The Paris Secret by Henry Angela

Author:Henry, Angela [Henry, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Carina Press
Published: 2011-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Being a tour guide for TransEuro Tours made Sebastian Marcel an easy man to find. All I had to do was look at my tour group’s itinerary—still crumpled at the bottom of my bag—to see that today Monsieur Marcel was scheduled to take anyone from our group who was interested on a tour of the Palais Garnier, which included stops at the nearby Fragonard Perfumery and the Galeries Lafayette department store.

It was the middle of the afternoon by the time Simon and I reached the Palais Garnier, also known as the Paris Opera House. Along the way, Simon bought me a black baseball cap from a street vendor and I tucked my hair underneath it and put the horn-rimmed glasses back on. The sun was bright as we approached the opera house, making the two gilded statues of L’Harmonie and La Poesie, which sat majestically atop the building, gleam like highly polished gold coins. The area was thick with people. Traffic was heavy and several tour buses lined the nearby side streets.

I had no idea which bus belonged to Monsieur Marcel’s group. The back of the opera house faced rue Scribe, the street that the perfumery was on. According to Simon, the Galeries Lafayette was a mere block away. Now all we had to do was wait.

“I hope we haven’t missed him.” I scanned the street for the dapper, white-haired Frenchman.

“If so, I can always enlist Francoise,” he said teasingly.

“You’ve done enough corrupting of a minor for one day.”

“Have you always been this uptight?” asked Simon as he leaned against the doorway of the entrance to the Fragonard Perfumery’s museum.

“I’m not uptight. I’m just cautious.” He was definitely starting to annoy me.

“I bet you’ve never had so much as a parking ticket in your life, have you?” He somehow made it sound like something to be ashamed of.

“No, I haven’t. But I’d say the mess I’m in now more than makes up for it, wouldn’t you?”

“That’s him.” I nudged Simon in the ribs. A man with snowy white hair stood about a half a block away with a group of people, half of whom I recognized from my tour group.

I headed toward him, but Simon grabbed my arm.

“Easy, Madame Cautious. You can’t just run up to him waving a bloody handkerchief in his face. Let’s follow him and see if we can catch him alone.”

We waited and watched from the doorway as Marcel addressed the small group. A minute later, the tourists had left, heading in various directions, a few of them looking at their watches. Monsieur Marcel headed off past the opera house and Simon and I rushed to keep him in sight. Half a block later, he disappeared inside the Galeries Lafayette.

“Hurry up! If we lose him we’ll never be able to find him in there,” I said.

The store was packed with shoppers loaded down with bags bearing designer names I would never be able to afford. And Marcel was nowhere in sight.

“I told you we’d lose him

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