Monsieur Lanier had offered to send his private coach, but Violet negated that idea, much to Celine’s disappointment. They must go by hired coach, Violet said. That way, they could leave the boardinghouse as the respectable widow and her daughter and change into their personas on the way. Violet wanted no connection between the stage shows and the two ladies at the boardinghouse. Saved trouble all around.
Monsieur Lanier and his wife and mother lived on a fashionable street of elegant town houses, each with tall windows hung with thick drapes. Lights shone behind the draperies, making the houses look cozy and warm inside. The hired coach stopped at the doorstep of Monsieur Lanier’s house precisely at eight, and Violet and Celine were ushered inside. Mary took their wraps and followed one of the housemaids down the back stairs to wait until they were ready to leave. All as usual.
The younger Madame Lanier—a thirtyish woman with blond hair and large brown eyes—wished to contact her deceased mother, whom she’d much loved. Her husband, who was a little older than his wife, made it clear, as they took seats around the dining room table, that he thought this all nonsense. But his little Coralie had to have her notions.
The older Madame Lanier said nothing, but she obviously thought little Coralie a complete fool and nowhere near good enough for her son.
Celine took her place at the head of the table, and Violet, garbed in her peach gown and the dark veils, stood a little behind her left shoulder. Violet would be on hand to bring Celine anything she needed, to catch her if her trance made her faint, or to provide special effects when necessary. Celine didn’t like the special effects, but sometimes they made a difference when a client hesitated to believe Celine could contact the spirit world. When Violet used the effects, they always got paid.
“Do you have something of your mother’s prepared for me, Madame?” Celine smiled kindly at the shy young Coralie. Coralie nodded and dropped a locket into Violet’s gloved hands. Violet passed the locket to Celine, who took it between both hands and closed her eyes. “The connection, it is quite strong,” she said in her Russian-accented French. “She gave this to you.”
The elder Madame Lanier snorted. “There’s no magic in knowing that. Who else would a mother leave her locket to?”
Celine ignored her. She had a gift for focusing only on the believers and entering into their world. Everyone else ceased to exist for her.
“She is near,” Celine said. “I feel her. She misses you.”
“And I miss her,” Coralie said in a near whisper. “Can you tell her? Please?”
The poor woman was starved for love. Violet watched the family from under her veils, seeing contempt from old Madame Lanier and bare tolerance from the husband.
Violet knew exactly what Coralie felt. Spending the day and night and another day with Daniel had been like being given a taste of a feast she hadn’t been invited to partake of. The trouble was, the taste made Violet crave the feast all the more.
“You may tell her yourself,” Celine said to Coralie. “Let us turn the lights low and see if the spirits will let us through.”
Violet moved to the wall and turned down the gas to the chandelier. Once the room had dimmed, Violet lit the candles in the silver candelabra they’d brought with them. While Madame Lanier went on about how ridiculous it all was—How are we to see whether they trick us in the dark?—Celine closed her eyes, joined hands with Coralie, and sent out her supplication to the spirits.
Violet sat down at the table this time, pulling on gloves as she took a place between her mother and the older Madame Lanier. She had few tricks to employ when she couldn’t set up a house or theatre beforehand, but she had already pressed her bare palm, coated with phosphor-luminescent paint, onto a wall when she busied herself turning out the lights. Behind Celine, a handprint began to glow in the dark.
Coralie gasped, then gasped again when a loud rap broke the stillness.
“Ah,” Celine said, her eyes closed, hands rigid. “Are you there?”
One loud rap indicated Yes.
“She’s here,” Coralie said excitedly. “Maman?”
“Of course she isn’t here,” Madame Lanier said. “The girl in the veils is knocking on the table.”
Violet took her gloved hands from her lap and laid them on the table just as the spirit gave a decided double rap. She always enjoyed employing her tricks right in front of the most skeptical. Misdirection was the key. Make them doubt their own doubts.
“Two knocks mean no,” Celine said. “Are you still there, Spirit?”
