“Is it only the shoes you want?” That familiar teasing note was back in his voice.

“Where do you keep them?” She glanced around. “The shoes, I mean? The pairs waiting for collection. The pairs you’re working on.”

He pointed at a padlocked cupboard. “I don’t leave them lying around.”

“Can I see?”

He gave her a withering look.

Her gaze moved on to the row of wooden lasts arranged along a shelf. She wandered over and picked one up at random. A name was penciled on the side in the tiny hand, just about readable as Coco Chanel.

“They’re all unique,” said Zachari. “A pair of lasts for each of my customers. They’re made of beech.”

“Are mine here?”

He pointed to a pair that was almost at the end of the row, and Genevieve bent to look at her own name—noticing, as she did so, another name on the next pair along. Violet de Frémont.

“Look at this.” He indicated an old woodcut hanging from the wall. It showed two men in Roman robes, barefoot and carrying hammers, their arms around each other.

“Saint Crispin and his twin brother, Saint Crispianus. Patron saints of shoemakers.”

“What’s their story?”

“Well, that depends. In the English version, the brothers, who were sons of the queen of Kent at the time of the Roman emperor Diocletian, had to flee from his forces in disguise. Crispin became an apprentice shoemaker and was sent to Canterbury by his master with shoes for the emperor’s daughter, Ursula. The two fell in love and secretly married. Meanwhile, Crispianus had actually become a Roman soldier, heaped with honors, and he was able to convince the emperor that this was really all right as the brothers were born into nobility. The marriage was confirmed on the twenty-fifth of October, which became the traditional shoemakers’ holiday.”

“That’s sweet.”

“But then there’s the French version. In this story the brothers were from Rome. They got into some trouble and had to run away. The emperor’s military commander, Maximus, caught up with them in Soissons, where he tried to drown them, plunged them in boiling oil and smothered them in white-hot lead, but still couldn’t kill them. In the end he beheaded them. Their bones were divided up and placed in two churches in northern France. Sick people went there to touch the remains, believing they had magical healing powers.”

“I prefer the English version.”

“So do I. What kind of shoes do you want?”

“I thought you never asked that question. I thought you already had them in your head.” She reached up and touched his face. His skin was smooth. She wanted to put her face close to his so that she could smell that skin again.

“What are you doing to me?” His voice was low and uncertain.