A Spark Unseen (24 page)

The music swelled and I jumped as women burst from the beehives, breaking through the brown paper, dressed in stiff, short, black-and-yellow skirts showing all their legs and wearing bodices that looked like nothing more than corsets. I was a bit shocked by this, though no one else seemed to be. Wire antennae were attached to the ladies’ hair knots, and they immediately began to prance about, spinning on their toes, little skirts bouncing, stretching arms and kicking legs. But always they circled the enormous violet, adoringly, as if it were the sun of their universe, or a god they were compelled to worship.

“The bee,” Henri whispered, “it is the symbol of the Bonapartes, and the violet their chosen flower. The emperor, he is very superstitious about such things. Did you hear the ladies behind us, speaking of the spiritualist in the palace? He …” Henri must have taken a moment to look at my face because he paused his story. “Have you never been to the ballet, Miss Tulman?”

I shook my head, unable to take my eyes from the spectacle. It was the single most ridiculous thing I’d ever seen in my life. I heard Henri chuckle. The girls finished their dance, hop-trotting away to thunderous applause, the beehives were pushed aside, and the noise fell away to low muttering. The servants stationed at each doorway suddenly and simultaneously hit their staffs against the marble floor, creating a resounding crack. The room fell silent.

“L’Empereur … et l’Impératrice … de la France!”
one of them shouted, exaggerating the words.

The emperor appeared beneath an archway of crimson hangings, his arm outstretched to hold the hand of the empress, walking perhaps two feet to his side. The couple paused, and then entered their ball. We watched them walk, the entire assemblage, all our eyes together, as they made slow progress toward a raised platform with gilt chairs set upon it.

The Empress Eugénie was a rather average woman, pale, but with a belt made of what I assumed were diamonds, and a grand pile of blonde curls topped with a sparkling diadem. But my gaze only glanced over her, landing firmly on Charles-Louis Bonaparte, Napoléon III. Not as tall or as imposing as I might have thought, despite an extravaganza of medals on his red uniform and an impressively waxed mustache. But his smile, his little nods to acquaintances here and there while we stood, the entire assembly listening to each of his footsteps, struck me as self-satisfied. Smug. How I hated him. For Mr. Babcock, for John George, and for what he had done to me, my uncle, and possibly Lane. Even I was surprised by the violence of it.

“Miss Tulman?”

I looked up to see Henri Marchand’s dark eyes on me. I think it was the second time he had said my name.

“Perhaps we should dance, yes? That would be the easiest way, I think, to search the room.”

So he had seen me looking on our way in. Was there anything he did not notice? I had not even realized that the orchestra was playing. The emperor was seated on the platform now, one leg thrown out inelegantly, kissing a lady’s proffered hand, and then Henri’s voice was in my ear: “And if you do not stop looking at the emperor like that we will be removed by the guard before we can.”

I pulled my eyes away from Napoléon and smiled wanly as I took Henri’s hand, though I could not feel it through my glove, a bit shaken by my own anger. It wasn’t until we reached the edge of the dance, where black-suited men spun the ladies with their twirling, swishing skirts, that I had the sense to panic. I looked up at Henri. “I … I don’t actually know how to do this, you know.”

“No?” He kept my left hand in his, lifting it in the air, then used his other arm to place my right hand on his shoulder before taking me by the waist. “You have never danced with a young man?”

My curls moved slightly as I gave my head one tiny shake. When Lane and I had gone to a ballroom, we’d rolled about on skates. Henri leaned forward again, whispering in my ear. He smelled faintly of spices and strongly of cigarettes.

“Follow my feet, three steps in a square, the fourth step a turn and we begin once again. Leave it to me, and you watch the faces.”

Two times through the steps and I had it. Or had it well enough. It was mostly counting, after all. Rolling had been harder, but significantly more fun. I dared not look up, lest I see a teasing smirk, so I began to watch the crowd, not really knowing what I was looking for, other than the tall, dark head and gray eyes to go with it. I thought of those eyes in all their moods: storm, stone, or waveless sea. I wondered what their mood would be when they once again looked at me.

