The Corrupt Comte (7 page)

“Indeed,” Sabien agreed with a chuckle.

“What about her money?”

“Well, I’m sure I could find
something
to do with ten thousand British pounds.”

Gaspard’s ire flourished with each breath he took. “And it’s not as though you’re smitten with another woman.”

“Smitten? Hardly.”

Unfortunately for Sabien, Gaspard was a spy too. He heard the subtext in those innocuous words. Sabien may not be smitten with another woman, but there
was
another woman. Regardless of whomever Sabien’s mistress-of-the-moment might be, Gaspard didn’t care to press. “So why not marry her?”

Sabien frowned at him. “Why are you pushing this?”

Pushing, indeed. It was a peculiar sort of madness roiling within him, aggression itching shallowly beneath his skin. He wanted to fight for her, a prize earned by the strongest, most skillful competitor on the field of battle. In his wasted existence, he’d never had to fight for anyone or anything but himself. The men he targeted were easy, the women he paid for…but not Claudia. She needed to be won.

No, not Claudia. Claudia’s
dowry
.

It was a reminder that refused to stick. “I’m simply curious. But then, there’s much about your lifestyle I don’t understand.” He let Sabien draw whatever conclusion he wanted to from those words.

Sabien, thankfully, was utterly predictable. “Well, it’s not like I understand yours, either, so we’re square.” A well-meaning pat to Gaspard’s shoulder, and Sabien leaned in to whisper, “Get Évoque that list, and I’d bet you my favorite Hessians it’s the last he’ll ask of you.” Then the lieutenant slipped away to join Maxence where he stood, surrounded by a group of giggling women and jovial men.

As far as motivators went, Sabien’s words hit their mark. He would do this final task and collect the list Évoque needed. Perhaps he’d try to convince the duke to pay him a final, larger sum, for services rendered and for his lifelong silence—by his calculations, he hadn’t received a wage from the man in nearly two months. And then…

Even knowing it was a rotten idea, Gaspard turned slowly on his heel to face her, ignoring every curious gaze that grazed his sensitized skin. Claudia Pascale, desperate, demon-eyed girl that she was, stared bravely back at him, sharp little chin lifted in the same defiance that had drawn his attention from the very first moment he saw her.

She had claws, his kitten. Claws, a wet cunt and more than enough money to save Gaspard’s ass from debtor’s prison—or even the hangman’s noose.

His fingers flexed at his side, the fingers that had stroked her to orgasm short minutes before, and his eyes danced over her. Yes, she looked the slightest bit ruffled, her cheeks flushed but quickly paling, but no one would know. No one would guess.

And that was because of him. Gaspard Toussaint, the molly
comte
. But she didn’t know that yet, and what she didn’t know…might have her waking up one morning as a countess in the not-too-distant future.

Chapter Four

11 February 1820

Gaspard’s spent cock fell from between the glistening lips of Hubert Loureilles with a moist
plop
, and he stepped back, tucking himself into his trousers without fuss. His stomach was a hard knot of controlled nausea, the tingle of muted pleasure at the base of his spine immediately gone cold after finding release in his informant’s mouth.

This was what he did, what he excelled at, and after five years of whoring for his country, it shouldn’t poke at the little kernel of wrongness in his gut that he ignored in these situations. It was what it was—work. Clinical, methodical, soul-numbing
work
, and Gaspard was just soulless enough inside to do it without retching in a side alley afterward.

Though that hadn’t always been the case.

“My lord, you taste—” The short, rotund man stayed on his knees as his eyes fluttered closed, sweat dampening the thinning gray hair at his temples. “Thank you.”

“You know what I want, Hubert.” Gaspard glanced around the small office, noting its worn corners and soft colors. It was his third visit with the opera house’s manager, and his last. One conversation had revealed Loureilles’s desires, while a second had made it quietly understood that reciprocity was expected…and not in terms of sex.

Loureilles had information Gaspard needed. Gaspard had a cock Loureilles desperately wanted to get his mouth on. It had been a simple exchange, one that had now come to a precipitous end.

