Monstrous Design

by Kat Dunn

  As much as she desperately wanted to see Camille, kiss her, feel the warmth of her body in her arms – she didn’t want to put her in the duc’s path again.

  Whichever way Ada looked at it, there was no good way for this to end.

  They stopped at a coaching inn for a few hours’ rest. Ada passed Guil on the stairs as he came down to sleep with the hired muscle. He had been untied – what good would running do him now? They stopped, a step apart. This was the first chance they’d had to speak to each other.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought telling Clémentine was the right thing to do.’

  Guil covered her hand with his own where it rested on the bannister. ‘We both knew the risk. So much has changed since Cam left – perhaps we need to be together again.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ada, falling back into thought. ‘Things have changed, haven’t they?’

  Before Guil could reply, Clémentine called for Ada. He gave her hand a squeeze, then disappeared into the dark of the inn.

  A servant woke her at dawn and she dressed again in the same plain gown she had worn for the last three days. On the road, a new carriage waited with a team of fresh horses. Behind it was a cart. The duc was talking to its driver, and in the back were half a dozen men – farm hands or day labourers from the look of them. With a shiver, Ada realised what they were: more hired muscle.

  The inn’s servants were loading their luggage onto the carriage; one of them fumbled the crate they were lifting and it landed with a clank. A cry went up, someone had been injured, the crate split. Ada rushed forward to help, but the duc swept onto the scene, barking orders and shooing her away. All she had time to glimpse was a strip of dull metal, and then Clémentine was ushering her into the carriage. The box was repacked and they set off.

  An hour into their journey, Clémentine had fallen asleep, bonnet pulled down to cover her face. Ada was alone with the duc, and the conversation she had been avoiding could no longer be put off.

  ‘What must I do to prove myself trustworthy?’ She’d had several days to think, and appeasement was the only option left that she could see.

  ‘We do not need to speak of it.’ The duc watched the dull scenery of fields and trees and hedges outside the window.

  ‘With respect, I think we do. You have brought me along as insurance against this information being false. So I want you to know where I stand.’

  Reluctantly, he gave her his attention. ‘Very well. Speak.’

  Ada ran her tongue over her dry lips. She had been rehearsing this conversation since she woke up. Now, it was time.

  ‘It is as you said: it is difficult to shed old loyalties, however misplaced I may know them to be. I do not know you well, and I have seen both good and ill in that time. Having made one mistake with my trust, I was not eager to make another.’

  The duc seemed conflicted. ‘You are cautious, and I admire that about you.’

  ‘Then don’t punish me for it.’

  That broke his brooding expression, amusement flashing across his face before he schooled himself back into seriousness.

  ‘Very well, Adalaide. Then let me give you some frank advice: do not be a fool. I am offering you a future – a real future – and a place. What does Camille offer you? Love? You will do well to grow up quickly and learn that love is not something to bank on.’

  She chose her next words carefully. ‘It’s more than that. My father was a proponent of the Revolution, at least to start, and I confess myself sympathetic to his views.’ Feed him a little of the truth, and maybe he wouldn’t see where they joined up with lies.

  He nodded. ‘Many were.’

  ‘People were starving. It was impossible for things to go on as they had…’ Ada trailed off, acutely aware that she was edging her way across cracking ice.

  A shadow passed over his face. ‘Of course I don’t want people starving. I want France to be glorious, as she was once and can be again. And of course there were things wrong with the old regime, but weren’t there good things too? Wasn’t France a beacon for centuries? Of art, culture, learning, refinement. Just because some people mismanaged a system doesn’t mean the system must be thrown out.’

  Ada felt as if she was full of something loose and light, like constantly shifting sand. As if she couldn’t get purchase on herself. What he was saying wasn’t wrong. There were good things about France too, surely, though she didn’t often feel like France thought she had any right to claim them as hers.

  She could also see that, in the face of the guillotine, anyone would be scared. They would find the good in the things being challenged, long for a past that felt secure and certain.

