She Lost Her Name, She Took Back Her Place novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Sunday at the Viscontis

Adrien is cold at dinner until his grandfather collapses and Élise finds the heart spray in the right jacket. In the corridor Adrien asks how she knew.

The Visconti house on Avenue Montaigne was lit from the top floor to the street, and Adrien was waiting on the steps.

He did not offer me his arm.

"My grandfather asked for you," he said. "I did not."

He said it quietly, so the Rocheforts coming up behind me could not hear.

Margaux's dress was dark green and fit me exactly.

I wore it with my hair down and nothing at my throat.

"Then I'm glad he asked," I said. "Good evening, Monsieur Visconti."

His eyes moved over my face once, then away.

"The family is already seated," he said, and turned to go in.

Bianca came up the steps on Bastien's arm, in white, smiling at everyone.

"Don't worry," she murmured as she passed me. "I'll sit by Adrien. You won't have to talk to him."

I thanked her. She meant it kindly, and she meant to be seen meaning it.

The dining room had a table for twenty, white linen and silver, and a man at the head of it who looked smaller than I remembered.

Adrien's grandfather was seventy-eight, with a full head of white hair and a bad heart. He held out both hands when he saw me.

"So this is the girl from Lyon," he said. "Come here, child. Let me look."

I crossed the room and let him hold my hands.

His grip was warm and dry, and his fingers were faintly blue at the nails.

"You have your mother's chin," he said. "And somebody else's eyes. Sit by me."

The seating card on his left said Bianca Rochefort.

He picked it up and put it down at the far end of the table, without a word, beside a cousin of the family.

"Ah," Bianca said, and laughed lightly. "He is a man who knows what he wants."

She went to her new place with her head high.

I sat on the old man's left, and I kept my eyes on him through the soup.

In the vestibule, before we sat down, I had watched the valet.

The old man had arrived in a navy jacket, then slipped out of it in the hall because the house was warm. The valet hung it on the stand by the door and brought him a gray cardigan.

I had counted the pockets of the navy jacket in my head. Two outside, one inside, left breast.

His medicine would be in the inside pocket, the one he had to reach quickly.

"You are not eating," the old man said to me.

"I'm sorry. I'm watching you, monsieur."

"Ha." He patted my hand. "Everyone watches me now. I am old and rich."

"You're blue around the lips," I said.

I said it softly, so only he could hear.

He looked at me with the faintest surprise, and then he laughed again and turned to the man on his other side.

Across the table, Adrien had gone very still.

He had heard me. I did not look at him.

The fish came. The old man lifted his fork, lowered it, and put his hand flat on his chest.

"Excuse me," he said, in an ordinary voice. "I think I..."

His face went gray.

His hand tightened on the tablecloth and dragged a plate toward him, and then he slid sideways in his chair.

Someone screamed.

Adrien was out of his seat before the chair finished falling.

"Grandfather!"

"Call an ambulance," Bastien said, already on his phone.

Bianca had risen with her napkin to her mouth. "Oh, God, water. Somebody bring water!"

"No water," I said.

I was already on my feet.

"His spray," I said to Adrien. "Where does he keep his spray?"

He was on his knees, holding his grandfather's shoulders.

"In his jacket," he said. "The inside pocket. But he's wearing..."

"He took it off in the hall. The valet hung it by the door."

I did not wait for him to answer.

I ran the length of the dining room in Margaux's heels, down the corridor, into the vestibule.

The navy jacket was on the stand where I had watched it go.

Inside pocket, left breast.

My fingers closed on a small metal canister.

I ran back.

Nobody had moved the old man. His breath came in short wet pulls, and his lips had gone blue.

I dropped to my knees beside Adrien.

"Open his mouth," I said. "Lift his tongue."

Adrien looked at me for one second, his face white.

Then he did it.

I pressed the nozzle under the old man's tongue and sprayed once, then again.

"Loosen his collar. Sit him up against you. Don't let him lie flat."

Adrien pulled his grandfather back against his chest and pulled the collar open with one hand.

We waited.

The room had fallen so quiet that I could hear the clock in the hall.

"Breathe, monsieur," I said. "Slowly. In your own time."

The old man's chest rose.

It rose again, and some of the gray went out of his face.

His eyes opened.

"Ah," he said weakly. "That was a poor course to die on."

Someone laughed, high and shaky, and then half the table was crying.

The ambulance men came a minute later and took him from Adrien's arms.

Adrien stood up slowly with his grandfather's spray still in my hand, because I had forgotten to let go of it.

His shirt cuffs were stained with sauce. His hands were shaking, and he put them in his pockets.

"Go with him," I said. "Go on. They'll want family."

He did not move.

"Henri," he said, without turning. "Take your family home. I'll send a car for the rest."

"Adrien," Bianca began, her voice small and wet. "Darling, I'll come with you."

"No."

He said it flatly, to the room, and she stopped.

He took me by the elbow, not roughly, and walked me out of the dining room into the corridor, away from the faces.

He stopped under a lamp and let go.

"The jacket was in the vestibule," he said. "He took it off ten minutes before we sat down. Nobody told you."

I said nothing.

"The valet was the only one who saw it," Adrien said. "He did not tell you. And you did not ask him."

His voice was very low and very careful.

"Which jacket did you check first, Mademoiselle Rochefort?"

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