Page 73 of Lord Appleby's Gorgeous Imposter
She couldn’t. “I don’t understand.”
“Why she worked for me?” He rolled a shoulder.
She smacked the glass on a nearby table and shook her head at him. “Tell me!”
He smiled. “Two gold Louis was pitiful payment.”
“You needed more.”
“It was my price for taking Diane. A good one, it was, too! I received information from Charmaine about London men in politics that few others ever got. I embellished my name, my reputation with my female agent in London. Charmaine was very good. I am sad to lose her. So gaining only you here instead, you see, is damn irritating. I cannot detain you. It gets me nothing. And I have had a recent”—he flourished a hand—“setback to my professional reputation. I dare not make another by turning in the innocent sister of my agent in London and having anyone learn that you are not Charmaine Massey, but her bastard sister, Vivienne.”
Viv could barely think, let alone stand. But he had mentioned Tate.
“Go quickly, mademoiselle, before I change my mind.” He swept a hand to the door.
“What of Lord Appleby?”
“Ah, yes.” He grinned once with those dead eyes. “I have to salvage something from this disaster. If I cannot have the beautiful female spy who worked for the British against me, then I take one of the ones the British have sent.”
“No. Where is he?”
“Why gone to Carmes, my dear. Where else would I send him? Carmes Prison.”
Chapter Fifteen
Viv whirled fromVaillancourt to the hall. To the stairs. Blind, groping to find a reality amid the nightmare the man painted for her, she struggled to go on. With each step, she felt despair grab her and squeeze the air from her. If he had taken Tate, she would find him. Free him.
But she made the staircase, seized the railing, and flew away from him and his vile words.
She rounded the landing, and at the bottom stood an illusion of hope.
She halted. Vaillancourt’s boots on the stairs announced his presence behind her. She blinked at the sight before her. Then shut her eyes.
She opened them and confirmed what she saw.No fantasy, this.
Tate stood in the foyer, four men armed with pistols behind him. The majordom of Vaillancourt stood at attention at the foot of the stairs. He was wide-eyed, incredulous.
“Come down, sweetheart.” Tate smiled softly at her, but then skewered Vaillancourt with his fierce blue-green eyes. “Come quickly, darling. My men and I have this under our control.”
She took the last steps down to walk to Tate’s side. He took her hand. Carefully, he stepped backward with her to the entrance door.
“I suggest, monsieur,” Tate growled to the deputy chief of police, “you replace your house guard. They need to be sacked for dereliction of duty. As for the men you trained to track mademoiselle and me, well, monsieur, I grant you that they are good. They eluded me for a while. But like the others, eventually they let down their watch.”
He assisted Viv over the threshold, but at once turned back. “You will find it fruitless to summon any new men to guard you here today. At a time of my choosing, my men will disperse, but you will not know how many I still have surrounding the house and preventing you or any of your staff from leaving to sound an alarm.”
One of Tate’s men took her arm and led her up into an unmarked carriage at the curb. Tate quickly followed and sat down beside her.
A man slammed the carriage door.
At once, Viv was in Tate’s embrace.
The horses raced away through the streets of Paris. She did not ask where they went. She had no mind to process the revelations of Vaillancourt.
Two armed men on horseback followed. The four who had been in Vaillancourt’s foyer waited until the carriage left. Viv watched out a window and saw them disperse like fog as the carriage rounded the corner.
Tate gave her a once-over, then, with a hand to her cheek, he kissed her lips. “That is done. I see you thinking on what happened between you and him. Whatever it is, I do not wish to know now, or even later. It will be as you wish. But we are safe, we are guarded, and we must be away and out of the city.”
She nodded, grateful for his unerring good sense. She could not fathom all she had heard from Vaillancourt.
