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card?”
    Nate shook his head. “No, nothing. Sorry.”
    Maureen smiled at Nate and thanked him, anxious to get upstairs and see what the red box contained.
    She was still smiling as she entered her room, intoxicated by the heavenly scent of the lilies. There was only one man in the world who knew that these were her favorite flowers, because lilies and roses were symbolic of Mary Magdalene. There was only one man who would have sent such an elaborate display.
    Bérenger Sinclair.
    In spite of herself, Maureen felt that nearly indescribable electric thrill that runs up the spine and covers the skin with goose bumps. God help her, she was still madly infatuated with him, if not in love, and who would blame her? He was good-looking in that darkly charismatic Celtic way, charming, brilliant, and extraordinarily wealthy and powerful. But he was also infuriating in his arrogance and had displayed a propensity toward being harsh and judgmental. Bérenger had wounded her deeply, which was something she could not allow to happen again anytime soon.
    Still, after all they had been through together, he understood her more than any other man on earth.
    Throughout Maureen’s quest, Bérenger had protected her, sheltered her, and even educated her in the folklore and traditions that surrounded the Magdalene mysteries in France. There was no doubt that he had dramatically influenced and altered her life, no doubt that they were inextricably connected in their destinies. However, everything about him was potentially dangerous. Bérenger was a notorious European playboy and a confirmed bachelor. At the age of fifty, he had never been married and had never been inclined toward a serious commitment of any kind that she was aware of. He explained his years of bach-elorhood as not wanting to settle for any woman who was not expressly made for him. Upon meeting Maureen, he said, he was certain. She was the one, the reason no other woman had ever held his interest.
    It was a pretty explanation. Perhaps too pretty. There were a lot of warning signs with a man like Bérenger, even prior to their terrible argument. He had apologized, but Maureen remained wary.
    And yet her stomach turned over at the thought that these flowers had come from him.
    Untying the ribbon carefully, Maureen removed the blooms and lifted the lid on the box. There was a card in a sealed envelope that read “Miss Paschal.” Strange, Bérenger would not address her that way. Perhaps it was simply the florist’s formality. Maureen looked back down into the box and removed the tissue paper that covered the contents. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it was most certainly not this. Contained within was what appeared to be an ancient document. Whether it was real or a replica was impossible to tell at first. However, it was carefully encased between panes of glass: some effort had been taken to protect it. Gently, Maureen lifted it out of the box. It was nearly two feet long, terribly yellowed with time or else a very good copy, and frayed around the uneven edges.
    The text of the document, written in a flowery yet exacting Latin script, filled three quarters of the page. Glancing through it, noting the ancient form and the elaborate handwriting, Maureen didn’t think she would be able to decipher it. Her Latin was serviceable, but this was a challenge for a scholar with skills far beyond her rudimentary vocabulary.
    It was the signature at the bottom that was most arresting. Bold and elaborate, it was clearly hand-drawn with ink, and yet it resembled a seal of some type, with a Latin cross drawn between the letters:

    Maureen took out her Moleskine notebook and wrote out the letters from the medieval signature in a linear way. It read
     
    MATILDA DEI GRA SI QUO EST
     
    It appeared to say “Matilda, by the Grace of God Who Is.”
    Beneath the letters there were two additional symbols: one looked like a stylized version of the letter H , if the vertical lines were