“I’ll leave you to it, then,” he says, heading for door.
Audrey and I sit down and begin to shuffle through the documents.
Henri stops in the doorway and turns around. “You know what? I think I can afford to take an hour or two off from my own work. I’d like to help if that’s fine with you.”
Audrey looks up, a hint of surprise on her face. “Really?”
“That would be fantastic!” I exclaim. “Your grandmother’s collection is very impressive, and it’s a lot to go through.”
He walks over, pulls up a chair, and rolls up the sleeves of his white shirt. There’s an eagerness in his eyes that gives me warm fuzzies.
“Where do we start?” he asks.
“Let’s see…” I glance at Audrey.
She shrugs helplessly.
“The nine keys left Mount Evor in the bloody wake of the French Revolution when our royals feared for their lives,” I begin, thinking aloud. “The risk that the contagion would spread and that Château des Neiges would fall was extremely high. That explains the decision made by the monarchs, Prince Maximilien and Princess Françoise, to give the keys to different trusted individuals, for safekeeping, until the storm blew over.”
Audrey rolls her eyes. “No offense, Your Highness, but I wish the royals had been better at keeping track of who they gave the keys to, and where those people intended to hide them!”
“Believe me, we all wish that same thing, all day, every day,” I say.
Henri grins. “I’m assuming one of those trusted individuals was an ancestor of mine?”
“It had to be either Count Jean-Baptiste de Bellay or his wife Antoinette, or both,” I confirm. “Our historians tell us the couple were part of the royals’ inner circle.”
“Then, shall we start with them?” Henri gives me a questioning look.
I nod. “But bear in mind that they might’ve hidden away the key in a place that predates those events but is somehow associated with or important to the de Bellay family.”
“I understand better now why the royals and MESS agents thought the key would be on this estate,” Henri says. “It isn’t just because I, your Key to the Key,”—he puffs his chest out in a deliberately comical way—“now owns the property, but also because it was Jean-Baptiste de Bellay who acquired it from its original owners.”
“It made so much sense, didn’t it, that the key would be here?” I pull a glum face. “But the search team found no trace of it. And it wasn’t in the Moulindor chapel, either. So, let’s see where else it could be.”
Filled with a sense of purpose, the three of us dive into the documents. Henri’s presence, his eagerness to help, feeds my optimism and cements my renewed resolve to suss out the key.
Qui cherche, trouve!
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
We’re barely twenty minutes into our archival research when there’s a knock on the door of the library.
“Yes?” Henri calls.
When the door opens, I expect to see Odile. But it’s Julian.
He walks in, uninvited. Taking in our setup, he greets me first, then Audrey and then gives a cursory nod to Henri.
I mask my annoyance with politeness. “What a surprise! You’re here again.”
He takes a seat, uninvited yet again. “I had to see you.”
There’s an odd glint in his eye that unsettles me.
“So, how has the retreat been?” he asks me with feigned interest.
“It’s been wonderful,” I reply. “Very insightful.”
