The house saphir, p.8
The House Saphir, page 8
Mallory grinned. Though ghosts rarely wanted to exert the energy required to interact with the mortal world, most of them seemed more than willing to exhaust themselves over some of the finer delights of the living—a morsel of aged cheese, a sip of brandy, the sensation of running one’s fingers through soft sable fur.
Julie, the maid, stood on the other side of the door. “Good evening. I am to show you to the banquet hall?” Her eyes brightened. “Oh, my. Don’t you both look lovely?”
Mallory frowned. She knew she should have said no to the hair ribbon. No one with hair ribbons was ever taken seriously.
The maid led them along a corridor, through an arched door, down a spiral staircase. Passing through a series of elegantly decorated if musty-smelling salons, Mallory couldn’t help thinking of the wives who had walked these halls a hundred years ago. What had they thought when they first passed through these rooms and saw the splendor that greeted them? Had they been proud to be the mistresses of this grand estate? Had they been relieved to know that with or without marital love, they could at least enjoy their husband’s remarkable wealth?
Had they had any idea what sort of man they’d married? Had they walked these halls in wonder—or in fear?
Even after the bloody business with Count Bastien Saphir I, the family had never lost their station in society. Their noble title had not been revoked. The management of the estate had been handled by a testamentary guardian until Bastien II came of age, and the family’s particular brand of Ruby Comorre had maintained its popularity for the better part of the last century, as it was made with grapes that flourished only in their small region. What was a little murder when there was wine to be had?
The maid paused in front of a set of oak doors carved with entwined serpents. She gestured for them to enter.
The banquet hall was bedecked in dark wood and crystal, with stars and blue salamanders painted on ceiling beams and a fireplace that was so absurdly big, the average-sized logs burning in it looked like twigs.
Armand stood and bowed. Anaïs curtsied. Mallory—who had already curtsied once that day and wasn’t about to make a habit of it—did not.
The table was large enough to seat forty or more, but they were ushered down to the far end. As they were seated, Mallory took in the place settings. Monogrammed dishes and crystal goblets etched with the Saphir crest. There were so many strange little forks and spoons. Mallory hadn’t the faintest idea what a person could want with them all.
Anaïs leaned close and whispered excitedly, “I think this is real silver!”
Mallory knocked her away with her shoulder, while Claude, the butler, stepped forward to fill their goblets with deep-rust-colored wine.
“Have you found your rooms to be accommodating?” Armand asked.
“Quite, thank you,” said Anaïs, smiling her prettiest smile. It made Mallory want to poke her in the ribs.
“Please let me know if there is anything that can be done to make you more comfortable,” said Armand.
An excruciatingly awkward silence followed while a course of onion soup was brought out. Mallory couldn’t recall the last time she’d smelled anything so delectable. As soon as they were served, she scanned the assortment of spoons, picked one at random, and bent over her bowl—only to freeze when the housekeeper loudly cleared her throat.
Armand bristled and sent Mallory and her sister an apologetic grimace. “Yvette is very devout,” he whispered, before lowering his gaze. “The Seven we praise,” he said softly, his expression more annoyed than reverent.
“The Seven we praise,” repeated Anaïs.
Clutching her spoon tighter, Mallory shot her a disgruntled look. They’d never prayed to the seven gods in their lives.
Her sister kicked her under the table.
Mallory sighed. “Er … yes. The Seven. Love them. All the praise. This smells fantastic. And here I thought Count Saphir didn’t know how to entertain guests.”
Armand’s wince was subtle, but she noticed it all the same. “It is difficult to entertain with so small a staff.”
Mallory breathed in the steam, aromatic with garlic and rosemary. She dunked in the spoon and took a sip. Anaïs followed suit. They both moaned in unison. It had been a long time since they’d properly feasted.
Actually, she wasn’t certain they’d ever properly feasted, but food had definitely been more plentiful back when their mother was alive.
