“Permit me to wish you all the best, then.” He speaks for another moment with Léon, behaving more naturally. When he turns to depart, tension unrolls down my spine and the air stops choking my lungs. Then he turns, calling over his shoulder.
“Perhaps I might call on you soon. I hope you may be able to share some of your knowledge of the old court, Madame Gauvain.”
“I’m glad to help,” I say, and it’s a good thing that he departs and I’m not required to speak further, because my throat constricts with fresh nervousness.
“Let’s go home.” Léon’s fingers clench mine. Almost, I think his grip will bruise me, but I still don’t want to let go, clinging back to him.
We travel home in silence. Once we cross the threshold to our house, peacefully quiet and draped in afternoon sunbeams, I sag against him, feeling the sudden urge to cry.
Léon lifts my face so he can look into my eyes. “We must leave tonight, mon ange.” He sounds unbearably gentle. “Can you be ready? I know it’s sooner than expected, but it’s not safe here anymore. We cannot delay.”
I think back to the cunning way that Robespierre tilted his head as he bade us farewell, the glint of excitement in his eyes. He reminds me of a hunter, one fixated on the chase, and it makes me shiver. “Yes.” I clear my ragged throat and meet Léon’s beloved, worried gaze. “Yes, I can be ready. Even though right now all I wish for is to curl up and cry.”
He slides his fingers through my hair and kisses me softly on the mouth. “You were so brave today, my love. You’re always so strong.… I promise, once we are safely in a carriage and outside of Paris, you may cry all you like. I’ll stroke your hair away from your face and hand you fresh handkerchiefs.” He tries for a smile, but it comes out crooked.
My voice drops to a whisper. “I’m so afraid.”
“Me too.”
Hastily, we gather our belongings. We can’t take any of our furniture, of course, but we are so newly married that we haven’t accumulated very much. Although I worry there isn’t enough time, I can’t leave Paris without seeing my parents again, and Léon takes us straight there before I even have to ask.
“I knew you would leave for Toulouse sooner than later,” says Maman. “But I imagined it wouldn’t be so hard to say good-bye for some reason.” She smiles sadly, reaching to hug me.
“I’ll see you again,” I promise. It wasn’t something I could necessarily say if I remained in Paris. “And if it becomes worse here, if you think that you’ll be targeted, you must come to us in Toulouse.”
“I’ve thought of it already,” says Papa. “We may end up joining you there. I find I don’t like Paris when the streets turn scarlet with blood.”
Maman insists on feeding us, so we have supper together, and then Papa helps Léon arrange for a carriage leaving the city.
“He’s a trustworthy driver,” says Papa. “You’ll have to change horses and drivers outside of the city, but once you’re away from Paris, it will be easier. Robespierre’s reach doesn’t extend that far, I don’t think.”
I peer out the window as the carriage rolls out of Paris. The cool fall air bites at my skin, but it makes me feel alive, too. Night has fallen, and I try to guess which way is south from the sprawl of stars, but I can’t tell. In the dark, the landscape outside of the city looks vast and endless, and the view feels like a harbinger of freedom. Goose bumps tickle along my arms and down my back, and for the first time in over a year, I feel somehow secure, safe in my own skin instead of behind an armor of secrets.
Author’s Note
The French Revolution is a complex part of history, with richly detailed records left to us today. Sometimes in my research, I found myself almost overwhelmed by the incredible amount of information available. While I tried to include as much as possible, some details had to be glossed over or slightly altered in light of plot or characterization.
One of these changes is that I have portrayed a simplified version of Marie Antoinette’s household, which was very large and included a complicated hierarchy. I have limited the arc of the story to a few key members of it. While it is implied that Giselle and Geneviève are not the only tirewomen, they frequently appear to be working alone; in reality they would have been part of a larger group of household women and ladies-in-waiting.
Both Giselle and Geneviève are fictional, although one of the queen’s tirewomen really did suspect the plan to flee to Varennes and was dismissed a day before the escape occurred. In Madame Campan’s memoirs, she is only named as R——. I gave this bit of history to Geneviève.
