A Spark Unseen

30

When the carriage stopped at the red doors, Mary burst through them, her tongue running faster than my overly occupied mind could comprehend. But I did note that she was brushed, pressed, and had her hair done differently, with curls in the front. Together we hustled Uncle Tully through the door, coat on head, and I sent him straight up the stairs with Mary for tea and toast and probably his bed. My head was aching and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten or slept. I thought I might be surviving on my temper.

Lane, Henri, and Joseph came into the foyer having some sort of heated discussion in French, Henri and Joseph with the crate between them, and then I saw one of the things that Mary had undoubtedly been trying to tell me a few moments before. The salon door opened and Mrs. Hardcastle came out, the two Miss Mortimers and Mrs. Reynolds taking tea behind her. The pince-nez bounced on Mrs. Hardcastle’s bosom.

“Good Heavens, child,” she said. “Whatever has happened …” Her eyes went round. “Jean-Michel!”

Lane froze in the foyer, and I heard the sudden rattling of china and scraping of chairs and squeals from the salon. Joseph left the crate with Henri and scooted to the library, where I saw Jean-Baptiste’s head poking out, and then there were four faces in the salon door.

“Oh, Jean-Michel, you have a beard!” exclaimed the blonde Miss Mortimer.

Lane wiped his hands on his pants, smiled, and went first to Mrs. Reynolds, who had come out to greet him. He took her wrinkled hands in his, kissing both her cheeks even though he was filthy, burbling away like a Frenchman. When I saw the eager expressions of the two frilly girls waiting in line just behind her, I’d had enough. I didn’t care who he was, or what he thought he wasn’t.

“Mrs. Reynolds is perfectly aware that you speak very good English, Mr. Moreau.”

Lane’s back stiffened just a bit. He straightened, then turned around to face me. “My apologies, Mrs. Reynolds, but that is true,” the low voice said. He had spoken to her, but he was looking at me.

The brown-headed Miss Mortimer smiled in delight, not thinking beyond the English, while her blonde cousin stared at me with round, slightly frightened eyes. Probably because of the dirt. Or the pants. Mrs. Reynolds pretended I wasn’t there.

“Jean-Michel,” she said, her face softening pleasantly, “we are so happy to have you back. Do we have you to thank for this, Mr. Marchand?” Her gaze went straight past my face to where Henri must be standing somewhere behind me. “Do come next door and have some refreshment, Jean-Michel. Your room is waiting for you. Almost as you left it.” I caught the edge of her sharp glance. “I will have Hawkins get you settled immediately. Are you in need of a doctor, perhaps, or a glass a wine?”

This little speech was followed by all sorts of agreeable and sympathetic chirping from the girls, though Mrs. Hardcastle was quiet and intent, watching through the pince-nez. I straightened my back and cut through the chatter.

“So, Mr. Moreau, will you go to Mrs. Reynolds’s? Will you ‘pursue your art’? Is that your choice?”

Lane’s gray gaze had never yet left me. His hands came up slowly and slid into his pockets. I heard Henri light a cigarette. “No,” he said finally. “No, that is not my choice. I thought I might try America for a time.”

“America,” I repeated.

He closed his eyes for just a moment. Noble, I thought. He believed he was being noble.

“So is that what you want, Mr. Moreau?”

“No,” he said. “But don’t you think it’s best?”

I was so angry I wanted to hit him with another brick. “Eighteen months,” I said. “You leave without warning — and yes, I know why you went — but you allow eighteen months to go by without a line or a note. And do not tell me you didn’t trust the post. You could have done something to tell me you were alive, drawing breath, and capable of holding a pen. Couldn’t you, Mr. Moreau?”

“Yes.”

The four ladies’ faces swung back to me. “Only you chose to be silent. Is that correct, Mr. Moreau?”

“Yes.”

“And for more than two months I held the belief that you were alive despite every obstacle, against the word of my closest friend.” I saw Mary sit down on the landing above me. “The word of my solicitor, and what was supposed to be the British government. And then I came to Paris, inconveniencing the livelihoods of eight hundred and forty-nine people, distressing my most dear and beloved relative, traipsing across sea and the continent to find you, and all because you chose not to write. Is that correct, Mr. Moreau?”

“Yes.”

“Then explain yourself.” I lifted my chin, and the four sets of eyes in the salon door went as one to Lane. I watched him coiling like a spring.

“All right. You want to hear an explanation? I’ll give it to you. Do you have any idea, Miss Tulman,” he was as deliberate on my name as I had been on his, “do you have any notion at all, what they are saying about you in London?”

I felt myself tense.

