Covenant (Paris Mob Book 1) (5 page)

C
harlotte stopped at the corner
, leaning against the building’s stone facade. She’d been second-guessing herself all morning, trying to come up with another option for dealing with the ring and the men who had broken into the store last night. She replayed them again in her mind.

She could go to the police, give them the ring, let them deal with it. Except the ring wasn’t stolen; it had been hidden in a desk her father had purchased. There was a possibility the police would check with the authorities in Vienna in an attempt to connect the ring to Stefan Baeder’s death, but that did nothing to address the problem of the men who would be back this evening to inquire about the ring.

And inquire was putting it nicely.

She could ask the police for protection, but assuming they were anything like the police in America, guarding a woman when no crime had been committed wouldn’t be very high on their priority list.

Which meant she was back to dealing with the men who had threatened her.

She could give them the ring. Just give it to them and be done with it. It was tempting. Stefan Baeder was dead. Nothing would change that now, and there was no proof the ring was connected to his death. It was hundreds of years old. The dusty substance stuck in the filigree could be anything, or it could be blood from a simple cut on his finger.

But what if it did have to do with Baeder’s death? What if relinquishing the ring meant absolving Stefan Baeder’s murderer? Eliminating any chance of bringing the killer to justice?

And there was another problem; there was no guarantee that giving the men the ring would make her any safer. In fact, there was every possibility they would take the ring and kill her anyway. She had a flash of the knife glinting near her throat, the cold press of it against her skin.

The image brought her back to the moment at hand. Option four. The only one that made sense.

Ask Christophe Marchand for help.

She hadn’t come to the possibility right away. It was only after hours of running through the options in her mind, pacing the store and forcing herself not to call Joelle because she didn’t want to drag the other woman into the mess, that he had appeared as an option.

She’d been picturing the men in the store — the knife held so confidently by the one who seemed to be in charge. They were obviously criminals, and the realization had brought to mind another criminal, albeit a more elegantly clothed one.

Christophe Marchand.

She didn’t know what he did for a living, but the more she thought about it, the more she was sure he was involved in something illegal. It was the only explanation for the guards, the weapons, the money he’d spent with her father over the years (more than twelve million Euro, she’d checked the records).

Strangely, the thought of him had offered some relief. The cool eyes, the unflappable demeanor, the deliberate way he moved and spoke.

He was a man who was in charge. A man who knew how to take care of problems.

And, she had a hunch, problematic people.

She would ask him for help. Explain what had happened, show him the ring. He would know what to do with it, and he would know how to handle the men who wanted it. Of course, there was also the possibility that he would tell her to leave, that this wasn’t his problem.

She had an argument for that, too.

She pushed off the building and started walking toward the Marchand house halfway down the block, her heels clicking on the sidewalk. Her consideration of the problem at hand hadn’t gained her any new ground, but it had made her more sure she was doing the right thing.

She climbed the steps, slammed the gargoyle knocker, and waited. She was preparing her argument for the bodyguards when the door opened to reveal Christophe Marchand’s cold eyes over an implacable expression. There was a flicker — was she imagining it? — of pleasure in the moment before he composed his features.

He opened the door wider. “Mademoiselle Duval. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

She tried to formulate her thoughts, tried to see past the high cheekbones, the aquiline nose, the sensuous lips. She hadn’t expected to see him first. She’d been prepared to face the bodyguards, to have more time before she was faced with the enigmatic man in front of her.

“I… There’s a problem,” she finally said. “With the piece we sold you.”

He raised his dark brows. “A problem.”

She licked her lips. “It’s a bit of a long story. I found something inside of it. Something that was blocking one of the drawers. I didn’t know what it was at first, or who it belonged to, but now I do, and someone else wants it, and I’m afraid I’m not sure what to — ”

He opened the door wider. “Perhaps you should come in so we can discuss it privately.”

She nodded, wishing she could shove all the words back in her mouth. She wasn’t usually so foolish. So tongue-tied. She’d grown up with a woman who measured her words, onscreen and off. She worked around people who spoke infrequently, preferring instead to focus on the objects that were their passion. But for some reason she felt witless around this man, unable to clarify her thoughts in the face of his intense gaze.

