by Kat Dunn
‘So tell me how this plan works,’ said Guil as she pulled up the window. ‘Shutting yourself up with a violent and dangerous man.’
‘He’s not like that.’
‘Oh? Sympathy for the Devil, is it now?’
‘Stop it,’ snapped Ada.
Guil said nothing. His expression had shifted from stony anger to something more complicated. Ada let the silence spool out.
Finally, Guil spoke. ‘I … I saw things go wrong in the army. Time and time again, tactics, strategies, risks that didn’t pay off. I have seen the dire consequences when we throw ourselves into something unprepared. I cannot let that happen again, especially not to someone I care about.’
And the fight went out of her. Guil held himself so carefully, rose above the mess of the rest of the battalion, like a lone competent adult in a band of squabbling children; it was easy for Ada to forget he’d had had a life of his own before she knew him, had seen and done things that still haunted him.
She reached for Guil’s hand, and he let her take it. ‘Nothing bad is going to happen to me.’
‘You should not be so sure. If you continue to shut me out, then that is all that will happen. No one can succeed alone.’
Outside, the view had shifted from the river to the Rue Saint-Honoré. The Palais d’Égalité wasn’t far.
Guil was right. Fighting each other would get them nowhere. ‘From the notes I’ve been writing up, it seems the duc has been testing which materials are the best conductors of electricity. Now he’s trying to understand the principles of transferring electricity through flesh. You remember the demonstration at the theatre, where people stand in a circle holding hands and a current is passed through them? Like that.’
‘That does not sound good. Why on earth would he want to know that?’
Ada looked out of the window, at people hurrying about their day: street sellers, shopkeepers, beggars in doorways and the well-to-do, lifting their skirts to avoid them. All trying to keep some semblance of normality through the chaos of revolution.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, pressing her forehead to the glass. ‘And that’s what worries me.’
6
6 Bedford Square
Leaving Lady Harford’s dressing room, Camille edged along the wall to keep out of sight of Hennie and Phil in the drawing room – and knocked into an end table, nearly sending flying the china dish where guests left their calling cards. She dived and caught it before it slid off the edge, but a cascade of cards fluttered to the floor.
‘Camille?’ Hennie’s voice rang out. ‘Is that you? Is there more news of Edward?’
Camille held her breath. The shadow of a figure approached the doorway.
‘Come back, Hen, and turn the page! I’m almost at the end of this bar.’ The piano slowed.
‘Oh, all right.’
The shadow turned and left.
As silently as she could, Camille replaced the dish and picked up the cards. She’d forgotten how communal life was in a place like this. Not the easy camaraderie of her battalion, where she could come and go as she pleased, but the enforced group movements between mealtimes and leisure. In this world, Camille’s place was with the other young women, embroidering handkerchiefs for her bridal trousseau, or in some other way making herself pleasant and useful. She was only alone when she slept.
She didn’t know how she used to stand it.
Cards replaced, she padded noiselessly in her silk slippers to a little-used drawing room. She would have to dress for the pleasure gardens shortly, but first, she had an appointment to keep.
Al was waiting, hands in his pockets as he paced nervously in front of the empty fireplace. ‘Did you get it?’
She pulled the documents out of her dress. ‘I got something, but I think Lord Harford suspects me. We need to be more careful.’
‘I suppose there’s no dodging the wedding now,’ said Al. ‘If you try to pull out, it’ll only make him think he’s right.’
Camille’s heart sank. She’d been thinking the same thing.
‘We’ll just have to make that work to our advantage,’ she said. ‘If James gets sucked into wedding preparations, he’ll have less time to keep an eye on Olympe or us.’
‘In the meantime, we’d better hope you’ve managed to steal something useful.’ Al held out his hand. ‘Go on, then, give us a read.’
‘Hang on, I’ve not even looked properly yet.’
She dropped into an armchair and read.
As she realised what she’d stolen, a chill swallowed her whole. Wordlessly, she held it out to Al.
It was a report on the state of things in Paris, from an English spy. The information was only two days old – someone must have ridden more than one horse to the point of collapse to get to Lord Harford.
He would definitely realise this was missing.
But what scared her more was what it said. Unrest. Robespierre’s grip on power sliding. A resurgent right wing in the National Convention angling to take control. Royalist factions gathering strength; potential routes to funnel funds to them, to free useful agents from prison. Rumours of a coup.
The duc and his Royalist allies must have another plan in action.
The fragility of the Revolution was laid out in stark words Camille could no longer ignore. Paris was a political powder keg, and she’d left Ada and Guil on their own to navigate it. No, worse – she’d sent them into the heart of it.
She’d already lost one family to the guillotine. Was she at risk of losing another?
The feeling of having made a terrible mistake overwhelmed her, and Camille reached for Al’s arm to steady herself. Her chest hitched, panic filling her as she couldn’t catch a proper breath.
Al had gone paler than usual.
‘Good thing we left Paris. If the duc gets his minor-royal-of-choice into power, he’ll have the entire secret police in charge of hanging us by the ankles and skinning us alive.’
