§ § § -- December 22, 2004

In town, Mireille stubbornly stuck by Leslie's side when she dropped off Patrick and Antoinette at the pedestrian shopping area. "Are you going to visit His Highness at his shop, Leslie?" she asked.

"I just told Patrick and Antoinette that I would," said Leslie, eyeing her oddly. She'd assured the two that they could take as much time as they liked in making a choice of plant for their father's grave, and she'd be at Christian's office. "You mean you want to come with me? You're really sure you don't want to help choose a bush?"

"I told Patrick and Antoinette to make it a rosebush," Mireille said dismissively. "I keep getting interrupted and I want to ask you something without them around."

Leslie studied her. "You've been trying all week, haven't you? What's wrong?"

Mireille drew in a deep breath and gave Leslie the most heartbreakingly plaintive look she'd ever seen. "Please, cousine, can I stay and live here with you and Prince Christian? I promise not to be any trouble and I can help with the triplets!"

Leslie's first impulse was to laugh, but she swallowed it back; she could see that Mireille was deadly serious. "Honey," she said softly, "believe me, if anyone could be granted automatic asylum on this island, it'd be Tattoo's kids…but you need more of a reason than just wanting to get away from your mother and that boyfriend of hers. And that's why you're asking, isn't it?"

"I don't want to go back when they come here," Mireille begged, the eyes that were so reminiscent of Tattoo's filling with tears. "Patrick has his own flat, and Antoinette's usually away with her ballet company and doesn't come back home very often, so she can get away from that terrible Georges and his staring eyes. But I can't. I'm not even thirteen yet, and I have to live with Maman and Georges. And she doesn't see what he does. He stares at me sometimes, almost the way he stares at Antoinette, and other times he slaps me. Every time I go to Patrick's flat after school, Georges will slap me and tell me I was disobedient."

Leslie slipped an arm around Mireille's shoulders and leaned down a little to give them a touch more privacy. "And your mother never sees him do it, is that right?"

Mireille nodded, jarring the standing tears loose from her eyes. "She wouldn't believe me if I told her about it. She thinks Georges is wonderful. Please, Leslie, please say yes!"

Leslie hugged Mireille, remembering Tattoo's funeral and the way the then-three-year-old child had clung to her almost constantly throughout the few days she had been here with Solange, Patrick and Antoinette. And as she stood there considering it, she suddenly remembered who else had come with them, and had an idea that she carefully tucked into the back of her mind. "Tell you what, Mireille," she said, "let's go to Christian's shop. I can ask him to check out LeNoir online and see if he comes up with anything. Okay?"

"But what about living with you?" Mireille persisted.

"I wish I could say yes…I know you're upset and scared of LeNoir. But I have a feeling your mother would have a few words to say about it. Don't forget, we've got Father, and he's not going to let this go without thoroughly investigating LeNoir and interviewing Solange. He'll get to the bottom of this, I promise you. Come on, let's go and see Christian."

Christian looked up in surprise when they came in. "Hello, my Rose…trouble?"

"A tad," Leslie said with a smile, appropriating the chair that rested beside Julianne's desk and placing it beside the one she normally sat in when she came here. "Mireille, you can sit here. My love, do you have any tissues?"

"I've got some," Beth Keoki volunteered, grabbing a tissue box off her desktop and bringing it to them. "Hi, Miss Leslie."

"Hi, Beth, how's it going?" Leslie said.

"Not bad," Beth replied. "Can't wait for Christmas."

Leslie laughed. "I don't blame you. It's going to be pretty exciting at our house, that's for sure. Thanks for the tissues." Beth grinned and retreated, and Leslie gave Mireille the box, taking her usual chair. "Okay?"

Mireille nodded and mopped at her eyes, while Christian watched questioningly. When Leslie had settled down, he turned to her and asked, "What's going on?"

"I had an idea," Leslie said. "If you're not in the middle of something, my love, could you do a search on Georges LeNoir?"