“Please.” He gestured to the foyer and she stepped inside, surprised to discover it empty.

“Where are your… friends?” she asked as he shut the door.

“My friends?”

“The men who were here last time?”

“Ah,” he said. “I’ve given them the evening off. I quite like the emptiness of the house when I’m alone.”

A shiver ran up her spine. She was alone. With him.

“I'm sorry to disturb you,” she said.

“No need to apologize. Why don’t we have a drink while you explain?”

“A drink sounds good," she said. She wasn’t a drinker, but the idea of a little something to take the edge off her anxiety was suddenly very appealing.

“Come.”

He led her into a small room off the foyer. It was an old school parlor, with a soaring ceiling and elaborate moldings. One wall was painted with a vivid mural depicting a stylized jungle, trailing vines and twisted tree trunks winding their way around Corinthian columns. Spots of color — birds, she realized — peeked out from the leafy branches of the trees.

“It’s an original Hiler.”

She turned toward Christophe’s voice to find him holding out a tumbler of amber liquid. “Thank you.” She took the drink, sipped carefully, letting the liquid fire burn its way down her throat before speaking again. “1928?”

There was appreciation in his nod. “Correct.”

“I studied Hiler as part of my Masters in Conservation,” she said. “It’s lovely.”

He turned back to the mural, his gaze sweeping the landscape. “Yes.” There was a long pause, a moment when he seemed to disappear from view, when she felt him retreating to some faraway place. Then he gestured to the sofa. “Please, sit.”

She perched on the edge of a Louis XI sofa. She looked into her drink, trying to decide where to begin.

“There was a ring in the back of your desk,” she finally began.

A
t first it
was difficult to concentrate. She was so beautiful: the prominent collarbone revealing itself between the buttons of her silk blouse, the long, elegant neck, the classical bone structure that would have made her a muse for the world’s finest artists.

And then there were her eyes. They appeared to be brown, but when he looked more closely, he saw that they were flecked with gold. They made him think of the dappled sun shining into the deepest, darkest parts of the forest on Corsica. There the woods were primordial, secret keepers of the ages.

It wasn’t until she got to the men who had invaded her father’s store that he was able to fully focus on her words. He could see them, muscling their way into the sanctuary that had belonged to her father, threatening the woman in front of him. It was savage and unseemly, an affront to everything he believed about the care and keeping of beauty.

One didn’t manhandle a woman — and one took special care with a woman like Charlotte Duval.

That someone had seen fit to frighten her sent a howl of fury roaring through his body. It was a foreign experience. Emotion had no place in his dealings with women, whom he treated like his most beloved art: with gentleness and care for their value minus actual attachment.

He forced himself to focus on her words, to let her finish. When she was done, she took a sip of the drink in her hand, then looked at him nervously.

“I’m sorry to bother you with it. I wasn’t sure what to do, where to go. I thought you might know something about the ring and the men who wanted it.”

He sensed this wasn’t entirely true. That there might be another reason she’d come to him. But she seemed to be working her way to the matter at hand in a way only she understood. He would play along.

“Why would I know anything about it?” he asked.

“Because it came with the desk,” she explained. “Was it a special acquisition for you? Did you know anything about its provenance when you purchased it?”

“I’m afraid not,” he said. “Your father had a list of items I was seeking to acquire. Some of them were very specific.” He hesitated, surprised by the urge to tell her about the pieces that had once belonged to his family. “Sometimes he was able to find those, other times he found items that were very close to the originals.”

“And the desk?” she asked.

“It was a reasonable approximation.” He thought of the original, a gleaming piece that had once stood in the entry of the house in Corsica. A piece he’d run his fingers along as a child, that had provided a surface for his mother’s hats when she was too busy to put them away after coming in the door. “And quite rare, which is why I jumped at the chance to own it.”

“So you didn’t know anything about Stefan Baeder?”

