Montparnasse. Thierry Sagnier

      Apprentice House Press

      Loyola University Maryland

      4501 N. Charles Street

      Baltimore, MD 21210

      410.617.5265 • 410.617.2198 (fax)

      www.ApprenticeHouse.com

      [email protected]

      Prologue

      The little man poked at the flames with a long-handled rake. The wind outside his rented villa ran to the southeast, carrying the greasy black smoke away from the neighbors and dispelling it quickly. The man sniffed at the fire’s aroma and wondered how many more days or hours they would let him ply his trade. Turning over a particularly thick hunk of meat and bone, he listened to it sizzle as a vein of fat hit red coals.

      They were closing in. The man knew this, had made his peace with it, and longed for a resolution. He’d had an excellent run. The newspapers had spread his fame to the four corners of the country and beyond, and on a daily basis he was receiving letters from war widows and maiden women eager for the company of “a distinguished gentleman, polite, presentable, well-off and well-spoken, looking for a lady of like caliber to share his achievements, love and life.” The advertisement ran in the personal sections of 17 newspapers in France, and he had agonized over its composition, every word chosen for sincerity and discretion.

      It was searing hot next to the oven. With the tines of the rake, he dragged a mass of backbone and ribs, then turned the rake over and smashed the bones before pushing the pieces under the coals. Next he dragged a pelvic girdle from the giant oven onto the floor where it smoked and emitted an acrid odor. He fetched a large hammer from a corner of the room and hit the bones twice. The girdle split with a cracking sound. A third and fourth blow shattered it completely. Sweeping up the debris with a twig broom, the man shoveled the shards back into the oven.

      He had always relished the planning stages; the wording of the advertisements, the culling of letters and proposals, the selection process. The women were unfailingly the same. The older ones protected their assets, the younger ones their virginities. He took both, mostly with gentleness and an occasional harsh word when progress lagged. The meeting and wooing, the financial intricacies, the inevitable resolution, all these interested him far less than the development of a plan, the persuasive arguments of an avid suitor, and of course, the performance. The creation of the character—embodying the role of the would-be lover—was what truly excited him.

      Now, it was nearly time for the next act.

      He took seasoned oak logs from a stack near the door, threw them into the oven and waited until they burst into flame. Oak burned hot; it was the wood which had been used to burn heretics and Templars a few hundred years earlier. Though the man had no faith or religion, the historical detail pleased him.

      He shut the oven’s door and removed the blacksmith’s apron he wore over his suit. In the upstairs bathroom, he carefully inspected his hands, fingernails, teeth, and hair, then applied a minute amount of wax to his beard and mustache. Satisfied that he could now see himself as the women did, he sat before the stack of letters on the kitchen table.

      Chapter 1

      It had been 16 days. The deck felt slick and dangerous. A hundred feet below, the ship’s prow cut through a sullen Atlantic, sending frigid mist into the air.

      It’s too cold, thought Frederick Cowles. I should return to the cabin. Easter will be wondering where I am.

      A spray of icy seawater brushed his face and made him step away from the railing. Far beneath him, La Savoie’s giant steam engines thrummed dully in the night and the vibrations made his legs tingle.

      He had a slight headache; too much Beaujolais. Now, mouth sour from the wine and the meal’s peppery entrée, he allowed himself the small satisfaction of discomfort and wondered one more time at the unfairness of life.

      It had been 16 days, and they’d made love twice. In the recesses of his mind, Frederick wished he could address the subject as a man should, wished he’d done so earlier. Perhaps he should have been more insistent right from the start and made demands, not requests. Yet it was such a delicate matter of which he knew so little that broaching the subject seemed unbecoming and might make Easter even more hesitant to encourage his advances.

      A week before leaving Chicago and 20 hours before he and Easter pronounced their vows, his mother, over lunch near the harbor, had told him he might expect Easter to fulfill the conjugal side of the marriage union once a week, no more, and probably less. His mother had frowned, as if introducing the subject of a dear friend’s embarrassing illness. “Once weekly is enough for any man, Frederick. Remember that, as I fear you might have inherited your father’s intemperate spirit. And try to be quick about it. Carnality is a sad necessity imposed upon us women, and there is nothing less pleasurable than enduring the onslaught of one’s husband. Your father occasionally takes overlong, particularly if he’s been imbibing.” Mrs. Cowles was a founding member of the local Anti-Saloon Society, and Frederick knew his father’s tippling repulsed her. “So when you intend to press yourself upon Easter,” she continued, “do so only after a light meal free of drink.”

      She spooned a bit of orange sherbet into her large, toothy mouth. As an afterthought, she added, “And avoid spicy foods, Frederick; garlic and onions in particular. A foul breath is ungentlemanly, thoughtless, and frankly disgusting.”

      Frederick had been mortified. It had been the first and only time his mother had ever referred to his father’s amatory habits in his presence for, in fact, Mrs. Cowles rarely referred to her husband at all. The exchange had left Frederick unable to eat his dessert.

      That night he had