“Do you like it?” she asked.
“Very much,” he said.
“Then you have the taste of an emperor.”
They laughed together. Serena kept him talking and drinking, until it felt as though an hour had passed but could hardly have been ten minutes.
“It’s getting dark,” the guard said. “I can close up soon, and then I am free for the night.”
Oh dear!
“We must finish the bottle first,mon copain,” she said. “It will not keep.”
He laughed as if she’d said something outrageously funny, but he grabbed the bottle and drained the last third. Then he hurled it with all his might into a nearby bush.
“Now you don’t have to carry it home, mademoiselle, or to whereverwego next.”
He walked back toward the gate, not quite in a straight line. Her heart pounding, Serena barely thought before she said her next words.
“I’ve changed my mind. I would like to see the catacombs. I’ve never been down there. My friends tease me over this because I’ve always been afraid. But with you taking me, being my guide, I would feel safe, even if we are completely alone down there, in the dark.”
This drew the expected response — a broad, sly grin and a vigorous nod.
“I would be happy to escort you down and give you a personal tour. But we don’t have to be in the dark. There are shafts to bring in the last of the light, although with the sun nearly set, they won’t be much help. We shall take a lamp, and there are lamps down there we can light, too.”
She was relieved. The notion of being in the pitch black in a mass grave with a drunken stranger were just about the least desirable things she could imagine. Except...
“Are there spiders?” she asked.
“Honestly, I don’t like crawlies myself,” the guard disclosed, “but I vow I have seen none down there. Take my hand.”
Setting down her basket, she found herself ushered through the iron gate and going to the last place in Paris she wanted to go.
Chapter Twelve
The journey five storiesunderground was not as bad as she’d feared, since the guard, whom she now knew was named Pierre, had a steady lamp in his hand and went ahead of her. Moreover, the stairwell was not too cramped, and she could stand up perfectly straight, although the steps wound dizzyingly around and around, seemingly forever.
