“Won’t you sit …” I stopped speaking. There was not a chair uncovered.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Hardcastle, looking about. “A very nice room, I am sure.”
I clasped my hands behind my back. “I apologize for not being able to properly receive you, Mrs. Hardcastle. As I said before, we have only just arrived. I cannot even offer you a cup of tea.”
“Old friends should never stand on ceremony,” she said, wandering over to examine a watercolor through the pince-nez.
I could recall no time when I had considered Mrs. Hardcastle a friend. “I do thank you for the dinner invitation, but …”
“Yes, yes. We shall have just a few guests, three or four courses, nothing too fancy. Eight o’clock is our usual hour. I do so look forward to introducing you, Katharine. Very much, indeed.”
I narrowed my eyes. There had been genuine enthusiasm in that last statement, and why would that be? I thought of Mr. Babcock’s words in the carriage, and all that Mrs. Hardcastle must have heard at Aunt Alice’s tea table. My lips pressed together. Mr. Babcock, as usual, had been perfectly correct. My reputation had found me. His only mistake was that the process had not taken weeks; it had taken exactly five minutes. But I had no intention of being Mrs. Hardcastle’s item of curiosity for the night. I straightened my back.
“Please accept my apologies, Mrs. Hardcastle,” I said, without the slightest hint of regret, “but I must decline your invitation.”
Mrs. Hardcastle opened her mouth in surprise, her head cocking once more to the side. With the feathers on her hat, it made her look like a very plump chicken.
“Perhaps you are not yet aware that I am in mourning, Mrs. Hardcastle. That — and the newness of my arrival — make it impossible for me to accept invitations at this time.”
“Mourning?” she repeated, the pince-nez now taking in the significance of my clothing colors.
“Yes. My uncle, Mr. Frederick Tulman, he is … gone.” And, as luck would have it, this is exactly what I hoped was true. I could hear low voices and movement in the foyer.
“… had no idea, my child. Is Alice Tulman aware of the circumstance?”
“I am not certain, actually. My aunt and I … are not on speaking terms.”
“No, I daresay you are not.” Mrs. Hardcastle’s breath whooshed through her nose. “Well, that is all the more reason to come, dearest child. No one stays inside the house in Paris. You must let our little party help you forget your troubles.” She smiled at me. “We dine at eight.”
The presumption jumped right beneath my skin, where it prickled. “The idea is out of the question, Mrs. Hardcastle. Another carriage ride today would be most unpleasant. Come to tea tomorrow, if you like, but for now I will stay in my own house and tend to my own affairs.” I took a breath. “And I would be most gratified if you would address me as ‘Miss Tulman.’”
Mrs. Hardcastle’s face wore an expression I remembered from Aunt Alice’s morning room. A smile, but one that hid something ugly, like the prettily embroidered cloth that covers a casket.
“Why, of course, Miss Tulman. I hope I did not offend. I was merely eager to hear more of you and your intended stay in Paris.”
I inclined my head, thinking I would not mind knowing the same of her. I had been too busy dealing with the fact of her presence to even question why it should be here.
“But please,” she continued, “do not think me so rude as to wish you to traipse about the city on the very day of your arrival. I assume you know the Reynolds family? They are set up just next door. Mrs. Reynolds is my husband’s second cousin and I am with her for a several months’ stay. I had the good fortune to witness your arrival from the drawing-room window.”
I stared back at her, trying to process this information, the knot that had become a permanent feature of my insides pulling agonizingly tight.
“Good day to you, Miss Tulman. I do hope we will be favored with your company soon.”
I returned her curtsy, and then, waking slightly from my shock, ran to the pocket door, getting there just in time to block her exit. I cracked the door, saw that the foyer was devoid of trunks, and only then allowed her out. She chose not to comment on my bizarre behavior, but swept from the salon in an elegant rustle, stepping over the fallen bonnets. The front door closed, and less than a half minute later, still standing in the salon, I also heard the faint close of another door, outside and down the sidewalk, just beyond the shuttered window I had tried to open.
I closed my eyes. No one but I, Katharine Tulman, could run across land and sea to hide a supposed-dead uncle from not one but two governments, only to move next door to one of the most blatant gossips on the continent. I really wasn’t sure why I was surprised. And then I remembered my uncle. I picked up my skirts, hurried through the empty foyer, and ran up the stairs.
On the second landing, I passed our two drivers, going down with a heavy tread, one of them rubbing his arms. They tipped their caps, otherwise ignoring me. I assumed this meant they had been paid and continued my dash for five more steps before I met Mrs. DuPont coming down with a smooth, almost unnatural glide. I stopped.
“Have you not gone home yet, Mrs. DuPont?”
“The house, it is full of English,” she hissed.
I squeezed past her on the stairs, in too much of a hurry to consider the sense of this comment, the question of what she might have been doing on the upper floors all that time more prominent in my mind. Light footsteps clacked down the steps and the girl Marguerite blew past me in a streak, another book, larger this time, tucked beneath her arm. She maneuvered around her mother and across the landing, her clamor sinking lower into the house.
I had twisted my head to watch her go, sure I’d already seen her descend once before, and when I turned back again I was facing yet another figure, this time a man I’d never seen. He was short and gray-headed, lines and wrinkles on his cheeks, though the muscles in his chest were still hard, wiry with strength. I could see all this very clearly, as he was wearing no shirt. I stopped dead on the stairs.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
Mrs. DuPont said something in French that I thought might be angry, but the man did not answer either one of us, just kept the pace of his downward tread.
“Excuse me,” I said, “but why are you not … clothed?”
“Ah,” he sighed as if the world were a sad place indeed,
I found myself pressing against the wall to let him pass. He joined Mrs. DuPont, who was sputtering rapidly in French, and then I remembered my business and ran to the fourth floor, where I found Mr. Babcock. He immediately took my arm, steering me toward the little storeroom.
“Are they gone?” he asked.
“Mrs. Hardcastle is,” I replied, panting from the climb, “but I met a man on the stairs without … well … when I inquired about his clothing, I believe he told me that Napoleon was dead.”
“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Babcock. “That would be Mr. DuPont. He informed me of Napoleon’s demise as well. The first Napoleon, I assume, not the current one.” He pulled a ribbon from beneath his shirt, a key hanging on its end. “A helpful man, quite correct in his assertions, though his information appears to be limited.”
I shrugged a shoulder in agreement with this as Mr. Babcock shut the storeroom door and locked it behind us. The trunk was now in the middle of the floor, its contents quiet, and Mary was running her hands over a section of shelves on the far wall.
“You gave him a dose?” I asked Mary, joining her to examine the shelves.
“Had to, Miss. Is the old bat gone?”
“Yes.” I chose a section of the dirty wood and felt carefully, looking for a latch or anything that might be out of place. Mr. Babcock got with difficulty onto his hands and knees at the corner of the room, where the shelf wall began, and peered upward. “We have to get Uncle Tully out of that trunk soon,” I said. The worry was returning, eating at my stomach like an ulcer. “Dr. Pruitt said much longer than this would be unwise, and he’s already been several hours without water.”
“I know it, Miss. And I’m not looking forward to the cleaning of that trunk, if you don’t mind me saying. It weren’t so nice when I opened the lid, though I suppose he can’t be helping it, and them old dresses is only fit for the fire. …”
