She had her half-English grandfather to thank for that. He’d always kept up with politics in his mother’s country. “And you, monsieur, have a better facility for ‘diplomacy’ than I would have expected. I think my uncle is right. You do have a silver tongue.”
“I hope not. It would make it awfully hard to eat,” he quipped.
A laugh sputtered out of her. Curse him. She didn’t remember him having a humorous side. “You are very droll, monsieur.”
“And you are very . . . different,” he said.
She tensed. “From what?”
“From what I expected. I’d heard that the Princess of Chanay was a rather haughty young lady.”
She had no idea if Aurore was haughty. Though it would stand to reason. Weren’t all princesses haughty?
Not the way Monique played them. And it didn’t matter how Aurore really was. According to the count, no one outside Chanay had ever met the princess, so Lord Fulkham couldn’t be sure what she was like. He was merely trying to catch the woman he had met in an error.
Which meant she must be as different from Monique Servais as possible, to throw him off guard, make him doubt his eyes. Monique Servais had given him the sharper side of her tongue, so Princess Aurore must be engaging, flirtatious.
“A man like you should know better than to listen to rumor,” she told him.
“Actually, rumor is my lifeblood. There’s generally a bit of truth in every piece of gossip. It’s my job to find out which bits are true and which bits are trumped-up lies.” He led her down a path. “For example, I heard that you were partial to theatrical entertainments. Is that the case?”
Curse the fellow, he’d heard no such thing. He was just baiting her again.
She fought the urge to stiffen, keeping her grip on his arm deliberately loose. “I enjoy the occasional play, yes. Doesn’t everyone?”
“It depends. I like plays, but only tragedies.” He shot her a veiled look. “Comedies set my teeth on edge.”
She remembered only too well his ridiculous opinion of comedies. “I prefer operas,” she said lightly. “Doesn’t matter to me what the story is about as long as there’s singing. Do you enjoy the opera, monsieur?”
That seemed to catch him off guard, for he frowned. “Not at all, I’m afraid. In real life people don’t speak to each other in arias.”
“In real life people do not wear elaborate costumes to go to the market, either, but one can still enjoy seeing such attire in that setting on the stage.”
“Yes, those powdered wigs are quite entertaining,” he drawled. “Especially when the actors and actresses are running in and out of the boudoir.”
She could feel his eyes on her. Clearly he was referencing Le Mariage de Figaro directly. Silly man. As if that would make her lose her control and spill her secrets. “Oh, I do like that kind of opera myself. Otello is so dramatic. And that scene in Desdemona’s boudoir makes me weep every time.”
He halted to eye her closely. “You’ve seen Rossini’s Otello?”
“Of course. In Paris. It was quite moving.”
A triumphant look crossed his face. “I thought you rarely left Chanay.”
Too late she remembered what the count had told her about Aurore’s secluded life. She scrambled to cover her error. “That’s true—I rarely do. But Maman took me to Paris to see Otello once when I was a girl. It’s her favorite opera.”
“You said that it ‘makes me weep every time.’ That implies you’ve seen it more than once.”
Her heart thundered in her chest. “I meant ‘every time I think of the scene.’ I misspoke. English is not my native tongue, you know.” She tipped up her chin. “And why do you dissect my words so, monsieur? Is it necessary for the prospective Queen of Belgium to speak your language perfectly?”
“That’s not why I ‘dissect’ your words, as you are well aware.”
Merde, obviously he’d figured her out. She would have to tread carefully, or else he would swallow her up, and with her, all her hopes for her and Grand-maman’s future. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Come now, mademoiselle.” He leaned close enough to show the hardening planes of his face. “It’s time that you relinquish this pretense. Because you and I both know that you are Monique Servais and not the Princess of Chanay at all.”
• • •
Gregory had expected guilt. Shock that he’d found her out. Horror that he’d actually confronted her over it.
He had not expected the damned woman to laugh at him, long and loud, before saying, “Who on earth is Mona Servet?”
“Monique Ser— Damn it, you know whom I mean. You. You’re Monique Servais.”
Eyes twinkling, she cocked her head at him. “Oh? Tell me more. Why do you think I am not myself and instead am . . . am . . .” She waved her hand airily. “Some Frenchwoman.”
“What makes you think she’s French?” he countered.
That made her falter, but so briefly he could almost think he’d imagined it. Except that he hadn’t.
“Servais is a French name,” she said stoutly.
“Actually, there are Servaises in Belgium, Sweden, Luxembourg, and Canada, as well as Dieppe, France.”
She didn’t even blink at the mention of Dieppe. “Are there? I had no idea. Nor do I care. This Monique Servais is nothing to me.” She arched an eyebrow. “And you still have not told me why you think I am she.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, annoyed now. This wasn’t going as expected. “So you intend to brazen it out, do you?”
