“Sure. That’d be nice.” Robert could imagine only too well what Genevieve would think of the idea of spending an evening with Maud Mortimer. Maud, with her charity committees and her tapestry work. They just weren’t Genevieve’s kind of people, the Mortimers. None of his friends were. That had immediately been obvious when he’d first introduced her around, soon after they’d arrived in Paris. And, after all, what did he expect from marrying someone of her quality? Why, he’d never have fallen in love with the sort of girl who’d be bosom chums with Maud Mortimer, or possibly even with any of the girls back home.

“Firm handling, Robert.” Harry picked up his two cards. “That’s what they need, these women.” Again he winked at the redhead. “And, hey, I’m going to call you tomorrow, with the number of a friend of mine.”

“What sort of friend?” Robert heard the wariness in his own voice.

Harry tapped the side of his nose and leaned closer so the others around the table wouldn’t hear what they were saying. “I’ll explain when I call you.”

Robert picked up his cards, frowning.

“Let’s talk tomorrow.” Harry glanced down at his. “You in?”

“Nope. I’m folding.”

Out in the street just before 4:00 a.m., under a night sky covered in clouds so dense that it looked like a heavy velvet cloth thrown over the rooftops, chimneys and towers, Robert wandered through the sleazy, brothel-lined streets of Pigalle, more or less in the direction of home, thinking about the way Harry had kept on about Genevieve.

Harry just doesn’t understand, he decided. It’s not his fault—not exactly. It’s the way he is.

He stuck out his arm to hail a taxi and allowed himself a smile. She’s lucky to have chosen a man like me.

The taxi pulled up—one of the old horse-drawn kind that you barely saw anymore.

Does she know just how lucky she is? he thought as he opened the door.

And then he had his idea.

It was on the day after the Countess de Frémont’s party that Robert’s idea came to fruition.

Genevieve returned home in the late afternoon, after listening to Lulu trying out some new numbers with her pianist at the Coyote on the Rue Delambre. She was stepping out of the lift when she saw her own front door opening just a crack. A small face—surely that of Céline, the maid—peered out, and then the door was slammed shut again so quickly that Genevieve was uncertain as to whether it had really happened.

“Céline?” Genevieve rapped smartly on the door. “Céline!”

But it was Robert who opened the door and stepped outside, pulling it to behind him. He had an odd look about him.

“Are you ill or something?”