by Renee Ahdieh
had stitched a cheeky set of letters into the edging of each
handkerchief she’d fashioned.
GTTAN
A nod to her favorite Shakespearean tragedy, Hamlet.
“Get thee to a nunnery.”
Celine studied the five letters of script hidden in the compli-
cated swirls of lace, a flicker of joy warming through her. Then
she glanced across the rickety wooden table, her heart growing
heavier with each passing second.
Was this all she could expect of life?
Her features hardened. Celine sat up straight, the whale-
bone of her corset catching her breath as it stretched across
her chest. She should be grateful to be here. Grateful to have a
place among decent people. Grateful for another chance at life.
Determination took root inside her. She smiled brightly to a
potential patron, who failed to acknowledge her presence. Celine
swallowed her looming scowl before shifting her attention to a
pair of young women critiquing the glazing on a porcelain cup
Pippa had completed days earlier.
“Lovely, don’t you think?” the girl on the left murmured to
her friend.
The other girl glanced about distractedly. “It’s not bad, if you
favor that sort of thing,” she drawled, tucking a strand of way-
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ward brown hair beneath her straw hat. Her voice faded to a hush. “But did you hear what the dockworkers discovered at
the pier yesterday morning?”
The first girl nodded once. “Richard told me. Her name was
Nathalie or Noémie something-or-other.” Unease marred her
expression. “He suspects the Court might be responsible, since
it happened near their domain.”
Court? Celine wondered. As far as she knew, there had never been an American monarchy.
“Like an animal had mauled her!” The brunette shuddered.
“Poor soul,” she tsked, though her eyes gleamed with unspoken
thoughts, “left to rot in the sun alongside the day’s catch. If the Court had anything to do with it, they’ve become even more
ruthless than before. Not that it matters. They’ll curry the right favor, as they always do.”
Despite Celine’s better judgment, her interest was piqued.
She craned her neck toward the pair.
The brunette continued, her words breathless. “Did Richard
tell you what happened to her head?”
“N-no.”
“I heard it was completely severed from the poor young
woman’s body.”
The first girl gasped, a lace-gloved hand covering her mouth.
“Dear Lord.”
With a solemn nod, the brunette picked up one of Celine’s
embroidered handkerchiefs. “Her face was all but unrecogniz-
able. Her father had to identify her based on her earbobs alone.”
At this, Pippa cleared her throat in an unmistakable attempt
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to dissuade the two women from continuing such salacious talk. A frown cut across Anabel’s face, her look turning peevish.
“Ladies, can we be of any assistance?” Celine offered the pair
of young patrons a pointed smile.
The brunette’s eyes narrowed as she dropped the handker-
chief with a careless flick of her wrist. “No, thank you.” She
reached for her friend’s elbow, looping her arm around it,
directing them away from the rickety table.
Once they were beyond earshot, Anabel harrumphed. “Gos-
siping about a murder in the shadow of a church . . .” she mut-
tered. “Dinna they ken better than to provoke the spirits in
such a brash manner?” Her Scottish brogue deepened with her
disdain, her fingers batting away a fat honeybee buzzing about
her brow.
Pippa sighed, then caught Anabel’s hand, preventing her from
swatting at the hovering insect. “That poor girl.” She sat up
straighter, her petite features gathering. “I hope her suffering
wasn’t prolonged. Who could do such a thing?” Lines formed
between her brows. “What kind of monster could take a human
life like that?”
Anabel nodded crisply. “I hope the fiend responsible burns in
Hell for all eternity. ’Tis the only justice for a murderer.”
A hint of color threatened to creep up Celine’s neck. She
rolled her shoulders back, calming the storm in her chest. A
bead of sweat collected in the hollow of her throat before slid-
ing between her caged breasts. “I completely agree,” she said
lamely. The words felt ashen on her tongue. Celine twined her
fingers together, praying for an end to the discussion.
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Thankfully, it appeared both Pippa and Anabel were in agreement. The trio recommenced their efforts to raise money for
the church with renewed vigor, standing in tandem to greet
another group of potential patrons.
Most of the passersby paused to consider the jars of mayhaw
jelly and lemon pear marmalade the girls stationed in the
kitchen had finished preparing yesterday. Not a soul cared to
while away a moment perusing the painted cups or the elegantly
folded handkerchiefs.
Gloom took refuge on Celine’s shoulders, like a beast settling
in the shadows. She glanced about, searching for a source of
comfort. At least none of the people assembling before them
mentioned the ghastly murder that had occurred within sight-
ing distance of Jackson Square.
