Her attempt to deter him was in vain. All she had done was confirm that Avers was pursuing the right lead with the Comte. She truly believed he was some gullible nobleman of whom the Comte and his allies might take advantage. And so he would be.
Avers would allow the snare to close in around him until it looked as though they had caught themselves a plump bit of game, and then he and Wakeford would turn the tables, and the Comte would become the prey. The game was afoot.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Emilie was watching Lucien polish the engraved silver barrel of a duelling pistol. She had been sat on the other side of his desk for nearly an hour with hardly a word from the Comte. But she was not here for conversation.
She was required to be here in payment for her walking Lutin that morning. It did not matter that the Comte had been otherwise engaged, only that she had not been ready and waiting for his summons when he sent for her. Her plans, her needs, her desires—they did not figure in Vergelles’ mind, let alone his schemes.
As far as he was concerned, he paid for her undivided attention, and she had not given it. Therefore, she would pay the time back now, sitting here with him, responding when spoken to, and aside from that, maintaining silence, watching him attend to his deadly instruments.
She wondered, briefly, if he was doing this activity in front of her on purpose. The guns had looked freshly cleaned and oiled when he’d taken them out of their case. But the way he caressed those pistols, and the heavy stares he threw her way between polishes, were as good as telling her that within his hand resided the power—not hers.
Her mind flitted to Lutin who she’d left at her residence. The Comte did not allow the stray into his Hôtel, and she felt the loss of her petite companion acutely.
“Am I boring you?”
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.
