by Karen Ranney
Entering his carriage almost angrily, he tapped on the roof so loud that there was no doubt of his mood.
“To Leith,” he told Stephens, determined to purge Jeanne du Marchand from his mind.
The air smelled of soot, nothing like the air of Paris, or the sweet perfume of the Loire valley. Nicholas, Comte du Marchand, scowled at a man who smiled at him and nodded to a woman who decorously turned her head. There were so few individuals with manners left in the world.
Edinburgh did not impress him much. The greatest cities were those in France and the greatest city of all, of course, was Paris.
Since the rabble had overtaken the city, it had lost its magical charm. But he had hopes that there would come a time when reason would return once more to France, and with it the aristocracy.
Hereditary titles had been abolished and the fools in the government had actually declared war on the Austrian portion of the Holy Roman Empire. In addition, they’d arrested the King and his family last year, a hint of the increased radicalism of the government.
The journey to Edinburgh had taken him nearly a month. Nicholas found himself annoyed by the discomforts, and more determined than ever to find his daughter and recoup a small portion of his wealth. He’d learned from Justine that Jeanne was determined to leave France. From the trail he followed, it was evident that she had, indeed, done so. Survival was a du Marchand trait, it seemed.
Once in Edinburgh, however, his quest grew more difficult. Jeanne wasn’t with her aunt. Evidently, his sister-in-law had died a year earlier, leaving him the further irritating task of having to search for Jeanne. A modiste, a fellow émigré, had told him that Jeanne had gotten employment. Another person shared the information that he’d given Jeanne a brush that had belonged to his dead wife. Still another told him that she’d given Jeanne a selection of her dresses in payment for caring for her sick daughter. One person led him to another, all of them émigrés and all of them too eager to exchange stories about Paris, or to ask him what he knew of missing relatives and friends.
He masked his irritation and answered as well as he could. In payment for his days of patience and hard-won tolerance, he finally located Jeanne’s address.
Now he stood in front of the large and prosperous-looking structure and wondered if she’d sold the ruby after all. Or could she have married in the short time she’d been gone from France?
Providence, previously so miserly, evidently decided to reward him for his efforts. As he crossed the street, she exited the house by the side door, holding a small child’s hand. She passed by him, and for a moment he wondered if she would look his way. But she seemed intent upon answering the boy’s questions and didn’t glance in his direction.
He followed her, curious. Not a wife, but a servant, he realized as she shifted the basket on her arm. A flush of anger raced through his body at the thought of a du Marchand in servitude. His family had commanded kings. But here she was, his errant and recalcitrant only child, attempting to shame him once again.
Nor was her appearance worthy of a du Marchand. Jeanne’s hair was pulled back in a severe bun and her face was arranged in a perfectly amiable expression, a look that revealed nothing of her emotions. Her mother, Hélène, had done that often enough around him, especially during the latter years.
He almost hailed her, and then realized that she might well repudiate him on a public street. The last time he’d seen his daughter she had been in a carriage screaming at him, tears and rage twisting her features until she was a discordant creature, something only barely human.
As he watched, she took the child’s hand and entered a small discreet shop. CHARLES TALBOT, GOLDSMITH, was inscribed upon the window. He waited until she was finished with her business, emerging from the shop a few minutes later. Only then did he follow her. A man spoke to her, the meeting so obviously unplanned that he hung back, watching with interest. When she walked away, he decided not to follow her. It was obvious she was attending to a servant’s duties and he would not demean himself by trailing after her. There would be time enough to confront her, now that he knew for certain where she lived. No, there was another errand that interested him more than greeting his daughter.
He returned to King Street, and watched to ensure that no other customers were inside. Only then did the Comte du Marchand enter, closing and locking the door behind him.
“Are you Charles Talbot?”
The man who faced him was in his middle years and showing a paunch. His face was narrow and lined, his lips thin, and his eyebrows were curiously bushy, giving him an unkempt appearance.
“I am. May I help you, sir?” the shopkeeper asked, managing to sound obsequious while staring at him offensively.
“You had a customer a few minutes ago. A young woman with a child. What was the nature of her business?”
The man who faced him smiled thinly. “I am afraid, sir, that I’m known for the confidential nature of my dealings. I do not share the business of one customer with another.” He tilted his head to the side, his rude glance not faltering. “Unless you are not going to be a customer, sir?”
Nicholas tapped his cane on the floor, irritated with this new democracy of thought and action. But restraint, for now, was a wiser course. He managed a smile, one that he knew seemed friendly enough. The trick was to hide one’s thoughts, and to simply act upon them when the time was right.
“I believe that she is a relative of mine,” he said holding out his calling card. It was only one of ten that he had left, but the man opposite him did not need to know the degree of his penury. By the terms of the new constitution approved by the king, Nicholas had found himself stripped of his title, his home, his land, and his fortune. “I am late of Paris,” he added. “You must be aware of the troubles there. Families have been separated.” He waved his hand in the air, unwilling to continue further with his charade of grieving kin.
