Leonie (24 page)

Caro looked at Alphonse with exasperation. He was such an ordinary man with his round cheeks and brown hair, already thinning into a neat little circle on top. His glasses were as round as his brown eyes—in fact, he was made up of circles, she thought affectionately. He must have been the sweetest little boy. “You haven’t asked me to marry you this week, Alphonse.”

“Marry me, please, Caro?”

“Well, perhaps not this week.” She stretched out next to him on the big four-poster, drawing the rioting cornflower and poppy-strewn drapes around them cozily. “It’s like being in a summer meadow,” she said with a sigh of satisfaction.

“I’m a patient man,” he said, kissing her tenderly. He knew there were those among their friends and acquaintances who questioned just why a woman as beautiful and fun-loving as Carolina Montalva chose to live with a man as ordinary as he, but he didn’t care about mere gossip. It was enough that she stayed with him. And he knew she loved him, even though she steadfastly refused to marry him.

“I do love you,” she said as if reading his thoughts. “You’re the only one who’ll put up with me. You’re the only one I can complain
to that my feet hurt, who doesn’t mind when I eat enormous chunks of bread and cheese at four in the morning, or will allow me to fill that great barn of a country house of yours with my frivolous friends. I’ve given some of my best parties there,” she added reflectively.

Alphonse laughed. “But you know I hate parties—I’m really the pipe and slippers type.”

She grinned at him. “I know, I know, but you’re learning to love them, aren’t you?”

He kissed her eagerly. She brought adventure into a life of banking and tradition and had changed his entire world. “Never leave me, Caro, even if you never agree to marry me.” He wrapped his arms around her, capturing her warmth, her vitality, the many colors of her life.

“If only I could find someone like you for Léonie,” Caro murmured in his ear. “I just feel in my bones that Gilles de Courmont is a dangerous man. There’ll be trouble, I know it.”

The Office of Egyptian Studies was an ancient building hidden away in a tiny back street behind the Louvre. Léonie had been there once before and had no difficulty in finding it this time. Today she was excited. Monsieur Lamartine had told her that he was sending photographs of the hieroglyphs on her Egyptian statues to Monsieur Mariette at the new museum in Cairo and he expected to have an answer by now.

Lamartine had been able to identify the statues, of course. He had held the little cat statue tenderly. “The ancient Egyptians loved cats, to them they were sacred animals. This one is known as Bastet.”

But it was the other statue that he had found exciting, handling it reverently. “This is from the eighteenth dynasty, the reign of Thutmose,” he told her. “She is the goddess Sekhmet, mistress of the great god Ptah, who was the ruler of the ancient city of Thebes.”

“A goddess,” she’d breathed, touching the smooth stone with new respect, “but what was she a goddess of, Monsieur Lamartine?”

“Sekhmet had many roles, but she was known to be the protector of the sun god Ra on his nightly journey through the underworld. The Egyptians believed that when the sun sank below the horizon it went beneath the earth to the underworld through a
gate guarded by a fierce dog, Cerberus, and then floated down the river Styx—facing many evils—until it reemerged with the dawn. Sekhmet’s power protected the sun god from harm and therefore she was important—without the sun there was no life, and without Sekhmet it was believed there would be no sun god. This disc behind her head symbolizes the sun, the lion head denotes her power, the woman’s body, her fertility.

“Sekhmet had a dual character: mistress of the powerful, and the lover who was strong and would protect her lands and the lives of those she loved. But Sekhmet was also ruthless against her enemies, she was said to kill with such ferocity that soldiers talking of a terrible battle would say that the enemy had ‘killed like Sekhmet.’ This goddess has always been a controversial figure, loved by some and hated by others, right down through Egyptian history.” Lamartine looked at her keenly. “Might I ask you where you got this from, madame?”

“It belonged to my father—he was Egyptian. How it came into his possession I don’t know, but I’ve had them both all my life.” Léonie had clutched the statue to her as if afraid he might take it away.

