Page 3 of The General's Gift
Philip pressed it into Hawk’s hand. “Angélique sent me this before… It’s my daughter’s. Lady Cecilia Stratton. Yesterday was her birthday. She just turned fifteen.”
Hawk stared at the thing. At the madness of it. “You’ll find her yourself, you stubborn bastard.”
“You are the only one I trust.”
Hawk opened the paper. Why, he could not tell. There was a lock of hair inside, its vibrant red catching the dull light filtering through the smoke. His chest tightened, and a shiver ran up his spine.
Hawk’s throat felt parched. “You have my word.”
Philip gave a sharp nod, and his shoulders went down a notch.
The thing shone against his black glove. Pale against the glare of a Spanish battlefield. He swore under his breath, but tucked it into his coat as if it were a damn jewel.
Smiling wickedly, Philip spurred his horse. “Let’s give the bastards something worth writing songs about.” And he was off, his grenadiers falling in behind.
Saber held high, Hawk led the cavalry charge, carrying the lock of a girl he’d never met, riding into a battle no man should survive, clutching the ember of a promise he had no business making.
For one heartbeat, the world blazed in colors—blue sky, red coats, silver steel—and then the earth tore open in fire and all turned black.
Four years later.
Covent Garden Theater, London, May 1813
“Is that really my name? The star of a new ballet? Somebody pinch me,” Celeste said, gazing at the plaque pinned to the green room wall.
Louise pinched her. And because this was Louise—blunt-fingered, iron-willed, and always underestimating her own strength—Celeste would no doubt sport a bruise come morning. But Celeste was still awake, so it had to be true.
She blinked at her best friend. They had the same elongated silhouettes, sculpted by years of barre and bruises—but that’s where the similarities ended. While Celeste had never dared cut a single strand of her long red hair, Louise had shorn her black curls to her jaw with all the ceremony of a guillotine. While Celeste couldn’t hold eye contact for five heartbeats, Louise could win a staring match with Napoleon himself.
Her best friend studied her now with those magnetic gray eyes. “Indeed, it is you, Celeste. What will you do?”
Celeste sighed. Ever since they were children, she and herfriends had borrowed Shakespeare’s plots like other girls shared ribbons, assigning roles and rewinding life as if it were just another play to be rehearsed and rewritten.
It was childish, perhaps. But wasn’t everyone in need of a prettier lens now and then? And what better light than the glow of footlights, where misunderstandings led to marriage and disguises always came off in the end?
Celeste grinned. “I will use Oberon’s flower juice and make them all fall in love with me, of course. I wish Helene were here to see this.”
They had once been four—the Swans of Paris. Four girls who had fled the Revolution and somehow landed in Covent Garden... They had not been swans then, only half-starved cygnets in borrowed shoes.
But they had each other.
Now, the flock was thinning. Sophie had been the first to stray, trading their Shakespeare attic nights for champagne and the lead’s room. And Helene, the most dedicated to the art, had gone and fallen for a duke. Celeste couldn’t blame her for not returning to the stage. Sometimes, even a swan couldn’t lift her wings.
“If Helene would only let me pay him a visit,” Louise said, her eyes glittering.
Celeste intertwined her arm with Louise. “There now, we promised not to interfere.” Or kill the man Helene loved…
Just as Louise was about to start one of her tirades about the English, Katherina, their ballet mistress, glided into the room as if she were in the presence of Queen Marie Antoinette. The Revolution had torn her from Paris, but could not take her heart out of Versailles.
“Celeste, you still prance instead of walking. Come, girls, Verón is waiting at the stage. And you know how the theater director is particular about us wasting his precious time.”
Katherina snapped her fan like a grand empress and led the way. Celeste followed, brushing her damp palms against the tulle of her skirts. For most dancers, the stage was a place of work—chalk dust and calluses, sweat beneath powder, boards worn soft by a thousand pliés. But to her, it had always been more. Always.
It was a place where girls like her, foundlings with no fathers, with no real names, could glimpse love… A place where passion flared in Act Two, staggered through betrayal, and triumphed in the last scene. Celeste had spent her life watching from the wings, always the friend, the fairy, the comic distraction.
Her gaze swept up over Covent Garden’s empty audience. Beyond the footlights, reality prowled—messy, toothy, and hungry, and men reached without permission. But in here, she could feel love and love, for just a moment, and tell herself it was better this way.
A pointed throat-clearing shattered the air like a cymbal crash.