“Brazen what out? That I am some other woman pretending to be Princess Aurore? The idea is absurd.”
“I agree. But true, nonetheless.”
She shook her head. “You, monsieur, are quite mad.”
When she turned on her heel as if to head back inside, he caught her by the arm. “No more mad than you and the count if you think you can perpetrate a deception of such proportions without consequence.”
A cool smile crossed her lips as she faced him once more. Oh so delicately she removed his hand from her arm. “Why would my country attempt such a thing at this critical moment in the negotiations? You must realize that the very idea is ludicrous.”
“It is. Which is why I must know the reason for it.”
“You tell me. I have no idea.” As if to erase the feel of him, she rubbed her arm where he’d been gripping it. “But you must have some theory.”
Sadly, he didn’t. He could think of no reason for such a subterfuge. Yet.
“Well?” she prodded, obviously sensing the weak point in his argument.
He threw out the first thing that came to him. “Perhaps the princess is dead. And Chanay doesn’t want to lose their chance at having Belgium in their pocket.”
“The princess isn’t dead.” Just as he was about to pounce on that slip, she added, “She’s standing right here before you.” Then she fluttered her fan again in what he’d come to realize was a telltale indication of her nervousness. “And if she were dead, then how could anyone reasonably expect her to be made Queen of Belgium? Unless you believe that the royal family of Rochefort means to put an impostor on the throne. Not only would they be risking the royal line, but such a conspiracy would require my subjects—excuse me, the princess’s subjects, according to you—to accept another woman in her place.”
Another woman. Gregory kept waiting for her to forget herself and say, “an actress,” which he had deliberately not mentioned as the impostor’s profession, but so far Mademoiselle Servais had been better at maintaining her role than he would have expected.
So Gregory fell back on his usual tactics—fix her with a stare, keep his silence, and wait for her to crumble. Unfortunately, she seemed to be familiar with the strategy, because she did the same thing to him. And as the silence between them lengthened, it gave him time to look her over, to remind himself of her sensuous curves, to be drawn in by her beauty.
Damn her.
Meanwhile, sh
e’d shown no sign of being the least affected by him in that way. Though she was an actress, which meant that showing no sign of her true feelings was her forte.
Apparently growing emboldened by his silence, she snapped, “Have you no answer to that?”
It was his move now. He’d best make it a good one. “For all I know, the royal family of Chanay does intend to put an impostor on the throne—someone they can manipulate, someone they can control. The real princess is not such a person. And there is a resemblance between the two of you, after all, which might even be good enough to fool the citizens of Chanay.”
As he’d hoped, that seemed to startle her. The only reason this subterfuge was working was that no one outside Chanay had ever met the real princess. Including him. But Mademoiselle Servais needn’t know that.
“Are you saying that you and I have met before?” Her voice was strained. “Because I do not remember that. And I think I would remember a man of your sort visiting Chanay.”
He gritted his teeth to hear her persist in the deception still. “Of course we’ve met before, as you well know. Not in Chanay but in Dieppe, where you lived as Mademoiselle Servais.”
That didn’t seem to faze her. “So, you have not met me then. And all your talk about the ‘real’ princess not being able to be manipulated is just . . . what? Speculation? Because you have some notion that I am this woman from Dieppe?”
“It’s not a notion, damn it!”
He caught himself. The chit was annoyingly adept at making him lose control of his temper. And if he’d learned anything it was that controlling one’s emotions was essential in his position.
Forcing a measure of calm into his voice, he asked, “Why would I invent such a thing?”
“Because you once encountered a woman who looks like me, and have mixed us up.” A brittle smile crossed her lips. “You saw that poor likeness of me in the Lady’s Monthly Museum and think that I look different. But men do not realize how easy it is for a woman to change her appearance merely with a touch of rouge to brighten the cheeks, a bit of kohl to darken the eyebrows. We can make them doubt their very eyes just with our crème pots. And we often do.”
True. Most men were unaware of such female secrets. But he was not just any man. Secrets were his game.
“How interesting that you should mention cosmetics,” he said, “when I would imagine a princess of your standing is forbidden to wear them. But Mademoiselle Servais wore them all the time. She was an opera singer.”
Would she correct him? He watched her expression, but she gave nothing away.
Instead, she broke into a smile. “An opera singer? How droll! Comic or dramatic opera?”
“That is hardly relevant.”
She made a face. “No, I suppose not. But it is no wonder you are confused. An opera singer wears wigs and face paint and patches. How could you even tell what she looked like?”
He tried another untruth. “I saw her without all of that.”
Only the sudden sharpening of her smile betrayed her reaction. “Did you, indeed?”
“Yes. Though even if I had not, I never forget a face, cosmetic changes or no. And I noticed Mademoiselle Servais’s prominent chin in particular. The real princess has a very small chin, nothing like the opera singer’s.”
