Monstrous Design

by Kat Dunn

  Lord Harford, attacked in his own home by an envious rival who suspected he had been passed over for funding from the War Ministry for his research. The bride forced to run. The groom kidnapped at gun point. A heroic struggle and the rival driven off.

  Camille knew they would be dining out on it for years.

  It was enough of the truth that no one looked too closely at where the edges didn’t meet. The guests didn’t need to know about the two dead bodies in the long gallery, or that the bride had been grazed by a bullet.

  It had hurt so badly Camille had been sure she’d been hit – but when James examined her, they found only a bloody score mark along her hip marking the path of the bullet. It hurt, but it was easier to bear than the raw pain of Ada leaving with the duc, her cold expression transforming her from the gentle, clever woman she knew. That memory would linger in her mind for a long time.

  James had cleaned and dressed the wound and declared she would make a full recovery if only she learned how to rest for five minutes.

  For company, they laid Camille up in the same room as Guil, who had come round after not too long with a nasty lump on his head, but nothing a dose of laudanum and a lie down wouldn’t cure.

  The thing Camille couldn’t stand about rest was all the time it left her to think. Visitors drifted in and out; Hennie bounced in, wanting to hear Camille’s version of events, before Lady Harford shooed her out to take a turn dabbing her forehead with a cool flannel; and all the while, Camille’s mind kept replaying the last moments of the fight.

  The mask closing over Olympe’s face.

  The men bundling her into the carriage.

  The duc, Clémentine and Ada climbing in after, and driving away as if they’d done nothing more than pay a visit for tea.

  Ada, never looking back.

  Ada, always Ada in her mind. Eyes closed or open, Ada was all she could see.

  She had barely got Ada back, and now she had lost her.

  Camille closed her eyes against the pain. Love was pain and it was fear and it was half her heart torn out and leaving with her enemy. She had thought she knew hurt, and yet there was always more; always some new thing to pull the breath from her lungs.

  In the golden twilight, James and Al arrived with a delivery of toast and jam and tea for the invalids.

  ‘It’s the good blackberry jam,’ said James, setting down the tray. ‘Mother must really be worried about you.’

  ‘Yes, you are both very pitiful.’ Al plonked down on a pouffe and started slathering a slice of toast in butter.

  And love was her friends sharing toast and tea, the constellation of her family shifting around the hole torn into it.

  Lord Harford was recuperating in his own rooms and Camille could only be thankful Lady Harford hadn’t thought three was better company than two. James had sold Lord Harford a version of the truth, explaining that he had taken Camille into his confidence about Wickham, given her the pistol to defend herself. She was no spy.

  Lady Harford and her husband were the only other people who knew close to the truth of what had happened. They’d needed help dealing with the bodies. They had no intention of hiding a murder, but how could they explain to the police what had really happened? Lord Harford was more than willing to believe James now he had seen Wickham’s handiwork with his own eyes. The result of a few muttered conversations and some hastily sent letters was that this was a military matter involving the War Ministry and as such could be dealt with outside the usual criminal proceedings.

  Or ‘a great big government-conspiracy cover-up’ as Al had called it with glee.

  Whatever it was, Camille was grateful to have a few allies for once. They had been fighting on their own for too long.

  There was something much bigger at stake. Without Robespierre, what would the Revolution be now? She wasn’t such a fool as to think the killings would stop. The balance of power was swinging back the other way. It turned her cold to think of what would happen to the ordinary people who had dared stand up to the rich and powerful and demand to be treated with respect.

  Retribution was an ugly thing.

  She realised this must have been how her parents had felt. Seeing the dream of something better that they had believed in, that they had passionately fought for, slip through their fingers.

  There wasn’t much she could do, but there was one thing.

  No one else knew the true threat the duc posed, the destruction he could wreak with Olympe under his control.

  So Camille would stop him. She might not be able to save the Revolution, but she would stop the duc moulding the new order to his own liking. If she was going to die, then she needed to leave behind something worth dying for.

  James set down a saucer of tea beside her, then pulled up a chair, face drawn tight in thought. ‘I’m sorry, Cam.’

  ‘You’ve already apologised for about ten things. I think you’re done.’

  ‘I want to say it again.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I still can’t believe Ada did that.’

  Camille hid her face in her tea. Her hair hung around her shoulders, glinting gold in the sunlight. ‘She did what she thought she had to.’

  ‘You don’t really believe that?’

  Camille didn’t answer.

  James shifted in his chair, as though deeply uncomfortable. ‘And seeing it made me really understand what I did to you in Paris. So I’m sorry.’

  She patted his hand. ‘Apology accepted.’

  James delivered tea to Guil as well, and for a moment it was like being back above the Au Petit Suisse, exhausted after another job put to bed.

  With one big missing piece.

  Camille looked at her battalion, ranged around her on chairs and day beds, slurping tea and spooning jam onto toast. Her family.

  She couldn’t put this off any longer. They deserved to know.

  So Camille spoke.

  ‘I need to tell you the truth.’

  Postscript

  Paris, a Month Before

  ‘Betray me.’

  Camille stood beside the window slit in the convent wall, braiding her hair in deft, sharp movements. Her eyes glinted like wet slate in the candlelight.

