Prologue
The old woman shifted her bird-frail bones on the thin pallet and coughed. The movement racked her fragile body, leaving her gasping and clutching at the ragged blanket that covered her. Her young charge ran to her and clutched at her hand, all wide blue eyes and desperation.
Old age was a curse and a blessing. Dying and leaving this God-forsaken place was no hardship, but leaving Céleste was hard indeed.
The poor, sweet child. With both her parents gone, she had no one now and not a penny to her name.
The last real money they’d had was spent years ago on bribing the priest into giving her Maman a proper burial despite the fact she’d committed suicide.
Since then their existence had consisted of grasping at life with frantic fingers, taking in washing and mending; the girl had even been driven to steal on occasion though the risks were dreadfully high.
Marie knew her own bones would be consigned to a pauper’s grave but couldn’t find the will to care about that.
Her worries were over, but Céleste ... God alone knew how she would survive.
“Now, Céleste, go to the chest over there, quickly,” she rasped, her voice barely audible, her skeletal fingers pointing towards the girl’s only hope. “There are papers. Get them out.”
She watched the young woman move and wished, as she had wished every day since they had fled their old lives, that things had been different.
The Revolution had changed many things. Supposedly it would bring a better life to the poor and the needy, though she had seen little sign of it yet, with the wars that had followed on its heels.
A new world born of such bloodshed ... how could that ever be justified?
And Napoleon seemed just as grasping and power hungry as any monarch had ever been.
“These, Marie?” The girl held up a thick roll of parchment and the old woman nodded. Céleste ran back to sit beside her, the papers clutched in her hand.
Marie reached out and touched the perfect face with a bony finger, the calloused and ugly digit looking obscene beside her sweet countenance.
“The picture of your mother, such beauty.” The words were not happy ones, though, for she well knew the kind of attentions the girl already attracted, a situation that would only get worse.
She was eighteen now, almost nineteen, and did all she could to hide the gifts she’d been given, tucking her long hair under an ugly cap and wearing shapeless garments many sizes too big.
But nothing could disguise those wide blue eyes framed with thick dark lashes, the porcelain skin, or the perfect bow of her pink lips.
“These papers,” Marie said, dragging her tired mind back to the important matter she must deal with. “These you must guard and keep hidden until such time as you find someone you can trust, someone who can help you regain all you’ve lost.”
Céleste shook her head and Marie felt a surge of anger.
“Oui! You must and you will regain it. It is your duty, it belongs to you. You are Célestine de Lavelle, La Comtesse de Valrey. You are the last of your line. The title goes to you from your mother, and from her mother before her. You must ... you must ...” The old woman bent over as a cough shook her bones and chased away any remaining strength she had. “Promise me, Céleste,” she whispered.
The girl looked up at her, eyes full of sorrow and fear, but she nodded. “Je promets,” she whispered, and Marie sighed and laid her head down. She had done all she could, her time was up, and now the fates would take the girl where they would. She prayed they would be kind.