Read Chapter 9: A Family Dinner

The invitation arrived on a cream-colored card, embossed with the Duval crest, and addressed to Evie in a flawless copperplate hand. Madame Duval requested the pleasure of her company at dinner that Friday evening. Claire had been insistent, tugging at Evie’s sleeve after their lesson, her voice a stage whisper about roast duck and her father’s terrible jokes.

It was impossible to refuse. It was also impossible to ignore the knot of unease tightening in Evie’s stomach as she smoothed the front of her one good dress—a deep blue silk that flattered her figure but was clearly not couture—and climbed the stone steps to the Duval residence.

The dining room was a cavern of mahogany and crystal, the chandelier scattering light like diamonds across the polished table. Monsieur Duval, a stout man with a booming laugh and a flushed face, greeted her warmly. Claire beamed from her seat, and Madame Duval, elegant and cool in a gown of dove grey, inclined her head with a smile that did not quite reach her eyes.

The conversation flowed through courses—a delicate consommé, then the promised duck, crisp-skinned and fragrant. Evie fielded questions about New York with practiced charm, spinning tales of Broadway marquees and smoky clubs that were only partly embellished. She kept her voice light, her laughter easy, and tried not to think about how the silver fork felt too heavy in her hand, how the wine tasted of money.

After the plates were cleared and a tart of poached pears arrived, the conversation turned. Monsieur Duval, loosening his collar, gestured with his glass toward the piano in the adjoining salon, a gleaming Steinway that seemed to take up half the room.

“Claire tells me you sing, Miss Hart,” he said. “Professionally, I understand.”

Evie’s smile felt pinned in place. “I do. Jazz, mostly.”

Madame Duval’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “Jazz,” she repeated, as if tasting something sour. “How… novel. I suppose it is all the rage in certain circles.”

“It’s the music of the moment,” Evie said, keeping her voice even. “It has a heartbeat to it. It feels alive.”

“Alive,” Madame Duval murmured. “I’ve heard it is quite… bodily.” She dabbed the corner of her mouth with a linen napkin. “Not that I would know. We are a family of classical traditions. Claude studied at the Conservatoire, you know. He could have gone anywhere.”

Monsieur Duval, oblivious to the tension, nodded enthusiastically. “Nothing like the old masters. Bach, Beethoven, the French school. Music that speaks to the soul, not just the limbs.” He laughed his booming laugh. “Though I admit I prefer a good opera myself.”

Evie forced herself to take a sip of wine, the rich burgundy doing little to wash away the sting. They meant no harm, she told herself. They were simply creatures of their world, and she was a visitor from another. But the words lodged in her chest like burrs, and she found herself thinking of Julien—of how his fingers had moved across the keys as if the music were living inside him, of the raw ache in his voice when he spoke of his mother.

“Miss Hart,” Claire interrupted, her young voice eager to change the subject, “will you sing for us after dinner? Papa had the piano tuned just last week.”

Before Evie could decline, Madame Duval interjected, her voice velvet and steel. “Claire, you mustn’t impose. Perhaps Miss Hart would prefer to hear Claude play. He was the prize pupil of his year.”

Evie looked toward the piano, and the ghost of Julien seemed to flicker there—his dark head bent over the keys, the hush of his concentration, the moment their voices had tangled in the afternoon air and made something new, something hers. Whatever she wanted in that room, it was not to perform for these people who held her music at arm’s length.

“I’m sure Monsieur Duval’s playing is wonderful,” Evie said carefully. “But I’m afraid I’m quite tired. It’s been a long week.”

Madame Duval’s smile did not waver. “Of course. We wouldn’t dream of keeping you from your rest.” She rose, the gesture a clear dismissal. “Claire, say goodnight to Miss Hart.”

Claire hugged her tightly at the door. “You’re the best tutor I’ve ever had,” she whispered, and Evie felt the words land somewhere raw.

Walking back through the cool Parisian night, the streets glistening with a recent rain, Evie replayed the evening like a scratched record. The easy condescension. The cultivated distance. It wasn’t cruelty—it was something worse. It was the quiet assumption that her world, her music, her very self, was lesser.

