Enchantée

by Gita Trelease

  “I beg you, help me, Majesté! You are my last hope. Perhaps you might order him to return her to me? To her family?”

  “Ah.” The queen adjusted her necklace. “Myself, I obeyed my mother, and my brother, in all things. But—just consider, madame—is it possible your sister wished to go with him?”

  From what Sophie had written in the letter she’d left at their rooms, she did believe herself in love with the vicomte. “Yes, Majesté, it is possible. But I don’t think she understands how he might—use her.”

  Sighing, the queen touched the glass stopper of a perfume bottle to her throat. The scent of crushed roses hung in the air. “My dear madame, then there is not much that can be done. I will ask Monsieur le Vicomte what his intentions are, but if he means to wed her—”

  From the back of the room, one of the ladies-in-waiting glided forward with a porcelain plate edged in gold. On it lay a folded note, which the queen snatched from the dish and read. “Hurry, Léonard. His Majesté is returning from Paris after speaking with the mob. I must be ready to greet him, as beautiful as I can be. Understood?”

  Léonard nodded. “Will you put on your earrings, madame, or—”

  “You do it. My hands shake.” The queen stared at her reflection as Léonard scooped up the earrings from their satin-lined box. Her pale chest rose and fell quickly.

  Camille was about to address the queen again when Léonard gestured toward the door. The message was clear.

  Willing herself not to scream with frustration, Camille stood. “Thank you, Majesté. I appreciate anything that you can do for my sister,” she said as she bowed deeply. She rose, expecting the queen to have returned to her toilette, but found instead that Marie Antoinette was looking at her in the mirror.

  “Madame, if you do find the Vicomte de Séguin, remember one thing.”

  “Yes, Majesté?”

  Her voice dropped to the lowest of whispers, pitched so it wouldn’t carry.

  “He cheats.”

  Chandon had said the same thing, the first time Camille came to court. It felt as though he had said that to her a year ago, a hundred years ago, in the reign of another king, another queen.

  Séguin cheats. This was the queen’s best advice? Her royal help?

  Walking backward out of the room, Camille made three deep reverences and, turning, blundered through the doorway into the antechamber, where she paused to settle her swaying skirts. The little room was only big enough for two chairs and a small table, on which stood an enameled music box.

  Camille seethed. She didn’t know what she had expected from the queen; she had no illusions that a queen was anything like a god. But Marie Antoinette did control things at court. Why ever had she listened to Madame de Théron? Camille might be back in Paris, scouring the streets, talking to Madame Bénard at the shop, searching for Alain—anything but standing here with empty hands.

  She picked up the music box, weighing it. Imagined hurling it into the oval mirror on the far wall and watching the mirror shatter, the shards crash to the floor.

  “Why ever would you do a thing like that?” a rich voice said from the doorway.

  Camille turned.

  Séguin reclined against the doorjamb, his ringed fingers resting lightly on the jeweled pommel of his sword. His close-fitting cream-colored suit was, as always, richly embroidered, uncreased, and immaculately clean. She could see what Sophie found irresistible: he was handsome, powerful, and very rich. He took a step forward and his cologne slipped into the room ahead of him: incense like in church, the bitter bite of cloves.

  “Madame la Baroness,” he said, bowing. “Quelle surprise.”

  Camille suspected there were no surprises where Séguin was concerned. “I’m trying to find my sister,” she said, speaking as lightly as she could. “Perhaps you know where she is?”

  Séguin stepped further into the room. “I might.”

  “You must tell me, monsieur.”

  “Must I?” he said, teasingly. “Has anyone told you how charming you are when you’re angry? In the tumult of last night, I may have forgotten to do it myself.”

  The past days and weeks were a blur, something Camille couldn’t see clearly, a view through a rain-streaked windowpane. But she knew that Séguin had been ready to propose marriage, once—even if she’d stopped him from saying the words. He might still care for her, and that would be something to use. A coin to turn.

  “I’m anxious to see her, Vicomte. She’s been gone two days. Do tell me, where is she?” She kept her voice pleasant. Pretending.

