“Fools have their uses.” Dartois yawned loudly, and Emilie wondered exactly what affect this action had on the Comte. She could imagine the look of displeasure.

“Very well.”

That was surprising. She hadn’t heard the Comte give up so easily before… or ever.

“We can always do with more friends, don’t you think?” Dartois asked. “Though, even friends must be tested to find if they are worthy of our trust.”

At that moment a door down the hall opened and Emilie almost yelped in surprise. She flattened her back to the wall, narrowly missing a sconce. The servant was carrying a basket of coal, preparing the fires for the evening, and headed across the hall to the drawing room.

Emilie didn’t move a muscle.

The servant entered the drawing room and shut the door behind them, unaware that they had been observed.

She thanked God.

Glancing at the study door beside her, she considered her options. Should she quit the Comte’s residence now or risk a little longer?

She had warned the Duke of Tremaine off the Comte’s acquaintance. She didn’t owe him anything more. She hadn’t even owed him that. But she had seen the Comte’s temper and had heard the rumours that his wealth stemmed from illicit sources. It was not her business. The Comte had made that clear. A woman, for him, was for pleasure. Not brain, nor sense, nor companionship.

So Emilie never asked Lucien about the origin of his wealth. But his fortune was vast enough for him to have risen from the middling ranks of society upwards until he could purchase a title and establish himself in the French ton.

Outwardly he appeared to have taken advantage of the trade between his home country and England, playing the levies of the English government for his gain, but he’d seen far more success than others. It so far exceeded them that questions had been asked and continued to swirl around the Comte de Vergelles.

The last man who’d been foolish enough to mention his lack of breeding had been faced with one of those duelling pistols the Comte had been polishing this afternoon.

The English Duke had no idea who he was dealing with—but Emilie did. She was already tangled in the Comte’s web and she did not wish for anyone else to be ensnared. She remained where she was.

“Tell me how you intend to test our new friend,” said the Comte, “but first, shut that cursed door, will you? The chit left it open and there’s a draft about my ankles.”

Cold dread flooded Emilie’s chest. She darted across the hall, padding on the balls of her feet, hoping to make it to the drawing room door before she was seen. She could hide in there under the pretence of fetching the servant to get her cloak and hat.

Just before she made it, a prickling sensation ran down her spine, from her hairline to her lower back.

With icy dread, she halted, and turning silently, she saw Dartois standing in the half-open door. His body blocked her from the Comte’s sight, and he was watching her with a half-smile on his full mouth and a gleam in his eyes.

“Has she gone home?” asked Dartois, keeping his eyes on hers.

She could swear her heartbeat was audible. Breath came fast and shallow and she wondered if she might faint.

Dartois’ mouth curved and then he pouted his lips in a kissing motion at her.

“I neither know nor care,” the Comte hissed. “She tires me with her failure to accept my offer. Forget her—tell me your plan for Tremaine.”

The Marquis finally drew the door to a close, all the while watching Emilie, clicking it shut and leaving her frozen in her place.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

During her sedan chair journey home, fear crowded in on Emilie’s mind. Not only was she worrying about her friend Mademoiselle Saint-Val Cadette, but she could not shake the unnerving feeling of Dartois’ eyes upon her, nor the disquiet caused by his intimate gesture.

The Marquis had looked almost pleased to discover her eavesdropping. He’d stared at her with such intensity she had been unable to look away and his gaze had unsettled her. The blown kiss had not helped the matter. What was the man about? He knew she entertained an offer from the Comte to be his mistress. Didn’t Dartois fear Vergelles like everyone else did? Or was it just some meaningless flirtation?

Emilie could not determine the truth.

By the time she met the Marquis again—at a small dinner party held by a business associate of the Comte—the feeling of disquiet was not forgotten, but it had somewhat abated. This was aided by Dartois himself, who could not have told the Comte about her eavesdropping, for she had received no reprimand on her next seeing her benefactor.

Seated next to each other for supper, Emilie thought it best not to mention the incident, but the Marquis had other ideas. No sooner had the soup been served, and Emilie’s conversation with the man on her other side taken a brief respite, then Dartois leaned over to whisper in her ear.

“I knew you to be more inquisitive than the Comte supposes.”

“Inquisitive?” Emilie feigned confusion.

“You are like me—always attentive to the circumstances surrounding you, even if you do not participate. It is survival, non?”

Emilie didn’t like the direction of Dartois’ conversation, nor the way he spoke so closely to her ear. She could feel his breath upon her cheek, filling her nostrils with the rich scent of claret.

“I have been remiss. I should thank you for not mentioning my hesitation in the hallway at my Lord’s residence when last I saw you.”

Dartois chuckled, leaning back in his chair and taking a bite of bread, chewing slowly as he observed her.

“Even now, you keep your cards so close to your chest I should barely think you hold any at all. But I have spent time with you, Mademoiselle Cadeaux, and I know your mind to be as sharp as the Comte’s. Or mine for that matter. You know the value of wit, as I do, and have risen from the gutters of this pestilent city to sit here, in the drawing rooms of Polite Society.”

Dartois had never spoken to her like this. The familiarity implied an intimacy she had not sought—and it closed in around her.

“Why do you talk like this, my Lord?” She hoped that being direct might push whatever this was back past the boundaries she had enjoyed with Dartois before. “Have I upset the Comte with my behaviour? Did you tell him after all?”

“No,” he said, partaking of his soup slowly, savouring the liquid and licking his lips after each spoonful. “The Comte has no knowledge of your eavesdropping.”

Emilie sighed inwardly with relief but maintained a collected composure.

“He is too easily rattled,” Dartois continued. “Those of us who know who we are, and do not fight to be something else—we are the ones who stand firm.”

Emilie subconsciously reached for her right arm to where a bruise had once been. She had received it soon after the Comte had made his offer to her. It was when she had assumed behind his proposition was a basic level of affection for her. Feeling secure in that knowledge, and playing the flirt she knew he liked, Emilie had made a joke about the Comte’s purchased title.

Even now she could feel his vice-like fingers closing around her arm. The smell of his cologne. His ignoring her cry of pain. The cool way in which he spoke which meant every word was still imprinted on her mind.

“Do you know why I chose you out of all the beauties at my disposal? Not for your wit, nor your conversation, not even for your beauty. It is because you are nothing. You have no connections, no standing in this world except that which others give you. You are nothing without my offer—even the theatre is done with you—and I can send you back to the gutter in which you were born. If you displease me again, I will do it.”

Since then Emilie had never once spoken of his past. Neither had the Comte mentioned the punishment he had meted out, nor the threat. But perhaps most disturbingly of all, he had shown no remorse for his actions. He had shown no feeling at all. Now his warning hung over Emilie, an ever-present danger to the life she had built. She had found out exactly where she stood—on a tenuous piece of ground that might give way at any moment and send her plummeting back into nothing.

After that she had not wanted to be near the Comte. She had been playing for time, but that precious commodity was running dry, and her hope of a way out was becoming desperate.

“Have I ever told you, I grew up poor on the outskirts of Paris?”

Dartois’ words drew Emilie from her reverie. “No,” she replied, traces of surprise in her voice.

The Marquis was as refined as any other aristocrat she came across. There wasn’t a trace of accent, or action, that betrayed anything other than noble blood.