He shrugged. It made no difference to him where the comte’s daughter thought she was headed. Without the proper identification papers, there was little chance she would make it very far without being arrested and executed. She might just as well have died with her father.
He caught his reflection in the fractured remains of a gilt-framed mirror and smiled. It had been so easy to arouse the peasants. He’d simply spread a few rumors that the Comte de La Brou was raising money to send to supporters of the imprisoned king. Then he’d paid an orator to stir things up with a lovely speech detailing the comte’s efforts to betray the new republic. The villagers had been incensed, spilling out of the market square, grabbing up pitchforks and pikes, and marching up to the château demanding vengeance. He really was quite gifted when it came to planning and coordination.
Not that his master had ever truly appreciated him. No,the ridiculous old man had been too busy prancing about in his powdered wigs and painted heels. Making tiresome speeches about the noble history of the warrior de La Brous. When all along it was he, Robert Lamartine, who was responsible for Valcour. His work as steward—collecting the rents and duties, overseeing repairs, keeping an eye on the staff—had made the château a showplace and enabled the comte to live a life of comfort and ease.
Lamartine crossed the grand salon, the crackle of broken glass beneath his feet sending shards of pleasure up his spine. When he reached the doorway at the far end of the room, he stopped and the head of a small porcelain milkmaid came to rest against his buckled shoe. He knelt to pick it up. A shame it had been broken; he’d rather liked the little piece. It reminded him of his sister Marie, though her clothes had never been as lovely as this figurine’s. Nor had they been warm enough to protect her from the consumption that had taken her life. Robert opened his hand. The head rolled off and shattered.
Straightening, he sidestepped the remains of a paneled door and entered the comte’s private library. The comte had never thought fit to thank his steward properly, so Lamartine had been thanking himself, skimming generously from estate accounts. He smoothed the front of his simple olive and brown striped waistcoat and patted his old-fashioned bagwig. From his modest appearance no one would ever guess he was really quite a wealthy man. However, a man of wealth should have property. As soon as he found the comte’s titles, he’d have that, too.
The foolish comte had relied upon him to sign all his papers. Lamartine doubted anyone could tell their signatures apart. Which was how he’d convinced a registrar of deeds to notarize papers transferring the de La Brou estates to one Robert Lamartine, in the unlikely event of the comte’s own demise.
Eyeing the headless body splayed across a delicately inlaid desk, Lamartine reflected idly that some might raise questions as to why the comte hadn’t left his property to his wife or to his daughter. He had little doubt they could be laid to rest. After all, the comte had frequently been heard to say that the only responsibility a woman could be entrusted with was birthing a man’s heir.
With effort, Lamartine rolled his former master’s battered corpse onto the floor. Grinning, he drew a fine linen handkerchief from the comte’s waistcoat pocket and wiped the desk drawer’s lock free of gore. Then he inserted a fine gold key. It turned with a satisfying click, and he slid the drawer open.
His smile was short-lived.
It was empty. His hands scrabbled wildly, like crabs trying to escape a box, searching the corners, the back of the drawer, behind the drawer. Nothing! Enraged, he turned to the body on the floor and kicked it. “You stupid, useless old man.What have you done with those papers?”
Two
“You’ll never believe this, Captain,” Jervis Jones said, wiping his mouth on his greasy sleeve. “The Frogs have definitely gone crazy on this one. I’m over at the Place de la Grève last Saturday, and I see this great gaggle of people. Well, they don’t seem to be killing anybody this time, so I stroll over to get a closer look. And can you guess what they’re doing, Captain?”
He didn’t wait for an answer and Rafe Harcrest knew his participation wasn’t required to keep the conversation going.
“They’re getting married, the whole bloody lot of them. There’s this little wizened clerk lecturing at them, and when he finishes up he says, ‘All right, do you folks agree to be married?’ and they all shout, ‘Yes.’ And that’s it, the thing’s done, everybody cheers and goes home. Can you imagine, Captain, English women getting married like that, no fancy dress, no flowers, no celebration?”
