Souvenir of Monique by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Author:Marion Zimmer Bradley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romantic suspense, Gothic, opera, twins, impersonation, France
Publisher: Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust
Published: 2018-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Later that day, I discovered that my room had been searched.

I had opened my bureau drawer for a packet of hairpins, but when I reached my hand for them, they were not there; my hand came up holding a pink ribbon instead. I raised my eyes, and looked into the drawer. Annette, I thought, must have been putting things in order. But when I looked down into the tumble of small oddments, I saw only chaos. Troubled, I rang for Annette.

“What have you done with my bureau drawers, Annette?”

“Why, Madame, I have only put your clean kerchiefs away—” she began, then came to the drawer and her mouth dropped open. “What is all this, Madame? The chambermaids know very well they are never to touch Madame’s things. If one of them has been rummaging in here—” She broke off angrily. “If one of them has taken so much as a bit of ribbon, out she goes, bag and baggage, and no character with her! Let me ask them, Madame!”

“If it were only a bit of ribbon,” I said, troubled, but she was searching the drawers carefully.

“Not so much as a hairpin or a comb missing, Madame. The devil’s in it, the mess they’ve made of your drawers! But why would they upset them for sheer deviltry, Madame? Has the child been in here, perhaps?”

But Françoise stated with every appearance of truth that she and small Étienne had been playing on the lawn with the dogs nearly all the morning, and that he had not been out of her sight for a moment. “And besides, Madame, how would he climb to your bureau drawers? Could he move any of these chairs?” she demanded logically, looking at the heavy rocker and ottoman, and I nodded and dismissed her. Annette was deftly putting order into the muddled drawer; I suddenly wished I had told her to leave it alone. Étienne should see this.

For this was no chambermaid’s work. A girl bent on petty theft of ribbons or small trinkets would have been careful to leave everything in perfect order, to leave no traces behind her. With a gasp of frightened surmise, I realized what must have happened. Again, I thanked God for my foresight in leaving my American passport and other papers with Nanon; not a scrap could identify me, here, as Laura Monteith.

But who could get into my room unseen? Étienne himself? I suddenly was afraid to go to him. Had he, perhaps, done his own searching, to be sure that nothing could give me away as Laura Monteith? I remembered my earlier fears, and now felt them redoubled.

I felt so alone. And, like the voice of the Tempter, came the thought: Philippe knew I was not Monique; what harm to take him into my confidence? If he had loved Monique—and certainly it seemed so—then perhaps he would help me find out what had really happened to Monique, and what Étienne’s game might be.

The thought of his gentleness, the fear in

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