The man’s eyes didn’t soften. If anything, his gaze grew more calculated. A born tradesman, he evidently sniffed out a profit. Very well, Nicholas would allow him to believe that there was something in this situation for him.
“And what would the troubles in France have to do with me?” Talbot asked, glancing down at the card. “Count?”
The tone in which he referred to his ancestral title grated on Nicholas’s nerves. He knew himself that there were hundreds of minor nobility living in England and Scotland. Men whose familial titles were not as ancient as the du Marchand name. But the dull-witted man evidently didn’t know the difference.
“Did she come to sell some jewelry? A stone, perhaps?”
The man’s smile widened. “I couldn’t tell you that one way or the other.”
Nicholas strode confidently toward the workbench, his hand clenched around the top of his cane. Once, it had boasted a gold-encrusted crest of his family. But he had sold the gold a few months ago, and it was safer, at least in Paris, to pretend that he was not an aristocrat.
“I am prepared to make the knowledge worth your while,” he said softly. Those who had attended him in the past would have warned the fool that he was at his most dangerous when he was softly spoken. Any idiot could yell or shout, but managing to convey displeasure while never raising his voice took some skill.
“I am looking for a certain stone,” he said. “Something that may have been offered you by a French émigré.”
The laughter his comment received was another irritant, but Nicholas cut off any response and put an amiable smile on his face. When the fool stopped laughing, he waited a few moments and then spoke again.
“Is my request so amusing, then?”
The goldsmith turned and opened a drawer in his workbench. Scooping up a handful of stones, he turned and tossed them onto the top of the glass case. Sapphires, rubies, diamonds all tumbled in a glittering array to rest against the wooden rail.
“Here, take your pick. I’ve been offered all of these.”
Nicholas fingered the gems, pushing them into a line with t
he tip of his index finger. “They’re paste.”
“Indeed they are, and not even good representations of the originals, if I might add. Your countrymen tried to pass them off as real. I keep them to amuse myself.”
“Or sell them to unsuspecting customers?” Nicholas did not doubt the goldsmith’s greed. It was there in his eyes, in the way he slid his fingers over the fake jewels. When the goldsmith didn’t answer his taunt, he continued, “I’m looking for a ruby. A ruby roughly in the shape of a heart,” Nicholas said, maintaining his affable tone. “The Somerville Ruby.”
The goldsmith looked interested, but he didn’t volunteer any information.
Nicholas drew himself up, fixed one of his most imperious looks at the other man. “My wife was the daughter of the Duke of Somerville,” he said. “The gem was part of her inheritance.”
“I haven’t seen it, Count.”
Patiently, Nicholas continued. “It was taken from our possession. I believe it to be in Edinburgh.”
“And the woman you asked about? Do you also believe her to have some connection with the gem?” Talbot asked casually.
“I do,” Nicholas said, giving him the information grudgingly. However, there was no need for the goldsmith to know that he’d followed his daughter from France, that he would have been ignorant of her escape from the convent had it not been for his former housekeeper. Justine was as loyal to him now as she had always been, and as talented in bed. The only change the passing years had made in her had been a touch of gray in her striking red hair.
And, perhaps, a surprising reluctance for pain. In addition, she’d acquired an unhealthy obsession for religion. He’d found her at prayers one day, the image of his mistress petitioning God for forgiveness of her multitudinous sins almost amusing if it hadn’t been so tedious.
“The woman I asked about is an opportunistic thief. She stole the gem.”
The goldsmith regarded him for several moments, as if attempting to ascertain the truth of his statement. Nicholas managed to curtail his irritation and waited.
“The woman is employed by the Hartley family,” Talbot finally offered, which only tallied with Nicholas’s suspicions that his daughter had become a servant.
“And what did she want with you?”
“Why should I tell you?” There was that smirk again, that thin smile that was beginning to be a decided irritant.
“Because she is a thief,” Nicholas said. Hélène had left the gem to her daughter, a legacy that had been agreed upon at their marriage. However, neither of them had anticipated that France would change or that he would be living a whisper thin distance from true penury. The ruby would keep him in some luxury until France returned to normal and he would once more be restored to his rightful place. Not scrabbling for survival in his tiny room in Paris while the magnificent house that had once been his was bequeathed to some peasant who had, no doubt, been a fishmonger a month earlier.
“Then the law will restore the gem to the rightful owner,” Talbot said.
The two men regarded each other for five swings of the pendulum of the clock mounted on the wall.
The shop was small and not overtly prosperous. In France, merchants had called upon him to display their wares. In the past two years, however, he’d been forced to frequent their establishments as he’d sold one family heirloom after another in order to buy food and wood.
Vallans, the showplace of France, had been razed, leaving him without income and a lifetime of accumulated treasures. He’d managed to procure a handful of items before escaping the torch-bearing mob, and even those were rapidly dwindling.
“Then shall we make an arrangement between us?” Talbot suddenly said, his smile seeming more genuine. “I’ll inform you if she attempts to sell me the ruby, while you agree to let me sell it for you.”
“For a substantial commission, of course.” Glancing around the shop, Nicholas wondered if Talbot’s clientele was such that he already had a buyer in mind. He frankly doubted it, but he wouldn’t allow his misgivings show.
