All of this was just as Chandon had promised. Still, that didn’t make it any easier to enter the room, to pretend that she belonged. What had she been thinking? That Chandon would be waiting for her by the door? Casting about the room for a familiar face, she wondered if she would even recognize him. Like half the men there, he had light-brown hair, but he didn’t wear his heavily powdered. At least he hadn’t the last time. She had no idea what he might look like tonight.
Settling her shoulders, she moved farther into the crush, begging pardon as she went, lifting a glass of champagne from a tray that sailed by on a footman’s palm. In the next room, shouts erupted, followed by a ripple of applause. “Encore une fois, Chandon!” someone called out. “Just once more!” Camille found a space between two courtiers and slipped through.
She found herself in a large room with painted panels of mythological scenes fitted into the walls. The room was filled with green baize-covered tables surrounded, several rows deep, by aristocrats who watched the games unfold. An older man pushed away from the card table, shaking his head. “Pas encore,” he muttered. “Who can play with the likes of you young people?”
Chandon, wearing a wildly patterned waistcoat and a beauty mark next to one of his lively hazel eyes, tipped back in his gilt chair, beaming with triumph. Camille could have thrown her arms around him, so relieved she was to have found him.
“Suit yourself, Monsieur le Comte,” he laughed. “There are plenty of people who will play with us. Aren’t there?” A few courtiers shuffled away from the table, smiling and shaking their heads. Chandon nodded to the boy sitting across from him. “I do believe they’re afraid of us.”
“Of you, perhaps,” the golden-haired Vicomte de Séguin replied. Neither of them had noticed her. She stood frozen, waiting. Perhaps they wouldn’t remember her. Nor would it matter if they did, she scolded herself. This was not about making friends. It was about making money.
“They’re afraid of you, Séguin,” Chandon said as Camille drew closer. “You strike fear in all but the bravest gamblers. Or the most foolish.” Chandon winked at Foudriard, who lounged next to him, his elbow propped on the back of Chandon’s chair. Next to him, in a froth of feathers and primrose-yellow satin, sat Aurélie, gossiping behind her fan into Foudriard’s ear.
“Me? I’ve the worst luck of anyone tonight,” Séguin said as he pulled handfuls of chips toward himself. Guffaws and a smattering of applause from the observers drew a meager smile from his face. He was doing very well. Camille remembered how much he was willing to play for last time. A player running on his luck was dangerous.
Then Chandon saw her. His whole face brightened. “Et voilà! It’s the Baroness de la Fontaine! Shall I make a wager?” he said to the crowd. “I bet she’s come specially to play with us.”
Camille bowed, secretly happy. “What does that make me then, brave or foolish, monsieur?”
“It makes you gorgeous,” he said. “Now make way, mes amis,” he cajoled, and the courtiers around the table stepped back.
“Madame,” purred the Vicomte de Séguin, rising from his chair. Expensively dressed, he wore a black silk suit with copper-threaded embroidery twining around the cuffs and up the front. Camille was struck again by his bronze-colored eyes, watchful as those of a bird of prey. “There’s a seat for you next to me.”
There was no polite way to refuse that would not test her newly learned rules of etiquette, so she sat down, unfurling her fan and letting her skirts drag on the floor. A rich woman cares nothing for her gown, Sophie had told her. Don’t protect it. You’ll look like you care too much.
Séguin ordered a footman to bring some bonbons as the high notes of a violin soared over the din. Camille tried to rein in her excitement, but it wasn’t easy. Now that she was here, at the table, the candles and the blue-and-gold-patterned cards in front of her, anything could happen. Each card was a possibility; with a little luck, a little magic worked discreetly, there was no limit.
“What are we playing?” she asked.
Chandon swept several decks’ worth of cards together and rapped them against the table. “What do you like, madame?” He tapped the table, pretending to think. “I seem to remember you are a devotée of vingt-et-un, n’est-ce pas?”
“Yes, yes!” exclaimed Aurélie. “We must foil the Vicomte de Séguin in his plan to take over the world.”
