I stared at him. My plans had centered solely on smuggling my uncle out of Stranwyne, keeping him happy and hidden from both the British and the French, and finding one young man in a city of thousands upon thousands. Teacups and pursed lips in a parlor I had not reckoned with. And why should I reckon with them? I opened my mouth, but Mr. Babcock cut short my protest.
“You must appear normal, Katharine. An unconventional or hermit-like existence can only increase the mystique, while also raising the suspicions of the already suspicious, like our friend Mr. Wickersham. For your uncle’s sake, you must not draw untoward attention, which, ironically, is exactly what staying strictly at home would bring you. You must be a quiet English girl in mourning, beginning anew in a foreign land, wishing to live a dull, unremarkable life of purity and simplicity. That is the impression you must give.”
I looked hard at Mr. Babcock. There was something in his tone, an extra layer of discomfort in this conversation that had fully awakened my faculties. I sat taller in the swaying carriage. “Explain what you mean by ‘purity,’ Mr. Babcock.”
He returned my gaze solemnly, the shrewd eyes hooded, and then a smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “Really, my dear. You shouldn’t do that. You were so like your grandmother just then, I was transported thirty years backward and nearly forgot where I was.”
I waited, watching the smile on his mismatched features fade to resignation, then determination.
“Child, I have not spoken of this issue to you, as it really had no bearing on your life at Stranwyne Keep, and you were so little disposed to venture out. …” He glanced once at Mary, breathing heavily in her sleep against the upholstered wall. “I am speaking, of course, of Lane Moreau.”
I looked back out the window.
“Do not be offended, my dear. There are few in England who could understand the circumstance of Stranwyne as I do, or the worth of the young man in question. His importance to the well-being of your uncle can never be undervalued. But the fact remains that Mr. Moreau was a servant in your house, that Alice Tulman owed you a particular grudge for the crime of inheriting the estate, and that she was well aware of the relationship before she went back to London. I believe it has made for … interesting conversation in certain circles.”
Memory flashed brilliant through my mind, the dim light of Stranwyne’s kitchen corridor, my fingers in Lane’s hair and his mouth on mine, and the small, tight smile on the face of my aunt. I had never imagined that Aunt Alice would actually reject an opportunity for revenge against me, especially one so temptingly within her grasp. But facing the malicious gossip of proper ladies was a very different prospect in this Parisian carriage than when viewed from the faraway peace of my bedchamber in Stranwyne. “Then you are saying, Mr. Babcock, that my reputation is ruined, and that my sullied state, so to speak, will follow me to Paris.”
Mr. Babcock looked unhappy. “Perhaps not right away. You were relatively unknown in London society, but it will soon come out, and to be perfectly honest with you, my dear, I would call your reputation at this point less ‘sullied’ than ‘infamous.’ Hence the need for starting from a place of ladylike quiet and normality. But I am not proposing some scheme to rehabilitate your standing in society, Katharine. I am thinking of your uncle. We must avoid drawing any more attention to the house than can possibly be helped. For his sake.”
I nodded yet again, trying to digest this newfound vision of myself, my eyes glancing away from a black-bearded gentleman who was much too short. Mr. Babcock cleared his throat.
“And, Katharine, that should also include any odd ramblings far from home or visits to remarkable places.”
My head whipped around to face him. He meant I was not to go looking for Lane.
“Ah! Now you are angry! But it must be said. I agreed to this mad plan of coming to Paris because of the unavoidable need for speed, your grandmother’s preparations, and because the sheer idiocy of bringing your uncle here contained a certain potential to baffle both sets of our enemies. But you, Katharine, are what stands between Frederick Tulman and what is certain to be harmful to him. You are his only protection. You must look after the living, not go chasing after the dead.”
I turned back to the window. “You do not know that he is dead.”
When the little lawyer’s voice came again it was tired. “Lane was doing dangerous work. Work he chose to go and do, Katharine.”
I closed my eyes. Yes, Lane had chosen to go. But not for the reasons that Mr. Wickersham had wanted him to, no matter how much Mr. Wickersham now tried to deny it. He’d wanted to be certain that Ben Aldridge no longer breathed, to make amends for Davy’s senseless death, and to avenge Ben’s treatment of me. Information about French naval preparations would have been far secondary to Lane Moreau.
“Katharine, my child, Mr. Wickersham may not be what I would call an honorable man, but it is unlikely that he is making a pronouncement without reason. He has no motivation to do so. It is best that we face that fact. No matter how we might wish it to be otherwise.”
“He has shown no evidence to me,” I snapped. “And he is a liar. If all was as Mr. Wickersham says, then Lane would have written. He is not an idiot. He would have found a way to communicate with me, as he did before. And if he has not written it was because he has been prevented, and that would be long before Mr. Wickersham’s ridiculous story about being drowned in the Seine.” The carriage bucked once, as if in response to my mood, and I kept my eyes stubbornly on the streets. “Lane could swim, Mr. Babcock. Very well. He has been prevented. Hurt or … detained … but not …”
I let my words trail away. There had been a time in my life when I had thought I was going mad, before I learned of Ben’s subtle drugging of my tea. How I had hated not being able to believe what was before my eyes. Now I had to trust in what was not before my eyes, because the alternative was unbearable. I looked back across the seat to where Mr. Babcock remained silent, his misshapen face cast down. I reached out and took his hand.
“I will take care of my uncle, I promise you that. I will keep him as safe and happy as I am able. I will eat biscuits and have uninteresting conversation with ladies I dislike. I will conduct myself like a model of English gentility. Like a novice nun, if necessary. But I will look for him, Mr. Babcock.”
Mr. Babcock patted my hand awkwardly. “Really, my dear, I expected no less.”
8
It was not long after this conversation that the carriage turned onto a small, narrow street marked RUE TRUDON and jerked to a halt. Mary’s eyes flew open and once again we competed for the view from the window. Before us was a house of stone, four stories high, intricate wrought iron decorating the lower half of the windows. Two red-painted doors marked an entrance at the level of a narrow sidewalk. The houses continued on either side, as if rectangular blocks had been stuck together by a playing child, all in differing sizes and hues, making for a changing, yet unbroken, line of dwellings in both directions to the end of the street.
Then I saw that there was a girl on her knees before the red doors, her scrubbing of the paving stones interrupted by our arrival. She was a blue-eyed, yellow-headed, fair-skinned angel of a thing with dirty hands and a sodden apron. She stared at the carriage for a bare second before leaping to her feet. The water bucket tipped, a sudsy pool slowly surrounding the forgotten scrub brush as one red door slammed shut behind her.