"Get some rest, Michel," the woman said. "I'm sure we shall meet again."
"I hope so. Perhaps under more pleasant circumstances, which might allow the two of us to see each other in a different light."
He lifted her hand and gave it a gentle kiss.
He should have tried this ploy sooner. Now it was probably too late for seduction. Now he had earned her ire, whoever she was. Whatever her motives.
She smiled, nodded, and then retreated with footsteps as swift as the ones that had brought her to him.
Where had she come from? The hotel? One of the boats in the harbor? And what had she been after? Information about the Earl of Rutherford or information about him?
Should he send word to Elliott that a strange woman had seen them together, had suspected something?
This last thought tormented him by the time he reached his tiny apartment.
Sending word to Elliott, making any attempt to communicate with him again, would be to break a confidence he maintained with all his clients, for there was only one way to do it, and that was through the front desk of the hotel.
Had the woman been an angry wife of some previous client?
Could she be Elliott's wife?
They were insane, these thoughts. They set upon him like a flock of seagulls and he the only man for miles with bread in his hand.
It has nothing to do with the Earl of Rutherford, he finally told himself, and these words, along with the ones that followed, became a mantra that ushered in sleep. The Earl of Rutherford is fearless. The Earl of Rutherford does not have a care in the world and never will.
He woke only a few hours later, feeling mildly rested but still unbearably anxious.
Before he could think twice on the matter, he phoned the front desk at the Hotel de Paris and asked to be put through to Elliott's room. When they told him the man had checked out hours before, Michel felt both piercing longing and a terrible relief.
He was grateful Elliott had departed so soon after they'd said goodbye, for that meant he probably had been spared a run-in with the strange night-wandering madwoman with the powerful grip.
He would miss Elliott terribly.
He would hope secretly for his return.
He would cherish every memory he could of their time together, would use those moments to satisfy himself. Too dangerous to write them down and risk discovery, but oh, how he wanted to. His memory would have to do.
But as he ended his call with the hotel, he figured that would be the end of the whole brief affair.
Three days later there was a knock on the door to his apartment. He was almost dressed for the evening, almost ready to strike out for the casino in search of clients new and old. He was still fastening one of his cuff links when he opened the door and saw an envelope resting on the front step.
His cuff link forgotten, he tore open the envelope, removed a sheet of paper featuring a hand-drawn map of the harbor. An arrow pointed to a single boat slip.
Attached to this piece of paper with a tiny pin was the diamond-encrusted emerald ring he'd shipped to his mother weeks before.
8
He raced out of his apartment in trousers, dress shirt, and bow tie. To the tourists he passed along the way, he must have looked like a waiter terribly late for his shift.
But he didn't care what anyone thought. His only thoughts were of his mother. His poor, frail mother, only a day's travel away by train. His mother who had cherished the ring he now held in his pocket so much she'd worn it whenever someone had come to visit.
Someone had taken this ring from her.
Or they had brought her here to Monte Carlo with it.
Both possibilities terrified him.
Night had fallen by the time he reached the harbor. The boat slip in question was filled by a vessel almost as grand as the royal yacht of Monaco itself. It looked like a miniature ocean liner with its own lone smokestack and a long white hull lined with portholes.