and returned to what they were doing. Julia stood uncertain on the threshold, then picked up a magazine and sat in a wing chair.
“Feeling better?” Reine-Marie whispered.
“Much,” he said and meant it, taking the glass warmed by her hands and following her to a sofa.
“Bridge later?” Thomas stopped playing the piano and wandered over to the Gamaches.
“Merveilleux. Bonne idée,” said Reine-Marie. They’d played bridge most nights with Thomas and his wife Sandra. It was a pleasant way to end the day.
“Find any roses?” Thomas asked Julia as he walked back to his wife. There was a rat-tat-tat of laughter from Sandra as though he’d said something witty and brilliant.
“Some Eleanor roses, you mean?” Marianna asked from the window seat beside Bean, a look of great amusement on her face. “They are your favorites, aren’t they, Julia?”
“I thought they were more along your line.” Julia smiled. Marianna smiled back and imagined one of the wooden beams falling and crushing her older sister. It wasn’t as much fun having her back as Marianna had hoped. In fact, quite the opposite.
“Time for bed, old Bean,” said Marianna and put her heavy arm round the studious child. Gamache had never known a ten-year-old so quiet. Still, the child seemed content. As they walked by he caught Bean’s bright blue eyes.
“What’re you reading?” he asked.
Bean stopped and looked at the large stranger. Though they’d been together in the Manoir for three days they hadn’t really spoken, until now.
“Nothing.”
Gamache noticed the small hands close more tightly over the hardcover book, and the loose shirt fold as the book was pressed closer to the childish body. Through the small, tanned fingers Gamache could read only one word.
Myths.
“Come on, slowpoke. Bed. Mommy needs to get drunk and can’t before you’re in bed, now you know that.”
Bean, still looking at Gamache, suddenly smiled. “May I have a martooni tonight, please,” Bean said, leaving the room.
“You know you’re not allowed until you’re twelve. It’ll be Scotch or nothing,” they heard Marianna say, then footsteps on the stairs.
“I’m not completely convinced she’s kidding,” said Madame Finney.
Gamache smiled over to her but his smile faded as he saw the stern look on her face.
“Why do you let him get to you, Pierre?”
Chef Véronique was putting hand-made truffles and chocolate-dipped candied fruit on small plates. Her sausage fingers instinctively placed the confections in an artistic pattern. She took a sprig of mint from the glass, shook the water from it and clipped a few leaves with her nails. Absently she chose some edible flowers from her vase and before long a few chocolates had become a lovely design on the white plate. Straightening up, she looked at the man opposite her.
They’d worked together for years. Decades, come to think of it. She found it odd to think she was over sixty and knew she looked it, though happily in the wilderness it didn’t seem to matter.
She’d rarely seen Pierre so upset by one of the young workers. She herself liked Elliot. Everyone did, as far as she could tell. Was that why the maître d’ was so upset? Was he jealous?
She watched him for a moment, his slim fingers arranging the tray.
No, she thought. It wasn’t jealousy. It was something else.
“He just doesn’t listen,” said Pierre, setting the tray aside and sitting across from her. They were alone in the kitchen now. The washing up was done, the dishes away, the surfaces scrubbed. It smelled of espresso and mint and fruit. “He came here to learn, and he won’t listen. I just don’t understand.” He uncorked the cognac and poured.
“He’s young. It’s his first time away from home. And you’ll only make it worse by pushing. Let it go.”
Pierre sipped, and nodded. It was relaxing being around Chef Véronique, though he knew she scared the crap out of the new employees. She was huge and beefy, her face like a pumpkin and her voice like a root vegetable. And she had knives. Lots of them. And cleavers and cast-iron pans.
Seeing her for the first time new employees could be excused for thinking they’d taken a wrong turn on the dirt road into the woods, and ended up at a lumber camp instead of the refined Manoir Bellechasse. Chef Véronique looked like a short-order cook in a cantine.
“He needs to know who’s in charge,” said Pierre firmly.
“He does know. He just doesn’t like it.”
The maître d’ had had a hard day, she could see. She took the largest truffle from the tray and handed