“There was a great deal of tomb robbing in the past,” he had explained gently. “No doubt your father came across one of these in his village if he lived near Luxor?”

“I don’t know; I don’t know where he came from.”

“Most of the statues found of Sekhmet came from the Temple of Ptah at Memphis, once known as Thebes. It’s just outside Luxor on the Nile River. But this one is rare in that the stone is most unusual. Even the great statue in the temple itself is of black granite. Ah, there are many strange stories about that statue, many strange stories.…”

“Stories?” Léonie had been eager for information, but Lamartine had been lost in his thoughts.

“I must know what the message is on the statue.” She had pressed him. And today, hopefully, she would know.

Monsieur Lamartine’s office was covered in the dust if not of dynasties, at least of several years. He swept off a chair for her and sat her down with a pleased smile on his face. “At last we have it, madame. Now we know what it says!”

“Oh, Monsieur Lamartine, quickly, tell me.” She leaned forward, waiting breathlessly for his words as he began to read.

“It is a fragment of a poem,” he said, “that was found inscribed
on the gates of the Temple of Mut at Karnak—alas, now only a crumpled ruin. Sekhmet, in her loving and protective role, was associated with Mut.”

“And the poem,” she urged anxiously.

“I shall read it to you, madame.

Praise to Sekhmet

She is the mistress of all the gods

It is she who gives the breath of life

to the nose of her beloved

She is the one who is great of strength

Who protects the lands
.

Protector of those she loves
.

Sekhmet with fearful eyes

The mistress of carnage

The messenger who brings pestilence and death

Sekhmet the great mistress of power

Who sends her flame against her enemies

Her enemies have been destroyed.…

Léonie shivered as the words, written thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, echoed into the dusty silence of the room. Sekhmet, she thought, the name ringing in her head. Sekhmet. Yet the words, now she knew them, were ambivalent.

“I think, madame,” Lamartine said, smiling, “that like all the gods, Sekhmet is only what you seek in her. The perfect mistress of the powerful man, the mother figure who will fight to protect her children, or a ruthless woman who will stop at nothing to gain her own ends, even murder.”

Léonie took a deep breath. “Well,” she said with a shaky laugh, “I’ve had the statue all my life—I even slept with it in my bed when I was a child, I loved her, she was my friend—I don’t believe Sekhmet is evil.”

“Then that is what you see in Sekhmet, madame, and that is the way it should be.” Lamartine handed her the transcription of the hieroglyphs. “I’m happy to have been able to help you, madame, at least we’ve solved the mystery.”

“Yes,” Léonie answered doubtfully. “I suppose we have.”

–
• 20 •

Maroc, immaculate in his black frock coat and starched shirt, walked down the sweeping staircase from the first-floor drawing room and sent the footman to fetch a parlormaid. “Yes, sir?” The girl came hurrying toward him. “Louise, the flowers in the main salon are already drooping. I shall complain to the florist tomorrow, but meanwhile put them in fresh water and remove the pollen dust from the tables.”

“Yes, sir, of course.” She bustled off, anxious to please him. This was the best household to work for in Paris; they paid the best wages, gave more time off, and madame always had a nice word when she saw you around the house. She knew all of the servants by name—
and
where they came from
and
about their families—and often asked about her little sister, she did. She was a nice lady, no matter what people thought of her. And Maroc was the best butler in Paris, she should know, she’d worked under some tartars who fancied themselves as good if not better than their bosses, but he was all right. He ran a good, tight household and that was what counted and nobody took the role more seriously than he, young though he was, you had to admit that.
And
he adored madame. Gossip in the kitchen said she used to work with him in a lingerie shop years ago, but it was probably only gossip. Madame was such a lady.

Maroc watched as she carried the big flower arrangements carefully down to the garden room. He could trust her to take care of them, but he’d give that florist hell in the morning. He’d have sent them back now—he glanced at the walnut and gilt grandfather clock ticking mutedly in a corner by the big double doors—but it was already too late. Guests were expected in an hour and everything must be perfect.

