That was answer enough. The silence lengthened, until Camille spoke.
‘Please can we not do this?’ She pulled Ada closer so Ada could feel the heat of her skin and the catch of her breath through her thin nightdress. ‘I love you. I chose you.’ She pressed a kiss to Ada’s cheek, then her mouth. ‘Do you love me?’
‘Yes. Of course I do.’
‘Then that’s all that matters.’
‘Cam…’
‘Please, Ada. We both nearly died. I want to be near you.’
Ada bit her lip, warring with her own desire. Then nodded.
‘I want you too.’
Camille covered her mouth with her own, hand sliding down to her hip. Ada shivered in pleasure, sinking into the kiss despite herself. Camille nudged a leg between hers and Ada let herself be swept away.
4
The Théâtre Patriotique, Boulevard du Temple
17 Prairial, Year II, three days until the deadline
Aboy made of glossy porcelain was wheeled onto the stage and positioned in front of the chattering audience. In front of him, the stagehands fitted a sheet of paper to a writing desk and filled the well with ink. Then they retreated into the wings. A hush spread through the parterre audience and the twelve-sous gallery ticket holders. Ada fiddled with a loose thread in her cuff. After a few tense moments, the boy began to move. His arm shifted and his hand extended from a frilled cuff to dip a quill nib into the ink. Then he moved back and put pen to paper. He repeated this action until black marks marched across the paper, his glassy eyes flicking back and forth. It was uncanny. The way his eyes moved, blank and unseeing but carefully fixed on his work, made the hairs stand up on the back of Ada’s neck.
Ada knew how it worked: her mother had taught her about clockwork through illustrations of cogs and gears. It was an automaton, a strange mechanical creation that moved, danced, played miniature instruments, even acted out whole scenes. A porcelain figure mounted on top of a box containing the clockwork mechanism that drove the movement.
The handler appeared next to his automaton to summon a series of fluttering young women and boisterous young men onstage to examine the machine, verify that it wrote meaningful French. They held up the paper, read it aloud, exclaimed over a tiny portrait of a dog. Remarkable, impossible, ingenious.
Ada shivered. Compared to Olympe and her abilities, the porcelain boy was nothing more than a toy.
The morning after James’s arrival, the battalion had ventured out to the Théâtre Patriotique, where they were scheduled to meet one of Al’s contacts. They had three days to come up with a plan. Olympe had taken some persuading to leave the safety of the rooms over the Au Petit Suisse and Ada had agreed it was better for them to stay behind rather than run the risk of another encounter with the Royalists or Revolutionaries. But Guil had pointed out that even the best-run army needed some occasional rest and relaxation to keep morale up and now the gang was squished in to watch the matinee variety performance, carefully hidden from sight of the rest of the audience.
Camille had had little patience when Olympe resisted.
‘I’m sorry, but we don’t have time for this. If we’re going to have any chance of getting you out of here, you need to get used to the world again, and quickly. I understand it’s a big risk, but it’s a bigger risk to be unprepared.’ She had held Olympe’s gaze. ‘You’ve survived far worse than this.’
‘But if Docteur Comtois sees us…’
‘Don’t make yourself a new prison. You can’t spend your life hiding.’
‘No. But—’
‘If we see any sign of him – or the Royalists – we’ll go. Okay?’
Olympe had reluctantly agreed and sat deep in thought while Ada painted her in a thick layer of powder, and dressed her in gloves, a stiff, washed-out pink caraco jacket with long sleeves, and a shawl to cover her neck. She’d finished the outfit with a broad-brimmed hat and lace veil to hide Olympe’s eyes. The outing would serve as a trial run to see if they could smuggle her through the city unnoticed. So far, the disguise was just about holding.
Only James had volunteered to stay behind after Camille had shot him a particularly vicious look. Ada couldn’t deny she was pleased. She wanted James to know he wasn’t welcome. To keep her family to herself.
The automaton was being wheeled off to be replaced by a dancing dog who spoke French, Latin and German.
Guil frowned at the playbill. ‘I am quite sure I saw the exact same line up at the Gaîeté last month.’
Beside him, Al yawned and popped a segment of orange into his mouth. ‘Populist tosh. Far more entertaining if he got some of the schoolboy aristos from Louis-le-Grand to try to wash their own socks.’
‘The audience seems to enjoy it,’ said Guil.
‘People will watch anything. They turned out in their hundreds to watch the Opera burn. And the riot at the Théâtre de la Nation last week, most popular event since the king had his head lopped off.’