  She wondered what it was like to have a past you longed for. Then again, how many times had she thought of her years with her mother and seen only the good?

  ‘I have never denied there was evil in the Revolution,’ she said, ‘as much as there was also good.’

  He leaned forward, looking at her with the earnest light she had only seen when he spoke of science. ‘Then you must agree: whatever was intended at the start, surely it was never meant for us to end up here. But Robespierre is gone, the nightmare is ending. We have a chance to try again. The people call for a stable hand on the tiller, a hand marked by god, one bred for power and able to weather its storms. Not these weak, selfish lawyers or baying, simple peasants.’

  ‘A king, you mean.’

  ‘France has been led by kings since Charlemagne. Why do we think we are so different from all of those who came before us? A king is order. Stability.’

  ‘He may also be a tyrant.’

  ‘And so may a president. What else would Robespierre be called than tyrant?’

  Ada said nothing. She had nothing left to refute his words. He was right. Everything he was saying was right.

  ‘Are you with me, Ada? With your help we can take the path of least bloodshed. We can restore order, law, peace. Can I trust in your help?’ He spoke softly, kindly.

  She folded her hands in her lap and took a deep breath.

  ‘Yes. I am yours to command.’

  8

  Henley House

  Camille slipped out before most of the house was up for breakfast. Wrapped in an Indian shawl, she padded through the servants’ entrance towards the boundary wall. James loitered behind the kitchen garden, a large scarf wrapped around his neck against the early morning chill. She said nothing in greeting and they set off together towards the woods.

  The papers had arrived that morning with the news: Robespierre was dead. James had passed it wordlessly to Camille. She knew things had been precarious, but this still had the power to shock.

  Only with the Revolution on the brink of collapse did she begin to understand where her loyalties truly lay, and the mistakes she had made.

  Because she might not have time to right them.

  The boundary wall ran around the broad expanse of the Harford estate, breaking off an obscene portion of land for the casual pleasure of one small family. Mist wreathed the ground, not yet burned away by the sun. Camille walked faster, relishing the pain in her lungs. She wouldn’t hide from her weakness any more – she would make it her greatest strength. There was nothing left to lose, so she would make this fight hurt everyone as much as it hurt her.

  On the other side of a copse of beech trees, the wall was broken by a gate, painted green and locked shut. Camille and James knew the gate well. They had stolen the long-forgotten key from the groundskeeper when they were children and used this secret exit to disappear, on adventures to the local village, to bother the cows, throw stones in the pond and smash eggs in a giggling, brattish mess.

  Now, James pulled the key from the pocket of his old frock coat. The door was stiff, and it took a kick to get it open. On the other side, a narrow track ran close to the wall.

  ‘Do you think Al will find it all right?’

  ‘He’d better.’ Camille leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. ‘Come on, you don’t really want to ma
rry me, do you? Surely if there’s a plausible enough reason to postpone the wedding your father will buy it.’

  Lord Harford had interrupted them before when Camille had meant to discuss with James how they were going to get out of the wedding ceremony, and since then they’d hardly had a moment to themselves. The worrying thought was dawning on her that she might actually have to go through with it.

  ‘Don’t you think we have enough on our plate without adding in another plan?’ said James.

  He wasn’t wrong. But Camille wasn’t in the mood to be placated. ‘Admit it, you were playing this bluffing game as much as me. But I have Olympe now, and you’ve got us into more of a mess than before. Why bother keeping up the charade?’

  James shoved his hands in his pockets, glancing at her from under his lashes with a hollow, smudge-eyed smile.

  ‘To protect you, Cam. I’ll always protect you.’

  It was like being dropped off a cliff. Anger and longing twined inside her; anger at what he had done, and longing for the easy love that was between them once, longing to hand over control and let someone else take the weight of all the impossible choices ahead.

  Liar, she wanted to say.

  Please say it again.

