Read Chapter 17: A Gala and a Fake Smile

The gaslight chandeliers of the Hôtel de Ville cast their honeyed glow over three hundred of Paris’s most privileged souls, and Camille Moreau stood at the center of it all, the Baron’s pearls cool against her throat. She had worn the necklace deliberately—a costume, like everything else tonight. The cream silk of her gown whispered as she moved through the crowd, accepting compliments with a smile that had become second nature.

“Mademoiselle Moreau! A triumph, truly a triumph!”

“To think our little Comédie-Française will soon have a rival worthy of its name!”

Camille inclined her head, murmured her thanks, and kept walking. The theatre announcement had been the evening’s grand spectacle, the Baron’s voice ringing with civic pride as he unveiled the plans for the new Palais des Arts, with its leading lady standing modestly at his side. The photographers had captured it all—the benefactor’s hand on her elbow, her eyes raised to his with something that could pass for devotion.

Now the Baron was lost in a cluster of bankers, and Camille had perhaps twenty minutes before anyone noticed her absence. She drifted toward the grand staircase, then paused, glancing back as if reconsidering a conversation. The Baroness de Beaumont stood near the punch bowl, her silver hair immaculate, her eyes tracking Camille with an attention that could have been either vigilance or simple curiosity.

Camille smiled at her. The Baroness smiled back, not quite warmly.

The corridor beyond the ballroom was quieter, the roar of the gala fading to a murmur. Camille’s heart beat a furious rhythm beneath her corset as she counted doors—third on the left, Julien’s instructions had said, and she had memorized the Baron’s mansion well enough during her visits to know his study would be adjacent to the library. The key he had pressed into her palm that morning was small and cold, and now it turned in the lock with a satisfying click.

The study smelled of leather and pipe smoke. Camille closed the door behind her, pressing her back against it for three full seconds before moving. The miniature camera Julien had given her weighed almost nothing in her beaded reticule, but she was acutely aware of its presence, like a live coal against her thigh.

She found the letterbox on the desk—a carved mahogany box, unassuming, perhaps chosen for exactly that reason. It was unlocked. Either the Baron trusted his staff implicitly, or he never imagined a woman from the theatre would be the one to rifle through his correspondence.

The letter was there, third from the top, exactly where Julien had predicted. Cream paper, heavy stock, the sort that whispered money. She unfolded it with gloved hands and read:

*—shall continue to ensure that the ministry’s inquiries into the Alsace railway charter remain inconclusive. My associates agree that the staged derailment last month serves our purposes admirably. The Comte’s interest in your leading lady, however, alarms us. She is a variable we cannot afford. Should she prove… troublesome, I trust you know how to proceed.*

It was signed with a flourish: *E. Dupont.*

Camille’s hands trembled. *The staged derailment.* God in heaven—people had died in that accident. The newspapers had called it a tragedy of faulty engineering, a dozen souls lost in a ravine outside Strasbourg. And here it was, plain as the ink on the page, that it had been arranged.

She raised the camera, her fingers clumsy with rage and fear. The flash powder would be visible under the door—she had to be quick. She positioned the letter, steadied her breath, and squeezed the shutter.

*Click.*

The chemical smell of flash burned her nostrils. She turned the letter over, photographed the second page, then folded it carefully and replaced it in the box. She had just slid the box back into its position on the desk when she heard it—the whisper of silk in the corridor, the soft click of heels on marble.

Camille froze. The camera was still in her hand, the mechanism still warm. She shoved it into her reticule with movements that felt absurdly loud, then smoothed her gown and stepped toward the center of the room, composing her face into a mask of admiration.

The door opened.

The Baroness de Beaumont stood in the threshold, her dark silk gown rustling, her eyes moving slowly from Camille’s face to the desk behind her and back again. She did not seem surprised to find her there.

“Mademoiselle Moreau,” she said. “I thought you might have lost your way. The ballroom is back the way you came.”

Camille’s smile felt painted on. “I confess I was admiring the view. The Baron spoke of his library’s windows overlooking the Seine—I wished to see it for myself.”

“And did you find it worth the detour?”

The question hung in the air, weighted with meanings Camille could not begin to parse. The Baroness’s expression was unreadable—neither accusing nor comforting, a carefully neutral mask of its own.

“Very much so,” Camille said.

The Baroness stepped aside, gesturing toward the corridor. “Then allow me to escort you back. The Baron will wonder where his star has gone.”

Camille walked past her, heart still hammering, and felt the Baroness’s gaze on her back like a blade between her shoulder blades. But no cry of alarm came. No summons for the footmen. The older woman simply fell into step beside her, their heels clicking in unison against the marble.

They had reached the ballroom doors when the Baroness spoke again, her voice so low Camille almost missed it.

“I know what my husband is,” she said. “And I know what he is not. Whatever you are doing in his study, Mademoiselle Moreau—I hope you know what you are doing as well.”

Camille turned to face her, but the Baroness had already glided past, disappearing into the glittering crowd as if the exchange had never happened. Camille stood frozen at the threshold, the pearls heavy at her throat, Julien’s camera pressing against her hip.

She knew what the Baroness was telling her. She was not certain she believed it.

But whatever the Baroness’s game was, Camille had her evidence now. Dupont’s letter, Dupont’s hand, Dupont’s signature on a plot that extended far beyond the Baron’s railway schemes. She thought of the investors in the ledger, catalogued by their vulnerabilities—the widower who had lost everything, the old woman who had trusted a friend’s recommendation. She thought of the dead men in the ravine outside Strasbourg, their families left to grieve a tragedy that had never been a tragedy at all.

She would bring this to Julien. Tonight. The plan had been to wait, to be careful, to maintain appearances until the gala concluded. But the Baroness’s words had unsettled her, and the cold fury of the letter had crystallized something in her chest.

The Baron could not know she had taken his measure. But she knew now, with terrible certainty, what he was willing to do to protect his secrets. And she knew that if he ever suspected what she carried in her reticule, the fate of those who became inconvenient would not spare her.

She lifted her chin, smoothed her smile back into place, and stepped into the ballroom to find the Baron and play her part for one more hour.

The pearls gleamed against her skin like a promise she intended to break.