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Until she remembered just who was waiting for her on the other end.
It’s for Roux, she reminded herself, for Roux.
As they drove, she thought about the circumstances that were bringing the three of them—Roux, A
Still, anyone could turn over a new leaf and in the past several months it was obvious that Garin was trying, in his own way, to smooth over some of the damage from the past, so she supposed she had to give him credit. It wasn’t easy for anyone to change, least of all someone so set in their ways as Garin Braden.
The party they were throwing for Roux was, of course, a surprise. Or rather, Garin was throwing the party, with A
That the party was all Garin’s idea was equally unusual, given the history between the two men. After all, they’d tried to kill each other on more than one occasion and no doubt would try again at some point in the future. On any given day they could go from friends to enemies in the space of a heartbeat. Still, there was a bond between them that transcended such petty squabbles, and as fate would have it, A
After all, who better to understand just what it meant to carry the sword that had belonged to Joan of Arc than the two men who had once been responsible for protecting Joan herself from the hands of her enemies? The same mystical force that had preserved the sword and ultimately brought it into A
A
It was enough that it was there, waiting for her, and that she could claim it when necessary. She’d had to do so more times than she could count since taking possession of it and she knew that there would be plenty of other such situations in the future. It had become a part of her and she could no more give it up now than she could marry a pig farmer and retire to the country.
The celebration was being held at Roux’s estate outside of Paris and it took them about half an hour to reach their destination.
Roux’s house was huge, so huge that the word homejust didn’t seem to do it justice. Palacemight have been better. Ivy clung to the stone walls and helped the structure blend into the trees that surrounded it. It butted up against a hill and the overall effect was as if the house itself were a part of the natural environment around it, and from past experience A
The driver must have called ahead, as Garin was waiting for her on the front steps when they pulled up. Standing with him was Henshaw.
“Welcome back, Ms. Creed,” Henshaw said, giving her a small nod of welcome as she stepped from the car.
She gri
“Good to see you,” she told him. She turned her attention to his companion. “Hello, Garin.”
“A
With her ever-present backpack slung over her shoulder, A
The knowledge that he’d scowl all the more should he discover that she intentionally packed as light as she could just to tease him when coming here made her laugh aloud.
Maybe this was going to be a fun three days, after all.
A
Garin led her through the lower floor to Roux’s personal study, one of the largest rooms in the entire house. It was two stories tall and stuffed to the gills with shelves full of books, artifacts and artwork. Stacks of paper streamers rested on a nearby table, along with a pile of balloons. A tank of helium gas stood beside it.
“Roux is out at a high-stakes poker game for the afternoon,” Garin told her. “Henshaw will be picking him up around di
He trailed off at seeing her expression. “What?” he growled.
A
When at last she could find her voice again, she said, “I’m sorry, Garin, really, I am. I just never expected you to go to so much trouble for Roux and the change is a bit, um, unexpected. Nice, but unexpected.”
He accepted her apology with a shrug and the two of them got to work. By the time Henshaw came in an hour later to check on them, they had finished strewing paper streamers throughout the room, even draping them on the massive stone sarcophagus that occupied one corner and wrapping them around the stuffed and mounted corpse of an Old West gunfighter that stood in the other, turning him from a cigar-store Indian-style display to a blue-and-yellow mummy. They were getting started on tying the balloons together into bunches.
Henshaw gave the room a once-over, his only discernible reaction the slight raising of an eyebrow as he took in the steamerwrapped gunfighter in the corner. Turning back to his partners in crime, he said, “I’m off to get Mr. Roux. I shall return in approximately one hour. We shall dine shortly after that.”