The Corrupt Comte (8 page)

“Yes. Want to see it?”

The look Faron gifted him with was both derisive and pitying, and Gaspard suddenly recalled that the other man couldn’t read. Shrugging, he pulled the list from inside the sleeve that didn’t house his knife. “I’m about to hand it over to Évoque.”

Faron narrowed the distance between them, lowering his voice. “Did you read it first?”

“No.” Honestly, Gaspard didn’t care whose names were on that list. He’d lived this long by not sticking his nose in his employer’s business and doing only what he was told. It rankled, but it kept him alive.

Faron grunted. “Read it to me.”

“Why—?”

“Just read me the names. One of us should know, and he’ll burn the list the minute he’s done with it.”

Gaspard unfolded the small sheet of paper he’d earned by prostituting himself to the opera-house manager. Too dark to decipher the letters scrawled on it. “Follow me. Under the window.” He glanced up again at the windows he’d noticed earlier, hurrying to stand near the shaft of light seeping through the sheer curtains providing the room’s occupant with a semblance of privacy.

Lifting the paper toward the light, he skimmed it, then whispered to Faron, who stood on watch to his left, eyes scanning the garden for any sign of movement. “Renaud. Vireux. Louvel.”

“Again.”

“Renaud. Vireux. Louvel.” Gaspard pocketed the list. “They’re stable hands at the opera house.” It didn’t take a genius to determine the duke’s plan. Pinning the blame for some horrible act on an unsuspecting commoner was an old game, and one Évoque had made habit over the years. “Do you know what he’s having us do this time?”

“I’m sure he’s about to tell you.” Faron shifted farther from the light. “We’ll meet tomorrow night, you and me and the others.”

“Max has his party tomorrow night.” And Gaspard had a woman to win.

“Sometime after midnight, then, in Denney’s study. We need to talk this through.” Without another word, Faron sprinted silently away from Gaspard, toward the rear gate and vanishing into the night.

A shadow moved across the window, across the ground below, and Gaspard sidled back against the cold stones at the mansion’s foundation. He lifted his gaze to the glass panes, two stories over his head, and shivered at the prospect of warming himself outside and in, with a blazing fire and a glass of fine whisky. Enough of this wind, he decided, and made his way to the side entrance nestled in the foot of a turret. It was the door Évoque’s spies had been trained to use, from the first day of their covert lives onward. Gaspard was all too familiar with it.

He left his hat and coat at the foot of the curving staircase that had been constructed between the turret’s chambers and the exterior wall, replacing the list of names up his sleeve and straightening the lace cuffs at his wrists. When he slid free the hidden panel door into Évoque’s study, Gaspard appeared every inch the impeccably attired aristocrat, complete with an expression of acute boredom.

“Your Grace,” he murmured blandly as he fell into an elegantly upholstered chair.

The man who wanted to be France’s next prime minister was settled comfortably behind his desk, his hands folded over a stomach that had softened only slightly upon reaching his middle years. “Congratulate me, Gaspard. I am soon to be married.”

Gaspard studied the polished buckles on his shoes, noting the flecks of grime collected from his walk through the streets. “Congratulations.”

Évoque rolled his eyes. “You could at least sound like you mean it.”

“Apologies, Your Grace.” Slouching lower in his chair, letting his chilled bones warm, Gaspard tapped one shoe buckle with the end of his walking stick. “I didn’t know you were in the market for a wife.”

“I was married once before, you know. There are many benefits to having a wife.” The duke’s tone was sly, superior.

Gaspard’s back teeth ground together. “Did you share your good news with Faron?” he asked pointedly.

Évoque frowned at him. “Watch your tongue. Even my walls have ears.”

“Then I assume you’d want me gone all the quicker.” Gaspard pulled the list from his sleeve, tossing it carelessly atop the duke’s desk. “For you, Your Grace.”

Sure enough, Faron had been right. As soon as Évoque had read it, he held it over the flame of his desk lamp and let the paper burn between his fingers.

