Free Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer by Katie Alender Page B

the worst for jet lag,” he said.
    “Oh,” I said. “A little. But I had three cups of coffee with breakfast. That should keep me going for at least another hour.”
    He smiled.
    You couldn’t deny he had a nice smile.
    After the whole group finished with the Mona Lisa , we moved through the rest of the halls, which were lined with paintings. Jules walked ahead to deliver his spiel, but I noticed that he kept glancing at me, as if he wanted to see if I was listening.
    And I was.
    When we paused to choose one of the cafés to eat lunch in, I looked around at the paintings nearby.
    “Oh, hey!” I said, to nobody in particular.
    On the wall hung a portrait of a young man sitting at a desk. He wore a black jacket, white ruffles showing at his collar and wrists. His face had that round, glowy look I’d seen in countless portraits that day — but what drew my attention was the cuff he wore on his forearm.
    It was a burnished silvery-gray, like it was supposed to be metal. And clearly visible on its surface was an engraving of a key, with small pointy cutouts in it that went all the way through the metal.
    “ Le duc d’aubusson ,” Jules said, appearing at my side and looking at the little label next to the painting. “Philippe Roux.”
    I pointed at the cuff. “That’s a cornflower, right? Do you know what the key means?”
    Jules squinted and leaned closer to look. “It seems to be a mark of some organization or affiliation.”
    “Like a club?”
    “Perhaps,” he said. “Or a family alliance. The nobility of France were very closely connected to one another. This was painted in the 1780s, just before the Revolution.”
    My heart pounded. Could my medallion date back that far? I’d left it in the hotel suite that day, deciding it didn’t go with my outfit. But as I stared at the man’s luminous face, I wished I had it with me to compare with the symbol in the portrait. One thing seemed certain — the medallion had something to do with this duke.
    Holy cannoli. What if I was secretly a French duchess? Even Hannah, with all her father’s connections, couldn’t claim to be nobility. Mr. Norstedt once joked that his grandfather had a reindeer farm in Sweden.
    And could it go even further than that? I thought of the spiky cornflower I’d seen in Marie Antoinette’s bedroom. If I had seen the queen’s ghost — was it because I was a part of an alliance that had something to do with the royal family? And if Armand knew about the medallion, did that mean he knew about the club it stood for? Was that why he thought I was special?
    I felt a little breathless as we entered the cafeteria — maybe this trip really would change my entire life.

    On the walk back to the hotel, I found myself next to Jules. “What are we doing this afternoon?”
    He held his hands up. “Whatever you like. It’s a free afternoon. You could take a nap.”
    “A nap?” I repeated. “I’m in France …. I’m not taking a nap. Got any better ideas?”
    Was I imagining things, or did he shoot an approving look in my direction? “If I were you, I would spend some time in the city. Get to know the real Paris. Walk around, see the architecture and churches….”
    I had a hard time imagining Hannah and Pilar consenting to a walking tour. “My friends might not be completely on board with that.”
    “Do you have to do everything your friends do?” he asked. “You left them today, didn’t you?”
    Yes, but … “I’ll see how they feel about it, I guess.”
    “I will make a deal with you,” Jules said. “If you decide to go out walking and your friends won’t go, I will go with you.”
    “Really?” I asked, surprised. “But don’t you have the afternoon off?”
    “Yes,” he said. “So I can do as I please. And that’s why I said if your friends won’t go with you.”
    He was smiling.
    “All right,” I said. “But I think I’ll be stuck.”
    “Like the courtiers at Versailles, right?” he said. “Bored and