‘Shut up – please just shut up.’ Camile stood, heart beating too hard. ‘We need to do something.’
‘All right, what?’
‘I don’t know! We shouldn’t have left Ada and Guil. Robespierre is about to fall, and the duc will have his pawns in power. God only knows what will happen to Paris next.’
Al folded the letter and handed it back to her. ‘You never know, everyone might think it’s about time for a rest. They might leave off executing each other for a bit.’
‘You think now is a good time for jokes?’
‘Fine, do you want me to rub it in your face that I was right? Paris is too dangerous for us. We should get Guil and Ada over here and cut our losses.’
‘Cut our losses?’ she said incredulously. ‘Can’t you see they need us?’
He sneered. ‘Don’t be so big-headed. France doesn’t need us. We fought for months and look where it got us. I’m out, and you should be too. Let someone else pick up the slack this time.’
‘And what if no else does?’
‘So be it.’
‘You’d really walk away and let the duc win?’
Al shrugged. ‘No skin off my nose if I’m over here. Why should I care?’
Camille stared at him. The feeling of hysteria was only building. Her throat was closing up, her thoughts spiralling. ‘I don’t believe you really think that. I know you care.’ She couldn’t just sit here, she had to do something. ‘Come on.’ She pulled Al off the arm of the chair. ‘Have you still got that key to James’s room? Both of us need to get dressed as though we’re going to the pleasure gardens, but the first chance we get, we sneak off. Get Olympe and run.’
‘Camille—’
She pushed him into the hall and towards the stairs. She felt like a blazing star, burning too fast. ‘No, I don’t want to hear it. You said you’d finish this job with me, so do as I say and finish it.’
‘Camille!’
‘What?’
‘I just saw James and Lord Harford go into his study, looking quite thunderous. Som
ething is up.’
She stopped, looking at the sweeping staircase to the door above. ‘Oh.’
‘Yes, oh. Well, go on, then.’ He nudged her towards the stairs. ‘Be a good little revolutionary and have an eavesdrop.’
The tightness in her lungs faded into the background of her mind as she mounted the stairs. Her quarry was cornered. Soon, she could pounce.
7
6 Bedford Square
James felt like a stranger stepping inside the house. Around him, the bustle of normal life whirled, carriages and cloaks being readied for the evening out at the pleasure gardens. It was all so perfectly familiar, but it was as though he was watching through a glass pane – normal, safe, mundane life happening with his family on one side, while he was stranded on the other in a world of death and danger.
Lord Harford’s London study was a smaller replica of his grand study in Henley, but without the anteroom in which to keep anxious visitors. Stepping inside, James was only a few paces from his father’s desk. The ceiling might be higher here, the wallpaper cleaner, the shelves stacked with newer volumes, but the feeling was the same. Lord Harford had already settled in his chair, pulling papers towards him.
‘Spit it out.’ Lord Harford didn’t look up.
James clasped his hands behind his back. ‘It’s about the electrical research I spoke of previously.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake—’
‘No – please, hear me out. I have a demonstration with me to prove electricity is much more than a gimmick.’
His father folded his hands and waited. ‘Very well. Go ahead, show me.’
James’s cheeks heated. ‘I don’t have it on me exactly, but if you come with me outside…’
‘Ah. It never is quite the truth with you, is it?’
‘It will take but ten minutes—’
‘Do you see what is on my desk?’ Lord Harford interrupted.
‘Sir?’
‘It is a simple question. Answer it.’
James looked at the desk, the expensive quills and ink, paperweights, blotting paper, the sheafs of documents, and the dispatch box that sat on one side.
‘Your dispatch box, sir.’
‘It is the governance of a nation. The matters of state that trouble the greatest minds of a generation.’
He paused. Looked at James expectantly.
‘Yes, sir?’
Lord Harford sighed, face pinched like the cat had dragged in a half-dead bird and was expecting him to accept it with pleasure.
‘And you bring me … paranoid theories. I had high hopes for you, my son, but you fall for a hoax and spout stories of mad scientists and inhuman girls wielding electrical powers to anyone who will listen. You waste my time and humiliate yourself.’
‘But Wickham—’
‘Wickham is an idiot. This is why I didn’t want you at the medical school. To be perfectly frank, you have always been a flighty boy with little sense of duty and propriety. You should know your place is here as the heir to the estate, learning the duties and obligations that will fall to you when I am gone. Instead you choose to play strange, immoral games with human life. It was a mistake to allow it, and you have made me regret it.’ Lord Harford leaned forward, steepling his hands. ‘What’s more, you fail to see the threat directly in front of your face. Camille’s arrival here was … convenient.’
James frowned. ‘I don’t follow.’
‘Of course you don’t. If the girl had wanted to escape Paris, why on earth did she not tell you so when you found her? Why did she wait several weeks and turn up with that wastrel?’
Clenching his fists behind his back, James swallowed. Before, this is exactly what he would have wanted. His father suspicious of Camille, wanting her out of here as much as he had. Now she was his only hope.
His father wasn’t going to listen, that much was clear. He was a fool for having held out hope. Edward must have told Wickham about Olympe by now and they would be plotting something.