Séguin said nothing but stacked his chips in candy-colored piles.
“Count me in,” Camille said, with a quick glance at Séguin. “We cannot let him have even Versailles.”
“We’ll see about that. I’ve been waiting for the chance to play with you, madame,” the Vicomte de Séguin said languidly. “The pleasure was denied me last time.” The way he lingered on the word play made Camille’s skin crawl. Ignore him and fix your thoughts on winning, she told herself as she opened her purse. “I’m happy to play vingt-et-un, as long as no one else objects?”
“Who could possibly object?” said a boy slouched on Camille’s other side. His fashionable stand-up collar was crushed, his light brown hair mussed, eyes bloodshot, and white skin ashy, as if he’d been awake for days. “Just let’s get on with it, shall we?” He snapped his fingers over his head and a footman approached. “Again some wine, my man,” he said in awkward, English-accented French. “In case,” he said to the other players, “blows need to be blunted, et cetera, et cetera.”
“Allons-y, then, Lord Willsingham,” Foudriard said. He called for chips for himself and Camille, and Chandon began to shuffle.
He cut the decks several times against his palm, and then, smiling to himself, he made the cards fly, one after another until they twirled like a strange snowstorm around his hands. For a moment, one card would seem to catch on a fingertip, frozen and gravity-defiant. Another would balance on its edge on the back of his hand, but then, just as quickly, the pirouetting cards would fall back into the deck and vanish from view. And as the cards danced around his hands, they created a tiny breeze that ruffled the candle flames.
“Bravo!” called one of the onlookers.
Yet.
The more she watched, the more Camille was certain that there was something peculiar about the cards. Some moved slower than others. Others moved faster, so fast that no one could possibly follow them. It was as if Chandon were manipulating them, sliding certain cards under others, different ones on top, all in full view of the players. She watched, fascinated. Did no one else see what he was doing? It seemed that they did not. But it wasn’t with her sight that she knew, suddenly, what it was. It was with her nose. For with each flourish, each planted card, an invisible breath of smoke escaped his ringed fingers.
Chandon was working la magie.
The skin on her scalp tingled. Another magician. Here, opposite her at the gaming table. Here, at court.
Why had Maman had never told her anything? Wasn’t this important information to give to one’s child, especially when she was being trained in magic? All those lessons with Maman, her voice barbed as she told Camille to try again, to practice more—never once did she tell Camille that la magie wasn’t a special trick only the Durbonnes had up their sleeves. But why hide it? It made no sense.
Pretending to count her chips, she watched Chandon under her eyelashes as the cards danced in his hands. It was like watching a lightning strike illuminate the landscape: what had previously been only darkness was suddenly revealed to be full of trees, grass, buildings, people. He’d shuffled the same way last time, in the oval room. He must have been working la magie then, too. And she hadn’t even guessed.
Not only had he beat her with magic, but he was clearly a thousand times better at it than she was. With a sick, sinking feeling, she understood that if he was using magic, he must know that she’d been using it, too. He’d probably realized it the very first time she’d worked it.
Chandon was cutting the deck now, laying down stacks of cards and piling them on top of each other. Each cut felt as if it were reducing her chances t
o nothing. He tipped his head toward her and winked. “Bonne chance, madame.”
Throwing herself into the game, Camille won several hands by luck alone, and when her luck abandoned her, she started turning cards. Each time she won, she tried to judge Chandon’s reaction. But he was a consummate actor, a perfect courtier: nothing showed on his face that he wished to hide. Next to her, the Vicomte de Séguin sat so close Camille smelled the sweet pomade in his fair hair, the dry wood scent of his strong cologne, and, more unsettlingly, felt the pressure of his calf against her skirts. Was this normal for court? All this flirting and innuendo? Sophie hadn’t said.
There was something about the way he watched her that made her worry he would catch her cheating. Or recognize her. At the other end of the room, the music crescendoed. “Madame,” he said softly, “I’d advise you to be careful.”