  Ada didn’t know how she could stay so calm. Not after what she’d just said.

  ‘Absolutely not. I won’t do it.’

  ‘Ada—’

  ‘Cam, it’s madness. He’ll never buy it.’

  ‘Won’t he?’

  ‘No! He won’t!’

  Ada threw her hands up and thumped down into a wicker chair by the empty grate in the Cordeliers safe house. Weeds were already growing through the cracks in the flagstones, weaving through the ancient monastery to take it apart brick by brick. More effective than any revolutionary effort.

  She had thought Camille had already left for England when she’d received the cryptic note summoning her to the Cordeliers. It wasn’t easy to slip away from her father without arousing suspicion so soon after she’d talked her way back into his house, though for the chance to see Camille again she would have done anything.

  But, of course, Camille had been looking for more than a prolonged goodbye.

  Camille kneeled on the floor in front of her and took her hands.

  ‘He will. If you make him. Win his trust; then when the time comes, betray me. Do what you have to to make him believe you’re on his side.’

  ‘You’re asking me to get in bed with a monster.’

  Camille held her gaze. ‘Yes. I am. I promise you, I will fight with everything I can to stop him, to keep Olympe – to keep France – safe. But right now, I don’t think we’re going to win. I can get Olympe out of James’s hands, but that’s only half the fight. The duc won’t stop. He’s clever and powerful and the only way we’re going to defeat him is by working in his blind spot: his arrogance. He needs to think he’s broken us, that we’re nothing to worry about any more. It shouldn’t be too hard; he doesn’t think we’re worth much in the first place. So do it – don’t warn me. Mak
e it real. Then he’ll be yours.’

  Ada’s chest felt tight. Fear, yes, and panic at the overwhelming size of the task in front of her. But something else too – a little flare of excitement. Because this was her chance. To step out of the shadows and show Camille, her father, everyone, that she was so much more than they bargained for. Camille was propping open a door and Ada had only to walk through.

  Camille squeezed her hands. ‘He thinks he knows us so well, that he’ll always be smarter and faster. So let him think he’s won. Let us move in the places he isn’t looking. Do things he won’t expect us to. Cross lines he’d never think we would.’

  ‘Camille. What you’re asking is a lot.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You say we’ll cross lines, but you mean me. I’ll be the one who has to cross them.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you think about what it might cost me?’

  Camille flinched almost imperceptibly. ‘Yes. I did. And what it will cost me. But this is bigger than us.’

  ‘I know.’

  Ada took a shaky breath, feeling the future weigh down upon her. She couldn’t run away from it now.

  ‘Okay. Okay, I can do this.’

  They stayed together for a long moment, Camille’s rough fingers wrapped round her own, the twin beat of their pulses humming through their skin. The kiss came together out of nothing, their lips were apart and then somehow not, like they were meant to be pressed together, the taste of Camille in her mouth and the soft press of her breasts against her own chest. Ada could get lost here, in the smell of her hair and the brush of her fingertips and the intoxicating power of knowing Camille was just as lost in her.

  Ada drew back, took Camille in. The curve of her jaw, the hectic flush against her pale skin, her glittering eyes. This girl she loved. This girl who dragged her from one disaster to the next. This girl who was her future. She opened her mouth to tell Camille she loved her, but Camille spoke first.

  ‘Betray me, Ada. Hurt me. And save us all.’

  Acknowledgements

  I think all my books will be for my mum, for a while.

  I wrote this book in the last months she was alive. I revised it in the months after she died. Losing her, when I had to live in lockdown isolation, is the hardest thing I have ever been through. That I continue to go through at the time of writing this.

  I’ll start with the people who meant I made it, exhausted and forever changed, but alive:

  Tim, Dad, Kiran G, Chelsey, Saskia, Kirstin, Kay, Coco. My therapist.

  I don’t know what else to say but thank you.

  To all the friends who stood in place of family gone: Jane, Tasha, Ciannon, Allison, Maddy, Jenny, Catherine, Harry, Tori, Tash, Daphne, Kate, Carly, Leena, Karin, Marianna, Constance.

  To the company of writers who make it less lonely: Bex, Kylie, Emma, Yasmin, Aishia, Sophie, Mel, Faridah, Ava, Sarah, Helen C, Ciara, Chloe, Helen L, Narayani, Kes, Laura, Hux, Jess Rule, Jess Rigby, Danielle, Charlie. And especially Non and Peta, who dug me out of several holes.

  To my agent, Hellie, for having my back. To my editor, Fiona, for her patience, and Jenny, for leaping into the fray. To Laura Brett for my always-gorgeous cover art. To all at Zephyr and Head of Zeus who brought this book into existence and into the hands of readers.

  To the booksellers and bloggers, librarians and teachers, readers and reviewers, BookTubers and BookTok creators – thank you from the depths of my stony heart for all the love and support you gave Dangerous Remedy. Debuting during a pandemic was not the start I’d hoped for, but you all made it so, so worth it.

  Kat Dunn

  London,

  March 2021

  About the Author

  KAT DUNN grew up in London and has lived in Japan, Australia and France. She has written about mental health for Mind and The Guardian, and worked as a translator for Japanese television. Her debut novel, Dangerous Remedy, was published by Zephyr in 2020. She lives in London.

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