Whispers of the Flesh (26 page)

“Oh. Of course.” She pulled in her legs to make room for him.

He took a seat. “What is that you’re reading?”

She smiled and showed him the cover; it was the Beckett notebook. “I can’t put it down. It just blows me away.”

“There are little excited yellow streaks in your aura,” he said. “It’s really beautiful.”

She looked dubious. “My aura’s violet, right? Yellow and purple are opposites on the color wheel. I’ve always thought they looked really gross together.”

“It’s not violet right now.” Rubbing her foot through the afghan, he said, “Do you remember, in the
L’histoire Secrète,
when Brantigern’s wife had a silvery aura?”

“Sure, after she became pregnant.”

“Your aura is silver, Isabel.”

She held his gaze unblinkingly.

He smiled.

She sat up straight. “Are you . . . are you saying . . . ?”

He nodded.

“Oh, my God.” She covered her grin with her hand, her eyes enormous. “Oh, my God, really?”

“You’re going to have a son.”

“Are you serious? Oh, my God. That’s . . . that’s . . .”

He took her hand. “Marry me, Isabel.”

She stared at him.

“I love you,” he said. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone else, and I know I never will. We can live in the hunting lodge. I know you like it there. We’ll find another
administrateur,
or you can take over, whatever you like. We can have as many or as few children as you—”

“Adrien, I . . . I love you, too. I’ve loved you since I was sixteen years old, but I can’t marry you. God, how I wish I could, but—”

“You can.”

“You need to marry a woman with the Gift so you can have a gifted child to succeed you as
gardien
.”

“The child you’re carrying is gifted, Isabel.”

She shook her head, her brow furrowed. “That’s not possible.”

“I can see it very clearly in your aura,”he said. “There are little sparks, like stars in a swirly, silvery fog. Your son has the Gift.”

“But doesn’t it take two gifted parents to have a gifted child? Obviously,
you’re
gifted, but I’m—”

“It’s not my child.”

She looked bewildered, perhaps even a little offended. “Of course it is.”

Taking her shoulders, he said,“I’ll explain, but I want you to know that, as far as I’m concerned, this is a blessing in disguise. I get to marry you
and
have a child who can carry on the guardianship of the Follets. And I
will
consider him my child. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have Morel blood. None of that matters.”

“Of course he has Morel blood. There’s been nobody else, Adrien, not since last August. I wouldn’t lie about—”

“I don’t think you’re lying. You just don’t remember, because he must have used his
liggia spiall
on you, but—”

“Liggia spiall?”
Isabel looked as if a lightbulb were switching on in her brain. She smiled slowly. “Oh. Of course. You think this is Elic’s child.”

“Well, Jason’s DNA, but Elic’s . . . Wait. You know?”

Laughing, she took his face in her hands and kissed him. “Wow, your beard is scratchy.”

“Isabel, did Elic—”

“He tried. He came to my room with Lili. He did his hocus pocus, but it didn’t work.”

“What do you mean, it didn’t work?”

She shrugged. “It didn’t work. He touched my forehead and said . . . whatever it was he said, but it had no effect. He tried another spell, but that didn’t work, either.”

“At all?”

“Yeah, they thought it was weird, too. I asked them what it meant, but they just said some people are immune to their enchantment.”

“Mon dieu,”
he whispered, and then he started laughing. He grabbed her and kissed her, hard.

“Okay,” she said breathlessly when they drew apart. “Mind bringing me up to speed?”

“The only people who are immune to the spells cast by Follets are those who are gifted,” he said.

She shook her head, looking baffled. “I’m not gifted.”

“Most gifted people don’t realize it,” he said. “Sometimes they even think they’re going nuts. Have you ever noticed a little shimmer of light around someone’s head, or had a dream that came true? Perhaps when you were going through puberty? That’s often when giftedness comes to the fore.”

She shook her head. “Well, I did used to fool around with a Ouija board with my girlfriends, like during slumber parties, and the what-do-you-call-it, the pointer thingie, seemed like it was moving on its own. I thought my friends were making it move, but when I did it alone, it still moved and answered questions. I thought it was my subconscious, but some of the things it said would happen really did happen, like me getting my first kiss in the toy department of Harrod’s, which is pretty freakin’ specific. And my parents getting divorced, and me moving to New York, and the name of the school I ended up at . . .”