  “If you wish to know more about your sister, come to my apartments in the courtiers’ wing in a half-hour’s time. I’ll be happy to tell you everything I know. Any footman may direct you. You must excuse me, mademoiselle—I have business with the queen that cannot wait.”

  He strolled into the queen’s chamber and called out a greeting.

  Camille set the music box down on the table. Her palm was slick with sweat.

  In the anteroom’s gilt-edged mirror, she saw the queen embrace the Vicomte de Séguin.

  60

  Hurrying through seldom-used passages, Camille managed to avoid the Hall of Mirrors with its gossiping crowds, the courtiers grumbling outside the king’s chambers. She slipped unseen through what had once been an unknowable labyrinth of hallways, but was now as familiar to her as the lines on her palm. The problem of Sophie was a puzzle without a solution. How would she get her back?

  Perhaps Sophie didn’t even wish to return. Camille would have to prepare herself for the possibility. If Sophie said no, Camille could tell her that Séguin had almost proposed to her first. She could reveal that he was a dangerous magician, blackmailing Chandon and weaving a web that Lazare was also caught in—but even then Sophie could laugh and say it was nothing to her.

  Another problem was Séguin himself. As Camille took a back staircase, she thought of his still, watchful face, his knowing smile. How he’d blackmailed Chandon by using his love for Foudriard. The vile things he’d said about Lazare and the poor. The way he caught her off-guard, made her afraid to meet him when she was alone. What he knew about her. In those moments, he seemed to be her mortal enemy. But then she remembered how his fingers had gently traced the lines of her palm while he’d offered to help her avoid the traps at court, his almost-proposal in the king’s garden, his fury when he’d caught her looking for Lazare at the party.

  She paused at the top of the steps, hand on the banister. It seemed very much like the behavior of someone in love.

  With half an hour to waste, Camille forced herself to take her time. She might never again return to Versailles. Wandering down lesser halls, she passed dozens of rooms, listening to the lonely echo of her heels on the floors. These last two months, she’d used these hidden passages and servants’ stairs when she felt the glamoire waning; they were usually empty. She rarely saw anyone else, and if she did, they were using the passages for the same reason she was: to avoid being seen. They would nod at one another, and keep going. These corridors had been safe places. But today they were eerily quiet.

  At a window, she heard raised voices coming from outside. In the courtyard below, a farm horse had been hitched to a wagon. It was piled high with bureaux, thin-limbed side tables, great trunks wound around with ropes, a long mirror. In front of the wagon waited a dull black carriage, nothing fancy, two mismatched horses in its traces. A man in a drab suit, a white wig in his hand, stood arguing with the wagon driver.

  The door of the carriage snapped open and a woman descended, so plainly dressed that Camille’s first incongruous thought was that she was a servant. Then she recognized the woman’s elegant way of walking, the way she held her head: she was the queen’s favorite, the Duchess de Polignac. Snatching the wig from her husband’s hand, she thrust it at the driver and pointed for him to get down. Once the driver was on the ground and wearing the wig, her husband climbed up onto the box and took the reins. She returned to the carriage with the driver and c
losed the door once both of them were inside. With a crack of the whip, the horses lunged into a canter; the wagon lumbered after them and soon was gone.

  Dread crept along her skin, cold as ink. The queen had said the powerful Polignacs were going to Switzerland. And perhaps they were. But disguised as servants? Their wagon was loaded with the most expensive things they had. They were fleeing Versailles, just like Aurélie.

  As Camille watched, another carriage pulled into the courtyard, and a second couple, older, slower, made their way to it. This woman wept into her handkerchief. They were all leaving, escaping the coming storm. Camille walked faster.

  The empty corridors showed another side now. Instead of clandestine, they seemed abandoned. Haunted. Under the ceiling, black mold bloomed where rain had come in. A painting had been cut from its frame, which now hung blindly on its nail. Outside a closed door, a reeking chamber pot waited. No servant had come to empty it. Chandon had said the glamoire the magicians had worked for the Sun King was crumbling like old cake. Now it was decomposing.

