Page 89 of Lord Ashley's Beautiful Alibi
Kane stood. “Where is he?”
“In the small parlor. Do you wish…?”
“Brandy. Wine. Crudities. Whatever Chef has.” Kane turned to her. “Come meet him?”
“Yes, I will dress and be down as soon as possible. Corsini, send me my maid.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ramsey stood bythe fire, his hands behind his back.
Kane noted the characteristic set of his friend’s shoulders and wide stance, which implied the man’s ease. Kane had to stop on the threshold and shake himself at the surprise of it.
Ram heard the hall door open and spun. A smile greeted Kane.
“Good God, am I happy to see you!” Kane strode, arms out to embrace the man whose fate he had worried over for weeks.
They patted each other on the back, then broke apart.
“Come sit down.”
Ramsey was usually sartorially well turned out. Tonight he wore a finely tailored frock and waistcoat, a simply tied cravat, and fawn breeches and boots. All of it was dark and modest, as that of a bourgeois merchant. Ram was clean-shaven and had added a splash of woodsy cologne. All of that told that he had prepared for a secret trip here and that, in doing so, he was at comfort.
“I came in the back door through the gardener’s shed and up into your orangery.” Ram arched a burnished brow in humor as he crossed one leg over the other. “We are newly arrived in Paris. I wished you to be the first to know.”
“Madame St. Antoine is with you?”
“She is. And has been in my company for many weeks now. She is healthy, whole, a challenge—and at times a real hellcat.”
Kane burst into a short laugh. “Whatever the circumstances, I am overjoyed, Ram, that you found her and that both of you are well. I feared. But then, I am sure you know what misery that was. I am thrilled you are here and well. You look, dare I say, happy?”
“Please!” Ramsey grimaced as he fastened his pale blue eyes on Kane. “Grace me with no flowers, Whit. The duty to find the lady was nothing to the challenge of persuading her to allow me the honor of protecting her.”
Despite his words, Ram looked nothing other than sated. How could that be? Kane was used to looking at his friend and seeing in his demeanor an irritable lack of contentment. A restless need to do, to acquire, to seize, to enjoy. But as Ram fixed him with a generous smile, Kane saw that something in the past weeks had changed his friend.
“Amber and I arrived in Paris day before yesterday. We read in a scandal sheet you recently married Augustine Bolton. I bring you congratulations from Amber and from me, my friend.”
“Thank you. We are, I am pleased to say, very happy.”
“I am thrilled for you. It is what you needed.”
Kane was shocked at Ram’s concession to the power of love. Kane grinned at his use of the term, even if it was only in his mind and not on his lips. But that was what his life was now. He was a man in love with his wife. That Ram, who had always scoffed at sentimentality, would offer this spoke of Ram’s own change of disposition, if not, indeed, his change of heart.
“I did. But no man voices it, does he?” Kane said with a sharp laugh.
“Never good for one’s image.” Ram ran a hand down his thigh. “Let me get to this. I come for a few reasons. I want them said quickly, and then I return to Amber. I do not want her without me for long. I have hired men as guards, but you knowhow that goes. You have five, your opponent has ten. It’s never safe for long.”
“Do you fear Vaillancourt knows where you are?”
“I gather your wife has told you how he hounds Amber.”
Amber had obviously shared much with Ram about her own life and Vaillancourt’s pursuit of her. “She has. We encountered one of Vaillancourt’s men in Varennes.”
Ram sat forward, frowning. “You were there?”
“After the two of you left. We talked with Madame Verne and her daughter, Solange. They were helpful. But we met one of Vaillancourt’s men in the town, and he is dead now.”
“How?” Ram went stiff with shock.