She found Julien in their courtyard, shoulders hunched, a cigarette burning forgotten between his fingers. He didn’t look up as she approached, did not turn as her heels clicked on the wet stone. A handful of crumpled pages lay at his feet, covered in his dense, slashing notation.

“Are you cross with me?” He asked, his voice low. “Because I was too afraid to face this alone?” He gestured at the music, the words bitter. “I went home to my family’s house this afternoon. I thought I might find some courage there, the way I used to. Instead, my father took me aside and asked me how long I intended to play at this ‘little game’ before I returned to my senses.”

Evie folded her arms against the chill. “And what did you tell him?”

Julien laughed, a dry, hollow sound. “I told him I was not playing games. He told me I was throwing away everything they had sacrificed for. That my mother would be ashamed.” His jaw tightened. “She would not be ashamed. She would be the first to understand.”

“Because she was a singer.”

“Yes.” He finally turned, and his eyes were shadows. “She would understand. But she is not the one who judges me. My father is. And his brothers and sisters. I could bear it, if it were only myself I was disappointing. But they raised me. They paid for my lessons. They endured my moods, my silences, my obsession with the keys.” He ran a hand through his hair, a rare crack in his composure. “I owe them something, and I cannot seem to pay them back with this.”

“You don’t owe them your life,” Evie said, her voice sharper than she intended. “You owe them your honesty.”

He flinched, as if she had struck him.

“I spent tonight dining with a family who look at jazz like it’s dirt on their shoes,” she pushed on, the evening’s indignation finally catching flame. “They were gracious. They were polite. And they made it abundantly clear that my kind of music—my kind of person—is not welcome at their table. So I understand pressure, Julien. I understand feeling like you don’t belong in your own skin.”

He was quiet so long she thought she had ruined it. Then he moved, crossing the space between them. He picked up the crumpled sheets, smoothed one against his chest, and held it out to her.

“This,” he said softly. “This piece is all I have that is truly mine. My father believes it is a youthful indulgence. He told me tonight to burn it and start again on a sonata I have been avoiding for years.” His fingers brushed hers as she took the sheet. “I cannot burn it. I cannot give it up. Because when I hear your voice inside it, I remember why I started making music at all.”

The air changed. She could feel the pulse of him, close enough that the smoke on his coat and the soap on his collar tangled together.

“Evie,” he said, and her name on his tongue was a note held just below a sustain. “I am terrified. Of failing them. Of failing you. Of failing her.” His mother. The ghost in his music.

“You won’t fail me,” she said. “Just show up Saturday and mean it.”

Julien looked at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, a smile that did not reach the tension in his shoulders. “You really are not like anyone I have ever met.”

“I know,” she said, and almost laughed.

They rehearsed until the sky paled to lavender above the rooftops. His fingers found the notes with more certainty each time. Her voice curled around the melody like smoke around a lamplight. In the quiet between verses, Evie saw the shape of what they could be—and beyond it, the shelves of polished silver in the Duvals’ dining room, and the contempt in Madame Duval’s eyes. She had heard that tone in New York, in the voices of producers who wanted her voice in their shows but her body kept behind the curtain.

At the last run-through, Julien paused, fingers hovering over the keys. “Evie,” he said quietly. “They think I love you because it is convenient for the act. My family will not see the truth. They will see a threat and try to extinguish it.” He lifted his gaze, black eyes steady on hers. “If I perform with you tomorrow, I am burning the bridge to my old life. I need to know that what we are building can hold its weight.”

The words hung in the pale dawn. Evie looked at the music in her hands, at the raw seams of it, and thought of Le Chat Bleu and its steady pay, of the Duvals’ quiet judgment, of the emptiness that had followed her across the ocean, hungry for something she had not yet named.

And she thought of the locket, still missing, and of Lily, who had disappeared into this same city and left no trace.

“I don’t know what we’re building yet,” she admitted. “But I know what it sounds like. And it’s the only thing in Paris that has felt like home.”

Julien’s breath came out in a rush. He reached for her hand, his fingers calloused from practice, his grip sure.

“Then we burn the bridge together,” he said. “And see what stands on the other side.”

The first pale rays of sunlight struck the windows, and Evie felt something shift into place—fragile, trembling, but undeniably there.