“Oh, blast and nonsense. Who’d confuse you for an aristocrat?” Laughing a bit too long at his own joke, he snatched the papers from her hand. “Give it ’ere now.” The guard scribbled his signature, permission for Scarlet and her companion, known by the English nobility as Lord Simon Devereaux, to leave through Paris’s barricaded gates.

“To Bibot!” The crowd sought new entertainment, as they did every evening.

Cheers echoed off the walls of the square in anticipation of desperate aristocratic flights from the city. Any nobles not yet denounced sought to escape Paris before the committee accused them, but the barricades around the city had gone up weeks ago, and if the guards caught nobles leaving without the proper papers, they went straight to the Bastille, accused or no. The sansculottes, the poor, of France enjoyed these captures almost as much as they enjoyed the executions.

Bibot, the gatekeeper, a sharp-witted brute of a man intent upon guarding Paris’s west gate, loved the aristos with a twisted obsession that increased the more he caught.

Though some had escaped in other ways, as of yet, not a single aristocrat had left Paris through the west barricade.

Scarlet hoped today would change Bibot’s perfect record. Their lives depended on it.

The cart pulled up, next in line.

“Papers!” Bibot shouted, and the crowd cheered.

She handed them over, willing her hands to steady themselves, and said, “Carrying out the bodies, citizen.”

Suspicious as always, the burly Bibot eyed the coffins in her cart. “Search them.”

“Oh, not the bags, monsieur.” Her voice took on a pleading tone, diverting his attention. She held her breath.

Bibot bristled, and his thick eyebrows raised and lowered several times in consternation. “Oh no? You there, toss me that bag!”

Relief warmed her, and she bit back a smile.

Lord Simon Devereaux, her ever-loyal partner and dear friend, dressed in ragged and filthy clothing, cradled the bag for a moment and then swung it over the side of the cart. It dented the earth where it landed and fell open to reveal what everyone nearby recognized as a mound of human hair. But Bibot reached down without looking, grabbed a handful, and held the head up.

The crowd cheered.

She watched his eyes, waiting for the moment of realization. Not even Bibot could countenance the lifeless appendage in his hand, she hoped. His reaction would either reward or doom them all.

The corner of his gaze caught human features in his tight grip, and he dropped the whole mess, cursing. Wiping a smear of blood across his shirt, he shoved the papers back into the cart. “Move out! Move out, I say!”

Lord Devereaux’s face twisted and contorted, turning a bit pink. Then he let out the wail of a greatly disturbed man, maybe a little slow in his thinking. “Mine.” He reached for the bag.