Viridian (The Hundred-Days Series Book 2) (49 page)

Disappointed, she stepped back to
study the horticultural mess. Had Aguirre misunderstood Beltran's directions?
Had Beltran been truthful with his confessor, or was she on another fruitless
expedition? She glanced at Ty, standing and fanning himself with his top hat,
frowning with equal concentration at the wall. “I suppose we should check the
other corner,” she offered, afraid to get her hopes too high.

Ty held up a hand but said nothing.
He moved to the left, then right ends of the partition, drawing several deep
breaths at each as a breeze shook leaves overhead. “Do you smell that?” he
asked finally.

“No.” At least, she hadn't until a
few paces brought her even with him, face nearly buried in the shrub. Then it
tickled her nose at last: the oily, heady musk of a rose bush in full bloom.
She breathed again, at war with trusting her nose or her eyes. “But where...”

In answer to her question, Ty moved
along the wall, jumping at intervals for a handhold. Brambles caught his
clothes; he winced on another attempt, shaking fragments of sharp stone from
his glove. He leaned against a fence column, searching their obstacle. “There
has to be a way over it.”

“You could boost me,” she offered,
chest aching at an eagerness to see behind.

“No.” Ty chewed his lip, slouched
against his column. “This weed,” he kicked at the shrub, “grows up and over to
the outside wall. It's a giant tangle.”

Fighting her excitement, Olivia
drew a deep breath and looked hard at their problem for a moment. She searched
for anything unusual or remarkable. Nothing unique jumped out, just a lower
section of the shrub more brown and barren than the rest, near the old crypt's
right-hand angle. Leaning in close, she searched stones behind the patch,
pressed against a few where the mortar was especially crumbled. It occurred to
her that no roots grew beneath the brown patch; it was formed by plants joined
from either side of a nearly egg-shaped slab. The last remaining section of an
old crypt floor, the tan chunk of stone was seated deep in the ground, bordered
with a ring of dry soil. Removing her bonnet, Olivia tossed it to the grass and
poked her head between spindly branches.

Ty, curiosity obviously piqued,
leaned through beside her. “What are you about in here?”

“Look at that,” she breathed.
Leaning down, Olivia wrapped her fingers over the stone's smooth back edge,
feeling about. After a moment, her fingers poked into a hole which seemed made
for the purpose. Her glove caught the slab's rough underside, and she pulled.
It wasn’t as thick as it had appeared; it was a clever trick, burying it deep
into the soil. She raised the stone with hardly any strain, and Ty caught its
other end, flipping it over toward them. It landed in a bare patch, precisely
where roots no longer grew.

“I'll be damned,” whispered Ty,
peering beside her at a hole.

The hole must have been six or
seven feet deep, deep enough for a man to drop in and then crouch. The passage
wasn’t much longer than the crypt wall; sun spilled in to light it from the
back side.

Ty held out one hand, tugging back
branches with his other. “After you.”

When she didn't immediately move,
he leaned farther around, nearly in her face. “Olivia, what are you doing?”

“Give me a moment,” she bit back.
“I have a natural human aversion to jumping into a cemetery hole.”

“Afraid I might close you in?”

She scowled at a cheeky arch of his
brow, then got down on her backside to dangle feet inside. The drop was short,
and she was surprised to find on landing that it was not a hole at all, but
more of a sunken doorway. A shallow, well-worn dirt and gravel path sloped up
ahead of her, coming back to ground level beyond the wall.

Ty's boots struck behind her with a
thump. “Sod this...whole...bloody...”

Hands smacked at clothes, and
Olivia glanced back to find him brushing a scuff of grit from his reddening
forehead.

“Will you make it?”

“I'm managing,” he grumbled,
glancing around them.

Gaining the slope, she got her
first real glimpse of the secret grotto.

The rosebush. It claimed dominion
over the entire outer south wall. Fat ruffled blossoms faded from a pale blush
to crisp white, bathing the small space in its delicious, sweet aroma.

To their left, the wider portion of
the space, were two rectangles formed by a border of stones. Gray river stones
and smooth white quartz, obviously gathered by hand and placed with care.
Crudely chipped limestone crosses presided at the head of each grave. Into one
was scratched 'C LV', her mother's initials. The other bore her father's.
Taking a last step to the top of the ramp, Olivia turned and seated herself on
a narrow easement of earth bridging the makeshift tomb's left and right sides.

