Light Fantastique Read Free

with her hatred of Parnaby Cobb and the past connection with him that Marie refused to talk about.
    Then he asked himself how he could use the situation to his advantage. Not getting kicked out and having to return to England and face the men who wanted to kill him seemed beneficial enough for the moment. Not that he was going anywhere during the siege. No one was, at least not unless they could bribe their way on to an airship.
    â€œI’ll look at the score,” he said, unwilling to give all the way.
    â€œ Bien. ” She walked to the orchestra pit—without the aid of her cane, he noticed—reached down to a shelf, and gave him a first violin score. “This should not be difficult for you.”
    â€œI’m sure it won’t be.” Especially since I’ve played the Symphonie Fantastique before. But again, he wasn’t going to say it. He’d learned the hard way not to reveal all his advantages in antagonistic situations like this. But he also knew there was more to the situation than Madame St. Jean let on.
    * * * * *
    Iris ascended the steps to the multi-story townhouse Madame St. Jean owned next to the theatre. A year ago, Iris had been living in a modest but nice house in a little town in England with her father. She had few friends since other young middle-class women didn’t share her interests in archeology and science. Now she attended the new French Ecole d’Archaeologie and shared a room with— how scandalous!— an actress, who also served as a maid when Iris needed some extra help, although she was proud she could mostly take care of herself. And she had friends, a strange group, to be sure, but friends nonetheless.
    The first person she saw when she crossed the threshold was the member of the group she liked least but perhaps understood the best, for they’d both had to deal with the aftermath of dangerous secrets coming to light. She tried to be pleasant to him for that reason and because he was the best friend of her almost fiancé, Professor Edward Bailey. And today she was happy to find him alone because a question had grown in her mind over the past few months since she’d returned to Paris after her father’s funeral.
    â€œGood afternoon, Maestro Bledsoe.”
    â€œGood afternoon, Mademoiselle McTavish.” He sat in the parlor with his violin on its stand beside him and a score spread on the table in front of him. “How were your exams?”
    â€œFine. We should have our results by the end of next week.” She tried not to say too much about her studies because she didn’t want to bore the others. She’d alienated friends in the past by going on too much about sarcophagi and coins. Now she tried to figure out the best way to broach the subject on her mind. Heart, really. “What are you doing?”
    He looked up from the music in front of him and ran a hand through his hair. It had gotten long in Paris, and he’d grown a beard. He looked like a bohemian musician, particularly when agitated gesturing made his curls loosen and stand in a blond nimbus around his head.
    Like he’s the scruffy angel of the Théâtre Bohème.
    Her cheeks heated with the thought.
    â€œI’m being put to work with the orchestra,” he said. “Madame St. Jean is impatient. We’ve not made enough progress with the lighting system to please her.”
    â€œOh.” Iris glanced up the stairs, where she knew Professor Edward Bailey, the author of her greatest joy and anxiety, toiled in his laboratory in the converted attic workshop. Or at least she thought he was. She tried not to disturb him, but the few times she’d been up there to tell him it was a mealtime or bring him a delivery, she’d found him gazing at the biscuit-sized swirling aether in its glass globe. He never seemed to move much beyond that. As for Patrick O’Connell, the tinkerer/engineer who was working on converting the