Read Chapter 24: The Duke's Game

The Duke of Orléans did not sit. He stood at the tall window of his study, hands clasped behind his back, watching the rain streak the glass. The lamplight caught the silver in his hair, the careful tailoring of his dark coat, the absolute stillness of a man who believed himself already victorious.

Élise stood in the center of the room, wrists bound before her with a silk cord that was absurdly elegant and thoroughly effective. Two of his men flanked the door. A third had taken her satchel and emptied its contents onto the sideboard—blank papers, a worn pencil, her forged archivist credentials. They had not searched her person. They had not found the microdot tucked into the hem of her jacket, nor the cipher key against her breastbone.

The Duke turned. His face was pleasant, almost paternal. "Captain Moreau. Do you know how long I have waited for this conversation?"

"Since you murdered the Crown Prince, I imagine."

The smile did not leave his face. "I did nothing of the sort. The Crown Prince's motorcar suffered a brake failure. A tragedy, to be sure. Poor maintenance is a scourge of the modern age."

"His brakes were cut."

"Allegedly." The Duke moved from the window, crossing the room with the unhurried grace of a man who had never once in his life been rushed. He stopped before a side table bearing a decanter of amber liquor and two glasses. He poured. "But you are not here to accuse me, Captain. You are here to listen. And I think you will find what I have to say rather more interesting than the fate of a prince who was never meant to wear the crown."

He held out a glass. Élise did not take it.

The Duke shrugged, sipped his own, and settled into a leather armchair with the air of a man beginning a favorite story.

"You are wondering why I have not searched you. Why I have not simply taken what you carry and had you disposed of in the Seine." He gestured vaguely toward the window. "It is raining. The river runs high. A body would be in Le Havre by morning."

"Then why haven't you?"

"Because I want you to understand." He set the glass down. "I have spent twenty years in the shadow of a throne I was born to sit upon. Oh, not legally—my family's claim was extinguished by revolution and ratified by republic and then resurrected by compromise. But blood does not forget its purpose, Captain. And neither do I."

Élise said nothing. Her fingers, behind her back, worked at the knot in the silk cord—slowly, carefully, without the appearance of motion.

"The King is dying," the Duke continued. "You have seen the physician's report. His heart is failing. He has perhaps six months, perhaps less. He appointed Louis as heir because there was no other legitimate option. But Louis is a boy, and worse, a boy of ideas. Republican ideas. Reformist ideas. He would dismantle the very institutions that give the crown its meaning."

"He would modernize the monarchy."

The Duke's smile turned thin. "He would gut it. Strip the crown of its power, hand authority to the parliament, reduce the sovereign to a ceremonial figurehead in a gilded cage." He leaned forward. "I will not allow that. Not after everything I have done to preserve this institution."

"Preserve it," Élise repeated flatly. "By murdering the heir and kidnapping the spare."

"Louis is not kidnapped. He is being persuaded. There is a difference, though I admit it is subtle to the unschooled eye." The Duke rose and walked to a tall cabinet against the far wall. He unlocked it with a key from his waistcoat and drew out a document, rolled and sealed with ribbons. He held it up for her to see. "The Regency Charter. Prepared by my legal counsel. Drawn to satisfy every constitutional provision. By this time tomorrow, Louis will have signed a voluntary abdication, citing his youth and inability to bear the weight of the crown. He will retire to a quiet estate in the country, where he will be given every comfort, every freedom—so long as he never speaks publicly again."

"And if he refuses to sign?"

"He will not refuse." The Duke returned the charter to the cabinet and locked it. "He is fond of his mother. And his friends. And the young lady who serves as his secretary—what was her name? Delphine. Charming girl. It would be a shame if anything happened to her."

Élise's hands stilled. The knot was half-loosened, but she held herself very still, afraid her fury would show.

"You bastard."

"Likely," the Duke said pleasantly. "Though the genealogy is murky. At any rate, once Louis abdicates, the council will convene. They will declare the throne vacant. They will name me regent, as senior male of the blood royal. And then the work of restoration begins."

He walked to the window again, looking out into the darkness. "There are men who believe the monarchy should be abolished entirely. Republicans who dream of a French republic. They are noisy, but they are disorganized. The parliament is fractured into a dozen factions, each more interested in its own survival than the governance of the nation. The church is distracted by its internal quarrels. The press is purchasable." He glanced at her over his shoulder. "I know the price of every editor in Paris, Captain. What makes you think you can stop me?"

