Read Online Cinderella Six Feet Under by Maia Chance - Free Book Online Page B

ominous, fairy tale relic–collecting pair. Although Gabriel did not count Lord and Lady Cruthlach as friends, he had done business of sorts with them before, and their Paris address was recorded in his notebook.
    While Gabriel waited for his answer, he enlisted the hotel concierge to make discreet inquiries as to whether a lady fitting Henrietta’s description was registered in any of the finer hotels in Paris. He also requested that the concierge make a similar investigation into the passenger lists of steamships that had sailed from France in the last week. Henrietta could have left by rail or coach, but there was no way to check on that.
    Then there was the matter of the convent in which Sybille Pinet had been schooled. The landlady had said its name had something to do with stars. He requested a list of every convent orphanage in Paris.
    These inquiries would come at great expense to Gabriel, but he did not much care. He had inherited his father’s vast estate along with his title, and having neither a wife nor any costly vices, he was somewhat at a loss as to how to spend it.
    Next, Gabriel walked several blocks to the florist’s shop of the trade card found in Miss Pinet’s crate. The fashionable shop was perfumed by blooms that glowed like sickbed dreams in the cold, gray afternoon. It was warm inside, and thick with smartly dressed ladies. The shopkeeper merely laughed when Gabriel asked if he could recall a lady matching Henrietta’s description. Customers were blurs to persons in such trades. A dead end, then.
    When Gabriel returned to his hotel from the florist’s shop, the messenger boy had his answer: Lord and Lady Cruthlach would gladly receive him. Immediately.
    *   *   *
    Lord and Lady Cruthlach’s mansion would have done rather nicely as an illustration in a gothic horror novel: pointed black turrets, leering monkey gargoyles, leaded windows, evil-looking spires. Up on the roof, crows bobbed up and down, cawing.
    Gabriel rapped on the front door. When it opened, a red-haired ogre of a manservant filled the doorway. Hume. Gabriel had met him before, unfortunately. Hume’s scarlet livery coat could have fit a bull. His knee breeches terminated in gold braid, and white silk stockings encased his Highland clansman’s calves. His feet were shod in scarlet satin, Louis-heeled slippers as big as soup tureens.
    â€œGood afternoon, Hume,” Gabriel said.
    â€œHis Lordship and Her Ladyship await, Lord Harrington,” Hume said in a gravelly Scots accent.
    In the upstairs sitting room, draperies shut out the day. Upholstered furniture, carved tables, and sumptuous rugs clogged the stifling hot chamber. The throbbing, orange fire threw everything into velvety silhouette.
    â€œHe comes,” a creaky voice said. “Wake up, my love, he comes.”
    Hume took up a post against the wall.
    Gabriel approached the fire. Two forms slumped side by side on a sofa.
    â€œLord and Lady Cruthlach,” Gabriel said. “How delightful to see you.” He
had
hoped never again to lay eyes on this accursed pair. “How long has it been? Two years? Three?”
    â€œThree, dear Lord Harrington, three.” Lady Cruthlach tipped her undersized head and smiled, revealing teeth as perfect as a little child’s.
    Ivory teeth, surely. Not . . . a little child’s.
    Lady Cruthlach’s too-bright eyes sunk into her crumpled face. Her sparse yellowed hair was dragged back from an aristocratic, high forehead and fastened with jeweled hairpins. The jewels emphasized the shining flesh of her scalp.
    Gabriel forced himself to kiss her mottled hand.
    â€œ
Why
,” Lord Cruthlach wheezed beside her, “why does he stand? Rohesia, why? He blocks the light. He blocks the warmth. My bones ache from the
cold
, Rohesia, oh!”
    Legend had it that Athdar Crawley, Lord Cruthlach, had once been one of the tallest, proudest gentlemen in the