Read Chapter 21: The Hunt for the Truth

The summons from Madame de Maintenon came before the Comtesse's carriage had even cleared the palace gates. Marguerite stood in the antechamber of the Duchesse's suite, still trembling from the confrontation, when a liveried footman delivered the note sealed with the royal cipher. The message was brief and cold: the Duchesse would present herself for questioning within the hour.

But Marguerite was not summoned to attend. She was summoned to wait.

That was how she found herself alone in the Duchesse's private library, ostensibly organizing the correspondence table while her mistress dressed for the interrogation. The room smelled of old leather and dried lavender, the afternoon light slanting through the tall windows and catching dust motes in golden suspension. She should have been composing herself, rehearsing what the Duchesse should say, praying that Madame de Maintenon would find the Comtesse's accusations baseless.

Instead, her fingers drifted to the bookshelf where she had seen the Duchesse's previous maid, Claire, keep a small devotional. The volume was still there—a worn copy of *The Imitation of Christ*—dusted but unread, and Marguerite's hand closed around it as if guided.

She had never understood why Claire had left so suddenly. The Duchesse had spoken of her with genuine affection, had remarked more than once that Claire had been "saintly" and "quiet" and "reliable." No letter of recommendation. No forwarding address. Just one morning, a vacant room and a note explaining that she had found a better position elsewhere. The Duchesse had accepted it with a shrug, too distracted by court affairs to press for details.

Marguerite had pressed. The other servants had shrugged. The housekeeper had sniffed that Claire was "always a strange one, too clever for her own good."

A strange one. Too clever.

Marguerite opened the devotional to the middle, expecting to find the smooth pages of a well-thumbed text, and instead found that someone had pressed a single sheet of paper flat between the pages of the Gospel of John. The paper was thin, almost translucent, the ink faded but still legible in that pale, cramped hand she had seen on the note left behind in Claire's chamber.

*I have found it. They move beneath the gilding—the Comtesse first, but she is not the source. The true conduit is a man she calls the Baron de Beauséant. He keeps the ledgers, the recipes, the names. I have tried to trace him to his lair in Paris, but I am watched. If this note is found, know that I went to the Rue des Blancs-Manteaux, where the old soldier keeps his rooms above the cobbler's stall. Do not tell the Duchesse. She must not know. But someone must.*

The note ended there, without signature, without date. Marguerite read it twice, then a third time, her heart hammering against her ribs in a rhythm that felt like a drumbeat of accusation.

Claire had known. Claire had been investigating, quietly, in her saintly way, and she had found the name *before* the poisoning had begun—or perhaps had discovered it in its earliest stages. The Comtesse. And this Baron de Beauséant, the true conduit.

Marguerite's fingers tightened on the paper. The Comtesse was arrested, disgraced, her accusations ringing in the air, but her arrest had been too convenient. She had claimed the Duchesse ordered her own poisoning—an absurd defense, but one that now carried weight in the corridors of power. If the Duchesse was not the instigator, then who had truly commanded the Comtesse? Who had supplied the poisons? Who had kept the ledgers?

And where was Claire?

Not with the Duchesse. Not with any household that would claim her, for Marguerite had made discreet inquiries in the weeks after her arrival. No one in service at Versailles knew of a maid named Claire who had risen to a grander position. No one had heard her name spoken since the day she vanished.

Vanished. Likely killed, if the Duchesse's poisoning was any indication of what these people did to those who asked too many questions.

Marguerite slipped the note into her bodice, pressing it flat against her stays where it would not be seen, and returned the devotional to its place on the shelf. The sun had shifted; the Duchesse would be dressing by now, and Marguerite was expected in the outer chamber to see her off. But her mind was already elsewhere—racing down the roads to Paris, to the Rue des Blancs-Manteaux, to a cobbler's stall and an upstairs room where a retired soldier kept his secrets.

The Baron de Beauséant. The name was unfamiliar, but it had a military ring; something about retired soldiers who became informants stirred a memory in Marguerite's mind. Her own father had known such men, broken by campaigns and wars, who sold what they knew to whoever would pay. They were dangerous—not because they were cruel, but because they were desperate.

But Claire had gone to him. Claire had found his name. And Claire had disappeared.

The Duchesse emerged from her dressing room in a gown of deep violet, the color of penance and mourning, her face pale but composed. She looked at Marguerite with an expression that was half plea, half command.

"I am to be questioned," she said quietly. "Madame de Maintenon will ask me if I ordered the Comtesse to poison me, and I must convince her that I am not a madwoman seeking sympathy through self-inflicted suffering."

"You will convince her, Madame."

The Duchesse's lips curved into a smile that did not reach her eyes. "I have survived court intrigue for twenty years, Marguerite. I know how to lie. The difficulty is that I will be telling the truth."

She swept past Marguerite, gathering her fan and gloves with a terrible grace, and paused at the door. "Stay here. Do not leave the suite. If they decide to arrest me as well, you must not be found absent—it would look as though you were fleeing."

"Of course, Madame."

The door closed, and Marguerite was alone.

For a full minute she stood motionless, listening to the rustle of the Duchesse's gown receding down the corridor, to the murmur of guards who would accompany her to her interrogation. She should obey. It was wise advice, born of experience: stay, be seen, present an innocent front.

But Claire had also obeyed. Claire had stayed quiet, investigating from the shadows, and Claire had vanished.

Marguerite's hand went to her bodice, to the note pressed against her stays. The Rue des Blancs-Manteaux was a day's ride from Versailles, perhaps less if she could hire a fast horse. The Baron de Beauséant kept his rooms above a cobbler's stall. He had the ledgers, the recipes, the names.

And the Duchesse was walking into an interrogation armed only with her denial.

Marguerite made her decision before she could think herself out of it. She crossed to the writing desk, took a fresh sheet of paper, and wrote three lines in a hand that was not her own—a servant's crude scrawl, barely legible:

*Called to my mother's bedside in Paris. She is dying. Will return within three days. Pray for me.*

She left the note on the Duchesse's pillow, where it would be found when her mistress returned. Then she changed out of her court gown into a simple traveling dress of dark wool, pulled a hooded cloak from the back of the armoire, and left the suite through the servants' passage.

The stable boy at the rear gate was easy enough to bribe. He asked no questions, only pocketed the silver and saddled a sturdy mare that would not draw attention. As the mare's hooves clattered over the cobblestones of the palace yard, Marguerite glanced back once at the golden windows of Versailles—glittering, beautiful, and full of venom.

The Baron de Beauséant would be her salvation or her end. Claire had found him and disappeared. But Claire had not been prepared for what she would find.

Marguerite had her mother's unopened letter in one pocket and the Duchesse's portrait in the other, and she was not the same foolish girl who had first come to Versailles a year ago.

The Rue des Blancs-Manteaux awaited.