Élise's fingers resumed their work. The cord was nearly free. "You've forgotten something."

"Have I?"

"The people."

The Duke laughed. It was a full, genuine laugh, warm and almost fond. "The people. You sound like Louis. The people love their king. But they will love their regent just as much, once the press tells them to. They will see a handsome, competent, moderate man guiding the nation through a difficult transition. They will see stability. They will see order." His eyes found hers, sharp and amused. "And by the time they understand what has happened, it will be law. It will be history. And you will be dead, or in prison, or forgotten."

"Not all the police are on your payroll."

"No," he agreed. "But enough are. Your own captain, for instance—what is his name? Beaumont. A fine officer. Loyal to the crown. I have made sure he has been posted to Lyon for the next six weeks, where he will be extremely well occupied investigating a series of warehouse fires that simply will not solve themselves." He smiled. "You have been outmaneuvered at every turn, Captain. You came here alone. Your allies are scattered. Your evidence is in my study, and your name is on a watch list from Paris to Calais. What do you have left?"

Élise's hands were free. The cord slipped from her wrists and fell soundlessly to the carpet behind her. She kept her arms at her back, feigning captivity.

She had the microdot. She had the cipher key. And she had the cufflink—the silver lily, its twin pin still threaded through a small mechanism she had half-figured out during her hours in the treasury archives. It was a transmitter, tuned to a frequency used by loyalist officers in the old royalist network. She had not tested it. She was not certain it worked.

But she was certain the Duke would not search her. Arrogance was a weakness she had learned to exploit in the provincial police, where every grandee who walked into her station assumed a woman in uniform could not possibly be dangerous.

"I want you to understand something, too," she said quietly.

The Duke raised an eyebrow. "Do tell."

"You've made a mistake. You brought me here, to your study, to your home. You think this is a conversation. You think I'm beaten." She met his eyes. "But you never asked what I did with the cipher key."

For the first time, his smile flickered. "You have it on you."

"Correct." She slid her right hand from behind her back and closed it around the silver lily at her collar. "And it's not just a key."

His eyes widened. He opened his mouth to call for his men.

Élise's thumb pressed the tiny stud at the base of the lily—the mechanism she had found by accident in the archives, when her fingernail caught against a seam that should not have existed. The device gave a soft click against her collarbone. A pulse of energy, faint as a heartbeat, traveled through the metal.

She had no idea what it did. Whether it transmitted, whether it recorded, whether anyone was listening.

But the Duke did not know that.

Her hand fell away from the cufflink, and she smiled thinly. "Every word you have said tonight, Your Grace—about Louis, about the charter, about the parliament, about the press—has now been heard by every officer in the old loyalist network. My father was one of them. He gave me this cufflink on my first day in the service, in case I ever needed help." She held up her freed hands. "I needed help."

The Duke's face had gone pale. The pleasant mask had slipped entirely. He stared at the cufflink, then at her, and for a moment Élise saw something she had rarely seen in a man of his station: genuine fear.

"You are lying."

"Am I?" She let the silence stretch. "You said it yourself. You've outmaneuvered me at every turn. But you forgot about my father. You forgot about the men who served him." She stepped back, toward the door, even as his guards moved to intercept her. "And you forgot that the people are not as easy to control as you think."

The Duke's jaw tightened. For a long moment he simply looked at her, weighing her words, calculating his next move.

Then he smiled again. It was colder now, sharper.

"It does not matter," he said. "Even if you have called your loyalist friends, they are scattered. They have no authority. They cannot be seen to act against the crown's appointed regent. By morning, Louis will have signed. By the Feast of the Lily, I will be installed. And your evidence will be nothing but paper from a dead woman's pocket."

He nodded to his guards. "Take her to the cellar. Keep her comfortable—she will be useful as a witness when the time comes."

Élise did not resist as the guards took her arms. She had done what she could. The message had been sent—if the device worked, if anyone was listening, if her father's old network still existed after twenty years of silence.

She had no proof it did.

But as they marched her down the stairs, into the cold and the dark, she kept her hand closed around the silver lily.

And she prayed.