Page 19 of Lord Appleby's Gorgeous Imposter
“Ah.” Tate laughed, catching a note of the scandalous in his friend’s baritone. “As a happily married man whose wife isenceinte, should you even admit you know of this scenery?”
“Trust is a necessary commodity of marriage,” said Kane with the arch of a black brow. “Besides, this house we must visit.”
“Do we have any official reason to accept?”
Kane leaned forward. “I am often invited. The host is related to a banking family, and I have a large purchase from him I’d like to conclude.”
“More barley?” Tate asked.
“Lyon silk.”
Tate was impressed. He knew one man who handled most of Lyon’s Paris stock. “Is it Montagne you speak of?” One of Paris’s old guard, returned now in the seemingly liberal atmosphere of the Consulate, and yet, by all accounts, even more licentious than he had been before.
“It is. I think we must go, you and I.”
“I hope the music is better.”
“More than that, Tate—my majordom Corsini tells me that two nights ago when theThéâtre de la Gaîtéwas dark, the leading lady was invited to Montagne’s.”
Tate ground his teeth. “Did she go?”
“No, she wrote and told him she would come tonight.”
“Hell.” Tate shot to his feet. “Time we bid our host here good night.”
*
Tate sat inKane’s carriage as it sped toward the infamous man’s house. He tapped his fingers on his knee, silently fuming about Viv’s recent social activities. The horses could not carry them to Île Saint-Louis in the middle of the Seine quickly enough. It was one thing for her to suddenly become notorious. Invited to Bonaparte’s suite in the Tuileries after a performance for an assignation, she insulted the first consul after he kept her waiting so long that she rebelled and left. That was an act that lifted her up as independent and endangered her with those in government. Other men would try to conquer her. She would be invited to more parties, other rendezvous, other bacchanals, sothat men could test her mettle. This particular salon that Kane took him to was one of those where a young lady of discreet upbringing should never be found.
Tate cursed silently. Viv would leave that house with him tonight. She must. She would not be mauled by such disreputable rogues. If he had to, he’d haul her out over his shoulder.
Why she went irritated him. He knew only one reason why she should go to this man’s house. The fellow was a relation of the banking family who had purchased her family home after they fled and Robespierre lost power. Certainly, buying it back seemed an unimportant goal, given all the years she’d been away. She hadn’t even gone to look at the house on her morning rides. So what she did here, other than acquaint herself with more and more of thebeau monde, was a mystery.
Still being a social butterfly might be a means to some end. What could she want?
God knew that Paris offered every pleasure a man—or woman—of means and imagination could want. Since the Bourbons had settled the religious wars between Catholics and Huguenots, improved the bridges and the streets, and encouraged the strolling vaudevillians and street plays, the capital city was home to every titillation one could imagine. In every corner of the city, one could find any vice on offer.
Gambling, dice, wresting, and racing were the milder entertainments. Gypsy fortune tellers roamed with men who claimed to be magicians. All peddled tobacco and snuff or hallucinogens. Just as ubiquitous were prostitutes catering to all tastes, genders, calibers, and prices. Children, cross dressers, even kidnapped virgins were available for an evening or weeks. Sale of opium or any other toxic substance in all their forms was a street trade. Everything could be had for a price.
With the end of the Terror, Parisians had taken up a natural fear of the extremes of human depravity. Nowadays, most Parisians tempered their appetites and turned to milder pleasures. In place of the lawlessness that had permeated the city, and much of the countryside too, people worked hard for their bread. Grain was expensive. The poor starved just as they had before anyone marched for lower taxes and more salt for their cellars. The fine gentlemen of the Directory had tried to institute some sense of order into society. Alas, when kindly persuasion did not work, and the directors called upon their three strongest leaders to form a new government, it was their new leader, their first consul, who called for even stricter order.
Bonaparte imbued his Minister of Police Fouché with the need for more men on his force. The consul ordered more and more newspapers shut down, street minstrels swept off the corners. Increased patrolling of the streets, especially at night—and more lamp lights to hinder thieves. Those with bigger ambitions to rob homes and businesses were discouraged by the patrols.
Yet for those who could afford it, and those whose reputations were oblivious to it, licentious entertainmentswereavailable. A man or woman just had to know where it was offered in just the right quantities. Often such diversions came from the those highest in Society.
Kane’s carriage idled in front of the blazing sconces set aside the doors of Monsieur Cyprien Montagne’s large and gracious house. Commissioned by the Jarre-Montagne family during LouisXIV’s childhood, Montagne House was ahôtel particulierof great fame. Situated at the tip of the Île Saint-Louis, the manse of creamy Parisian dressed stone commanded a view up and down the Seine. The courtyard and gardens had been designed by Le Nôtre, the famous landscape artist who’d finished Versailles, the Tuileries, and Vaux le Vicomte. Most inParis revered Montagne House as a national treasure, and no one had broken into it during the troubles. The grand dame stood as she had, glorious and intact, for more than a hundred and fifty years.
“Shall we?” Kane asked, straightening his frock coat, as eager as Tate to go inside.
“Have you been here before?” Tate was surprised Kane had accepted the invitation of the owner. Kane, very careful of his reputation, was head of the British envoys in Paris and acted as if he were the equal to the official British ambassador, Charles Whitworth. Kane’s current role as head of Scarlett Hawthorne’s agents was his secret one. To come here to Montagne House was off the mark for Kane, but in Paris, it had always been true that a man could go anywhere at any time—and even brag about it. Kane never would discuss coming here, but if good relations came of it, he valued it.
The owner of the house, Cyprien Montagne, was one of the last remaining members of a famous banking family who had dealt with the last king. The current owner had outlived that shame. Now Cyprien, no longer a banker himself, was a returned émigré, invited by Josephine and approved by Fouché. But he was a silver-haired roué of fifty years of age. A confirmed bachelor, he was known in his youth and now for abducting young girls from the countryside and selling them to anyone, male or female, who crossed his palm with the right number of coins, which he demanded be only gold ones.
Kane considered the elaborately molded iron front door with a grimace of distaste. They waited for the groom to open the carriage door. “Before I was married, yes, I was here. Once. Everyone should know of it, especially those in our line of work. Have you heard of the infamous Cyprien?”
Tate’s left eye twitched. “I’ve met him before. In ninety-seven. I was a green boy of twenty-three. The master and his two mistresses did a tableau. One I have not forgotten.”
“Word is the man has reformed.”
