Read Chapter 2: The Scent of Almonds

The morning light came gray through the windows of the Duchesse’s private salon, and Marguerite was already regretting the hour she had spent awake, staring at the ceiling of her tiny alcove, the vial burning against her palm in memory.

She had hidden it beneath a loose floorboard beneath her cot, wrapped in a scrap of linen. The bitter almond scent clung to her fingers no matter how many times she washed them with lye soap. Even now, as she arranged her mistress’s breakfast tray, she caught ghost notes of it in the steam rising from the chocolate.

The Duchesse de Montfort was seated at her escritoire, wearing a pale morning gown of robin’s-egg silk. At twenty-nine, she was still the most beautiful woman in Versailles by most accounts—not the King’s mistress, not anymore, but close enough to power to matter. Her hair was being pinned by Claire, the second lady’s maid, a mouse-faced girl who had been avoiding Marguerite’s eyes all morning.

“Leave it,” the Duchesse said, waving a hand at the tray. “I’ve no appetite for chocolate today. They’ve brought me that tisane instead—the one with the honey.”

Claire moved at once, setting down the pins and crossing to the low table where a silver pot steamed beneath a covered dome. Marguerite’s gaze followed the movement. The tisane was new. The Duchesse drank chocolate every morning, religiously, from a cup with her initials engraved in gold. A tisane was a departure.

“When did you order this, madame?” Marguerite asked, keeping her tone light as she moved to pour the drink herself.

“I didn’t,” the Duchesse said, not looking up from her correspondence. “The Comtesse de Brionne sent it over. She said it cured her megrims. I woke with such a pounding head that I thought I might try it.”

Marguerite’s hand froze an inch from the silver pot.

The Comtesse de Brionne. The moonlit grove. The pharmacist’s boy. The parcel. The vial that had dropped and rolled toward her shoe.

“How kind of the Comtesse,” she heard herself say.

She poured the tisane. It was pale amber, fragrant with honey and something floral—lavender, perhaps, or chamomile. Marguerite lifted the cup to her own nose first, a habit she had learned in her mother’s apothecary shop, before she had come to Versailles. Good servants smelled everything. That was how you discovered whether wine had soured or whether a powder had been salted with something to cut its cost.

The scent came up to meet her, sweet and floral.

And beneath it, faint but unmistakable: bitter almond.

Marguerite’s heart stopped. She set the cup down with exaggerated care.

“Is something wrong?” the Duchesse asked, finally looking up.

“No, madame. The tisane is only very hot. I shall let it cool a moment.”

She stepped backward, her mind racing. Think. Do not betray yourself. She had been raised on suspicion—not the idle gossip of the palace, but the practical wariness of a woman who had learned that people lied most convincingly when they most wanted to hurt you. Her mother had taught her to smell for lauretto oil in broth, to test powders with a drop of wine to see if they fizzed, to distrust any drink that came from a gift.

“Where is the Comtesse this morning?” Marguerite asked, forcing calm.

“She said she was going to visit the apothecary in town,” the Duchesse said, sipping her pen across the paper. “Poor thing has had such trouble sleeping. She says the palace air disagrees with her.”

Marguerite moved to the window, so her mistress would not see her face. The vial in her floorboard had had the same smell. The same exact smell. And the Duchesse had been fine before the tisane—a little tired, perhaps, but fine. Now there was a cup of gratitude from the Comtesse de Brionne sitting on the table, and beneath the honey and chamomile, death.

No. She was not certain. But she was certain enough.

“If madame will permit me,” Marguerite said slowly, turning back with a practiced smile, “I should like to bring the tisane to the kitchens and have them heat it more thoroughly. The honey has not fully dissolved, and the chill might do your stomach a disservice.”

The Duchesse waved a hand. “Do as you like. I have no appetite for it now anyway. Claire, help me into the blue gown—the King has summoned me to walk in the gardens before noon.”

Marguerite took the pot. She moved quickly, out of the salon, down the corridor, past the guards who knew her face and let her pass, until she reached the kitchens.

The palace kitchens were a warren of heat and shouting. Scullery maids stripped turnips, potboys turned spits, and the head cook, a vast woman named Madame Pernet who ruled over every flame in the building, looked up from a tray of pastries with narrowed eyes.

“The Duchesse’s maid,” she said. “What brings you down here? We already sent up her breakfast.”

Marguerite set the silver pot on the wooden worktable. “This tisane. It was delivered from the Comtesse de Brionne. Who prepared it?”

Madame Pernet blinked. “I did. The Comtesse’s own maid brought the herbs in a paper packet. Said her lady’s physician had made the blend specially. You have a problem with it?”

“Did you taste it?”

“I smelled it. Honey and flowers. Perfectly pleasant.”

Marguerite removed the lid and tipped the pot toward herself, inhaling deeply. There it was again—that sharp, almost cherry-like note beneath the sweetness. Bitter almond.

“Something is off,” she said quietly.

Madame Pernet’s face hardened. “I’ve worked these kitchens for thirty-one years. I know when a herb is fresh and when it has gone over. That blend was fine when I steeped it.”

“I didn’t say the herb was stale. I said something was off.”

