26. Grace
Grace
The car door opened, and one of the men with earpieces looked down at me. “Ms. Laurent.”
“Thanks, Radek,” I said, swinging my legs out onto the cobblestones. He was one of the Pendragon operators Arthur had arranged. He nodded but didn’t smile. Fair enough. He was working, and I was getting accustomed to overly serious bodyguards.
Garrett came around the front of our rental car, scanning the property the way he scanned everything. He’d debated the wisdom of coming to Henri’s, given the possibility Richter could be lurking somewhere, but since we were coming straight from the train, he’d conceded.
‘It’ll be a short visit. I’ll do recon, you can get your proof, then we’ll leave,’ he’d said. ‘Kessler won’t suspect we’re here so quickly.’
The yellow manor house rose in front of us, weathered stone statues flanking the entrance like guardians who’d seen better centuries. Iron gates stood open, and beyond them, massive wooden doors waited under an arched overhang.
Henri’s car was parked just ahead of ours. He and Dmitry were walking toward the entrance with Henri’s assistant, Tomá?. The other Pendragon operator, Ale?, had positioned himself near the gate.
I stepped forward, and Garrett fell into place beside me. His hand brushed my lower back as we crossed the cobblestones, guiding me around a rough patch.
This morning on the train had been different.
When I’d climbed down from my bunk, he’d been awake, sitting on the edge of his bed with his phone, already dressed.
We’d eaten our à la carte breakfast—including a squeezy tube of liverwurst I’d tasted and moved on from—and discussed our plans for the day.
It was nothing like our morning at Jean’s, when he’d given me the brain-chemistry speech and I’d wanted to throw something at him. There was no echo of the desperate kiss last night, but no denial, either. He was… what was he? Not distant. Certainly not lustful, either. Comfortable, maybe?
Whatever was going on inside his head, at least he wasn’t pushing me away or snapping at me anymore.
Henri reached the door first, and a middle-aged woman opened one of the heavy wooden doors for him.
We all filed through, into an entry hall that was nothing like I’d expected based on the ancient wood, iron, and stucco outside.
Here, arched glass doors revealed a courtyard with a stone fountain at its center.
Light poured through, illuminating the whitewashed walls.
“Oh, wow.” I looked around, taking in the vaulted ceilings and the old stonework. “This is beautiful.”
Henri beamed. “My great-grandfather paid to have it built when he settled in Prague after the Revolution. The items he smuggled out of the country funded the construction.” He gestured at the walls.
“We did significant renovations ten years ago to repair much of the original stonework, but it’s still his home. ”
“It’s incredible.”
Garrett inspected a panel by the door. “Full security system? External monitoring?”
“Of course. We had it upgraded last year.”
“No security on premises?”
“As I told you, I live a quiet life. Too quiet sometimes.” Henri clasped his hands together. “You must stay here tonight. I have many bedrooms, and my chef is excellent. It’s been too long since I’ve had company. My children and grandchildren haven’t visited in?—”
“We have a hotel booked,” Garrett said.
Henri asked, “Where? Prague has so many options, and I would hate for you to end up somewhere not befitting.”
“Somewhere a friend recommended.”
He waited for more, but when Garrett didn’t take the bait, Henri said, “If you change your mind, the offer stands.”
He led us down a corridor, and I tried not to gawk at everything.
Exposed wooden beams overhead. Animal pelts decorated the walls, ranging from boar to deer to an antelope with impressive antlers.
Glass display cases with items I couldn’t identify sat nestled in the corners.
Old harnesses and tools hung from hooks.
It was like walking through a hunting lodge that had been merged with a museum.
Dmitry walked ahead of me, hands clasped behind his back, while Garrett was behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder at him and couldn’t stop myself from smiling.
Yesterday, he would have frowned at me and immediately found something very dangerous to evaluate. But this morning? He met my gaze and held it for a moment before looking away.
There it is, Grace. The man who pulled you onto his lap is still in there.
I continued walking, my brain flashing back to last night.
To how hard he’d been underneath me, and how he’d pinned me against his muscled chest. How he’d stood up, lifting me like I weighed nothing, and I’d known—known—we were about to cross a line I’d been thinking about since I’d first laid eyes on him.
Then the train lurched. Stupid train. And his brain snapped back into bodyguard mode.
But! But he’d explained himself instead of avoiding me.
He hadn’t run; he’d just expressed his fears.
That was the biggest win. And I took the win with me into my bunk, because at that point, pushing would have made him retreat, not open up more.
After that, I’d tried reading about the tough former Marine in my book, but I kept seeing Garrett’s face and the way he’d looked at me before he kissed me.
I let out a little internal sigh. The way he’d said ‘I’m going to kiss you now,’ like he was giving me one last chance to stop him.
And then, oh my god, that kiss.
I’d considered taking care of myself in my bunk. Burning off the tension like I had that morning. But I’d decided I liked the ache of unresolved want sitting between my thighs. He’d either change his mind before our adventure was over, or I would take care of it like I normally did.
I laughed to myself. I wasn’t a one-night stand kinda girl normally. The heroines in my books were sometimes, but not me. However, I had stolen a few condoms I’d found in Jean’s bathroom, just in case. It had seemed ridiculous at the time, but a girl had to be prepared.
Life’s too short not to steal the condoms, right, Grace?
Henri opened a heavy wooden door, bringing me back to the present moment. “This is my study.”
The room was lined with bookshelves, and a large table dominated the center, covered with documents, photographs, and papers in protective sleeves.
Tomá? moved to the window. “I retrieved everything you requested before I picked you up at the station, Mr. Dubois.”
“Excellent. Thank you.” Henri gestured for me to sit in one of the huge carved chairs.