“You have the Gift,” Adrien said excitedly.

“But how . . . ? I mean, my mom has it, but Dad doesn’t. Or maybe he does, and he just doesn’t realize it?”

Adrien shook his head. “He’s susceptible to enchantment. He’s definitely not gifted.”

“Then . . .” She looked toward the door to Emmett’s sitting room. “Oh, my God. He’s not . . . He’s not really my . . . ?”

Adrien scratched his prickly chin and sighed.

Isabel ruminated on this for a minute. “Wow,” she murmured, shaking her head. “Wow. Do you . . . You don’t suppose he knows, do you?”

“I doubt it.”

She groaned and lowered her head into her hands. He took her in his arms and held her.

“I want to tell him I’m pregnant,” she said, “and that we’re . . . You know, about us. I think that’ll make him happy. But don’t let it slip that the baby’s gifted, ’cause then he’ll put two and two together, and the one thing he doesn’t need right now is bad news.”

From within the sitting room came a dusty chuckle. “I’ll be turning up my toes in fairly short order,” Emmett said in a voice like the scraping of sandpaper. “Any news beats that.”

Isabel mouthed,
Fuck
.

Adrien rose, handed her up from the chaise, and gestured her into the sitting room ahead of him.

“How much did you hear?” she asked her father as she took a seat next to his bed.

“Enough to confirm . . .” He paused to suck in a few strained breaths. “. . . my suspicions. Sit me up, would you?”

Adrien raised the head of the bed and rearranged Emmett’s pillow.

Isabel said, “You suspected you weren’t my . . . that someone else . . . ?”

He nodded.

“Why?” she asked. “Because of how Mom pounced on you when you got back to London after that weekend here?”

“That, and . . .” Emmett pressed the handkerchief to his mouth as his harsh breaths devolved into a coughing fit.

Adrien said, “This is too much of a strain for you. We should—”

“Blond hair . . .” he said. “Recessive gene, don’t you know.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “I did wonder about that during the genetics part of Bio one-oh-one. Mom’s red hair is a mutation, but her parents were fair, so she had fair-haired genes. So if she’d been married to a blond guy, this”—she indicated her corn silk hair—“would have made sense, but your hair is so dark, it’s almost black.”

“My tuition dollars at work,” Emmett said.

“So, then, who . . . ?” Isabel shook her head, saying “It doesn’t matter. I don’t c—”

“He had the Gift, whoever he was,” Emmett said, pausing to catch his breath. “And blond genes.”

“So you were pretty sure I wasn’t really your child,” Isabel said, “and you just let her pretend . . . ?”

Regarding her with bemusement, Emmett said, “Of course you’re my child—my only child. She never—” He coughed stridently. “Maddy, she never wanted more children after you. I’m so grateful for you. You’ve been the daughter of my heart. And now, you’re to be a mother, eh?”

“And a wife,” Adrien said, “as soon as it can be arranged.”

Isabel asked whether blood tests were needed in France, or if they could get married right away. Adrien knew what she was getting at. Emmett had just a few days left, if that, and she wanted him to see them married.

Resting a hand on her shoulder, Adrien said, “I would marry you tomorrow if I could, but here in France, blood tests are the least of it. There’s a mountain of paperwork to complete, and then we must wait at least thirty days after the posting of
les bans
before the wedding can take place.”

“Oh.” Isabel glanced away.

The reason for her dismay wasn’t lost on Emmett. “The important thing,” he told her, his voice nearly inaudible now, “is that I know you two will be together, and that you’re giving me a grandson. You can’t imagine . . .” He coughed into his handkerchief again. “You can’t imagine what joy that brings me.”His gaze fell on the Beckett notebook on her lap. “I
thought
you’d like that.”

“I love it,” she said. “It’s brilliant—beautiful.”

“Keep it,” he said.

“What? No, I can’t. It . . . it’s far too valuable, too . . .”

“Take it—please. I want it to belong to someone who appreciates it.”

Isabel looked down, nodded. A tear fell onto the book. She brushed it off, then wiped the spot dry with the hem of her shirt. “Thank you, Daddy.” She let out a watery little laugh of embarrassment, shaking her head as if to say
Silly me, calling him that.

And then she burst into tears.

