Lire le chapitre 6: The Poisonous Confession

Marguerite pressed her palm against the Duchesse’s forehead and felt the heat radiating like the side of a baking oven. Her mistress lay propped on a mountain of lace pillows, her cheeks the color of old parchment, her breath a shallow whisper that barely stirred the fichu at her throat.

“Madame la Duchesse,” Marguerite said softly, dipping a cloth into the basin of lavender water, “you must drink.”

The Duchesse’s eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused. “Marguerite… I dreamed of the orange trees at Montfort. The scent of them in spring…”

“A good dream, madame. A beautiful place.”

“I would see it again.” A tear slipped from the corner of her eye and vanished into the pillowcase. “I fear I will not.”

Marguerite’s throat tightened. She had watched the Duchesse deteriorate by the hour—no longer merely ill, but hollowed, as if something were drinking her from within. The physician called by the household had spoken of humoral imbalance, of tainted air, of God’s will. He had bled her, and she had grown weaker still.

Dr. Beaumont had warned her: *Trust no one.*

She had not told the Duchesse what she suspected. How could she? The accusation was monstrous. Her own brother.

“Send for the doctor again,” the Duchesse breathed. “The one… Beaumont. He was kind.”

Marguerite’s heart seized. It was the opening she needed. “Madame, I will fetch him myself.”

---

Dr. Beaumont’s surgery smelled of camphor and dried rosemary, but its familiar order did nothing to calm the storm in Marguerite’s chest. He closed the door behind her, shot the bolt, and turned to face her with grave eyes.

“You look like a woman who has not slept in three days,” he said.

“My mistress is dying,” Marguerite said. “And I know who is killing her.”

The doctor went very still. Slowly, he lowered himself into his leather chair and gestured for her to sit across from him. “Tell me everything.”

She told him about the dinner at the Hôtel de Montfort—the Comtesse de Vaudreuil’s whisper in Armand’s ear, the glass vial she glimpsed in his pocket as he adjusted his coat. She told him about Julien’s evasive warnings, about following Armand to the gambling den on the Rue de la Tixéranderie, about the Marquis de Brissac and the debt that Armand had promised to pay with “more than gold.”

Beaumont listened without interrupting, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. When she finished, he let out a long breath and stared at the ceiling.

“The Comtesse de Vaudreuil,” he said slowly. “You are certain.”

“She and Armand were intimate in their conversation. And she noticed me watching them. Smiled, as if she knew something amusing.”

Beaumont rose and walked to a cabinet of glass vials and tarnished instruments. He did not open it, merely rested his hand on its edge.

“Sometime ago—before your time at court, perhaps—there was a scandal. The Affair of the Poisons. The King’s own mistress was linked to a woman called La Voisin, who sold arsenic and love philters and worse to half the nobility of France. When the net was cast, it dragged in names that would make you weep. Duchesses, counts, even a maréchal of France.” He turned to face her. “But the poison did not stop. It only went deeper underground. And at the center of that commerce, I have heard it whispered, was a ring of intermediaries who moved the most dangerous substances through the most powerful houses.”

Marguerite’s hands had gone cold. “The Comtesse de Vaudreuil?”

“I do not know. But the Marquis de Brissac—” He paused, weighing the name. “His family has been connected to darker trades than gambling for two generations. If your brother owes him a fortune, he will not be satisfied with money alone. He will want something that gives him leverage over the Duchesse’s household. Perhaps over the King himself.”

“My brother gave him something. At the gambling den, I saw him hand over a small écrin. I thought it was jewels, but…”

“But it could have been anything. Names. Letters. A key.”

Marguerite pressed her hands to her temples. “Dr. Beaumont, what do I do? The Duchesse worsens by the hour. If I accuse my own brother without proof, I will be dismissed—or worse—and she will die.”

Beaumont moved to his desk, withdrew a sheet of paper, and inked his pen. “The Brissac warning you mentioned—about the Duchesse’s *lait de beauté*. That was not a courtesy. It was a message.”