Christian's eyes lit. "Now why didn't I think of that myself? Let's see what we can come up with." He gave Mireille a wink and a reassuring smile, then turned to his computer and brought up a search engine, swiftly typing in LeNoir's name and then pausing. "There's no telling how many men by that name might be out there. Is there anything you can tell me about him, Mireille, that might help narrow down my search?"

Mireille's dark eyes flashed in a way that jolted Leslie, stirring up a dozen memories of Tattoo when he was in the thick of defending someone dear to him. "Type in 'crook'," she suggested maliciously.

Christian and Leslie both laughed. "I imagine that would get some results, but I'm thinking more along the lines of what he does for a living, for example. Do you happen to know that?" Christian asked. "Does he own a company, perhaps? Is he known for anything that you're aware of?"

Mireille slumped back a bit in her chair and thought about it. "He likes money," she said finally. She met Christian's gaze. "I overheard him talking to Maman once, not so long after they met. He told her that he was rich, he'd just inherited money from a rich uncle who had died a little while ago. He said he could solve all our worries."

Christian and Leslie looked at each other. "The standard story," Christian muttered. "Solange must be smarter than that! Did he say what this uncle's name was?"

"I don't know," Mireille said, shrugging. "I didn't hear anything after that. But he did say the rich uncle was a baron."

"Rich and noble," Christian murmured, shaking his head. "All right, well, let's see if that gives me anything." He added the word "baron" after LeNoir's name, then hit the enter key and sat back to wait. Quite a few listings came up, but nothing that directly linked LeNoir's name with any baron. "There's a baron named LeNoir listed in Nantes, but his name isn't Georges…" Christian clicked on the link. "Maybe there'll be a list of relatives."

"Your Highness…" Mireille ventured, and Christian peered at her over his shoulder. "When you were still a prince instead of a computer repairman…did you meet a lot of French nobility? Did they make a lot of trips to Île Petit Terre?"

Christian blinked at her, then laughed. "Oh, so that's what you call us in French, is it? I'm sure I saw more than my share of nobility, but none of them stand out in my memory, I must admit. It's all right, we'll keep trying." He backed out of the site that had come up and clicked on a few others, asking questions here and there but getting nowhere. Mireille just didn't have enough information about LeNoir to give him a good foothold.

"Well, Patrick and Antoinette are supposed to come here when they've finished picking out a bush to plant at Tattoo's grave," Leslie said. "Maybe they'll know more about him. Don't worry, Mireille, we'll figure something out…and even if we don't, remember, Father'll get to the bottom of the whole thing."

Mireille nodded, looking a little forlorn, and then asked, "Is there a bathroom here?"

"In the corner back there," Christian said and gestured towards it. She got up and crossed the room, and he and Leslie watched a moment; then he turned to her and said low, "She looks as if she's losing hope."

Leslie leaned over the work arm and said, "It's possible. Just before we came in here, she asked me if she could live with us—and she was totally serious about it. That LeNoir must be one oily snake to drive her to ask that."

"Well, that can't be all of it," Christian said with a smile. "Mr. Roarke mentioned to me a few days ago that when they were here for Tattoo's funeral, Mireille fastened herself to you like a little leech and refused to let go. Perhaps she has some memory of that, the way she's turned to you now."

Leslie grinned a bit sheepishly. "I don't know about that, but I do recall that it really got to me at the time. It was just under a year before I met you, actually, and I think I was just starting to grow aware of the biological clock." At his quirked brow, she shrugged and said, "I think plenty of women start to notice it when they hit thirty, but for most it doesn't matter so much—they still have loads of time to get pregnant. But there were mitigating factors in my case, of course."

"Of course," said Christian, then grinned back. "So I suppose you're saying you still feel something of that bond you developed with her all those years ago."

"Maybe a bit," Leslie said. "But I think she feels it too. I realize it's possible she just sees me as a refuge from the danger LeNoir presents, but she could as easily have asked Father if she could live with him. He has more room than we do anyway."

Christian chuckled, at which point the door opened in the corner and Mireille came out. "Perhaps there's little point in my investigating LeNoir any further," he said. "I expect Mr. Roarke will know all he needs to know about LeNoir, and he won't even need the internet to gather his information." They laughed softly, and Mireille skirted Leslie's chair and took her seat once more, just as Patrick and Antoinette came in with a rosebush.

