But had he? As he felt the icy prick of pins and needles along his shoulders and all the way to his fingertips, he wasn’t sure at all.
The air turned colder as he navigated the maze of underground chambers that were familiar to him now. But he remembered the day he’d first walked them at his father’s side.
He could still smell the scent of his father’s pipe tobacco and hear the clipped percussive beat of his riding boots on the stones. Lucien had been about as tall as the keyhole then, and slight enough to have been crushed by the heavy vault door if he’d gotten in the way.
“Are they real, Father? The stories? The recipes?” he’d asked with wide-eyed wonder as he saw the book for the first time.
The skepticism of his seven-year-old self wavered at the sight of the jewels on the cover. A starburst of cabochon rubies, sapphires, emeralds and yellow diamonds glowed in the lamplight. They were smooth beneath the tentative touch of his fingertips. The gilded pages rasped quietly against each other as his father allowed him to explore, knowing that Lucien was always careful with books. To him, those were the true treasures of the earth.
“They are, for those who believe in them. So real, in fact, that some men have done despicable things to possess the power promised within the pages.”
“Even . . . murder?”
Somehow, he’d known the answer even before his father had laid a hand on his shoulder and nodded solemnly.
“That is the reason we must keep the book locked away. We are the faithful stewards who ensure that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Some of our ancestors have perished for the sake of this ancient relic. We must honor their sacrifice by doing all we can to shield and protect what we hold most dear. And now,” he said, handing him the key, “you are part of that legacy, my son.”
Lucien blinked away the memory as his hand curled around the hilt of the dagger. Then, with a twist of the bronze pommel, he removed the key hidden inside and set it into the lock.
When the heavy vault door swung open on a groan, he went still. The place where the legendary bejeweled book of recipes usually sat on the scarred old stone was empty. Barren.
The book was gone.
His heart stopped beating. This cannot be happening, he thought. Securing the book was his sole responsibility. There had to have been a mistake.
Dread filled him as he staggered into the vault. The chamberstick flame wavered, spilling a ripple of watery light on the rough stone walls. He felt the shadows closing around him as he went deeper into the tomb-like chamber, hefting the candle higher. It has to be here.
His eyes searched wildly, frantically. Perhaps it had slipped, he reasoned. A strong gust of air from when he’d opened the door might have toppled it to the other side.
But no. The book wasn’t on the floor.
Something else was there instead—a torn scrap of yellowed vellum.
Lucien knew, even before he bent to pick it up, and his hand shook as he read the taunting words left for him.
To the Duke of Merleton,
You’ve finally met your match.
Lady Avalon
Chapter 4
Shaken, not stirred
The shores of Calais were just off the port bow, the harbor filled with sailing vessels of every kind, from paddle steamers to packet ships, cutters to schooners, ferries to merchant ships as imposing as frigates, and each were vying for position in the slender strait.
After the fourth hour of their journey, the deck of their packet steamer was becoming quite the crush. Passengers who weren’t driven aloft by curiosity were doing so due to the ripe stench of the hull below from the many who’d suffered bouts of seasickness on the journey.
Meg, who’d always possessed an iron constitution, hadn’t felt the least bit queasy. However, when the aunts’ maid had cast up her accounts into a makeshift bowl of her apron—the contents of her breakfast of coddled eggs, kippers, porridge and sausages looking as though they were strained through a fine mesh sieve—even Meg had needed to escape or become the next victim of the retching epidemic.
For that reason, she had been content to stay on deck for the duration and sketch in her book.
Even though she wore an ivory veil to protect her face from the sun and spray, her bonnet ribbons were whipped to a shred from the salty sea air. But she didn’t mind. She was eager to put England and heartbreak far behind her.
She knew that on foreign soil she would be less likely to think about Daniel Prescott. Less likely to feel the hurt and sense of inadequacy she’d carried with her ever since he’d told her she was too young to know her own mind. And less likely to recall that, even then, she’d been determined to wait for him . . . only to have her heart shatter when she’d read his letter.
Dear Miss Stredwick,
I have married . . .
Meg reached beneath the veil to wipe the sea spray from her cheek just before the aunts joined her at the railing.
“Would you look at that sight, sister?” Myrtle said on a gasp of delight. “From this distance, Calais looks rather like a table set for a grand party, with towering puddings, sculpted pies and steaming tureens all just waiting to be tasted.”
The younger Parrish sister was wholly unconcerned with the wind that toyed with her coiffure, the stray locks of silver floss escaping from beneath her bonnet, and the hems of her Saxon blue pelisse and worsted wool skirts being buffeted against her legs.
Maeve, on the other hand, was buttoned up to the chin, her hat ribbons secured into the high collar of her slate gray traveling costume. “You’re looking through the eyes of your appetite again.”
“Well, it has been over four hours since we left that Dover inn and the positively sumptuous buffet. I’ve never seen such a mountain of food.”
“Indeed, and we had the pleasure of seeing it again in Mrs. Pendergast’s lap,” Maeve said with a shiver. “I’m surprised you can even think of food after the carnage we witnessed.”
“I have pushed it from my mind as cleanly as an unsightly fishbone from the edge of my plate. After all, we have a grand purpose for our trip—to collect as many of the Continent’s finest recipes that we can carry—and we certainly shall not allow a little bilious reckoning to stand in our way. No. We must forge onward for the greater good.”
“That was actually quite a sensible argument,” Maeve said with a surprised lift of her brows.
Myrtle cupped her hand to the side of her mouth and said to Meg in a stage whisper, “Besides, I do my best flirting when I’m hungry.”
“Oh, sister. Whatever shall I do with you?”
Unrepentant to the core, Myrtle grinned. “Just imagine . . . for every muffin man and nut seller in England, there are likely croissant and macaron sellers here. Can I help it if I want to sample as much as I can without spending a single franc? And do not give me that put-upon expression, Maeve Parrish, for I recall how much you batted your eyes when we were last here, whenever our brother was looking away.”
“I was six and twenty. That was over”—she cleared her throat—“well, a handful of years ago, at any rate. It hardly signifies.”
“I daresay you broke a heart or two.”
Maeve shook her head, but there was a hint of a wistful smile on her lips. “It was rather thrilling. And I suppose the most exciting part about traveling abroad is that one can be whoever she wishes to be for that one moment in time.”