We were almost up the stairs when I realized that the crowds really were clearing a path—but it wasn’t Laure and me they were avoiding.
I halted on the top step, pulling Laure to a stop with me, while ahead the Parisians continued to draw back.
Laure turned around. “Ah,” she breathed.
“Ah what?” I asked. But she didn’t have to answer, for footsteps pattered behind and a voice I knew entirely too well called, “Excusez-moi, Mesdemoiselles. Est-ce que je peux vous aider? ”
Laure’s lips puffed into a coy smile, her lashes batting prettily. But she said nothing, and so providing a response fell to me.
I drew in a ragged breath and forced myself around. Then I looked him square in the eyes and said, “Hello, Daniel. A fine afternoon for an overly dramatic balloon landing, don’t you think?”
His eyes doubled in size, and his mouth bobbed open like a fish. If the situation wasn’t so awful, I would have laughed at his shock.
He tried to speak, his usually tan face devoid of all color, but nothing came out.
Then, as if matters weren’t already uncomfortable enough, they somehow worsened. The entire crowd fell silent. Every single person stopped speaking and waited to see what Daniel would do.
Life ticked by in painfully slow seconds. My heart pounded in my ears, and I fought to keep my face still.
Someone coughed. Laure flinched. Then Daniel flinched and stumbled toward me.
“Miss Fitt,” he said.
“Do not call me that.” My voice came out surprisingly composed—though I desperately wished the crowds would cease their silence and ignore us. “I’m Eleanor to you, Daniel. You know that.”
His eyebrows twitched down, and with that, his own composure seemed to return. He swooped off his top hat and bowed. “Eleanor, what a . . . pleasant surprise.” He lifted and motioned to Laure. “Who is your companion?”
“This is Mademoiselle Laure Primeau,” I said. “Laure, this is Mr. Daniel Sheridan.”
“How do you do, Mademoiselle?” He gave another elegant bow, and I almost laughed as my discomfort melted away. Jie was right. I didn’t recognize this young man at all. This Daniel Sheridan was not the escaped convict I had fallen in love with three months ago. Whatever that book on manners was that Jie had mentioned in her letter, it had turned Daniel into a perfect copy of every other polite and dull gentleman in the world.
“You know each other?” Laure asked, her lips twisting up wickedly. “What a magnificent . . . coincidence, non?”
“He is one of the Spirit-Hunters,” I muttered, grabbing her arm. “Let’s go back to the hotel now, please.”
Daniel leaned toward me. “The Hotel Le Meurice?”
I nodded grudgingly, avoiding his eyes. “We were just headed back, were we not, Laure?”
But she didn’t answer. Her smirk merely deepened. “You are going to the same ’otel, Monsieur?”
He tugged at his collar. “Yes.”
“Parfait,” she murmured under her breath. Then, with an arch smile at me, she said, “Then he must escort us, non? It is his responsibility as a gentleman.”
I opened my mouth, a hissing retort on my tongue, but Daniel was already leaping up the remaining steps to us. “Allow me,” he said, swooping another graceful bow.
And it was as if all of France released its breath. That single movement sent a wave of sighs through the entire audience (for crowd they were no longer). Instantly, conversations resumed; the world returned to its natural course.
Laure’s lips stayed in a smug pucker as she took Daniel’s left arm and I took his right. Then we began an awkward promenade toward the hotel. He was as tall and lanky as ever, and I had to roll back my head to meet his eyes.
“That was quite an entrance,” I said, lifting my voice over the now-roaring crowds. “You would do well in the circus.”
“C’est vrai,” Laure chimed. “What was the purpose?”
He chuckled tightly. “The Marquis asked me to do it. When I returned to Paris, he told me to make it grand. So I did.” He spoke slowly, putting a great deal of emphasis on each word. “What brings you to Paris, Miss Fitt?”
“And why . . . are you . . . speaking so slowly? Also, do not call me Miss Fitt.”
“I ain’t—I mean, I’m not talking slow . . . slow ly. ” His teeth gritted, and I could see Laure bite her lip to keep from laughing. “I’m merely surprised to find you here,” he continued. “And with a . . . lady at your side.”
I wrinkled up my face. “Merely” was not a word in Daniel’s vocabulary.
“Eleanor was my roommate,” Laure explained as we walked down the sidewalk beside the busy street. “We were on the same ship to France.”
Daniel only gave her a cursory grunt, his focus still on me. Laure looked daggers at him—it would seem she wasn’t fond of being ignored.
But inwardly I grinned. Even in my mud-colored gown and unlaced waist, Daniel wanted to speak to me.
“You have not answered my question,” Daniel said, his eyebrows drawing together.
“What question?” I asked.