After sketching up her proposed alterations and presenting them to Evangeline for approval, Simone began her work at Château à Pont Allemagne. But it wasn’t easy. She worked slowly, painstakingly, her desperation to do right by Evangeline stifling her progress, sending her elbow skidding every time she tried to carve the perfect cornice piece. She’d spend long hours at the Pirripin atelier, long after the brothers had left for the night, repairing the pieces she’d botched.

And Evangeline was always at the château—nearly always. She’d sip tea while studying for her entrance examination to the faculté des lettres, sometimes narrating her notes to herself. Or she would play piano—Saint-Saëns or Ravel or Chopin, her delicate fingers too small to hit the big chords, but what she lacked in technical prowess she more than made up for in emotional sway. More than once, Simone had to remind herself to breathe, her heart was so full inside her throat as Chopin’s mournful journey pulled her along and laid her soul bare.

Once, Evangeline spread out a blanket next to Simone’s drop cloth and unpacked a picnic. A veritable feast, even though she claimed it was nothing, really, just a little something she’d picked up on her way home. Cheese and bread and succulent roasted quail, which Evangeline assured her was every bit as good as the cured jambon she kept for herself.

Simone never said much during their afternoons together, but she didn’t need to. She worked with her hands like she was untangling all the knots she didn’t know had been present for so long inside her soul. Evangeline filled the vast, chilly mansion with her carefree chatter, and it warmed them both.

Simone sorted her own life out in her head while Evangeline talked, doling out bits of herself like delicate confections. Her fear of spiders, her disastrous experiment with ballet. Her desultory habit of picking the pockets of her father’s dinner guests, lifting pocket watches, opera receipts, once even a letter from a mistress that would have caused quite an international incident if she’d revealed it. She drew—and drew well, judging by the charcoal sketches of herself that Simone found one afternoon, even though Evangeline laughed it off later.

But mostly Simone learned of Evangeline’s dream of becoming a diplomat. Like her father. A civil servant of great esteem. And then, a prized wife to someone much like herself, and yet this mystery man was sure to take precedence, her work only a slim shadow of whatever glowing accolades he’d gain.

This last bit, Evangeline disclosed with her face partially hidden behind the knees she’d drawn up under her chin. But Evangeline wouldn’t admit to being afraid. She wanted—needed—to be too strong for that.