“None of the women in my family,” Rafe agreed absently.
“Course when you marries Lady Anne, I suspect you’ll have your fill of flounces and folderol.”
Rafe, who had no interest in discussing Lady Anne Dinsmore, pushed the soup tureen across the table to Jervis who ladled out a bowl of dubious-looking brown lumps.
“Course,” Jervis rambled on, “guess it would be fine to go without all the display if you could get the missus to agree. But no drinking and no dancing? No question, Captain,” he said, smacking his lips over the stew, “these Frenchies have gone round the bend. Do you think it’s even legal?”
“I believe our French neighbors’ concepts of law are a little unusual these days,” Rafe said delicately. The inn was crowded and while it was unlikely anyone could hear their conversation over the din of clattering silverware and vigorous luncheon conversation, he wasn’t willing to risk attracting any undue attention.
Jervis loudly spit out a piece of bread having discovered, Rafe speculated, either straw or stones in it, flour now being in short supply in Paris. Hard times had come to France, and from what he and Jervis had seen, things were only going to get worse. The sooner they concluded their business here, the better. Rafe cursed the impulse that had brought him to Paris in the middle of a bloody revolution.
“Yes sirree, Captain, this is just like the squirrel stew I used to fix you when we was in the army, except that I think they may be using cats.” Jervis glanced over at Rafe and said abruptly, “You’re drumming again.”
Rafe raised an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”
“You always do that you know, drum your fingers when you get restless and your mind’s going wandering off somewheres. So what is it, the silks or Elizabeth?”
“Both,” said Rafe lying through his teeth. He had nointention of confessing to his manservant that the real reason he’d dragged them both off to France was because at the last moment he’d lost his nerve and found himself unable to propose to Lady Anne Dinsmore. When they returned, he had no doubt that she would be waiting with considerably less patience for him to make his offer.
“Don’t know why you’re worrying so much about them silks. The cargo would have gotten loaded fine without you running over here to check on it. You’ve done a fine job setting up this business; it practically runs without you.”
As well it should, Rafe reflected, his fingers continuing to beat a noiseless tattoo on the rough table. With Jervis’s help, he’d established a lucrative trade cloaked in a level of secrecy that would have made a first-rate spymaster weep with envy. Not that there was anything underhanded about importing French fabrics into England, but it would have been the scandal of the ton had it been discovered that the Earl of Moreham was engaged in trade. He smiled grimly. Better that he and his family decline gracefully into poverty, with their aristocratic virtues intact and their hands unsoiled by work.
His fingers stopped drumming and curled into a fist. He hadn’t intended to become involved in trade anymore than he’d expected to become the Earl of Moreham, but he’d be damned if he allowed his stepmother Louisa and his half sister Elizabeth to suffer the consequences of his father’s and older brother’s extravagant spending and insatiable love of gambling. Both had died within a few years of each other, leaving him with heavily mortgaged estates and a mountain of debts. Rafe had been a soldier, and with a soldier’s sense of order and discipline he’d mounted a campaign to bring his family back to financial security.
Most of the ton believed his frequent visits to Paris were to satisfy a fondness for French women. Over tables at White’s, men speculated over the identities of hisconquests, while ladies seemed eager to discover what “foreign” techniques he might possess. He’d had to remove more than one maidenly hand from his thigh, though never, he reflected, Lady Anne’s.
Unbidden, an image of Anne Dinsmore took shape in his head, tall and elegant, with ash blond hair and pale blue eyes. She was not beautiful, her face was a trifle too long, her nose a bit thin and sharp, but she carried herself with all the grace and composure one would expect of a duke’s daughter. Rafe looked down and realized he was drumming again; he forced his fingers to be still.
“You worry too much about Elizabeth, too, you know. She’s young yet, but give her time, she’ll settle down.” Jervis chuckled and spooned a bit of stew into his mouth.