Armand tried to conceal a smile as he started in on his own bowl, and Mallory was grateful he didn’t feel the need to accost them with meaningless conversation. For a while, the only sounds were those of silver on porcelain and quiet, probably unladylike slurping.
As soon as the soup was gone, it was replaced by a course of raw oysters and boiled sea snails, served alongside slices of baguette. Mallory noted that they were each given their very own dish of salted butter, a rare luxury. She wished she’d been served twice as much.
When Mallory’s wineglass was nearly empty, Armand gestured for it to be filled.
“Did you know,” Mallory said, scooting her glass closer to the maid as she brought out the wine decanter, “before slashing his wives’ throats, Le Bleu poisoned them with something mixed into their wine, the concoction making them slow and confused, too weak to fight back? Rather ingenious, actually.”
Yvette gave a disgusted noise as she distributed the butter dishes. “This is no laughing matter.”
“Yvette, please,” started Armand.
“My lord, I do not see that the horrific deeds of your great-great-grandfather should make for an amusing spectacle in polite conversation.”
“Perhaps not,” admitted Armand, “but neither do I think it is best if we pretend it didn’t happen. Those women, his victims—”
“Are all that anyone thinks of when they hear the name of Saphir,” she interrupted. “It is only by the grace of the Seven that this household has not suffered further.”
“Yes, but Mallory is something of a scholar when it comes to our family history. I’m sure it’s natural for her to wish to talk about it … openly and without any semblance of propriety whatsoever.”
“It’s quite a talent of hers, actually,” piped up Anaïs.
With a wry, tired smile, Armand turned back to Yvette. “Would you please prepare the third course? I’m sure our guests are famished from the long journey.”
Yvette’s face turned purple. “There is no third course, my lord.”
“Oh. Well. Perhaps you could bring out more … butter, then?” He gestured meaningfully at Mallory’s empty butter dish, and she wondered if maybe she wasn’t supposed to use all of it on a single slice of bread?
Regardless, the dismissal was clear. Sucking in a sharp breath, Yvette turned on her heel and marched out of the room.
“I am so sorry,” said Armand. “Yvette can be … Well. It isn’t personal.”
“Oh, we prefer that it is,” said Anaïs, taking a sip of her wine. “Makes the grudges easier to hold on to.”
“You seem to have a very cordial relationship with your staff,” said Mallory.
A shadow passed over Armand’s expression as he dug the meat of one of the snails out with a tiny fork—not, Mallory noted, the fork that she had chosen. “It is exceedingly difficult to maintain our staff here. Yvette has been with the household for more than half her life, and her loyalty has, perhaps, lent itself to some entitlements that would not otherwise be tolerated.” He shrugged helplessly. “The truth is, I could never dismiss her, and she knows it.”
“That is commendable,” said Anaïs.
“Commendable? Bah!” said a chirpy voice, the words slightly slurring together. “More like he hasn’t the spine to show the outspoken wench to the door.”
Mallory’s own spine stiffened.
At the far end of the table, Lucienne and Béatrice sat together, both of them bleeding from puncture wounds in their chests. Mallory easily recognized Lucienne by her upswept blond hair, cherry-red cheeks, and elaborately embellished, if outdated, ball gown. She held a near-empty wineglass in one hand, and in the other a hunk of bread stolen from the tray when no one was looking.
In comparison, Béatrice was far more demure in a simple linen day dress, her chestnut hair falling around her shoulders in messy ringlets. She sat slightly hunched, as if afraid that someone might notice her, even though she’d spent the last century being invisible to almost everyone.
Their figures carried the ephemeral gray-tinged glow of spirits, and their arms were marked with deep slashes cut into words that Mallory could not read, though she nevertheless knew what they said. Before killing his wives, Le Bleu had carved a single word into each of their arms—echtraus on the left arm and greischt on the right.
Written in the old language, the investigators at the time had to confer with a local fae expert in order to discern their meanings: “trust” and “betrayal.”
She whipped her attention back to Armand, but too late. Everyone was frowning now, glancing toward the opposite end of the table.
“What is it?” Armand asked.
