Knaves (7 page)

“
What?” Hayden spat out the word in utter surprise. “You want to go through with it?”

She raised one eyebrow.
“It was your idea. Don’t you think it such a good one now, Sebastian?”

He sighed.
“That was before. I don’t think we should get involved with Valmont. Didn’t your Uncle tell you about the other stuff?”

“
His predilection for S and M?” She shrugged. “So what? I’ve handled worse. Until last night, I believed I was a match for any man. I’d become complacent, lost my edge.” Her eyes hardened. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

Hayden leaned forward. He needed to explain.
“It’s worse than you imagine, K- Jeanne. I saw Eloise, I saw what he’d done to her.”

“
Don’t even mention that woman’s name!” Karla snarled, her lips curling back from her teeth which were gritted in fury. Then she regained control of herself and smiled as though nothing had happened. “Do you know what Lupa means?”

Now he was confused.
“I thought I wasn’t meant to talk about her?”

“
Don’t be stupid, just answer the question.”

“
Umm… something to do with wolf in Italian, isn’t it? She-wolf?”

Karla
’s look was ironic. “I think you’ll find that a simpler translation is ‘bitch’, and I don’t intend to let that bitch win. I called Valmont’s secretary this morning. I told him that we’d be extremely happy to accept his invitation to Mazan.”

“
What!” Hayden was dumbfounded. “Are you crazy?”

“
Not at all,” she answered coolly, her French accent calm and unruffled. “We go ahead with
your
plan. Uncle, you’ll need to stay behind: it will get too awkward having to explain an Irish relative, and in any case we may need a backup, something we can blackmail him with or something.” She was matter-of-fact now, utterly in control.

“
I’m on it,” Coilin told her. Karla looked back at Hayden and shook her head.

“
You’ll need to go upstairs and get changed, Sebastian. It won’t do for you to appear in front of the Marquis looking like that.” Both she and Coilin stood up. “Try not to fuck any of the maids while they’re cleaning up, won’t you? I understand it’s hard for you to keep your hands off other women, but we have a job to do remember.”

“
Where are you going?”

“
Uncle and I have some other arrangements to make. Oh, I nearly forgot.” She fished out her phone and quickly tapped on the screen. “You’ll find your ticket in your inbox. We fly out of Nice at three to Avignon but we’ll have to drive from there. We’ll stay at Mazan itself before going to the Chateau. Don’t worry, I’ve booked us a place in a very pleasant  inn. Separate rooms of course.”

“
I don’t… I don’t understand.” Hayden could feel his jaw working, but nothing coherent was coming out.

Karla looked down at him sternly.
“It’s very simple. As I said, we have a job to do. I’m the bait—just do your part, Sebastian. If you don’t win, you don’t lose me for just a night.”

And then she turned to leave, Coilin looking gleeful as he accompanied his niece towards the hotel exit. Hayden watched them depart, his heart sinking with each step they took away from him.

“Great,” he muttered to himself. “That’s just bloody great!”

Valmont felt rather satisfied with himself a day later as he watched the car follow the long, straight road to the entrance of Chateau de Tour. So named after the largest tower that rose into the bright Provençal sky, once it had been but one ancestral home that belonged to the Valmont family, scattered from the Haute-Normandie region in the north (from whence the family took its name) down to the borders with Spain and Italy.

Now the only ancient chateau that Valmont preserved was de Tour, a decision that his grandfather had taken and which the Marquis had never rescinded. Despite whatever former difficulties the family had endured, his choice was no longer a question of money: it was rather that he
preferred a multitude of properties across the world rather than clinging onto old castles such as this for any sentimental value.

That wasn
’t to deny that de Tour was impressive. An hour’s drive from Mazan itself, the building looked rather like a fairy tale castle perched atop a low hill that gave glorious views across the mountains and valleys of southern France. The countryside around could be rugged and stony, but here the terraced fields cut into the hillsides were lush and fertile, with trees marking the borders of roads and settlements, red-tiled roofs and the occasional church tower visible in the distance.

The original building that had stood on this spot since the thirteenth century, of which the large, circular tower was the only remaining part, had been a somewhat forbidding stone fortress
. One of Valmont’s ancestors had rebuilt it in the style of the Loire river chateaux, softening its features with smaller, white towers and a pale grey roof, a place where princes could frolic and play where their forebears had fought and rutted.

As such, when it suited him Valmont was very happy to receive visitors to de Tour
—and today it pleased him very much. When first Eloise had fearfully told him of her failure with the Englishman, Sebastian Rider, he had been angry with her, but she had made amends and in any case it seemed that her failure was only apparent. That had made him much more amenable, and the former porn star was recuperating in his room after their morning rigours, an activity which had only increased Valmont’s satisfaction.

