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It was half past six in the evening. Parisians were gathered by the hundreds in the coffeehouses and cafes to drink Burgundy wine and gossip over a game of chess or billiards.
Raven stared out one window, Indy the other.
They had scrupulously ignored each other on the brief passage by steam packet from Dover to Calais. They’d taken luncheon in Calais at separate tables.
Instead of hiring a private conveyance, they’d traveled by diligence from Calais to Paris with several other passengers. Raven had entertained the group with card tricks and jests during the long overnight journey. She’d done her best to finish her novel but she hadn’t been able to concentrate.
She’d been thinking about what had happened in the carriage on the way to Dover. How she’d told him about her dreams. Talk about giving the man more fodder for his already over-sized ego.
There was no trusting herself around him, and doubly so when there was Scotch whisky involved.
When she’d seen his troubled sleep, a welling of sympathy and emotion had threatened to ruin all of her plans for remaining aloof. And when she’d found the knot of scar tissue, so close to his heart, she’d known his life could have ended.
And that knowledge had hit her like a bullet to the heart. Lodging itself in her conviction, her confidence, that life was better without him. He’d betrayed her, yes. But she relied on him to be there. She relied on their rivalry.
What if he had died? She couldn’t imagine life without him.
Maybe there was more beneath his surface. Some complicated reason that he’d betrayed her. A morality and a purpose to his actions that she’d never envisioned.
Maybe there was a chance that they could be friends again. Maybe there was a chance... She pressed her forehead against the window, watching the tide of humanity swirl along the avenue.
A strapping young sailor threw his arm around the shoulders of a beautiful girl with laughing dark eyes, and ushered her inside the warmly lit doorway of a café.
They weren’t so afraid in Paris to openly show their feelings.
There were so many lovers in the world, so much hustle and bustle of humanity, and she was removed, always removed, by choice.
She studied history and she studied the lives of others and those lives were always filled with complications. While she lived an unconventional life, she didn’t have the traditional complications: a spouse or a lover, children, responsibilities beyond her work.
She’d had a privileged life on the one hand, wealth and social standing. Her father had terrorized her childhood and her mother had never succeeded in imposing her will on Indy because she’d learned to fight early. Her mother had softened after Edgar’s marriage, after their reconciliation—still, Indy had never had a heartfelt conversation with her.
Indy had few friends. She had Lady Catherine in Paris. Mari and Viola in London.
She was alone most of the time by choice; because she was mistrustful of opening herself to anyone, and wary of being hurt.
For good reason.
She mustn’t dig into Raven’s past any deeper. No more questions.
Asking questions left her exposed and vulnerable. He’d crush her heart all over again and she didn’t know if she could survive a second time.
Knowing his reasons wouldn’t lessen the sting of his actions.
“I read somewhere that Paris has more than seven hundred coffeehouses and cafes,” said Raven.
Indy inhaled slowly. She could do this. Converse pleasantly like strangers. Remark upon the weather and the sights.
“Sounds about right,” she said lightly. “There seems to be one on every corner. And they’re incessantly crowded from nine o’clock in the morning until midnight. It’s so different here. Respectable ladies are free to sit in the cafes, conversing with their male companions with perfect ease.”
“I like that about Paris. The ladies don’t labor under such repressive strictures of propriety and modesty.”
“I visit Lady Catherine every year and stay for several months. Every time I visit, she tries to convince me that I would thrive here. I’m sure she’ll renew her campaign during this trip.
“You had no time to inform her that you were coming—are you sure she’s at home?”
“I have a standing invitation to visit with no advance notice necessary. If she’s not at home, the doorman knows me by sight.”
“We’ll go to Sir Charles’s residence first and engage one of his carriages for your use while you’re in Paris, just in case Lady Catherine is not at home. I don’t trust these public conveyances for a woman traveling alone.”
