Page 16 of Lord Ashley's Beautiful Alibi
“Do you keep your dagger on you always?” His hot—yet still icy—regard did not sweep down her body, yet his finesse triumphed over his lust.
She tingled. Her nipples hardened to points. Her reaction shamed her. She was immune to men like him—smooth, deliberate liars. “Luckily for you tonight, I do not take daggers to receptions.”
He inclined his head, his small smile full of regret. “Sadly for me tonight, I have not touched you.”
“Do not try.”
His starry gaze challenged her. “I never simplytry.”
Chapter Four
By the timeKane had drunk enough wine to cover his monitoring of Augustine’s movements the rest of the night, he was drained. Moreover, he was angry at himself for not being suaver. She would mark him off as rude and unworthy of her. He cursed his ready desire to amuse her. Fed up with himself, he had his carriage brought round and cursed his folly for the five-minute ride home.
He got down from his carriage, nodding his thanks to his groom. He still was not used to having all these people wait upon him—and he had fourteen of them, God preserve him. He needed every one for such an establishment as his grand mansion on Rue Saint-Honoré. Though he certainly wished he had fewer, he would have desired to have investigated each himself. For whatever good that would do him, which would be none. In France since the Terror, everyone told you what they thought you wanted to hear. Alas, fourteen servants would tell him fantasies he had no time to pursue.
Thehôtel particulierhismajordomCorsini had rented for him was a four-story, century-old marvel near the Champs-Élysées. Fronted by the buttery stone of the quarries to the north of Paris, the house was in the shape of a U, with gardens of evergreens and roses in the courtyard. The house, once the abode of the Rohan aristocracy of Britanny and Strasbourg, had lain empty until two years ago, when the Committee of Safetyhad appropriated it. The last family member who had lived in the house was a Rohan who had gone to the guillotine weeks after Marie Antoinette. Before the man had departed the house, he had ordered all the furniture covered, the china stored, and the Rohan jewels hidden. Four years later, when the committee opened it up, lo and behold, the mobs had not destroyed it. The furniture was intact. The china, too. But the jewels were nowhere to be found.
“You may wish to look for them,si,conte? They could be of great worth.” His olive-skinned Italian butler had told Kane much that first day they’d opened the house to the air and its future as the property of a British lord. “Rubies big as eggs, I have heard,conte.” The little Florentine did not address Kane often by his full title, as his lips could not, for some reason, deal with the pronunciation of Ash-leigh. Corsini’s articulation reminded him of Friendly’s, making Kane ponder the need for all butlers to enunciate precisely.
“I believe if I found the gems, Corsini, they would be the natural property of the consulate.”
“A shame.” The slender, elegantly attired man caught his wrists behind his back and rose on his toes. He refused to mourn much about rules and regulations of the French. He flourished a hand. “We Corsinis have no such tendency.”
“Or they might well belong to any Rohan family member still alive.”
The fellow had muttered his compliance, but as to how long he would comply, Kane feared the term was short.
“Bona sera, conte.” Corsini welcomed him home this evening from the Tuileries and took his hat and gloves.
Kane unbuttoned his frock coat and headed for the grand staircase to his suite.
“Uno momento, conte—you have a visitor.”
Kane spun. After one o’clock in the morning?
“I took the liberty to place him in the small salon with a fine cognac from Bordeaux.”
“His name?” Corsini knew his friends, Ramsey and Dirk. Since Kane took residence last week, the men had visited individually, and both had also been guests to dinner the night before last.
“Citizen Bechard. Is he not from the family of the old Comte de Brissac?”
Kane widened his eyes at the scope of what thismajordomknew about the world of Paris. The Rohans, servants, wine distributors, linen drapers, men who might claim an old aristocratic title but demurred. “You are well versed in so much, Corsini. Indeed, you are right. Bechard could be theconte, if he wished.”
But, smart man, Luc Bechard doesn’t.
Kane took the grand marble stairs two at a time.
Luc Bechard was one of the few fromancienfamilies who had survived the convulsions of the revolution these past eleven years. He owed that good fortune to the fact that when Robespierre ruled in the Reign of Terror, Luc had been a mere second cousin to the more famous Brissac counts. When the last count had gone bravely to the guillotine, he left the title vacant. Luc was the only male left in line. He eschewed the title, but took the duties along with the land in the Loire, which added to his abilities to produce goodchenin blanc. Kane had met Luc many years ago when he visited his Aunt Justine and her family in Amboise.
“Citizen!” Kane hailed his old friend from the open doors of his quaint salon. “I would ask what has taken you so long, but I am so pleased I have quite forgotten to be surly.”
The dark, exquisitely tailored man in the leather chair rose to his feet with a grin. “I came,Monsieur le Comte d’Ashley, as soon as my grapes allowed.”
The two men grasped each other with the hearty clasp only childhood memories induced. At arm’s length, they each contemplated the other.
“Taller,” said Luc with wide umber eyes. “More man,” he added with hands wide, measuring Kane’s shoulders.
“You are my match and always were,” Kane said. “You look well. No more problems with your lungs.” Luc had battled with pneumonia often as a boy.