“And what would you know about it, miss?” Madame Pernet stepped closer, a rolling pin in her fist, though she did not raise it. “You’re a lady’s maid, not an apothecary. If I were you, I’d not go crying poison where there is none. That word spreads fast in this palace, and it sticks to whoever says it first.”

Marguerite held her gaze. “I know that bitter almond smells like no flower that grows in France.”

Madame Pernet’s mouth tightened. For a moment, something flickered in her eyes—fear, or calculation, or both. Then she turned away and busied herself with the tray of pastries.

“The Comtesse’s herbs are on the shelf where I always keep them,” she said stiffly. “If you wish to inspect them, help yourself. But do not drag my name into any kitchen quarrels, girl. I have a reputation to protect.”

The packet was there, on the third shelf, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a common string. Marguerite untied it and sniffed the contents—dried chamomile, lavender, and a few crushed seeds she did not immediately recognize. She picked out one tiny dark seed and rolled it between thumb and finger. It came apart with difficulty, leaving a faint oil on her skin.

Bitter almond.

Her mother had kept a small locked box of these seeds, and she had told Marguerite, when she was eight years old, that if she ever smelled them in a place where food was served, she should leave that place at once and never return.

Marguerite wrapped the seed in her handkerchief and slipped it into her sleeve.

“Take the tisane away,” she said to Madame Pernet. “Boil it thoroughly and pour it down the drain. If anyone asks, tell them the Duchesse found the taste too sweet.”

“And if the Comtesse asks?”

“Tell her the Duchesse was most grateful for her kindness.”

Madame Pernet held her gaze for a long moment. Then she nodded, once, and lifted the silver pot to the fire.

---

Marguerite did not return directly to the Duchesse’s apartments. Instead, she walked the long way around, through the servants’ corridors, past the chapel, until she reached the east wing where the physicians kept their chambers.

Dr. Beaumont was not expecting her. He stood at his desk when she entered, bent over a sheaf of papers, his steel-gray hair catching the light from the tall window. He looked up when she closed the door, and his expression shifted almost imperceptibly—a flicker of recognition, then something more guarded.

“Marguerite,” he said. “You look like a woman who has come about something serious.”

“I have come about something I cannot tell anyone else,” she said. She withdrew the handkerchief and unfolded it on his desk, revealing the dark seed.

Dr. Beaumont leaned over, brought his face close, then pulled back. His nostrils flared. He did not touch it.

“Where did you get this?” he asked quietly.

“From a tisane sent to my mistress by the Comtesse de Brionne.”

He was silent for a long moment. Then he walked to the door, opened it, looked both ways down the corridor, and closed it again.

“Sit down,” he said.

Marguerite sat. Dr. Beaumont crossed to a cabinet, unlocked it with a key from his waistcoat, and brought out a small leather case. Inside were vials and droppers, a mortar and pestle, and a thin steel knife.

“You know what this is?” he asked, gesturing at the seed.

“I believe I do.”

“And yet you came here, instead of going to the Captain of the Guard or the King’s own physician.”

“You treated my mother,” Marguerite said. “In her final illness. You told no one how she died.”

Dr. Beaumont’s jaw tightened. He was silent for a moment, looking at the seed on his desk as if it were a small black viper.

“Your mother died of a slow poison that had been administered over months, in small doses,” he said. “By the time her symptoms were severe enough to be noticed, the damage was done. I could not save her.”

Marguerite felt the words land in her chest like stones. She had suspected. For years she had suspected, without proof, without a name. Now Dr. Beaumont had given it to her, as calmly as if he were reading a prescription.

“Who poisoned her?” she asked.

“I have my suspicions,” he said. “But suspicions are not proof, and accusations in Versailles are fatal to whoever makes them first. You have just pointed your finger at the Comtesse de Brionne. That is a dangerous place to stand.”

“My mistress is in danger.”

“Your mistress may be in more danger if you move against the wrong person and find yourself dead before you can warn anyone. The tisane has been poured away?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Good. That is good. Now you will leave this palace, quietly, and you will involve yourself in nothing further. Do you understand me?”

Marguerite looked at the seed lying on his desk. She remembered the vial beneath her floorboard. She remembered her mother’s face—drawn, pale, hollow-eyed—as she begged Marguerite to stay safe, to never trust a gift, to always smell before she drank.

“I understand,” she said.

But even as she said it, she knew she was lying.

She reached into the neckline of her gown and pulled out the small silver locket she always wore—the one her mother had given her on her twelfth birthday. She opened it. Inside was a miniature portrait of her mother and a tiny empty compartment meant to hold a lock of hair.

She picked the bitter almond seed off Dr. Beaumont’s desk with the careful precision of a woman who had done this before.

She placed it inside the compartment.

Snapped the locket shut.

“Thank you for your counsel, Doctor,” she said, rising. “I will take it under advisement.”

Dr. Beaumont’s eyes were dark with warning. “Marguerite. Whatever you are planning—do not.”

She turned at the door and looked back at him.

“The Comtesse intended the Duchesse to drink that tisane tonight,” she said. “The parcel I saw her give to the pharmacist’s boy is to be delivered to the Queen’s soirée in two nights. If someone is poisoning the women around the King, I cannot simply look away.”

“You can,” he said. “You must.”

“I cannot,” she said quietly. “I know the smell of almond too well for that.”

She left him standing at his desk, the vial still open, his face gray as ashes.