Camille’s unease worsened. “How, monsieur?” she asked as if she cared nothing for the answer. “Is there some danger at Versailles? A monster? A plague?”
Séguin smiled, but Camille sensed it was not at her jest. “Madame is new to court, non? There are many ways to find fame and fortune at Versailles. You know how sometimes it happens that you can go quite a long way down a path before you realize it’s not the right one?” He leaned closer, his tone brotherly. “I might be your friend, help you avoid the traps.”
Exactly what she needed, but from him? She could not put her finger on it—for he was handsome and rich and, she thought, not harmful, exactly—but Camille didn’t want his help. What would Aurélie say? Camille tried to imagine the girl’s voice in her own throat, Aurélie’s confident, teasing expression on her own face. “But aren’t traps part of the fun?”
Séguin straightened slightly in his chair. “Ça dépend,” he mused. “It depends on whether you are the hunter or the hunted, n’est-ce pas? Or it might depend”—his voice softened into silk—“on how promising the bait is in the traps.”
Camille had no idea how to respond to that. “How do you know, monsieur, what the traps are baited with?”
“I hope you’re not conspiring with the enemy,” Aurélie interrupted. “Even if you are, we must stop for a moment.” She held out her arm to show how her diamond bracelet dangled loose. “Chandon, close this for me, will you?”
Play paused while Chandon worked the tiny clasp. Camille fiddled with her chips, wishing she were at another table, one where he wasn’t working his magic and she might better work her own. She needed to win this game, and to do that, she needed to turn her cards. But she didn’t dare when Séguin was watching her so intently. She swiveled away from him to better hide her cards.
Irritatingly, he tapped her on the shoulder. “Perhaps you’re already well equipped for this adventure. Shall we find out?”
“How?”
“Give me your hand,” he said, and before she’d decided what to do, he had taken it in his. His hand was smooth, heavy with rings. As she tried, decorously, to pull away, the dress rustled around her, distraught. Painful visions rushed through her: a tipped candle, flames hurtling over silk, burning so hot that the fabric blackened and lifted off as ash. It was the dress’s nightmare: a warning to be careful.
Next to her, the tired English boy was opening his snuffbox and putting a pinch of tobacco in his nose.
“Now?” Camille said. “I must focus on the game—”
“Rest easy, Madame de la Fontaine. There’s plenty of time.” His voice in her ear was cool as stone. “Release your fingers and I’ll tell you your fortune.”
Across the table Chandon, vexed, still tinkered with Aurélie’s bracelet.
Camille exhaled. “Go on, then.”
Séguin peeled her fingers open, one by one. With his forefinger, he traced each line on her palm. Involuntarily, she shivered.
“Ça va?” he asked.
Letting him touch her palm was like letting a spider scurry across it. “It’s nothing.”
He held her hand toward the candelabra to see it better. “Now show me the other one, madame.”
Lord Willsingham sneezed.
Camille laid her cards facedown on the table and held out her left hand. She tried to hold it still, but it shook. His golden eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. It’s because of la magie, Camille wanted to say. It’s not trembling because of you.
“Shall I tell your fortune now? Here,” he said, languidly tracing one of the lines as it curved around the base of her thumb, “is your life line. Long, though not always strong. See those bubbles? Difficulties.”
There was no end of difficulties in her life, but none that she would tell this aristocrat. Mentioning death had thrown the others last time, so she played that card again. She dared him to say something about that. “The death of my husband, perhaps?”
“Peut-être,” he said, though he did not sound convinced. “Maybe. Now this line, which curves up to your fingers—that’s your love line.”
“What do you see for me there, vicomte? Another husband?”
He gave her a quizzical stare. “Oui. The Line of Love shows you cannot be alone for long. But the Line of Fate presents more problems.” He ran the tip of his index finger down the center of her palm. There was something about his touch that burned. “Most people have only one Line of Fate, madame. But see here, you have two: you and your shadow life. One path is thin, but whole. The other is broken. It is crossed with a triangle, and a star.” He touched the crisscrossing lines in the center of her palm.