When the duke once again leaned back in his chair, he eyed Gaspard suspiciously from beneath a graying brow. “Had you read it?”

“No,” Gaspard lied, punctuating the falsehood with a beleaguered sigh. “Faron mentioned you might have news to share?”

Évoque stared up at the ceiling. “You may have heard a rumor that your…service has come to a close.”

“Indeed.” It was the day Gaspard had been waiting for, ever since he realized his title and lands had been a bribe. A bribe he’d been stupid enough to snatch up without questioning its attached strings.

“I suppose it’s less a rumor than an eventuality. There’s only one more task that I need—that France needs—you to do.”

“And that is?”

“What do you know about the Duke of Berry?”

Charles Ferdinand, the Duke of Berry, was the nephew of the violently deceased Louis XVI and current king, Louis XVIII. After his father, the
comte d’Artois
, Berry was the last of the Bourbon dynasty. No other legitimate male heirs to the French throne existed.

Gaspard had a bad feeling about this.

He cleared his throat. “I know who he is, of course. Why?”

“Later this week, Berry will be attending the Paris Opera. On the thirteenth of February, to be exact.”

Make that a very bad feeling. “Oh?”

“I had initially planned to go to the opera myself, but it turns out that I’m hosting a party that night. To announce my engagement.” Évoque waved a hand toward Gaspard. “Not to mention there’s a positively deadly chill in the air these days. Perhaps you would be interested in attending, in my stead?”

The coded speech was clear enough. Berry would go to the opera, likely with his pretty wife by his side, and it was Gaspard’s job—and perhaps Faron’s, as well—to see that he didn’t leave the opera house alive. And given the list of saddlers’ names, one of those men would have the blame for the assassination laid at his feet.

“I do so love the opera,” Gaspard muttered. Raising his voice, he said, “My sincerest congratulations on your forthcoming nuptials. Who’s the lucky bride-to-be?”

“She and her parents are my houseguests. My father and her grandfather were well acquainted years ago, and it would be a solid match.” Warming to his subject, Évoque arched a coy eyebrow. “And I’m tired of being a widower.”

Gaspard murmured something unintelligible, resuming his play with the walking stick. It was a beautiful piece, smooth ebony wood with an ivory inlay and silver filigree knob. But the faint inscription circling the top was the best bit, by far.

To the captain of my heart, Marcel de Courreaux. Fight bravely, my love.

He smiled grimly. Yes, that inscription was indeed why he carried it everywhere.

“…pretty enough, I suppose,” Évoque was saying. “Doesn’t say much.”

Gaspard stilled, unease gathering at his nape. “Oh?”

It was as though the other man hadn’t heard him. “In fact,” he continued, frowning slightly, “I don’t think I’ve spoken with her once.” Again, he waved a hand. “No matter. A wife is a wife.”

“What did you say her name was?”

“I didn’t. But it’s Pascale. Claudette, or something. Sounds French, I know, but she’s English on her mother’s side.”

“I see.” She hadn’t said she was engaged. Two nights ago, with his fingers slicked in her wetness, she hadn’t said a word about an engagement to a high-ranking duke possessed of vast wealth, aging good looks and political power unlike any Gaspard had encountered.

This was bad. This meant Gaspard couldn’t wait until tomorrow to see her—he had to find her tonight. Seduce her tonight. And if, after that, she didn’t choose him of her own volition… Well. He’d force her hand.

He was good at that sort of thing. Very good.

That said, he needed a strategy, immediately. “Is she royal?” he asked innocently, knowing quite well the answer.

Évoque shook his head. “No, furthest thing from it. Merchant class, but so much money. Like you wouldn’t believe.”

Oh, Gaspard
would
believe. He’d believe to the tune of ten thousand pounds and go to heaven with a choir of angels in his ear. “Not that you need it.”

Évoque laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “One always needs more money. And there are other…benefits.”