“Well, I do. Aunt Bit told me, she showed me letters. Filthy, nasty gossip, and it wasn’t just London, it was in the village, too. Tattling ladies at their kitchen windows and men at the docks, the ones that didn’t know you, that liked to listen to rumors. And do you know why they were saying those things, dragging your name through the muck? It wasn’t because of you, Miss Tulman. It was because of me!” This last had been almost a shout, one finger slamming into the center of his chest. “Me! Not you! Because when I was born, your grandmother paid my father a wage!”

I felt one hot tear slide down my cheek. My grandmother had certainly never paid his father a wage, but Lane would never know that. He was mesmerizing, just as he’d been in the cavern, but this pain was very real, and it hurt me.

“Do you have any idea what it was like to walk down the village lane and hear those things? To have your house pointed out to me in Paris?” He flung out a hand at the women beside him. “Do you know what those ladies said you were … in front of me?” One of the Miss Mortimers put a gloved hand to her mouth. “I did not write, Miss Tulman, so you could be free of all that.”

“And I suppose,” I said quietly, “that you thought the loss of my good name would be too much for me. Would have me flying to pieces and make my life unlivable. Well, thank you so much for making that decision for me, Mr. Moreau. It was obviously my good name I was searching every hospital in Paris for!”

“She has you on that one, mon ami,” said Henri.

“Mr. Moreau, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself and continuing on at Stranwyne on my own.” And I could, I realized. I had been. “But I believe it is a question of more, rather than less.”

He looked up sharply, and I saw that the significance of these words had not been lost on him.

“Whatever you think you should have done and didn’t over the past few days … I believe that you made a choice, and that it was correct.” I would never tell him he’d been contemplating the murder of his half brother. “I know it to have been correct. Someone very wise once told me that you always know what is right, and I believe him. I think to have done differently would have made you … less. I do not think you could have lived with less. I, personally, prefer to live with more, and don’t care a whit what those ladies over there think of it.”

He ran a hand through his hair.

“Do you love me?” I asked.

All heads swiveled to Lane. He closed his eyes, so he didn’t have to look at me.

“Do you?”

“No,” he said, voice firm. Then he opened his eyes and his shoulders slumped. “Yes. But I have nothing to offer.”

“What do you want to offer?”

He cocked his head. “What do you want?”

“What do you think I want?”

The heads of the ladies bounced back and forth in unison.

“Home?” he tried.

“I have that. It happens to be the same as yours. Unless you prefer America.”

“Position?”

“No. I don’t want that. Do you?”

“Not really.”

“Good. We both seem to be fresh out, anyway.”

“Family?”

“Mine’s rather dodgy.” But not as much as yours, I thought.

“I’ve got Aunt Bit.”

“She’s practically my aunt, anyway.”

“Money, then?”

“Hmm. I have property, but possibly not much in the way of cash. You could bring that to the table, if you wished.”

A small silence followed this, while Lane considered. After a few moments, he shrugged.

“Then we can proceed on those terms, Mr. Moreau?”

“Yes, I suppose we can.”

“Good. Then I have one more question of importance for you. What is your relationship with Marie LeFevre?”

All the heads swiveled back to Lane. “What do you mean, exactly, Miss Tulman?”

“I mean that she seems extraordinarily fond of you and rather … robust in her constitution.”

A rush of French began from the library doors, from both Joseph and Jean-Baptiste. Henri began translating from behind me.

“The sister of Joseph and Jean-Baptiste seems to have had an … entanglement with a boy who Jean-Michel put on a train to Nice before Joseph could do something … unfortunate to his person, therefore saving the tender feelings of the sister, and Joseph some time in purgatory.” Jean-Baptiste said something else, and Henri said, “And she is so grateful, this sister, that now they meet Jean-Michel on street corners and leave their sister at home, as is best. That is all.”

I looked back to Lane, and so did everyone else. A tiny flush was creeping beneath his tan skin. “That seems satisfactory,” I said.

Lane raised his brows, and we looked at each other across the marble tiles of my grandmother’s foyer.

“So, you’re coming home with me, then?”

“Yes.”

“And that is what you choose?”

“Yes,” he said, “that is what I choose.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “Is that what you choose?”

I took a deep breath. “Yes, it is. We’ll discuss your plans for making money on the train. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll just let you all chat for a few moments while I go upstairs and put on a dress.” And take a bath, and possibly cry, I thought. “I’m certain you will have things to explain to Mrs. Reynolds.” I started to pick up my skirts, remembered I didn’t have any, and instead walked with as much dignity as I could muster toward the stairs. The gray gaze followed me.

“Mr. Moreau,” said Mrs. Reynolds, as if she were trying out the name, “I am so concerned that you would leave Paris. Are you certain you wish to … abandon your art?”

Lane did not answer her. Instead he came across the foyer, and before I could protest he had his hands on my head and his mouth on mine, hard. By the time he let me go I was blushing, as he’d meant for me to be.

