Everything That Burns by Gita Trelease

Author:Gita Trelease [Trelease, Gita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250295569
Google: 536oDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

29

When Camille came downstairs to check on the pamphlets she had printed last night, she wasn’t sure what she’d find hanging from the lines. She half expected them all to have changed in the early dawn hours, like turned coins losing their magic, becoming the ravings of a girl who’d seen terrible things.

Outside the printing room doors waited the footman Daumier in his dark blue livery coat and white wig, his massive arms crossed over his chest. He smiled impassively when he saw her.

“Bonjour, Daumier.”

“Bonjour, Madame,” he replied. “Mademoiselle Adèle told me you were printing last night. Do you need anything taken to the bookseller?”

“I do have something to go to the printer’s—I need more copies than I can make myself. Would you ask them to set it just as I did and print three hundred copies?”

He bowed. “I’ll wait until it’s ready.”

She went in, pulled back the curtains, and threw open one of the windows. Cold air and the soft patter of rain blew into the room. Was it raining too at Versailles, washing the cobbles clean of blood? The thought unnerved her. Taking down one of the pamphlets, which, despite her fears, was just as it should be, she passed by the open window.

Hunched against one of the courtyard’s yews was a small, dark shape.

In the rain it was hard to tell, but it could be an animal. Or a wet, bedraggled child. The hair on the back of her neck rose as she thought of the little boy.

“Daumier,” she said, trying to keep her voice even, “before you go, look out this window, won’t you? What do you see?”

Obligingly, Daumier did as she asked. “A child, or a small woman about your height, madame.”

Relief washed over her. Not a ghost. “But that’s hardly the place—”

“It is not.” Daumier headed toward the entry, the pamphlet in his hand. “I’ll speak to her. Tell her to move on.”

“Wait! She can shelter here until the rain is over, in the—”

“In the stables?” Daumier suggested.

“That’s perfect, thank you.”

She had just finished taking down the rest of the pamphlets when Daumier appeared in the doorway.

“Madame, the person in the courtyard says she knows you.”

Who could it be? “Then why did she not come to the house?”

“Ashamed, I should say, madame. She is waiting in the foyer if you have time to speak to her.”

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