” said Anaïs. “See, she touches her knee to the ground in deference to his power. He looks down, and offers her his arm. His strength.”

  “But it is not . . . Lezennes, is it?”

  Slowly Anaïs shook her head. “Assuredly not,” she said. “This man is one of her own kind. He can be no other.”

  “Her own kind?”

  Anaïs lifted her gaze to Charlotte’s, and planted her fingertip firmly on the card. “He is not Lezennes,” she said again. “He is her Guardian.”

  Charlotte sucked in her breath. “Her . . . guardian?” In her eyes Anaïs could see recognition.

  “Yes,” said Anaïs sadly. “He is the man you are seeking, Charlotte. Lezennes cannot help you.”

  “But who is he? His name, I mean? And where shall I find him?”

  “I do not know,” Anaïs answered truthfully. “But he waits for her. Il Cavaliere di Spade—the grieving man—he will be the means by which all this will happen. You can tell this by his position in the center of the circle.”

  “Oh.” Charlotte reached out and set her palm in the center of the cards. “And all this . . . this is what is going to happen to Giselle?”

  “It is what should happen to Giselle,” Anaïs answered, tracing her finger back around the circle of cards. “But you see here? And here? These cards represent the many hard choices which must be made in the interim. Many bridges which must be crossed.”

  “What must I do?” Charlotte whispered. “How must I begin? Oh, Anaïs, I cannot make a misstep. This is my child we are speaking of.”

  At last Anaïs swept up the cards. “You begin with utmost care,” she answered. “You do nothing—say nothing—until matters come clear to you.”

  “And they will?” Charlotte looked at her a little pleadingly. “Come clear, I mean?”

  Far more shaken than she appeared, Anaïs returned the cards to the wooden casket. “They will,” she said quietly. “When, precisely, and in what way, I do not know. Just do nothing foolish. Watch, and wait.”

  “Watch and wait.” Charlotte’s echo was a little hollow. She had crushed her handkerchief in her hand, and fallen back into her chair, looking almost beaten. It had been too much. It had been a near cruelty. But none of it, alas, had been untrue.

  Anaïs’s plan to use the cards as a diversion had failed utterly. Indeed, she would be lucky if, in the end, she had not made matters worse. Lucky if her spackled mess of lime and horsehair did not crack and come crashing down upon their heads.

  A few minutes later, Anaïs was escorting her guest to the front door. Charlotte still looked a little dazed.

  “Charlotte,” she said, returning to her earlier, happier persona, “I really do not understand any of this. I just read the cards. Perhaps all that I said meant something to you, but it means nothing to me. Do you understand?”

  Charlotte nodded, and turned to go.

  “Still,” said Anaïs after her, “I think it might be wise if you told no one of what just happened, don’t you?”

  Charlotte’s head swiveled slowly around. “How could I begin to describe it?” she replied. “I do not even understand what just happened.”

  On a sudden impulse, Anaïs reached out and gave Charlotte a swift hug. “Perhaps it will make sense to me later,” she suggested. “But Geoff says I’m a bit of a ninnyhammer.”

  “I don’t believe that,” said Charlotte, who clearly didn’t know what to believe. “But you will tell me, Anaïs, if anything comes clear to you?”

  “You may count on that, too.” Anaïs seized both her hands, and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “Now go, Charlotte, and be at peace if you can. I shall see you tomorrow night. And in the meantime, I shall think on what I might do to divert Lezennes’ interest—at least temporarily.”

  Anaïs watched her go down the steps and dash between two passing carriages. Hands fisting at her sides, she shut the door and fell back against it, resisting the urge to pummel it.

  Good God, what an idiot she was! What had begun as a lark had turned into a potential nightmare. Anaïs drew her hands down her skirts as if she might wipe away the filth of what she had just done. But she could not. She had been a fool to disrespect i tarocchi. To treat it as a joke. No, worse—to treat it as a means to manipulate an innocent person.

  The whole afternoon left her feeling defiled. Used. And by her own hand, at that. She had done nothing save frighten the wits out of Charlotte.

  Cursing beneath her breath, Anaïs came away from the door like an overtight spring, and bolted up the stairs.

  Chapter 12

  He who knows when he can fight, and when he cannot, will be victorious.

  Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  Geoff returned home from an afternoon of haunting the art galleries and coffeehouses of Brussels, a venture that had included a deceptively casual meeting with one of DuPont’s contacts, a man who was keeping Lezennes under surveillance.

  It was a difficult exercise at best, the contact had explained, for much of the vicomte’s so-called diplomatic work was conducted within the walls of Brussels’s palaces. The contact had witnessed, however, a passing exchange at La Monnaie, the royal opera house, the previous evening with a man believed almost certainly to be a minion of the Ancien Régime.

  It was looking more and more as if Lezennes had Legitimist leanings—not that Geoff gave a damn about France’s politics. He cared only about Giselle Moreau. When she was old enough, and emotionally strong enough, she could fall on her sword for the old Bourbon kings if she wished. Until then, however, the Guardians of the Fraternitas had to protect her.

  Geoff just didn’t yet know how he was to accomplish it. So it was with a measure of weariness that he let himself into the house in the Rue de l’Escalier and tossed his hat onto the hall table. He went at once into the parlor and poured himself three fingers of whisky, tossing it down in two swallows before going up to change for dinner.

  Upstairs, however, he could hear faint thuds, as if someone was bouncing a ball in one of the upper floors. He shrugged it off and, after tossing his coats across a chair, rang the bell to order hot water for the tub. He was already yanking off his boots when his valet came in to see what was wanted. />
  The rhythmic thudding upstairs had become more intense.

  “What the devil is that racket, Mertens?” he asked, stripping off his waistcoat.

  “I believe it is Madame MacLachlan,” said the valet, picking up his coat and shaking the wrinkles from it. “She seemed in a bit of a mood, sir, if you’ll pardon my saying. She went up into the attic an hour ago.”

  “Into the attic?” he echoed, throwing off his shoes. “To do what? The Ghillie Callum?”

  This, apparently, did not translate well from the Gaelic to Mertens’s Flemish ear, for the valet just looked at him blankly.

  “Never mind.” After a glance at the clock, Geoff sighed and began hitching the fall of his trousers back up.

  Something had gone awry with Charlotte Moreau’s tea, he was willing to bet. Perhaps the lady had not turned up again. Or perhaps she had . . .

  Slipping the last button into place, he started toward the door. “Tell Mrs. Janssen not to trouble with dinner,” he said. “We’ll have something cold brought up later. I’m going upstairs to discover the source of Mrs. MacLachlan’s mood.”

  After bounding up the two flights of stairs in stocking feet, Geoff pushed open the door to Monsieur Michel’s gentlemen’s playground and looked round the corner. To his shock, Anaïs stood in the vast, sunlit space that surrounded the boxing bag, a long, wicked rapier glinting in her hand.

  Her left arm lifted elegantly behind, Anaïs stood en garde before the bag, which was swinging slightly on its rope. She wore nothing but a pair of snug nankeen trousers and a loose white shirt, her hair caught back in a braid tied with a white ribbon. As if she moved to a music she alone could hear, Anaïs dropped her point and lunged, driving her blade through the heart of the bag.

  Indeed, it was obviously not the first time she had done so. The bag was spilling its guts through various slits and punctures, bleeding wads of cotton wool and sawdust onto the floor. Yanking out her blade, Anaïs performed a flawless double retreat, then danced back and forth across the floor, engaging with her unseen enemy, executing her steps with a deftness of footwork Geoff had rarely observed.