Seduction (13 page)

He lived in an alcove in the massive underground tunnel system. At one time, I guessed, it might have been a storage space for machinery or tools, although I couldn’t imagine what sort of construction went on before the sewers were built. As we followed the glowing light of the candle, I watched the centuries-old stone change color from black to sandstone beige. It had been scrubbed, I realized, probably by the old man himself.

A few feet later, we walked through a short passageway into his living quarters. I was stunned.

It was a huge space, illuminated by a hundred candles perched on rough stones that jutted out from the walls, lending a golden glow to the area. It was filled with beautiful furniture. There were chairs with carved wooden arms and a fainting couch upholstered in thick green silk, a velvet ottoman with tassels, and a small rosewood writing desk. There were also gorgeous vases made of porcelain so fine you could
see light through them, an ornate gold clock, and a variety of boxes made of wood, crystal, silver, and stained glass. On the far wall hung a large portrait of a beautiful woman dressed in the style of the Renaissance.

“This is . . . fantastic,” I whispered, looking around. There was a huge cherrywood case filled with leather-bound books, some decorated with gold leaf. On the writing desk was a pen made from an actual feather, sticking out of a faceted crystal inkpot.

“I have lived here a long time,” the old man said, peeling off the euro note on his neck and looking at it.

I ran over to him. “I’m sorry,” I said again. How could I have been so carried away with the man’s house—well, cave—that I’d forgotten he was injured? “Please let me help you.” I looked around for a sink, but there was none. The closest thing I could find was a gilt-edged porcelain basin filled with clean water. “Can I use this?”

He held up a hand to stop me, but then relented with a sigh and sat down. There was a folded linen cloth near the basin, and I used that, dipped in the water, to clean his wound.

It wasn’t that bad. I’d missed all the big blood vessels, apparently, because it had already stopped bleeding, but there was still dried blood all over him, not to mention the disgusting euro note and its cooties. “Do you have anything like . . .” I had to think. With Gram as a healer, I didn’t have much need of medicines. “. . . iodine?”

He nodded and gestured toward an ornate gilded cabinet. From the looks of the rest of the room, I’d have thought the old guy’s medical supplies might have stopped at eye of newt, but to my surprise he was well stocked with first aid
necessities, ointments, bandages, and tape, and even a bottle of wound wash. I guessed he must bang himself up against those exposed stones fairly often.

He sat quietly as I applied the wound wash and then some Neosporin under a gauze bandage. “There,” I said, admiring my work. He smiled and patted my hand. It was such a kind, forgiving thing to do, considering what a jerk I’d been. I kneeled in front of his chair so I wouldn’t be looking down at him, and held his hand in both of my own.

“I know it doesn’t do any good for me to keep apologizing, but . . . well, I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you like that—”

“Nonsense,” he said. “You were frightened. It was natural. You thought I was a monster.”

I swallowed. That was exactly what I’d thought. “No,” I lied. “You’re nothing like—”

He laughed. “Of course I am. Who else would live underground, in a forgotten section of the
carrières
?”

“The whats?”

“Old limestone quarries, from the time of the Romans,” he said. “These tunnels were here long before the sewers were built. No one even knew they existed until 1774, when a cave-in swallowed up a number of houses in the middle of the city.”

“Were there . . . er, a lot of people in those houses?” I asked.

“I beg your pardon?” He frowned, his brows knitted.

I told him about the bones I’d crashed into.

“Oh, those!” He laughed, wheezing. “Yes, I’ll bet you were scared silly! Still, they’re less horrifying than when they were first placed there.”

It seems that during the reign of Louis the Sixteenth, the city’s cemeteries had grown so populous that the ground, overloaded with corpses, had begun to fester and stink. In the interests of hygiene, the remains of the cemeteries’ residents were dug up under cover of night and “relocated”—that is, dumped—into one of a handful of street-level sewer openings.

“It was used during the Revolution, too,” he said. “So many headless bodies, you know.” He drew a finger along his neck. “Guillotined.”

I swallowed, remembering the skull I’d held in my hand.

He laughed. “They’re quite sanitary now, I believe,” he said reassuringly. “Someone even organized a few thousand of them. Stacked them neatly and called them ‘catacombs’ for tourists to visit.”