One hard knock. Violet lifted her foot carefully from the small pedal she’d dropped on the soft carpet under the table. It connected with a little drum with a speaking tube attached, which she’d found at a market in Paris. The contraption made a considerable noise but was small enough to tuck into the box with her matches and extra candles, or slip into her pocket in a pinch.
“Can you open the veil?” Celine asked the air. “Let me through? We are looking for Madame Saint-Vincent. Seraphine Louise Saint-Vincent.”
Coralie gasped again. “How did you know her name? I never said.”
Celine knew because Mary had gathered every bit of information on the client she could beforehand. Violet usually helped her, but Mary was an expert. Few noticed a maid running an errand on the street, and servants were happy to stop and pass the time in gossip. Mary was open and friendly with women, coy and cheeky with the men, and fluent in several languages.
“She knows,” Celine said. “I shall try to find my guide now. Hush. I need quiet.”
While Celine sat still, preparing for her trance, Violet’s thoughts wandered.
Daniel had not come today. And why should he? Violet had no business putting on her best dress and waiting for him like a love-struck schoolgirl. Daniel didn’t owe her a call. He had things to do, people to see, engines to invent. He might have gone back to visit Monsieur Dupuis, to talk about the balloon adventure, or about propulsion and internal combustion, things of that nature.
Or Daniel was busy being a wealthy man-about-town. This was the south of France in the winter season, and Daniel must know people in the highest circles. He might even now be drinking wine with a count, smoking with a duke, dancing with a duchess. Or planning to move on to Nice and Cannes, or Monte Carlo, where the lovely young butterflies in the Casino would touch their fingers to his arm, and smile at him, and entice . . .
Violet’s heart stung, and her foot slipped. A loud knock burst through just as Celine began speaking as Adelaide, the Parisian girl.
“Oh,” Celine shrieked in her little-girl voice. “She is here!” In the pause, Violet gently moved the drum and pedal back under her skirts.
Celine’s voice changed again, taking on a lower note and a scratchy tone. “Coralie, my love, is that you?”
“Yes!” Coralie’s eyes swam with tears. “Yes, Maman, I’m here.”
“Are you well, petite?”
“I think so, Maman. I had that awful cold, but it’s been gone weeks now.”
“But are you happy, child?” the voice of Madame Saint-Vincent went on. “It is a different thing. Your husband, he means well, but perhaps he is not as attentive as he ought to be.”
Coralie shot a look at her husband, whose brows drew down. Monsieur Lanier was a well-fed man, not quite fat, with soft hands and an expensive suit. If he kept eating his cook’s fine cakes, he would become portly later in life, not having the height to carry weight well. He had all his hair, though, thick waves of it slicked with pomade. He pomaded his chestnut brown moustache as well.
“Oh no,” Coralie said nervously. “He is . . . a very good husband.”
“I never liked him,” said Celine as Madame Saint-Vincent. “Perhaps he will grow kinder when his goat of a mother is no longer there to command him.”
“Oh . . .” Coralie’s cheeks went red as she flashed a glance at her out
raged mother-in-law.
Celine went on, still in the scratchy voice. “If his mother is here, tell her I am watching her. I will know if she is not kind to you, and I will take steps.”
“No, no, Maman. No need. Madame Lanier is quite kind to me.”
“Ha!” The sound rang through the room. “The lie becomes you, my darling. You are so angelic, little Coralie. But beware. Treachery surrounds you.” The table shook and shook hard. “I will look out for you, but you must beware.”
“Stop!” The elder Madame Lanier sprang from her chair, her face dark with anger. She pointed at Celine. “This woman is a liar and a fraud. And that one . . .” She swung her rigid finger to Violet. “She has a device under the table that is making noises and moving it.”
“Madame, I assure you, no.” Violet didn’t need a device to move the table. Bracing her legs against it and rocking it sufficed.
Madame Lanier jerked up the tablecloth and peered beneath. Violet, with the drum safely beneath her skirts under the chair, didn’t move.
