A Spark Unseen by Sharon Cameron

today would be most unpleasant. Come to tea tomorrow, if you like, but for now I will stay in my own house and tend to my own affairs.” I took a breath. “And I would be most gratified if you would address me as ‘Miss Tulman.’”
    Mrs. Hardcastle’s face wore an expression I remembered from Aunt Alice’s morning room. A smile, but one that hid something ugly, like the prettily embroidered cloth that covers a casket.
    “Why, of course, Miss Tulman. I hope I did not offend. I was merely eager to hear more of you and your intended stay in Paris.”
    I inclined my head, thinking I would not mind knowing the same of her. I had been too busy dealing with the fact of her presence to even question why it should be here.
    “But please,” she continued, “do not think me so rude as to wish you to traipse about the city on the very day of your arrival. I assume you know the Reynolds family? They are set up just next door. Mrs. Reynolds is my husband’s second cousin and I am with her for a several months’ stay. I had the good fortune to witness your arrival from the drawing-room window.”
    I stared back at her, trying to process this information, the knot that had become a permanent feature of my insides pulling agonizingly tight.
    “Good day to you, Miss Tulman. I do hope we will be favored with your company soon.”
    I returned her curtsy, and then, waking slightly from my shock, ran to the pocket door, getting there just in time to block her exit. I cracked the door, saw that the foyer was devoid of trunks, and only then allowed her out. She chose not to comment on my bizarre behavior, but swept from the salon in an elegant rustle, stepping over the fallen bonnets. The front door closed, and less than a half minute later, still standing in the salon, I also heard the faint close of another door, outside and down the sidewalk, just beyond the shuttered window I had tried to open.
    I closed my eyes. No one but I, Katharine Tulman, could run across land and sea to hide a supposed-dead uncle from not one but two governments, only to move next door to one of the most blatant gossips on the continent. I really wasn’t sure why I was surprised. And then I remembered my uncle. I picked up my skirts, hurried through the empty foyer, and ran up the stairs.
    On the second landing, I passed our two drivers, going down with a heavy tread, one of them rubbing his arms. They tipped their caps, otherwise ignoring me. I assumed this meant they had been paid and continued my dash for five more steps before I met Mrs. DuPont coming down with a smooth, almost unnatural glide. I stopped.
    “Have you not gone home yet, Mrs. DuPont?”
    “The house, it is full of English,” she hissed.
    I squeezed past her on the stairs, in too much of a hurry to consider the sense of this comment, the question of what she might have been doing on the upper floors all that time more prominent in my mind. Light footsteps clacked down the steps and the girl Marguerite blew past me in a streak, another book, larger this time, tucked beneath her arm. She maneuvered around her mother and across the landing, her clamor sinking lower into the house.
    I had twisted my head to watch her go, sure I’d already seen her descend once before, and when I turned back again I was facing yet another figure, this time a man I’d never seen. He was short and gray-headed, lines and wrinkles on his cheeks, though the muscles in his chest were still hard, wiry with strength. I could see all this very clearly, as he was wearing no shirt. I stopped dead on the stairs.
    “Who are you?” I demanded.
    Mrs. DuPont said something in French that I thought might be angry, but the man did not answer either one of us, just kept the pace of his downward tread.
    “Excuse me,” I said, “but why are you not … clothed?”
    “Ah,” he sighed as if the world were a sad place indeed,
“Napoléon est mort.”
He shook his head.
“Napoléon est mort.”
    I found myself pressing