Nestled deep in the courtyard of a 17th-century mansion on Île Saint-Louis, the Swan Music School was accessible only through a narrow, vaulted archway. At two o’clock in the afternoon, the sun shone bright and warm, and the chestnut trees in the courtyard cast dappled shadows across the cobblestones.
Scarlett sat on a wooden bench in the courtyard, an art history monograph spread open on her knees—but she had not turned a single page. Her entire attention was fixed on the entrance to the archway, and on Eliot, who sat on the opposite bench, pretending to read a newspaper.
Louise’s music lesson had already been underway for twenty minutes. From the courtyard, the faint sound of a piano drifted through the air—halting, disjointed, the tentative attempts of young children learning to play.
