Read Online The Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig - Free Book Online

so Laura did it herself, feeling rather as though she had fallen into a strange variant of Sleeping Beauty’s castle. This was the sort of establishment that should command a score of servants at the very least, but the only staff she had seen were Jean and Jeannette. The flowerbeds that lined the walk from the porte cochere to the gate were as scraggly with neglect as the interior of the house. The hedges bristled with several years’ unfettered growth, while dead vines draped like widows’ weeds from the grand stone arch that ran across the center of the courtyard. There had once been a clock in the middle of the arch, but the hour hand had dropped off, leaving only the play of sun and shadows to mark the time.
    Laura half expected Jean to stop them, but he emerged from his lair by the gate without a murmur, shoving the gate so that it yielded with the maximum squeak. Pierre-André squealed delightedly at the noise. Gabrielle looked pained.
    Gabrielle scuffed her shoes against the cobbles. “Is it far?” she asked in a way that made “Is it far?” translate to “If I make enough of a fuss, will you let me go home?”
    “Not very far,” Laura lied. “The walk will do you good.”
    That last part, at least, was true. As if repenting of the gloomy drizzle of the previous day, it was one of those crisp, clear January days where the air is cold and thin and the sunshine edged with ice, bringing everything into a relief so sharp as to be almost painful. It pinched the children’s cheeks and quickened their step and brightened their eyes as Laura herded them through the gate and down the street. The buildings of Paris, so quick to turn gray in the rain, shone in the sunlight, in the shades of taupe and beige so peculiar to Paris, so unfamiliar to Laura after her time in London.
    The Hôtel de Bac stretched along for a full city block, nothing but continuous stone wall. There were other houses like it as they walked, great town palaces hidden behind the anonymity of beige stone, recognizable only from the gates that offered glimpses into hidden courtyards marked by intricately carved pilasters and fanciful stonework. But there were smaller houses too, as they walked along, and little shops whose proprietors, encouraged by the good weather, had piled goods on tables beneath colorful awnings.
    Laura led the children down towards the river, navigating by memory and instinct. Gabrielle expressed her feelings by trudging along as though every step pained her, puffing out her cheeks and scowling at the tips of her boots. Pierre-André danced along ahead, singing a song of his own devising, which consisted solely of the word “books,” repeated multiple times at varying pitch.
    Laura made a note to herself to begin his musical education immediately, if only for the sake of her own ears.
    It wasn’t far from the Hôtel de Bac to the Seine, but the crooked nature of the streets in the Marais made the trip longer. The temperature had dropped as the rain had lifted, freezing the mud in the streets so that the brown slicks shone like exotic minerals quarried in a faraway land. Laura handily caught Pierre-André just as the heel of his shoe went skidding on a patch of petrified mud.
    “Gently, now,” she warned. “You don’t want to go flying.”
    Pierre-André was favorably struck by the idea. “Don’t I?”
    “Not like that,” said Gabrielle, daring Laura to contradict her. “She just meant falling. People can’t fly.”
    Pierre-André’s lower lip stuck out. “Butterflies can fly.”
    Gabrielle assumed all the superiority of her nine long years. “Butterflies have wings,” she informed her brother.
    Pierre-André’s face set in an expression of pure stubbornness. “Then I’ll have wings too,” he announced. He tugged at Laura’s hand. “Can I have wings? Can I?”
    Gabrielle started to exchange a “boys!” look with Laura. Recalling that Laura was the enemy, she abruptly pulled her chin back into her