Read Chapter 37: The Duchesse's Freedom

The Duchesse was laughing. Marguerite had not heard that sound in weeks—not since her mother’s exile, not since the trial, not since the long gray days when the Duchesse had sat by her window and watched the rain fall over Versailles like tears she would not shed.

But now she laughed, and Marguerite stood frozen in the doorway of the small salon, a stack of freshly pressed linens in her arms, watching her mistress dance a slow, ungraceful circle with a man who had no business being inside the palace at all.

He was a captain of the King’s musketeers. Marguerite recognized the blue coat, the silver trim, the weathered face of a man who had seen more battlefields than ballrooms. His name was Captain Armand Lefèvre, and he was looking at the Duchesse as though she were the sun.

“Marguerite!” The Duchesse spun, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright. “Come in, come in. I want you to meet—”

“I know who he is, Your Grace.” Marguerite set the linens on a chair. “The question is what he is doing here.”

The captain bowed, a gesture that was both formal and somehow warm. “I came to return a book Her Grace lent me.”

“A book,” Marguerite said flatly.

“A very long book,” the captain added, and the Duchesse laughed again—that bright, unguarded sound that made Marguerite’s heart ache.

She should have seen this coming. The Duchesse had been making excuses to visit the garrison post outside the palace gates for weeks. Small errands. Letters to deliver. A sudden interest in the stables. Marguerite had assumed it was grief driving her out of doors, a need for air and distance from the halls that still whispered her mother’s name like a curse. She had not assumed it was love.

And yet here it was, blooming in the Duchesse’s smile like the first rose of spring.

“He has asked me to marry him,” the Duchesse said, and the words fell between them like a stone.

Marguerite felt the floor tilt. “Your Grace.”

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“Your family will disown you. The court will call it a scandal. The King himself arranged your future once—he will do so again, and he will not choose a captain with no title and no estate.”

“I don’t care.” The Duchesse’s chin lifted. “I have spent my entire life being what other people needed me to be. A daughter. A wife. A victim. A suspect. I am done.”

Marguerite looked at the captain. He stood silent, his hands clasped behind his back, watching the Duchesse with an expression of such patient devotion that Marguerite felt something twist in her chest.

“You love him,” Marguerite said.

“With all my heart.”

“Then we must move quickly.” Marguerite was already calculating. “Your brother arrives from Montfort tomorrow to discuss your ‘situation.’ If he finds you still here, he will have you locked in a convent before the week is out.”

The Duchesse’s eyes widened. “Marguerite.”

“Tonight. You leave tonight. I will have the carriage ready at the south gate by midnight.”

The captain stepped forward. “I can have horses ready. My men won’t ask questions.”

“Good.” Marguerite crossed to her mistress and took her hands. “You will need a change of clothes. Something plain. I’ll fetch your grey traveling dress.”

“What about you?” The Duchesse’s voice cracked. “If I run, if I marry him, what will happen to you? You’ll be tied to my scandal. They may think you helped plan it.”

“I did help plan it.” Marguerite smiled. “And I will be far from here before anyone thinks to ask.”

The night was cold and moonless. Marguerite held the carriage door open while the Duchesse, wrapped in a plain wool cloak with her jewels hidden in a linen sack at her feet, climbed inside. The captain helped her with a gentleness that made Marguerite’s throat tight.

“You’ll come with us as far as the border,” the captain said. “Then we take the mountain road south.”

“Yes.” Marguerite had already decided. She would see them safely out of the King’s reach, then slip away herself and make her way to Dr. Beaumont’s rooms. Whatever waited there—an answer, a refusal, a future or an ending—she would face it with her own name and her own choices.

She had taken the first step toward the carriage when she heard it.

A footstep on gravel. Too heavy to be a guard. Too careless to be a friend.

Marguerite turned, her hand already reaching for the small knife she had taken to carrying beneath her sleeve. The figure emerged from the shadow of the gatehouse—a man in a dark coat, his face half hidden by a low hat.

He was fast. Faster than she expected.

He crossed the distance in moments, and the blade in his hand caught the faint torchlight from the courtyard. Marguerite saw his eyes—cold, empty, the eyes of a man who had been paid to do this and did not care who hired him.

“Your Grace—go!” she shouted, and she threw herself between the carriage and the assassin.

The blade came down. She felt it catch in her shoulder, a hot white shock that drove the breath from her lungs. She heard the Duchesse scream. She heard the captain’s pistol fire, and then the man was gone, stumbling back into the night with a cry that was swallowed by the darkness.

Marguerite sank to her knees. The gravel was cold beneath her. The blood was warm, running down her arm, soaking into the wool of her cloak.

“Marguerite! Marguerite!” The Duchesse was beside her, hands fluttering uselessly, tears streaming down her face.

“Go,” Marguerite whispered. “Please. Go now, before he comes back.”

“I can’t leave you.”

“You can.” Marguerite’s voice was barely a breath. “You must.”

The captain was there, lifting Marguerite with an arm beneath her shoulders. “I’ll carry her inside, see her to the surgeon.”

“No.” Marguerite gripped his coat. “You take her. You take her and you do not stop until you are so far away no one will ever find you. That is what I paid for with this.” She gestured weakly at her shoulder. “That is what I want.”

The Duchesse sobbed. The captain looked at Marguerite, and something passed between them—respect, perhaps, or understanding.

“I will keep her safe,” he said. “I swear it.”

Marguerite nodded and let herself fall back against the cold ground. The stars were spinning above her. The carriage rumbled away into the darkness.

And then there was only the sound of her own blood, and the distant cry of a night bird, and the slow, certain approach of footsteps that did not belong to anyone she knew.

"Marguerite." The voice was familiar. Warm. Desperate.

Dr. Beaumont knelt on the gravel beside her, his hands already pressing against her wound.

She tried to smile. "You have terrible timing, Doctor."

"Hold on." His voice shook. "Hold on, and do not dare leave me."

She thought of her mother's unopened letter beneath her stays. She thought of the Duchesse riding toward a new life. She thought of the question Dr. Beaumont had asked her, the answer she had never given.

"I'm not going anywhere," she whispered.

And she let the darkness take her.