Cinderella Six Feet Under(13)

“We are understaffed here, malheureusement.” Beatrice twiddled her broom handle. “If I teach you to keep house, to cook . . . you will not tell Monsieur le Marquis?”

“Never. Only thing I won’t do, I ought to mention, is work in that vegetable garden out there.”

“Bon. The garden is nothing, the silly fancy of the mademoiselles, who thought it would be a lark to plant pumpkins.”

“What’s so funny about pumpkins?”

“Because this house . . . ah, no matter. You will start by cleaning the china cupboard”—Beatrice swept a hand— “from top to bottom.”

“Really? Oh, thanks something fierce, ma’am!” Prue pulled the apron from its hook.

*

Gabriel stalked the ample-hipped auntie around the corner of the Salle le Peletier. The old dame plowed along like an ox.

After Gabriel had been barred from speaking with the Marquis de la Roque-Fabliau, he had directed his driver to wait one block from H?tel Malbert. He had intended to follow the first member of the household who emerged, insinuate himself into his or her confidence, learn more about Miss Bright’s death and, perhaps, gain access to the Marquise Henrietta. The marquise, of all people in Paris, might know of Miss Flax’s whereabouts.

Gabriel did not like to admit to himself that his interest in H?tel Malbert was not entirely restricted to Miss Flax and her whereabouts. Nothing in life was quite that simple, was it?

And it had been no easy feat following this auntie—Gabriel assumed that was what she was—from H?tel Malbert, particularly after he had been forced to instruct his driver to deliver his luggage to his hotel, overpay him, leap onto the rear rail of an omnibus and ride, clinging to a handrail, for a mud-splattered half hour alongside a flock of smirking shop boys.

Auntie barged down Rue Pinon, which ran along the opera house’s western side.

Ah. Perhaps she wasn’t going to the theater after all; perhaps this was only a shortcut. To a tatting shop, perhaps, or a patisserie specializing in enormous chocolate éclairs.

Hold on a tick. Auntie was disappearing through a side door.

Gabriel followed and found himself in a simple, almost monastic passage. It smelled of damp plaster. The floorboards sighed.

Tallyho. There was Auntie. Trundling down the corridor, folded umbrella tucked beneath her arm.

What could the old game hen be doing?

Gabriel hurried after her, passing a gaggle of ballet girls with their hair scraped up in the tight buns only governesses and ballerinas wore.

Auntie launched up a flight of stairs. Piano music floated down the stairwell. A gentleman’s voice bellowed rhythmically: “Un! Deux! Trois!”

Up went Auntie. Gabriel was four paces behind.

Tracked-in rainwater slicked the steps. Consequently, Gabriel was watching his feet, not the stair above him. Another herd of ballet girls stampeded down the steps—he heard their prattling—but he didn’t realize that Auntie had paused on the stair to allow them to pass.

He crashed into her. She lost her balance. The ballet girls squealed. Auntie teetered, and then heaved forward onto a landing, breaking her fall with her hands. Her folded umbrella whipped upwards and caught Gabriel right in the wishbone.

“Oof” was all he could say. His mind wiped blank. He toppled onto Auntie.

The ballet girls slipped by, giggling, and hurried down the stairs.

“I beg your pardon!” Auntie squirmed beneath Gabriel.

He struggled to right himself. Auntie’s enormous, wet, woolen cloak was tangled about his arms.

But—Gabriel froze. What was it about . . . that voice? “You are an American?” he asked.

Auntie went still. Slowly, she twisted her neck to see him.

Beneath that matronly bonnet, her gray hair was oddly askew. Gabriel found himself gazing into a pair of rather beautiful dark eyes.

“Professor Penrose?” she said. Her wig slipped another inch.

“Miss Flax.” Gabriel grabbed the bannister and pulled himself to his feet. His wishbone still throbbed, but his astonishment overrode the pain. He helped Miss Flax to her feet, and though he wished to hold, perhaps, for a moment longer her cold, fine-boned hand in its damp glove, she tugged it free.

“What in Godfrey’s green earth are you doing following me, Professor? I believed you were back in England.”

“I was. Forgive me for saying so, Miss Flax, but you appear to be upholstered in not one, but two divans’-worth of cushions.” The absurd disguise hid her regal form. Which was perhaps just as well. Gabriel had spent more minutes than he cared to count attempting to recall the precise arrangement of this young lady’s limbs.