"Oh, you found one," Leslie said, brightening. "That's beautiful."

Christian stared at it. "Aren't those the same roses we found that day on the beach?" he asked her. "The ones that can't be found anywhere else in the world?"

"So they are," Leslie realized. The bush was covered with small yellow roses, every petal on each blossom sporting a small magenta crescent. "That makes perfect sense. Something contributed by his children, connected with Fantasy Island, where he spent so much of his life. It's perfect, you two. Father can get the hotel gardener to plant it for you."

"We thought it might fit," Antoinette said, smiling for the first time that day. "The nursery owner told us that these rosebushes aren't even allowed off the island, and we had to explain why we wanted it. And when we told him, he took half off the price!"

"He must have known Papa," Patrick remarked.

"Yeah, he's been here quite a long time," Leslie said with a nod. "So there's someone else who can give you his impressions of Tattoo. Your father left quite a presence here." She snickered, a memory hitting her, and said, "Brother, I can still remember when I first came back here in 1990 after Teppo died. It took me a few days to figure out what to do with myself and to settle back into the rhythm of life on this island, and then Father was talking about getting hold of Julie to fill in the assistant's role that first weekend. That was when I came up with the idea of applying for the job. I wanted it so badly, I was scared to death that I'd blow the trial weekend Father agreed to. I kept thinking, how under the sun can I possibly fill Tattoo's shoes? And it gave me the idea to emulate Tattoo, try to do what he would've done. It must have worked. Father gave me the job and told me I'd done very well; I said something about maybe outdoing Lawrence, and Julie added that I might even outdo Tattoo. I told her that wasn't possible."

Her audience laughed; then Mireille asked, "Who was Lawrence?"

"Oh…he was your father's successor," Leslie said. "Lasted about the length of a school year. He had a distinctly different approach from Tattoo. Tattoo had been here long enough by the time I arrived on the island that there wasn't too much that fazed him anymore. But Lawrence was a whole 'nother story, as we used to say when I was a little kid. He tried to act blasé and keep that stereotypical British stiff upper lip, but it didn't always work."

"Hmm," said Christian, looking intrigued, "I think I might have you tell some stories on this Lawrence later on." He shot a glance at a few bars representing minimized windows at the bottom of his monitor screen. "Unfortunately for me, I really ought to get back to work. I have two programs I'm trying to write, and then there are two repair projects and three installations waiting for me. It must be all these American tourists on their working vacations." He snorted. "A pitiful oxymoron. What's the point of taking a vacation, if all you're going to do is work? You might as well stay home."

"Poor Christian," Leslie teased, reaching over and patting his arm. "Well, in that case, we'll all get out of your hair. See you at lunch?"

"I'll be there," Christian promised, and caught her long enough to steal a kiss before she left the shop with the Latignons.

It was at the midday meal that Roarke disclosed, "I've just had word that Solange and Monsieur LeNoir will be arriving on the two-o'clock charter tomorrow."

Patrick, Antoinette and Mireille looked at one another; the older two had grim looks, while Mireille looked out-and-out scared. Leslie reached out and patted the girl's shoulder. "Where are they staying, Father?" she asked.

"They'll have a room in Julie's bed-and-breakfast," Roarke replied. "However, I intend to speak with them before I allow them even to see the three of you, much less retreat to their room for freshening up." He glanced at a scowling Patrick and a pale-faced Antoinette in turn, and his tone softened. "Perhaps it will interest you to know that I met your mother myself, the weekend Tattoo and she first met and fell in love, and she struck me as a very intelligent young woman. She was grounded: she was willing to give up a dawning career in dance to remain with Tattoo and make a life with him, but he insisted that she have her chance to do what she had dreamed of for so long. Tattoo was very important in her life; thus, I find it extremely difficult to reconcile what you tell me about her now to the young woman I met all those years ago. In view of what you have said, I want the opportunity to speak with her myself. It should give me some indication of what may have changed so dramatically for her that she would keep company with someone like Monsieur LeNoir."

