Read Chapter 19: The Poison Locket Unlocked

Madame de Maintenon did not stand when Marguerite entered. She sat at her escritoire, a quill suspended over paper, and for a moment Marguerite thought she had been forgotten—another stray servant seeking favor, to be waved away with an impatient hand.

But the quill set down.

"You have caused a stir, Mademoiselle Delacroix." De Maintenon's voice carried no warmth, only the flat authority of a woman who had outlasted every enemy the court could field. "The Comtesse de Brissac has already sent word to me, decrying your character. Thief, liar, and a servant who oversteps her station. Her words, not mine."

Marguerite's throat tightened. "She would say that, madame."

"She would." De Maintenon rose, and Marguerite saw the locket in her hand—the one left in the hall. The woman turned it over, letting it catch the candlelight. "Tell me why I should believe a lady's maid over a Comtesse with forty years of blood behind her name."

"Because the Comtesse is poisoning the Duchesse de Montfort, and she means to see her dead before the week is out."

The words hung in the air like smoke. De Maintenon's expression did not change, but her fingers closed around the locket.

"Proof," she said. "Names. Witnesses. The Duchesse is ill—that is known. But illness is not murder."

Marguerite reached into her pocket and withdrew the forged note, the one signed with the Duchesse's initials. She placed it on the escritoire. "Her writing, madame. But not her hand. I know it. I brush her hair each morning—I have read her correspondence for years. This is a copy, careful and cruel, but a copy nonetheless."

De Maintenon picked up the note. She did not read it aloud, but her eyes moved slowly across the page. When she set it down, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

"And you believe the Comtesse wrote this."

"I believe she had it written."

"Belief is not proof." De Maintenon's voice sharpened. "You come to me with a forged note and a locked vial. You ask me to move against a noblewoman of this court—on suspicion. Do you know what they will say? That I have finally lost my senses, that I grasp at power by crushing my rivals."

Marguerite stood very still. "Madame, the Comtesse knows I came to you. She was waiting outside your door when I left."

Now something flickered in de Maintenon's eyes. Not fear—she had none. But calculation.

"She was?"

"Yes. With a smile on her face."

De Maintenon was quiet for a long moment. Then she moved to the door, opened it, and spoke to a footman in low tones. Marguerite caught only fragments—"the Comtesse's chambers," "a search," "quietly and thoroughly."

When she turned back, her face had settled into something harder. "If I find nothing, Mademoiselle, you will be the one arrested for slander. Do you understand that?"

Marguerite swallowed. "I understand."

The next quarter hour was the longest of her life. De Maintoon sat again at her escritoire, writing steadily as if nothing were at stake. Marguerite stood with her hands clasped, trying not to tremble. The Duchesse lay weak in her bed across the palace, unaware that this audience—this fragile thread—might be the only thing between her and death.

The footman returned. His face was pale.

"Madame," he said, and Marguerite saw something in his hands—a small case, velvet and gold.

De Maintenon took it. Opened it.

The locket inside was identical to the one Marguerite wore at her throat. The same delicate filigree, the same family crest raised in gold. And inside, beneath a glass pane, a miniature portrait of the Duchesse de Montfort, painted with such precision that Marguerite felt the air leave her lungs.

The Comtesse had not merely planned to kill the Duchesse. She had commissioned her death like a piece of jewelry.

De Maintenon turned the locket over, then looked at Marguerite. "She has been carrying this for weeks. The portrait is fresh—the paint not yet cured." She paused. "It seems your Comtesse has been patient."

"I told you, madame."

"So you did."

The arrest was swift. The Comtesse de Brissac was found in her chambers, unsurprised, as if she had been waiting for the knock. She went quietly, without protest—which Marguerite found more frightening than any struggle.

But as the guards led her past, the Comtesse fixed her gaze on Marguerite. Her lips curled into a smile, slow and knowing.

"I would not celebrate too soon, little maid," she said, her voice calm and clear for all the corridor to hear. "You think I acted alone? You think I would stake my name and fortune on a whim?" She laughed—a bright, brittle sound. "I acted on the orders of the Duchesse herself. Ask her. Ask her what she promised me."

Marguerite felt the words hit her like a blow to the chest.

The guards pulled her away, and the Comtesse's laughter echoed down the hall. When Marguerite turned back to Madame de Maintenon, she found the woman watching her with an expression she could not read—curiosity, perhaps, or suspicion.

"The Comtesse is in custody," de Maintenon said. "But I would have the truth before I move further. The Duchesse will be questioned."

"She is weak, madame. She cannot—"

"She will be questioned," de Maintenon repeated. "And you will be present. If she is innocent, she will say so. If she is not—" She left the sentence unfinished, and Marguerite understood exactly how much hung in the balance.