A woman alone is a scandalous sight.
And yet, Addie has come to revel in the whispers. She sits in the Tuileries, skirts spread around her on the bench, and thumbs the pages of her book, and knows that she is being watched. Or rather, being stared at. But what is the point of worrying? A woman sitting alone in the sun is not a crime, and it’s not as though the rumors will spread beyond the park. Passersby will, perhaps, be startled, and make note of the strangeness, but they will all forget before they have the chance to gossip.
She turns the page, lets her eyes travel across the printed words. These days, Addie steals books as eagerly as food, a vital piece of daily nourishment. And while she prefers novels to philosophers—adventures and escapes—this particular one is a prop, a key, designed to gain her entry to a specific door.
She has timed her presence in the park, seated herself at the garden’s edge along the route she knows Madame Geoffrin tends to favor. And when the woman comes ambling down the path, she knows just what to do.
She turns the page, pretending to be engrossed.
Out of the corner of her eye, Addie can see the woman coming, her handmaid a step behind, her arms full of flowers, and she rises to her feet, eyes still cast upon her book, turns, and makes two strides before the inevitable collision, careful not to knock the woman down, but simply startle her, while the book falls onto the path between them.
“Foolish thing,” snaps Madame Geoffrin.
“I’m so sorry,” says Addie at the same time. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” says the woman, dropping her gaze from her attacker to the book. “And what has you so distracted?”
The handmaid scoops up the fallen book and passes it to her mistress. Geoffrin considers the title.
Pensées Philosophiques.
“Diderot,” she observes. “And who taught you to read such lofty things as this?”
“My father taught me.” “Himself? You fortunate girl.”
“It was a start,” answers Addie, “but a woman must take responsibility for her own education, for no man truly will.”
“How true,” says Geoffrin.
They are playing out a script, though the other woman does not know it. Most people have only one chance to make a first impression, but luckily, Addie has by now had several.
The older woman frowns. “But out in the park with no maidservant? No chaperone? Don’t you worry that people will talk?”
A defiant smile flashes across Addie’s lips. “I suppose I prefer my freedom to my reputation.”
Madame Geoffrin laughs, a short sound, more surprise than amusement. “My dear, there are ways to buck the system, and ways to play it. What is your name?”
“Marie Christine,” answers Addie, “La Trémoille,” she adds, savoring the way the woman’s eyes widen in response. She has spent a month learning the names of noble families, and their proximity to Paris, pruning the ones that might invite too many questions, finding a tree with broad enough limbs that a cousin might go unnoticed. And thankfully, while the salonnière prides herself on knowing everyone, she cannot know all of them equally.
“La Trémoille. Mais non!” says Madame Geoffrin, but there is no disbelief in the words, only surprise. “I shall have to chastise Charles for keeping you a secret.”
“You must,” says Addie with a sheepish grin, knowing it will never come to that. “Well, madame,” she continues, holding her hand out for the book. “I should go. I would not want to hurt your reputation, too.”
“Nonsense,” says Geoffrin, eyes glittering with pleasure. “I am quite immune to scandal.” She hands Addie back her book, but the gesture is not one of parting. “You must come to my salon. Your Diderot will be there.”
Addie hesitates, the barest fraction of a second. She made a mistake, the last time they crossed paths, when she settled on an air of false humility. But she has since learned that the salonnière prefers women who stand their ground, and so this time she smiles in delight. “I would like that very much.”
“Superb,” says Madame Geoffrin. “Come around in an hour.”
And here, her weaving must become precise. One slipped stitch, and it will fall apart.
Addie looks down at herself. “Oh,” she says, letting disappointment sweep across her face. “I fear I don’t have time to go home and change, but surely this won’t be appropriate.”
She holds her breath, waiting for the other woman to answer, and when she does, it is to extend her arm. “Don’t bother,” she says. “I’m sure my ladies will find something that suits you.”
They walk together through the park, the maidservant trailing behind. “Why have we never crossed paths before? We know everyone of note.” “I’m not of note,” demurs Addie. “And then I’m only visiting for the
summer.”
“Your accent is pure Paris.”
“Time and practice,” she answers, and it is, of course, true. “And yet, you are unmarried?”
Another turn, another test. Times before Addie has been widowed, has been wed, but today, she decides, she is unmarriable.
“No,” she says, “I confess, I do not want a master, and I’ve yet to find an equal.”
That earns a smile from her hostess.
The questioning continues all the way past the park and up to rue Saint- Honoré, when the woman finally peels away to ready for her salon.
Addie watches the salonnière go with some regret. From here, she is on her own.
