“Why should you care if I’m angry? For the love of God, worry about yourself.”
Her hands were opening and closing nervously on her lap. “It’s more than anger. You have…pain.”
“Nonsense.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. “This garden helps. For the past few days I’ve come here to sit for hours. The feel of the sunlight on my face and the sound of the birds in the trees…Sometimes you can wrap the silence around you and close the pain out.” A gentle smile turned her face luminous. “Perhaps the garden will help you too.”
Dieu, she was going through an inward agony and yet she was still trying to help him banish the unrest shesensed in him. François suddenly realized Catherine was like the garden she had just described—beautiful, serene, lit by sun and yet vulnerable to every cruel wind. He could feel her serenity flow over him, soothing the rawness he had brought with him.
He sat silently, gazing at her with the same expression of bewilderment and wonder with which she’d looked at him. He suddenly knew hewantedto stay there. He wanted to sit in that garden and look at Catherine Vasaro and let peace and silence replace the turbulence of the outside world. Yet how could he do so when he had chosen his battleground?
He stood up abruptly. “No,merci. I won’t stay in your garden. You can sit here and close yourself away from the world, but I have things to do with my life.”
Some untranslatable emotion flickered across her face before she once more lowered her gaze to the hands folded on her lap.
He stared at her for a moment, an inexplicable frustration aching in him. He left her then without a word.
It didn’t improve his temper to encounter Juliette de Clement in the foyer.
“I was wondering when you would see fit to visit us,” Juliette said. “We could have been—”
“Blue.”
Juliette blinked. “What?”
François picked up his hat and gloves from the table and turned toward the front door. “Etienne Malpan’s eyes were blue.”
“Oh, you did go to the graveyard.” Juliette paused on the bottom step, her gaze narrowed on his face. “What about the other man? Can you find out who he was?”
“Are you never satisfied? There were over two hundred men at the massacre at the abbey.”
“Catherine has nightmares every single night. She’s obsessed that those two men have no faces for her.” Her lips tightened. “Besides, I want to know.”
“I’ve given you one face. You’ll have to be content with Malpan.” François opened the door. “I’ve betterthings to do with my time than conduct an inquiry that not only could take months but also arouse suspicion among Dupree’s men.”
The door was swinging shut as she called, “François.”
“I told you I won’t—”
“Thank you.”
He looked at her warily but could detect no mockery in her expression.
“I know you didn’t have to do that for Catherine,” she said simply. “I suppose I can wait to find out about the other man.”
“I’m glad I did something to please you.”
“Oh, you did.” Her eyes were suddenly twinkling with mischief. “But you didn’t do everything I asked. Your hat has no cockade and—”
The slam of the door cut off Juliette’s final words.
NINE
Ihave to talk to you, Jean Marc.”
Jean Marc looked up from the document he was studying to see Juliette standing in the doorway of the study. The emerald green of her gown contrasted magnificently with her skin and unruly dark curls which seemed to shimmer while her eyes sparkled. He had been deliberately avoiding Juliette for the whole month past; now her sheer vitality sent a sensual shock through him. He felt every muscle tense as he fought the response she always provoked in him. “Can’t it wait? I’m busy.”
“Don’t tell me you’re busy.” Juliette moved across the study toward the desk. “You’re always busy. You work in here day and night and I never get a chance to talk to you. Not once in the past month have you even had supper with Philippe and me.”
