“… quite well, Miss Tulman?” My gaze jerked to the second Miss Mortimer, with the brown frizz sticking out from beneath her blue bonnet. She was frowning at me.
“I am so sorry. What did you say?”
“I was inquiring after your health, Miss Tulman,” she said stiffly. “Aunt Reynolds said you weren’t feeling quite yourself last night.”
Mr. Marchand examined the coin as it flipped across the back of his fingers. “What the young lady wishes to ask and will not, Miss Tulman,” he said, voice slow and lazy, “is what in the name of the Holy Mother you have done to your face?”
I blushed — I could not help it — and only just kept my hand from creeping up to my bruised cheek. Mrs. Hardcastle laughed. “Oh, really, Henri,” she cried. “You are too much, truly!”
I arranged my face and sat a little straighter in my chair. “It’s nothing. I am not yet acquainted with the house, and I’m afraid I just … walked into a door. In the dark. That’s all.”
Mrs. Hardcastle clucked and had begun relating one of her own misadventures when Mr. Marchand leaned close and said, “And I had thought your aim in the dark better than that, Miss Tulman. It seemed so last night. Tell me, is that cut on your neck also from a door?”
A shadow moved across the entrance to the salon. “Ah,” I said. “The tea is here.”
The ladies stared, dumbstruck as Mrs. DuPont came with her severe hair and silent tread to set a tray with teapot, cups, sugar, cream, and a plate of wafer-thin biscuits that I was unfamiliar with on the table between us. She slid out the door like the living dead and I began to pour, counting sugar lumps and stirring with spoons, using the opportunity to think. How likely was Mrs. DuPont to keep her mouth closed, and what exactly did she know? How soon would my uncle wake, and what would happen if I was detained when he did? Would he try to leave the attic? I decided to take control of the conversation. Perhaps if I made myself sufficiently obnoxious they would all go away on their own. I set down my spoon.
“Miss Mortimer.” Both the blonde curls and the brown frizz looked around. They had been craning their necks, stealing glances into the foyer. Hoping for a glimpse of Mr. Babcock, I surmised. I said, “The Madeleine is a very fine building, I hear. Perhaps your aunt could recommend a course of study on Parisian architecture during your stay. I’m sure you would find it improving.”
I was pleased by an expression of disgust from one and a look of dismay from the other. “Aunt Reynolds doesn’t care a fig for fine buildings,” the blonde curls sniffed. “She has been very cross and out of sorts of late. I’m sure you must have noticed it at dinner. It makes one wish to visit the seaside or go somewhere else pleasant.”
“Like the emperor’s ball,” sighed the brown frizz.
Mr. Marchand had set down his cup and was playing with his franc again, letting it travel from finger to finger in a way that was rather astonishing. I deliberately kept my gaze away from him as I turned the conversation where it was least wanted. “Is Mrs. Reynolds politically minded, then? I had thought she was perhaps disturbed last night by the dissenting opinions on the war.”
The blonde Miss Mortimer almost snorted while her cousin gaped. Mrs. Hardcastle chuckled.
“Miss Tulman, my dear cousin Reynolds has likely never thought of politics in her life,” she said. “I fear that she is rather undone by the loss of her protégé.”
“Ah, the protégé!” said Mr. Marchand, snatching the coin from a flip through the air. “I hear of nothing else.”
I looked at them all blankly. “I’m afraid I don’t understand the term.”
“Why, Miss Tulman, having a protégé is quite the thing!” said the brown-frizzed Miss Mortimer.
“It shows your dedication to culture and the arts,” explained Mrs. Hardcastle. “My cousin was supporting a painter. …”
“Jean-Michel!” sighed one of the young ladies.
“Yes, Jean-Michel, whom she thought to be quite promising. He lived in a small studio upstairs, where he was developing his talent. But nearly two weeks ago, well … he just disappeared, I’m sorry to say. Left the house one morning and never returned.”
I thought of the room in the upper floor with the covered easels, my eyes darting reflexively toward the window, and when I did I nearly choked on my tea. The slouching man was back at his lamppost, a dripping newspaper held over his head, watching my house in the rain. I cleared my throat and said, “Have the police been consulted, Mrs. Hardcastle?”
“That part was rather thrilling,” confided the brown frizz.
“Don’t be horrible, Jane,” replied the other. “I can hardly think of something terrible happening to Jean-Michel. Such clever fingers when he painted …”
“You perceive my annoyance,” said Mr. Marchand, once again leaning close to my chair. I did not respond, hoping he would perceive mine. I glanced again at the man outside the window. Mr. Marchand began switching the franc from hand to hand so quickly it was difficult to follow with the eyes.
“Paris,” he pronounced, the coin moving back and forth, “is a city full of people.” The coin moved in a blur. “And where there are the people, then … poof!” He spread his hands with a sudden flourish, showing only empty palms. “Things, they disappear. It is the way of the world, is it not?”
Mrs. Hardcastle and the Miss Mortimers set down their cups and clapped, but not with so much amazement as to make me think they had never seen Mr. Marchand’s tricks before. He turned to me and said, “The protégé is not the only one with clever fingers, n’est-ce pas?”
“Very … dexterous,” I said.
He smiled, and I saw that his eyes were not just brown, but many colors, shot through with yellow and green, impossible to say which might be dominant. His hands gave another flourish and the coin reappeared between two fingers. He laid it in my palm, still smiling. “For you, Miss Tulman, so you may hire a guard to walk you to the next door.”
Mrs. Hardcastle laughed uproariously at this, but my gaze went again to the window before landing back on Mr. Marchand. He was teasing me, but I could not tell if there was anything of substance behind his grin. And then I heard the squeak of floorboards from the ceiling. There were footsteps moving over my head. Someone was walking — no, running — through my bedchamber. I threw a startled glance through the salon door, where I could just catch a glimpse of the stairs. Had anyone thought to lock the storeroom?
“Shall you come to dinner again tonight, Miss Tulman?” the blonde Miss Mortimer was saying rather halfheartedly, her eyes on the franc in my hand. She was pouting. The noise of feet moving back and forth pattered above my head, and I looked again out the window. I needed these people to leave. Quickly.
“Thank you,” I replied, “but I have … engagements, early in the morning. And actually, I have much to accomplish this —”
“Oh!” said the brown Miss Mortimer, setting down her cup, “do you have other acquaintances in Paris, Miss Tulman?”
I saw Mrs. Hardcastle’s face perk with interest, and gave myself a mental kick. The floorboards groaned with the hurried steps. “No,” I said, a little too fast. “No, my visits tomorrow are …” My mind raced, searching for anything that would be dull to the present company. “… of a charitable nature. I plan to tour several public institutions, to improve what is offered to the villagers on the Stranwyne estate.”
I was gratified by the look of repugnance shared between the two young ladies, and the slight boredom of Mrs. Hardcastle.
“But this is noble, Miss Tulman!” said Mr. Marchand. “I have an interest in such things myself. Allow me to escort you on your tour.”