Read Online The Corrupt Comte by Edie Harris - Free Book Online Page B

shivered at the prospect of warming himself outside and in, with a blazing fire and a glass of fine whisky. Enough of this wind, he decided, and made his way to the side entrance nestled in the foot of a turret. It was the door Évoque’s spies had been trained to use, from the first day of their covert lives onward. Gaspard was all too familiar with it.
    He left his hat and coat at the foot of the curving staircase that had been constructed between the turret’s chambers and the exterior wall, replacing the list of names up his sleeve and straightening the lace cuffs at his wrists. When he slid free the hidden panel door into Évoque’s study, Gaspard appeared every inch the impeccably attired aristocrat, complete with an expression of acute boredom.
    “Your Grace,” he murmured blandly as he fell into an elegantly upholstered chair.
    The man who wanted to be France’s next prime minister was settled comfortably behind his desk, his hands folded over a stomach that had softened only slightly upon reaching his middle years. “Congratulate me, Gaspard. I am soon to be married.”
    Gaspard studied the polished buckles on his shoes, noting the flecks of grime collected from his walk through the streets. “Congratulations.”
    Évoque rolled his eyes. “You could at least sound like you mean it.”
    “Apologies, Your Grace.” Slouching lower in his chair, letting his chilled bones warm, Gaspard tapped one shoe buckle with the end of his walking stick. “I didn’t know you were in the market for a wife.”
    “I was married once before, you know. There are many benefits to having a wife.” The duke’s tone was sly, superior.
    Gaspard’s back teeth ground together. “Did you share your good news with Faron?” he asked pointedly.
    Évoque frowned at him. “Watch your tongue. Even my walls have ears.”
    “Then I assume you’d want me gone all the quicker.” Gaspard pulled the list from his sleeve, tossing it carelessly atop the duke’s desk. “For you, Your Grace.”
    Sure enough, Faron had been right. As soon as Évoque had read it, he held it over the flame of his desk lamp and let the paper burn between his fingers.
    When the duke once again leaned back in his chair, he eyed Gaspard suspiciously from beneath a graying brow. “Had you read it?”
    “No,” Gaspard lied, punctuating the falsehood with a beleaguered sigh. “Faron mentioned you might have news to share?”
    Évoque stared up at the ceiling. “You may have heard a rumor that your…service has come to a close.”
    “Indeed.” It was the day Gaspard had been waiting for, ever since he realized his title and lands had been a bribe. A bribe he’d been stupid enough to snatch up without questioning its attached strings.
    “I suppose it’s less a rumor than an eventuality. There’s only one more task that I need—that France needs—you to do.”
    “And that is?”
    “What do you know about the Duke of Berry?”
    Charles Ferdinand, the Duke of Berry, was the nephew of the violently deceased Louis XVI and current king, Louis XVIII. After his father, the comte d’Artois , Berry was the last of the Bourbon dynasty. No other legitimate male heirs to the French throne existed.
    Gaspard had a bad feeling about this.
    He cleared his throat. “I know who he is, of course. Why?”
    “Later this week, Berry will be attending the Paris Opera. On the thirteenth of February, to be exact.”
    Make that a very bad feeling. “Oh?”
    “I had initially planned to go to the opera myself, but it turns out that I’m hosting a party that night. To announce my engagement.” Évoque waved a hand toward Gaspard. “Not to mention there’s a positively deadly chill in the air these days. Perhaps you would be interested in attending, in my stead?”
    The coded speech was clear enough. Berry would go to the opera, likely with his pretty wife by his side, and it was Gaspard’s job—and perhaps Faron’s, as well—to see that he didn’t leave the opera