Excerpt from The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

It's where I used to sculpt and sketch, but no one goes up there anymore, so when I push the ancient door open wider on its rusty hinges, I'm startled to see a silhouette in the window seat. And the silhouette is equally startled by me. "Sacrebleu!" A dark-haired beauty emerges in statuesque splendor, silk blouse, bright red lipstick, and a cigarette holder between her fingers. "I thought you were my maman come to catch me out."

"Your maman?" I ask, confused.

The elegant stranger stares. "... Marthe?"

I stare back without recognition.

She smirks. "You don't remember me, do you?"

I feel like I should. No artist should forget cheekbones like hers, but lots of people pass in and out of this castle every day, and have every day of my life. Still, I find something familiar about her long dark eyelashes ...

"About ten years ago," she prompts. "Maman brought me with her for some holiday function. You were one of the only girls at the orphanage, so I knitted you a red beret ... and you took me sledding."

That jogs my memory. I was thirteen, and she was twelve, sporty and boyish. She's all girl now, which is why I didn't recognize her as the baron's daughter. "Anna de LaGrange?"

Flashing an art deco wedding ring set on her left hand that nearly blinds me with the green sparkle of its big emerald baguettes, she says, "I became the comtesse de GuŽbriant just before the war ... not that marriage would stop Maman from scolding me like a child if she caught me smoking near her sacred relics."

She gestures irreverently to the crates filled with old donations to the castle's museum that haven't been sorted yet. Uniforms, maps, flags-tokens of the supposedly unbreakable alliance of Western democracies that helped win the last war. But in this war our British allies left us at Dunkirk, and the Americans let Hitler invade us with a neutral shrug. So as far as I'm concerned, these crates contain the detritus of a democratic alliance in decay. And given the current state of affairs, I don't think a little tobacco smoke is going to do it any more harm ...

Excerpted from The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray. Copyright © 2021 by Stephanie Dray. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.