A Spark Unseen by Cameron Sharon

Author:Cameron, Sharon [Cameron, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2013-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

I heard feet on the stairs but I ignored them. Instead I ransacked the drawers, also choosing to ignore the knocks, calls, shouts, and then thudding bangs that accompanied my search. There were shirts here I recognized, and the red cap, and the smell, I knew it. It made my heart quicken, both in recognition and fear. Wherever Lane had gone, he could not have taken much with him. I stripped the bed, where I found nothing but blankets and sheets, and then got on my knees to look underneath. A box with odds and ends, mostly painting supplies, and in the back corner, hiding from the maid’s broom, a scrap of paper. I got two fingers on it before the door splintered around its lock. I caught a glimpse of four female faces peeking in before Henri stepped inside and casually shut the broken door behind him. It would not latch. He observed me in my position on the floor.

“Did you know it is very painful to do that?” he asked, rubbing his shoulder.

“It took you twelve times,” I commented.

“I must practice, I think.”

I remained on my knees, staring at the scrap of paper in my hand. It was torn and dirty, only part of a scrawled word visible, but the handwriting belonged to Lane. It said Tuiler and that was all. The paper was torn, the rest missing.

“So, who is he?” Henri Marchand asked, strolling across the floor to examine the paintings. He stopped before the third canvas, the one of me with my hair down and said, “Ah,” as if I had answered his question.

I stood, eyeing the room. Other than the paintings, there was nothing else to look at, no other things to go through. I held out the scrap of paper to Henri.

“The Tuileries, perhaps?” he said after a glance. “That is the imperial palace. Or one of them.”

He handed the paper back to me as the door creaked, and then Mrs. Reynolds was standing in the room with us, hands clasped in front of her. She opened her thin mouth to speak, but I spoke first.

“When was he last here? What day, exactly?”

“Ten days before you came to dinner, Miss Tulman. We had notified the police exactly one week before that.”

Ten days before I came to dinner, so almost two weeks ago now. And only three days before the Frenchmen tried to kidnap Uncle Tully. “And what did the police say?”

“Nothing at all. They were of very little help, though he was a Frenchman.”

“Half French,” I said absently. “His mother was English.”

“I think not, Miss Tulman,” Mrs. Reynolds replied, voice taking on a wintry frost. “Jean-Michel barely spoke passable English.”

“He was born in England, Mrs. Reynolds, and had never set foot in France until last year.” She stared at me a moment, then her eyes roved about the room, as if seeing it anew. “How did you meet him?”

She put her gaze back on me. “He was working in a silver shop, not very far from here, around the corner from the Opera.

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