“I have it from Violet. But that’s just my précis. Her version took a good twenty minutes.” She showed her surprise at the lack of recognition on his face. “Violet? The Countess de Frémont?” And then, when he continued blank, “Our divine hostess. Were you actually invited to this party, Mr….”

“Monteray. Guy Monteray. And no, I wasn’t. Not directly. I’m the guest of a guest.”

“I see.” She wanted to ask him who he was here with, but drew back. Tried once more to spot Robert.

“This is my first time in Paris,” said the man. “I’m fresh off the boat. Practically a virgin.”

She sipped her wine and looked at him sidelong. “I’m Genevieve Shelby King.” She tried his name on her tongue. It had a familiar sound to it. “Are you a poet?”

The whitest of smiles. “Would you like to dance, Miss Shelby King?”

“Mrs.”

“Oh.” The smile flickered for a moment. “I do apologize. Where’s your husband? Is he here?”

She gestured vaguely. “He’ll be over there somewhere. He doesn’t dance.”

“Pity.”

“Yes,” said Genevieve. “Yes, it is.”

Robert puffed on a cigar, sipped his bourbon and watched his wife dancing with an incredibly tall, broad-shouldered man in a cream suit. “Fellow’s like a skyscraper.”

“What a sharp observation.” The speaker was so insubstantial that Robert hadn’t even noticed him. “Mind if I borrow it?”

Robert’s head was a little swimmy with the bourbon. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. “Borrow it?” He frowned, puzzled. “They’re only words. Don’t belong to me any more than they do to you.”

“A dangerous point of view, that one.” A soft voice. A narrow face with glittering eyes and a high color in the cheeks. “If there were many people who spoke that way, well, what would become of us?”

“Us?” Robert watched the skyscraper-man lift his wife clean off the floor before setting her down again and spinning her about. He made it look so effortless.

“Us low-down scribbling types who make commodities of words. Not to mention literature. You don’t remember me, do you, Robert?”

The fug in his head was thickening. “You’re a friend of my wife’s, aren’t you?” It was a safe bet. Everyone was a friend of Genevieve’s. That was how it had been ever since they’d settled in Paris, two years ago—ever since she’d taken up with that Lulu creature. He did his best to accept the situation. If you marry a woman as beautiful, clever, outgoing and thoroughly modern-thinking as Genevieve, you can’t expect to hide her away at home. You might as well ask a bird not to fly. But sometimes, just sometimes, he wished he could.