Ty crouched before her so that they
were eye to eye.
            At first, she could only nod, torn between looking and taking it
all in or closing her eyes to stop a swimming between her temples. “I'm all
right. It's not...” She couldn't think of the words, instead patting a hand to
her breast for a moment. “It's not a hole anymore.” Leaning forward, she
pressed her forehead to Ty's. “It hurts, but it's not a hole anymore.”

His fingers buried in the hair at
her nape, warm against skin she swore had been chilled all day. “What can I
do?” he whispered.

“Just sit with me for now. I just
want to sit awhile.”

Nodding, Ty raised a leg past her,
stepping down in a narrow space on the grotto's smaller side. Dirt skittered
over wood, rattling with a hollow sound. He froze, and she sat up.

“What was that?”

Ty leaned down, brushing a hand
over something set into the ground. “More importantly, what is
this
?”

Getting almost on her hands and
knees in their cramped quarters, Olivia arched forward to see what he was
seeing. A plank, nicked and weathered, one edge splintered. Flat stones pinned
three of its corners; Ty's boot had dislodged a fourth.

A third grave. Olivia stared, mind
racing. No initials, but when Ty swept again, fine grit cleared from a rough
carving chipped into the board's face. A U-shaped shield pierced by five small
dots.

“Who else is here?” she wondered
aloud, not expecting Ty to answer.

He traced the shield with an index
finger. Not a curious path, but with an ease of familiarity. He whispered
something, drowned out by a rushing of leaves overhead.

“What?” she gasped, leaning closer,
fixed on his face while he stared at the grave. “What did you say?”

“La Porte,” he rasped again, hardly
louder than before. Then he folded onto a strip of grass beside the marker,
flattened his palm to it, and was silent.

It was new, the hole beneath the
plank. Pale shoots of grass were just reclaiming its lip. Judging by the rocks,
Beltran had obviously intended to craft a more permanent memorial. Moving
Philipe's remains must have been the man's last task before he died.

She felt a sudden and overwhelming
loss. More than anything, she wished that Beltran was alive so that she could
thank him. For everything.

Leaning out over the grave, she
wrapped arms around Ty, who crushed her against his side. She couldn't guess
how long they stayed that way. Past when her shoulders tired, well after her
knees had begun to ache.

Ty was the first to concede, no
doubt cramped in his small nook. “What next? I’ll take care of whatever you
need… Just ask.”

Her first thought was that her
half-brother should be told. Then a chill ran down her spine. She stared at
their graves, at a loss. “I will have to separate them.”

“What?”

“All this time, I envisioned them
ending up somewhere together. My brother or my father’s widow will claim his
remains.” Olivia swallowed a lump in her throat. “My mother will have to be
separated from him.”

Ty brushed a hand up the wall,
glancing around. “Would it be so terrible, leaving them here?” He patted
Philipe's grave with a gentle hand. “Private and peaceful. In good company.”

A struggle twisted up her gut.
Jules had been someone else's father, too. Someone who may have looked just as
long and hard, agonized as she had. She nodded, shaking an idea into place. “I
will write to my brother, tell him what I've found and that I don't intend to
interfere with what stands now. I will leave the decision to him.”

Ty brushed wisps of hair from her
face, cradling her cheek. “He’s a good man, Olivia. Someday I think you should
meet him.” He kissed the tip of her nose, and a sense of calm relief nearly
overwhelmed her. “He'll handle things fairly.”

Ty's reassurance felt like a conclusion,
and she stood up. He followed, dusting his trousers and then plucking a blossom
from its vine and holding it out to her. “A memento.”

Shaking her head, she dismissed his
offer. “I'll be back. I will.”

“I know you will,” he chided,
pressing the rose into her palm. “Just take it.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

“Do you want to go in? I can take
you,” offered Ty.

They had walked Paris in almost
complete silence for an hour. She assumed they had been wandering, but now as
she stared up at the Tuileries, suspected Ty of engineering their destination.
The palace’s warm ivory facade glowed in afternoon sunlight, evoking happy
memories for the first time in ages.

She smoothed a hand over a rough
stone pediment of Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe, a reasonable miniature of the
larger one farther west. Both were ugly, in her opinion. Both monuments to
Napoleon's brutality displayed for all to see. To look upon it now felt like
being slapped and then asked to applaud.

Olivia shook her head, and stared
up through its heavy iron gate at the Tuileries. “I can't.”

Ty started beside her, grasping her
arm. “Why not? Therese is waiting, and the king.”

