Page 35 of The House Saphir
“Why would you want to support my tours? It seems as though it would be better for you if everyone just… forgot what had happened. Clearly your housekeeper feels as much.”
“Yvette has been with our family since long before I was born, and she seems to think it is her sacred duty to absolve our family name of Bastien’s evils. She doesn’t like anything that could be seen as a deviation from the path of the Seven, and unfortunately, many believe that Bastien practiced dark sorcery himself.”
“The sacrifice theory,” Mallory murmured.
He nodded solemnly.
Though many suspected that Le Bleu was a wicked man withan insatiable taste for violence, others believed he had even darker intentions. That his murders were in service to some unholy spell. But for what purpose? It was anyone’s guess.
“I suppose I might be distrustful of witchcraft myself, given the circumstances,” Mallory confessed.
“There are times when it horrifies me to think that I could be descended from such a monster,” said Armand. “But I can’t help being curious, too. When I was growing up, my aunt never wanted to talk about the murders, and forbade the staff from discussing them. But… the story isn’t only about Le Bleu, is it? I am descended from Bastien Saphir, but I am also descended from Triphine Maeng, and… I would like to know more about her. About all of them. Lucienne. Béatrice. Even Gabrielle.”
Mallory sipped her drink to keep from telling him that Triphine had recognized him on the tour and was even now lounging about the upstairs suite. The kind thing, Mallory thought, would be for her to offer to facilitate a conversation between the two of them, so Armand could ask his questions and Triphine could get to know her great-great-grandson.
But she knew Triphine, and that sounded like an exhausting ordeal.
Maybe she’d broach the subject tomorrow.
“How long ago did your aunt pass?” she asked instead, which seemed a more polite way than asking how long he’d been relatively alone in this enormous, drafty, haunted house.
“Just over a year ago,” he said.
“Were you close to her?”
“She raised me as well as she could, but she did not havechildren of her own, and I think she preferred it that way. She was not the matronly sort.”
Mallory was well-versed in the clinical details of Armand’s childhood. A mother who died in childbirth. A father who died of tuberculosis when Armand was still crawling. Raised by an aunt who was tolerant of the child, if not particularly affectionate.
“But I had a number of governesses and tutors I cared for a great deal.” He tilted his head. “Why do I feel you already know this?”
“You’re the one who called me a scholar of the Saphir family,” she said, then took another sip of her chocolate. “Is that why you came on the tour? Because you were curious about your family history, when talk of Le Bleu has been prohibited from this house for so long?”
“I came on the tour to meet you,” he said, sounding as if he thought she should have realized this already. And perhaps she should have. He had been so insistent when he asked if she was a Fontaine—one of the famed witches of Morant.
“You could have come to the shop. Why attend a tour first? Whypayfor it, when the house belongs to you?”
“I hoped to determine what sort of person you were before I made my business proposal.” He scanned her wet hair and cloak with some amusement, making it clear that any hope he’d had for professionalism had vanished when she fell into that fountain. “A few months ago, a constable in Morant sent a letter to tell me about a local entrepreneur who had been caught breaking and entering at the mansion, conducting sensationalist tours for curious patrons.”
Mallory clenched her jaw, remembering the night a police constable had noticed her lantern light in the windows of the abandoned mansion and had come in to capture the intruder. Mallory had been conducting the tour with only one client at the time—a gentleman who had made his career studying the history of the region’s renowned winemaking families—and she had barely managed to sneak him out through the back door before she was caught. She was kept in a jail cell for the rest of the night before she was allowed to get word to Anaïs, who had shown up an hour later with empty pockets but maximum charm. Mallory had been released with a stern talking-to. She’d hoped that was the end of it—but clearly not.
“You could have stopped me from giving the tours at any time,” she said. “Sent a cease and desist. Had me arrested.”
“I could have. But when I mentioned the incident to one of our distributors in Morant, I was surprised that he knew your name. He asked if the Miss Fontaine who had been arrested for trespassing was the same who had been caught”—he hesitated—“conducting unsavory business in the house many years before.”
“Witchcraft,” she said darkly.
“Your reputation precedes you.”
“For the record, not all the stories are true.”
“No?” His lips twitched. “I would very much like to know which ones are.”
Her body prickled with unexpected warmth, even though the chocolate was beginning to grow cold and the flames on the fire had died down to low-burning embers.
“I did not expect to come face-to-face with a voirloup thatnight, and I certainly did not expect to witness you using your magic,” Armand said, softer now, as if afraid that speaking the words too loudly would send her scurrying away. “But I am glad that I did. It confirmed all I needed to know. I understand that you are reluctant to trust people, when your occupation must arouse a fair amount of suspicion and distrust from others. But you have nothing to fear from me, Mallory Fontaine.”
The way he said her name sent a shiver along her spine. Though the nightgown beneath her cloak was still damp, she was no longer cold. If anything, her skin was starting to burn.
