Twenty-Six
Beau did not appreciate being mocked by a child.
“That’s no way to talk to your elders and betters,” he whisper-shouted.
“Then it’s a good way to talk to you since you’re neither,” the girl whisper-shouted back.
Beau walked over to her. He knelt down and put his hands on her shoulders, ready to tell her that this stupid game had gone far enough. The girl looked at one of Beau’s hands, then the other, then she lifted her eyes to his. The look in them was scalding.
Beau sheepishly removed his hands, then peppered her with questions. “Who are we running from? Why were you locked up? What’s your name?” His frustration made him loud.
“Be quiet, you fool!” the girl ordered.
Beau lowered his voice. “Just tell me one thing … are these Arabella’s rooms?”
“Were. They were Arabella’s rooms. She doesn’t come here anymore.”
She returned her attention to the door and Beau returned his to the mantel, trying to reconcile the chilly, brittle, grown-up Arabella to the girl in the portrait.
He thought back to that morning, to his pick-pocketing lesson. He’d seen flashes of the painted girl then—an excited smile, a sparkle in those gray eyes. And though he didn’t want to, he remembered more: the way Arabella smelled, the feeling of her arm entwined with his, the heat of her hand on his chest.
A moment later, he found himself walking into her bedroom, almost against his will. What are you doing? Why are you wasting time? a voice inside him demanded. Admiring the decor isn’t going to get you out of here. But Beau found he didn’t have an answer.
The chamber contained a four-poster bed, a tall mirror leaning against one wall, a desk, a bureau, cabinets, a broad window seat, but what amazed him was the sheer number of books it held. The walls were lined with shelves, all containing leather-bound volumes. A sharp stab of longing pierced his heart. He had never coveted any of the things he’d stolen for Raphael—not jewels, not silver, not even gold coins, but he hungered, always, for books.
Beau ran his fingers over a row of spines. Le Vau was stamped in gold on one; Wren, Palladio, Mansart on others. They were architects. He’d heard their names mentioned in the grand homes where he’d worked. He moved on to history, philosophy, plays and novels and poetry. His fingers stopped at a small volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets. He pulled the book off the shelf. Its red leather cover was worn smooth in places where hands had held it.
He opened it and read, and found himself transfixed by the beauty of the poems. There were stanzas he softly read aloud, just to feel their rhythm on his tongue, and others he read silently, just to feel their weight in his heart.
Beau wanted the book desperately and for an instant, he thought about slipping it inside his jacket, but he put it back. Some things were too valuable to steal. Pulling himself away from the shelves, he continued his explorations. On the far side of the room stood a delicate walnut desk, its surface littered with rolled papers, a crystal inkwell, a quill, and a leather portfolio.
A fine cloud of dust rose into the air as Beau flipped the portfolio open. He waved it away. His eyes fell on drawings of buildings—France’s Notre-Dame cathedral, the Fasil Ghebbi castle in Ethiopia, and Kukulkan, a pyramid in the Yucatán.
Beau knew that people’s private chambers were their sanctuaries. They kept the things they loved in them—portraits, letters, jewels. It seemed that Arabella didn’t love those sorts of things; Arabella loved buildings. A shock of excitement coursed through him at the realization. Maybe there was a drawing of her own castle here. An elevation, a cross section … something that would show him where the tunnel was.
He picked up a cylinder of paper and unrolled it, but it showed drawings of Beijing’s Imperial City. He threw it down in frustration. He unrolled another, but it depicted the library of Ephesus. These weren’t what he needed. He looked up and spotted a large wooden chest. It was pushed up against a wall and secured with an iron padlock—which told him there was something valuable inside it. Using a letter opener and a small screwdriver that he found in a desk drawer, he had the lock open in minutes, but the chest’s contents were not what he was expecting.
“What is all this junk?” he muttered, pawing through a jumble of protractors, compasses, T squares, and rulers. He closed the lid, then he ransacked the rest of the room, pulling out drawers, opening cabinets, but once again, he found nothing that told him anything about the castle. He sat down on the bed and groaned. Another dead end. The night was waning, the hours were slipping away, and he was no closer to escaping.
He heard his brother’s voice, full of fear, echoing in his head. Don’t leave me here, Beau, please, please don’t …
And his own voice answering. Don’t cry, Matti. Please don’t cry. I’ll come back for you. As soon as I can. I promise. I swear …
Anger coursed through him, driven by fear—fear that he would be too late, that Matti would die thinking he’d broken his promise. He got to his feet, grabbed a pillow, and drop-kicked it across the room. It hit the wall with a heavy whump. He did it again. He was about to do it a third time when his foot got tangled in the voluminous folds of the satin bedspread. Struggling and swearing, he managed to extricate himself, but as he did, there was a sudden flash of brightness. He bent down, squinting at the bedspread, and realized that the underside was heavily embroidered with what looked like miles of silver thread.
Mystified, he yanked the cover off the bed and spread it out on the floor, tugging at folds, pulling at corners, until it was fully open. Then he took a step back, amazed by what he was seeing.
Stretched out on the floor before him was a magnificent city, twinkling like stars in a midnight sky. And at the top, in the right-hand corner, a single word was stitched.
Paradisium.