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Back Dangerous Remedy
Chapters (86)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. Paris, June 1794
  8. PART ONE
  9. 1
  10. 2
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. 7
  16. PART TWO
  17. 1
  18. 2
  19. 3
  20. 4
  21. 5
  22. 6
  23. 7
  24. 8
  25. 9
  26. 10
  27. 11
  28. 12
  29. PART THREE
  30. 1
  31. 2
  32. 3
  33. 4
  34. 5
  35. 6
  36. 7
  37. 8
  38. 9
  39. 10
  40. 11
  41. 12
  42. 13
  43. 14
  44. 15
  45. 16
  46. 17
  47. PART FOUR
  48. 1
  49. 2
  50. 3
  51. 4
  52. 5
  53. 6
  54. 7
  55. 8
  56. 9
  57. 10
  58. 11
  59. PART FIVE
  60. 1
  61. 2
  62. 3
  63. 4
  64. 5
  65. 6
  66. 7
  67. PART SIX
  68. 1
  69. 2
  70. 3
  71. 4
  72. 5
  73. 6
  74. 7
  75. 8
  76. 9
  77. 10
  78. 11
  79. 12
  80. 13
  81. 14
  82. Postscript
  83. A Ship in Le Havre Port
  84. Acknowledgements
  85. About the Author
  86. About Zephyr

‘If I’m brutally honest – which as you know is my speciality – I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted them saved, not after what they did to me. I thought I didn’t care.’ He stared into the candlelight, tears catching like the crystals the place was named after. ‘I was wrong. And now it’s too late.’

‘Oh, Al.’ She rested a hand on his arm.

‘What do I do, Ada?’ His voice was hoarse. ‘What am I supposed to do? I hate them, I hate them so much for everything they ever did to me, every time they told me I was disgusting or a disappointment. For throwing me out because I fell in love with the “wrong” person. I hate them for being hypocrites. For doing whatever they wanted, however selfish or corrupt, then turning on me for who I am. I’ve fantasised about justice catching up with them. I’ve dreamed about taking revenge on them and making them hurt. But…’ His voice shook, and he buried his face in his hands for a moment, letting the sob shudder through him. ‘But it’s my mother. My mother is going to die. The woman who made me. Held me with her own vicious little claws when I was born. The only mother I’ve ever had or will ever get. And they’re going to kill her.’

There was nothing she could say. There’d been nothing she could say when Camille had wept on her shoulder about her mother’s execution. There’d be nothing she could say now to help Al.

It hurt. It was supposed to hurt. She remembered how much her heart had ached, how she felt as if she was going to die from the weight of the pain and sorrow and grief, when her own mother had been consumed by fever and never come back. Life was pain.

But at least pain meant you were alive.

11

A House in the Forêt de Saint Germain

Molyneux would not let Camille leave until he’d pressed three glasses of sherry into her hand and several petite iced sweetmeats. She’d been impatient through the rest of the conversation – all the bland niceties about the weather and the American convoy that had managed to dock at Brest, bringing much-needed grain supplies – but she forced herself to stay sharp, mining their words for any fragment of information that could help them. Camille kept watching Comtois, trying to marry the description in the journal of the sensitive trainee showing scraps of kindness to Olympe, with the man Olympe had been willing to throw herself off a building to escape.