“Nothing. I was just … admiring that tapestry. I love a good tapestry.”
The tapestry behind the wives depicted a man and woman in dated finery dancing in a meadow. Mallory hated it.
But Lucienne whispered, “Nice save.” Then hiccupped. Then grew excited when the butler uncorked one of the dusty bottles on the side table. “Oh, goody! They’re opening the thirty-year vintage.” She finished off the wine in her glass.
“How much have you had tonight?” asked Béatrice—her voice a meek but irritated whisper. “You’re going to make yourself sick again.”
Lucienne batted the comment away and stood, helping herself as soon as Claude had set down the bottle. Moments later, the butler turned around to pick up the bottle again and jolted in surprise to see that it had been moved to a different shelf.
“Perhaps we should discuss these ghosts of yours,” said Mallory.
“Ooh, they’re talking about us!” said Lucienne.
“There is only one ghost we find concerning,” said Armand.
Lucienne sulked. “Oh, they’re talking about him.”
“Even after the fall of the veil, we were able to live in relative peace with the two wives whose spirits have been here since their deaths. But Monsieur Le Bleu is not merely a nuisance. He is…” Armand hesitated, searching for the right word, and finally landing on, “Despicable.”
“Cheers to that,” said Lucienne, raising her glass.
“Hush, Lucy,” whispered Béatrice. “I’m trying to listen.”
“You said he has been frightening away the staff,” said Anaïs.
“In my experience,” added Mallory, “ghosts can only be corporeal for short periods of time, and even then, only when they are highly motivated. Such as when they really want to sample a great vintage of wine.”
Armand furrowed his brow. “Wine?”
“Just as an example. I’m curious if Le Bleu has become physically violent, or if his tactics are of a more psychological nature.”
“It is violent,” Armand said. “But … it’s…” Again, he struggled for the right description. “It isn’t him, so much as it is the house itself. He controls it somehow.”
“The house itself?” asked Mallory.
“There was a maid who was washing a window when the glass … shattered. The pieces flew at her, cutting her face, her hands…” He swallowed hard. “One piece got into her eye. She’ll never see out of it again.”
“How terrible,” Anaïs whispered.
“And last year, a gardener was cleaning the tools and preparing to store them for the winter when a shelf broke over his head, dropping an ax on his hand. He lost two fingers.”
“Velos protect us,” whispered Yvette, setting a hastily prepared platter of soft cheeses and apples down on the table before making the sign of Velos above her brow.
“Are you sure these weren’t fluke accidents?” asked Mallory. “How do you know it was Le Bleu?”
“He likes to have his presence known,” said Armand. “We’ve all heard his laughter, and it is louder when he is being cruel. And there are … other things, too. Illusions. Threats. I imagine you’ll see for yourself soon enough.”
“Has he ever attacked you?”
Armand slowly shook his head. “Only the staff.”
“The more we can determine about the spirit—his motives and desires, his strengths and weaknesses—the easier it will be to exorcise him from the property.”
“What exactly is your plan?” asked Armand.
Mallory moved her goblet closer for the maid to refill. “Oh, the usual.”
“Which is?” he pressed.
“You know. Typical witch stuff.”
His attention stayed on her, keen and curious. “I’d love to know the details, if you don’t mind sharing them.”
“My sister loves sharing details about witchcraft,” Anaïs said, slurping up a raw oyster. “Could talk about it for days.”
“Wonderful,” said Armand. “I know so little about petty magic.”
“There are many options available to us,” Mallory said through her teeth, casting an annoyed glance at her sister. “It is difficult to know which … spell … we will attempt first. At first I thought we’d go straight for the kill. You know. Host a big, extravagant exorcism. Really make a statement with it.”
Armand’s brow rose. “What does that entail?”
“Oh, you know. Ritualistic dances. A ceremonial bonfire. And, um…”
“Sacrifices,” Anaïs added.
“Yes, sacrifi—wait, no.” She sent her sister a scolding look.
