Page 2 of The Assassin and the Libertine
He groaned in pain and glared at me.
“You’re with them, then.The Order.Didn’t think they allowed women in.”
“Yes, well, what a lesson for you to learn today.We are everywhere.Too bad you won’t be able to share that news with your filthy parasite friends, eh?”
The dying footman rasped a laugh, coughing up a trickle of black blood that steamed in the cold room.
“It won’t matter if you’reeverywhere. It won’t matter how many you are, how much money the aristocracy has or how good The Order’s spies are. None of it will save you from what’s coming.”
A chill went up my spine that had nothing to do with the snow blowing in through the open terrace doors.
“What’s coming?” I demanded, leaning in.
“La mort.”
His eyes dulled on a final exhale, and the young vampire Giles sagged against the wall. I dragged his body to the balcony and heaved it over, leaving it in the snow-dusted bushes foranother agent to find and dispose of. I never asked anyone at The Order what they did with the bodies of all the vampires we dispatched. Truthfully, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
After setting the room and my gown to rights, I exited the study and made my way to the dining room. I passed a note to a footman—a coded message for The Order that readassignment complete, target retrieval requested—and sat next to the Leech, who would no doubt boast about spending the entirety of the evening flirting with the Duchesse de Duras, thus providing me with an unattractive, dim-witted, but unquestionable alibi.
The remainder of the evening passed as planned. Giles likely wouldn’t be discovered missing until the morning and, even then, people would suspect he’d run off with one of the “missing” housemaids. Even though the job was done, a whisper of unease went through me at his dying words. I tried to dismiss it as a final attempt to frighten me, or swear some kind of undead vengeance, but I didn’t really believe that. Giles knew something.
Death.Death was coming.
ÉTIENNE
That Same Evening
Palace of Versailles
Just before her pleasure crested,my fangs lengthened and I nipped firmly at her thigh, drawing the blood I needed tosurvive. I’d waited too long to feed again, and the hunger clawed at my insides. I forced myself to take only what she could give without suffering. Fortunately, it was enough.Barely.
“Très magnifique,”she panted, reaching for me. “Now I understand what Yvette meant when she said you were a delightful beast.”
The marquise giggled and sighed. I lifted my head from beneath her hideous orange skirts and grinned wolfishly at her, but the words had stung.
A delightful beast.
“What would the marquis say if he found you in bed with such a beast?”
The marquise snorted and stood from the chaise we’d been enjoying. She adjusted the bodice of her unfashionable gown and straightened the powdered mass of curls atop her head.
“He stupidly thinks I don’t know about his penchant for the servant girls. If I were interested in catching his eye, I’d just have to don some depressing brown wool and bow gracelessly before bringing him dinner.”
The Marquise de Balay was a dangerous conquest. She was fiercely intelligent, wealthy as sin, and, because she was a distant relation to the king, her witless husband enjoyed an impressive set of privileges at court. Her opinions formed his, and so if I needed help to sway the king’s mind, I needed her manipulations at my disposal. Despite her unfortunate taste in clothing, the marquise was a powerful influence.
“He wouldn’t be offended to find his wifefraternizingwith a vampire?” I pressed.
She cut me a disdainful look and arched a supercilious brow.
“Possibly. But you’re not like the rest of them, are you? Your father was the former Vicomte de Noailles. Even if he was disgraced, you come from noble blood. The rest of those plague bloodsuckers are all peasants, aren’t they? Farmers. Thepoor.You’re the king’s appointed emissary and advisor on how to deal with thesanguisugemenace. You aren’t really one of them,” she sniffed.
She left off,you aren’t really one of us, either,but the words seemed to hang in the air, nonetheless.
Anger burned through me at her distaste toward my family and my kind. With a flare of disappointment, I realized she wouldn’t be willing to join my cause.Vampire rightswere a joke to the over-primped peacocks mincing through the halls of Versailles. She didn’t see the tension stretching between the classes—the danger we were all in as the impoverished vampire populace grew. She, like the rest of the court, was blind to the true threats to France. Terror would not come from the battles fought on foreign soil. It would come from within.
And nobody would heed my warnings.
“Besides, The Order will certainly stop them,” she offered casually. She was replacing her diamond chandelier earrings—fat, colorless stones that winked in the candlelight.
