“I have new respect for you as husband and father.” Her smile was sly.
“You know very well that I’m a struggling husband and a hapless father, since I keep misplacing both wife and son.”
“I’m intrigued that a pretty woman loves you, Ethan. It makes you more attractive to other women’s eyes.”
“It’s not that unlikely, you know. I am amusing.”
“That’s exactly my point.” She touched my hand with dancing fingers. “With my manners and your charm, people might believe we are a real couple, if your wife is careful to hide at home. Just as a strategy.”
Had her opinion turned so much that she was flirting to separate me from my wife? Or was I a temporary toy to provide distraction? Was she an ardent agent, eager for action? Or was she proposing risks she knew I’d never agree to? I admired Catherine for not scuttling straight back to England, but was puzzled by her, too. It was like analyzing a player’s bet in the card game brelan, where one could never be certain if a move was a novice mistake or a clever long game.
“I don’t think my pretty wife would agree to that,” I said. “And celebrities in France have a way of landing in prison or worse. Let’s test the political winds without notoriety. My role as seaborne trader helps explain my exotic-looking wife. You’re swank for a governess, but we can say you lost your fortune in the revolution and that we took pity when we found you stranded in Calais.”
“Pity!”
“Only as a ruse. We’ll write coded messages in sympathetic ink, and await further instructions.”
She sighed, looking bleakly at our modest home. “I long for society.”
“Well, until Napoleon’s overthrow, you just have us.”
And we had her. Catherine believed that high birth made her expert not just on fashion and flirtation, but also on finance, espionage, and child rearing. She chafed under my careful budgeting and treated my wife to unwanted advice.
“Harry is entirely too carefree,” she informed Astiza one day. “Children need discipline. He should be learning his catechism, music, and the names of the kings.”
“Which you can do with your own child, should a man ever give you one,” Astiza replied. Their catty bristling made me edgy. “Horus is my son, Comtesse, not yours.”
“I know you’re trying, but you were raised an Oriental slave. I provide perspective you lack.”
“As I have a husband, a child, and a home—and you do not—perhaps I have perspective that you lack. Here’s my advice: keep your opinions and hands to yourself.”
The comtesse looked stricken. “I am only trying to help.”
“Help with deeds, not words, and maybe we can make this triad work.”
I put in that the boy was doing fine, and was rewarded with looks of annoyance from both of them.
Accordingly, I didn’t mind getting out of the house. It was on one of my strolls that I confirmed Catherine Marceau’s ingenuity.
Against my intention, I was accosted by Edme François Jomard, a companion from Egypt, while shopping for a telescope on the rue Saint-Victor. I didn’t know what I needed to observe, but I thought a spy should have a spyglass, and the British had neglected to provide one.
I was weighing the quality of optics against the size of my purse, wishing for the millionth time that I had access to my swelling England investments, when Jomard touched my shoulder. “Ethan Gage, is that you?”
I jumped. “Greenwell, sir.” Then I turned and recognized my old friend. Jomard was a mathematical wizard who’d led me to the top of the Great Pyramid. “Except to you, Edme. Keep your voice low, please.”
“Mon Dieu, I’d no idea you were in Paris.”
“It’s something of a secret.”
He cocked his head. “But of course. Always attached to one conspiracy or another, aren’t you? What a romp your life is.” He said it lightly. “Are you on a mission for the United States?”
He’d given me an alibi. “Yes. You may know I was involved with negotiations over Louisiana. Now, with war . . .” I shrugged, as if unable to share more information.
“I quite understand. No doubt it involves ladies as well! My own occupation is scholarly; I’m working on presentation of our discoveries in Egypt. A lost world, Ethan, and we’re making new calculations about the pyramids every day. How I long to go back for more measurements! The English block us. Still,
human knowledge will leap when we publish. Savants are thinking of coining a new term, Egypt-ology. Clever, don’t