I found it an interesting thought, so absorbing I wasn’t aware I’d withdrawn myself from the whole conversation until it slowly filtered through my consciousness that plates were clinking as Luc cleared them. I blinked hard to free my senses from the fog that always followed hyperfocus. If Jacqui had been with me she would have brought me right out of it when she first saw me beginning to slide, as she always did, saying my name before anyone noticed. I had to admit this was nicer, though, and much less jarring to simply come out of it all on my own.

“You were daydreaming,” Noah informed me. He turned to his father and asked, “Can we pull out the kings now?”

I’d never been part of this ritual as an adult. At my neighbors’ house, because I’d been the same age as my friend Ricky, we’d both shared the distinction of being the youngest ones present, and so every year we’d dived under the table the same way that Noah did now, settling in to decide in a random way who got which piece of the cake.

Claudine, as the eldest, was put into service as cake cutter, setting each piece on its plate and then waiting till Noah called out from below to say who should receive it. Even without Denise’s mark on top, the piece meant for Noah was simple to spot from the gleam of the porcelain fève, clearly visible, stuck at the filling’s cut edge. Claudine deftly maneuvered the plates to make certain that piece went to Noah, but when he scrambled up into his seat again and saw the cake upon his plate, he didn’t look as happy as I’d thought he would. In fact, his eyebrows drew together slightly in a frown.

It didn’t last. He quickly pointed at the wall behind his father’s head and said to me, “See, there’s a picture of me as a baby.”

I turned my head to look, and when I did, he switched our plates.

I was aware of him doing it—he had to lean across the table and there was a fair amount of clinking—but I could also see everyone smiling, and Denise winked and made a great production of directing my attention to another of the photographs, by which I understood I was supposed to make believe I hadn’t seen the switch. I did my best to play along, and when I “found” the fève and feigned surprise, the look of joy on Noah’s face made all of my pretending seem worthwhile.

The paper crown they brought for me to wear brought memories with it: me at six years old, or seven maybe, sitting at the table at my neighbors’ at Epiphany, the Mickey Mouse fève on my plate, the foil card crown upon my head…

“You have to choose your king,” Claudine said.

There were only two males at the table, and it really was no contest. Luc might be the one I fancied, but his son was sitting looking at me, leaning slightly forward in his chair the way my cousin did whenever she was waiting with impatience, or with hope.

So I chose Noah.

Luc seemed fine with that. He told his son—and he was smiling when he said it, so I knew he wasn’t actually resentful—“I thought I was Sara’s favorite.”

“I’m sure she likes you, Papa,” Noah reassured his father, using both hands to adjust his own gold paper crown, the handmade match to mine. “But like I told you, I’m the one who helps her best.”

Chapter 26

Soon shall my voice be heard no more, and my footsteps cease to be seen.

—Macpherson, “Fingal,” Book Five

Lyon

February 21, 1732

There was no want of helping hands to meet them on the quayside at Lyon. The diligence d’eau had barely settled in its berth along the river wall when it was all but overrun by men who came aboard with the audacity of pirates and proceeded to behave as though they had already been engaged as porters for the baggage. One, a burly man with a red waistcoat, took the merchant’s luggage in his meaty hands and started off at such a pace the merchant had to scurry to keep up with him, and two younger and more wiry men began to jostle one another for the trunk and bags belonging to the mother with her daughters. But Thomson kept hold of his deal-box and Mr. MacPherson took charge of their two portmanteaus and the case with his long gun inside, and his unsmiling face and unyielding appearance proved more than enough to discourage the would-be assistants from seeking to deal with him.

With so many cases slung over his shoulders he should have looked heavily laden, but he stood as straight as he always did, moving with ease. In three strides he crossed the broad plank that the boatman had laid from the deck of the diligence onto the quay. Mary, walking behind him, was not so sure-footed and wobbled somewhat at the end, but she quickly recovered and clutching Frisque close to her chest stepped off onto the quay without needing MacPherson’s help.

It was a foolish thing, really, to shrink from his touch. And decidedly rude to ignore the hand he held outstretched, but she felt less than civil towards him today, and with cause: he had spoiled her chances this morning of passing her letter as planned to the younger of the frilly sisters. Although the young woman had accepted Mary’s invitation after breakfast to come out and walk with her and Frisque, their freedom had been limited by Thomson’s warning to stay within sight of the inn, and by his assigning MacPherson to go with them for their protection.

The Scotsman, to Mary’s eyes, hadn’t seemed keen to leave Thomson alone when the Englishman might yet be coming behind them, but there had been no room to argue that morning, not with the younger sister understanding Spanish and MacPherson being kept by his disguise from speaking English, so he’d had to merely frown and rise reluctantly and go along while Thomson had advised them, “There are rogues aplenty in a town like this, and never can young women be too guarded.”