She brushed the arch again and then
stepped back, filling the space with an ocean of distance. “On the other side
is a time that no longer exists. Not for me.” Tears caught in her throat,
strangling her words for a moment. She
did
want to go in, and she wanted
things to be the same. No violence, no horrible memories. For mama and papa to
be waiting in their apartments, reading the paper and watching birds in the
garden. Memories slipped between her fingers into a heap of ashes.

She backed farther away from the
arch. “Napoleon built this as a gate, but he might as well have built a wall.”
She took his hand. “There's nothing for me here anymore. Take me home.”

Ty wrapped their arms together and
pressed her close to his side. She leaned into it, drawing comfort from his
touch.

Olivia gathered herself as they
walked. There was no forgetting the past, but maybe there was a way to see it
differently. Rather than being driven from the Tuileries, she would think of it
as a choice. The arch
was
a wall of sorts, a line between her life
without, and now with, Ty.

The Paris crowds were loud, wild.
Weeks had not dulled celebrations that were a general fervor punctuating the
public's every waking moment. It was a relief, having Ty take her home. She
longed for a few moments of relative peace and quiet.

Passersby were so effuse that she
nearly missed a voice from behind when they stopped at Rue de Jardins waiting
to cross the street. It was the feeling of eyes on her back more than
recognizing that the words were aimed at them.

A voice came again, throaty and
velvet, spinning her around in curiosity.

“Snobé par mon propre fils? En
vérité, je suis à Paris.”
Snubbed by my own son? Truly I am in Paris.

“Mrs. Elliot.” Ty reached out and
grasped one long-fingered glove with a grin. “Mama.”

Mrs. Elliot threw her a glance.
“Grace will suffice.”

Mama
? Olivia could hardly
believe her ears, let alone her eyes. Every inch of the woman was elegant.
Chocolate-striped, cream satin worn head to toe emphasized a figure at least as
tall as her own. She was topped with a wide, crowned, brown velvet hat that
might have been out of fashion on a woman less classic. Instead, it capped a
sweep of raven locks turning snowy white that framed almond eyes and a
complexion that were both equally dark. It was a struggle, picturing the lady
before her as the mother of her fair-haired, light-eyed Tyler Burrell.

More than her looks, she moved with
a confidence that bordered on seductive. It was easy to see how she was a woman
who had caught the eye of a prince or two. Olivia could imagine her perched
straight-backed in a brocade chair, sipping tea and trading gossip down her nose,
commanding the attention of all those around her.

Then, in the middle of a crowded
Paris street, Grace reached out and grabbed her son in a desperate hug. Olivia
was won heart and soul by the gesture.

Ty held his mother away and looked
her over with the same outrageous flattery he might use on a dear friend's
wife. “I was told you had left Paris, yet here you are.”

She frowned, pursing kind, thin
lips. “And if I leave a place, I may never come back? What an outrageous rule!”

Olivia smiled, starting to see something
of Ty in his mother.

Ty was smiling, too. “It’s just
strange. I rather think wartime Paris suits your temper better.”

“What a rude accusation, and in
front of your lovely guest.”

It felt good to be remembered. Ty,
for his part, did look sheepish. Turning, he put a hand to Olivia’s back,
gently pushing her forward. “Mama, Miss Olivia Fletcher.”

Grace's head was already shaking.
Olivia stared at her hem while the woman's eyes raked her up and down. “That
may be what you call yourself, but I know your face.”

“I live in London,” Olivia mumbled.
“My uncle is Portsmouth.”

Two fingers pressed beneath her
chin, raising her face. “And your mother is Charlotte. Was,” she amended. “La
Valette. Isn't that what she was called, before she took up with your father?”

“It was.” She kept a neutral face,
unable to tell if she was being judged.

Grace smiled and took her hand
away. “I liked her, though Jules kept her to himself. Never allowed her to
attend my dear friend Du Barry's parties.” Sighing, Grace nodded at something
silently decided. “Probably wise, in hindsight. Burrell, your mouth is hanging
open.”

“I… we…” Ty shook himself. She held
back a laugh at his absolute discomposure. “We apparently have much to talk
about. As usual.”

“So we do, but I cannot keep you from
such lovely company. You both will come around and see me tomorrow evening. No,
evening after next.”

Ty, patting at his pockets, looked
to her and spoke to his mother. “Where are you staying?”

“Tonight is dinner with Wellington.
I have a wager with Lady Richmond that I can get him to draw me a battle map on
his trouser leg.”