  * * *

  When she found the vicomte’s door, it was no different than any other.

  She knocked and a valet admitted her, stiff and as proud as his master. He showed her into a high-ceilinged sitting room. A fine old tapestry hung on the far wall. In it, a curly-haired unicorn knelt by a fountain, stirring the water with his horn. Among the books and piles of paper, she hoped she might find some evidence that Sophie had been there: a glove or a glossy green feather from her hat.

  But there was nothing.

  When the Vicomte de Séguin entered the room, he bowed, elegant as always. “Bonsoir, Baroness—or should I say, Mademoiselle Durbonne? I hope you’ve been comfortable.”

  Of course he would make certain to use her real name, to remind her of her powerlessness. Where was she supposed to start? She took a deep breath and plunged in: “I wish to know the whereabouts of my sister, monsieur.”

  Séguin waved his hand at his valet, who stood silently by a bookcase. “You may go.”

  It didn’t mean anything that he’d dismissed his servant, Camille tried to tell herself. It’s commonplace. Still, the sound of the door clicking closed made her uneasy.

  “Your sister is safe, mademoiselle. And happy. She would never want to worry you.”

  “I’m certain she is,” Camille said, though she wasn’t at all sure. “Is she here? I’d like to see her as soon as possible.”

  He smiled, as if with regret.

  “Why not?” Camille insisted. “She’s my sister.”

  “What do you think I am? A monster? She’s at my home in Paris, which is in fact where she wished to go. She’ll be quite safe there. Until you decide.” Séguin opened the lid of his snuffbox and offered it to her.

  Camille stared. “Decide what?”

  “What you will do.” He took a pinch of snuff. “I don’t wish to marry her. Wasn’t that obvious when I tried to ask for your hand?”

  Obvious? Who could possibly know what he meant to do? “Sophie believes she is in love with you.”

  “Your sister is in love with my title, my money—” He gestured at the things in the room. “Everything I have.”

  “Why take her, then?”

  “Come, you must have anticipated it. You’re so clever at cards,” he said. “It’s one of the things I admire about you.”

  Séguin has set a plan in motion. But what was it? “How long have you been planning this?”

  Séguin shrugged. “Since you ignored my overtures, in the king’s garden. Perhaps I was too subtle?” he added, more to himself than to her.

  “Why should you want anything to do with me? I’m a pretend baroness, a printer’s daughter.” It made no sense. “Besides,” she said, grasping onto the one particular he’d mentioned, “it was an accident that I ran into you there.”

  “There aren’t many true accidents, mademoiselle. And if it hadn’t been there, it would have been somewhere else. Eventually.” He shook out the lace under his cuffs. “And no, it wasn’t your upbringing as a printer’s daughter that drew me to you. In fact, that is something I’ve had to overcome.”

  He held out his ringed hands to her. She shoved hers deep into the folds of her skirt.

  Séguin laughed. “I like the way you consistently resist me—how’s that for an answer?” He took another step closer; Camille tried not to shrink from him. “I have wanted you since I first sat with you at the gaming table and watched you turn cards with la magie. How innocently you did it, as if there were not two magicians observing you! Do you remember that night? You had that snuffbox? I wanted you as soon as I saw how much you cared.”

  A cold hand crept up her spine. It was such a strange thing to say. “I don’t feel the same way.”

  “In time, you might.” He shrugged. “Regardless, if you wish to see your sister, you will do as I say.”

  “What is that?”

  “Marry me, of course.”

  No.

  “You would secure the well-being of your sister. And your own status at court. You do not perhaps understand how very rich and well connected I am.”

  “Haven’t you heard what happened at the Bastille?” Camille flashed. “It’s the end for people like—you.” She’d nearly said people like us. The old Camille would never have made that mistake.

  “You think a mob will pass through the gates of Versailles and tear the palace down?”