“You,” Madame Lanier snapped at Violet. “Stand up. Turn out your pockets. I want to see what you have in there.”
An empty bottle that had contained the phosphor-luminescent paint was all Violet had in her pocket. The glowing hand was fading behind her mother—she or Mary would wipe the wall clean before they went.
“You had better do as she says,” Monsieur Lanier said to Violet in a stentorian voice.
Before Violet could decide whether to risk showing the empty, unlabeled bottle, her mother’s voice rose to a shriek. “No. No! Adelaide . . . help me!”
Celine clutched her throat, her eyes widening at some fear only she could see. She writhed in the chair, her breathing hoarse, spittle flecking her lips. She continued to wail, the sound rolling around the high-ceilinged room, then she began striking at unseen attackers.
Violet rushed to her side. “Please, fetch help! The countess is in danger!”
Monsieur Lanier and his mother remained rooted in place, staring in shock at the display. Coralie leapt to her feet and yanked a bellpull, then rushed to Celine, trying to catch her flailing hands. As several footmen, two maids, and Mary tumbled in, Violet retrieved her pedal and drum and concealed them in her box.
Mary produced smelling salts, which calmed Celine. Coralie hovered, wanting to help, but Madame Lanier held out her hand, her anger making the curls of her carefully coiffed gray hair tremble.
“Come away, Coralie. These are tricksters and frauds, and they are not getting a penny of my money.”
Oh, damn and blast. Violet ground her teeth. They needed that fee.
Coralie showed some backbone at last. She refused to leave, gave orders to the servants, and oversaw getting Celine into a hired conveyance she sent a footman to fetch.
Madame Lanier loudly announced her intention to retire, ignored by everyone but her son, and marched upstairs as Celine was bundled out the door. Celine, surrounded by servants and breathless with gratitude for them taking care of her, entered the coach. While the attention was around her, Violet stepped back into the dining room, wiped the remains of phosphorus paint from the walls, and stuffed the handkerchief into her pocket. She’d already shoved the box of their accoutrements and the candelabra at Mary.
Violet reached the foyer again to see the hired coach pulling away from the door, Mary looking anxiously out the window. Violet rushed out, but the coach kept moving, its lights growing smaller in the darkness. Bloody . . .
A touch on her arm made her jump. Monsieur Lanier stood next to her, a look of apology on his face. Violet remembered, in her agitation, to remain in her persona. “But where have they gone?” she asked, her Russian accent heightened.
“I told your coachman to drive on. I would like to speak with you, Mademoiselle le Princess.”
What about? Violet hesitantly followed him into a parlor, which was opposite the dining room. Monsieur Lanier kept the door open, and stood looking at Violet without asking her to sit down. She watched him nervously, noting the distance between herself and the door, and the obstacles she’d have to navigate to reach it—a sturdy armchair, a tall table with square legs filled with knickknacks, a little desk.
“Mademoiselle, I must ask you to remove those veils.”
“Oh no, Monsieur.” Violet needed no hesitation over that. The veils both provided a fiction and anonymity. She could run about the city in her ordinary clothes and have no one connect her to their show. “I cannot. It is forbidden me.”
Monsieur Lanier’s lips relaxed from their stern line. “Nonsense, you are a guest in my house. You may trust me.”
He moved quickly for a sedentary man. Before Violet could evade him, he deftly caught and threw back the veils.
Violet swung away and made for the door, but Monsieur Lanier got ahead of her, cutting her off and closing the door before Violet could reach it.
“Really, Monsieur, I must go.”
“In a moment. Don’t worry, I will not be summoning the police. I had a wager with myself—either you covered your face because you truly were a dangerous beauty, or you were so ugly you feared you’d drive your audiences away.” He gave her an admiring look. “I am pleased to see that the beauty is true.”
“You are too kind, Monsieur,” Violet said, pretending shyness. She ducked her head—he’d seen her, nothing she could do, but she didn’t need him memorizing her features.
