Page 32 of Lord Ashley's Beautiful Alibi
She needed to find Amber—and she needed help.
If she had nerve to ask for it.
*
“Yes, if youcould sign here…and here.” Kane breathed a sigh of relief as the sales agent for Sèvres china signed the invoices and shipping agreements. Kane had concluded the sales for the manufacture of a dinner service for one hundred for the Duke of Abingdon. The hard paste porcelain service of gold and jade with the duke’s insignia totaled twelve hundred and two pieces. The order was to be completed within the next year at the porcelain company’s manufactory south of Paris and shipped up the Seine and across the Channel swaddled in enormous sheets of muslin.
Kane eyed the man who had guaranteed the transfer of money, French financier Armand Vernon. He appeared pleased with the sale, the largest going to a private citizen. Much of Sèvres’s recent purchases were by the three consuls for use intheir official capacities. While that brought money in the door, it did nothing for the continued health or reputation of the porcelain manufacturer.
Monsieur Vernon rose to shake hands with thevendeur, Jules Lavigne. “Merci beaucoup, monsieur. We are happy to see your product receive such fine reception abroad.”
The little fellow beamed. “I am most pleased, Monsieur Vernon. This has been a happy experience. Especially becauseMonsieur le Comte d’Ashleyis so accommodating.”
“I assure you,” Kane said with his own hand out, “the entire experience has been a joy. Thanks to you, sir, an educational one, too. I now know the differences between hard and soft pastes.”
Kane cocked an ear. The tinkle of piano drifted through the closed doors of his study. The tune was familiar. Mozart, no less. Corsini did not play. No servant would dare. So then, a visitor with skills had come to call. And do what else?
His pulse jumped.
“We like to offer the world the best in brilliantly colored and durable porcelain.” Monsieur Lavigne smiled up at Kane. No more than five feet tall and very round, the Sèvres salesman was a jolly fellow who knew well his wares, but bartered the final price like a braying donkey. Just now, he lifted his head like one, too. “I say,Monsieur le Comte, that is an accomplished pianist to give us the Mozart so very well.”
Kane knew much of Mozart’s works. Had played them often himself. He had heard only one woman in Paris who played with such expertise, and that was at a party weeks ago.
He had not seen Augustine much lately. Briefly yesterday, he spied her outside a modiste shop on the Champs-Élysées. They had not talked, as she was with her maid. He had worried if Augustine were ill again…or she had decided he was not worth her time.
But now was she his pianist? Who else could it be? Would she come here? Unannounced?
He hoped. He feared the reason—and he could not get away from his guests fast enough.
“Is that your wife, perhaps?”
Kane offered up a look of pride. “A friend who visits.”
“Ah. A talented friend.” His brows quirking, Monsieur Lavigne tucked his sales papers inside his portfolio and latched it with a flourish. “Very fine, indeed.”
Kane nodded. “Thank you for everything. Mymajordomwill show you to the door.”
Vernon was right behind him. “I will see you soon, I wager. A Gobelin contract, I hear?”
“I do hope so,” Kane said with a fresh urgency, the chords of music flowing into his bloodstream with a desire hot for so sweet a June afternoon. “A bientôt, Monsieur Vernon.”
Kane counted to twenty, assured that by then his two visitors had followed Corsini down the marble stairs and out to the courtyard. With a restraint born of the need for a serene façade, he took the stairs down to his conservatory at the back of the manse.
The room, a pale blue with gilded molding of acanthus leaves and smiling cherubs, was stuffed with violins, one cello, a harp, cymbals, drums, and a fine old pianoforte painted in pink with decoupage along the base. Kane had passed through the small room when first he’d inspected the house.
Corsini had informed him that he could fit three rows of ten inside. “If you wish to host a musical evening.” His butler had grinned like a child with a sugar cake.
“Do I need reasons to entertain in Paris, Corsini?”
“Si, conte.You are a man alone. Dream of ways to invite the court to favor you.”
Kane took the hall toward the back of the house, knowing he had just discovered a reason to invite Society to his home.
He thrust open the double doors and smiled at his gorgeous pianist. “Mozart?”
“Do you like him?” she asked Kane without missing a note or even looking up at him.
“I like him more now.”