“Not of people,” her sister said. “Just a drop of blood or two.”
Mallory cleared her throat. “Unfortunately, that sort of exorcism can be very…”
“Dramatic,” Anaïs said. She spread her hands above the table, painting a visual picture. “After the bloodletting, everyone present must dance in the moonlight and howl like a pack of banshees. And, oh! We’ll all be completely nude. It is a sight to behold.”
The room went silent as Anaïs lifted her wineglass to toast her own ingenuity.
“Which is why,” Mallory said through clenched teeth, “I’ve determined to try some more prosaic methods first.”
“Suit yourself,” Anaïs sang. “If you don’t want a perfectly valid excuse to lower some inhibitions and discard a few layers of clothing…”
The maid turned so fast that she sloshed wine from the bottle across the front of Mallory’s gown.
Mallory gasped, pushing away from the table.
“Julie!” scolded the butler.
“It’s fine,” said Mallory, dabbing at the lace that would no doubt be forever stained crimson. Julie wet the corner of a napkin and pressed it to the fabric covering Mallory’s chest. A bolt of pain lanced across Mallory’s sternum, and she yanked herself away, grabbing the napkin from the maid’s hand. “I can do that. Thanks.”
“Was she joking?” asked Lucienne, leaning closer to Béatrice. “About the naked dancing? It sounded like a good time, if you ask me. Well, maybe not the part about the blood sacrifices.”
Béatrice shook her head. “It sounds awful. So I suspect you would enjoy it very much.”
Lucienne preened.
“I really am so sorry,” said Julie. “I can be quite clumsy—”
“It’s all right,” said Armand, who had half risen from his seat and still hovered there, trying to determine what he could do to help.
But Claude intervened. “Julie, why don’t you take these dishes back to the kitchen?”
Julie appeared horrified, but relaxed when Armand sat down and sent her a comforting smile. Cheeks tinted red, she bowed her head and scurried away.
As the stab of pain in Mallory’s chest faded, she felt a bump against her leg. Anaïs was taking advantage of the distraction to shuffle two soup spoons and a butter knife into her pocket. “Silver!” she whispered.
“Respectable,” Mallory whispered back.
Anaïs shrugged, as if a little impropriety couldn’t be helped.
As the room settled again, Mallory took a long draft of her wine, emptying the goblet. As she was setting the goblet back on the table, movement at a far window caught her attention. With darkness having long descended outside, the glass reflected the flames from chandeliers throughout the banquet hall, and … a figure. A man in a finely embroidered jacket and lace cravat, with a trim beard and vivid blue eyes. The reflection was framed perfectly between the heavy window drapes, a dark smile playing across his mouth.
He caught Mallory staring at him.
His grin widened. He raised a finger to his lips, as if urging her to keep a secret.
A reflection passed in front of the man as the butler walked by the window, and the spirit was gone.
Mallory inhaled slowly. “When you speak of the wolf, you often see its tail,” she murmured. Only Anaïs heard her, and shot her a curious look, while Yvette was still spouting apologies. Something about how the maid was young and easily distracted. How she’d been trained for tending to the rooms, but not yet for dining service, and how—
“It’s all right, Yvette,” said Armand. “If Miss Fontaine’s dress is ruined, we will get her a new one.”
Mallory startled at the realization that much of this fuss was over her and a dress, of all things. “I prefer my dresses with some stains on them anyway.”
Armand smiled in gratitude before nodding at the housekeeper. “I’m sure Julie is doing her best. And as you know, we can’t afford to lose anyone else.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mallory did not care to fall asleep. She lay in bed beside her sister, waiting for Anaïs’s body to sink into the mattress, for her breathing to slow and steady. Only when she was certain her sister would not stir did she slip from the blankets and pull her riding cloak over her nightgown.
“Where are you going?” Triphine asked. She had found a book somewhere and had it laid out on the windowsill so she could read by moonlight. The plate of biscuits that Mallory had brought up from the dining hall lay empty beside her—nothing more than scattered crumbs.
