The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie

the table. It connected with a little drum with a speaking tube attached, which she’d found at a market in Paris. The contraption made a considerable noise but was small enough to tuck into the box with her matches and extra candles, or slip into her pocket in a pinch.

“Can you open the veil?” Celine asked the air. “Let me through? We are looking for Madame Saint-Vincent. Seraphine Louise Saint-Vincent.”

Coralie gasped again. “How did you know her name? I never said.”

Celine knew because Mary had gathered every bit of information on the client she could beforehand. Violet usually helped her, but Mary was an expert. Few noticed a maid running an errand on the street, and servants were happy to stop and pass the time in gossip. Mary was open and friendly with women, coy and cheeky with the men, and fluent in several languages.

“She knows,” Celine said. “I shall try to find my guide now. Hush. I need quiet.”

While Celine sat still, preparing for her trance, Violet’s thoughts wandered.

Daniel had not come today. And why should he? Violet had no business putting on her best dress and waiting for him like a love-struck schoolgirl. Daniel didn’t owe her a call. He had things to do, people to see, engines to invent. He might have gone back to visit Monsieur Dupuis, to talk about the balloon adventure, or about propulsion and internal combustion, things of that nature.

Or Daniel was busy being a wealthy man-about-town. This was the south of France in the winter season, and Daniel must know people in the highest circles. He might even now be drinking wine with a count, smoking with a duke, dancing with a duchess. Or planning to move on to Nice and Cannes, or Monte Carlo, where the lovely young butterflies in the Casino would touch their fingers to his arm, and smile at him, and entice . . .

Violet’s heart stung, and her foot slipped. A loud knock burst through just as Celine began speaking as Adelaide, the Parisian girl.

“Oh,” Celine shrieked in her little-girl voice. “She is here!” In the pause, Violet gently moved the drum and pedal back under her skirts.

Celine’s voice changed again, taking on a lower note and a scratchy tone. “Coralie, my love, is that you?”

“Yes!” Coralie’s eyes swam with tears. “Yes, Maman, I’m here.”

“Are you well, petite?”

“I think so, Maman. I had that awful cold, but it’s been gone weeks now.”

“But are you happy, child?” the voice of Madame Saint-Vincent went on. “It is a different thing. Your husband, he means well, but perhaps he is not as attentive as he ought to be.”

Coralie shot a look at her husband, whose brows drew down. Monsieur Lanier was a well-fed man, not quite fat, with soft hands and an expensive suit. If he kept eating his cook’s fine cakes, he would become portly later in life, not having the height to carry weight well. He had all his hair, though, thick waves of it slicked with pomade. He pomaded his chestnut brown moustache as well.

“Oh no,” Coralie said nervously. “He is . . . a very good husband.”

“I never liked him,” said Celine as Madame Saint-Vincent. “Perhaps he will grow kinder when his goat of a mother is no longer there to command him.”

“Oh . . .” Coralie’s cheeks went red as she flashed a glance at her outraged mother-in-law.

Celine went on, still in the scratchy voice. “If his mother is here, tell her I am watching her. I will know if she is not kind to you, and I will take steps.”

“No, no, Maman. No need. Madame Lanier is quite kind to me.”

“Ha!” The sound rang through the room. “The lie becomes you, my darling. You are so angelic, little Coralie. But beware. Treachery surrounds you.” The table shook and shook hard. “I will look out for you, but you must beware.”

“Stop!” The elder Madame Lanier sprang from her chair, her face dark with anger. She pointed at Celine. “This woman is a liar and a fraud. And that one . . .” She swung her rigid finger to Violet. “She has a device under the table that is making noises and moving it.”

“Madame, I assure you, no.” Violet didn’t need a device to move the table. Bracing her legs against it and rocking it sufficed.

Madame Lanier jerked up the tablecloth and peered beneath. Violet, with the drum safely beneath her skirts under the chair, didn’t move.

“You,” Madame Lanier snapped at Violet. “Stand up. Turn out your pockets. I want to see what you have in there.”

An empty bottle that had contained the phosphor-luminescent paint was all Violet had in her pocket. The glowing hand was fading behind her mother—she or Mary would wipe the wall clean before they went.

“You had better do as she says,” Monsieur Lanier said to Violet in a stentorian voice.

Before Violet could decide whether to risk showing the empty, unlabeled bottle, her mother’s voice rose to a shriek. “No. No! Adelaide . . . help me!”

Celine clutched her throat, her eyes widening at some fear only she could see. She writhed in the chair, her breathing hoarse, spittle flecking her lips. She continued to wail, the sound rolling around the high-ceilinged room, then she began striking at unseen attackers.

Violet rushed to her side. “Please, fetch help! The countess is in danger!”

Monsieur Lanier and his mother remained rooted in place, staring in shock at the display. Coralie leapt to her feet and yanked a bellpull, then rushed to Celine, trying to catch her flailing hands. As several footmen, two maids, and Mary tumbled in, Violet retrieved her pedal and drum and concealed them in her box.

Mary produced smelling salts, which calmed Celine. Coralie hovered, wanting to help, but Madame Lanier held out her hand, her anger making the curls of her carefully coiffed gray hair tremble.

“Come away, Coralie. These are tricksters and frauds, and they are not getting a penny of my money.”

Oh, damn and blast. Violet ground her teeth. They needed that fee.

Coralie showed some backbone at last. She refused to leave, gave orders to the servants, and oversaw getting Celine into a hired conveyance she sent a footman to fetch.

Madame Lanier loudly announced her intention to retire, ignored by everyone but her son, and marched upstairs as Celine was bundled out the door. Celine, surrounded by servants and breathless with gratitude for them taking care of her, entered the coach. While the attention was around her, Violet stepped back into the dining room, wiped the remains of phosphorus paint from the walls, and stuffed the handkerchief into her pocket. She’d already shoved the box of their accoutrements and the candelabra at Mary.

Violet reached the foyer again to see the hired coach pulling away from the door, Mary looking anxiously out the window. Violet rushed out, but the coach kept moving, its lights growing smaller in the darkness. Bloody . . .

A touch on her arm made her jump. Monsieur Lanier stood next to her, a look of apology on his face. Violet remembered, in her agitation, to remain in her persona. “But where have they gone?” she asked, her Russian accent heightened.

“I told your coachman to drive on. I would like to speak with you, Mademoiselle le Princess.”

What about? Violet hesitantly followed him into a parlor, which was opposite the dining room. Monsieur Lanier kept the door open, and stood looking at Violet without asking her to sit down. She watched him nervously, noting the distance between herself and the door, and the obstacles she’d have to navigate to reach it—a sturdy armchair, a tall table with square legs filled with knickknacks, a little desk.

“Mademoiselle, I must ask you to remove those veils.”

“Oh no, Monsieur.” Violet needed no hesitation over that. The veils both provided a fiction and anonymity. She could run about the city in her ordinary clothes and have no one connect her to their show. “I cannot. It is forbidden me.”

Monsieur Lanier’s lips relaxed from their stern line. “Nonsense, you are a guest in my house. You may trust me.”

He moved quickly for a sedentary man. Before Violet could evade him, he deftly caught and threw back the veils.

Violet swung away and made for the door, but Monsieur Lanier got ahead of her, cutting her off and closing the door before Violet could reach it.