‘I don’t know, sir. Perhaps seeing me reminded her that there was another family still waiting for her.’
Lord Harford snorted. ‘That girl doesn’t have a sentimental bone in her body. She’s keeping something from us, and I intend to find out what.’
‘I am sure she is keeping many things from us. The true horror of the Terror is not something easily shared.’
‘Don’t play coy. You know what I mean. Her parents were fervent Revolutionaries and lost their lives for it. You think the apple falls that far from the tree? Revolution is in her blood. She is French, we are English; she does not have the same loyalties.’
‘That’s not…’ James struggled to find the right words. ‘We don’t doubt Maman’s loyalties and she’s French. Doesn’t that make me half-French?’
‘Don’t play semantics with me.’
‘Please, for once, believe me. She is not here for you.’ Camille might be telling his father lies, but he knew all too well her real target.
Lord Harford arranged his papers, dipped his quill in the inkpot, and began to write. ‘You’ve been a fool before, James. Don’t be one again.’
James stood rooted to the spot. It couldn’t just end like that. There had to be something he could say.
‘Now, do what is expected of you – escort your fiancée to the pleasure gardens and at least try to act respectably for one night. I don’t want to hear about this again.’
The nib scratched across paper, a small, obstinate sound that filled the space between them.
Because there was never any space for James there. There was only space for the person his father wanted him to be.
8
6 Bedford Square
The door to Lord Harford’s study opened suddenly and Camille skittered sideways. James came out looking furious and she made a half-hearted attempt to appear interested in a porcelain shepherdess on the side table.
‘Camille. Enjoy your eavesdropping? Catch any good gossip?’
She adjusted the shepherdess so she had her back to the red-cheeked farmer leering next to her. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re really not as interesting as you think you are.’
He opened his mouth to snap something else – then stopped. Downstairs, laughing voices rose from the drawing room, full of anticipation for the evening ahead.
‘Actually, I’m glad you’re here,’ he said. ‘I need to talk to you.’
She arched an eyebrow. ‘Do you now?’
She had heard only muffled, unintelligible snatches of their conversation, but enough to know James and his father had been fighting. She would have thought she was the last person he wanted to see.
Dark smudges circled his eyes, and his cheekbones stood out in too-sharp relief. She wondered when he’d last slept through the night.
Crooking his elbow, he offered his arm and, hesitantly, she let him lead her downstairs.
‘Look, if I were to … what I mean to say is, would you—’
‘Any time today, James.’
‘I need your help.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
What on earth could James need her help for?
Curiouser and curiouser.
‘It’s gone wrong,’ he said. ‘Wickham is—’
He was interrupted by Lady’s Harford, looking regal in red satin with a feather in her hair. ‘Oh, look at the two of you! It’s such a pleasure to see you together again. Like old times.’ She turned a glistening eye over both of them. ‘But what is this? You are hardly dressed, my dear girl, and James, you look a fright! Both of you, to your rooms at once.’
Camille knew when to stop fighting, and allowed herself to be chivvied along, transferred into evening wear, her hair dressed and rouge dabbed on her lips and cheeks.
I need your help.
What had happened? What had changed James from the stubborn, crowing enemy she’d faced so recently? Her anger at him warred with her curiosity and the stubborn sliver of her brain that still worried about him. It
wasn’t the worst feeling to have James begging for her help.
And then there was the ever-present dread that had followed her since her mother had first been arrested, the shifting-sand feeling that any success was fragile, and without constant vigilance could be lost.
She and Al could get Olympe and go at the first opportunity – but James had said something had gone wrong. She needed to find out what.
Once she was deemed fit for public consumption, she was released. The first of the dresses Lady Harford had ordered for her had arrived, and it was barely more than a cloud of gauze and silk. Standing in front of the mirror with the light behind her, she could plainly see her figure through the fabric. She’d worn trousers enough times that she didn’t care about anyone seeing the shape of her legs – but like this, a teasing glimpse, it felt more salacious.
Embarrassment quickly turned to annoyance, and she stomped down the last of the stairs. She was Camille goddamn Laroche and she would not be embarrassed by her own goddamn legs.
Downstairs it was quiet. In the drawing room, she found Al alone – except for the footman he was tangled up with.
‘Get out!’ he yelped.
Camille shut the door firmly and crossed her arms. ‘Time to leave,’ she said to the footman. The footman shrugged back into his frock coat and made himself scarce. Al collapsed into a sofa, shirt still untucked and tailcoat abandoned on the floor.
‘For god’s sake, Al, try to be a bit more discreet. For example, anywhere other than a well-lit public room with lots of people around.’
‘You’re such a spoilsport.’
‘Get dressed before someone comes in.’
‘Yes, Mother.’ He made himself more presentable.
She fiddled with the petals on a flower arrangement. ‘Is this a serious thing? You and…’
Al interrupted her. ‘Is it serious with the footman whose name you don’t know? Shockingly it is not.’
‘I was only trying to be a friend. Do you like this man? Is he nice?’
Al buried his face in his hands, cringing. ‘Cam, oh my god, shut up. This is embarrassing.’