As Giselle is fictional, so too are her parents. Her uncle Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, however, is a real figure, as is his daughter, Eugénie. De Beaumarchais had several sisters whose lives are not well documented, so I forged the family link by making Giselle’s mother one of them. As soon as I read of de Beaumarchais’s connection with the Secret du Roi, I knew I wanted my main character to be part of his family.
Léon is also a fictional character, but his trade as a watchmaker is a real one, and his initial support for the revolution is also fitting for a person of the time period. Léon probably joined the national guard earlier than someone of his ideology would have. In October of 1791 active citizens were obliged to join the national guard for maintenance of law and order. In the summer of 1792, the fundamental character of the guard changed, becoming more pro-revolutionary. Given this shift, it’s possible that someone like Léon would not have joined until obligated. However, I wanted Léon to be a member of the national guard for the Massacre of the Champ de Mars in July of 1791, and since its commander, the Marquis de Lafayette, had a strong reputation for his involvement in the American Revolution, it seemed plausible that Léon would be drawn to his leadership.
I also took a liberty with Madame Campan’s movements. In late May of 1790 she was sent to the Auvergne, in the south of France, to undertake tasks for the queen. She did not return to Paris until August of 1791, and was thus not present for the June flight to Varennes, and did not hear a full account of the ill-fated journey from Marie Antoinette until August. I have omitted this and kept Madame Campan in the loop, since she is a central character with a deep emotional connection to the queen.
Perhaps anticipating a wild portrayal of Marie Antoinette drinking champagne and dancing all night, some readers might be surprised by my more understated depiction of her. I was too, for when I entered my research, I fully expected to encounter the flighty queen. However, much of her reputation as a party girl stems from her time as dauphine, before she became a mother. By the time the revolution began, Marie Antoinette was thirty-four, and while she lacked the political and economic skills to aid the revolution or the societal issues that provoked it, she was always a caring person and appears to have been sincerely troubled by the outbreak of the revolution. From my research, I believe it had a somber effect on her behavior.
During the revolution, the government changed many times, going through several different names. Any errors in the naming conventions, or indeed any other factual errors, are entirely my own.
Advance Praise for
The Wardrobe Mistress
“A charming portrait of Marie Antoinette’s inner circle and the intimate connections between politics and fashion.”
—Jennifer Laam, author of The Secret Daughter of the Tsar
“Silk isn’t the only thing whispering through the halls of the royal palaces in Meghan Masterson’s captivating debut.… The Wardrobe Mistress is a romantic, tension-filled coming-of-age story set in a time of dangerous and uncertain revolution. You will root for Giselle; you will applaud her; and you will also fear for her.”
—Sophie Perinot, author of Médicis Daughter
“In The Wardrobe Mistress, Masterson deftly captures the tumult of the French Revolution and the tragic unmaking of history’s most infamous queen—Marie Antoinette—through the eyes of clever and likable dressmaker Giselle Aubry.… I grew impatient to return to the book each
night. By turns sexy, absorbing, and suspenseful, this story sweeps you along to its riveting conclusion.”
—Heather Webb, author of Becoming Josephine and coauthor of Last Christmas in Paris
About the Author
MEGHAN MASTERSON graduated from the University of Calgary and has worked several unrelated jobs while writing on the side. As a child, she gave her parents a flowery story about horses every year for Christmas. Meghan loves reading at all hours, cooking, and going for walks with her dog. She and her husband live in Calgary. The Wardrobe Mistress is her first novel. Visit www.meghanmastersonauthor.com for more information. Or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Author’s Note
Advance Praise for The Wardrobe Mistress
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE WARDROBE MISTRESS. Copyright © 2017 by Meghan Masterson. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Danielle Christopher
Cover photograph © Lee Avison/Trevillion Images
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-12666-5 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-250-12667-2 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250126672
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: August 2017
The Wardrobe Mistress Page 28