Ewww,
I thought. I’d read about the catacombs, but I’d never thought of that ossuary as being filled with actual people. Dead people.

“But that area is fairly distant. Where you were, one finds only random bones, the undignified remains of the dead who cannot complain of their ill treatment.”

“Er . . . right,” I said. I cleared my throat. “So this place is beneath the sewers?”

“Far beneath,” he said. “Although there are passageways into the sewers, and passageways to the street as well. One just has to know where to turn.”

No kidding. “Do a lot of people come down here?”

“Alas, the
carrières
have become popular with some of the youth. They come down here to be daring, to have parties. Fortunately, none has ventured as far as here.” He lowered
his head and looked at me. “Unless you plan to tell them.”

“Who, me?” That was a laugh. “I’d never have come down here in the first place if I hadn’t been tricked into it.”

“Oh?”

“Someone in the house where I live said she was taking me to see the sights of Paris, and then dumped me here. Oh. Excuse me. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s all right. I know this may not seem like an ideal habitation to many,” he said, gesturing around the beautiful room. “Please, go on with your story.”

I told him all about being double-crossed by Joelle and her stupid friends, hardly realizing that we’d been speaking French the whole time. There was just something about the old man—his easy acceptance of me, maybe, or the slowness of his speech, as if he had all the time in the world to listen to my tale of woe—that made me want to talk to him.

“So,” he said, when I’d finished griping about Joelle. “What do you do in Paris, aside from wandering through the sewers?”

I blushed. “I’m taking a summer course at the Clef d’Or,” I said.

“The cooking school?
Formidable!
And how did you come to be interested in
haute cuisine
?”

I told him about Hattie’s Kitchen and Whitfield—minus the magic, of course—and Gram and Agnes and my friends at school. And Peter. “He’s one of the main reasons I came here,” I confessed. “He said I was acting like his mother.”

“Is that so bad?”

“Well . . .
yes
,” I said, and he laughed. I told him more about myself, about my dad and Chef Durant at the school,
and about the strange people I’d ended up living with.

“They’re all beautiful,” I said.

He shrugged. “They are
Parisiennes
.”

“Maybe, but I think it’s more than that. That is, looking good seems to be the only thing they’re interested in.” I told him how Sophie had made her daughter Fabienne drop out of school at fifteen. “They’re like some club or something,” I went on. “They don’t seem to do very much, but they’re mysterious. Even the servants don’t know anything about them, since they hire new staff every six months. It’s hard to figure them out.”

“A puzzle indeed,” he said, hoisting himself out of his chair with difficulty. “May I offer you a cup of tea?”

“Oh. Sure,” I said, catching up with him as he walked a few steps to a charcoal brazier that had coals burning in it. Even though it was June, it was cool in this place. He put a teakettle on top of the grate and, with great effort, shook out some loose tea into a pretty teapot. “Is this the only heat you have here?” I asked baldly.

“Unfortunately, yes,” he said.

“But what about winter?”

He smiled. “I manage,” he said.

He seemed to be busy concentrating on making the tea, so I wandered around the room, taking in the titles of the beautiful books that filled a wooden case.

“Jules Verne,” I said.

“A first edition. Oh, dear, we need lemons. Pardon.” He left the cave.

One of the books looked particularly interesting. It was bound in pebbled leather, with a design of leaves in gold
along the spine. I took it out and opened it to the first page. There was no title, no author, and no publishing information. It wasn’t even printed, but was handwritten in a beautiful script.

He was born Jean-Loup de Villeneuve, third son of the Duc du Capet, in the year 1155 under the rule of Louis VII
, it began in French.

A handwritten novel? But who wrote it, the old man himself? Wouldn’t that be—

Just then the binding of the book snapped in my hands.
Oh. My. God,
I thought as the book slipped from my fingers onto the floor, its pages fluttering like leaves around my feet.

“No,” I moaned, picking up the pages as fast as I could. “Oh, nonononono . . .” I looked around wildly. I couldn’t give it back to the old man in this condition. I knew I could fix it—somehow—but I’d need a little time. Just a day or two, just—

I heard his footfalls. I didn’t know what to do.
What to do, what to do . . .