Celine supposed that reprieve—at the very least—was some-
thing for which to be grateful.
j
After three hours of little success, Celine’s gloom had become a
thing with teeth. Rays of sunlight continued to slide ever closer, the heat growing oppressive, making her long for the comfort of
nightfall. Even the branches above felt burdened by the weight
of the sultry air, their blossoms like eyelids, growing heavier
and sleepier with each passing moment. Pippa’s blond curls be-
gan to frame her face like a damp halo. Anabel tightened the
yellow ribbon about her brow and sighed loudly. It appeared
her patience had run thin as well.
The slender Scotswoman twisted an auburn curl around her
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index finger and yanked it straight, her freckled nose wrinkling.
“Och, it’s as hot as a witch’s cauldron. And just how are we to meet any eligible young men when all our days are spent raising
money and all our nights are spent in prayer?”
There were many things Celine wished to say in response. She
chose the least offensive option. “Perhaps it would be better if
our nights were spent raising money instead.” Her cheerful sar-
casm failed to strike a chord with Anabel. The redhead stared
at her with a confused expression.
But Pippa could always be counted on to understand her
friend’s dark sense of humor. She shot Celine a look, her lips
twitching. Then she turned her graceful head back toward
Anabel. “Maybe finding a husband shouldn’t be our only
concern?”
“Aye, it shouldna, but I’ll tell ye, a sturdy young man would be
a nice distraction from all this humdrum.”
“Or he could make it worse.” Pippa adjusted the slender chain
of the golden cross around her neck. “In my experience, sturdy
young men don’t always improve upon the company.”
Celine fought back the urge to smile. This was precisely the
reason she and Pippa had been drawn to each other before set-
ting sail. Neither of them harbored delusions when it came to
the opposite sex. Of course Celine wanted to know why Pippa
did not yearn to find a match, but she knew better than to ask.
A petite blonde with a heart-shaped face and sapphire-blue
eyes, Pippa drew ample notice wherever she went. Men often
tipped their hat to her appreciatively. Even more importantly,
she possessed a mind as sharp as a tack. It should have been the
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work of a moment for her to find love. But instead of settling down in her homeland, Pippa had braved the wilds of a new
country, far across the Atlantic.
The day they met, this had struck Celine as highly curious.
But she kept her thoughts to herself. She had no intention of
taking part in the discussion that would likely follow. If she
asked, they would ask in return, and these were questions Ce-
line did not want to answer. Any interest in her past—beyond
the bare minimum—was a thing to be avoided at all cost.
For numerous reasons.
The afternoon Celine had embarked on the Aramis, it had
not escaped her notice that all the girls on board were light-
skinned, most without a hint of foreign blood among them.
Antonia—the girl from Portugal—possessed a complexion that
easily browned in the sun, but even she had spent most of the
journey below deck to ward away any suggestion of color.
If they knew where Celine’s mother was from. If they knew
she was not fully of Anglo-Saxon heritage . . .
It was a secret she and her father had kept from the moment
they’d first arrived in Paris thirteen years ago, when Celine was scarcely four years old. Though France was not as infamous for
its racial divide as America had been in recent years, it never-
theless harbored a seething undercurrent of tension. One that
often implied how inappropriate it was for the races to mix.
This notion proved true the world over. In areas beyond New
Orleans, there were even laws forbidding people of different
colors from congregating in the same room.
Celine’s mother had been from the Orient. Upon completing
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his time at Oxford, her father had followed his passion for languages to Eastern shores. He’d crossed paths with Celine’s
mother in a small village along the southern coast of a rocky
peninsula. Celine had never known where, though she’d often
inquired as a child, only to be rebuffed.
“It doesn’t matter who you were,” her father had argued. “It
matters who you are.”
It rang true then, like it did now.
As a result, Celine knew precious little about her mother.
The recollections she had of her first few years of life along a
Far East coast were fleeting. They flickered across her thoughts
from time to time, but never fully took shape. Her mother was a
woman who smelled of safflower oil and fed her fruit each night
and sang to her in a distant memory. Nothing more.
But if anyone looked closely—studied Celine’s features with
a practiced gaze—they might notice the edges of her upturned
eyes. The high planes of her cheekbones, and the thick strands
of dark hair. The skin that stayed fair in winter, yet bronzed with ease in the summer sun.
“Your name is Marceline Béatrice Rousseau,” her father would
say whenever she asked about her mother, his brow stern. “That
is all anyone need know about you.”