“Only that he was a well known collector,” Christophe said. “Something that added to my confidence in purchasing it. He had a legendary eye. I bought the piece sight unseen from his estate through your father.”

“Do you think the ring has something to do with Baeder’s death?” she asked.

“I don’t know," Christophe said. “May I see it?”

She seemed to hesitate before reaching into her pocket. She withdrew the ring and held it out to him.

He didn’t take it right away. Instead he went to the sideboard against one wall and withdrew a pair of soft gloves. He pulled them on, then returned to take the ring from her hand.

“Oh, my god,” she said. “I didn’t… I didn’t wear gloves when I handled it.” She rubbed her forehead. “What was I thinking? I’ve probably compromised any evidence that might have been found.”

“It will be fine,” he said, taking the ring to a writing table near the window. He sat down and withdrew a loupe from the drawer. “The police can rule out your fingerprints — if it comes to that.”

He held the ring under the loupe, studying the filigree, reading the words etched on the band.

Ducunt volentem fata.

The fates lead the willing.

The phrase was familiar, but it spoke to him beyond simple memory. In fact, the entire issue plucked at the edges of his mind, but it was nothing he could put his finger on. He was a man of reason. A man who used facts when determining courses of action. Here there were no facts beyond the story told by Charlotte Duval.

He put down the loupe and turned to look at her. “It’s a beautiful piece, but I don’t know anything about it.”

She nodded, and he saw in her hesitation the unspoken thing. He waited, giving her time and space to speak. He wasn’t in the habit of pulling teeth in conversation. If someone had something to say, they could say it. And more than that, he was anxious not to spook her. She’d come to him for a reason, and he had a feeling it had to do with something more than the fact that the ring had been found in his desk.

“There’s something else…” she began.

He rose, crossing the room and taking a seat in the chair opposite the sofa. “I’m listening.”

“One of the men who came into the shop last night had a knife, and they had guns under their jackets.”

She reached up to brush the hair back from her brow, and that was when he saw the dark purple smudge around her wrist. He knew instinctively that it had been caused by the intruders. That one of them had put his hands on her.

He drew in a breath, pausing to collect his anger. “Did they hurt you?”

She shook her head. “No.”

He reached out for her hand, took it tenderly in his and turned it over, running his fingers gently along the discolored flesh. “This doesn’t look like ‘no’ to me.”

She shook her head, withdrew her hand and folded it in her lap, careful to make sure her sleeve covered the bruise. “It’s nothing. They were trying to scare me.”

“And did they?” He wanted to know. Needed to know. Because his mind was urging him to withdraw from the situation. It’s what he would normally do when something had nothing to do with him.

Except now, suddenly, it felt like it had everything to do with him. And not just because the ring had been found inside the desk sitting against the wall of his study. Now there was another part of him, a part wholly divorced from his mind, that wanted to pull Charlotte Duval into the protection of his arms, do whatever was necessary to keep her safe.

Her nod was reluctant. “Maybe a little.”

“And you came to me.”

She met his eyes. “I thought maybe… because of the weapons…”

He almost smiled, her insinuation obvious. Normally he might have let her squirm, but the bruise on her wrist was still freshly imprinted on his mind, and he didn’t want to cause her any more discomfort.

“You thought that because these men were criminals, I might know what to do,” he offered. “Because I’m a criminal as well.”

Her gaze was defiant. “Aren’t you?”

He nodded. “Of a sort.”

“What sort?” she asked.

He was surprised by the boldness of the question. Women didn’t usually question his profession, and when they did, he didn’t feel compelled to answer.

“The sort who makes money in the buying and selling of goods, services, and information,” he said.

She met his eyes. “You make it sound like a business.”

“It is a business,” he said. “And not very different from the kinds of things that go on all around the world every day, things that are made perfectly legal only because the people in power want them to be.”

“So you can’t help me?” she asked.

He was surprised to find himself laughing. He wasn’t a man who often laughed. And yet he admired her directness, her insistence on getting to the root of her problem, her unflappability. More than that, he saw something of himself in her — a willingness to overlook troublesome details in the name of something bigger.

“I didn’t say that.”