obscure my view of the street. Mr. Babcock sat up against the cushion, adjusting his waistcoat. It was a horrible piece of finery, embroidered with many-colored flowers, but his gesture was one that I recognized. He was sliding into his official role of solicitor. I folded my hands.
“As I have explained before,” he began, “the house has been empty and shut up for some time. But you should know that a family by the name of DuPont has been engaged for several years now to do the housekeeping. A rather easy income for them, merely coming in once a month or so to do a minimum of cleaning, and a letter to my offices should repairs be needed, et cetera. They have now been informed of your impending arrival by post, express post, and telegraph, but these communications may not have been received, or may not have been received in time to engage proper help. So I warn you that the house may not be in readiness.”
“I daresay a bit of dust will not frighten me, Mr. Babcock,” I said, smiling. Stranwyne Keep had been one great pile of dust and damp when I first came there; parts of it were little more still. Mr. Babcock acknowledged this with a chuckle before he continued.
“It is the … ‘special’ rooms that I need to discuss with you, my dear. How your grandmother came to know of them I could not tell you, though there were distant cousins living in Paris around the time of the Terror, I believe. Perhaps they knew of some unfortunate who had used the place to evade the guillotine. In any case, when it became evident that your uncle would not outgrow his oddities and that a removal from England might be someday necessary, Marianna acquired the house and had these secret rooms made ready.”
“In what ways did she ready them, Mr. Babcock?”
“I know not. Only that there is a door behind a shelf in a room on the top floor for which I have the key. We can only hope the place is adequate, or is still adequate, after all this time.”
My gaze went back to the window. We were moving again.
“All of this was long before Mr. and Mrs. DuPont were employed, of course, and with no permanent residents in the house, it is my hope the rooms are still hidden …”
I bit my lip. I had not even thought of this. What if the rooms had been discovered? What would we do with Uncle Tully then?
“… and why it is absolutely essential that they remain so. This could require some ingenuity on your part, my dear.”
I nodded again.
“You will need a housekeeper immediately. I would suggest one that is English speaking, who can procure a cook and as many staff as she deems necessary on your behalf. But none of these should sleep in the house. This is important, Katharine. Your help needs to be of the daytime variety. But this will be unusual, and cause for remark.”
I pulled my eyes back to the little man, feeling a tiny frown wrinkle my forehead. “But, Mr. Babcock, who would possibly remark upon it?”
Mr. Babcock tugged on the hideous waistcoat. “Perhaps you are not aware, my dear, how much of our English society reside off and on in Paris? And there are even more at the moment, fleeing the cholera in London. You are a young heiress, coming unaccompanied to the city with no one but one maid and your solicitor. It will be talked of, and you should expect to be visited. You can reasonably plead mourning for a time, but you will be required to take a place in society.”
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