“Please, Grace. This is everything my mother kept—my father’s letters, photographs from before and during the war, documents from her grandfather about the egg and the other Russian artifacts he brought with him. ”
I moved toward the table, my heart beating somewhere in my throat. There was so much, but my eyes gravitated toward a photograph near the middle of the table—a young woman in a worn velvet jacket, standing in rubble. The same photograph Dmitry had dropped at my café, but larger and clearer.
Didi. Delphine.
Henri came to stand beside me. “My mother kept these documents hidden in our wine cellar, under heavy stone blocks. She was always afraid someone would come looking.”
I sank into a chair at the end of the table, while Henri took the one closest to me. “Someone like Werner Kessler?”
Garrett and I had discussed him at length this morning.
He didn’t have any additional information on what Richter’s hard way might be.
Still, with four Pendragon operatives assigned to us, plus Arthur and Merlin arriving later today, Garrett felt confident.
And so long as he was confident, I felt safe.
“Someone like anyone.” Henri picked up a letter, handling it carefully. “This is from my father to my mother, written a few weeks after she returned to Prague. He wrote about how quiet the house felt without her. How he missed her voice, even when she was scolding him.”
Dmitry settled into a chair at the edge of the table, leaning forward. “The movement of artifacts during wartime has always been complicated. Families hide things, sell things, and wind up with their possessions confiscated. Documentation like this is rare.”
Henri set the letter down and picked up another document, older, the paper yellowed, with sketches alongside columns of text. “This is my great-grandfather’s inventory. Everything he brought out of Russia.”
I leaned closer. The drawings included jewelry, small sculptures, and decorative boxes. And there, near the bottom, a sketch of an egg with its shell open, revealing the yolk, and beside it, a tiny hen with its breast open.
The egg Garrett was still carrying.
“One of the items listed here is now in a museum in New York,” Dmitry said, pointing to an entry near the top. “Another is in London. I believe a few others made their way back to Russia over the years. The egg and two smaller pieces are all that remain unaccounted for.”
I traced the sketch with my finger. The detail was so remarkable, it was clear this egg had been in the artist’s possession.
“Can I ask you a question?” I looked at Henri. “The letter inside the egg—the one addressed to Delphine. It was written in Cyrillic. Why would Marcel write to her in Russian instead of French?”
“I thought about this after Dmitry sent me the details.” Henri smiled.
“My mother taught him the language so he’d understand where her family was from.
He wasn’t fully fluent, but he could read and write well enough.
Using Cyrillic served two purposes: it acted as a cipher, since most people who might intercept it couldn’t read it, and it served as proof.
When someone came to retrieve the egg, they would need to be able to read the messages.
Anyone could forge a letter in French or English. Russian was… safer.”
That made a strange kind of sense. A code only the right people could crack.
Garrett was suddenly beside me, his hand on my shoulder. He leaned close, his lips next to my ear. “I want to check the rest of the house. Radek can stay with you, or I can have him and Ale? do the sweep if you’d rather I stay.”
I turned my head slightly toward him. “Do you need to see everything yourself?”
“Yes.”
I put my hand over his. “Then go. I’m fine with Radek.”
Before he pulled away, he brushed his thumb over my knuckles, and I almost melted into a pile of goo as I watched him march his sexy self out of the room.
Henri walked me through more of what his mother had preserved.
Coded letters from Marcel describing the work they’d done, which were full of admiration for the English girl who argued with him constantly.
Photographs of the resistance cell—young faces, some smiling, standing in front of damaged buildings or crowded into dark rooms.
“Do you know what happened to them?” I asked, touching the edge of one photograph. “The others?”
Henri shook his head. “I was born here in Prague. By the time I was old enough to ask questions, my mother only had the letters and photographs. She never went back to France.”
Dmitry added what context he could. He explained how the resistance networks operated, how messages were passed, and how easily everything collapsed when one person was captured or killed, if the cell wasn’t built for continuity.
Some amount of time later, maybe thirty minutes, Garrett reappeared in the doorway. He gave Radek a short nod, and Ale? remained in the corridor.
Henri looked up at him. “Is everything satisfactory?”
“For now.”
“Grace.” Henri straightened, clasping his hands. “I must ask directly. Are you willing to return the egg to me? I will pay you well for it. Perhaps not as well as an auction house would offer, but without the delays and complications.”
Since the jeweler in Michigan had first suggested I might have a real treasure in my possession, I’d thought about what millions of dollars might mean for me. The Velvet Bean wasn’t struggling, per se, but I wasn’t bringing in so much money I didn’t have to worry about payroll on occasion.
I stared at the photograph of Didi one more time.
The right thing to do would be to give it to Henri.
But was that idealism? Should I at least ask for enough money to pay Round Table Security for all the personnel and the travel?
Garrett had been paying for everything because they’d insisted they would cover the whole event.
And he deserved more than a thank you for everything he’d done.
Of course, I didn’t know how much Henri intended.
His idea of paying me well could have been a few thousand dollars.
“Grace?” he asked again.
I nodded. “It should be with your family.”
“Thank you.” Henri clasped his hands in front of himself as though in prayer. “Thank you. We need to have it authenticated first, though. I’ve arranged for an expert to ensure everything is properly documented for the transfer.”
Garrett neared us. “I don’t want to risk being surprised by your expert. I’d like to run a background check.”
“Of course, of course.” Henri waved a hand. “His name is Brandon Caulfield.”
Oh shit.
Garrett’s jaw tightened, and he took a half-step toward me as though the danger were already in the room.
“He’s highly respected in the field. He trained at Christie’s, consulted for museums across Europe.
He authenticated a Romanov tiara for the Hermitage last year.
” Henri continued, oblivious to the worry churning in my stomach and the firm set of Garrett’s jaw.
“Once the authentication is complete,” Henri said, “the transfer can be made official. My father’s legacy will finally be home. ”