The woman reigned as the decade’s most brilliant fashion genius, and Scarlet had copied, from Marie’s earlier modes, many of her own outlandish designs. But Scarlet knew that for Marie, it was all a façade, a farce, something to draw attention to herself, to win the people’s love. As much as they hated the queen’s excess, the people gloried in the image she portrayed, proud of their monarch. It was her beauty and elaborate hairstyles and gowns that had attracted the sansculottes in the first place. They loved to catch sight of her and bask in her beauty, many thousands gathering at any rumored sighting.

Marie had quickly lost their approval, however, with her excesses in spending that excluded the general populace. Her idyllic, whimsical, miniature farmland retreat, the Hameau de la Reine, had angered them all the more; the rumors of her lavish parties and succulent desserts stirred them into a mad frenzy. Her excesses became criminal and their bloodthirst all the more real.

Still, they executed King Louis XVI first. And according to the denouncement lists, Her Majesty’s turn would arrive any day. In watching Robespierre’s confidence, his exuberance at adding her to the list, Scarlet had realized with cold dread that he now felt his power complete, even greater than the queen’s.

***

Captain Clough surveyed the arrival of fifteen unmarked trunks to his ship. From his lookout up top, everything appeared to be moving forward as it did every day. Nothing indicated anything out of the ordinary, especially not something so out of the ordinary as the arrival of the royal belongings of Marie Antoinette and her children. The cats, though a regular occurrence on the docks, provided the most cause for suspicion. The contact from the Pimpernel’s league had insisted on the cats. Therefore, someone had arrived in the dead of night with a few of the creatures and placed them in a locked cabin below deck. Were anyone to pay close attention, the delivery of fresh fish and bedding for the lovely creatures would have raised an eyebrow.

The captain shook his head. His heart went out to these French. But if not for the money, he never would have agreed to such a plan as this. As his gaze flitted over the docks, he found nothing amiss, no suspicious figures counting trunks or anything of the like. With any luck, he would arrive on the shores of Maine with a group of lovely new houseguests and furniture and clothing from the palace.

The trunks had come from Marie—some royalist sent them along. But the furniture he had purchased himself off the streets of Paris. As soon as the family had been imprisoned, their home was ransacked and everything in it sold. Captain Clough prided himself on his rescue of several valuable pieces.