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part i
This story is about love. —Moulin Rouge
prologue
Paris, 1786
Sweat trickled from under my wig, and I tugged at my ruffled collar as I made my way to the Bastille. The May afternoon was unseasonably warm, and the prison would be worse.
At the entrance, I straightened my fine red coat and told the head jailer I was there to see Monsieur Armand Rétaux de Villette. I was ushered through the stony corridors to a straw-strewn cell that smelled of piss and shit. Armand was packing his meager belongings into a rucksack. His scent was just as foul but nothing that a perfumed bath at my flat couldn’t cure.
“Un moment, s’il vous plaît,” I said to the guards.
They took in my finery—that of nobility—then moved a few steps down the hall. On the other side of the bars, Armand slumped onto the cell’s lone bench, his back to me.
“What do you want, Ambri?” he asked tiredly.
My immaculate brows furrowed at the silly question. There was only one thing I wanted—him.
“I know the sentence is hard to take,” I began. “Especially since your part in the heist was so trivial—”
“Trivial? I forged letters in the Queen’s hand. I’d hardly call that trivial.”
“Of course, it isn’t,” I amended quickly. “Your talent is exceptional. I just meant you did nothing wrong! A few letters…so what? But consider your exile a gift. A chance to start over. You and I, we can build a new life together—”
“Life?” Armand turned to me, his blue eyes flaring with incredulity. “Whatlife? My sweet love is set to be tortured and imprisoned, and I must say goodbye to Paris.”
I winced atmy sweet love. Iwas his love, not that harlot trickster, Jeanne de la Motte, the mastermind behind our little caper—one that got everyone imprisoned and put to trial for forgery, treason, and conspiracy to defraud Her Majesty the Queen Marie Antoinette.
Everyone, that is, except for me.
Jeannewas the reason Armand had been convicted and sentenced to exile; could he not see that? The last few months of imprisonment must’ve been more difficult for him than I suspected.
“I’ll go with you,” I said, hearing desperation creep into my voice. “I have all the money in the world. You’ll never want for anything.”
He snorted, not seeming to have heard. “They may as well have sentenced me to death for all they’ve taken from me. I have nothing.Nothing.”
“You don’t have nothing.” I swallowed. “You have me.”
Armand stared for a hard moment, then began to laugh. Harsh, cutting laughter that stabbed me like a knife. He pressed his grimy face between grimy bars.
“And what are you, Ambri? A tart. A plaything. We had our fun but let’s not be ridiculous.”
I tilted my chin, even as each word was another stab. “It was more than that. What we have—”
“Sex, Ambri. That’s all you ever were to me. A good lay. One of the best, if that’s any consolation.”
I stared, at a rare loss for words.
That’s all you ever were to me.
Armand smirked and gave me a once-over. “Don’t look so distraught.Desperateandpatheticdon’t suit you.”
He gestured for the guards. They shoved me aside and took custody of Armand and marched him down the hall. A thousand words to call him back—to beg, to plead—rose to my lips, but it was useless. The verdict had been rendered. I’d escaped prosecution in our grand scheme but had been punished nonetheless. Exiled from my love. I watched him walk away, his back turned, his heart closed to me.
No, not again! Not again!
Throughout my twenty-four years, I’d been treated as an afterthought. Inconsequential. A plaything to be used and then abandoned…as my uncle did when I was a child.