He had even found the time to take another form of morning ride, astride the back of his bay
Lusitano, Ajax, and as he was returning from the stables to the main house, his jodhpurs flush to his strong thighs and black, supple leather boots reaching midway to his thighs, he saw the car approaching in the distance. He knew who it would be: Jeanne Duval had called the evening before, and so he stood on the broad steps that led to the main entrance watching the car approach. He still had his crop in one hand, and he tapped it gently against his boot.

His manservant,
Latour had frowned slightly when Valmont told them that he would greet his visitors, though he did not question this apparent impropriety on the part of the Marquis. A giant of a man, Latour was to ugliness what his master was to beauty, his face a knotted collection of bumps and scars: keeping such a servant in an age when others insisted on prissy good looks and manners was one reminder that Valmont’s own values had been formed in a more robust era.

Now the car finally drew up before the steps and the driver stepped out to open the door for its occupants. A slender, delightful leg extended outwards, the high heel stepping onto the gravel of the drive, to be followed by the graceful form of Jeanne Duval who wore a light, summer coat and a silky, blue dress that hovered around her sweet body. She looked, Valmont thought to himself, like Sophie
Marceau, or perhaps a young Michèle Mercier, her hair tightly coiled to her head and a pair of sunglasses protecting her eyes from the bright, mid-morning sun.

As Sebastian Rider emerged from the other side of the car, Valmont watched them with interest. The tall, broad-shouldered Englishman was wearing a sports jacket, his dark hair slightly tousled in that irritating fashion emulated after so many lesser Hollywood film stars, but he looked up in surprise as Latour approached them. No doubt Sebastian was not used to being overshadowed by anyone, and Valmont
’s smile widened.

Latour took hold of their luggage and the pair walked towards the house. Valmont was intrigued to see that Jeanne appeared to keep a slight distance from her companion and he suppressed his smile. It wouldn
’t do to indicate that he had won his bet just yet. Lady Luck could still deal any amount of surprises.

“
Madame Duval,” he called out in French. “Welcome to my humble home.”

“
You keep a very beautiful house,” she replied in the same language as she came sedately up the steps, reaching out with a hand which Valmont took between his fingers, bowing slightly before he kissed it. Sebastian frowned slightly at this.

“
Monsieur Rider,” he said, shifting now to English. “I hope your journey was a pleasant one.”

“
Very,” replied Sebastian, a little stiffly. Realising the direction in which Sebastian looked, Valmont decided that he wouldn’t release Jeanne’s hand after all.

“
Please,” he said, still holding onto Jeanne while he gestured towards the door with his riding crop, “allow me to show you around Chateau de Tour while Latour takes your things up to your room.”

“
Rooms,” Jeanne added primly.

“
But of course.” Now Valmont couldn’t resist a smile this time.

Sebastian was watching the servant walk ahead of them with slow, heavy strides towards the stairs.
“He’s a… he’s an unusual fellow,” he said, attempting to make light conversation.

Glancing back over his shoulder as he led Jeanne towards the nearest room, he affected not to have noticed what the other man was talking about.
“Who? Oh, Latour? A local fellow. He’s been here for years. I remember when I’d come here as a boy—I’d insist that he carry me on his shoulders all around the gardens like a pack horse.”

“
You like to ride, Monsieur le Marquis?” Jeanne said. She had removed her sunglasses and he was aware of her eyes shifting to his breeches as she spoke.

“
Madame,” he replied, “please, let us be informal here. Donatien, please.”

“
Of course,” she said with a slight bow of her head.

“
You could barely imagine the pleasure I have when riding, Jeanne,” he said, bending closer to her and affecting to speak as though Sebastian wasn’t present. “It is the second greatest delight I know.”

“
And the first?” she asked, her green eyes fixed on his, her lips parted slightly. He was suddenly aware of her perfume, a subtle hint of jasmine. By way of reply, he lifted her hand to his mouth once more and pressed his lips against her fingers.

“
Well, that’s marvellous, I’m sure,” Sebastian butted in. To Valmont’s surprise, he felt a strong arm gently but firmly press between the two of them and the Englishman placed a proprietary hand on Jeanne’s shoulder. The young woman looked up in shock at her companion and Valmont opened his mouth to express indignation at such an indiscretion. Something in Sebastian’s eyes made him halt, however, and he turned his anger into a laugh.

“
Very well,” he said, conceding his ground just this once. “Please, let me show you my home, then you can refresh yourselves before we eat.”

The entrance hall into the chateau was impressive, with its wide sweeping staircase and marble floors, but it was nothing compared to the anterooms that led away from it in a stately procession.

“How long has Chateau de Tour been in your family, Donatien?” Jeanne asked. “After all, we’re a long way from Valmont.”

