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CHAPTER ONE
February 1788, France
“Elle est morte!”
Lenobia’s world exploded with the sound of a scream and three small words
“She is dead?” Jeanne, the sculleryof the pluh
“Oui, may the Holy Mother have mercy on Cecile’s soul”
Lenobia looked up to see herin the arched doorway to the kitchen Her pretty face was unusually pale and her hand clutched the worn rosary beads that were always looped around her neck
Lenobia shook her head in disbelief “But just days ago she was laughing and singing I heard her I saw her!”
“She was beautiful, but never strong, that poor girl,” Jeanne said, shaking her head sadly “Always so pale Half of the château caught that saue, my sister and brother included They recovered easily”
“Death, he strikes quickly and terribly,” Lenobia’s mother said “Lord or servant, he eventually comes for each of us”
Forever after, the yeasty scent of fresh bread would remind Lenobia of death and sicken her stomach
Jeanne shuddered and crossed herself with a flour-whitened hand, leaving a crescent-shaped spot in the middle of her forehead “May the Mother protect us”
Autoh her eyes never left her mother’s face
“Come with me, Lenobia I need your help more than Jeanne does”
Lenobia would never forget the feeling of dread that engulfed her with her mother’s words
“But there will be guests—mourners—we ray eyes, so like her own, turned to stor slish
“When your lish, you know she ot back to her dough kneading
Lenobia wiped her hands on a linen towel and forced herself to hurry to her hter and then turned,for Lenobia to follow her
They raceful halls of the Château de Navarre There were nobles who hadLouis’s confidants or courtiers, but he did have a family that could be traced back hundreds of years, and a country estate that was the envy of h not as well-bred
Today the château’s halls were hushed and the curved, ht to spill against the cleandraped with heavy black velvet by a legion of silent servant girls Lenobia thought that the house itself seerief and shock
Then Lenobia realized they were hurrying away from the central part of the manor and toward one of the rear exits that would empty out near the stables
“Maman, où allons-nous?”
“In English! You know I loathe the sound of French,” her mother snapped
Lenobia suppressed a sigh of irritation and switched to her ?”
Her hter’s hand and, in a low, tight voice said, “You must trust me and do exactly as I say”
“Of-of course I trust you, Mother,” Lenobia said, frightened by the wild look in her mother’s eyes
Elizabeth’s expression softened and she touched her daughter’s cheek “You are a good girl You always have been Your circumstances are my fault, my sin alone”
Lenobia began to shake her head “No, it wasn’t your sin! The Baron takes whomever he wants as a mistress You were too beautiful not to catch his eye That was not your fault”
Elizabeth smiled, which allowed some of her past loveliness to surface “Ah, but I was not beautiful enough to keep his eye, and because I was only the daughter of an English farh I suppose I rateful he found a place for me, and for you, in his household”
Lenobia felt the old bitterness burn within her “He took you frohter He should find a place for me, and for my mother”
“You are his bastard daughter,” Elizabeth corrected her “And only one of itihter, the poor, dead Cecile”
Lenobia looked away from her mother It was an uncomfortable truth that she and her half sister did look very h alike to have caused ru women Over the past two years Lenobia had learned it was best to avoid her sister and the rest of the Baron’s faht of her She had found it easier to escape to the stables—somewhere Cecile, the Baroness, and her three brothers rarely went The thought crossed her mind that her life would either be much easier now that the sister who looked so e her—was dead, or the dark looks and the sharp words froet even worse
“I a to reason through the juhts
“I would not wish ill on the child, but if she was fated to die, I arateful that it happened now, at this hter’s chin and forced her to aze “Cecile’s death will mean life for you”
“Life? For me? But I already have a life”
“Yes, the life of a bastard servant in a household that despises the fact that their lord scatters his seed airessions as if that proves his ain That is not the life I wish for my only child”