Enchantée(97)

These many weeks at Versailles, she thought she’d become something. Someone. A person of abilities, a person with her own power.

But she hadn’t. Alain had been right all along.

It was nothing more than illusion.





49


In the mirror, Camille tucked an oak sprig into her hat.

Her hands trembled from too much magic, and she wanted nothing more than to go out and lose herself in the maze of streets that was Paris. To not have to think. Question. Decide.

But before she could slip past the doorman and out onto the street, Madame de Théron called from her sitting room, where she was fanning herself against the creeping heat. “You’re wearing leaves in your hat.”

For Madame, the leaves were the sign that she was a traitor. Disloyal to the king. “It’s not safe without them,” Camille said, keeping back a smile. “Not since Desmoulins said green was the color of freedom and the people’s cause. If you were to go out, madame, people would demand it of you.”

“Never! Desmoulins wants the people to take arms against our king.” Madame de Théron’s lower lip quivered with indignation. “Because of him, the rabble have been threatening to burn our noble houses!”

She was not wrong. Desmoulins had said just that when he climbed onto a table outside the Palais-Royal and in front of an enormous crowd, raised his pistols in the air. People listening had torn off the leaves of nearby chestnut trees to wear green in their hats like their new hero. And then they had broken into sword-cutlers’ and gunsmiths’ shops. On the streets of Paris the mood was that of a dangerous dance: one false step and it would slide into chaos.

“What of the damned duc d’Orléans?” Madame de Théron asked.

“The king’s cousin? He and some other nobles have joined the people’s side. The duc does whatever he thinks will profit him.”

“The duc is a scoundrel!” Madame de Théron snapped her fan on the arm of her chair. “We must obey the king, not argue with him.”

“Even if he is wrong? What about the American War?” Papa had written a pamphlet about it; she remembered how the sums had astonished her. “More than one billion livres to help the colonists push England out when we could have used the money here? The price of bread just goes up and up.”

Madame considered. “Peut-être. But the king is the father of France, don’t forget.”

“A father can be a tyrant. And if he is”—Alain’s forbidding face swam before her—“then we must find another way.”

“Hmph.” Madame fanned herself. “The young think they know everything. They should be docile and obedient, but they never are.”

Her mind on the news in the street, the anticipation of change, Camille turned to go and nearly collided with one of the maids holding a silver platter. On it lay three letters no bigger than her hand.

As Camille took them, she asked, “Has my sister returned home?”

She had not.

Where had Sophie gone? She’d left before Camille had set out, and had not yet returned. It wasn’t like her. Or, Camille corrected herself, it wasn’t like the old Sophie. The new Sophie was much—sharper. More to herself, working longer hours at Madame Bénard’s before going to the new place to “measure” it, as she said. Always returning late, her cheeks pinked, a secret in her face. But there was no saying anything about it to her. When Camille tried to broach the subject, Sophie covered her ears or left the room.

She put two of the letters in her purse and opened the other.

Dear Mademoiselle—

I hesitate to call again at the H?tel Théron for Fear of Offending your Landlady, but I have something I must ask you. Will you come to the Workshop? This matter is—regrettably!—Unfortunate.

Your servant,

Charles Rosier



Unfortunate?

She recalled Rosier’s unease when he had last been here. It must have something to do with the balloon, but what exactly, she could not tell. She had been wondering if they had raised enough money at the salon—perhaps it had to do with that?

And perhaps Lazare would be there.

Perhaps she might have the courage to tell him the truth.





50


When she banged on the bright blue door, it was Rosier, not Lazare, who came to open it. He blinked at her as if he hadn’t seen sunshine in days. Pale, worried, his hair frizzed.

“Mademoiselle Camille,” he said. “Come in.”

She stepped into the hall that led back to the riding ring. “Rosier, what’s wrong?”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Lazare?” she asked. “I have no idea.”

“Merde!” Rosier tugged at his hair. “Pardon! My mouth is not connected to my brain. Lazare is missing.”

“What do you mean?”

“He is not here. Tickets have been sold for the public launch—”

“Already? What about the salon?”

“They didn’t give enough, those stingy bastards. And that Lafayette!” He gripped his pipe so hard she thought he might break it. “So I prepared for the public launch. Bien. It was the best idea all along, non? I printed the posters. I printed the tickets and started to sell them. Très bien! Everyone wants to see the girl balloonist!” A wan smile brightened his face, but only for a moment. “And now Armand says there is a problem with the release valve again and a new one must be constructed. But tickets have been sold for the twenty-eighth of July! And Lazare vanished three days ago.”