I retreated to my original spot and dug back into my tart.
“And how about you?” I asked between bites. “Have you found a new assistant?”
Mina had filled me in on the previous one — Celeste, a succubus who had plotted to steal parts of Gordon’s business empire.
He grimaced. “No. But such positions are always difficult to fill.”
“I can only imagine,” I murmured.
His phone rang, and he stood to take it. “Sorry, my dear. It will just be a minute.”
“Of course.”
I finished my tart and tea, then stood to take in the view. Roux, meanwhile, might have been one of those unblinking guards at Buckingham Palace.
I turned to the paintings decorating the walls next. There were dozens, but I went straight to my favorite.
My father hadn’t named that particular artwork of his, but I’d always thought of it asEaster at the Château. Blurred figures moved over the croquet lawn, and the patio table was piled high with food.
The closer I stepped, the more the painting reached out to me. I heard the clack of croquet mallets. Wind whispering through the trees. The laughter of children…
My chest rose in a deep sigh, remembering that gloriously sunny Easter at the château.
It was all so clear — in my memory, and in the painting. So clear, I could hear individual voices.
You’ve outdone yourself with this pie,my aunt said to my grandmother.
No, not that way,I heard Mina chide Dora.You have to do the gates in order.
Ha. I could hear the teacher in her, even back then.
Then another voice, fainter than the rest, wormed its way out of the painting and to me.
Maman, maman, ça va encore durer longtemps?a little boy complained.How much longer will this take?
I tilted my head, wondering who that was and how he fit in. We didn’t have any boy cousins.
Clement could have been there since his grandparents were friends with mine. But Clem didn’t whine. Even as a kid, he’d been tough and tight-lipped.
I frowned. He’d barely noticed me then. He barely noticed me now. Boy, did I have bad luck with men.
I pushed the thought aside, focusing on the mystery before me. I’d caught a few whispers emanating from it in the past, but never anything as distinctly as now. I’d always assumed I was more likely to be touched by magic at the château, but maybe it worked in other places too.
But who was that boy?
I studied the painting, but there was no other figure there. He could have been off-camera, so to speak — in earshot of my father at the time, but not painted into that particular view.
Touching the frame didn’t bring any clues, but I noticed it was thick. Really thick, as if the canvas had been mounted on a solid panel of wood.
Gordon appeared at my elbow, making me jolt.
“Ah. One of my favorite paintings,” he said, sounding bittersweet.
“Mine too. Do you mind if I take a picture?”
“Of course not,” he said.
I took one, then went back to contemplating the scene — and those voices.
