Lucie rolls her eyes.
“Are the adults in the pic your parents and your grandparents?” I ask my disrespectful subordinate.
“Gramps had inherited a bit of money. He spent the last centime to buy the fan shop where Gran was an employee at the time. He loved her to distraction.”
“Papa passed away a decade ago,” Violette says. “His health deteriorated gradually over a few years without any doctor ever being able to pinpoint his illness.”
“My father died like that, too,” I surprise myself by sharing.
Lucie turns to me. “Uncertain diagnosis?”
“All the tests and scans and X-rays came back normal, yet he kept getting worse. The brightest medical minds examined him. They tried all sorts of treatments and remedies. But no one could save him.”
I almost never talk about it, not even with Theo, Gigi or Mother, let alone with virtual strangers. Even when they have a similar case in the family. The pain is still raw, after all these years. Was Father poisoned? With no toxicological proof to sustain that theory, it was hushed and swept under the rug.
“I’m sorry you lost your father,” Lucie and her aunt say at the same time.
He was a great parent and ruler, highly esteemeddespite the teasing about his round face and beer belly. A role model not just for his children, but for every child in Mount Evor.
“We loved him,” I voice. “He was a cool dude.”
“Fathers are as vital as mothers, even if less celebrated,” Violette opines. “I can’t imagine raising my girls without Dom.”
Lucie exhales, rattling her lips. “Mom raised me just fine, it seems.”
“Sweetie, I didn’t mean to imply—” Violette begins, visibly mortified.
I rush to her rescue, turning to Lucie, “Did your father pass away, too?”
“No, he passed the border,” she replies. “Woke up one day, ditched everything, including his wife and kid, and went to live in Portugal with a new girlfriend.”
Lucie’s pretty face is the very picture of resentment, unexpectedly hard. I refrain from asking any more questions.
Violette leaves us to our task. It’s weird to think that the future of my country depends on a piece of paper we hope to find in this dusty attic.
We find the sales ledgers in the last boxes at the bottom of the pile.Of course.
We pull some out, grab a ledger each and peruse it from cover to cover in a studious silence interrupted only by muffled domestic noises from the house beneath. Reading Emma’s commercial transaction entries is absolutely fascinating.Not.
Diving into a new ledger, I make a mental promise to myself. If Kurt’s plan succeeds, Mount Evor quietly loses its sovereignty and the House of Valois-Montevor loses all its wealth and influence; bookkeeping is one career I will never consider.
Theo should, though. It might be a good fit for a control freak like him.
Another riveting volume of transaction records, then another, and another. I multitask. While using most of my brain to screen entries, I keep a small part to come up with a variety of royally dignified ways in which I could kill myself.
Suddenly, Lucie shrieks. “Look, look!” She lifts her open ledger so I can see. “Read this entry! The description and the date are a match.”
Written in blue ink, in Emma’s now-familiar curly cursive, the first column says:
Folding plissé fan. Last quarter of the 18th century. Carved ivory sticks and ivory handle. Applied decorations. Pastoral scene painted on silk.
The other columns show the surprisingly modest sum it was sold for, a date, and the buyer’s name—Yannick Blanc-Mathieu.
I pick up my phone and call Carlo. “Can you look up a Yannick Blanc-Mathieu?”
“Do you need me to send an agent to tail him?” he asks.
“For now, just send me his home and work addresses and anything relevant.” I hang up.
