The woman had no idea, no clue, what she had signed. Nemours had duped her into believing that the dances Scarlett would perform for the “most influential people in Paris” would be from the ballet, perhaps from her own choreography. If she knew the truth, she wouldn’t be so mild. Appearances were gold to the Poésy family.
However, something told me she was covering now, starting to understand what she had done, but refusing to admit it aloud. She had been desperate when she made the deal with Nemours, terrified to lose control over the one thing that kept her close to her mother. Her daughter. She wanted to keep her in the spotlight for as long as possible. She had assumed marrying me would give Scarlett the push to quit, to give it all up, and I’d be content with that, not wanting to share her light with the world.
Scarlett glanced at me, pupils wide, in shock. She had made sense of the mess too. Finished with the conversation, she went to walk past Nemours.
“Siéger!” He snapped at her, rising from his chair. His palms were pressed against the table, tendons flexing, the cords in his neck strained.
She visibly flinched. At his word, she stopped and went to turn back around. Refusing to let her move any further at his command, I kept her where she was. I tucked her behind me when I was ready.
“Tell me what he said to you.” My tone brokered no room for discussion or lies.
“H-he…” She couldn’t even get the words out.
“I told her tosit.”
Like a fucking dog.
He hadn’t learned one thing about me from the situation at the castle in Slovenia. I was too quick for him. Grabbing him by the hair, in a swift move that forced his gravity down, I cracked his face against the wooden table. His eyes rolled up before he went out.
“You first,” I said to his slumped-over form.
“Oh,” Scarlett said. “That’s probably how he got the broken nose the first time.” Then she fell to the floor and started to howl with manic laughter.
* * *
Nemours woke up some time later, asked for a glass of wine, and then preceded to go forth with business as though nothing had happened.
It’s hard to kill a rat. Besides cockroaches, after a nuclear holocaust they’ll be gnawing on whatever’s left.
After the rabid rat and her mother left, all parties now understanding what was at stake, Scarlett made Emory promise to stay the night in the guest bedroom. I glanced at her from the kitchen. She had fallen asleep curled up on the couch.
“You want a beer?” I offered Emory.
He opened and closed his hands. “Oui.”
I went to the fridge, popped the top on both, and gave him his before I took a seat across from him.
He smelled the bottle and his nose curled up. “Would you happen to have wine?”
I pointed to the cabinet where Scarlett kept her stash.
He sniffed each bottle like a fiend, long nose as pointed as a knife, and by the time he finally made his choice and had settled back down, I had started working on his discarded bottle.
“You are a very savvy man,” he said, whooshing the red wine around in the glass. “To challenge him. You were smart to make changes to his contract. He, ah, pretends like he is in control, but he knows better.”
“Explain.”
“He has her,oui, but without her compliance, she can do nothing for him. Her attitude has to match the illusion he sells. Do you know how much he charges per person for access to his underground dungeon?”
I shrugged, taking a drink, setting the beer bottle down without a sound.
“In US currency, one hundred thousand dollars.Oui.” He nodded, reading the look on my face. “If the intrigue is there, people will pay, to be sure. That is what he sells—the illusion of something greater than we as humans know to exist. If I were to compare your wife to wine, let us say that she would be the finest, no?”
Emory took a small sip of his wine and closed his eyes briefly. He blew out a breath that reached me across the table.
“How much do you know about your wife?” He tilted his head to the side. He threw up his hands, adding hastily, “I mean about her history, of course!”
“Of course,” I added dryly. “Tell me.”
