Emily nearly squeaked in panic. “We couldn’t leave you to find your way alone!”
“I’ll hardly be alone with all these operagoers in the street.” The performance had gone past ten, which meant the lights were snuffed and the underground shut down, and all of us were in the same predicament. “Besides, there’s nearly a full moon, and it’s less than a mile’s walk.”
Emily and her French lieutenant continued to protest, but I wouldn’t hear it. Trailing after them was reminding me that I was loveless, and in any case, as a child I’d learned to make my own way in streets more dangerous than these. So I bade them good evening and let myself be swept away with the crowd.
The walk was at first a veritable fete, with everyone in high spirits, singing the “Marseillaise.” After a few blocks, the crowd began to thin. Still, I didn’t regret my hubris until the moon disappeared behind a cloud, plunging the City of Light into stumbling darkness. Then I nearly wished for a zeppelin raid, if only to trigger the searchlights on the sky.
In pitch black, I groped blindly from doorway to doorway, sliding my hand across stone and brick and cold wrought iron. It was slow going, but the hotel could not be far. Just past the Church of Saint-Roch, then another long block. I crossed another wide-open expanse that must have been a boulevard, grateful not to hear the sound of any oncoming motor—for crashes happened nearly every night. I didn’t know whether to be comforted or afraid by the sound of footsteps behind me—a man, I guessed, by the crisp confidence and the weight of the echo.
Glancing back the very moment a shimmer of moonlight escaped between the clouds, I caught a glint of a golden statue where it oughtn’t have been. Had I gone too far or not far enough?
“Madame, are you lost?” The man’s question startled me, coming as it did out of the darkness, and I stumbled. Usually so nimble on my feet, I flailed with one hand and went down hard on the other. The impact of hitting sidewalk reverberated through my bones, and as I struggled to catch my breath, he was upon me, begging leave to help.
You’ve done quite enough, I thought, uncharitably. I told him I could manage on my own. In my mind’s eye, I could see world-wise Minnie, one hand on her hip, the other wagging a finger to warn me away. I knew better, after all, than to give myself over into the clutches of a perfect stranger. He might’ve been a cutpurse or worse. But when I tried to get up, a bolt of sharp pain in my hand made me cry out.
It wasn’t only my pride that was hurt, and he knew it. “Will you let me see your hand, madame? It might be broken.”
“You’re a physician?” I asked.
“No, but I’ve seen broken bones before, and enough wounds at the front, so please allow me to reassure myself of your well-being.”
The fickle moonlight peeped out to reveal the stranger’s silhouette in pale light, and I breathed a sigh of relief. He was a soldier—an officer, by the looks of it. I nodded, and he helped me to a marble bench I hadn’t known was there. “Merci, monsieur.”
When he went to one knee, it felt churlish not to surrender my arm for examination. Gently, inch by inch, he pulled down my torn opera glove. My palm stung when he exposed it to the night air, and I couldn’t bite back an audible little ouch.
“English or American?” he asked.
“American. And not usually so clumsy.”
“The fault was mine,” he said, turning my skinned palm up to the light. Little droplets of blood shone. His warm hands gingerly felt at the bones of my wrist, thumb, and fingertips. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. It’s only that you seemed to have lost your way.”
The waxing moon played silver over the rooftops of the Louvre, confirming I had overshot my mark. “How did you guess?”
“Because there are no lodgings here, unless you meant to sleep on a bench in the Tuileries or throw yourself into the river.”
“Well, the river does beckon . . .” It was a bleak jest, but because I didn’t want him to take it earnestly, I hastened to add, “They say darkness makes other senses more vivid. If I’d relied more on my nose than my eyes—then I’d have known the Tuileries gardens by the scent of the flowers in bloom.”
“That is not the garden, madame, but your enchanting perfume . . . topped with notes of anise and bergamot.”
His precision surprised me. “You must be a perfumer when you’re not soldiering.”
“No, but my profession requires a refined nose.”