The Boss Prince: a royal romance with humor and suspense (It's Raining Royals) by Alix Nichols

Author:Alix Nichols [Nichols, Alix]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

13

Max

Lucie takes us through yet another passageway that goes up and down, crosses a series of courtyards, and dips into tunnels under buildings. Its spiraling staircases and pastel colors give it an alluring Renaissance touch that is quite a contrast to the forbidding lines of Château des Neiges.

Fortunately, generations of Valois-Montevors have made the interior spaces as plush and welcoming as possible.

We arrive at the collector’s house on rue Serlin shortly after three. I find the name on the buzzer list and reach for the button when I realize that something is not quite as it should be. My hand freezes in midair.

“This is not right,” Lucie says, staring at the name. “It says C. Blanc-Mathieu, not Y. Blanc-Mathieu.”

“The C could be his wife.”

“Wouldn’t it then read C. and Y. Blanc-Mathieu?” She looks up at me. “They may be a very feminist-minded couple, but even so, erasing the husband’s initial seems a bit extreme.”

“What if he became a she?”

“Hmm… I guess, there’s only one way to find out!” She shifts her gaze back at the buzzer.

I push the button.

“Oui?” a grown man answers.

“Monsieur Blanc-Mathieu?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“We’re here in relation to a period handheld fan you purchased eleven years ago,” I begin.

“It’s a folding brisé fan,” Lucie picks up. “Late eighteenth century, pastoral—”

“I know what fan you’re talking about,” the man says.

Lucie and I exchange a relieved look.

She carries on. “Monsieur Blanc-Mathieu, my name is Lucie Laborde. I’m Emma’s granddaughter, the woman who sold you the fan? We were wondering if you would let us borrow it for a couple of hours to check a little detail for a restoration project—”

“I’m sorry, Lucie, but I cannot do that.”

His unequivocal no leaves us speechless.

“My name is Constantin Blanc-Mathieu,” the man says. “My father is the one who purchased the fan from your grandmother’s shop.”

“Where can we find your father?” I ask.

“Nowhere in this world. He passed away last year.”

Lucie offers her condolences.

I do the same, crossing my fingers that he’ll go on and tell us what happened to the fan.

And he does. “My dad bequeathed his antiques and textiles collection to his favorite museum.”

“The Textile Arts Museum?” Lucie jumps in. “It’s my favorite, too!”

“And mine,” Constantin says with a chuckle. “But not my father’s. He preferred a much smaller and lesser-known museum, the Mermoz Treasury.”

“Never heard of it,” Lucie mouths to me.

I whip out my phone and look it up. “Found it!”

We thank Constantin and ride the métro southeast to the Mermoz quarter of Lyon. It’s four fifteen when we get to the museum and it’s still open.

Phew!

After I buy the tickets and we pass the turnstile, Lucie turns to me. “What’s the plan? We find a curator and ask them to show us the fan?”

I debated the matter while we rode the subway and decided that it’s a safer bet for me to cue in Lucie rather than the curator.

“We can’t,” I say. “I’ll need to crack the fan’s handle open. No curator would authorize such a violation of an object in their charge.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.