A Spark Unseen

first notion of where we could go. The knot inside me twinged with familiar pain as I glanced guiltily at Mary; there was nothing about my life lately that did not involve guilt. “I had thought to tell them that my maid was … prone to nightmares. Do you mind?”

“Lord, what would I care, Miss?” she replied, tucking in the last corner of blanket. “’Tis no skin off my nose, as they say.”

I wondered what I had ever done in life to be blessed with the likes of Mary Brown. “Then let’s try to keep him calm,” I said, “but if he shouts, he shouts. And be sure and move about normally. I need to understand what can be heard from the other house. But you’re perfectly right about giving him a time. Let’s say eleven … no, we’d do better to say half past. Mrs. Hardcastle mentioned four courses, and I’ll need time to look about the house.” Only heaven knew how I was going to manage that.

Mary shook her head, a dark smudge beneath each eye. “Well, don’t be a minute after, that’s what I’m saying, Miss. There’ll be the devil to pay if you are. Is there anything fit after being stuffed in your trunk — your dresses, I’m meaning, Miss, not your uncle, and I’m meaning your real trunk, of course, the other one — and are you needing any help with your hair?”

I’d told her that I could find something to put on and do my own hair. And I did, my appearance scarcely being a priority. But the deep brown silk rustling at my toes suited me well, and under artificial light should be dark enough to be taken for proper mourning. It was a far cry from a gray worsted dress, I reminded myself. I touched the small, healing cut on my neck, pulled some wisping curls around my face, hoping to lessen the effects of fatigue I could plainly see there, turned from the gilded mirror of the foyer, and shut the red doors quietly behind me.

It was nearing full dark and the streetlamps were lit. I pulled a patterned shawl tighter around my shoulders, more against the strangeness than the slight chill. Rue Trudon was mostly residential, it seemed, with only a boy, whistling, moving leisurely to what was likely his last destination of the day. I could smell cooking that was not like London, could hear the clop of horse hooves from the cross street, oddly muffled on the smooth, black pavement and, from an open window, a conversation I could not understand. Seven days and eight nights had passed since the Frenchman had died in my uncle’s workshop, and since then I had buried a stranger in my own family plot, told more lies than I could count, bribed a sea captain and a bevy of French officials, committed what I suspected might be treason against the British government, and left behind the only place in the world I had ever known as home. It seemed blatantly unfair that dinner with the likes of Mrs. Hardcastle had to follow. I sighed, walked thirty-two steps to Mrs. Reynolds’s door, and knocked.

A servant answered, very formally attired in a black frock coat with silver buttons. He stared at me without the slightest hint of welcome, brows raised in inquiry.

“Miss Katharine Tulman,” I said to him, “acquaintance of Mrs. Richard Hardcastle. I believe I … am expected to dinner.” I only just kept the question mark from my sentence. I’d sent Mary flying next door with a note accepting Mrs. Hardcastle’s invitation several hours earlier. Surely it had been received? The door opened a bit wider.

“Come in, Miss,” he said, “and I will summon my mistress.”

Vaguely uneasy, I stepped inside a foyer the same size and proportions as mine, only much more sumptuously furnished. It was all knickknacks and portraits, fringed velvet hangings and thickly woven rugs. Stuffed birds, eyes sparkling in the gaslight, peered down at me from glass-domed perches on the walls, and I felt instantly sorry for whichever maid had the misfortune of dusting. The black-frocked man disappeared through a green velvet curtain to my left, its edges leeching the light and the sound of voices, many of them, male and female, while I ran my gaze over the gently curving stairs.

Just as in my grandmother’s house, the stairwell rose upward through the center of the foyer, while to my right there was a closed door. A room, I surmised, that must share a wall with my ladies’ salon. It would be important, then, to see whether the top floor had any rooms to the right of the stairwell. I suspected that it did not, that my uncle Tully was currently occupying that space. The longer I looked, the more each step seemed to lure my feet, enticing them to climb, to run all the way to the top, find what I needed, and then dash back down and out the front door again before anyone was the wiser. This fancy was cured by the unmistakable tremolo of Mrs. Hardcastle as she flung aside the hanging velvet.

