Read Online Lyon by Elizabeth Amber - Free Book Online Page A

ease.
    The man smiled indulgently down at Fleur as she filled his glass and chattered away. Grinning, she linked a hand through his arm and proceeded to flirt in her usual engaging manner, doing her best to attract him before one of the others did.
    In profile, his features were strong—a granite jaw, straight brow, and prominent, well-shaped nose. These were only slightly tempered by sensual lips, cheekbones flushed with good health, and glorious disorderly hair of many shimmering golden shades that hung almost to the line of his jaw.
    Juliette willed him to glance her way, so she might furtively study his face full on, but he didn’t.
    â€œWho is he?” she asked again.
    Valmont twitched at the question and she realized he’d completely forgotten her presence until she’d spoken.
    â€œLord Lyon Satyr.” He tapped the fingertips of both hands together under his chin in tiny soundless claps. He sounded almost giddy.
    â€œLyon.” Turning back to the screen, Juliette tasted the name, exploring its shape and texture in her mouth and testing its flavor on her tongue. It suited him.
    Valmont returned to his study as well. “Is the name familiar to you?”
    He was testing her. The purpose for which they met here prior to these Thursday night soirées was to allow him to school her on the backgrounds of his guests. He made it his business to know every detail of their circumstances and fortunes. Operating on motives unknown to her, he was always ready with instruction regarding whom to flirt with and what information to elicit. It was usually left to her to determine the manner best calculated to achieve his goals.
    Juliette’s brow knit. “An Italian with his surname came to Paris several months ago, did he not? A vintner from Tuscany?”
    Beside her, Valmont nodded, pleased she’d remembered. “A cold fish, that one—Raine Satyr, the middle son of three. Unfortunately he departed Paris before he could be reeled in.” He gestured toward the room below. “This one tonight is the youngest of the brothers at twenty-six years. There is another in Tuscany—the eldest of them, who has recently wed. After years of fucking anything that moves, all three have recently confounded the gossips by commencing bride searches.”
    She soaked up this news of him and wanted more. “Are they attractive prospects?”
    â€œExceedingly. Among them, they own vast holdings—estates, an immense flourishing vineyard, and coffers overflowing with inherited riches.”
    â€œTheir vineyards still flourish?” Juliette asked, glancing at him in surprise. “Untouched by the phylloxera?”
    Valmont’s expression twisted with bitterness. “ Oui. Though it’s beyond anyone’s understanding why that should be so. And it’s certainly beyond all fairness.”
    In the salon, Fleur had been supplanted on the newcomer’s arm by the more aggressive Gina, who was giving him a tour of Valmont’s art collection. The hoard of busts, statues, oils, and watercolors was but a small fraction of what his family had once owned. However, it and the rest of the items in the other rooms here were all he’d been able to abscond with before his Burgundy château had been recently claimed by taxmen.
    Juliette had been there to watch his once-affluent father’s vast winemaking enterprises in Burgundy felled by the phylloxera over the years. It had been among the first of the many to succumb to the ravages of the aphid-like pest, which had gone on to decimate many of Europe’s vineyards.
    His father had killed himself over the debacle. This townhouse, the smallest property of the many his family had once owned, was now all Valmont possessed of his father’s legacy. And he’d filled it with prostitutes to provide his income.
    She could almost pity him because of the reversal of fortune the pest had wrought in his family and in his