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me how Renaissance painters made their own paints by grinding stones: turquoise, lapis, ochre, malachite, and then took me to the museum to show me the masterworks that had been painted with stones.”
    “The two of you spent a lot of time together, didn’t you?”
    I nodded.
    “He was a wonderful father to you. And a wonderful son to me.”
    Grand-mère’s eyes closed for a single second, and I saw her eyelashes quiver against her cheeks. Then she shook her mane of glorious sunset hair and forced some gaiety into her voice. “So what will you do today? I think you should get out of the apartment even though it’s drizzling. No moping around. The time for that is over.”
    “Yes,” I said. “You’re right. I think I’ll take myself off to the dusty Louvre.”
    This made her smile.
    But I was lying. I wasn’t thinking about going to the museum but rather visiting the Maison de la Lune. If Monsieur Duplessi was there again today, he’d let me in, and I wanted to walk around the house, wanted to see all the rooms that were still so vivid in my memory. I wanted to surround myself with La Lune’s treasures.

Chapter 6
    Getting up my courage, I asked, “Monsieur Duplessi, what is it you are doing here exactly?”
    We were once again in the kitchen, eating his croissants and drinking the bitter coffee he’d brewed for us.
    “Haven’t you asked your grandmother that?”
    I could see he was confused by my question.
    “No.”
    “And why is that?”
    “She is too upset to speak of this house.” It was true: whenever I brought up La Lune, she’d become uncomfortable. I guessed that since she had raised my father here, the memories were bittersweet and too painful.
    “But she doesn’t seem upset when she’s here,” he offered with a slightly sly smile, as if he was half teasing, half challenging.
    His hair had fallen onto his face, and I found myself wanting to reach out and feel its silkiness. I stared down at my hands as if they belonged to a stranger. I had never given a single thought to touching my husband’s hair.
    “Mademoiselle?” Julien was looking at me, waiting for a response.
    “Perhaps you don’t understand Grand-mère well enough to judge whether she’s happy or unhappy. Exactly how do you know her?” I asked, finally.
    “I’m an architect,” he said, and I noticed that he lifted up his head a little when he said it. “She hired me.”
    “So you are renovating the house?”
    “Yes. Didn’t she tell you?”
    “She did, but what are you doing here every day without any workers?”
    “I’m making an inventory. If we are to turn the mansion into a museum, I need to know what items will be displayed and how to show them off and how much room will be needed for the different exhibitions so I can plan accordingly.”
    I felt cold. Certainly I had not heard him correctly. A museum? “But she lives here. This is our home.”
    He shrugged. “She never revealed her reasons to me. All I know is there’s more than enough here to make for a fine jewel of a museum. There are over thirty pieces of sculpture. Eighty paintings, some that rival anything in the Louvre. An excellent selection of china dating from as early as 1700. Your family’s holdings are a treasure trove of objets d’art going back to the 1600s. It’s astonishing.”
    “But she’s going to live here after you’re done, correct?”
    “I am so sorry to distress you.” He was looking at me tenderly. “But no, our conversations would suggest not. We’ve discussed using the second-floor bedrooms as galleries devoted to the art of seduction. Your grandmother has collected antique clothes and accessories used in the courtesan’s art, which will fascinate visitors.”
    I gripped the edge of the table. Felt the chilly marble on my fingertips. A shiver ran through me. I could not allow this house to be turned into a museum . . . could not allow strangers to walk through the doors and examine the things that belonged to