  “Why not, when they’ve got nothing to lose?” Something hard and angry in her rejoiced as she imagined the rotting palace collapsing on itself, crushing Séguin and the rest of the court beneath it.

  “That’s how a gambler thinks,” Séguin said, disparagingly.

  Camille seethed. This conversation was pointless. She didn’t need to be here, listening to his proposals. Now that she knew where Sophie was, she had to return to Paris. Madame de Théron would help her find Séguin’s house. She would bring the police. They would free Sophie.

  “I’m going to see my sister.”

  He sighed, as if exasperated at the behavior of a child. “Your sister wishes to be with me.”

  “She’s fifteen years old, monsieur. She knows nothing of the world!”

  “She knows more than you think. She came willingly; it was easy to arrange through my man in Paris. Whatever friends you have will not be able to take her from me, not when she is my wife. She is my ace, mademoiselle—wouldn’t you play a card like that if you wanted very, very much to win?”

  “I would not,” she said, shakily.

  “Then we’ll trade cards. Marry me and your sister goes free.”

  A clock chimed the hour. There had to be another way.

  “Say yes, mon trésor.” He held out his ringed hand to her. “For that is what you will be: my treasure.”

  Over his shoulder, the tapestry unicorn dipped its horn in the water. A maiden held the unicorn’s golden leash in her small, white hands. Her face was sad, downcast, as if to say, We are all in chains.

  A sob caught in her throat. She and Lazare had parted angry, maybe never to be reconciled. Chandon was dying because of the Vicomte de Séguin; her own brother was a hopeless drunk whose body would turn up on the banks of the Seine one day, the pockets of his coat flipped inside out. And Sophie had followed a path the vicomte had laid out for her, stone by stone. Camille had believed she’d changed their path, but now she was standing on one built by someone else—one that led to a trap.

  Her life was fraying. What had once felt like a rich, damask fabric was now threadbare, just the net of warp and weft sagging in her hands.

  Séguin waited, still as one of the statues in the gardens outside. It didn’t matter if he wanted her—whatever that meant to someone like him. Beneath that golden façade he was a monster. The thought of spending all the days of her life with him—sharing his bed, his marble-white hands on her, his poison words dripping in her ear—made her insides heave with revulsion.

  But she could not stop there. As when she gambl
ed, she thought of what might happen if she played a certain card, how its effect would ripple through the coming rounds.

  She imagined saying no.

  Séguin would marry Sophie. Or not, if he could force her to do as he wanted without marrying her. If Sophie ever defied him, he would not shy away from hurting her. He could punish Camille by never letting her see her sister. And then Camille would end up doing whatever he wanted. He could keep her and Sophie apart, as long as he liked.

  Forever.

  The realization hit her like a blow. If Camille turned on her heel and left this room, she might never see Sophie again. And if Sophie became unhappy with Séguin, Camille would not be able to help her.

  She’d had a chance to prevent this from happening. She should have told Sophie after the masquerade that Séguin was a magician. But she had been selfish, hurt. Foolish.

  The room was so quiet she could hear him breathing.

  He seemed capable of anything.

  There had never been a choice, not really. She had to save Sophie. She did not know how, yet. Not exactly. But she had something Sophie did not. The thing both of them had so often wished to be free of. The thing Camille could not give up, even as it threatened to destroy her.

  Magic.

  In her mind, she fanned out all her cards. None were lucky, but this one seemed better than the rest.

  She played it. She said yes.

  61

  Séguin took Camille’s hands, both of them, and pressed them to his lips. “Mademoiselle. You have made me happy beyond imagining.” There was a sudden openness to his face, like a mask had dropped away.

  Perhaps he did care for her. All those glances, the palm-reading, what he’d said in the king’s garden—she’d thrown them all away like cards she didn’t want. But perhaps she could use them now. What was it Chandon had told her? You must be the Baroness of Pretend.

  She smiled a courtier’s unbreakable smile.

  “We’ll dine here tonight?” he suggested. “I’ll send my valet to the kitchens. And we can discuss the wedding. We’ll marry quickly, non?”