She laughed. “That is the source of your evidence? My chin? You do realize, sir, that no woman wishes to have, as you call it, ‘a prominent chin.’ So, of course I asked the artist to reshape my chin for the painting. Even a princess wants to appear beautiful in her portraits.”
“You know damned well that you’re beautiful, prominent chin and all,” he snapped. “You’re certainly more beautiful than Princess Aurore.”
“I’m not sure how that’s possible, given that I am the princess.” Her eyes shone merrily in the lamps of the garden. “But I shall take the compliment regardless.”
God, she was as sly as a courtesan, and twice as tempting. “If you didn’t, I’d be shocked, since you didn’t seem to mind such compliments when I made them before.” He tried to provoke her with another lie, crowding her in and lowering his voice to a murmur. “You didn’t mind anything we did before.”
She blinked. That had shaken her. “Oh? Are you saying that this Mademoiselle Servais was your . . . paramour?”
“Can you claim otherwise?”
As if she knew what he was about, she met his gaze coolly. “Of course not. I am not she. What do I care if you have ten paramours?”
He considered his choices. He could give up the fight for now. See what he could find out. Which might be difficult, given the fact that even the very respectable Beaumonde was obviously part of the plot.
Or he could do something that would throw her off her game entirely. Because if he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, the actress would not dare to call out for help from the guests—she wouldn’t want to risk his voicing his suspicions before an audience. But she might lose her temper and give him what for. She hadn’t liked him, after all. Besides, she’d been temperamental, easy to provoke. So if he could provoke her into a mistake—
Of course, if she really were the princess, what he was about to do could ruin him. But she was not—he’d never been so sure of anything in his life. And given that fact, not exposing her subterfuge could ruin him, too, if it came out later. He’d look the fool for not seeing through her disguise. His enemies would make mincemeat of his political aspirations.
He glanced around. The garden was empty now, everyone having drifted inside. And nothing else had provoked her into making a mistake. Unfortunately, until he could get her to admit her masquerade, he couldn’t get her to tell him why there was a need for it.
“Now, sir,” she began, “if you are quite done trying to make me out to be an impostor, I should like to return to—”
“Not yet,” he said firmly. Once she rejoined her companions, he wouldn’t have another chance at unraveling this deception. At least not tonight.
He snagged her about the waist, taking her by surprise, and pulled her into a nearby gazebo obviously kept dark for a reason. Then he murmured, “We should take up where we left off in Dieppe.”
Don't miss the next sizzling installment in the bestelling Sinful Suitors series by New York Times bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries!
A plot of attempted assassination and betrayal could destroy spymaster Gregory Vyse, the Baron Fulkham's, career, expose his own secrets . . . and ruin the woman he’s rapidly coming to love.
The Secret of Flirting
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About the Author
© JESSI BLAKELY FOR TAMARA LACKEY PHOTOGRAPHY
SABRINA JEFFRIES is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than forty historical romances. Whatever time is not spent writing in a coffee-fueled haze is spent traveling with her husband and adult autistic son or indulging in one of her passions—jigsaw puzzles, chocolate, music, and costume parties. With more than nine million books in print in twenty different languages, the North Carolina author never regrets tossing aside a budding career in academics for the sheer joy of writing fun fiction and hopes that one day a book of hers will end up saving the world. She always dreams big.
Follow Sabrina Jeffries on Twitter, join her more than 30,000 fans on Facebook, and visit www.sabrinajeffries.com.
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BOOKS BY SABRINA JEFFRIES
THE SINFUL SUITORS SERIES
The Pleasures of Passion
The Danger of Desire
The Study of Seduction
“The Heiress and the Hothead” in What Happens Under the Mistletoe
The Art of Sinning
THE DUKE’S MEN SERIES
If the Viscount Falls
How the Scoundrel
Seduces
When the Rogue Returns
What the Duke Desires
THE HELLIONS OF HALSTEAD HALL SERIES
’Twas the Night After Christmas
A Lady Never Surrenders
To Wed a Wild Lord
How to Woo a Reluctant Lady
A Hellion in Her Bed
The Truth About Lord Stoneville
THE SCHOOL FOR HEIRESSES SERIES
Wed Him Before You Bed Him
Don’t Bargain with the Devil
Snowy Night with a Stranger (with Jane Feather and Julia London)
Let Sleeping Rogues Lie
Beware a Scot’s Revenge
The School for Heiresses (with Julia London, Liz Carlyle, and Renee Bernard)
Only a Duke Will Do
Never Seduce a Scoundrel
THE ROYAL BROTHERHOOD SERIES
One Night with a Prince
To Pleasure a Prince
In the Prince’s Bed
BY SABRINA JEFFRIES WRITING AS DEBORAH MARTIN
Windswept
Stormswept
Silver Deceptions
By Love Unveiled
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