The Duke

Chapter One

It was two in the morning in Paris. Darkness forgave the worst sins of the Marais: its streets too narrow, its stone facades blackened, less fashionable than it used to be.

Disease had gone to bed, briefly, with its exhausted citizens.

In the Temple, the imprisoned king slept, or didn’t sleep.

Beneath the Temple’s outer walls, a man pushed a machine along the dark, rutted street with some difficulty, grinding out tunes for insomniacs.

He turned the corner into Rue du Temple, and a discordant note was struck.

Farther down the street, past Rue Portefoin, lights shone from the upper windows of a townhouse, and from those distant, burning stars came the sounds of a party in full swing.

Inside the room itself, it was hot, even with the windows open in January.

The high walls and ceiling were scrolled over with gold paint, and the chandeliers dripped crystals.

No one bothered to look up; they were too absorbed with one another.

Most brilliant among them was Celine Genet, superb in royal blue satin.

Her glossy black hair spilled from a green scarf.

Her eyes were green as well, but brighter, and those she looked at were flattered by her attention.

She didn’t at first see Jacques Heber in his shabby black coat.

Half the chorus of the Parisian ballet had just joined the party, and she was distracted, focussed on the noisy new arrivals, when Jacques grabbed her and spoke the hateful words into her ear.

His words became entwined forever with what she saw: exposed bosoms, red laughing mouths, hair tangled amongst feather trimmings; a school of young men, cravats loosened, coats gone, who chased one another past the dancers, out the door, and down the stairs; a shout from the street and the winding “War Song for the Army of the Rhine” dying in a twang of metal.

“The guillotine is coming for Bastien. He’ll be dead within the week.”

Her arm ached where he’d grabbed her to pull her close. She couldn’t hide the shock she felt, and he let her go, satisfied. Smug, unpleasant, toadying man.

She moved blindly away from him and pushed her way through the crowd.

Noisy parties were her natural element, but seemed, suddenly, to have turned against her.

Broad backs in silk and wool and satin. An arm outflung to illustrate a point.

A circle of confidants bursting, spinning apart with red-faced hilarity.

The guillotine is coming for Bastien. A crescendo of voices and strings and glass and liquid.

He’ll be dead within the week. And she, suffocating, as though attempting to wade through jelly.

Bastien du Ponte, whose house this was, whose champagne these people were drinking, whose health they were toasting, was her lover.

Her protector. When she’d accepted his offer eight months ago, she had been ascending, a star of the Parisian demimonde.

A star ascending, and somehow, she’d picked as protector the one man who couldn’t even protect himself.

What had he done? What had brought him to Robespierre’s attention? She couldn’t stop her mind’s feverish attempts to understand what had gone wrong, even as she knew it made no difference to the outcome.

After Bastien was executed, the stink of it would attach to her as though she carried his severed head through the streets on her cocked hip.

No gentleman of means would risk association with her.

No madam of the more respectable houses would want a courtesan who might usher death through her doors.

And that was assuming the guillotine didn’t simply come for her as well.

She pushed through the obscene bodies, and her heart—petty, selfish, raging—cried out, But I am only twenty-one! It felt unbearable, like no time at all.

A body turned in front of her and grabbed her.

A moment before she shook him off, she realised it was her lover, Bastien, his face looming out from the crowd.

She stifled a shriek, as though a cadaver had leapt out at her.

But no. He was flushed with drink and laughter, the friendly curve of his lip gathering sweat.

“Celine, I wanted you!” He was hoarse from speaking over the noise all evening.

“The Duke of Howard is coming next week to see me. I’ve just had word. ”

“The Duke of Howard?” This extraordinary piece of news broke through. Bastien had declared the notorious English duke a childhood friend loudly and often, but Celine hadn’t believed him.

One of the female peers who claimed the full power of her title by English law, the Duke of Howard was known throughout Europe as a ruthless autocrat. Cross her, and your answer would be swift, uncompromising, and deeply unpleasant. Join her, and your path would be strewn with flowers.

She had always held a powerful fascination for Celine, who would flush, her heart lurching wildly, whenever she encountered the name in print. And she wasn’t alone. The summer she turned fourteen, it seemed every girl in Paris was in love with the Duke of Howard.