Turning his head slightly to regard the young woman who (he noticed with interest) had already extricated herself from her companion
’s grip, much to Sebastian’s annoyance, Valmont replied: “Since the seventeenth century—through a marriage into the local nobility. Like so many others at the time, we were at war with the king, or rather his treacherous ministers, and our two families decided that a pincer from north and south would be able to take what we most desired.” Valmont stared up at the painted ceiling above, decorated with scenes from Greek mythology in which nymphs were being pursued by rapacious satyrs and smiled.

“
I believe that we took more or less everything we wanted. It was the twelfth Marquis who redecorated the chateau in a variant of the baroque more suited to his tastes.”

“
Very impressive,” muttered Sebastian, trailing behind Jeanne. Valmont could see that he was already overawed.

“
Exquisite,” said Jeanne, her green eyes glittering. She placed one hand lightly on Valmont’s arm, causing a spasm of pleasure to pulse through the limb so that his crop twitched against his riding boot. “I would love to see more.”

“
And so you shall, Jeanne,” he murmured. “And so you shall.” The fact that he, unlike the satyrs above him, could not take her here and now as he wished added to his pleasure in some perverse way, making her even more desirable.

With each room they traversed, that pleasure grew and grew as Valmont knew that it would. Sebastian
’s steps became slower and slower and he began to dawdle behind, his brief assertion of power in the entrance hallway increasingly emasculated. Jeanne, on the other hand, became more animated, asking him questions about different works of art. Valmont took great care to answer her courteously, displaying his own great knowledge of his home.

At last he came to the glory of the house and, with a dramatic flourish, opened two large, white doors.
“This,” he told Jeanne, not even deigning to pay attention to Sebastian anymore, “is the masterpiece of my chateau.”

Standing to one side, he let her enter before him and looked on with undiminished
satisfaction as she gasped, her hand lifting unconsciously to her lips.

“
This is my very own Grande Galerie,
les Galerie des Glaces
.”

And indeed it was an astonishing chamber of mirrors. The room was vast, much larger than any other they had encountered so far, the beams of the roof
covered in gold and silver with elaborate paintings on the panels between. But it was the mirrors that dominated the view—huge, crystal clear plates that shone and dazzled, the reflected light also caught in the great chandeliers that descended to a point high above their heads.

“
Incredible,” Jeanne sighed. Valmont was vaguely aware that Sebastian had caught up behind them, and he glanced at the other man. There was a look almost of despair in the Englishman’s eyes that made Valmont exult. He had won.

“
You know the Galerie at Versailles?” he asked Jeanne. She nodded, her eyes greedily taking in every detail of the beautiful room. Extending his hand, he waited for her to place her own fingers in his and led her forward. This time there was no opposition from Sebastian who merely stood, dumbly, in the doorway, an unwelcome visitor at this feast for the eyes.

“
A distant relative was involved in the designs for parts of Versailles, and when he visited de Tour he proposed this very room. In those days, mirrored glass was the most precious of substances, with its production being controlled by the Venetians. Indeed, my ancestor employed a Venetian, Giovanni Baptista Tiepelo, to oversee the work.”

As he promenaded, hand in hand, through the room with Jeanne at his side, he watched her reflection in the mirrors as they passed. In her heels, the top of her head was just below his eyes and her elegant form was framed against his white shirt. Seeing his own face, sardonic and handsome in the glass, she turned to face him, her eyes glowing with pleasure.

“It’s wonderful,” she said.

“
Ah, but not used as much as it should be,” Valmont replied with a mock sigh. “I shall make sure that you take full advantage of it while you are my guests.” On an impulse, he placed one hand on her narrow waist and began to move slowly around her in a waltz. With only the slightest resistance at first, she followed his steps daintily, laughing as she did so.

For a while, Valmont swept her round the room, humming the tune to an old melody, half watching her in front of him, half watching her reflection in the great mirrors that lined the room.

When he came to a halt, both of them saw Sebastian standing before them. He was considerably taller than Valmont, and the fact that he had managed to cross the space from the entrance without being heard shocked the Marquis for a second, throwing him out of his equilibrium. That effect was only enhanced when he looked into the Englishman’s face and saw the barely repressed fury there.

“
Monsieur le Marquis,” he said, his voice formal and clipped. Despite his anger, he seemed to have regained his composure in a different, subtle way, and Valmont was aware again of that intense intelligence that he’d glimpsed when they were gaming. Eloise was right: this Sebastian Rider wasn’t as much of a buffoon as he pretended to be.

“
You’ve been very kind,” Sebastian continued, “but our journey has been quite an arduous one. I’m sure that Madame Duval will agree with me that it would be a good idea for us to refresh ourselves in our rooms, and then perhaps we can continue to see your impressive home. Jeanne?” He held out his hand, and there was something in his posture that indicated he would brook no opposition.