“Isabel . . .” Adrien snatched a handful of tissues out of the box on the desk and handed them to her, rubbing her back.
“Mon coeur . . .”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she choked out. “I’m sorry. I know you asked me not to c-cry around you, but—”

“Come here,” said Emmett, holding his arms out.

She stared at him for about half a second, as if stunned that her undemonstrative father should make such a gesture, and then she rose and threw herself into his arms, sobbing.

“It’s all right,” he said, patting her back, his own eyes shimmering. “Shh, it’s all right.”

Adrien, thinking to step out into the hall so as to give them some privacy, was crossing to the door when it slammed open.

“Hi, guys,” Chloe chirped as she sashayed into the room in her nurse’s aide uniform, equipped for her shift with an armload of periodicals, a manicure kit, and her iPod. “Sorry about sleeping in. I’ve been bloody knackered lately. How are we feeling tonight, Emmett?”

“A bit knackered myself, actually,” he said hoarsely as Isabel turned away to wipe her face. “Don’t mean to be rude, but I wouldn’t mind closing my eyes for a bit.”

“Of course,” said Adrien, who suspected that Emmett was having a hard time controlling his emotions, and didn’t want to be seen shedding tears. He held the door open for Isabel, but she asked him to wait for a moment while she took Chloe out into the hall for a little chat.

Adrien, whose hearing was extraordinary even without the Gaulish spell he sometimes employed for that purpose, had no trouble listening in through the closed door. Isabel was telling Chloe not to call her father by his first name. “I know Grace has told you to call him Mr. Archer. Do it. He doesn’t like inappropriate familiarity. And keep a close eye on him. Phone my room if there’s any change. And don’t you dare leave his side for a second. If you need a break, I’ll take over. I don’t mind being awakened . . .”

“Eavesdropping,
mon seigneur
?” Emmett asked with a grin. “Shame on you, putting your noble gifts to such an ignoble use. Isabel’s reading the riot act to Florence Nightingale, I take it.”

Upon inheriting the seigneury of Grotte Cachée as a teenager, Adrien had tried to get his new
administrateur
to call him by his first name, but Emmett had refused. Employing the correct form of address for one’s superior, he’d argued, whether in the military or in one’s professional life, was both a mark of respect and a way to avoid confusion about one’s powers and duties.

“Your daughter is concerned about you,” Adrien said as he came to stand by Emmett’s bedside. “She wants to make sure you’re properly cared for.”

“I do hope she realizes there’s nothing anyone can do at this point to forestall the inevitable.”

“There are things that can be done to make you more comfortable,” Adrien said. “I think it’s a good idea to let Grace put in an intravenous line so that you can receive—”

“I will not depart this earth as a comatose
thing
hooked up to tubes and wires, with no say at all over my treatment, what drugs I’m given, what’s done to me . . .” Emmett shook his head, taking gasping breaths with a strained expression.

“You would choose suffering over a peaceful departure simply to remain in control?” Adrien asked. “Emmett, please just consider it—for Isabel’s sake if not for your own.”

“I’m sor—” Emmett coughed weakly. “I’m sorry she’s worrying. No need for it . . .” He closed his eyes, his lungs straining.

“Well . . . just think about what I’ve said, and remember you can always change your mind. We can talk again in the morning.”

As Adrien turned to leave, Emmett said,
“Mon seigneur.”

“Yes?”

“Promise me you’ll take good care of her.”

Adrien extended his hand. Emmett took it.

“You have my word,” Adrien said.

“You want me to put your bed down so you can sleep?” Chloe asked Emmett a few minutes later, a hopeful note in her voice. Without him to deal with, she could sit and read her fashion magazines and tabloids to her heart’s content, perhaps even take a little snooze herself on the balcony chaise, as she was wont to do. She was lazy, dim-witted, and utterly indifferent to her professional responsibilities.

Lady Luck had been shining on him when the agency sent her.

“Actually, I was thinking I might read for a bit first. Would you mind?” he asked, gesturing for her to swing the table with his shabby old copy of
Voyna i mir
over his lap.

She did so, a hint of irritation souring that painstakingly made-up face, and switched on the bedside lamp.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” he said, actually grateful for once that his voice was so feeble and short-winded. It would help to disguise this bald-faced lie. “Inigo was looking for you.”