Work Text:
Hébert's angry outburst following Marie Antoinette's trial comes as no surprise to Margrid. She had dealt him and the Duc d'Orléans a blow tantamount to treason with her lie about Marie's letter.
She’s too emotionally drained and exhausted to care. She had done the right thing, even if Marie was found guilty of her trumped up crimes.
But Hébert's anger is different from facing an angry Duc d’Orléans. He’s explosive and in her face, grabbing at her, desperate to make his point as loud as he can. He sounds exactly like the drunk angry husbands or street pimps she’s overheard over the years. He threatens her with prison, under his care , and she’ll be guillotined. She’s barely able to get a word in, much less try to physically defend herself.
If he’d wanted her to explain herself, he’d have demanded she did. But no. He wants to see her afraid of him like the bully he is, and get revenge for the times she shrugged off his unwanted touches or rebuked his claims that he owned her.
It’s only them in the courtroom. Who knows how this might escalate with no witnesses?
Him grabbing her hair and forcing her back against his body is the last straw. An elbow to his ribs and a hard shove back later, she’s running out of the courtroom and out into the darkened streets. He can try to chase her, but he doesn’t know the streets of Paris as well as she does.
If anything good came out of this tonight, it’s that Hébert didn’t find her trump card. Safely sewn inside her skirt, it was the evidence that'll damn both him and the Duc d'Orléans to guillotine, not her.
All she had to do was wait for the right moment to reveal it.