“Oh!” she said, the pince-nez in the act of falling from her nose. It swung crazily on its chain, bouncing against a dress of salmon-striped taffeta with gigantic, poofing sleeves. “Katharine, my … Forgive me. Miss Tulman, what a lovely surprise! I am so happy you decided to accept my little invitation!”

I cringed inwardly at her use of the word surprise. “Did you not receive my note, Mrs. Hardcastle? Truly I would not have …” I took a breath. “I would never have meant to …”

“Your note? Oh, of course, my dear. Your note! Think nothing of it. I merely forgot to notify Hawkins is all. Silly mistake.” She turned back to the servant in the frock coat, who I assumed must be Hawkins, and said something in his ear. He took my shawl, bowed, and then left the room in a dignified hurry, to have an extra place set at the table, more than likely.

Mrs. Hardcastle took my arm. “Now do come and meet everyone. I simply can’t wait to introduce you.” She pulled me firmly through the curtain, and when it fell shut behind us I froze for just a moment, like an animal trapped, eyes as wide as those of the company staring back at me.

I was in a room full of skirts, huge, billowing, in shining pinks and yellows and pale greens, with lace and flowers and trimming of every sort from head to hem. Necklaces, bracelets, and earrings winked, and there were also pure-white cravats and neatly trimmed whiskers, coal-black jackets against waistcoats of satin, gloves and handkerchiefs, and beribboned shoes. This was not the sort of clothing I would have worn to a dinner. This is what I would have worn to a ball. Or an audience with the queen. I smoothed my brown silk. I might as well have been back in the gray worsted. Mrs. Hardcastle beamed.

“Gentlemen and ladies, may I present Miss Katharine Tulman to you, lately of Devonshire, previously of London.” I barely managed the bending of my knees. “Miss Tulman has only just arrived today in Paris.”

I saw a young lady with flowers in her blonde curls speaking surreptitiously to her companion behind a gloved hand. An older woman, perhaps in her sixties, stepped forward with an enormous pile of gray hair and a beaded bodice of magenta. “I am Mrs. Reynolds, Miss Tulman. Welcome to Paris.” But her expression did not say welcome, rather it seemed to ask Mrs. Hardcastle what she could mean by bringing me here.

Mrs. Hardcastle said quickly, “Miss Tulman is in mourning, Caroline, as you can see. She has recently inherited a large fortune and estate, and is now mistress of the house next door.”

Now both the young lady with the curls and her companion had their mouths behind their gloves, eyes demurely pointed to the floor. Mrs. Reynolds’s features softened just slightly.

“I will look forward to making your better acquaintance, Miss Tulman.”

“Thank you, Ma’am,” I whispered.

What followed next was a blur of exactly seventeen more faces, most of them English with three or four French, and other than the occasional title of Sir or Lady, very few to which I could later attach a name. I did note that the whispering young ladies were part of Mrs. Reynolds’s household, her nieces, both of whom were named Miss Mortimer. The eighteenth face presented to me belonged to a young man, French, dark hair slicked, and with a pencil-thin mustache. Instead of a bow or even shaking my hand, he leaned forward and, before I knew what he was about, had kissed both my cheeks. My face blazed first with shock, and then anger. Mrs. Hardcastle laughed heartily.

“For shame, Mr. Marchand! Miss Tulman has only just arrived, and is not yet accustomed to your French ways.”

“Forgive me, Miss Tulman,” he said, his accent light, brown eyes sparkling with amusement. “I hope I did not offend.”

I murmured something unintelligible, and the sparkle in his eyes became a gleam.

Dinner was something of a nightmare, as the table was obviously made to accommodate twenty, and my presence made twenty-one. I was crammed at one end, where I sat around the corner from a bearded gentlemen — one of those whose name began with a Sir — and directly beside a matronly woman who was the wife of someone I could not identify. Both were more interested in the food than my person, so I was left to eat in silence. The room was stuffy and hot beneath the gas chandelier and all my petticoats, the steaming dishes and flaming candles on the sideboard adding to the lack of air. I pushed at the food on my plate, feeling curls fly loose from my hair knot under the influence of the heat.