Celine had molded this into a motto by which to live. It did
not matter that it left half the pages of her book empty. It did
not matter one bit.
“Is this for sale, mademoiselle?” a young woman asked loudly,
as if she were addressing an imbecile. Her light brown eyes
darted to one of Celine’s lace-embroidered handkerchiefs.
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Startled, Celine responded in a curt tone, the words falling from her lips before she could catch them. “I should hope so, or
else I have no idea what in hell I’ve been doing here for the last three hours.”
To her left, she heard Anabel gasp and Pippa swallow a
snicker. Celine grimaced, then tried to smile while angling her
head upward, only to be blinded by a flash of sunlight.
Undeterred by Celine’s rudeness, the girl standing on the
opposite side of the rickety table grinned down at her. A jolt
of discomfort passed through Celine’s stomach when she took
in the full breadth of the young lady’s appearance.
In a word, the girl looked exquisite. Her features were like
those of a doll, her brunette head high and proud. Eyes the color of rich honey gazed down at Celine with steady appraisal. At
her throat—pinned to a fichu of Valenciennes lace—was a stun-
ning ivory cameo surrounded by rubies. Across her shoulder
lay a delicate parasol with a fringe of seed pearls, its rosewood handle engraved with a fleur-de-lis set in the mouth of a roaring lion. It matched well with the girl’s Basque-style bodice,
though the entire effect proved a bit outmoded.
The girl let her lace-gloved fingers graze over a handkerchief’s
scalloped edging. “This is superb work.”
“Thank you.” Celine inclined her head.
“Reminds me of something I saw the last time I was in Paris.”
It was impossible to miss the excitement on Pippa’s face.
“Celine studied under one of the premier couturières there.”
Celine pressed her lips together, cursing her pride. She never
should have shared that particular detail with Pippa.
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“Which one?” The girl raised her eyebrows at Celine.
“Worth’s,” Celine lied.
“Along Rue de la Paix?”
Celine swallowed. Then nodded. Already she could feel the
urge to run from her skin take hold, and she had not even dis-
closed anything of significance. Nothing that would tie her to
the events of that fateful night in the atelier.
“Is that so?” the girl said. Her dainty features set with convic-
tion. “I’ll take them all.” She waved a hand over the handker-
chiefs, as though she were casting a spell.
“All?” Anabel sputtered, the ends of her yellow ribbon flut-
tering in the heavy breeze. “Well, far be it from me to dissuade
ye . . . Time and tide waits for no woman, and all that.”
While Anabel collected the handkerch
iefs to tally the total,
Celine gazed at the girl standing before them, perplexed by the
sudden turn of events. Something about her unnerved Celine.
Like a memory she should recall. A word lost midsentence. A
thought unraveling midair. The young woman allowed Celine’s
perusal, her grin growing wider with each passing second.
“If you studied with a couturière, are you able to design
gowns?” the girl asked.
Again, Celine nodded. “Mais oui, bien sûr.”
“Merveilleux!” She leaned closer, her eyes glinting like warm
chalcedony. “I’ve been struggling with my current modiste, and
I’m in desperate need of a costume for the masquerade ball on
Mardi Gras next month. The Russian Grand Duke is to be the
special guest this year, and I will need something memorable to
mark the occasion. Something bright white and reminiscent of
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the French court before the revolution, I believe.” She wrinkled her nose, as though she were about to share a delicious secret.
“Really—despite all the ridiculousness with the pig chasing
and the perfume—I do think it was one of the finest times for
women’s fashion in recent history, panniers and all.” The girl
drummed her gloved fingers along the edge of the wooden ta-
ble, her head tilted in consideration. “I suppose you would need
to measure me in order to begin the process?”
Another pert retort barreled from Celine’s lips. “Yes, made-
moiselle. That would be wise.”
The center of the girl’s eyes sparkled as though she could hear
Celine’s thoughts. “You’re absolutely delightful. Like Bastien in a dress.” She laughed to herself. “That snide fiend.”
Lines of confusion gathered across Celine’s forehead. Was the
young woman insulting her or complimenting her?
“En tout cas . . .” the girl continued, her free hand waving
through the air as if to disperse smoke. “Would it be possible
for you to meet me later this evening?”
Celine thought quickly. The day after they’d arrived in port,
the Mother Superior had cautioned them about venturing
alone into the city at night, especially during carnival season.
She’d spoken as though they were all foolish little lambs, and
the Vieux Carré nothing but a hunting ground for wolves. Not
to mention the fact that a violent death had occurred recently