Taking a deep breath, I stashed the book inside the back of my jeans and covered it with my T-shirt.

“Here we go. Lemons,” he said, holding up two yellow fruits. “I keep perishable foods in a separate cave. You see, I have all the room in the world!” He laughed. I laughed harder. I laughed like a hyena, trying to cover up my shame and discomfort.

With palsied hands he passed me an exquisite porcelain cup filled with hot, clear tea. “Forgive me. I have no sugar or cream to offer you.”

“No problem,” I said, laughing some more. God, what a geek.

We strolled slowly back to his favorite chair and placed our teacups on a tiny table of filigreed wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl doves. I pulled up the ottoman beside him and swigged down my tea in one gulp.

“My, you must have been thirsty,” he said. “Would you care for another?”

“Oh, no,” I said, waving away the possibility of staying any longer than I had to. I’d loved being here before I’d ruined the old man’s book, but now I just wanted to get away before I got caught.

“Er . . . how’s the family?” I asked breezily.

“Long dead,” he said.

Definitely the wrong question. “Sorry.”

“No need. I enjoy my own company, my books.”

I felt my stomach churn.

“I write, on occasion, the foolish thoughts of an old man.”

He patted the arm of his chair. “I have the gift of time. That is something the young of the world do not understand. They want always to
do
, to act, to connect. But the old . . . we are content just to be. In that way we are like dogs, I suppose, living for the moment, salivating over an old bone that has no interest for anyone else.” He smiled sweetly.

“I need to go,” I said, standing up abruptly.

“Of course. You’ve taken too much time with me already.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s . . .”

“Please. Don’t explain. I’ve enjoyed our chat.”

“I’ll come back, I promise.”

“Please do not,” he said, gesturing for me to go through the arched entrance to his cave.

I didn’t think I’d heard him correctly. “Do not come back?”

Holding a candle aloft, he led me back into the tunnels. “Do not come. Do not speak of me. Forget about this day. Please,” he said.

“But why?” I was hurt. “Is it because I’m leaving? Am I rude?”

“No, no.” He shook his shaggy head, smiling.

“Don’t you like me?”

He clasped his hands together. “I like you very much, little one. But without doubt you will tell your friends about the charming old man who lives in the
carrières
surrounded by lovely antiques, and one day an enterprising young fellow will pay me a visit and kill me for my old clock. Do you understand?”

“I do.” I bristled. “But I’m not like that. I can keep a secret.” Hattie would have had a good laugh over that, since in Whitfield I was famous for being a class A blabbermouth. But this was different. His life depended on my silence. “I promise you, I’ll never tell.”

He looked skeptical. “Perhaps so, perhaps not,” he said philosophically. “Either way, I have enjoyed your company.”

“Please,” I pleaded. “Don’t say I can’t come back. I have no other friends here. Even my boyfriend, Peter . . . well, he’s too busy to spend much time with me. And I’ve hardly said two words to those awful women in the house, except for Marie-Therèse, who’s really old. . .  . Oh.” I put my hand over my lips.

“And I am not?” he asked jocularly.

“Just let me come back.”
Because I have to get this book back to you before you realize I’ve taken it.

“Perhaps,” he said. “I will let you know.”

“How? I mean, okay. That is, I won’t forget about you.”

“Excellent,” he said. “To be remembered kindly is the greatest sort of immortality.” He pointed to a crack of light ahead. “Go through there.”

It was then that I realized we hadn’t been walking the way I’d come. He’d taken me in a whole different direction, and the distance from his cave to this exit had been much shorter than the other way.

“Wait,” I said, stopping suddenly. “My name is Katy,” I said. “Katy Ainsworth.”

“Ah. I shall remember. Katy Ainsworth, student chef at the Clef d’Or,
amant
of the woefully insensitive Peter, enemy of the evil Joelle, and sometime confidante of Madame Marie-Therèse, despite the lady’s advanced years. Have I got it right?”

I blushed. “Peter isn’t really that insensitive,” I said.

“I am happy to hear it. As for me, the name I was given at birth is no longer of any importance. You may call me by my chosen name, Azrael.”