Read Chapter 33: The Search for Claire

Dawn came gray and cold through the convent’s thin windows, and Marguerite’s breath fogged before her face as she pressed the bell pull a third time. Stone walls rose five meters above her, their surface worn smooth by centuries of rain and prayer. Somewhere beyond them, Claire was hiding—if the rumor Marguerite had paid three sous for in the Marais held true.

The wooden door creaked open. A nun with a face like a dried apple peered out, her eyes sharp despite her age.

“We have no alms for beggars at this hour,” she said.

“I am not a beggar.” Marguerite lifted her chin. “I am lady’s maid to the Duchesse de Montfort. I seek a woman named Claire, who arrived here perhaps a fortnight ago. She is in danger, and I must speak with her.”

The nun’s expression did not change, but her fingers tightened on the door’s edge. “We shelter no one from the world. Those who come to us leave it behind.”

“And those who come to you with poison in their veins leave something else behind.”

The nun’s eyes flickered. Marguerite pressed on.

“I know she is here. I know she fled Versailles with enemies at her heels. I am not one of them. I am the one person in Paris who wishes her no harm—and the only one who can keep the noose from finding her.”

A long silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant sound of a bell for morning prayers.

“Wait,” the nun said, and closed the door.

Marguerite stood in the cold, counting her heartbeats. She had slipped away from Beaumont’s apartments at dawn, leaving no note—she did not trust what she might write. He would be furious when he discovered what she had done, but she could not ask him to walk into peril beside her again. He had already risked his career, his reputation, his life for a woman who had given him nothing but trouble.

The door opened again. The nun nodded once, and Marguerite followed her inside.

The convent was smaller than she had imagined, a warren of whitewashed corridors and tiny cells, each door marked with a simple wooden cross. The smell of beeswax and old incense clung to the air. Somewhere a woman was singing, her voice thin and reedy, rising toward the vaulted ceiling with a sorrow that made Marguerite’s chest ache.

The nun stopped before a door at the end of a corridor and pressed a key into the lock. “She will not speak to us. Perhaps she will speak to you.”

“Why do you think I am different?”

“Because you are the first person who has come looking for her with open hands instead of clenched fists.”

The door swung open.

Claire sat on a narrow cot, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. She was thinner than Marguerite remembered, her cheekbones sharp as blades, her hair lank and unwashed. She wore a gray woolen shift that seemed to swallow her whole. When she looked up, her eyes were wide and wild, darting from Marguerite to the door and back again.

“You,” Claire whispered. “They said you were arrested.”

“They were wrong.” Marguerite stepped into the cell and closed the door behind her. The nun’s footsteps retreated down the corridor. “I escaped. The Comtesse de Soissons did not.”

Claire’s jaw tightened. “Then you know.”

“I know what you wrote. I know what you confessed. But I do not know why you ran, and I do not know where you have been hiding since that night. The King’s men searched half of Paris for you. They found nothing.”

“They were not supposed to find me.” Claire’s voice cracked. “I was supposed to be dead.”

Marguerite crossed to the cot and sat down carefully, keeping a meter between them. “That was the plan, wasn’t it? The Comtesse intended for you to be poisoned alongside the Duchesse. Two birds, one cup. You knew too much, and you had become a liability.”

Claire laughed—a bitter, broken sound. “You have it backwards. I was never meant to be poisoned. I was meant to be the poisoner.”

Marguerite stilled. “What do you mean?”

“The Comtesse never trusted anyone with the elixir but herself. She mixed each dose in her own chambers, with her own hands, while I watched. She wanted me to learn the recipe. She wanted me to become her heir.”

“Heir to a poison trade?”

“Heir to a protection racket, more like.” Claire’s fingers picked at a loose thread on her shift. “Half the court came to her for the elixirs—for lovers they wanted silenced, rivals they wanted removed, parents who stood between them and an inheritance. She charged handsomely and promised discretion. But she was not foolish enough to sell to anyone who might turn against her. She needed someone who could identify the buyers, who knew their secrets, who could make sure they stayed loyal.”

“She trained you to be her blackmailer.”

“She trained me to be her successor. And I was grateful for it.” Claire’s eyes glistened. “I was a kitchen girl with nothing. She gave me fine dresses, a place in her household, a future. I thought she was saving me.”

“What changed?”

Claire was silent for a long moment. Then she uncurled her legs and leaned forward, her voice dropping to barely a whisper.

“I found the letters.”

Marguerite’s blood ran cold. “What letters?”

“The ones Levasseur intercepted. The Comtesse kept copies of everything—every letter she had stolen, every secret she had harvested. She kept them in a locked chest in her private chamber, beneath the floorboards. I found them by accident one night. I was looking for a different key, and I stumbled across the chest instead.”

“Did you read them?”

“I read enough.” Claire’s eyes were distant. “I read letters from the Duchesse’s mother, writing to her daughter, full of love and concern. And I read the copies Levasseur had made, the ones he had altered to make her seem like a conspirator. The originals were still there, Marguerite. She kept them as trophies.”

Marguerite’s heart hammered against her ribs. “Where are they now?”

“I do not know. I took a handful of the originals with me when I fled—I thought they might protect me. But I was followed. The Comtesse’s servant, a man named Jacques, tracked me to my lodgings in the city. I barely escaped with my life. I left the letters behind.”

“You left them?”

“I had no choice. He was coming up the stairs. I climbed out the window and ran. I did not have time to gather them.” Claire’s voice broke. “Jacques knows where I was hiding. He knows what I took. If he found those letters, he will have destroyed them by now.”

Marguerite’s mind raced. The original letters—evidence that could exonerate the Duchesse’s mother and damn Levasseur—were lost. Unless Jacques had not found them. Unless he had been too busy chasing Claire to search her room.

“Where were your lodgings?”

“A garret in the Rue de la Tacherie, above a chandler’s shop. The landlord’s name is Gobeau.”

Marguerite stood. “I will go there.”

“It is too dangerous.” Claire grabbed her sleeve. “Jacques may be watching the building. He may have told others. If the Comtesse’s allies discover that you are alive and looking for evidence against them, they will not hesitate to silence you.”

“I am already a target. At least this way I am aiming at something.” Marguerite looked down at Claire, at the fear in her eyes, at the trembling of her hands. “I will come back for you. When this is over, you will testify before the court. You will tell them everything you know about the Comtesse and her trade.”

Claire shook her head. “I cannot. If I speak, I condemn myself. I mixed the elixirs. I handed them to the buyers. I am as guilty as she is.”

“You are a victim who chose to survive. That is not the same thing as a murderer.”

“It will not matter to the King’s justice.”

“It will matter to the Duchesse.” Marguerite knelt before Claire and took her cold hands. “You wrote that confession for a reason. You wanted the truth to come out. The truth is not complete until you say it with your own voice. Stay here. Stay hidden. I will find those letters, and then I will return for you.”

Claire met her eyes, and something in her gaze shifted—a spark of resolution beneath the terror.

“There is one more thing,” Claire said. “The night I fled, I did not hide that note in your sleeve.”

Marguerite felt her stomach drop. “Then who did?”

“I do not know. But I know it was not the Comtesse and it was not Levasseur. They wanted you discredited, not vindicated.” Claire’s voice was barely audible. “Whoever placed that note was watching us. And they knew the contents of my confession before I ever wrote it down.”