Patrick's expression eased then and he nodded. "I see, Mr. Roarke," he said. "If Maman does reveal herself…will you tell us? We've never understood her relationship with that pond scum, and we want to know, too."

Roarke chuckled soundlessly once at his use of the slang. "I will do that, Patrick," he promised.

"Will we have to move into the B&B with them?" Antoinette wanted to know.

"No, you three may remain in the bungalow you now occupy," Roarke said. "That includes you, Mireille, lest you wonder. The room Julie set aside for Solange and LeNoir is large enough to accommodate only two." His tone made Christian and Leslie exchange a knowing glance: they had no doubt Roarke had specifically given Julie instructions to that end. "And if at all possible, I'll observe LeNoir myself."

Leslie smiled secretly at that. Roarke had a way of absorbing the most infinitesimal details about people, even those who went to great pains to try to conceal such things. He'd have Georges LeNoir's number soon enough.

§ § § -- December 23, 2004

It was so early in the morning that Leslie and the triplets had yet to arrive from home, but Roarke was up and sorting through fantasy requests, carefully reading letters. It wasn't even seven yet, so he was quite surprised when there came a knock on the inner-foyer door. "Yes?" he called out.

A moment later Mireille Latignon ventured into the room, her feet bare and her sandals dangling from one hand; she virtually tiptoed. "Hello, Mr. Roarke," she said softly.

"Good morning, Mireille, come in!" Roarke invited, smiling at her. "You're up quite early for someone who's on school vacation."

The merest ghost of a smile flashed across Mireille's face and she approached the desk, still moving cautiously, as if afraid of disturbing someone. "I know it's early," she said with a small tremor in her voice. "But I've been thinking a lot about this and I couldn't wait anymore to ask you…and I didn't want Patrick and Antoinette around when I did, because they'd only laugh at me."

"I see," said Roarke, sobering, seeing the anxiety and traces of fear in the girl's dark eyes. "Why don't you sit down. Would you like anything to drink?"

Mireille shook her head and carefully lowered herself into one of the leather chairs, soundlessly placing her sandals on the floor near her feet and then settling herself in the chair, as though stalling. Roarke waited patiently; he could sense a wave of strong emotion washing out of her, a volatile mix of hope, fear, need and even a little bit of loss. She was breathing a little quickly, and her entire body was taut with tension.

Finally Mireille said hesitantly, "Mr. Roarke…yesterday I asked Leslie if I could stay here on the island, and live with her and Prince Christian." Roarke's eyes widened a bit at that, but he made no comment, letting her continue. "She said I'd need a better reason than getting away from Maman and Georges. But Mr. Roarke, it isn't fair. Patrick is on his own, and Antoinette is gone most of the time with her ballet troupe. I'm not old enough to get away like they are. They would never let Patrick keep me, I know." Mireille stopped to swallow, and Roarke saw desperation fill her eyes. "I guess I knew that cousine would tell me no, but I thought if it worked, I wouldn't have to do this. Except it didn't, so now I'm coming to you."

Roarke leaned forward and studied her with compassion. "You know that if you ever had a true and pressing need, Mireille, you and your brother and sister would be the very first people in the entire world to whom I would grant asylum on my island."

Mireille nodded. "That's what cousine said. Are you sure that I couldn't stay here?—because I know that awful Georges is going to do something to me if I have to go back to France with him and Maman. I told Leslie that he looks at me sometimes the same way he looks at Antoinette…and other times he looks at me as if he wants to kill me. He slaps me if I go to Patrick's flat, instead of going straight home from school. That's if Maman doesn't see him. But I have to go to Patrick's flat, because I know Georges will either look at me or hit me. And Maman…I don't understand why she stays with him. Why would she let him steal from our trust funds, and look at Antoinette like that, and hit me?"

Roarke asked, "Doesn't she know he does all this?"

"N-no," Mireille said, "but we don't dare say anything, because I know she wouldn't believe us. We can't save Maman from Georges ourselves. There's only one way." She sat up straight, cleared her throat, reached out and clutched the edge of his desk, and gave him a stare filled with every last ounce of her desperate appeal. "Please, Mr. Roarke, please, will you bring back Papa for us?"

