An Affair of Poisons(38)

I shut the millinery door, and a thick coating of dust drifts down from the moth-eaten hats and ribbons dangling overhead. We stumble through the fog, coughing and tripping over each other. I bang my knee on the long, low counter in the center of the room and then crash into the shelves lining the back wall. They’re littered with buttons and thread and bent needles—one of which bites my finger. Even the shelves are unwilling to support me.

I’m so tired of fighting—with Mirabelle, with Desgrez, with Louis and even Madame Bissette. I am weary to my bones. More exhausted than after a long day of scrubbing in the scullery.

I slump to the floor beside one window and let my legs sprawl out in front of me. Mirabelle stalks to the other window and peers through the slats.

The minutes tick by slowly. I watch the pink and orange rays of sunrise crest the hillock, setting the thatched rooftops ablaze. Slowly, the streets fill with carts and carriages and people buying bread and cheese. At one point I think I see a man in a long black overcoat marching toward the shop and I scramble to my feet. But then I remember Desgrez no longer wears his uniform, and I slide back to the ground.

Mirabelle ignores me with stalwart determination, and I try to do the same, but my rebellious eyes keep darting back to her, wandering along her clenched jaw and trailing down her long, slender neck. Even in that stained scrap of a dress with her hair in wild tangles, she’s one of the most stunning girls I’ve ever seen.

And the last person on earth you should think of that way.

Yet she claims she had naught to do with the attack… .

Of course she would say that.

She glances up from beneath her fan of dark eyelashes. “What?”

My cheeks burn. I’m not about to tell her I was admiring the smattering of freckles across her nose, so I skip straight to the second bit: “How could you not have known about the attack on Versailles?”

“I wasn’t a member of my mother’s inner circle. I hadn’t a clue she planned to poison the Sun King or storm the palace or take Paris. None of it. I was just as horrified as you.”

“I highly doubt that.” I shudder at the memory of the blood dripping from my hands, the wall of ravenous flame, Rixenda crumpling to the dirt. Nightmares that haunt me still.

“I was horrified enough to defy her,” she says to her hands. “To turn my back on my family and the Society and everything I’ve spent my life working for.”

Oh, wow, what a sacrifice. How awful it must be, turning your back on a throne-stealing witch … That’s the response that immediately springs to mind, but she looks so miserable, sitting there with her scrawny arms clutched around her knees, so instead I say, “You don’t have to feel that way.”

Scornful laughter pops from her lips, and she faces me with one eyebrow raised. “How could you possibly know what I’m feeling, princeling?”

“Well, your mother left you to die at the hands of her enemies, and now you’re on the run without a plan or protection. So I’d imagine you’re feeling abandoned, betrayed, alone, inadequate, hurt. Shall I go on?” She stiffens, but before she snaps I quickly add, “I have a bit of experience with those feelings, being the king’s unwanted bastard.”

She bites down hard on her lower lip and is silent for so long, I figure the conversation is dead. But then she says softly, “I tried so hard. I did everything she asked—anything to win her approval. Devil’s claws, I was a fool. Like a dog begging for scraps.”

I nod sagely. “The trick is not to care. If you don’t want their acknowledgment, they have no power over you. They can’t hurt you.”

Mirabelle turns to face me, the light from the window slanting across her skeptical expression. “You had no desire for the king’s approval?”

“None.”

“I don’t believe you.”

I bristle. Even she thinks me a groveling pissant. “I haven’t wanted it for years. You can ask anyone at court. I was the bane of His Majesty’s existence.”

Mirabelle purses her lips and studies me. “What about your sisters?”

“What about them?”

“It’s obvious you care for them.”

“What does that have to do with my father?”

She rolls her eyes. “Why do you think you’re so doting and protective? Why do you think you’re trying so desperately to be the hero now? To prove you’re better than Louis?”

“First, I am better than Louis—that doesn’t require much effort. And second, I love Anne and Fran?oise because they’re the only ones who have ever loved me. Protecting them has nothing to do with pleasing His Royal Majesty.”

“If you say so.” Mirabelle’s expression is pitying—as if I’m as sad and confused as she is, which I most definitely am not. That sniveling little boy who needed his father’s approval died a lifetime ago. I buried him myself.

“I don’t know why I bothered,” I mutter. “It was foolish to think a poisoner could understand.”

Mirabelle flinches, but I don’t apologize. Her dark eyes bore into the side of my face from across the shop, but I refuse to look at her.

Finally, she huffs and looks away. “You’re the one who initiated the conversation.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have.”