Three more turns with these thoughts, and I realized that there were indeed eyes on me, though they did not belong to Lane. I could not look at any one person without either catching their glance, or seeing their gaze invariably turn my way. And it was not just me that was attracting the attention. The women especially, I saw, gave me a quick glance up and down before settling the rest of their interest on my partner. I looked up at Henri, a little startled. I’d almost forgotten he was handsome, though the fact had evidently not escaped him. He was returning each of these coy little compliments with a smile that was deliberately dashing.

He looked down, saw my raised brows, and grinned like a little boy. Then he leaned close again and said, “Do you see the Englishman with the champagne glass, standing to the left of the emperor? That is Cowley, the British ambassador, and the man he speaks with is the son of Napoléon I, though not the son of any of Napoléon’s wives, of course. He resembles his father, no?”

We turned, and turned again, and when I was facing the right direction once more Henri continued. “And the man on Cowley’s right, that is the brother of the first Napoléon, who the emperor has made his heir until he has children, and the other, with the bald head, that is Charles de Morny, the emperor’s half brother, the illegitimate son of his mother. And that man,” Henri said on the turn, “do you see him, with the big woman? That is the illegitimate son of the emperor’s father.”

I eyed the man, dancing rather well with a stout woman in a startling shade of salmon, and tried unsuccessfully to process the Bonaparte family entanglements.

“And that woman there, who sits chatting with the empress, she is rumored to be the emperor’s most recent mistress.”

I turned to see what Napoléon III might think of this, but he was not noticing the empress, I saw, not in the slightest. He was staring, directly and unwaveringly, at me. I was jarred by his look, by the absolute single-mindedness of it, as if there were no others present in this ballroom, only the two of us, watching each other across a space of maybe twenty feet. And there was something in this, the intensity, the penetration, giving nothing away, that rang recognition deep inside me, a faint noise like Uncle Tully’s bells; I could hear the ringing, and yet was unable to identify the power that made them chime. How I hated him.

Henri and I spun about in the dance, the crowd closed in, and the shared gaze was broken. I was looking back over my shoulder, wanting to know if those inscrutable eyes were still on me, when I realized that we had stopped dancing, that Henri was stepping back politely, letting me go, that someone had tapped his shoulder to take his place. There was another hand in mine, another hand on my waist, the music playing on. And when I looked up, I was three inches away from the beatific smile of Ben Aldridge.

I
did absolutely nothing. I just stood there, letting him hold me close, then responded to his lead as we began to dance. The strings played and inside my head there was nothing but confusion, a dissonant swirl of
hows
and
whys
and
wherefores
, as if each instrument had started its song on a different page. But the discord lasted only a moment or two before I began to hear the inklings of harmony. Deep down, I must have known, or at least suspected. And Lane must have known it, too. He wouldn’t have stayed in Paris if he hadn’t.

Ben was not much changed. The round boyish face, the blue eyes, the neatly trimmed side whiskers were all there, but he was paler, not sun-pinked and tanned as he had been during that hot summer at Stranwyne, and he was a little thinner, more polished. The biggest change was the fact that in my imagination he had been cold, drowned, and dead, and the man now swinging me through the dance was very much alive. And smiling hugely.

“My, my, Miss Tulman, you are all eyes. I believe I am flattered.” We made our first turn. “But you are looking extremely well. Paris will not know what to make of you.”

“What are you doing here?” I whispered.

“Is that a philosophical question, Miss Tulman, or are you speaking more practically?”

“Why are you alive?” I clarified.

He laughed merrily. “Well, it’s no thanks to you, I must say.”

I thought of the opium-laced wine he’d nearly killed me with. “I suppose I could say the same of you, Mr. Aldridge.”

“Now, now, Miss Tulman, the name is not Aldridge here. We don’t use —”

“So it’s Arceneaux, then?”

He looked pleased. “Fancy you knowing that. And it’s Charles, by the way. That’s what my mother called me. ‘Charles Arceneaux,’ or no one will know who you’re speaking of.” He swung me around, making the hoop under the green dress swirl. “But we were speaking of being alive, Miss Tulman. Let me heartily recommend that you learn to swim. It’s a very useful skill, even with a broken arm and a knock on the head.”

