please him more, even as he frees her arm with all the speed of someone grazing fire.
“Sorry,” he says again, “I forgot myself.” And then, a mischievous grin. “It seems you have, too.”
“Not at all,” she says, fingers drifting toward the short blade she’s kept inside her basket. “I have misplaced myself on purpose.”
The smile widens then, and he drops his gaze, and sees the ruined honey on the ground, and shakes his head.
“I must make that up to you,” he says. And she is about to tell him not to bother, about to say that it is fine, when he cranes his head down the road, and says, “Aha,” and loops his arm through hers, as if they are already friends.
“Come,” he says, leading her toward the café on the corner. She has never been inside one, never been brave enough to chance it, not alone, not with such a tenuous hold on her disguise. But he draws her on as if it’s nothing, and at the last moment he swings an arm around her shoulders, the weight so sudden and so intimate she is about to pull away before she catches the edge of a smile, and realizes that he has made a game of it, conscripted himself into the service of her secret.
Inside, the café is a place of energy and life, overlapping voices and the scent of something rich and smoky.
“Careful now,” he says, eyes dancing with mischief. “Stay close, and keep your head down, or we will be found out.”
She follows him to the counter, where he orders two shallow cups, the contents thin and black as ink. “Sit over there,” he says, “against the wall, where the light is not too strong.”
They fold themselves into a corner seat, and he sets the cups between them with a flourish, turning the handles just so, as he tells her it is coffee. She has heard of the stuff, of course, the current toast of Paris, but when she lifts the china to her lips and takes a sip, she is rather disappointed.
It is dark, and strong, and bitter, like the chocolate flakes she first tasted years ago, only without the edge of sweetness. But the boy stares at her, as eager as a pup, and so she swallows, and smiles, cradles the cup, and looks out from beneath the brim of her hat, studying the tables of men, some with their heads bowed close, while others laugh, and play at cards, or pass sheaves of paper back and forth. She watches these men and wonders anew at how open the world is to them, how easy the thresholds.
Her attention flicks back to her companion, who’s watching her with the same unbridled fascination.
“What were you thinking?” he asks. “Just now?”
There is no introduction, no formal exchange. He simply dives into the conversation, as if they have known each other for years instead of minutes.
“I was thinking,” she says, “that it must be so easy to be a man.”
“Is that why you put on this disguise?”
“That,” she says, “and a hatred of corsets.”
He laughs, the sound so open and easy Addie finds a smile rising to her lips.
“Do you have a name?” he asks, and she doesn’t know if he’s asking for her own, or that of her disguise, but she decides on “Thomas,” watches him turn the word over like a bite of fruit.
“Thomas,” he muses. “A pleasure to meet you. My name is Remy Laurent.”
“Remy,” she echoes, tasting the softness, the upturned vowel. It suits him, more than Adeline ever suited her. It is young and sweet, and it will haunt her, as all names do, bobbing like apples in the stream. No matter how many men she meets, Remy will always conjure him, this bright and cheerful boy—the kind she could have loved, perhaps, if given the chance.
She takes another sip, careful not to hold the cup too gingerly, to lean the weight on her elbow, and sit in the unselfconscious way men have when they do not expect anyone to study them.
“Amazing,” he marvels. “You have studied my sex well.”
“Have I?”
“You are a splendid mimic.”
Addie could tell him that she’s had the time to practice, that it has become a kind of game over the years, a way to amuse herself. That she has added a dozen different characters by now, knows the exact differences between a duchess and a marchioness, a docksman and a merchant.
But instead, she only says, “We all need ways