  Instead, she pursed her lips and looked away down the track, watching for Al. ‘You have a strange way of showing it.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s true. I never meant to hurt you. It wasn’t about you; it was about me and my father. I thought it didn’t matter who I hurt as long as I got what I wanted. I was wrong.’

  She stubbed the grass with the toe of her leather walking boot, grinding the blades into the dirt. ‘I forgive you. Mostly.’

  Because what was the point in holding grudges? There was a far bigger fight coming: Robespierre was dead, the Revolution would be smothered. The duc would move into the vacuum and use his influence to keep the rich powerful and the poor too traumatised to fight back.

  Power operated like abuse. The powerful sold the lie that their rule was inevitable: the logical order of a fixed world. Change was dangerous and would hurt the people more than they were already hurting. They threw sops – pageantry, charity – to show themselves to be not all bad. Hungry, exhausted and hopeless, the powerless couldn’t risk change. It was safer to stay with the known, even if it was killing them.

  The Terror had handed the Royalists perfect proof that change was dangerous. Camille could only imagine what a terrified country might accept in exchange for a return to the known and familiar.

  ‘Marry me,’ said James.

  Camille blinked. Looked at his mouth, trying to understand what she’d heard. ‘What?’

  ‘Marry me. For real. Let me keep you safe.’

  He stood close enough she could see his bitten lips and the crepey purple skin under his eyes. She wanted to laugh. A hysterical giggle bubbled against her lips.

  ‘That isn’t funny.’

  ‘It’s not a joke.’

  ‘It is a joke, because you cannot possibly be serious. You know Ada is… James, I can’t.’

  ‘I won’t stop you from being with Ada. Bring her to England. Live with her. Keep loving her. I won’t stand in your way.’

  She was at once too hot and too cold. Maybe it was just the fever she couldn’t shake. That had to be it. She knew where her future lay: with Ada, in Paris. That was the life she’d chosen for as long as she could live it.

  But it felt as far away as the stars Ada had shown her. James was here; the memory of being together on the other side of a thin door she only had to open and she could step into the past. Into a simpler time when her choices were easy and love was enough.

  ‘I don’t understand. Why would you do that?’

  ‘I already told you, I would do anything to keep you safe. If you ask it of me, I am willing.’ James traced his thumb along the line of her jaw. For a moment so fleeting she thought she must have imagined it, his expression was raw with regret. And want. ‘Because I still love you.’

  With each breath she felt keenly aware of how close he stood, that only a little air and her flimsy dress separated them. She thought about him closing the gap to cover her mouth with his.

  A traitorous thought, bringing guilt sharp on its heels.

  Then he was turning away, reaching into the large square pocket in the skirt of his frock coat to pull out a pistol.

  Her pistol.

  He held it on the flat of his palms. ‘Here. This belongs to you.’

  Camille took the pistol wordlessly. It was heavier than she remembered, the smooth wood and mother- of-pearl grip nestling into her hand.

  She wasn’t completely sure she wanted it back. Not now she knew what she did about her father. He wasn’t the noble revolutionary she’d thought him. Just a petty man who’d thought his jealousy and humiliation at his wife’s affair justified his violence to her in return.

  Where the track curved behind the boundary wall, two figures appeared, one heavily veiled. A mud-splashed Al and Olympe arrived.

  ‘What ho!’ called Al. ‘Two very English and not at all suspicious people arriving at the back door as requested!’

  Camille glared, tucking the pistol away. ‘I also said quietly.’

  ‘We made it, what more do you want?’

  They both looked exhausted. She didn’t know where they had hidden themselves after disappearing from Bedford Square, and she didn’t have time to find out. They needed to conceal Olympe before too many people were awake. Camille took Olympe’s hand as they walked back through the trees, squeezing tighter the more she felt her tremble.

  Once inside, they slipped through corridors towards the old ballroom. The last of the old rooms to be renovated by Lady Harford, work had stalled with her advancing illness and now it lay in perpetual disarray, dust sheets and abandoned scaffolding cluttering the once-fine space.