“A message meaning what?”

“That the vector has already been chosen.” He looked up at her, his face lined with concern. “Her cosmetics. Tell me, does she keep a particular cream? One she applies at night, perhaps from a new source?”

Marguerite’s mind raced. The Duchesse was fastidious about her skin—she had adopted a nightly ritual of applying a pale, honey-scented cream that she claimed kept her complexion as white as the Queen’s own. It was kept in a porcelain jar on her vanity, replenished each month by a merchant who came to the palace gates with a covered basket.

“Yes,” she said. “A night cream. She receives it from a vendor who visits the servants’ entrance on the first Sunday of each month.”

Beaumont nodded slowly. “Then this is our path. We must test the cream.”

“Test it how?”

“Arsenic does not dissolve cleanly in a fatty base. It collects at the bottom of the jar, or near the surface, depending on how it is stirred. If I am to confirm its presence, I need a sample. But you cannot take the whole jar—she would notice. And if the poison is there, it will not be in every layer.”

Marguerite thought quickly. “I can take a spoonful from the bottom of the jar and replace it with a harmless balm of the same color and scent. If she uses it tonight, she will not know the difference.”

Beaumont nodded. “Then bring me the sample tomorrow at dawn. Do not speak of this to anyone—not even to her. If the merchant is connected to Brissac’s network, they will have eyes in the household. One wrong word could doom you both.”

Marguerite rose, her resolve hardening. “I will do it.”

But before she could turn toward the door, Beaumont caught her sleeve.

“One more thing,” he said, his voice dropping. “The vial you found that night in the gardens—you still have it?”

Marguerite hesitated. “I hid it. In my mother’s locket.”

“Good. Keep it hidden. But do not wear the locket again.” His gaze was fierce. “If the Comtesse de Vaudreuil is what I suspect, she has means of detecting such things. And if she knows the vial is in your possession, she will stop at nothing to retrieve it.”

Marguerite swallowed hard. The locket lay cold in her bodice even now, a small weight of terror pressed against her heart.

“I understand.”

Beaumont released her sleeve and returned to his desk. “Go. And be careful, Mademoiselle Marguerite. We are no longer playing at court intrigue. We are digging in a grave, and the occupants do not wish to be disturbed.”

---

Marguerite returned to the Duchesse’s apartments to find the room suffocating with the scent of wax and hot cloth. The Duchesse had worsened—her skin clammy beneath the heat, her pulse a thin flutter at the wrist. Her personal servant, Nanette, stood at her mistress’s side with a basin of vomit, her face white with fear.

“She brought up everything,” Nanette whispered. “Even the broth.”

Marguerite steadied herself. “I will prepare her toilette. For the night.”

Nanette looked at her strangely but said nothing, stepping aside to strip soiled linens. Marguerite moved to the vanity, her eyes sweeping across the porcelain jars and silver-backed brushes. There—the cream. A pearlescent jar with a painted lid of roses and violets.

Her hands trembled slightly as she lifted it. She needed to open it, take the sample, replace it. But Nanette was still in the room, watching.

“Nanette,” Marguerite said, forcing calm. “The Duchesse will need fresh lavender water. Would you fetch it from the stillroom? And some clean cloths—the finest linen.”

Nanette hesitated for only a moment, then curtsied and slipped from the room.

Alone, Marguerite worked quickly. She pried open the jar, careful not to disturb the surface. The cream inside was pale, scented with almonds and honey—perhaps too sweet. She slid a small silver spoon to the bottom of the jar, scraping up a generous layer, and transferred it to a small glass vial she had slipped into her pocket.

Then she eased the jar closed and prayed the disturbance was not visible.

At dawn, she would bring the sample to Dr. Beaumont.

But as she turned from the vanity, a shadow moved at the window—a flicker of veil, a whisper of silk. Marguerite’s breath caught.

She crossed the room and parted the curtains.

Nothing. Only the dark garden below, and the distant glitter of the fountain.

She was being watched. And they knew she was no longer running.