L'Ange de la Mort (The Art of Revolution #1)

Chapter Eleven - 11. February. 1789

Gabriel

Jean’s father is responsible for the death of Marie’s parents. There is a strong possibility Henriette is alive. The entirety of the court knows about L’Ange de la Mort. Gabriel can’t lose control now. 

Cracking open the door to his apartments, Gabriel is so caught up in making it to his room without waking anyone, it takes him a good while to spot Anne seated upon one of the many red velvet chairs strewn about the antechamber. Her hands are folded on her lap, her eyes trained on the blazing fire. When she notices Gabriel, she turns to him with red rimmed eyes and tear stained cheeks. He freezes, unable to make a sound. For Anne looks so much like Henriette in that moment, he’s half convinced she’s come back to them at last.

With a shake of his head, Gabriel opens his mouth to scold Anne for being awake so late. But before he utters a word, she bursts into tears.

“I-I thought y-you weren’t coming b-back,” Anne says, tears spilling onto her cheeks.

Gabriel rushes to her side, placing one hand on the carved mahogany armchair, and the other on her head. “Why would you think that, Papillon?”

“You were gone for so long. I was convinced he hurt you as well.”

“Who?”

“L’Ange de la Mort.”

Gabriel is speechless, heart thundering in his throat. He scans his sister’s face, searching for any sign she’s suspicious, but all she does is sniff and wipe her eyes with the back of her hand.

“I . . . ” he begins.

Lying to Anne feels wrong somehow, like he’s committing a crime worse than murder. For a fleeting second, he considers admitting everything to Anne, down to the look Monsieur de Froix gave him as the life was leaking out of his eyes. But he can’t. Anne is too young. Too good. Henriette would have understood—she had a darkness in her more fierce, even, than Gabriel’s. Anne, on the other hand, has grown up surrounded by light, and he is in no rush to snuff it out.

He moves so he’s kneeling in front of Anne and flashes her the most convincing smile he can manage. “I wouldn’t fret about L’Ange de la Mort. Your brother is stronger than he looks.” He balls up his hand and punches her lightly in the shoulder. “I can handle him.”

Anne swats his hand away. “In the same manner you handled Jean when he gave you a black eye?”

He does his best to look affronted. “Jean cheated!”

“That isn’t what Jean told me.” 

Though he puts on a happy face for Anne, the mere mention of his friend produces bile in the back of Gabriel's throat, sour and thick. Jean’s father killed Marie’s parents. And Jean doesn’t know.

“Is something the matter?” Anne asks. “You look upset.”

Gabriel returns the smile to his face. “Nothing is the matter.”

Anne narrows her eyes, leaning down to whisper in his ear, “Is it because you haven’t found a woman yet?”

“Anne! Where did you learn to talk like that?”

She shrugs, onyx curls bouncing on her shoulders. “Maman says it all the time to her friends.” She scrunches up her face and lowers the tone of her voice. “I do worry about my son. He’s been looking so forlorn as of late. Perhaps if he found a woman to lift his spirits . . . ”

For but an instant, the ghost of Lizabeth’s hands clutch at Gabriel’s shirt, warm as melted chocolate. Then he squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop.”

“I’m not! I just—”

“Your brother speaks the truth, Anne.”

Gabriel and Anne both whirl around with a start as their mother emerges from the door frame with a gilded candlestick holder in hand. Despite the late hour, not a hair is out of place, the silk of her cerulean dressing gown shining in the firelight like sunbeams on water. The scent of her lavender perfume lingers in the air, faint but calming. It’s the smell of home. 

“Anne, why have you not yet gone to bed?” she asks.

“She was waiting for me to return, Maman,” Gabriel answers.

A mere glance from their mother sends Anne shooting up from her chair and scurrying off into the darkness of the bedchamber, pausing only to dip into a clumsy curtsy as she passes by. Mother watches Anne leave with a slight purse in her lips before turning to Gabriel.

“You missed dinner this evening,” she says.

“Yes, I—”

“And yesterday evening, and the evening before that.”

Gabriel rakes his mind for something to say that may placate his mother, but he’s run out of excuses. So instead, he focuses on the flame-tipped shadows as they dance across the wooden floors beneath his feet. With a sigh, Mother crosses the room, takes a seat beside Gabriel, and reaches out to rest her hand on his knee.

He looks up, forcing himself to meet her eyes. “I apologize, Maman.”

“Be careful with this game you’re playing,” she warns. “Anne already lost her sister. My hope is she won’t lose her brother as well.”

Without another word, she rises from the divan and retreats to the bedchamber. Gabriel directs his attention back to the leaping flames, his mother’s words playing over and over in his mind. He clenches his hands into fists, his nails cutting into the soft skin on his palms. Though no one can see him, he still hangs his head to cover his face as one tear, tinted orange from the candlelight, slips down his cheek and falls to the ground.

His sister wrote a letter to him and trusted him above anyone else in their family. He has to find her, no matter what it might take.

He can’t lose control now. 

He can’t.