Page 17 of The Secret of Flirting
“Servais is a French name,” she said stoutly.
“Actually, there are Servaises in Belgium, Sweden, Luxembourg, and Canada, as well as Dieppe, France.”
She didn’t even blink at the mention of Dieppe. “Are there? I had no idea. Nor do I care. This Monique Servais is nothing to me.” She arched an eyebrow. “And you still have not told me why you think I am she.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, annoyed. This wasn’t going as expected. “So you intend to brazen it out, do you?”
“Brazenwhatout? That I am some other woman pretending to be Princess Aurore? The idea is absurd.”
“I agree. But true, nonetheless.”
She shook her head. “You, monsieur, are quite mad.”
When she turned on her heel as if to head back inside, he caught her by the arm. “No more mad than you and the count if you think you can perpetrate a deception of such proportions without consequence.”
A cool smile crossed her lips as she faced him once more. Oh so delicately, she removed his hand from her arm. “Why would my country attempt such a thing at this critical moment in the negotiations? You must realize that such a tactic would be ludicrous.”
“It would be, indeed. Which is why I must know the reason for it.”
“You tell me. I have no idea.” As if to erase the feel of him, she rubbed her arm where he’d been gripping it. “But you must havesometheory.”
Sadly, he didn’t. He could think of no reason for the subterfuge. Yet.
“Well?” she prodded, obviously sensing the weak point in his argument.
He threw out the first thing that came to him. “Perhaps the princess is dead. And Chanay doesn’t want to lose its chance at having Belgium in its pocket.”
“The princess isn’t dead.” Just as he was about to pounce on that slip, she added, “She’s standing right before you.” Then she fluttered her fan again in what he’d come to realize was a telltale indication of her nervousness. “And if sheweredead, then how could anyone reasonably expect her to be made queen of Belgium? Unless you believe that the Rocheforts mean to put an impostor on the throne. Not only would they be risking the royal line, but such a conspiracy would require my subjects—excuse me, theprincess’ssubjects, according to you—to accept another woman in her place.”
Another woman.Gregory kept waiting for her to forget herself and say, “an actress,” which he had deliberately not mentioned as the impostor’s profession, but so far Mademoiselle Servais had been better at maintaining her role than he would have expected.
So Gregory fell back on his usual tactics—fix her with a stare, keep his silence, and wait for her to crumble. Unfortunately, she seemed to be familiar with the strategy, because she did the same thing to him. And as the silence between them lengthened, it gave him time to look her over, to remind himself of her sensuous curves, to be drawn in by her beauty.
Damn her.
Meanwhile, she’d shown no sign of being the least affected by him in that way. Though shewasan actress, which meant that showing no sign of her true feelings was her forte.
Apparently growing emboldened by his silence, she snapped, “Have you no answer to that?”
It was his move now. He’d best make it a good one. “For all I know, the Rochefortsdointend to put an impostor on the throne—someone they can manipulate, someone they can control. The real princess is not such a person. And thereisa resemblance between the two of you, after all, which might even be good enough to fool the citizens of Chanay.”
As he’d hoped, that seemed to startle her. The only reason this subterfuge was working was that no one outside Chanay had ever met the real princess. Including him. But Mademoiselle Servais needn’t know that.
“Are you saying that you and I have met before?” Her voice was strained. “Because I do not remember that. And I think I would remember a man of your sort visiting Chanay.”
He gritted his teeth to hear her persist in the deceptionstill. “Of course we’ve met before, as you well know. Not in Chanay but in Dieppe, where you lived as Mademoiselle Servais.”
That didn’t seem to faze her. “So you havenotmet me, then. And all your talk about the ‘real’ princess not being able to be manipulated is just... what? Speculation? Because you have some notion that I am this woman in Dieppe?”
“It’s not a notion, damn it!”
He caught himself. The chit was annoyingly adept at making him lose control of his temper. And if he’d learned anything from his youth with Father, it was that controlling one’s emotions was essential. Not only in his position, but in every aspect of life.
Forcing a measure of calm into his voice, he asked, “Why would I invent such a thing?”
“Because you once encountered a woman who looks like me, and have mixed us up.” A brittle smile crossed her lips. “You saw that poor likeness of me in theLady’s Monthly Museumand think that I look different. But men do not realize how easy it is for a woman to change her appearance merely with a touch of rouge to brighten the cheeks, a bit of kohl to darken the eyebrows. We can make them doubt their very eyes just with our crème pots. And we often do.”
True. Most men were unaware of such female secrets. But he was not just any man. Secrets were his game.