My eyes went reflexively to the hand that held mine. Of course it was not still broken, but I saw a bandage there, a strip of snowy-white cloth around the wrist, disappearing beneath the black sleeve of his jacket.

“Yes,” Ben said, seeing where my eyes had gone. “I daresay we are even for past wrongs, you and I.” His smile remained the same but his voice lowered slightly, the grip tightening on my hand. “Burns can be extremely painful, can they not?”

My brain was still sluggish, picking its way through a mire of new facts, but I could see the night in my uncle’s workshop, the oil lamp in my hand, the smash of glass, the burning jacket being ripped away from the body of a man in a mask. My eyes darted upward. “You?”

“It’s rather a shame we got the wrong door. I wouldn’t have disturbed your rest for the world.” I thought of that crude map in the pocket of the dead man, with my corridor marked. Made by someone who knew the house, of course. But I kept silent, unwilling to increase his enjoyment with my shock or my words. “Though I don’t suppose we’re even in the matter of our servants,” he chatted on. “Your little maid split my man’s skull.”

He was still smiling outwardly, but I could feel the fury bubbling just below the surface, tightening the arm around my waist, his hand now squeezing down so hard on mine that I had to hold in a gasp. If I could sense the heat of his anger, I wondered if he could feel the bitter, freezing bite of my hatred. He leaned close to my ear. “I should have shot her. But since I did not, I think you rather owe me a favor, don’t you?”

I’d had enough. I struggled once in his arms, trying to shove him away, and we faltered in the dance. He jerked me back into position.

“Temper,” he chided. “Don’t make a scene. We are being observed.” I followed his eyes straight to the piercing ones of Napoléon, slowly twirling the pointed end of his mustache, sphinxlike as he watched us dance. “The emperor will take it as a personal insult if you — or your current watchdog — offend me.”

I caught a glimpse of Henri, frowning as he followed us surreptitiously around the edge of the dance, never quite letting me out of his sight.

“Marchand, wasn’t it?” he continued. “You seem quite good at picking up protectors, Miss Tulman, but I must say that was fast work, even for you. It took you much longer to convince Lane Moreau to step into that position.”

I was done being baited. “What do you want? I assume it was you that had me invited here tonight for this nasty little chat? Wouldn’t it have been easier to knock on my door? I daresay you know where I live.”

“So charming,” Ben said pleasantly. “I invited you here tonight, dear Miss Tulman, so you could view where I live. Or where I will live very soon. Welcome to my future home. It is rather grand, is it not?”

I felt my brows come down, feet moving automatically to the count of the dance as if they’d been wound with a key. Ben had gone truly insane.

“But as for you,” he continued, “in that regard my wants are very simple. I merely want you to tell me where your uncle is.”

“My uncle is dead,” I said immediately.

“Really?” He smiled. “A most conveniently timed death, I must say. But why then, Miss Tulman, have you been visiting hospitals and asylums?”

I said nothing, heart slamming against its tight casing of ribs and green velvet, my insides in a tangle. I had never considered that my search could take on such a connotation. He leaned in close, whispering in my ear. I shuddered.

“Bringing him here was bold, but it was stupid, Katharine. Very stupid. Mr. Tulman is an old man, and I would be most gratified if you did not endanger his health. Is he well enough to work?”

“I told you that my uncle is dead.”

He sighed sadly, breath moving the long curls that were brushing my neck. I wanted to scream, to thrust him away, to run, kick, make him stop touching me, but then he did move away of his own accord, and I realized the dance had ended. Couples were breaking apart with smatterings of gloved applause. Ben let go of everything but my wrist and began to pull me from the dance floor. I dug in my heels, but he turned quickly and said, “Come. The emperor is beckoning to us, and believe me, Miss Tulman, this is not a man you would wish to offend.”

I looked over my shoulder as I was dragged away, tripping a bit over the enormous skirt. Henri was still watching us from the edge of the dance, hanging back now that he saw where we were going. He would not be able to help me. I turned back to Ben.