Enchantée(22)

“Fine,” the girls said in unison as they tossed more livres onto the pile. Thirty livres. Another six in the main stake, along with the three gold louis, each of those worth another twenty-four livres. Rent was two hundred livres—even if she won all of this she would not even come close—but it would be something, at least, to hand to Madame Lamotte to show that she didn’t have to throw them out.

But by the end of the next round Sandrine had scooped all the coins into a pile next to her. Claudette didn’t seem the least bit concerned—more confirmation that they were planning this together. Worry coiled in Camille’s gut.

“We’re done then, aren’t we?” said Sandrine. It was hardly a question.

“The cheat stake—” Camille said, her hand closing on it.

Sandrine slapped her away. “I cheated? How, pray tell?”

Camille had no idea how the girls had done it. It was one thing to have a card waiting in one’s sleeve, another to hit twenty-one like this. Camille bit at the edge of her fingernail and felt the despair well up in her. This was not just a loss. It was a staggering one. She would have to go back to Sophie with nothing.

“Ah, she doesn’t know!” Claudette laughed, showing the few good teeth she had. “Go home, little fool.”

The rasp of Claudette’s laughter woke Camille from her fog. She was not ready to give up yet. “I won’t leave without the dresses.”

“Losing badly and she still wants to play,” Sandrine said, scooping up the cards and handing them to Claudette. “Want to win them back, m’selle? All right. You deal.”

In the other room, the roulette wheel ticked like a clock.

Camille dealt and again—somehow—the girls bested her. Sandrine had nineteen and Claudette eighteen. Either of them could win, but both would be unlikely to take a third card. Camille had an eight of spades, which lay hidden, facedown, and a ten of hearts facing up. Eighteen.

On the nearby chair lay the dresses. The pretty hems Sophie had pleated with Maman’s help were already grimed with dirt. Her throat tightened when she remembered how, at the draper’s shop, her mother had held a length of mint-green silk to Camille’s face and nodded approvingly. This will be like magic on you.

She exhaled, steadying herself. To win, she needed a three. It would be easy to go over. “One more.”

Claudette took a card from the deck and placed it faceup in front of Camille. The ace of diamonds.

Her blood went cold. Counting the ace as one only gave her nineteen. And with a tie, the dealer won. “Will you take another hit?” she asked.

“Perhaps,” Claudette lisped. “First tell me what happened to your face. Your husband beat you? Or your father, peut-être?”

“I bet it’s that lout of a brother of hers,” Sandrine said. “I bet he takes whatever she makes and drinks it away. N’est-ce pas, m’selle? And if you say anything? It’s like this.” Sandrine smacked her fist into the palm of her other hand.

“It’s not like that at all.” Camille’s voice trembled. But of course, it was like that. Her mind spun back to the clouded blankness in Alain’s eyes when he’d shouted at her, the way the cords in his neck tightened and bulged, how she fell, so slowly, so slowly, the crack of her head on the floor. Her body still ached, but woven into the pain’s fabric was fear: the broken strongbox, the worry that she would never escape.

“In that desperate place he is, family doesn’t matter.” Behind Sandrine’s earlobes, dirt speckled her skin gray. “Drunk on cheap wine and laudanum, what does he care? Bah! Not his problem. I know someone who sold his daughter to get out of debt.”

No.

“Or that monsieur who shot himself, remember? In the Bois de Boulogne?”

Despair and hopelessness clenched Camille’s throat. Had it really come down to this, a card game? Why didn’t she have the ten of spades instead of the eight? She could see it in her mind, how eight of its pips were arranged like two walls facing one another, the other two pips in the middle. Like she and Sophie, trapped.

She shook her head. “My brother wouldn’t do those things.” He wouldn’t go that far.

Sandrine pressed her hand to her mouth in pretend shock. “You came here thinking he’d give you back everything he’d taken, didn’t you? And now you think he wouldn’t do worse than what he’s done?” Her laugh was harsh. “I pity stupid girls like you.”

“You going to hold?” Claudette said, elbowing Sandrine. “I’ve got eighteen, and you’ve got nineteen, Drine. Chances are, m’selle is under. You want the rose dress or the green?”

Blood thrummed in Camille’s ears. This was not the world she wanted: dank gambling dens and pain and these girls laughing while they cheated her. Damn them to hell.

She flipped her last remaining card faceup and waited for their jeers.

Silence. Their mouths fell open.

“Merde! How is it possible?” Sandrine swore.

Next to her two red cards—the ace and the ten—lay a ten of spades. So much like the eight, but with two wonderful pips in the middle. The eight of spades seemed to have—vanished? Tentatively, Camille touched her fingertips to the ten. It felt as real as any other. But she knew it wasn’t.

She had turned it.