“A fair commission,” Talbot countered.
“Such an arrangement, of course,” Nicholas said pleasantly, “is contingent upon my obtaining the ruby once again.”
“I’ll help you get the stone,” Talbot said, extending his hand.
For a moment Nicholas regarded the other man, studying his expression while he ignored the gesture. He would be a fool to trust this man; he knew that deep in his heart. But he clasped the other man’s hand and smiled anyway.
Talbot was not the only one who knew an opportunity when he saw it.
Chapter 9
J eanne stood at the window of the schoolroom, looking out at the afternoon. The sun was bright in the sky, and the window warm against her fingers.
Lessons were finished for today, and Davis had done well despite her inattention. Her mind was not on her duties, but on the conversation she’d had with Douglas.
He had a wife. And a daughter.
Could she die of envy? Or regret? She might, if the tightness in her stomach was any indication. Closing her eyes, she tried not to think of him, but it was as futile a wish as wanting to transport herself to some other place.
Douglas had a wife and a child.
She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of life they had. Were they very much in love? What kind of woman was his wife? Did he tell her that he would love her and be with her forever, no matter what happened? If so, he was so much more constant to his wife than he’d ever been to her.
Jeanne could hate him for his constancy now. Where had he been when she’d needed him?
The door opened and she turned, thinking that it was Davis returning from the water closet. Instead, it was Robert Hartley. Not only was he early for their meeting, but she’d not expected him to come to the schoolroom.
Moving from the window, she began stacking the books and slates she and Davis had used in their lessons.
“You’re very industrious, Jeanne,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb and watching her. “I pay the maids to clean.”
“I find that it serves as a good example to be tidy,” she said, wishing that he would go away. Although this encounter was weeks in coming, she dreaded it. “Your son is coming along well in his numbers.”
He waved a hand in the air as if dismissing her comments about Davis. Jeanne hid her irritation and continued straightening the schoolroom.
“I hear good things about you from the rest of the staff,” he said.
She glanced at him and then away, certain that he would add to that remark. But he didn’t, surprising her.
“That is good to hear, sir.” She busied herself by taking the slate Davis had used and placing it atop the bookcase. Turning her back on Hartley, she prayed that he would simply take her hint and leave.
Instead, he moved closer to her. “Are you so intent upon pushing me away, Jeanne? You should know that it will not affect me in the slightest.”
“Then what will?” she asked, turning and facing him.
He smiled at her, a perfectly charming expression if one didn’t notice the predatory gleam in his eyes.
She thought that he might back down if she confronted him. Instead, he seemed delighted that the subject had finally been broached.
“I can suggest a different arrangement than that of governess and employer,” he said. “I can set you up with your own house, with a carriage and a small allowance. Nothing large, of course, but enough that you would be happy. All that I ask is that you keep yourself available for me a few nights a week. That arrangement, surely, would not be as onerous as being a governess.”
“I would like to be able to hold my head up in society,” she said civilly. “The post of mistress, unfortunately, would not allow me to do so.”
“Does it matter what other people think, Jeanne?” he murmured. “This arrangement would be of benefit to both of us. Is society so very important to you?”
More than half her life had been spent being groo
med for her place as the Comte du Marchand’s daughter. She’d spent the last decade paying the price for forgetting that role. Only one man had the ability to tempt her from it again. But instead of the truth, she lied straight-faced. “Yes,” she said. “The good will of society is very important to me.”
“Perhaps I could convince you to ignore it.” He took a step closer and she willed herself not to move. “You’ve filled out nicely in the last few months,” he said, his gaze traveling insultingly slowly down her body.
Reaching out, he cupped her breast, smiling lightly.
She’d had experience with men like him, men who preyed on others weaker or more vulnerable than they. She held herself stiffly, and didn’t move despite the fact that his thumb flicked back and forth over her nipple. Was he such a fool that he thought a woman was only a collection of parts? Either her heart must be involved or her mind before her body welcomed a man.
“Davis is of an age to be sent away to school,” he said, finally moving his hand. “If I did that, Jeanne, I wouldn’t require a governess for several more years.”
“You must do what you think is right, sir,” she said, hating him for threatening her. She had survived France; she would survive anything that happened in the future. But fear had been a constant enough companion in the last three months that it returned easily, another reason to dislike Hartley intensely.
Bullies were odious regardless of their nationality.
“Right now I think it’s right that I touch you, Jeanne. What do you have to say to that?” He smoothed his hand over her bodice, let his fingers trail down to her waist.
“Davis will return in a moment,” she cautioned.
“On the contrary,” he said, “I’ve had nurse take all the children for a walk. He’ll be gone some time, which gives us the opportunity to get better acquainted.” He moved closer. She stepped backward until she was forced to stop because of the wall.
“It wouldn’t be as bad as you think to be my mistress, Jeanne.” His smile was perfectly amiable, his expression pleasant, as if he saw nothing intrinsically wrong with what he suggested. “In fact, you might find the arrangement quite pleasant.”