“I also wanted to apologize for my mother’s behavior,” Monsieur Lanier said, sounding businesslike now. This banker would not fall to the ground and worship a deadly beautiful princess. “My mother is elderly and sometimes forgets her manners. She said she will not pay you, but please accept this for your trouble.”
He held up a roll of banknotes. The bundle was pleasantly thick, but Violet, who could count notes faster than a bookmaker at a racetrack, knew it was still only about one-quarter their usual fee.
Monsieur Lanier pressed the money into Violet’s hand, closing her fingers around it. He kept his hand wrapped around hers, and clamped the other about her wrist.
“And perhaps you may do me the honor . . .” He smiled into her face. “My wife is of a sickly disposition. Not often at home to me, if you know what I mean.”
Violet’s mouth went dry, her heart jumping in the beginnings of panic. “Monsieur, I must go tend to the countess. She needs me.”
“Why? She has plenty of servants. You’re a princess, aren’t you?” He said the word with a knowing sneer. “Not the sort of woman who waits on other women. The countess is a good actress, and she will be quite well when you reach her.”
“Truly, I must go.” Violet tried to pull away, but his grip was powerful.
Monsieur Lanier grabbed her other wrist. He pushed her against a wall—the wallpaper a pleasant cornflower blue with sprigs of white roses on it. The shape and size of the little climbing roses fixed in Violet’s mind, the loops of the vines becoming a mesmerizing pattern.
Monsieur Lanier released one of Violet’s wrists so he could squeeze her breast, hard. Violet tried to scream, but her throat closed up in dryness.
She struggled—how dare he?—and kicked with her high-heeled boot. Monsieur Lanier blocked her kick with surprising deftness, and he curved over her, his breath wine scented, his eyes glittering.
“Now, you stay still and give me what I want, and your fee will be considerably higher. Be a good princess . . .”
He said more, but his words were lost as Violet’s fear came.
Stay still, girl. The voice drifted from the past. You have me so randy, it won’t take long.
Violet could hear nothing more, but she could feel, sensations tearing her back to the moment twelve years ago. Rough hands inside her bodice, pantalets yanked down, cold fingers between her thighs. She tried to fight, but the hands were too strong, his fingers over her throat pushed her into the wall . .
.
“Be quiet, damn you. I said, be quiet!”
The voice saying the words was in the present, immediate and insistent. Violet swam back to awareness to hear a high-pitched keening coming from her own throat. She was still dressed, on her feet, her head against the wall with its cornflower blue wallpaper and too many white roses.
A slap sounded. Violet felt the sting on her face, heard her keening turn to hiccups.
Monsieur Lanier shook her, her head banging into the wall. “Stop it. What is the matter with you?”
Violet found her strength, and fought. Monsieur Lanier slapped her again, then grabbed her swinging fists as he shouted, “Help me! She’s gone mad!”
Violet barely registered the Lanier servants hurrying into the parlor. Her veils were down again, concealing her face, but she continued to flail against Monsieur Lanier.
Strong hands seized her, and she found herself stumbling into the hall then the foyer. The front door was open, cold air cascading into the house. A shove on her back, and Violet staggered out into the street. Her coat landed on the cobbles next to her, and the door slammed firmly behind her.
Violet’s self-preservation made her snatch up her coat and take a few hurrying steps down the street. She stopped a few houses along and hung on to railings in front of it to catch her breath.
She was all right. She was on her feet, her heart was beating, her clothes were whole, and her gloved hands kept her upright by holding the cold railing. She was all right.
Violet realized she’d thrust the wad of money Monsieur Lanier had given her into her skirt pocket. Something inside her had made her not let it go. At least we salvaged that from this disaster.
The coach taking her mother home had long gone, but Violet didn’t worry too much. Violet, Mary, and her mother had a rule—if something went wrong at a sitting or presentation, they were to escape on their own and meet at a designated spot. No waiting for one another, because they had a better chance of slipping away into the streets on their own.