𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐄𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑

ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 6 | 𝑷𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑻𝑶𝑴𝑺 𝑨𝑻 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑶𝑷𝑬𝑹𝑨

You and Alexandre join your grandmother for a light dinner at home before the opera. Warm soup and hot bread will carry you all through the long evening until a midnight supper. Outside, the lamps are lit, and carriages are rolling up and down the streets, carrying the fashionable and wealthy to their evening engagements.

You wield your napkin carefully to protect your coat from errant soup.

Your grandmother is dressed in her evening best as well, and cuts a magnificent if somewhat antique figure. Her intimate friend Marshal Ney will be calling for her in his own carriage; while it might seem sensible to share the ride across town, arriving with Alexandre would be a statement of support that you're not certain the marshal is prepared to make before the Emperor makes some unequivocal statement of his own.

"M/N," she says, "there is something you can do for me. There have been rumors of a revolutionary gathering of some sort scheduled to take place at the opera tonight. The ballet mistress there is a friend of mine, and she has heard things that trouble her. I would like you to see what you can discover while the rest of us take in tonight's spectacular."

Alexandre raises his eyebrows, and you put down your spoon. "Where will they be meeting?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't need you to find out for me," she says tartly. "And if I were a decade or two younger, I'd do my own sneaking around the opera. But the young must have their uses."

She pats you on the shoulder to take any sting out of the words. "I'm certain you're capable of finding a flock of young hellions bent on causing trouble."

Your fingers brush the note concealed in your coat. It arrived that morning from Julien Lamarque, a brief message: Come to a private party backstage at the Paris Opera, if you would like to hear about matters you might find professionally interesting. No offense to your friend W., but tonight's invitation is for you alone. Go backstage at the end of the first act and ask for Dominique. Yours in fraternity, J.

"We'll do our best," you say.

Her mouth tightens. "Not 'we,'" she says. "Just you. Do not get Alexandre mixed up in this. Alexandre, I expect you to stay in your box."

"Without his bodyguard?" you protest before he can reply.

"If he's not safe without you in an opera box in full view of the entire audience, he's not safe anywhere."

"I'm not certain he is safe anywhere."

"Be that as it may. He must remain in public view, so that he can't possibly be accused of being behind the scenes conspiring."

"Don't I get a say in this?" Alexandre asks mildly.

"Not if you have more sense than to keep a dog and bark yourself," your grandmother says. "Besides, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to M/N."

"Yes, Grandmama," you say, and drain a fortifying glass of wine.

Alexandre shakes his head once you're safely ensconced in his carriage and puttering along over the cobblestones. "Revolutionaries at the opera?"

"I need to find out what they're up to, in case they pose a threat to you."

There's no getting away from the fact that the revolutionaries have a reason to want to dispose of Napoleon's heirs.

"I'm as grateful for the revolution as the next man, but someone needs to talk sense into these people," Alexandre says. "My father is hardly a tyrant who needs to be deposed." He shrugs as if to banish sober thoughts. "I trust you'll get to the bottom of this. Although I'll be bored to tears watching Dido and Aeneas without you. Have you seen the reviews?"