The Protégée - Softcover

Ridley, Erica

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593897676 ISBN 13: 9780593897676

Verlag: Random House Children's Books, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

A working-class French young woman would kill to become assistant to Paris's top modiste, but she must first seek vengeance against those responsible for the death of her family, in this thrilling historical horror from New York Times bestselling author Erica Ridley!

Eighteen-year-old Angélique dreams of designing opulent gowns for society’s elite, but her reality is a life spent dyeing silk in a sweatshop. That is, until tragedy strikes, leaving her orphaned and responsible for her younger sister.

Determined to elevate their station, Angélique secures a position as a junior dressmaker for Paris’s top modiste. Though she’s tormented by other seamstresses for being poor, and her meager salary barely pays rent, she refuses to give in.

When a high-stakes contest for a coveted protégée role is announced, Angélique will do whatever is necessary to win—even if it means resorting to deadly measures. What’s a little arsenic between coworkers?

As Angélique outshines—and outlives—the competition, her newfound privilege and power are weaponized against those who destroyed her family. Will she conquer the world of high fashion to claim her rightful place as Paris’s best designer, or will the cost of ambition be too high?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Erica Ridley is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of witty, feel-good historical romance novels, included The Wild Wynchesters series. When she's not reading or writing romances, Erica can be found eating couscous in Morocco, getting hopelessly lost in the middle of Budapest, or zip-lining through rainforests in Costa Rica, where she currently resides. The Protégée is her YA debut.

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Chapter 1

Paris, France

18 September, 1850

Jagged shards of sunlight stab through my lowered eyelashes, and a needle plunges into the tip of my finger.

For a moment, I’m tempted to leave it in there. Why not? I’ve suffered worse.

There’s no blood. Not yet. Not while the slender silver needle protrudes from my flesh, vibrating with joy at having bested me in a rare moment of inattention. Old memories are to blame again. My brain flashed to an unbidden image of the gruesome day I lost my father, and the needle saw its chance to remind me of pain.

“Keep sewing, Angelique,” snaps Mademoiselle Jacqueline.

The other five girls dart their eyes at me, quick as cockroaches. They don’t bother to hide their titters. They want me to hear their ridicule. To know I will never belong.

They have worked here for years. I’m almost finished with my six-month trial in this windowless room with its hive of sewing tables in the center. Ankle-high scraps like piles of dead leaves line all four walls. We are newborn chicks in a giant bird’s nest.

Baby egrets, to be exact, known for killing their siblings before they can learn to fly.

I stare at the needle again.

“Angelique,” Mademoiselle Jacqueline says in warning, flipping her long pale hair over her shoulder.

She’s not the owner of this luxury dress shop. That distinction goes to famed modiste Madame Violette, who is fitting clients in one of the plush dressing chambers at the front of the store, helping to turn yet another wife of an industrialist into a queen dripping with bespoke wealth. Every sign of excess is calculated to generate the maximum amount of envy from each client’s peers, who will then descend upon the shop en masse, eager to glitter like diamonds too.

“Yes, Mademoiselle Jacqueline,” I say dutifully. After all, she is Madame Violette’s protegee--and our taskmistress. This provisional junior seamstress post is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I cannot afford to lose it.

Literally. It’s this or beg for crumbs on the street.

“Well?” Mademoiselle Jacqueline prompts.

I stare at her thin blond hair, the color of an apple slice left in the sun. The strands are dry and brittle. I have a recipe for hair cream that would help, though I know from experience none of the girls in this room cares about my opinions.

The other seamstresses are watching me. Not a stitch is being sewn, but there are no harsh words for anyone else. They have been waiting for me to err, to prove myself unworthy, since the moment I sat amongst them.

I pull the needle from my flesh. The hot silver quill sticks a little before popping free. A bubble of bright red blood blossoms to the surface, trembling as it grows. I touch the tip of my swollen finger to my tongue. The taste is salty and metallic.