The maidservant leads her upstairs, and lays a dress from the nearest wardrobe out on the bed. It is a brocaded silk, a patterned shift, a layer of lace around the collar. Nothing she would choose herself, but it is very fine.
Addie has seen a piece of meat trussed up with herbs and readied for the oven, and it reminds her of the current French fashion.
Addie sits before a mirror and adjusts her hair, listening to the doors open and close downstairs, the house stirring with the motions of arriving guests. She must wait for the salon to be in bloom, the rooms crowded enough that she will blend in among them.
Addie adjusts her hair a final time, and smooths her skirts, and when the sound below becomes a steady enough thing, the voices tangling with the clink of glassware, she goes down the stairs to the main room.
The first time Addie ended up in the salon, it was by luck, not staging. She was amazed to find a place where a woman was allowed to speak, or at least to listen, where she could move alone without judgment or condescension. She enjoyed the food, the drink, the conversation, and the company. Could pretend to be among friends instead of strangers.
Until she rounded a corner and saw Remy Laurent.
There he was, perched on a footstool between Voltaire and Rousseau, waving his hands as he spoke, fingers still stained gray with ink.
Seeing him was like missing a step, like fabric snagging on a nail. A moment thrown off-balance.
Her lover had grown stiff with age, the difference between twenty-three and fifty-one marked in the lines of his face. A brow furrowed from hours reading, a pair of spectacles now balanced on his nose. But then some topic would spark the light in his eyes, and she would see the boy he’d been, the passionate youth who came to Paris to find this, great minds with great ideas.
There is no sign of him today.
Addie lifts a glass of wine from a low table, and moves from room to room like a shadow cast against the wall, unnoticed, but at ease. She listens, and makes pleasant conversation, and feels herself among the folds of history. She meets a naturalist with a fondness for marine life, and when she confesses she has never been to the sea, he spends the next half hour regaling her with tales of crustacean life, and it is a very pleasant way to pass the afternoon, and indeed the night—this night, more than most, in need of such distraction.
It has been six years—but she doesn’t want to think of it, of him.
As the sun goes down, and wine is swapped for port, she is having a lovely time, enjoying the company of the scientists, the men of letters.
She should have known then, that he would ruin it.
Luc steps into the room like a gust of cool wind, dressed in shades of gray and black, from his boots to his cravat. Those green eyes, the only drop of color on him.
Six years, and relief is the wrong word for what Addie feels at the sight of him, and yet, it is the closest one. The sensation of a weight set down, a breath expelled, a body sighing in relief. There is no pleasure in it, beyond the simple, physical release—the relief of trading the unknown for the certain.
She was waiting, and now she is not.
No, now she is braced for trouble, for grief.
“Monsieur Lebois,” says Madame Geoffrin, greeting her guest, and Addie wonders, for a moment, if their crossing paths is only a coincidence, if her shadow favors the salon, the minds fostering within—but the men who flock here worship progress instead of gods. And already, Luc’s attention has fixed squarely on her, his face suffused with a coy and menacing light.
“Madame,” he says in a voice loud enough to carry, “I fear you have opened your doors too wide.”
Addie’s stomach drops, and Madame Geoffrin draws back a little, as the conversation in the room seems to peter, still. “What do you mean?”
She tries to back away, but the salon is crowded, the path muddled by legs and chairs.
“That woman, there.” Heads begin to turn in Addie’s direction. “Do you know her?” Madame Geoffrin does not, of course, not anymore, but she’s too well-bred to acknowledge such a misstep.
“My salon is open to many, monsieur.”
“This time you have been too generous,” says Luc. “That woman is a swindler and a thief. A truly wretched creature. Look,” he gestures, “she even wears one of your own gowns. Better check the pockets, and make sure that she hasn’t stolen more than the cloth from your back.”
And just like that, he has turned her game into his own.
Addie starts toward the door, but there are men around her, on their feet.
“Stop her,” announces Geoffrin, and she has no choice but to abandon it all, to rush for the door, to push past them, out of the salon and into the night.
No one comes after her, of course. Except for Luc.
The darkness follows on her heels, chuckling softly.
She rounds on him. “I thought you had better things to do than plague me.”
“And yet I find the task so entertaining.”
She shakes her head. “This is nothing. You have marred one moment, ruined one night, but because of my gift, I have a million more; infinite chances to reinvent myself. I could walk back in right now, and your slights would be as forgotten as my face.”
Mischief glints in those green eyes. “I think you’ll find my word won’t fade as fast as yours.” He shrugs. “They will not remember you, of course. But ideas are so much wilder than memories, so much faster to take root.”
It will be fifty years before she realizes that he is right. Ideas are wilder than memories.
And she can plant them, too.
