Capture The Night by Geralyn Dawson

friend.”
    “Please, Pierre, get on with your story,” Julian demanded. He paced to one of the large windows that looked out over the rose garden and fingered the heavy damask drapery as he listened.
    “Mary Smithwick’s family enrolled her in the school when she was little more than a baby. The child’s mother provided sufficient funds to support the girl until she reached eleven years of age. She left the school at that time, returning some seven years later to accept a position as a teacher.”
    “Where was she in the intervening years?” Julian asked.
    Corot shrugged. “That my investigator has yet to discover. But he will. ‘Tis only a matter of time.”
    “Did she come to St. Germaine straight from England?” Julian asked, glancing over his shoulder.
    “Yes. According to the blustering Mistress Poggi, Mary Smithwick received a letter from France one day and left the next. The old battle-ax wasn’t too happy about it, either. It was right in the middle of a term.”
    Julian slammed a fist against the wall beside the window and bellowed, “How in the hell did my wife find this woman, this stealer of children? It makes no sense. Celeste knew no one in England; she’d never even traveled there. Why did she send for a stranger and then lie to me about it?”
    The investigator absently studied the mural painted above the mantle and sipped his drink. Frowning, he asked, “Explain to me again, Julian, the circumstances under which Mary Smithwick came to Château St Germaine.”
    “It was shortly before the baby was due,” Julian said, scowling as he straightened the frame of a portrait his blow had jostled. “Celeste said she needed help and that Mistress Smithwick’s name had come to her highly recommended.” Hesitantly, he added, “My wife and I were experiencing difficulties in our marriage. I believed it was due in part to the coming baby. Celeste was emotional, withdrawn. I thought perhaps with a woman around, Celeste would feel better. I let her have her way.”
    He heard the bleakness in his voice as he looked at his friend and confessed, “It’s my fault that Elise is gone. I allowed Celeste to pressure me into hiring the chit without personally checking her references. I believed Celeste when she told me that Mary Smithwick had served in some of the finest homes in France.”
    Corot shook his head. “Do not blame yourself, Julian. Celeste was expecting your child. You pampered her wishes, just as many a loving husband has done.”
    “Ah, but there’s the difference,” Julian replied, his knuckles whitening around the snifter of brandy, “I was not a loving husband. At least, not at first. I was a man bent upon revenge. I married Celeste because I hated her mother and wanted to hurt Bernadette Compton in the worst possible manner—by stealing away her daughter.” He tossed back a drink, and the brandy burned his throat as hatred scorched his heart. “I’ve had experience with that type of grief.”
    Scowling, Corot studied his friend. “You’ve never recovered from your first daughter’s disappearance, have you, Julian?”
    Desseau stared into his empty glass. “A man never gets over losing a child, even after twenty years have passed. And the fact that there’s never been a trace…we never found Nicole’s body …it simply doesn’t end. And now, to have the same thing happen with Elise…”
    “It’s not the same,” Corot insisted. “We’ll find Elise. We know who took her. We know where they went. It’s just a matter of time, man. Give me and my men a little more time. Don’t give up hope.”
    The anguish ravaging Julian’s soul was reflected in his voice when he looked Pierre and asked, “Why? Why did she do it? What possessed Mary Smithwick to steal an innocent baby?”
    Corot set his glass on the table beside his seat. “Julian, what about Celeste’s mother? Could Bernadette Compton have something to do with this crime?”
    “She’s the first person I thought