“The Duke of Howard, coming here?” She’d heard of Englishmen who risked their lives coming to Paris, but, “She won’t come, Bastien, don’t be stupid. Not after they took the king.”

Bastien laughed, delighted. “She will come! She fears nothing, believe me. You’ll like her, Celine. In fact, I have decided to bestow you on her for the duration of her visit. I want to treat her.”

“Bestow me on her…”

He mistook her tone and said, “She prefers women.”

“Bastien, you can’t!” She felt a squirming embarrassment at the idea of being in the same room as the duke, of whom she’d made an adolescent fantasy. She wouldn’t be able to stand it.

But her confusion hadn’t even registered with Bastien; he’d begun nosing about her ear.

The Duke of Howard had been the first difficult piece to digest, and then, coming here. Now, at last, she chewed over the final piece: next week. Idiot! There would be no visit from the Duke of Howard next week. Next week, Bastien would already be gone. And Celine—

As quick as it had come, her confused excitement was doused. Panic made a painful return. With gentle hands, she extracted herself from Bastien. He looked pleased—and incredibly young.

He would have said something careless to the wrong person, that was all. It wasn’t even that surprising. His excessive, constant stupidity was a mistake that couldn’t be corrected. His boyish joy in being host and master was awful. He was already dead.

“As you wish,” she said, and kissed his still-warm cheek.

She turned her back on him. Behind her, the howling, writhing masses swallowed him.

She reached the far door. By the time she reached the stairs, she was running. The old wooden banister rattled beneath her skimming hand. At last, the party was only distantly heard; at last, the devastation Jacques Heber had wanted her to feel was fully felt.

She stopped and picked up a vase with both hands, then threw it against the wall, where it cracked and fell into pieces on the floor, relieving none of the violence in her.

What was she supposed to do?

She stared down at the broken ceramic. She had wanted to scale the dizzying heights of the French court. She had wanted to be feted and adored. She had wanted to drink champagne for breakfast, wearing nothing but diamonds.

She had been as great an idiot as Bastien, and with fewer excuses.

She had set her cap at a world that no longer existed.

At last, she met herself, as though for an assignation in this dark hallway. No noise to drown her out, no adoring glance to make her more beautiful than she was. Just the daughter of a quiet Protestant mother. The daughter of a sadistic clockmaker. The pieces of her never to be made whole.

“What am I supposed to do?” she whispered, her throat raw.

She thought, with a sudden, feverish yearning towards life, that there might be something in Bastien’s study she could use to save herself.

He had no more use for any of it. She strode quickly down the hallway and through his bedroom, then ducked beneath the low lintel into his wood-panelled study.

She pushed the door closed behind her, taking care that it made no sound.

It wasn’t until she turned, her long train swishing across the floor, that she realised a stranger was sitting in the chair at Bastien’s desk.

He looked like someone of consequence—a lord, she thought with an illicit thrill—immaculately put together.

He had a severe, patrician face, though he wore his hair longer than the Roman statues he otherwise resembled.

Shorter at the back, his hair hung in thick, straight locks over one eye and kissed his angular cheek.

Hair so pale, it was nearly white. His cravat was stuck with a diamond pin, and his coat was beautifully cut from light grey superfine wool.

He was ten years older than her, or a little less.

He radiated power, and seemed unconcerned by the rudeness of sitting at another man’s private desk, as though any chair he sat in conferred to him the authority of a throne.

His elbow rested on the wide, curved arm of the chair, and between his thumb and middle finger, he held a glass of brandy on which all his frowning attention was turned.

He looked up. Celine felt caught out for a long, breathless moment. His eyes were so eerily pale they could have been the pearlescent eyes of a drowned god.

The anxieties that had driven her hushed; the sense of danger hanging over her receded; all the world went snow-quiet.

“We mustn’t meet like this, My Lord,” she said flirtatiously, falling back on her craft. “An aristocrat and a whore. There is no place in this cruel world for our love. We know well enough how it will end.”

“Oh?” the lord said. The sound of his voice made her, inexplicably, shudder through her whole body. It was a voice of authority, lacking any affectation. Was she afraid of him?