“Go on, then,” he said, his grin at me wicked. But I didn’t. I stayed where I was, watching him go gracefully across the foyer to do his penance with Mrs. Reynolds, unable to contain my smile. With Mrs. Hardcastle in the room, Lane Moreau might as well have put an announcement in the Times.

I had not yet started up the stairs when I had another hand on my arm.

“I am taking my leave, Miss Tulman,” said Henri. “Here, you will allow me to be French just this once.”

He kissed me on both my dirty cheeks, a strange feeling, as they were both still flushed from Lane. I glanced once toward the salon, where I saw the gray gaze shooting daggers through the door.

“There! That was not so bad,” said Henri, his brown eyes sparkling, “but I think it was not quite the same, no?” He was teasing me, and he knew full well that Lane was looking. But then he became serious. “You should get out of Paris quickly, yes? I would not bother much with packing. Take Mr. Tulman safely to his home and make your young man behave. That will be more than enough to keep you busy.”

“You are certain you can go to the ambassador without danger to yourself?”

He made a little poof noise that I assumed meant that I should not worry. “I am … what is the word? Slippery. Have you not noticed, Miss Tulman? I am going as soon as I can change my clothes. If I do not, I shall have to console the women in your salon. I would rather be with the ambassador, I think.”

“Here,” I said, putting a hand on his arm, “now you will allow me to be French.” I kissed his cheek, gratified by an expression of sleek surprise, and then doubly so to glance over my shoulder and find Lane’s face dark with annoyance. I smiled at him, and when I turned back around, Henri was already gone. Joseph slouched in the doorway to the library, and so quick I thought perhaps I had not seen it, he winked. Still smiling, I turned and hurried up the stairs to Marianna’s room, shut the door and leaned on it, breathing hard, as if I’d just won a race.

I dismissed the velvet chair at a glance, and instead went to the bed and sank down beside it, hoping I was not too dirty for the floor. Mary, being the wonder that she was, had a tub of water ready for me before the hearth. I needed to wash the dust from my hair, to take care of the myriad tasks that would get us out of Paris in the morning, especially concerning my uncle. But I was so tired. Everything in me ached, except for the one place that had been aching so long it had become a part of who I was; now that place was unknotted, unloosed, wonderfully and blessedly free. I felt my eyes closing, resting in the feel of it.

I jumped when the door burst open. “Lord!” Mary said, blowing through the room like a hurricane. “Ain’t you done good, Miss! Mr. Tully, he’s gone and made his own toast, brushed his jacket, and put himself to bed, no wrapping up of blankets or nothing.”

She tugged me to my feet.

“It’s a marvel, that is. But, Miss … now I ain’t talking about Mr. Tully no more when I say this, Miss, but …”

She paused in the act of peeling off my dirty clothes, hands on my shoulders, her eyes as large and round as I’d ever seen them.

“But if that weren’t a lesson on handling a man, then I don’t know what was!” She stripped me down and gave me a push toward the tub. “I’m thinking you did real good, Miss! Real good. Now if I was able to be going about saying all that in French, then I’d be taking a page out of your book, if you take my meaning, Miss. I’m certain it would be a favor to me. …”

I held my second foot over the water, the momentary bliss at the thought of being clean taken away by the sudden memory of Robert’s body, lying still and broken on the cavern floor. “Mary, I need to —”

“Talking a man’s head right ’round till he don’t know where he’s at. That’s artful, that is, Miss, and I’m thinking ’tis what a young man needs. Now take that Jean-Baptiste, Miss, he’s a real nice young man, Miss, settled you know, more mature, not so silly and boyish. Do you know what I’m talking about, Miss?” She guided me into the water with a splash.

“Mary, I —”

“And with a real interesting name. Jean-Baptiste! It’s so foreign sounding, ain’t it, and it rolls right off the tongue. Jean-Baptiste,” she demonstrated, shoving a chunk of soap into my hands. “Jean-Baptiste. Jean-Baptiste! He was staying here all night and day, Miss, helping me with the packing up and such. I figured we was going, Miss, just as soon as we was able, and him being just as gentlemanly as you please, teaching me some real useful French, and you know what he did, Miss?”

I slid farther into the water and vowed to forever hold my peace.

“He was showing me how to pick a lock, Miss! Now that’s real interesting, and real useful …”

“Mary,” I said softly, “I am terribly glad to see you.”

“… and what do you think, Miss, if he didn’t find all your money and a paper or two in the top of Mr. Babcock’s second-best hat! So now we can be paying the dressmaker. And he’s liking hair curls best, Miss. Has a real fondness for … Lord! Or what I mean to be saying is sacré bleu!” Mary plucked something from my pile of discarded clothing, and held it up to the light. “Is this thing a ruby?”

I didn’t remember if I answered or what Mary said next. I fell asleep in the tub.