My fingers are shaking, and I fleetingly wish I’d made my dressers tighten my corset a bit more.
The woman gestures for me to follow her, and as I do, the guards fall into place: two just in front of me and two behind. I imagine Marie-Antoinette herself was led very much this way to the guillotine where she lost her life. Today feels no less dire to me. Though the press is still being kept out, the velvet ropes that we normally use on Wednesdays are up, and a few court members are rushing about, straightening flowers, checking displays, adjusting seating. As we pass through the chambers that overlook the Marble Courtyard, I shudder at the buzz of the crowd waiting there—I don’t dare look. As it is, I’m barely keeping tears at bay.
The woman leads me to the north wing and past the still-closed entrance to the Royal Chapel. “You’ll wait in here until Duke Florentine comes for you,” she says, leaning over to input a code on the keypad at the door.
So I’m to be given away by the King’s CFO. How fitting.
“There’s a light luncheon inside, as well as a retiring room. I’m afraid you’ll have to sit tight for a little over an hour. But it’s for your safety,” she adds with an encouraging smile.
My safety. Of course that’s what His Highness would tell them.
After a quick retinal scan, the door opens and the woman walks into the room. I take a step forward to follow her, but one of the guards places a hand on my shoulder. Even as I look back to question him, I hear a thud from inside the room, and then the door clicks closed as a man with a huge bouquet of white lilies steps into view.
“Calm yourself,” Reginald says from behind the flowers when I gasp, scarcely looking at me as he takes the place of the now-unconscious woman he just left lying on the floor behind that closed door. “We’re walking calmly to the end of the wing, carrying flowers, that’s all.”
My heart jolts as despair is replaced by hope so quickly my brain struggles to adjust. My guards don’t so much as twitch, and remembering the restraining hand on my shoulder, I realize they’re not palace guards at all—or if they are, they take their pay from more than one employer. Saber told me Reginald had power.
We continue down the hallway at such a leisurely pace I want to scream. But when we approach a window at the end of the hall, I see Reginald’s hand thrust forward with some kind of remote in it, and a green light flashes from the window sash. Still not slowing our steps, we all stride toward the window, and Reginald sets the huge mass of flowers down and tosses back the drapes.
The window is open and, if I’m lucky, just wide enough for my gown to fit through. Reginald steps over the sash as though it were nothing more than a crack in the floor, and the two guards in front of me do the same. When my turn comes, I hardly know where to start. I duck my tall hair under the window frame and lift my silk skirts to thrust one high-heeled shoe out and over the window ledge, where Reginald grasps me just above the knee and pulls at the front of my gown. Not my most graceful moment.
I feel utterly ridiculous as I practically dive through and fall into the waiting arms of one of the guards, but I defy anyone in meter-wide skirts to do better. Two seconds later the guards behind me step through the window, Reginald raises his remote again, the window closes, and I’m outside the palace!
I have little enough time to enjoy my escape, as Reginald immediately—and none too gently—shoves me into a waiting SUV. But escaping maidens in distress can hardly be choosy. Ten more seconds and the door of the vehicle closes, and we’re gliding around the side of the palace and down a narrow lane. The cars and crowds of wedding traffic are all relegated to the other side, so there’s no one here to see us or impede our progress.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” I say, turning in my seat to see the Palace of Versailles receding from view as we traverse the small, barely paved service road.
“I want my five million euros,” Reginald replies in his typical gauche fashion. “Where is it?”
“At the dance studio where we usually meet.”
“As I suspected,” he grumbles, but he leans forward to whisper directions to his driver. When we arrive at Giovanni’s ten minutes later, the car pulls right up to the stoop, so it’s difficult for anyone to see me as I slide from the vehicle and through the front door.
“We’ll have to hurry,” Reginald warns as I stand next to Giovanni, grasping his hand and whispering. “I’ll take you somewhere to change clothes after this, but right now I need to get as much distance between us and Sonoman-Versailles as possible.”