The dining table was set for sixteen, the most Léonie would
allow at the big table. If there were to be more, they used the small round tables for six, arranging them in groups, which she enjoyed—said it was more intimate and made for better conversation—but Monsieur always liked to have everyone at the same table. Privately, Maroc thought it was because he could keep an eye on her that way. If she were off at a table without him he didn’t know what was going on. Not, of course, that anything was. But Maroc had no doubt that Monsieur de Courmont was a very jealous man.

He inspected the table critically, smoothing the skirt of the exquisitely embroidered peach linen cloth. Again, Monsieur preferred plain white damask, but this was Léonie’s choice. The silver candelabra were heavy and the crystal glasses, which he picked up to check quickly their unmarked clarity, were so thin he wondered they didn’t crumble in the mouth of some too-hearty drinker. Putting down the glass carefully, he thanked God he wasn’t the one who had to wash them. A single gardenia floated in a crystal bowl next to each lady’s place, their heady fragrance pervading the room, and a ribbon of tiny lilies twisted with ferns and greenery lay along the center length of the cloth.

At the sideboard Maroc checked the wines he had decanted earlier. Monsieur was very particular about his wines and in the two years he’d been working for them, he’d become something of a connoisseur himself. Léonie had explained his ignorance of his new job to Monsieur and he’d accepted it because that was what she wanted, even going out of his way to show him things, like how to decant the wine properly, though that was more because he cared about the wine than from kindness of the heart. Yet he was civil and he appreciated good work.

Maroc made his way through to the kitchen to check with the chef. To the chef’s chagrin, Léonie preferred simple food—though, of course, by simple she didn’t mean cheap. Maroc grinned, remembering the shared sandwiches in the alley behind Serrat. Now Léonie served fresh salmon and simple roast pheasant in season, and the best vegetables that the markets could provide, and Monsieur had baskets of fresh out-of-season fruits sent from the hothouses at his château twice a week. Léonie had taught the chef herself to make the Provençal
tian
that she liked so much. But mostly, when she was alone, she ate an omelette.

Bébé whisked through the kitchen door at his heels, snatching in her tail in the nick of time before it snapped shut. “That cat’ll lose its tail one of these days,” said the chef, setting down Bébé’s
dish of chopped chicken livers, receiving a purring rub of the head from her. He loved that cat, he had never allowed one in his kitchen before, but Bébé was different. Special.

“Everything in order, Chef Mougins?” Maroc scanned the immaculate kitchen, quietly busy with everything under control, as always.

“Can we expect to start serving on time then, Maroc?”

“Yes, Monsieur le Duc is already here.” The cat sped through the door after him, scampering up the stairs to find Léonie. Bébé rarely let her out of her sight.

The vast bed with its headboard that looked as though it might once have graced the carved splendor of some Renaissance Italian palace was set on a raised dais in the middle of the room and Léonie lay alone in the very center of it, looking, without seeing, at the pale moiré silk walls. Champagne color, it was called, and it almost matched the color of her hair, unless she’d been swimming or out in the sun, when it became paler. The statue of Sekhmet, polished to a translucent luster, faced the bed on a tall plinth of solid marble, with that of Bastet standing next to her. Bébé, attracted by the warmth of the lamp that illuminated the statues day and night, often curled at the foot of Bastet’s plinth, making Léonie smile as she looked at her twin cats, but not tonight. She could hear Monsieur in the next room, he’d already bathed and was, she supposed, dressing with his usual speed, already preoccupied with other thoughts.

She ran a tentative hand down her body, still damp from their lovemaking. This was his first night back after a long trip to Russia and, as he always did, he’d made love to her, claiming her again as his own. And she wanted him, wanted the dominance of his body. And when it was over, he had moved from the bed and gone to take his bath without even saying he’d missed her or that he loved her. But then, she smiled wryly, he had never said that—nor had she. But I would, if he would, she thought.