Page 17 of Lord Ashley's Beautiful Alibi
“I eat better now and worry less.”
“You have a few more acres to broaden your yield and decrease your headaches.”
“I do. For that land, I am grateful. That it also puts me in the sights of the tax collectors and Fouché, I am not so delighted.”
Kane offered the chair once more. “Please sit, and let us not speak of that man until we must. Tell me instead how your family is.”
Luc sucked in air. “Ma mèreis ailing. My mother took to her bed many years ago after my sister and her husband were taken in the tumbrels to the guillotine.Mon pèredied last spring. My younger sister, Inès, at age twenty, is now the terror of the family. She is, to put it finely, beautiful. She knows it and seeks to use it to find a wealthy man. We tell her to find only a good one, but she flirts with anything that looks wealthy.”
“And you?” Kane topped up his friend’s snifter and poured a generous dollop for himself. “Have you married?”
Luc shook his head and took his time to respond. “I am a widower. My wife died in childbirth two years ago, and I think I may never find another her equal. She was my everything.”
Kane took the chair opposite his friend and sipped the cognac. He did not dare to ask if the baby had lived. “My condolences, Luc.”
“I survive. My mother tells me I must marry again before I lose my ability to create fine babies, but I see no one who appealsto me. I go on. I have my mother and my sister to care for, twenty-two tenants in the vineyards, and an ancient chateau of…I don’t know, perhaps forty rooms. I have not counted. I have no time.”
“Are you in Paris often?”
“No. I am currently here in residence in the Brissac house. I paid the fines and the taxes on it, sovoila! I get to use it when I come to town to sell in the city.”
“I want to talk to you about your production, and hope we can arrange export to Britain of your wine.”
“Now that times are less chaotic, we produce double what we did in the last decade. Plus people wish to live and forget what we did to each other. We have a great demand for wine here in France. So I don’t know if I can give you the quantity you would wish. But we can talk.”
“That is the future.”
“Agreed. But we must speak of other issues now,” Luc said with serious eyes. “It is why I am here.”
Kane took a drink. “Tell me.”
“I am in the city to talk with those who make barrels for us. I was in a café this afternoon and saw Diederich Fournier. I had no idea he was in Paris. He said he works with you and told me where you are.” Luc put down his glass. “I would have come earlier in the evening and been more appropriate, but I had an invitation to a dinner party that I could not refuse. It is fortunate I did not cancel.”
“Why?”
“I understand you seek to increase the exports from France and imports from Britain. Many in wine have learned of your mission. They spoke of it at tonight’s dinner. It is why I am here. And you must know it. There is a faction in the government—clerks, they are—who do not wish to export anything to Britain.They wish to see the Germans have it, or the Dutch. Even the Russians.”
Kane snorted. “If God can help them make it safe to travel so far.”
“Exactly.”
“Who does not wish to see us make a decent trade volume?”
“Vaillancourt.”
“I have met him.”
“He and his friends will stop the trade, they say, in any way they can.”
Kane was not surprised Vaillancourt was involved in illegal activities. Plus he was glad to have his friend’s input on it. Yet he had to appear surprised. “But what is the deputy of police doing mixing in trade issues?”
Luc gave a shrug. “Money, I hear. Is that not the usual motive?”
“I was under the impression that Bonaparte had ordered all graft and corruption to end. The man walks a fine line if he extorts or even influences others.”
“It is my understanding that Vaillancourt is involved in many schemes. Gossip only. But I knew you would want to know of his involvement.”
With a few more notes of warning about Fouché’s men as well as others, Luc left soon after via the back staircase. Kane had ordered Corsini to hail a public carriage from a back street.