“The list.” He extended an expectant hand.

The other man blinked, absently patting his hands over the front of his waistcoat, as though feeling for something he’d misplaced. Eyes still glazed with desire stared up at Gaspard with a vulnerable longing that made him want to back away even farther.

“Don’t you want to…?” Loureilles tilted his head toward the simple divan upholstered in hideous gold-and-green brocade. The invitation was clear.

No.
“I have business to attend to.” And Gaspard was already late. “The list, monsieur.”

With a beleaguered sigh, Loureilles pulled a thrice-folded square of paper from the watch pocket of his waistcoat and placed it in Gaspard’s outstretched hand, then struggled to his feet.

Gaspard watched dispassionately, not offering his assistance as he secreted the paper into the fitted sleeve of his coat.

With a wince, the manager adjusted himself, the evidence of his unsatisfied arousal causing not even a twinge to Gaspard’s conscience. Loureilles’s natural inclination ran toward subservience, a characteristic Gaspard excelled at exploiting. “Make me,” whispered excitedly in his ear during his first encounter with Loureilles in one of the Académie Royale de Musique’s mirrored dance halls, had told Gaspard everything he needed to know about what the grandfatherly, dedicated bachelor required to garner his cooperation.

Not every mark was like Loureilles, though. Many of the men were lonely, and some of them kind, though their enforced loneliness often left them desperate for sex. In his time as a spy, he’d fucked intelligent men and stupid men, handsome men and ugly men, men who were highborn and common and boring and odd. But the reasons he visited them were never in pursuit of his own pleasure.

Now he had the list, and he had places to be that were not on
rue de Richelieu
. “Hubert, it was a pleasure,” he lied, collecting his hat, greatcoat and walking stick from a nearby chair and heading for the office door.

“Will you be back?” There was a plaintive note in the older man’s voice, scraping at the nerve endings bundled at Gaspard’s nape.

Arching an eyebrow, Gaspard paused to glance over his shoulder. He couldn’t afford to have Loureilles shoot his mouth off in a fit of rejected pique. “Perhaps. You’re not the only cock in my flock, you know,” he murmured flirtatiously, knowing Loureilles enjoyed that, as well—the idea that he was only one in a stable of lovers, but part of that stable nonetheless. “
Adieu.
”

By the time Gaspard made it to the cobbled street, dark and wet from the day’s snowy slush, he’d managed to unclench his back teeth and blow even breaths through his nose. Calm and cool, both inside and out—that was what he always was, what he needed to be.

Using his thumbs to pop his coat collar, he turned into the wind, heading briskly toward his next destination. The extravagant mansion of François, the
duc d’Évoque
, was considered an artistic feat of Baroque architecture, a scaled replica of the famed Château de Chantilly, but suited for town living. Visiting dignitaries and pampered aristocrats from all corners of Europe often begged invitations to stay at Évoque’s palatial Parisian home.

Gaspard hated the place.

After countless midnight meetings in his employer’s private study over the course of half a decade, any magic or majesty found in visiting the fabled mansion had long worn off. It was beautiful, epitomizing the decadent wealth of an era that was supposed to have died years ago with Louis XVI, but Gaspard had lost his appreciation for such beauty during the course of his work.

At least, that was what he’d thought…until meeting Claudia Pascale.

His shameful secret, he mused wryly as a chilly blast of late-winter air buffeted his exposed skin. An overwhelming and oft-denied hunger for soft, luscious women. He shoved one gloveless hand into his coat pocket, the other gripped over the silver knobbed head of the walking stick, and let the cold sting the backs of his knuckles, trace the webbing of his scars. It didn’t matter that he had come no more than ten minutes ago—his blood heated at the very thought of her name, and he welcomed the vicious relief from his inconvenient lust offered by the wintry elements.

Two days had passed since their interlude in the closet, and the memory of her riding his fingers, suffering her very first orgasm in choked silence as he bruised her shoulder with his teeth, sent anticipation coursing through his tired body. Tomorrow night, she would attend Maxence’s soirée—a fact confirmed when Gaspard had snuck into the baron’s elegant townhouse and sorted through the neat stack of replies—and Gaspard would find an excuse to steal her away, tempting her with release once more.