Olivia laughed, as much at Ty's
wide-eyed gape as at Grace's bet.

She sighed as if the weight of the
world were on her shoulders. “And tomorrow night a grand fete at the palace. I am
not especially eager but seem to be the only one who can tell the king to go to
bed when gout has made him cranky.”

Ty hadn't seemed to hear a word his
mother had said, pleading with both hands. “Wait here with Olivia. I'm going to
find a pencil and some damned –” He sighed. “Just wait here.” In a few long
strides he disappeared into a bookseller's one door over.

Olivia, for her part, smiled at
Grace, having no idea what to say and trying to fit the woman's puzzle pieces
together.

Grace cocked her head, looking her
over again, and smiled. “It shows. The way you walk together. The way he looks
at you.”

Ty hadn't introduced her as his
wife; in fact, they hadn't told anyone. She didn't volunteer the information
now. Instead, she told the most important truth: “I love him. Very much.”

Grace's smile trembled, eyes damp.
“That has made us friends from the beginning.”

Huffing and puffing, Ty reappeared,
slamming a wide green door behind him hard enough that half the books inside
must have tumbled from their shelves. He looked back, obviously surprised, and
she had to laugh.

He thrust a scrap of paper and a
pencil nub at his mother, while Olivia resisted the temptation to ask which
book he’d defaced. With one stiff finger he jabbed at the paper. “Here. Put it
down for me. And write what day is best. Your social calendar gives me a
headache.”

Clucking her tongue, Grace
scribbled her information onto the paper. “This is what fame has done to you.
Hmph.”

“Fame?” She and Ty repeated in
unison.

“You're to be knighted. I had the
news directly from your father. And any place the greatness of your Webb is
mentioned, your name is mentioned shortly thereafter. Your reputations are
inseparable.” She wrapped her arms around Ty again, patting affectionately at
his coat. “You have made me so proud, Tyler. Just think, each time Lady Lamb
starts with her obnoxious prattling, I can smile and say,
'Oh, did I tell
you about my son?'
”

Ty planted a kiss to his mother’s
cheek. “You will do no such thing.”

She held up a slender finger. “One
time.”

He repeated the gesture. “Once.”

Olivia found herself buried in
Grace's bosom, her arms squeezing as if her life depended on it. “I am glad to
see you well. I look forward to our next conversation.”

“Likewise,” Olivia mumbled,
watching her sway through a stream of people and wagons clogging the street
until she disappeared into a crush on the far sidewalk. Then she turned her
full attention to Ty.

He sighed and took her arm, guiding
them back the way they'd been traveling. “I know what you're wondering, and no,
I had no idea.”

“Not even a hint of a notion?”

“After my parents separated, mama
went to Paris. She and the Duc d'Orleans were amours, for a time. Then came
revolution. She sided with the queen, the Duc executed his brother the king,
and that put a rather abrupt end to my mother’s affair. She spent a year
imprisoned and dodged the guillotine by a batting of her pretty lashes.
Orleans, the bastard, got what he deserved.” Ty sliced a finger across his
neck, as though she were not intimately familiar with the duc’s fate.

She was, however, speechless. How
many times had she confided in Ty, spoken of her parents? “You never mentioned
any of this before.”

“You
lived
it. I heard about
it now and then at dinner. By arrangement, my father retained custody of me.
When the revolution broke out, all I cared about was riding horses and building
little ships to sail in the park.”

His shoulders slumped, arm resting
heavily against her own. “I loved my mother, and despite their circumstances,
my father respected that. No one in his house would dare tell ten-year-old me
that she’d been imprisoned and nearly executed. By the time it was mentioned, I
was much too old for it to make an impression the way it has upon you.”

“I understand, and I don't. For me,
it's actual memories. My mother's screams, the stench of La Force, the way your
whole face feels disjointed under a club's swing.”

He stopped them suddenly, pulling
her out of the crowd under a gated archway just before the next street. Ty
grasped her hands and pressed them to his chest. “I'm glad we don't have that
in common, Olivia. I don't want to share that time with you. I want to strangle
it, chase it away. Our life together is not a part of La Force or the Terror or
anything that came before.”

She threw arms around his neck,
pressing as close as she could, Ty's arms crushing her closer. “Those days will
always be a part of me, and I never want to make them a part of
us
.”

“One last thing to do,” he
whispered, “and you'll find that a damned sight easier.”