For the entire six-month probationary period, I have foiled my coworkers’ fervent wish to see me fail by excelling at every task, no matter how menial or time-consuming.

Madame Violette was so impressed, she instructed Mademoiselle Jacqueline to cease wasting my sewing talents on cleaning duties and allow me to work on the fine garments with the others.

The girls could not despise me more. Every day, they giggle amongst themselves and snap at me to go back to the factory, where “my kind” belongs. No one in their families has ever had to dirty their hands to pay the rent, much less wonder if there would be food to eat tomorrow. According to society, well-dressed young ladies like these are born better than humble girls like me--and they never let me forget it.

“Look, the poor baby injured herself,” one of the girls coos, her saccharine words unable to disguise her delight.

The rest join in gleefully, mocking me. Even Mademoiselle Jacqueline smirks in appreciation at their jests.

Instead of listening, I shut off my ears--a trick I learned when I started work in the textile factory at age twelve. A shudder racks my flesh as unwanted memories bombard me. The enormous, clanging spinning machines . . . The startled yelps from other workers when the looms’ automated teeth very nearly catch a finger . . . The sound of my father’s screams when--

Madame Violette materializes in the open doorway. Panting, as though she sprinted five kilometers across a barren desert to arrive. But this is how she always looks. Rushed, winded. Rich mahogany skin, one shade lighter than my mother’s. Startled brown eyes, like those of a doe hearing the crack of a hunter’s rifle. Carefully ironed black hair escaping at odd angles from her coiffure. A sumptuous velvet gown bedecked with flounces in every color of the rainbow. A mad genius.

Our spines straighten. The giggles vanished when she entered. Our fingers become industrious.

Although we all work in the same room, we are far from equal. I am the youngest, at eighteen; the others are one to four years older. Half are Black, half are white. I am the only one who’s a combination of both. All seven of us are French to our bones. But there, the similarities end.

Mademoiselle Jacqueline wants to show that she has us under her control. That she should rise from the role of assistant and be made a full partner.

The other five girls openly covet Mademoiselle Jacqueline’s position as protegee. Its many privileges. The eye-watering salary.

Moi? I only need to survive until the end of the month. The promotion to full employee comes with a commensurate increase in wages. The glorious moment at which Madame Violette presses my new, no-longer-provisional salary into my hand.

The money I will soon earn is four times the pittance I received at the loud, stinking Fournier Fabrics factory. Which means my mother and younger sister will soon be able to quit their dangerous positions there and seek work that does not demand they risk their lives daily, even if the pay is lower. I will provide for my family.

Like Papa used to.

Madame Violette sweeps past each of our tables, inspecting our handiwork with a keen eye. My task is a full-torso whalebone corset, as fearsome and constricting as a serpent.

“Well done,” she pronounces at last.

The relief in the room is palpable.

“Especially you, Angelique.” Madame Violette holds up the hem I’ve just finished. “Such precise stitches, and completed so quickly.”

Waves of hate roll off the other girls, battering me like a tempest tossing a sailboat.

“Merci,” I murmur, ducking my head to shield my vulnerable eyes from their piercing gazes.

Madame Violette plucks a long strip of bone-white silk from my table. “What’s this?”

“Left over.” I gesture to one of the colorful discard piles lining the sewing room. “Shall I deposit it with the rest?”

She tilts her head. “Why don’t you take it home, if you’d like.”

A gasp of disbelief claws free from my throat.

If I’d like! Six years sweating in that god-awful textile factory, creating reams of material none of the workers will ever be able to afford in their lifetimes. A ruined finger, a dead father, yet never so much as a single precious thread was allowed out of the owner’s greedy hands.

I lift the ribbon as though presenting my firstborn child to the heavens. A moonbeam, caught in my hands. The silk is soft, shiny, weightless. If I cut it carefully, there might be enough for four matching hair ribbons: one each for my mother, both of my sisters, and me.

We are exiting our final month of mourning, though the wound is as fresh as ever....

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Children's Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593897676
• ISBN 13: 9780593897676
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 337
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland