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“I had only met him a moment before you arrived,” he said, shrugging. “He did act as though he knew me. He did not putmeonto the wrong train, however.”
“I don’t understand,” Julia said. “What sort of man... ? Surely he made a mistake. Didn’t he? He is not the type to purposely deceive. Or, at least, he didn’t seem to be.”
“Je ne sais pas.”M. Paquet shrugged again. “As I said, I spoke to him only for a short moment.”
In all the confusion of the day, this was the first time Julia had truly considered how she’d come to be in this mess in the first place. Now that she had time to think, she didn’t know whether to be furious with Nicholas or feel sorry for him. He may have been confused and missed his train as well. But if he had intentionally led her to the wrong train, she couldn’t begin to comprehend why he would possibly do such a thing. “If he acted deliberately, what reason might he have for misdirecting me so?” she asked.
“How is it that you didn’t notice the error immediately?” he asked in return.
How hadn’t she? “Well, I was very tired, I suppose.” Julia thought back to the night before. “And a bit disoriented. Did you think Nicholas’s pipe smoke smelled like lavender?”
He glanced at her. “Pipe smoke doesn’t smell like lavender.”
She realized his answer wasn’t a denial, but he spoke before she could ask again.
“What was a young lady such as yourself doing alone on a train anyway?”
Julia bristled at the question. She sat up straight and let the coat fall from her head, and she wished she looked dignified instead of wet when it plopped onto her shoulders. “Monsieur, I am perfectly capable of traveling alone.”
He cut a glance at her.
Her stomach clenched at his unspoken observation. “Well, usually—when a person doesn’t give me false directions.” She huffed, pulling the soggy coat tight around her neck. “Besides, I wasn’t alone. I had a traveling companion, Frau Maven.”
“And where was this Frau Maven while you were wandering about a crowded station in the middle of the night?”
“She was asleep,” Julia said. “You see, I wanted to purchase a cake for my father.” She motioned toward the bed of the wagon, where M. Paquet had placed the parcel beneath the canvas with her handbag. “That is why I left my train.” She turned back and looked down at the ruined silk of her fanciest shoes, the discouragement of her failure feeling heavy like the wet coat. “And now I am here, in this... place.”
“It isn’t the worst place,” Monsieur Paquet said in a low voice. His tone suggested she may have offended him.
Julia winced at her own bluntness and hurried to soften it. “Oh, I’m sure you appreciate it. It’s your home, after all. But you see, I am meant to be in a city surrounded by music and theater and art and—”
“And you don’t believe any of that exists here.”
His tone hadn’t changed.
“I... well, I assumed...” She decided a change of subject was in order. “Where ishere, anyway? The sign at the station saidRivulet, but I didn’t see a town. Is it in the other direction?”
M. Paquet shook his head. “Riv is very small. Just a few families. It is more of a hamlet, really.”
“That is why the train doesn’t stop daily,” she said.
“Oui. We are simple people here, tending our farms. Most of us do not travel at all and the rest rarely.” He pushed back the brim of his hat, glancing upward, and Julia noticed the downpour had lessened to a drizzle.
“I travel quite a bit.” Julia kept talking to avoid another awkward silence. “With my father. He serves as the Great Britain Commissioner for Fine Arts.”
M. Paquet turned toward her quickly, looking as if he would say something but then thought better of it. He faced back toward the road. “Ah, that explains your accent. You are English.”
“HalfEnglish.”AndI’mnot the one with an accent. “My mother was Parisian.”
“You live in Paris?”
“I live in Vienna now. I instruct at a young lady’s finishing school. I return on holidays and during the summer to stay with my grand-mère, and my father meets me. But this year, instead of traveling to view the work of a new artist he’s discovered or oversee the purchase of a masterpiece for a museum, he is responsible for organizing the collection of artwork that will be displayed at the World’s Fair. From what he tells me, the British artists have quite a prospect of earning medals. And France has a marvelous showing as well, but of course, that is to be expected.”
M. Paquet had gone very silent, and she realized that she was speaking of a subject that could not possibly interest him. Of course a simple countryman was not concerned with the world of international fine art.
“But I am rambling, and I don’t suppose such a thing is interesting to you,” she said.
Instead of answering, he glanced at her, then pointed ahead.
