“It’s hard to be certain of anything,” she said. “You must know by now that Paris is a nest of gossiping vipers and vile rumormongers: who’s escaped, who’s invading, who’s planning a coup, who’s under arrest? And most important, who’s bedding whom.”

I smiled. In a world turned upside down, the old morality reeked of the ancien régime. No one seemed to take marriage vows seriously or thought discretion necessary. Divorce was legal. Love affairs, and the rushing in and out of them, were an apt expression of the moment’s purest ideals. And why not? I’d argued for it myself. If people could overcome the tyranny of kings, why not the tyranny of unequal marriage? Sexual liberty and political liberty now went hand in hand. These were lives lived in the open. A revolution in full flower.

“I barely speak the language,” I said. “How will I know the false reports from the true?”

“Well, don’t believe it when they call me a ‘scribbling trollop’ or a Jacobin prophetess with bloody talons.”

“You have my word,” I said.

A shadow crept across her pretty face. “The one true thing is the hard slice of the guillotine. What’s not known is whose head will be next. But not many of our countrymen and women are staying to find out. What about you, Miss Wollstonecraft?”

I clasped my hands in a tight ball. Should I go or stay? I still felt newly arrived in Paris, still believed in bearing witness, held true to the ideals of the Revolution, and hoped it might yet right itself. But I wanted to live.

“The carriages are filled with fleeing Brits,” she said. “I can get you a place in one, but it’s the only spot I know. If you can leave tomorrow.”

I twisted Fanny’s ring on my finger. I felt Helen Maria’s pure and sensitive heart, her patience while I thought it through. I was a free woman here, but with nothing, and no one, to protect me. But had I ever had anyone to protect me?

“Well,” I said with a false shrug. “It’s natural children do mischief when they meddle with edged tools. We shouldn’t be surprised.”

She leaned even closer and put her hand on mine, as if to say, I know you’re afraid. We all are.

A servant brought out a bottle of champagne and poured us two glasses. She raised hers to mine. “If you intend to stay, I will show you a Paris you will love, that will love you back. Here you’re free to follow your heart, wherever it takes you. We’re all having a bit of the Revolution for ourselves. And you shall have yours.”

We clinked our glasses and drank to that.