Vergelles’ tone had a distinct edge to it and Emilie realised she’d glanced at the door during her ruminations on Lutin.

“Oh, non,” she said in her best soothing voice. “I was merely wondering when Dartois would arrive. You are expecting him, are you not?”

She thought she’d done well to cover her slip up, but when she threw Lucien a winning smile, she saw no return on his lips or in his eyes.

He merely stared back at her for half a minute before he resumed polishing his second pistol.

“They are a pretty pair—are they by Le Page?” Emilie asked in the hopes of distracting him.

The Comte ignored her words, continuing his own line of thought. “I have not become bored, though I have waited these last several weeks for your answer—not a trifling half-hour while you polished a pistol.”

The barbed words were aimed to draw blood, but Emilie did not flinch. She smiled again, her lips curving up more to the right and her best attempt at a twinkle in her eyes.

“Will you not allow the weaker sex their contrariness?” She reached forward to where his left hand rested on the desk, polishing cloth in his grasp, and traced a single finger over the back of it, pouting her lips. “I am not of strong mind like you, and I wish to be allowed to grow used to the idea of being… only yours.”

“You are no one else’s.”

“Of course not.”

Emilie was no one’s. No man’s. No family’s. There was no one in the world to whom she was a priority. Even to this Comte she was not a priority. She was a prize.

“You would do well to remember it. Your friend Mademoiselle Saint-Val Cadette would be the better for it as well.”

Emilie stiffened.

“I thought that would get your attention.”

She played for time. “What has the famed actress to do with me?”

“I have it on good authority from Monsieur Claude that she is a close friend of yours. Surely you do not wish for her career to be cut short—just as I ensured yours was?”

An icy wave of shock swept through Emilie’s body. She had known her days walking the boards were numbered, and when they had ended abruptly a short time ago, she had accepted her fate.

Now though, she realised the Comte’s hand had been in it.

“Perhaps you will consider my offer more seriously now.”

Emilie resisted the urge to lunge across the table and strike him.

The idea of becoming any man’s mistress repelled her. When the Comte de Vergelles had started showering her with gifts, she had never had any intention of acquiescing to his proposal.

But neither was she foolish enough to spurn the attentions of so powerful a man.

She had thought her delay in agreeing to his offer had gone unnoticed.

She was wrong.

In his impatience he’d engineered her dismissal, removing the stability of her theatre wages and forcing her to rely on his handouts to pay for her apartments and food. Now that he realised that coercion was not proving enough, he was threatening her friends.

What a fool she was.

“Ah, do I interrupt a lovers’ tête-à-tête?” Dartois said from the doorway, making a leg and bestowing a dazzling smile on the room’s two occupants.

“No,” the Comte replied, and Emilie realised how very accurate that answer was.

“Good.” Dartois entered the room and moved to the sideboard to pour drinks.

The tension in Emilie’s frame increased as the Comte’s revelations whirled in her mind.

“Not for Mademoiselle Cadeaux.” The Comte raised a hand to stop Dartois pouring a third glass. “She will excuse us while we discuss business.”

Inwardly breathing a sigh of relief, Emilie rose at the summary dismissal. “Of course.”

“Always a shame to be deprived of your company, fair Mademoiselle. Did you tell Monsieur le Comte of our encounter with our new English friend on the Champs-Élysées?”

Her tension grew unbearable. She had no doubt Vergelles’ possessiveness earlier would be exacerbated by news of her encounter with the English Duke.

“I’ve invited him to the Café Procope on Thursday week, Lucien. I trust you’ll be amenable to our enlarged party?”

The Comte ignored Dartois’ question, hard eyes darting to Emilie. “He takes an interest in you?”

“Her little scoundrel of a dog does,” Dartois answered, seemingly oblivious to the tension rolling off his friend and directed at her. “He has no loyalty, running off to make friends with an Englishman while he tries to maim me—ought I to be offended, Mademoiselle?”

Emilie shrugged, looking as nonchalantly as she could into Dartois’ eyes, which gleamed back at her.

“He would be better returning to his own country,” hissed the Comte.

And leaving Emilie well alone—that was what he meant.

If the arrogant Duke paid attention to her warnings, she expected the Comte would receive his desire.

“I will leave you gentlemen to your discussions.”

“Bien.” The Comte’s eyes were back on the pistols in his hand and the polishing cloth working across the barrel again.

She curtseyed to Dartois, who dropped a kiss on the back of her hand, and left the room.

As soon as she was in the hall she leant against the wall beside the door, finally feeling able to breathe again. After a moment, she looked around for a footman to fetch her cloak and hat and was about to move to the bell rope when a snatch of conversation caught her attention from the door she’d failed to properly close.

“Tremaine has agreed to attend the Café next week…”

She pressed back tightly against the wall, cocking her head to listen.

“Is his access worth the risk?”

“It isn’t just access,” Dartois said, his accents far more languid and playful than his counterpart. “His need for capital is a little… too easy—but that does not preclude the errant Duke from being useful to us.”

“Useful? The man’s a fool.”