Her blue eyes searched mine, full of a question I couldn't possibly answer. He was her husband, yet I was a total stranger.
My heart hammered against my ribs. Say something. Say anything. Act normal. But what was normal for a king I only knew from a history book?
"A headache," I managed to choke out, the words feeling thick and clumsy. "Just a headache. I slept poorly."
It was the lamest excuse on the planet, but it was all I had.
Marie Antoinette's brow remained furrowed with concern. She was studying me, really studying me, and I felt as transparent as glass. She was looking for her husband, and all she was finding was a terrified accountant from the 21st century.
"Perhaps you should rest," she suggested, her voice soft. "The council can wait. These numbers will still be dreadful in an hour." A small, sad smile touched her lips.
I seized the opening. "Yes. Yes, I think I will."
She nodded, though the suspicion didn't entirely leave her eyes. She curtseyed, a fluid, graceful movement that was completely alien to my world. "As you wish, Louis."
With a final, lingering look, she turned and swept out of the room, her ladies-in-waiting rustling like a flock of nervous birds behind her.
The moment the doors clicked shut, the breath I was holding rushed out of me. I sagged against the back of the plush armchair, my hands trembling. This was impossible. How was I supposed to fool his wife? The person who knew him better than anyone?
My accountant's brain kicked back in, shoving the panic aside. Risk assessment. The queen was the single greatest threat to my cover. I had to keep my distance. I had to observe, learn his mannerisms, his habits. I needed data.
Calonne was still standing there, looking like he wanted the floor to swallow him whole. He clutched his ledger like a holy relic.
Right. The other crisis. The one that was going to get us both killed.
Purpose surged through me, a welcome antidote to the fear. Panic is useless. Data is power.
"Calonne," I said, my voice sharp and clear. All traces of the weak, confused king were gone. This was Alex Miller, Senior Auditor, and I was on the job.
The minister jumped. "Sire?"
"Forget the national treasury for one day," I ordered, leaning forward. "I want a different ledger."
His eyes widened in confusion. "Another ledger, Your Majesty?"
"The detailed expenses for the Royal Household. Right here. Versailles." I tapped a finger on the arm of my chair. "Every salary. Every pension. Every purchase for the past year. I want to see the cost of the candles. I want to see the bills for the Queen's dresses. Down to the last sou."
Calonne's face went from pale to bone white. He looked like I'd just asked him to murder a puppy.
"But… Sire," he stammered, "the King does not concern himself with such… trivialities."
"This King does," I snapped. "The kingdom is bleeding money, and I want to find out where the wounds are. The bleeding starts here. In my own house." I locked my eyes on his. "On my desk. By sundown."
He swallowed hard, the sound audible in the silent room. He bowed, stiff and terrified, and practically ran from my chambers.
I was alone again. The silence of the vast room was unnerving. I spent the next few hours trapped, being dressed by servants who handled me like a delicate, life-sized doll. They powdered my hair, squeezed me into tight breeches, and draped a heavy, embroidered coat over my shoulders. Every layer of clothing felt like another bar on my cage.
Finally, they were done. I was officially King Louis XVI, packaged and presented for the court. I had to get out of these rooms. I needed to walk. I needed to think.
Stepping into the hallway was like stepping onto a stage. The corridor—a gallery, they called it—was a river of people. Nobles in silks and velvets, their faces painted and powdered, turned to stare as I emerged. The chatter died down, replaced by a wave of whispers and curtseys.
They were all looking at me. And their eyes were different now. Wary. Suspicious.
Word of my strange command had clearly spread.
I walked, forcing myself to adopt a slow, stately pace that felt ridiculous. My modern stride was quick, purposeful. This was a sluggish shuffle. I felt their stares on my back, a thousand tiny pinpricks of scrutiny. This was my new reality. I was no longer an anonymous man in a crowd. I was the center of this viper's nest.
A man detached himself from a small group and approached me. He was tall, handsome in a predatory way, and dressed in an immaculate silver coat that probably cost a year of my old salary. His smile was thin and cold.
I recognized him from the portraits. The Duc de Polignac. Head of a family famous for being the Queen's closest friends—and for receiving an obscene amount of money from the royal treasury.
He bowed, but it was shallow, almost insolent. "Your Majesty seems to have found a new… hobby," he said, his voice smooth as oil. "Such meticulous attention to household matters is admirable." He paused, letting the insult hang in the air. "If a bit… common."
