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Prologue

1793

Outside Paris

* * *

The soldiers came late in the day, grim and unwavering. Everyone had expected them, but their appearance, led by a cold-eyed revolutionary who had once been a neighbor, was still shocking. The master of the house, the comte d’Orvelon, went out to meet them while his wife frantically made the final arrangements.

“Quickly,” the comtesse whispered. Mélanie, her trusted maid, was rubbing her hands in the ashes of last night’s fire. Soot already smudged her face beneath the turban of the revolutionists, but now Mélanie crouched beside a basket and brushed dirt onto the perfect ivory cheeks of the baby who sat within, trying to pull her tiny foot into her mouth and ignoring Mélanie’s efforts to dirty her.

“My darling,” the comtesse said on a choked sob as she watched. “My baby…”

“I will guard her with my life,” Mélanie promised, dusting off her hands on the plain linen apron she wore. No longer dressed in the comtesse’s cast-off silks, she wore a commoner’s dress, with dirt under her nails and the sash of the revolution knotted across her chest. She looked like a common peasant—as she must, if this was to work. “No, Madame!” she cried softly as the comtesse reached for her infant daughter. “You mustn’t!”

But her mistress lifted the child, smearing dirt and ashes on her own face and dress. “I will not see her again for a long time,” she murmured, holding the child’s cheek to hers and stroking the baby-fine hair. “Perhaps never. Let me hold her just a moment…”

Mélanie glanced at the kitchen door in mounting panic. Soldiers hadn’t made it into the garden yet, but they would. Jacques, the coachman, lurked just outside the door. He caught her eye and made an urgent gesture; they must hurry. She nodded to him and turned back to her mistress, biting her lip nervously. It wasn’t in her to defy her lady, so fair and so generous and now in such danger.

The baby giggled and grabbed at her mother’s hair, and a tear slid down the comtesse’s cheek. Mélanie said nothing.

“Marie.” The comte had come into the deserted kitchen. He had aged ten years in the last few months, since he had been accused as an enemy of the Republic. White streaked his dark hair, and his skin had taken on a gray pallor like that of a shut-in. Once so urbane and handsome, now he was disheveled and worn. The revolution had not been gentle. “Marie, they have come. I have told them we will go willingly, to allow more time—“ He caught sight of Mélanie and inhaled sharply. With three long steps he crossed the kitchen. “Why are you still here?” he hissed. “You should have been gone by now!”

“Oui, monsieur,” she murmured, barely remembering not to curtsey to her master. “We are going.”

His eyes darted anxiously around, snagging for a moment on Jacques, who again made a gesture to hurry. “Marie, they must go,” he said in despair. “You must send them now, or the chance will be lost.”

The comtesse sniffled, and dragged her sleeve across her eyes. The part of Mélanie that had served her loyally and proudly cringed at the sight, but she said nothing and put out her arms for the child.

The mother bowed her head over the baby’s, whispering something into the tiny ear. Mélanie looked away, only to catch sight of the anguish that contorted the comte’s face for just a moment. Without a word he laid his hand on his daughter’s dusky curls. Two fingers bore the pale stripes of rings that had been worn for years, and were now discarded. Confiscated. Stolen, she thought bitterly. For a moment the parents huddled together over their only child, saying good-bye to her even as the Committee’s soldiers waited outside to take them to prison. Fierce hatred burned in Mélanie’s heart, banishing her tears as she took the little girl into her arms.

“Here.” Madame pressed a small linen bag into her hand with a soft clink. It contained a king’s ransom in precious stones, carefully pried from their settings. “Use them carefully, Mélanie. They must take you all the way to London. Do you remember the name?”

“Oui, Madame.”

“Say it!” Madame had made her memorize everything, refusing to commit a single word to paper.

“Lady Simone Thayne, Grosvenor Square, London,” Mélanie whispered in a rush. Jacques stuck his head through the door and said her name. “We will wait there for word from you.”

“God willing,” Lady d’Orvelon murmured. They all knew there was a strong chance word would never come from her or her husband. He had been accused of treason, and judges were sentencing traitors left and right to the guillotine. The comte had tried to send his wife away, but her pregnancy and childbirth had been hard; she had not recovered enough to travel, and now it was too late. They had still clung to hope. The comte renounced his title, ceded most of his lands, wore the revolutionary cockade. That might sway the judges, but the comte had known from the moment he and his wife were accused that they might die.

But their child… The girl cooed and tugged at Mélanie’s sash, and she held the baby tighter. Jacques had promised to get them safely to the coast, no more. He had his own family to protect. Madame and the comte were trusting her to spirit their only child to safety, to England, to Madame’s cousin, Lady Thayne. If God were just, the parents and child would be soon reunited, but if not…

“Madame,” she tried to say, but her voice broke.

“God go with you,” murmured the comte.

The comtesse shook herself. “Go,” she said quietly. “Go with Jacques. We will do all we can to keep them from following.” With visible effort she straightened her shoulders and placed her hand on her husband’s arm. “Tell her we love her.”

“Oui, Madame, every day,” Mélanie whispered as Jacques, out of patience at last, strode across the kitchen and pulled her by the arm toward the door. Mélanie caught one last glimpse of her mistress watching them go, head held regally high despite the tears on her cheeks, before they were in the garden, darting along the row of overgrown hemlocks toward the stables where Jacques had left the pack of supplies they would need for the journey to the coast.

The little girl struggled in her arms, jabbering in excitement. She wanted to get down and toddle along the path, as she had just learned how to do. Mélanie held her closer and murmured lullabies in her ear as Jacques swung the provisions onto his shoulder. The stables were deserted, as was the house. Most of the servants had long since run off, and Mélanie’s greatest fear was that one of them would be with the soldiers, to see them and identify her and Jacques as loyal servants and the child as Madame’s.

Mélanie didn’t know what those cruel revolutionaries would do to a baby, but she didn’t trust them any more than Madame did. Lying, stealing, murdering opportunists, that’s all they were. Already Madame’s sister and her husband had been sent to the guillotine, and several relatives of Monsieur as well. Mélanie said a desperate prayer that Madame would be spared, for the sake of her daughter if nothing else.

They hurried through the gardens, once elegant and now neglected and wild, past the statuary and the stagnant ponds, past the little grave in the family plot that had been dug to give proof to the lie that Madame’s baby had died.

Jacques urged her on. “We should have gone hours ago,” he told her. “Do not look back.”