Read Chapter 7: The Test

The night cream sat in a small porcelain pot on the table between us, its surface smooth as a frozen pond. The Duchesse had left it in my keeping that morning, trusting me to return it to her vanity before the evening's toilette. She had no idea what I intended to do with it.

Dr. Beaumont's laboratory smelled of dried herbs and sharp alcohol. He moved with practiced precision, heating a small crucible over a spirit lamp while I watched the cream's pale surface catch the flame's light.

"You are certain she has used this nightly for the past fortnight?" he asked, not looking up.

"Every night. She complains of tiredness in the mornings, sometimes dizziness. I thought it was the strain of court life."

He took a small spatula and lifted a portion of the cream, holding it to his nose. His brow furrowed. "The scent is heavily perfumed. Rosewater and almond oil, perhaps. They mean to mask something."

"Or they mean to evoke something," I said. "The Comtesse told her it was a gift from a Venetian lady known for her youthful complexion. She said it would make her skin glow like the candles at the Queen's soirée."

Beaumont set the spatula down and reached for a small glass vial filled with a clear liquid. He dipped a thin rod into the cream, then transferred a drop to the vial. The liquid clouded almost instantly, turning a milky white.

He stared at it for a long moment. Then he set the vial down and turned to face me.

"Arsenic," he said quietly. "In sufficient quantity to cause a slow decline. Night sweats. Fatigue. A creeping weakness that would be attributed to any number of ailments before poison is suspected."

My hands tightened on the edge of the table. "How long would it take to kill her?"

"At this dosage -" He gestured to the cream. "A month, perhaps two. She would grow progressively weaker. Eventually her heart would simply stop. No one would look twice at a duchesse who had been unwell for weeks."

I thought of the Duchesse's pale cheeks at dinner. The way her hand trembled when she reached for her wine glass. I had attributed it to the strain of her brother's coldness, the pressure of organizing her charity committee for the Queen's soirée. The truth was far worse.

"Can we prove who sold it?" I asked.

Beaumont hesitated. That hesitation told me more than words could have. He had been at court long enough to know that arsenic was not difficult to obtain, but a cream of this kind - expensive, carefully compounded, scented to conceal its contents - came from a specific source.

"The royal apothecary compounds such creams for certain ladies," he said slowly. "But this is not their work. Their products are stamped with the king's seal on the underside of the pot."

I turned the pot over. The bottom was bare, unmarked.

"Where does that leave us?"

"There is a shop in the rue Saint-Honoré," he said. "A apothecary's establishment that serves the nobility. The proprietor holds a royal warrant, but his reputation is... complicated."

"Complicated how?"

He met my eyes. "He is known to supply certain clients with remedies that go beyond the ordinary. Pills for sleeplessness. Tinctures for melancholia. Creams for the complexion."

"And poisons for the inconvenient?"

Beaumont did not answer. He did not need to.

I reached into my pocket and withdrew the small tin of balm I had prepared earlier that morning - a simple mixture of beeswax, lanolin, and rosewater that I had scented to match the original as closely as I could manage. I had spent an hour in the stillroom before dawn, comparing scents, adjusting proportions, determined to create a substitute that would not alert the Duchesse to my interference.

"This will replace the cream in her vanity tonight," I said. "She will not know the difference."

"And if the Comtesse asks her about the cream's effects?"

"Then I will tell her it seems to be working beautifully." I capped the tin and tucked it back into my pocket. "The Duchesse trusts me. Whatever I tell her about her complexion, she will believe."

Beaumont's expression grew troubled. "You are asking her to walk into a trap you have laid for her?"

"I am asking her not to die." I stood, collecting the pot of poisoned cream. "The night cream was the delivery method. If I remove that, I buy us time to find the source. To find proof."

"Proof of what?"

"Proof that the Comtesse de Vaudreuil ordered this. Proof that she is the one who killed my mother." I felt the familiar heat rise in my chest. "Proof that will reach the ears of the king if I have to shout it from the balconies of Versailles myself."

Beaumont sighed and ran a hand through his gray hair. "You speak of shouting from balconies, and yet you have not told the Duchesse of what her brother plans."

The words landed like a blow. He was right. I had been carrying Armand's betrayal like a stone in my pocket, turning it over again and again, but I had not shown it to the one person who most needed to see it.

"She suspects him already," I said. "She told me as much."

"Suspicion is not knowledge. And knowledge is the only weapon she has left." He stepped closer, his voice dropping. "The Comtesse de Vaudreuil is not acting alone. The records in the Bastille name her as part of a larger network - one that reaches into the royal household itself. If you wait until the soirée to act, it may be too late."

"I know."

"Then why have you not told her?"

I looked down at the pot in my hands. The porcelain was cool against my fingers. Inside it, death waited, suspended in cream.

"Because once I tell her, there is no going back," I said. "She will have to choose what to do about Armand. And if she chooses to confront him, he may act sooner than planned. I am trying to give her time."

"Time for what?"

"Time for me to find proof that will not just save her - it will destroy them all." I met his gaze. "You said you know who killed my mother. You said you would tell me."

Beaumont's face went still. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he reached into his coat and withdrew a folded piece of paper, worn at the edges, creased from being opened and refolded many times.

"My testimony," he said quietly. "Signed and witnessed. It confirms that the Comtesse de Vaudreuil supplied the poison that killed Marie Lefèvre, and that I was paid to sign the death certificate listing cause of death as a seizure."

I stared at the paper. My mother's name. My mother's death, reduced to a medical lie.

"Why did you keep this?" I asked.

He hesitated. "Because I knew that someday, someone would need it more than I did."

I took the paper. It was weightless in my hands, and yet it felt heavier than anything I had ever carried.

"Thank you," I said.

"Thank me by not getting yourself killed before you have a chance to use it." He turned to the spirit lamp and began gathering his instruments. "The vendor in the rue Saint-Honoré - his name is Masson. He is cautious, but he keeps records. If the cream came from his shop, there will be a ledger entry. Names. Dates. Purchases."

"Can you get access to it?"

"I can try." He paused. "But Masson does not open his books to strangers. He will need to be persuaded."

"How much persuasion would it take?"

He named a figure. It was more than I earned in a year.

I reached into my pocket and withdrew the small velvet purse I had been saving - the pin I had inherited from my mother, the one piece of jewelry I had never been willing to sell. "Will this cover it?"

Beaumont weighed the purse in his palm. His expression softened. "It will open the door. What happens after we step through is another matter."

I tucked the paper into my bodice, close to my heart, and gathered the pot of cream. "When?"

"Tomorrow morning. Masson opens early."

"Then I will meet you at dawn." I moved toward the door, then paused. "And after we have seen the ledger - after we know who brought that cream to the Comtesse - we will tell the Duchesse everything."

Beaumont nodded slowly. "Everything?"

"Everything," I repeated, though even as I said it, I could feel the weight of what I was promising. The Duchesse's trust in me. Her brother's betrayal. The Comtesse's web of poison and influence. And the name of the man who ordered my mother killed - a name I had yet to learn.

I had asked for time. But time was running out faster than I could measure.