  ‘It shouldn’t be too cold, I hope,’ said James, pulling a dust sheet off a chaise longue.

  Camille surveyed the room. Scaffolding had been erected at one end, where the ornate ceiling cornice was still waiting to be painted with gold leaf. The parquet was unpolished and half-covered in more dust sheets. No one should come into the room, but if they did Olympe could hide herself under the sheets pulled over furniture.

  ‘I know it’s a risk,’ said Camille, ‘but it would be a bigger one to split up. At least this way we’re all in the house.’

  Olympe sat on the chaise longue. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ve slept on worse.’

  Camille thought of the straw pallet in the Conciergerie prison cell where she had found Olympe.

  Yes, what was at stake was much worse.

  Camille plumped a pillow, positioning it at the head of the chaise. ‘I still remember my promise. We’re going to get you somewhere safe. I don’t know where yet but – we’ll think of something.’

  Olympe had removed her bonnet and veil, letting her unpinned hair spill around her face in gleaming black waves. Despite her captivity with James, Camille thought she was starting to look almost well. The gauntness that had been in her cheeks when they’d rescued her in Paris was gone. Her stormy skin glowed, the colours richer and more complex.

  Whatever else happened, they must have helped her in some small way. She had to hold onto that.

  Olympe lowered her gaze. ‘There’s something I want to tell you. Please don’t be angry.’

  ‘All right,’ said Camille cautiously.

  ‘I don’t think I want to keep hiding. I … I can’t keep running away. It makes me feel helpless, and I don’t want that to be my future.’ She looked up, eyes glittering. ‘Let’s go back to Paris, after Wickham has been arrested. The longer I run, the longer I put other people in harm’s way. The duc, Wickham – they’ve both hurt people in pursuit of me. This is my fight. Let me fight it.’

  Camille was silent. Olympe had been through so much more than any of them, and she was braver than all of them put together.

  They had offered themselves as bait to Wickham. A human monster w
alked among them.

  Wickham would attack; he wouldn’t be able to resist. Their trap would snap shut.

  One day more to hold their nerve.

  One day more, and it would come to an end.

  9

  The Dining Room, Henley House

  Supper was a lavish affair.

  The company had gathered in the drawing room. James was dressed in a freshly cleaned black tailcoat and breeches, after Al had refused to be seen in the same room as someone wearing a frock coat so completely out of date. Lady Harford had, of course, matched James with Camille to lead into the dining room, and they took their place behind lords and baronets and in front of the vicars and lawyers, as etiquette demanded, before the procession crossed the entrance hall to the grand dining room that shone with polished glassware and silver.

  The last of the light was dying behind the shuttered windows, and tens of candles illuminated the table in a golden glow. The menu was French as a nod to Camille and Al, despite the current war making it unfashionable and unpatriotic. A stuffed and dressed boar’s head was placed centre-stage, surrounded by jellies and deep fried cockscombs, then a whole salmon poached in champagne with truffles, and in between, plates of asparagus, artichokes, hare cake in jelly, petit pastis of veal, all washed down with endless bottles of hock and sherry.

  James pushed a piece of salmon around his plate. It was hard to find his appetite. The chatter drifted over him, and he let himself be a pebble in a stream, water rushing past but never moving him.

  Camille sat opposite. He allowed himself only glimpses of her, glancing up when she was looking away. She was beautiful in a mint-green silk dress that brought out her eyes, and her hair had been curled and piled on top of her head, a few artful locks left loose to frame her face. She glanced his way, and he hid his face in his wine glass. It hadn’t been long since they’d sat at this same table as enemies. How hopeful he had been then. He’d thought his plan only needed a little more time, that he would triumph. What had it been for? Absolutely nothing. Now they could only wait for Wickham to make an attempt on Lord Harford’s life, so that they could close their trap.