enraged churchman out of the way before both could be run down by a stanhope full of extremely Cooperesque Indians. "I thought you were a friend of mine! My fault entirely!" Richelieu was pomegranate with rage and thrashing like a fish on a hook, but he was also a good half foot shorter than January's six-foot three-inch height and hadn't spent nine years carrying cadavers-and occasionally pianofortes-on a daily basis. "I do beg your pardon!"

January knew the man would hit him the moment he let go and knew also that he'd better not hit back.

He was correct. It wasn't much of a blow, and at least Richelieu wasn't carrying a cane, but as the scarlet-masked villain flounced back across the gutter and disappeared into the dark maw of the gate once more, January was surprised by his own anger. Rage rose through him like a fever heat as he tasted his own blood on his lip, burning worse than the sting of the blow, and for a time he could only stand in the gluey street, jostled on both sides by gaudy passersby, not trusting himself to follow.

I've been in Paris too long, he thought.

Or not long enough.

He picked up his high-crowned beaver hat, flicked the mud from it-it had fallen on the banquette, not in the gutter-and put it back on.

The last time he'd let a white man strike him, he'd been twenty-four. An American sailor on the docks had cuffed him with casual violence as he was boarding the boat to take him to Paris. He'd thought then, Never again.

He drew a long breath, steadying himself, willing the anger away as he had learned to will it as a child.

Welcome home.

Music drifted from the pale, pillared bulk of the Theatre d'Orleans immediately to his right, and a mingled chatter of talk through the carriageway to the courtyard of the Salle d'Orleans that had been his goal. The long windows of both buildings were open, despite the evening's wintry cool-not that New Orleans winters ever got much colder than a Normandy spring. That was something he'd missed, all these past sixteen years.