Roarke stared at her, very much afraid he knew what she meant by that, but he asked her anyway. "Bring him back?"

"Yes," Mireille pleaded. "Make him alive again. If Papa comes back, Maman would go back to him, and he would save us from that terrible Georges, and he could finish his painting in the museum." Roarke, speechless, watched Mireille's eyes glitter through tears. "I'll pay you my whole entire trust fund if you'll bring Papa back for us, please!"

Roarke closed his eyes and slowly sat back in his chair, swamped by a sense of wistful longing that nearly equaled the girl's. "Oh, Mireille, Mireille, if only you knew what you ask of me. If only you knew how dearly I wish I could do so." Regretfully he opened his eyes and saw that Mireille's tears had spilled over. "Had I the power to bring Tattoo back to us, I could fulfill the fantasies of millions the world over. You would have your father, Christian and Leslie would have their mothers, I would have my wife…" He paused for a moment and closed his eyes once more, breathing deeply a few times to regain control. When he looked at her again, she was crying openly, though without making a sound. "Sweetheart, it isn't that I won't do it—it's that I cannot. I don't have that power."

"But…all the stories Patrick and Antoinette said Papa told them…" Mireille began, her expression lost, pleading, bewildered. "They said he told them you can do anything!"

"Did they indeed?" Roarke said, very gently. "Did they tell you specifically that I had the ability to restore life to the dead?"

"No…no, but they said you could do anything," Mireille protested, her voice collapsing under the weight of her fright and unhappiness. "They s-said…"

Roarke arose and rounded the desk, drawing the sobbing girl out of the chair and hugging her close. "They were young when your father told them those stories, I suspect," he said softly, smoothing her hair. "Perhaps they don't remember them as clearly as they believe they do. If you ask Leslie, she will tell you how dearly I wished, more than all else in the world, that I could bring my late wife back to life. I told your father himself that I would have given all that I owned, all that I was. I would still do so." He stepped back just enough to lift Mireille's chin with a thumb and forefinger. "I can't tell you how many times throughout my life I wished for that power. But we all have wishes, my dear Mireille, and life rarely sees fit to grant them."

"That's why…why you started to grant fantasies?" Mireille managed.

Roarke nodded. "I have always known my limitations, but I also knew that my life would be best served by using those powers I do possess to bring a little extra happiness into the lives of others. Oh, yes, I can do many things, indeed—but I have no ability to give life to the deceased, nor even to prevent an imminent death. My wife, Helena, died of a brain tumor. Medical science could do nothing, and neither could I. I am no doctor, and I have no ability that a doctor does not also have. And though sometimes I am able to see what lies in the future—sometimes, mind you—I cannot change nor prevent that future. What I can do is bring some happiness into people's lives, and help them in any way I possibly can, when conventional means fail. You see?"

Mireille stared up at him, an odd look on her face. Though she looked primarily like her mother, he could see Tattoo in her, and it made him miss his old friend again, in a very immediate way that he hadn't experienced in a long time. "I think I can see," she said, her voice still thick, laden with uncertainty but tinged with cautious hope. "Cousine says you'll know about Georges. She said you can find out what's happening."

"And so I will," Roarke told her, smiling. "You and Patrick and Antoinette are the children of the dearest friend I have ever had. I could refuse you nothing that's in my power to give you—no more so than I could refuse my own daughter, son-in-law or grandchildren. Tattoo would expect no less of me than to do all that was within my ability to help you, and I won't let you—or him—down, that I can promise you."

At last Mireille smiled—a thin, watery smile to be sure, but a smile nevertheless. "I have faith in you, Mr. Roarke," she said. "Even Maman said that Papa always remembered you as his best friend ever. So I'm going to trust you to help us." She threw her arms around him, squeezed swiftly, then stuck her feet into her sandals. "Merci beaucoup, Mr. Roarke!" With that, she ran out, and Roarke watched her for a moment, then returned to his chair; but for some time he simply sat there, remembering his old friend.