She wanted out from under her parents’ thumbs, but she’d set her sights on the wrong man. It seemed unlikely that she would have convinced Sabien to kiss her between that night in the linen closet and tomorrow evening, and even if she did, no mere kiss would seduce the lusty lieutenant into marriage. If ten thousand pounds couldn’t do it, nothing would.

So Gaspard would sway Claudia Pascale with seduction, and eventually she’d give him what he needed: a means of cutting all ties with the power-mad master he begrudgingly served. Ten thousand pounds…

Ten thousand pounds was salvation.

A gust of freezing wind slammed into him, and he reached up to grip the brim of his hat, keeping it from blowing away to disappear down the midnight-blanketed streets. The closer he came to the river, the more vibrant the city grew. Carriages clanked by, raucous laughter echoing from within, and drunken groups of revelers spilled from doorways, exclaiming in surprised tones about the bitter cold as they clumped together to hurry to the scene of their next round of merriment.

The harsh weather in no way staunched Paris’s constantly social climate, a fact Gaspard usually appreciated. He’d move from party to party, event to event, either on some business of Évoque’s or following in the wake of his colleagues. Anything to keep from sitting alone and thinking. Remembering. If he couldn’t plot or scheme or run himself ragged on an errand in the name of God and country, he tried to lose himself in sleep. And when the need grew too much to bear, he would lose himself in a brothel on the opposite bank.

With Claudia and her money, he’d not only free himself of the constant reminders of his past, he’d never have to pay for a woman again, because he’d own one. A wife. He could just…be.

Gaspard had never in his life
just been
.

The shadows clung to him as he turned down the block that led to the sprawling rear gardens of Évoque’s stunted castle. Shouldering his way through a wrought-iron gate bearing the duke’s scarlet crest, Gaspard glanced at the back of the mansion. No light filtered through the tall panes of glass onto the veranda, an element of the original structure at Chantilly that hadn’t existed but was a necessity for town living and entertaining. Those in residence, or any of the numerous guests who attended the duke’s lavish bimonthly balls, often slipped through the doors to the veranda, rushing down either of the stone staircases flanking it to disappear into the gardens for an illicit tryst or two.

A golden glow warmed a trio of windows on the second floor, capturing Gaspard’s attention and distracting him so that he didn’t sense the presence behind him until a heavy hand landed on Gaspard’s shoulder. Whirling, he tossed the walking stick to his other hand and flicked his wrist, releasing the leather tie of the sheath riding his forearm, the gleaming blade it held sliding neatly into his palm. In less than a second, he stood battle-ready, and it was only a curse in muttered Russian that halted Gaspard with the walking stick already raised to strike. “Faron?”

Audric Faron, the fourth in their wicked quartet of spies and ne’er-do-wells, glared at Gaspard from where he’d stumbled back against a decorative hedge. “You’re the most paranoid bastard I’ve ever met, you know that?” His native French was as low-class as Gaspard’s could be when he wasn’t paying attention to his enunciation.

With a dark chuckle, Gaspard returned the knife to its hiding place and quickly retied the leather strap in a knot designed to come loose with a specific rotation of his wrist. He’d practiced it for hours when he had first started carrying the knife, years ago, but those hours had paid off. He had long since lost count of the number of instances in which he’d needed to use the weapon or else forfeit his life.

“Dangerous times.” He eyed the dark-hued garb the shorter, broad-shouldered man wore. “Been visiting our friend the duke?”

Faron’s scowl didn’t dissipate. “He’s got something up his sleeve, something deadlier than that knife of yours. Just don’t know what it is.” He paused, glancing warily at the mansion at Gaspard’s back. “Yet.”

“It doesn’t matter. Another couple days, and Sabien says we’re free.”

Faron shook his head. “Men like us are never free, Toussaint.” Gripping the collar of his woolen pea jacket, he tugged it closer to his neck. “You get the list?”