There it was. The first shark in the water.
My temper, usually buried under layers of professional detachment, flared. This man was stealing from the country, living like a parasite, and he had the nerve to call me common for asking where the money went.
I stopped and turned to face him fully. I met his cold gaze and kept my voice steady, level. "The finances of France are the King's business, Duke. Every part of them."
A flicker of surprise, then anger, crossed his face before being smoothed over by that oily smile. He wasn't used to being challenged. The real Louis was famously non-confrontational.
Check one for Alex Miller.
"Of course, Sire," Polignac purred, bowing again. "A king must know the value of his assets." He turned to walk away, then paused and looked back over his shoulder. "Just as he must know the value of his friends."
It was a threat. A clear, unmistakable threat. He was telling me to back off.
I watched him rejoin his friends, their heads leaning in to whisper. I had just made a powerful enemy. Good. Now I knew where to start digging.
By the time I returned to my chambers that evening, the sun was setting, casting long, bloody shadows across the ornate room. A mountain of ledgers sat on my desk, just as I'd commanded. The sight should have been comforting, familiar. Instead, it was just overwhelming.
For hours, I sat there, a single candelabra pushing back the darkness. I poured over the pages, my eyes aching from the flickering light and the archaic script. It was worse than I thought. So much worse.
The waste was breathtaking. Pensions for nobles whose ancestors had died a century ago. Insane salaries for courtiers with titles like "Master of the King's Wardrobe" who did nothing but stand around and look important. It wasn't just incompetence; it was a deeply entrenched system of graft, a culture of corruption that ran from the highest duke to the lowest kitchen servant.
Despair began to creep in, cold and heavy. How could one man fix this? This wasn't a spreadsheet I could just rebalance. This was a thousand years of entitlement and greed.
I slumped back in my chair, rubbing my tired eyes. Maybe this was pointless. Maybe I should just enjoy the food and the fancy clothes until the inevitable day the mob came for me.
My hand rested on a particularly thick ledger, the one for "Discretionary Royal Accounts." I almost pushed it aside. It sounded like a slush fund, and those were always the messiest. But something made me pull it closer.
I flipped it open. The first few pages were standard stuff. Payments to artists, spies, informants. But then I saw it.
A recurring, massive payment to a company I'd never heard of: "Le Compagnon Fidèle." The Faithful Companion. The descriptions were insultingly vague. "For services rendered." "For the King's Discretion."
The payments were irregular, but they were huge. Millions of livres. Enough to fund a small war. Or keep a dozen noble families in diamonds and champagne for a decade.
My auditor's instincts screamed. This was a shell company. This wasn't just waste. This was organized theft.
A cold thrill ran down my spine. My fingers traced the columns, my heart starting to beat faster. It was the thrill of the hunt. I'd felt it before, back in Chicago, when I was closing in on a company trying to cook its books.
I found the authorization for the first payment. Then the next. And the next. Every single one was signed. It was an elegant, spidery signature.
And it wasn't the King's. I'd been practicing Louis's signature for an hour that afternoon. It was a clumsy, bloated scrawl. This was something else entirely. Someone else was using a royal account to siphon away a fortune.
I had a thread. A single, solid thread in this tangled mess. If I pulled it, I might just unravel the whole conspiracy.
I leaned closer, tracing the unfamiliar signature on the page, a signature that had stolen millions from a starving country. The name was unreadable, a flourish of ink. But the authority was absolute.
Suddenly, the chamber door creaked open.
I jumped, nearly knocking the heavy ledger off the desk.
Marie Antoinette stood in the doorway, a single candle held in a silver holder. The soft light softened the harsh lines of her face, making her look younger, more vulnerable. She was in a simple nightgown, her mountain of hair gone, replaced by soft waves that fell around her shoulders.
"I heard you were still awake," she said softly.
Her eyes fell on the ledger in my hands, open to the page with the damning signature. "Louis… what are you looking for so desperately?"
Her question hung in the air, a mix of simple curiosity and a deep, unvoiced fear.
And a horrifying thought struck me with the force of a physical blow. This conspiracy. This massive theft. It was happening right under the King's nose, authorized by someone with immense power and access to the royal accounts.
Someone like the Duc de Polignac.
Someone in the Queen's inner circle.
I looked from the ledger to her face, and realized with a sickening jolt that the path to saving my own neck might lead directly through her. My first potential ally might also be my greatest enemy.