A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(23)

It wasn’t exactly the sparkling cocktail party conversation Amelia had read about in books.

Huifen nodded, as though Amelia had given her valuable information. It was a gesture Amelia found disconcerting.

“He’s new, you know.” Huifen was looking through the crowd toward Commander Gamache, who was standing with a drink and listening to some students.

“He looks used,” Amelia said.

Huifen laughed.

“That man”—Huifen gestured toward the professor who’d been staring at Amelia—“is Professor Leduc. The Duke. He used to run the place.”

Huifen looked from Leduc to Gamache, then she leaned closer to Amelia, who bent away but not before she heard Huifen whisper, “Stay away from him. He’s interested in you, I can see. Stay away.”

Then Huifen stood up straight and laughed, as though one of them had said something clever.

Amelia looked at Leduc, then at Gamache. Not at all sure which “he” this senior cadet meant.

“I wonder why he’s here,” said Huifen, and this time it was obvious that she meant Gamache.

“Either way”—Huifen returned her gaze to Amelia—“this should be interesting.”

She raised her brow and smiled, then drifted, apparently aimlessly, across the room. But Amelia soon noticed there was a destination. After meandering about, Huifen stopped next to Leduc. The Duke.

He looked, Amelia thought, not at all like a duke. There was nothing remotely regal about him. He radiated raw energy. In this genteel gathering, there was something primitive about him.

He was both repellent and attractive. Not in a personal way, but in the way that power attracts. And she wasn’t the only one to feel it.

There was a tight knot of students around him.

Whoofa, or whatever her name was, was speaking with him. And then, slowly, he turned his head. And looked at Amelia.

This was the second time Leduc had stared at her. It was a long, thoughtful, assessing stare. It was the way a person might judge a puzzle piece.

Would it fit or not? Was it useful, or not?

And Amelia wondered if Whoofa had come over to speak to her on his orders. And she wondered what she’d reported back.

And then the moment passed, the connection broke, and Amelia was set adrift once again.

She sipped her CC and ginger and watched the ebb and flow of the gathering. It came to her attention that someone else was also quietly observing the party. An older professor.

He’d slipped in late, long after everyone else had arrived. Amelia hadn’t seen him before. Not in the corridors, not in the classroom or even the dining hall.

He was new, and old.

He stood alone by the door, elegantly holding a glass of Scotch and scanning the room. His eyes met Amelia’s, and for a moment she thought he might smile. Or, even worse, gesture her over, to keep him company.

But his sharp eyes traveled over her, and through her, and beyond her.

Amelia wondered if he was one of the old guard or a new professor brought in by the Commander.

Surely the old guard. He looked exactly that. Old. And on guard.

She watched him for a few moments. Long enough for him to know he was being observed. Amelia did it just for fun, and because she liked playing with razor blades, and needles, and knives.

Then she turned her attention elsewhere.

To the Commander and his wife. She saw the Commander smile, then laugh at something one of the students said. They were sitting now by the fireplace and there was a warm glow in their faces. There was an ease about him. About the way he looked over at Madame Gamache. About the way he listened and didn’t feel the need to dominate.

She shifted her gaze and noticed that Professor Leduc had broken away from the small group around him and walked over to the new arrival. Shaking the old man’s hand. Smiling. The two exchanged a few words, then the Duke glanced over at the Commander.

It was not a friendly look.

She kept her eyes, then, on Gamache.

Anyone who produced such loathing in another human being was worth watching.

Yes, she thought, taking another sip of her drink and hearing the clinking ice and the scratching of the blizzard outside, it might not be fun at the academy, but that Asian cadet was right. It was going to be interesting.

What Cadet Amelia Choquet didn’t know, couldn’t know, what no one in that room knew, was that before the snow melted one of them would be dead. And one of them would have done it.

“Interesting” didn’t begin to describe what was about to happen.





CHAPTER 8

“Don’t look now,” Beauvoir bent down and whispered in Gamache’s ear. “Brébeuf and Leduc have found each other.”

Jean-Guy watched Leduc place a friendly hand on the older man’s arm. Confrères, Beauvoir thought. Brothers. Two of a kind.

Commander Gamache didn’t turn to look. Instead he gestured toward a chair recently vacated. Jean-Guy considered it. It was black leather and looked like a mouth about to snap shut.

Resigning himself to it, he sat down, sliding to the back of the seat.

“Merde,” he whispered.

It was, without doubt, the most comfortable chair he’d ever sat in.

It was just one of a number of unexpected things in the room.

So much had happened so quickly when Jean-Guy accepted the post as second-in-command, he hadn’t had a chance yet to ask Gamache about keeping Leduc on. And bringing Brébeuf back.