The Consequences of Champagne and Murder

Chapter One - It's Far Too Early in the Morning for Such Nonsense

Paris. 1728.

One of Mother’s goats was eating my powdered wig.

I was never a fan of wigs on their best days—what with the itchy fastenings and the powder that made me sneeze—but I liked them even less when drenched in saliva belonging to a black, beady-eyed goat. And especially when said goat had no business gallivanting around the library in the first place, snatching things from my head while I sleepily tried to remember when and where I had disposed of my frock coat the night before. Perhaps the goats had gotten to that, too. 

“Release my wig at once, you foul beast!” I demanded, yanking at the wig’s powdered curls. 

The horned bastard did not relent. 

I plucked a velvet pillow off the cream and gold striped divan and brandished it above my head. “Let go before I’m forced to pummel you.” 

The goat chewed with renewed vigor. 

“Are you mocking me?” I waved the pillow about in a menacing fashion. “Étienne! Mother’s damned goat is mocking me again. Why did you not return them to the pen like you were supposed to? I thought we had an agreement.” I turned to the other side of the room. “Étienne? Are you listening to me?”

I fell silent. My older brother was not in the library. 

On the mornings after our parents’ monthly soirées of sin, there were three tasks my siblings and I assigned to ourselves: Renée was to alert the servants when the guests began to wake; I was to stay shut up in the library so I wouldn’t make an embarrassment of myself; and Étienne was to round up the goats Mother inevitably let into the house and return them to their pen in the garden. While Renée often abandoned her duties in favor of remaining with whichever man—or woman—caught her eye the night before, and while I often escaped the safety of the library in favor of flat champagne and stale profiteroles, Étienne never failed in his duties. 

So why was there a goat standing before me now, my wig dangling from its jaws? And why was my brother nowhere to be found?

It was common for Étienne to wake early and do nonsense things such as watch the sunrise or listen to the birds or practice with his rapier, so his absence wasn’t surprising. I was surprised by the lack of evidence to indicate he had slept here at all. 

There was no eiderdown comforter spread out atop the Savonnerie carpet, no pile of damask pillows in front of the marble hearth, no stack of folded clothes on the chaise. In the four years since our parents began throwing their parties, Étienne and I had made it a tradition to spend the night together in the library, laughing at the drunken revelry as it leaked through the mahogany doors.

Though I’d retired to the library earlier than normal last night, for my damnable nerves were acting up again, Étienne promised to join me once he was ready to sleep. But he was not here, and the goats were loose, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. 

Abandoning my pursuit of the wig, I stood, straightened out the creases in my waistcoat, and exited the library in search of my brother. The hall was littered with discarded stockings, panniers, and breeches, the gilded scrollwork along the mint and ivory walls glinting in the mid-morning sun. A canary from the abovestairs aviary had escaped and flew below the ceiling frescoes, wings flashing a butter yellow. As I watched, it swooped down to take a shit inside Baron de Louvois’ red-heeled shoes. 

An early June breeze blew in from the open arched windows, bringing with it the hushed sounds of morning: water bubbling over the marble fountains in the courtyard, birds chirping in the manicured trees, horse hooves clacking over distant cobblestones. And mixed in with it all were two ladies in the nearby grand salon, whispering loud enough to be overheard.