“You need to be someone’s little girl. Be mine. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.” He stood up again, brushed himself down. “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it. I’ll see you in the morning.”

( fifty )

THE MOON LIT HER room a sickly green. Or was it the streetlights? She couldn’t find the motivation to get up and close the shutters. She was exhausted but restless. Even closing her eyelids was an unbearable effort. They wouldn’t stay shut.

She ached for the feel of Paolo’s arms around her. For the lemony smell of his skin. His salty-sweet mouth.

She thought of Robert’s cloying embraces. How could they go on together, in Boston or anywhere else? And how could she tell him her secret? It was impossible.

She’d have to go home, to her father.

A life of rose-pruning. Needlepoint by the fireside. Walking the dogs. Chatting with the vicar at church. Drinking alone late at night and topping up the bottles with water so the servants wouldn’t notice. Pining for what-might-have-been-but-wasn’t. Nursing Daddy as his health deteriorated. Sitting by his bed and talking incessantly of the minute, inconsequential goings-on in the village, because after all, what else would there be to talk about?

Avoiding the gaze of Doctor Peters.

She fell asleep thinking about her Mary Janes. The buttons. The shiniest black leather that she loved so much. The way she used to lick her finger and rub the smears of dirt away. Her little feet inside them. That one precious afternoon at Fortnum’s with her mother and Mr. Slattery, the gentleman from New York.

Morning seemed to arrive very suddenly, yanking Genevieve from her sleep before she was ready. She pulled herself up in the bed and looked out at the gray rooftops, the chimneypots, the trees. The traffic had already started up. Shutters clanked and banged open. Someone down in the street was whistling. She sat there in the bed for a long time, listening to the sounds of the city waking up.

( fifty-one )

THE STREETS WERE PUNGENT with morning baking. Every corner was alive with flowers, sold from market stalls or simply from baskets. An old man was leading a herd of goats, bells clanking. A woman appeared from an apartment building with a jug, and the goatherd stopped in the middle of the road and began to milk a bleating nanny. The scene was observed by an immaculate, gray-haired woman in a pair of pink Perugia pumps with spike heels seated on a café terrace. Two gendarmes on the opposite side of the street were laughing and smoking. Only in Paris would you find a scene quite like this.

When Genevieve walked into Rumpelmayer’s, the first person she saw was Lulu, at their favorite corner table, three empty coffee cups lined up in front of her. She was eating a chocolate éclair.

After a moment, she looked up and saw Genevieve.