Read Chapter 11: A Gift of Pearls

The knock came at half past eight, when Camille was still in her chemise, her hair loose and damp from the washbasin. Marguerite, the concierge's girl, stood on the landing with a flat velvet box wrapped in brown paper and a card sealed with dark green wax.

"For Mademoiselle Moreau," the girl said, eyes bright with curiosity. "A footman brought it. Very grand, very quiet. He didn't say who sent it."

Camille took the package, closed the door, and stood in the cold light of her single window. She knew before she opened it. The green wax bore the Baron's crest—a stag's head above crossed horns.

Inside lay a strand of pearls on a bed of black silk. They caught the gray morning light and held it, luminous and warm, each pearl the size of a small grape. She had never touched anything so expensive. She lifted them carefully, and the strand flowed through her fingers like water.

The note was written in a neat, practiced hand.

*My dear Mademoiselle Moreau—*

*I was delighted to see you at luncheon. The Duchess speaks of nothing but your charm, and I confess I share her enthusiasm. I hope these small tokens will adorn your lovely throat at the concert Thursday. I would be honored to call you not merely an acquaintance, but a friend.*

*Ever at your service,* *Le Baron de Valencourt*

A friend. She knew exactly what kind of friendship the Baron meant. Her mother had warned her often enough, in the years before she died, about men who sent pearls before they sent contracts. The pearls were a promise. The note was a bill.

Camille sat on the edge of her bed and looked at the necklace coiled in her lap. She should return it. She knew she should. She had no intention of becoming the Baron's mistress—not for anything, not for anyone. She had gone to his luncheons to be seen, to be courted, to gather the crumbs of his attention that might open doors. She had never meant to owe him anything.

But Lucien owed Marcel Bonnet five thousand francs.

And Étienne was gone because of her.

And the envelope sat in her coat lining, heavy as a stone, waiting to be used or destroyed.

She thought about returning the pearls. She rehearsed the polite refusal—*I am touched, Monsieur le Baron, but I cannot accept such generosity*—and imagined the Baron's face cooling, his invitations drying up, the Duchess's concert invitation withdrawn, and with it every door she had so carefully wedged open. Then she imagined Lucien with broken hands, or worse. Marcel Bonnet did not send notes. He sent men.

She put the pearls back in their box and set them on the table. The hours passed. She did not go to the theatre that morning. She sat by the window, watching the street, and thought about her mother, who had sold herself for less—for a room, for bread, for the chance to put her daughter on a stage. Camille had watched her die bitter and alone, and she had sworn she would never love a man for his money.

She had not loved. But she had taken.

At noon, Lucien came. He looked worse than before—thinner, paler, his eyes ringed with sleeplessness. He saw the velvet box on the table and stopped.

"What's that?"

"A gift."

He picked it up, opened it, and his breath caught. "Pearls. Real ones?"

"Yes."

"From the Baron?"

"Yes."

Lucien's jaw worked. He set the box down carefully, like it might bite him. "What does he want for them?"

"Company," Camille said quietly. "Friendship. Nothing more."

"Camille—"

"I know what he wants." She stood, smoothing her skirt. "I haven't agreed to anything. I haven't promised anything. It's just a gift."

"Men don't give pearls for nothing."

"Then I'll earn them," she said. "I'll wear them to the Duchess's concert. I'll be so charming, so brilliant, that the Baron will be glad to have sponsored me without ever touching me. That's the game, Lucien. That's how it works. Women play by their wits, not their bodies."

Lucien looked at her for a long moment, and she saw in his face something that hurt—a flicker of the boy he used to be, before the gambling, before the debts. "You sound like you're trying to convince yourself."

"Maybe I am." She walked to the window, turning her back to him. "But I'm not going to let you be killed for a card game, Lucien. I'm not going to let the Baron's men break you the way they broke Étienne."

"You don't know they broke Étienne."

"I know he's missing." She turned. "And I know I'm going to Fontainebleau tonight to find him."

"Fontainebleau? The Baron's lodge?"

"Julien has a horse. We're riding out at midnight."

Lucien stared at her. "You're going to the Baron's hunting lodge in the middle of the night with a journalist to look for a stagehand."

"Yes."

"That's insane."

"Probably."

"Let me come."

"No. You're in enough danger already. And if something happens to us, you need to be free and clear of it."

"How will I know you're safe?"

Camille paused. She didn't have an answer. She crossed to her coat, hung on its hook by the door, and slipped her hand into the lining. The envelope was still there, soft and worn from its journey. She drew it out and held it up.

"If I don't come back by tomorrow evening," she said, "take this to the offices of *Le Figaro*. Give it to a reporter named Lefèvre's editor. Tell him it's proof of fraud against the Baron de Valencourt."

Lucien took the envelope, his hands shaking slightly. "What is it?"

"Insurance."

He tucked it into his jacket without looking inside. "You trust this journalist?"

"I don't trust anyone," Camille said. "But I trust that he hates the Baron more than he wants to hurt me."

She crossed to the table, lifted the pearls from their nest, and fastened them around her neck. They were cool against her skin. In the small mirror above the washbasin, she saw a woman she recognized but didn't know—older, harder, wearing the Baron's necklace like a collar.

She thought of her mother. She thought of what she might tell her, if she could. *I didn't love him. I didn't give him anything. It's just beads, Mama. Just beads and a lie.*

The lie was the worst part. The lie about Lucille Vernet. The lie she had told the Duchess, the one the Baroness had caught and sharpened into a blade. Soon she would stand in front of the most influential women in Paris and claim to be the niece of a dead opera singer, and the pearls around her throat would be the price she'd paid to get there.

"It suits you," Lucien said quietly. He meant it kindly.

Camille laughed, a short, hollow sound. "It weighs more than it looks."

She turned from the mirror. The pearls were part of her now, a second skin. She would wear them to the concert. She would smile at the Baron and thank him for his generosity. She would be the actress she was trained to be.

But tonight, at midnight, she would ride to his hunting lodge with a journalist who suspected she was a liar, and she would find out what happened to Étienne—or she would end up like the women Julien had warned her about, vanished into the Baron's countryside and never mentioned again.

She touched the pearls at her throat.

They were warm now. They had already begun to claim her.