That laugh made long-buried memories want to rise up like the dead and walk under a yellow moon. His stomach turned. His mind blanked. Phantom dirt caked his palms, and his knees ached suddenly, as though he’d been thrown to kneel on the ground.

Benefits.
His heart was a sluggish thing in his chest. Whether for her body or her money, Gaspard had to marry Claudia Pascale. He couldn’t leave her to suffer Évoque’s
benefits
.

“You ought to find yourself a bride like mine, Gaspard. Rich and young.”

Gaspard struggled to remember his role, to keep his tone light and teasing. “And what use would I have for a rich, young bride?”

“For the bride? Nothing. For her money…” Évoque leaned forward, planting his elbows on his cluttered desktop, and clucked his tongue consolingly. “I hear you’re about to lose your lands.”

Évoque had manipulated those lands and the accompanying title into Gaspard’s scarred hands five years ago, all while knowing the extent of the back taxes owed on the property long before they came under Gaspard’s stewardship. He’d known Gaspard could never hope to pay off the debt then, just as surely as he knew Gaspard couldn’t do so now—especially with his wages more than a month in arrears. But now was not the time to mention the money Évoque owed him.

That would happen after Gaspard killed the Duke of Berry.

“You should know better than to listen to gossip, Your Grace.” He rose, heading for the secret paneled door from which he’d entered. He chose his next words carefully. “After all, think of the gossip if society knew your future bride was already ensconced here, in your home.”

Évoque affected an affronted expression. “There’s nothing untoward occurring between me and the mademoiselle. I placed her in the wing opposite my own.”

Which was what Gaspard had wanted to know. And it meant the windows on the second floor he’d seen were likely hers, their light like a beacon in the darkness. “Of course. My apologies.”

The duke stood, watching Gaspard intently. “So…you’ll be going to the opera this week?”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

Évoque smiled. “Excellent.”

Just as Gaspard stepped through the panel door and into the stairwell encircling the turret’s chambers, Évoque called out, “Oh, and, Gaspard? Don’t be seen.”

Whether that was in reference to tonight or to his upcoming mission at the opera, Gaspard couldn’t tell, and he didn’t bother with an answer as his jaw clenched shut. He merely inclined his head and embraced the dark of the stairwell, the door closing behind him.

Two options faced him. He could go down and retrieve his hat and coat, then hurry home to his shabby bachelor apartments several long blocks away from the palaces dotting the riverbank. Or he could go up. Up to the guest quarters. Up to the lighted windows. Up to Claudia.

He went up.

When the war had ended and their lives as official spies for Crown and country first began, Évoque had encouraged Gaspard, Sabien, Max and Faron to make arrangements…the inference being that France might someday no longer be a safe place for them to call home. Sabien, as the third son of a marquis and a decorated officer—one who had survived the White Terror following Napoleon’s Hundred Days because he’d already been spying for the exiled king—had family living in Scotland he could turn to. Max was a baron, beloved by society and absolutely the last man anyone would suspect of being a spy, which meant he was likely safe where he was—and if he wasn’t, he had plenty of money to fund his escape. As for Faron…well, Faron could take care of himself.

But Gaspard was spiraling. His lies would be the death of him if he didn’t play this right, and he wanted to believe his instincts—instincts that told him Claudia Pascale was his game-winning piece.

Évoque couldn’t possess her. Sabien couldn’t appreciate her.

His walking stick struck the door leading to the second level of suites, and he opened it slowly, silently. A pair of sconces cast faint light in the hallway, revealing one heavy-paneled door after another. He closed his eyes briefly, visualizing in his mind the layout of the mansion he’d memorized long ago, trying to focus on where he’d seen those windows.

Holding his breath, he strode down the hallway, hearing the
snick
of the secret door as it latched behind him. Twenty feet, thirty, and—

He paused. A sound, coming from behind a tall door not five feet ahead of him on his right… He knew that sound. It was the same sound he’d heard two nights ago in a linen closet, coming from between the bite-stung lips of a woman he’d tied up and blindfolded.