Either he was good at invention, or there was something to this palm-reading. “What do they mean?”
“Secret knowledge. Or a warning.”
“A warning not to wear rouge if I visit the queen’s rooms?” she said, lightly. “To not be alone with the Comte d’Astignac of the Roving Hands?”
Séguin reclined in his chair. Again, she smelled his heavy cologne, and something else—something familiar Camille couldn’t place. “Bah, the Comte d’Astignac has nothing on you. It’s fate that interests me. Isn’t it reassuring to know it’s written in your hands?”
Under the table, out of sight, Camille wiped her palm on her skirts. “I don’t believe in fate, monsieur.”
“What else is there?”
“Freedom, perhaps? Choice?”
Séguin’s bold stare faltered for a moment. “Freedom is chaos, non? I don’t like disorder.”
Disorder is the beginning of change, Papa had said. When taxes rise, when the harvest fails, and bread prices rise: see what happens.
“Slap me, marquis!” Lord Willsingham cried in his atrocious French. “One more card and damn me, I’ll make twenty-one.”
Everyone roared with laughter; across the table, Chandon was snapping his fingers at her. “Madame de la Fontaine,” he said, his voice brisk, “attention, s’il vous plaît! Would you like another card?”
All the players waited, expectant. But Camille had lost her bearings completely. She could only stare back. She touched her fingertips to her cards, trying hard to read their hidden faces. Nothing came to her.
“I don’t know,” she said, haltingly. Had she successfully turned the card before Séguin had interrupted her? Startled, she realized she couldn’t remember. And if she had, which card had she turned? What had been her plan?
“Perhaps not,” she said, biting the edge of her fingernail.
“Come on, madame,” cried Chandon, “live a little!” As he stretched across the table with a card for her, drunk Lord Willsingham assumed it was for him and reached for it. Doing so, he upset a glass of red wine, which spilled wide across the green baize, the playing cards, and into Camille’s lap.
24
In a moment, Chandon was at her side, pulling out her chair, helping her up. Under her elbow, his hand was like iron. As if he were forcing her to leave. With a deft movement, he picked up her purse and chips and guided her away, his arm now around her shoulders. Her skirts caught on a chair and tumbled it to the floor, but he would not let her stop to right it.
�
�What are you doing?” Camille seethed.
“Saving you,” Chandon hissed in her ear. Then loudly, so everyone could hear, he added, “Come, madame. I’ll find you a maid to blot your dress. Red wine makes such an unfortunate stain.” Obediently, the crowd parted as Chandon led her out of the cream-and-gilt room, down a servants’ stair, to a seemingly unused hall, where a frowning portrait of the old king hung crooked in its frame.
“How exactly are you saving me?” As she stood there with the magician, a finger of fear crept up her spine. “What do you want from me?”
“Isn’t it clear? We must talk.” He glanced down the empty hallway. “We haven’t much time.”
“Why drag me out of the game? Unfair, monsieur—I was sure to finish big.”
Out of nowhere, he produced her purse and handed it to her. “And here I thought you were enthralled by the Vicomte de Séguin,” Chandon challenged. “You’re not worried about the wine that spilled on your lovely dress?”
But the plum-colored skirts of her gown were once again spotless. The crimson stain had vanished.
“Your dress is very thirsty, madame,” he observed.
“There must not have been much wine, after all—”
“Or your dress is fashioned from magie bibelot, n’est-ce pas?”
Camille froze. “Magie bibelot?” she said, doing her best to feign ignorance.
“The magic of enchanted objects,” he said. “And I bet you’re working a glamoire. People rarely look as dazzlingly perfect as you do.”
“And what of it? You’re a magician, too,” she dared. “I saw you manipulating the cards. Is your plan to expose me?”
“What? Never!” Chandon said, alarmed. “What is there to expose? All the world comes to Versailles, hoping to be someone else. Who really cares if you’re not noble? Or a widow?” He blinked, as if he could peer beneath the glamoire’s polish. “You were never even married?”
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